1. McCain, Clinton, Obama—Rock, Scissors, Paper

How distracting that the actual voting in the Primaries has started again. This being the NFL Draft weekend upcoming a real conflict exists between fantasy football and fantasy politics. I was in Kansas City over the weekend and read with interest the 3-plus pages devoted to the event’s what-ifs and speculation. Of course, one of the big speculations is now a reality with the trading of the Chiefs’ Jared Allen to the Minnesota Vikings.

For all of you non-fans of the NFL and its Draft, here is why I mention these happenings in a Ezine about US Politics. I find fascinating how many people are so immersed in the intricacies of the sport. They are fully capable of knowing the capabilities of players and the limitations of team needs vs. the salary cap. Why is it we seem unable to apply that level of reality and complexity to the operation and functioning of our government?

That being said, let’s get back to real politics.

Much has been made of Obama’s inability to take Clinton out of the game with an overpowering victory. The pundit’s usual explanation is that Obama is unable to persuade older, less educated voters to vote for him in the rust belt states. But is this still a purely Democratic contest or has the purity of the process been perverted by the early selection of McCain as the Republican nominee? This could have enabled Republicans (particularly given the lull between now and the last March Primary) to switch party registration and vote with an eye towards setting themselves up for victory in the fall by helping to nominate the Democratic candidate Republicans think they can defeat. The thinking is that McCain can beat Clinton, but that Obama can beat McCain, so the best thing for Republicans is to help Clinton beat Obama. Some conservative talk show hosts have urged their listeners to take just such an approach.

The evidence of whether this phenomenon is actually occurring is difficult to find.

MSNBC’s web site, for example, notes from its exit polling that, “In one measure of the excitement the party’s presidential fight was generating, more than one 10 voters had registered as Democrats in the state since the beginning of the year so they could vote in Tuesday’s primary. Six in 10 of them were voting for Obama, the exit polls showed.”

That means 4 in 10 of those new voters were voting for Clinton, but is 1 of 10 registered Democrats enough to skew the results? Probably not. In other words, out of 100 Democratic voters, 10 are new since the beginning of the year. Six of the 10 (predominately under 40 and college educated) are voting for Obama. Four of the 10 are voting for Clinton. The other 90 (according to this) are existing Democrats and the end result is the 55-45% split.

In one sense, these numbers are more of a validation of one of my pre-primary predictions that one of the parties would be subject to a hostile takeover attempt by previously declared Independent voters rallying behind a compelling candidate.

At the end of the day, however, (despite the “I’ll vote for Barack (or Hillary) or nobody” rhetoric) Democrats are likely to come together for the purpose of getting control of the White House. As was said elsewhere on MSNBC’s site—
Phil Trounstine, director of the Survey and Policy Research Institute at California's San Jose State University, said that Obama's problems with key Democratic demographic groups are temporary and say nothing about how he would fare with those voters in a general election.
"The notion that Obama cannot attract core constituencies is only being tested in matches against Hillary Clinton. That's not an argument that he can't win them against John McCain," Trounstine said. "If Barack Obama were the nominee, you would expect Ed Rendell and (Philadelphia mayor) Michael Nutter would work like crazy to deliver Pennsylvania. The same thing would happen in California and Texas, which Clinton also won." Here’s the link to the article.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24270832/

2. More Numbers from Pennsylvania's Primary

There is another set of numbers I don’t hear anyone talking about. Granted that the Republican race is decided and little incentive existed for Republicans to venture out to the polls yesterday. Nevertheless, look at these totals from CNN with 99% of the vote in.

Republican Candidates  Total Votes
John McCain    585712
Ron Paul    128230
Mike Huckabee     91243
Total     805185

Democratic Candidates  Total Votes
Hillary Clinton   1258628
Barack Obama    1042868
Total     2301496

Almost three times as many people were interested in voting for Democratic Candidates yesterday as for Republican Candidates. The undisputed fact of American politics is that people don’t vote for candidates and issues, they vote against them. If all the voters who voted Democratic yesterday vote that way in November in Pennsylvania, then Republicans will need to get another 1.6 Million voters just to draw even. Of course, turn out for the General is always higher than for the Primary. What’s gratifying is to see such high turn out for the primaries. People are realizing that if they want a choice, then they must participate in the primaries.

In 2004 Kerry won PA with 51% of the vote among over 5.6 Million Cast. Here’s a link to the official totals according to the Washington Post. Just keep in mind that because people voted one way in 2004, they may not vote that way in 2008.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24270832/

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