LA, ME, NE, WA
Those, in alphabetical order, are the states Obama won this weekend. Matthew Yglesias has a great post on the subject:
Back in October 2007, Clinton was beating Obama in Maine by a hilarious 47 to 10 margin, but it seems he's carried the state today, once again by a large margin. My understanding, though, is that this doesn't really count because it's a small state, much as Utah doesn't count because there aren't many Democrats there, DC doesn't count because there are too many black people, Washington doesn't count because it's a caucus, Illinois doesn't count because Obama represents it in the Senate even though Hillary was born there, Hawaii won't count because Obama was born there. I'm not sure why Delaware and Connecticut don't count, but they definitely don't.I'm not going to count out my former home state of Texas for the Illinois senator just yet, either, because I had a conversation yesterday with a friend there who said several Republican friends of his were thinking of voting for Obama in their primary. They'll likely vote for McCain in the fall, but they like Obama so much more than Clinton that they feel motivated. They could stomach losing the White House to Obama (in fact, my friend says a part of him is rooting for him). If Obama can sweep Tuesday's primaries, which is expected, I like how this shapes up. Either a continued barnburner -- or, with a comeback win for Obama in any one or more of Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas, a serious blow to Clinton's chances, pardon the expression.
Realistically, Clinton seems to have difficulty winning anywhere she can't mobilize racial polarization in her favor. Obama has, of course, deployed polarization to his benefit in a number of states (South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Louisiana most notably) but he's also dominated the states with very few black voters.
UPDATE: I forgot about Missouri. Obama's win in Missouri, of course, doesn't count because the state was called too late.
posted by JMW at 7:31 PM
1 Comments:
Actually, there is an article from today's Houston Chronicle (available on the website) that details the very bizarre and confusing rules that determine the allotment of delegates in the Democratic primary. The rules may actually favor Obama - the number of delegates is broken down by state senatorial districts, and the number of delegates in each district is determined by the voter turnout in the previous 2004 and 2006 elections. Urban, higher socioeconomic, and largely African-American districts in Dallas and Houston had very high turnouts and thus have a large number of delegates compared to the South Texas districts.
I have to commend you on your discussion of Obama's appeal. While there is an aspect of zealotry to your posts on the subject, you articulate his appeal extremely well and succinctly capture what makes him and his campaign so appealing to such a wide variety of voters this year. I am one of those "Republicans in Texas" who, while supporting McCain, would strongly consider voting for Obama both in the primary and in the general election (especially depending on the running mate that McCain chooses!). While an Obama nomination would be a much greater threat to McCain being elected in November, I would rather that than the chance of Hillary weaseling in there.
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