Never before has empirical data counted for so little among pundits in a nominating race. Clinton’s 9 point victory in Pennsylvania has lead the political class over the deep end with coverage about Obama’s alleged problems with the party’s White working class and his inability to win crucial states in the general. Clinton’s talking points on electability have finally sunk in with the mainstream press.
But even a cursory look at the available data paints a different picture. First, Obama is still beating Clinton in pleaded delegates, the popular vote in states that haven’t been disqualified from the nominating process for moving their primaries up, and number of states won. When the Democrat party electorate is asked who they’d like to see win the nomination, Obama is beating Clinton by 5 to 10 points depending on the poll. When Obama goes up against McCain he wins by 2 to 3 points while Clinton ties McCain. Obama has taken a 3 percent lead in Indiana and will beat Clinton in North Carolina, and Oregon- the two biggest, delegate rich states left in the process. Clinton’s only advantage is with Super delegates and that advantage is practically gone. Only a few weeks ago she had a substantial lead. Today she leads Obama by only about 20 Super delegates. Now, who will be the stronger candidate in the Fall against McCain?
Clinton’s “new math” has been constructed on the most implausible of “ifs.” Clinton claims that if the Democrat Party had a winner take all system like the Republicans she would already have the nomination sewn up. The Democrats don’t have a winner take all system. End of argument. She asserts that if one counts the votes from Florida and Michigan that she’s winning the popular vote. Well, if Obama had gone back on his promise not to campaign in the two states the way Hillary did (yes fund raisers and “victory” rallies count) and if Obama’s name was on the ballot in Michigan, maybe he would have a larger popular vote lead then he does now. The problem is that Clinton is trying to cheat her way to the nomination. And if she can’t have it she is prepared to do whatever she can to drive Obama’s negatives up so high that he can’t win in the general election against McCain. Then she gets a second and, most likely, last shot at the Whitehouse in 2012.
It’s been common to chalk up the resent pro Clinton bias in the establishment press to self interest. The longer the race goes on the more newspapers are sold. But it’s much more than this. The subtext of much of the current coverage is imbued with the insinuation that even White Democrats may not be “ready” to vote for a Black candidate for president and if Democrats are serious about taking back the Whitehouse they’d better, in Clinton’s words, “get real” and wake up from their multi- cultural fantasy land.
It isn’t hard to take this line seriously. Reports, that somehow never made the national press, of Whites in Scranton, Pennsylvania burning Obama signs and yelling racial epitaphs at Obama campaign workers certainly indicates some Whites in that state still have a long way to go in terms of racial tolerance. But how soon we forget. Back in February the political class was catatonic over Obama’s ability to attract White men in so called red- states and White working class voters in Midwestern states like Wisconsin, Iowa, and Nebraska. While the temptation to attribute Obama’s lost in Pennsylvania to his comments about working class folks being bitter and clinging to guns and religion after losing jobs has been irresistible for some commentators the truth is that most Democrats in Pennsylvania actually agreed with him. Obama lost Pennsylvania because Clinton has always done better with older voters and the uneducated. Those two demographics are disproportionately represented in the state.
All this doesn’t mean that Obama doesn’t have problems. It does mean that Clinton’s path to the nomination will require her to not only to move huge obstacles in her way- the delegate math being the most formidable, it will require her to set up roadblocks in Obama’s path- Bill Ayers, Reverend Wright etc. If she succeeds, her party fails and the world will pay the price. She must ask herself. Is it really worth it? Roger White April 2008