I had been going with the assumption that Obama did have some appeal in rural areas, mistakenly due to the Kansas and Nebraska caucuses until I saw the results out of Texas and Ohio on Tuesday. Take for example Lawrence County, Ohio, which is right along the Ohio River. Here Hillary beat Obama 78% to 19%. The overall rural vote broke against him 70-26% according to the CNN exit poll. Outside of the rural issue, take also middle class suburban counties such as Summit County Ohio, which voted for Clinton by 12 points, a margin greater than the state as a whole, despite having a population that is roughly 13% African American, which largely voted as a bloc for Obama.
It is fine to run up big totals in the big cities, but that simply isn't enough. If you get completely blown out in the suburban counties and the rural areas, there is no chance you can win. When you break down the exit polls from 2004, you find the following:
30% live in Urban areas
46% live in Suburban areas
24% live in Rural areas
http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/states/US/P/00/epolls.0.htmlKerry still got 42% of the rural vote. Without those votes he would not have been comeptitive. I now have very serious questions about Obama's ability to win rural votes as a result of the primary results last night. These are Democratic voters who can cross the aisle easily and vote Republican as they tend to be moderate or even conservative.
I just don't see the evidence of some earth shattering, world changing Obama vote that will transform the electoral map. Am I missing something here?