How exactly is Obama "unelectable"?

[Hugabear]

I keep seeing post after post about how Obama is "unelectable". According to who? Obama is leading Hillary in the popular vote right now (and don't give me this PA crap - it's one state, not the entire primary season). Obama has already shown that he can do well in the all-important South, which is crucial to whichever candidate wants to win in November. If Obama can carry most of the south, as well as the other traditionally blue states, how can he not win? The only way he loses is if all of Hillary's supporters stay home or vote for McCain out of sour grapes.

And let's look at this another way. If Obama is "unelectable", then what does that say about the candidate who's struggling to overtake him in the primaries right now? If Hillary and her supporters can't stand the heat they're facing now, if they're going to go into meltdown mode over any perceived slight against her, then how are they going to handle the general election? If you think you've seen negative campaigning in the primaries, you ain't seen nothing yet. Just wait until McCain, Hannity, Limbaugh, and all these other right-wing focus groups start really sinking their teeth into Hillary.

We have a golden opportunity here. People are fed up with thousands of American soldiers dying in Iraq. They're fed up with the skyrocketing cost of health care. They're scared to death about losing their jobs and health coverage (if they even have it). There are plenty of other reasons that should help guarantee us not only the White House, but expanded control over Congress as well.

[guyanakoolaid]

1. You don't even have to respond to that Clinton BS - it's laughable

Clinton supporters are basically Boba Fett dying in Return of the Jedi, once mighty but now disappearing into blackness, scraping at the sides in a desperate attempt for survival. It's pathetic, and analogous to nothing more than them trying to throw sand in our faces on their way down. A simple note of Obama's unbeatable margin usually is enough to smother the rhetoric.

[kenny blankenship]

2. Cuz he's got bigger numbers to carry around which makes him heavier

Obama's got fifty somethin to Hillary's thirty somethin. That's a bigger number. Since he's heavier on account of his numbers, he won't float on the Electrical College so good as Hillary. Will. So good as Hillary would do.

Bigger eekals heavier. That's scientific. Everbody understands that.
Jeeeez!

[Just-plain-Kathy]

3. Obama may be unelectable because he's not close to the people who robed the '00 &'04 elections.

McCain is a Bush puppet, and Poppy Bush calls Bill "son".

[paulk]

4. well, the argument goes something like this -

first of all, it has nothing to do with how's he's doing against Hillary. Even someone with limited intelligence should be able to understand that in the general election
he'll be running against someone from another party. They're called Republicans, and they are a different group of people than Democrats. There are a lot more of them in the "all important south" which is why Obama is not going to win any of those states in the GE. The one state that the Democrats do have a chance in, Florida, is not considered important enough by the Obama team to worry about, and that's why he's down with disenfranchising the voters there if it helps him win the primary.

Obama's base in the primaries has been blacks, middle to upper middle class educated whites, and the liberal/progressive left. This is the group that has always lost Democrats national elections in the past. Think Dukakis, Mondale. Hillary's argument is that her base more closely reflects the base that's needed to win the general election - a claim with some credibility considering that she's done better in the larger, more diverse states (read: the states that more closely mirror a general election) than Obama has. Despite being outspent three and four to one.

The only state that Obama has won of the top nine most populous states is his home state of Illinois.

To look at the broader picture, in past elections the Democratic candidate has needed to get at least 37% of the white male vote in order to win. Obama hasn't done this. If he can't do this in a primary, how is he going to do it in the GE? The other argument involved here is the "beating" argument. Obama has built his delegate lead through mostly caucuses and wins in southern states where he has a built in demographic advntage. A democgraphic advantage, I might add, that he won't have in a general election. There is a good deal of evidence that caucus wins may not be an accurate reflection of voter sentiment. One need look no further than Texas and Washington state, where Hillary won the primaries, but lost the caucus.

For myself, I don't need to look any further than my own state's caucus - Colorado - where Obama won by a 67-32 margin. There is no way a serious person living here can look at those results and reach the conclusion that Democrats support Obama over Hillary by a more than two to one margin. It's just not true - and I suspect that many other caucus states are the same.

An argument could be made that Obama has taken advantage of a flawed system and this is what accounts for his "beating" Hillary. You will say, of course - so what, he's still winning. My response would only be that "winning" the primary through a system that may present a false perception of what voters really think (and I refer, once again directly to the results in TX and WA) may be dangerous for the general election. And, don't forget, the point of this whole process is winning the general election.

[crankychatter]

5. in '04 "unelectable" was code for "antiwar"

not much has changed except now...

we have the added dimension of "whites won't vote for him"

I didn't believe it back then, and I don't believe it now.

[crankychatter]

6. btw, the numbers don't lie...

Obama scored way better in polls against McCain until Clinton went berserker... her negatives went UP but she still loses... and Obama's numbers went down.

He's still ten points ahead pitted against her, nationally

Obama has proven the ability, GIVEN TIME TO CAMPAIGN, to turn polls around and WIN.

Clinton simply doesn't have the ability to motivate the Democratic Base and her polarizing negatives GALVANIZE the opposition... not because she's such a big "lefty" in the mind of Republicans... just a consequence of many years of right wing propoganda targetting her and Bill.

[Taxmyth]

7. racism

until the demographics of America change, or the attitudes, Senator Obama will not be elected President of the United States. Sexism has been dealt with effectively as women constitute the majority of Americans. Racism exists in every nation in the world, America is no exception.