We are a three-party nation. [View All]

[milkyway]

Here's the 2004 electorate breakdown by party affiliation:

Democrat: 37%
Republican: 37%
Independent: 26%

http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/president/

I think some people don't realize the sheer number of independent voters. It is impossible for the Dems to win back the White House without getting a substantial number of independents or Republicans. Among independents, Kerry beat Bush 49-48, yet still lost.

Unfortunately for the Dems, the repugs did not nominate someone like Romney, who any of our candidates, past or present, would have beaten like a rug. McCain is, by far, the only repug with a chance to win. Whether his maverick image is a media creation or not, independent voters vote strongly for him. It is difficult to see how Hillary Clinton can get enough indie votes to win a contest with him. She will even have a difficult time holding onto some white male dem voters, who surely will find McCain preferable to Hillary.

I am an Obama supporter, but I don't mean this as an attack against Hillary. I also don't mean this to suggest anyone should not vote for Hillary because of the electability argument. I know if Obama gets the nomination the repugs will throw so much filth at him that he also will have a lot to overcome. I simply have always thought that the repug's best chance this year is a McCain/Clinton matchup.

It is quite possible that an energized dem party can increase that 37% number (but we heard the same thing in 2004 about how the Dems would send more to the polls than the repugs). It is also quite possible that the repug number of 37% can go down because of a lack of enthusiasm for their candidate. But the one person who can energize the repugs is Hillary.

I really don't see how Hillary can get to 50% against McCain, and that's knowing that Hillary will be able to run up the score in the popular vote in large blue states like NY, Ill, Mass, and Cali.

Keep in mind that Kerry lost 11% of the Dem vote. Assuming that the balance between dems and repugs favors us by 39% to 35% this year, with a significant portion of white males voting for McCain, Hillary could get between 32-34% of votes from Dems. Kerry won 6% of the repug vote. Hillary will get less. Let's say 4% of the 35% repug vote--that gives her just 1.4% from the repugs. Added to the Dem vote, of 32-34, this would give her at best 36% of the popular vote. Meaning she would have to add 14% of the 26% indie vote to get to 50%. But how does she get more than half of the indie vote from McCain? That certainly won't happen.

Looking at the Super Tuesday results in Missouri, the "bellwether," shows that Independents comprised 22% of the electorate, and they favored Obama 67-30%. Repugs were 6%, and they favored Obama 75-21%. Dems were 73% of the voters, and they favored Hillary 50-47%. What this shows is that, yes, Hillary has slightly more support among Dems, but she simply does not have much appeal outside the party.

http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/primaries/results/epolls/#MODEM

The numbers I'm projecting for this year are, of course, only my own wild guess. And I'm only speaking of the popular vote, which doesn't decide the election. Looking at the 2004 map at the first CNN link, we can see some red states that Hillary would have a chance of flipping: Arkansas certainly (whose six electoral votes wouldn't give her the 18 needed), and perhaps even New Mexico, Arizona, or Ohio. But it's just as easy to find some blue states that could turn red, like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Minnesota.

The only way Hillary can beat McCain is that the Dems flood the polls in overwhelming numbers. But if they did, it's likely that any of our candidates would have won, not because of the candidate them self, but because they had the D next to their name. And you will have a difficult time arguing that Hillary will bring more Dems to the polls than Obama. The youth vote, especially, seems vulnerable to this.