On the Myth that Obama is Un-electable [View All]

[Time for change]

Electability is always a concern in the choosing of a party’s nominee for President. But this year, the amount of talk about the “electability” of the Democratic Party’s presumptive nominee has been quite exceptional, if not unprecedented.

Every Obama loss and every Obama win has been subject to microscopic inspection of voter demographics that might affect Barack Obama’s “electability”. For a candidate who has prevailed in a very tough presidential nomination fight over 7 other Democratic candidates, despite being subject to a great number of attacks based on trivialities, and whose campaign has raised record breaking amounts of cash primarily among small donors, the amount of time and print devoted to this subject is quite extraordinary. Hillary Clinton’s recent statement that she won the last two primary states (North Carolina and Indiana) among white voters without a college education (oh, I almost forgot – “hard-working” too) is just the last in a long series of such arguments.

Much of this, of course, can simply be attributed to pure political calculation. Candidates always try to spin their losses in the best light. There is nothing new about that. But we know that there is also another factor at play here, one that Obama’s opponents believe will make him especially vulnerable to assessments of the demographic composition of the electorate that votes for him: As our first black candidate for President who has more than an even shot at being the nominee of one of our two major parties, many of his opponents believe that discussion of his voters’ demographics will stir up latent racism in our country and thereby derail his campaign.

Let’s take a look at some of the arguments against Obama’s electability.


Race

Race is the most frequently used argument against Obama’s electability. Whenever he has won more delegates than his opponents*, there is always an analysis of votes by race, and if it turns out that he lost the vote among whites (which has usually, but not always been the case), there is always a big deal made about that fact. For example, on Super Tuesday, the biggest primary day of the year, Obama lost the white vote to Clinton by 52% to 43%, despite the fact that he won the most total votes and delegates.

The most important and obvious reason why appeal to the racial composition of the Obama vote is a poor argument for his so-called “un-electability” is that our country is not solely made up of white people. To repeatedly refer to one’s loss of the white vote as an argument against a candidate’s electability is clearly tantamount to an argument that non-white voters are more important than other voters.

In one very minor sense, that argument has some validity. White voters do in fact include a good majority of our electorate. But if a candidate wins election after election despite often losing the white vote, that simply means that he has won a large enough majority of other voters to make up for a relatively slim loss among white voters. That in fact is exactly what Obama has done.

As I said, there is generally nothing wrong with a candidate or his/her supporters trying to spin a loss in the most favorable terms. But when that spinning is done along racial lines, as it has so frequently been done to Obama, the clear implication is that black voters don’t count as much as white voters. That kind of thing serves to divide our Party and our country along racial lines, and that is the last thing either our country or our Party needs.

And finally, it should be noted that Bill Clinton never won the white vote in a presidential election, receiving less white votes in 1992 than George Bush Sr. and less white votes in 1996 than Bob Dole, with only 39% of the white vote in both elections. As a matter of fact, the last time a Democratic candidate for President won the white vote was 1964, 44 years ago. Has any Democrat ever complained that Bill Clinton’s failure to carry the white vote made him “unelectable”?


* Obama has thus far won more delegates than Clinton in 28 states, compared to 13 for Clinton, with two ties (NH and MO), two invalid elections (FL and MI) and 5 states yet to vote.


Education and elitism

Another demographic factor that Obama’s opponents often refer to is the fact that his voters are more likely to have a college education than Clinton voters. The implication that this observation always accompanies is that Obama voters, and Obama himself, are “elite”.

“Elite” is a favorite code word and talking point for Republicans. Since the Republican Party is the party that caters to the rich and powerful, at the expense of other Americans, they need distractions to win elections. Referring to Democrats as “elites” is one of their most frequently practiced distractions. It is often an effective strategy because it not only brands their opponents, but it takes voters’ minds off of the question of which Party really is the one that benefits the rich and powerful.

Pinning the “elite” label on Obama has become great sport this election season, and it has reached ridiculous proportions. Consider Chris Matthews, for example. He recently used Obama’s poor bowling skills, as will as an incident where Obama ordered orange juice from a diner instead of coffee, to paint Obama as an “elite”. In an interview with Claire McCaskill, Matthews had this to say about Obama not being a “regular guy”:

Let me ask you about how he – how’s he connect with regular people? Does he? Or does he only appeal to people who come from the African-American community and from the people who have college or advanced degrees?

As in the case of the racial analysis of Obama’s voters, the educational analysis of his voters is supposed to imply not only that Obama is “elite”, but also that educated voters are less important than uneducated voters. How could anyone imply that the vote of an educated voter is less important than the vote of an uneducated voter? If anything, it seems to me that educated voters will usually be more informed about important issues than uneducated voters, and therefore better equipped to make an informed decision. I would not use that fact to claim that college educated voters should have more votes in elections than voters without a college education. But to imply that uneducated voters are more important than educated voters seems absurd no matter what slant is put on it.


The “big state” argument

Obama’s opponents have also often pointed out that he can’t win the “big states” that are so important in presidential elections today. That argument is absurd for many of the same reasons that the above mentioned arguments are absurd.

Our presidential elections include big states, middle sized states, and small states. Victory does not go to the candidate who wins the most big states, but rather to the one who wins the biggest combination of big states, middle sized states, and small states, weighted for the electoral votes that they have. With five states left to go, none which is particularly big, Obama has a sizable delegate lead in the combination of 43 states that have already been decided (regardless of what happens in Florida or Michigan).

If one had to choose in the matter, small states are actually more important in our presidential elections than big states, on a population basis, since they carry far more electoral votes per population than do big states. I’m not saying that that’s the way it should be, but it is the reality that we’re faced with.

Anyhow, it isn’t the size of the state that matters the most with respect to primary wins, rather it’s the competitiveness of the state for the general election. So let’s take a look at how that plays out:

According to one mainstream analysis, titled “Electoral Map Favors a Democrat, Has McCain Playing Defense”, there will be approximately 14 swing states this year, including 8 that Bush won in 2004 (NM, NV, CO, IA, MO, VA, OH, FL) and 6 that Kerry won (NH, PA, OR, MI, MN, WI). Of those 14 states, Obama won the popular vote in 6 (VA, WI, MN, MO, CO, IA) and appears ready to win one more (OR), totaling 67 electoral votes; Clinton won the popular vote in 5 of those states (NV, NH, OH, PA, NM), totaling 55 electoral votes; and two of the states (MI, FL) have not had elections according to the DNC rules. Clinton’s victories in 3 of those 5 states were razor thin (NV, NH, NM), such that she didn’t even carry a majority of delegates in two of them, while Obama’s victory was razor thin in only one of those that he won (MO). For those who would say that Clinton won Michigan and Florida, that’s somewhat of a specious argument, since all candidates agreed that those states wouldn’t count because they didn’t follow the rules, Obama consequently didn’t campaign in either state, and he wasn’t even on the ballot in Michigan.


The bottom line

The bottom line is NOT who wins what demographic groups. The bottom line is who can win enough combinations of demographic groups to win an election against John McCain. So let’s take a look at how Obama fares in that regard:

Two electoral analyses that came out around the beginning of March of this year showed Obama beating McCain by 280-258 (229-123 not counting states with borderline margins) in one analysis and 309-229 in the other analysis. But that was before all the controversy arose regarding Obama’s relationship with Reverend Wright and Obama’s comments about some Americans feeling “bitter” about their current situation.

The above noted results appear to be the most recent 50 state electoral vote analyses. National popular vote polls generally provide a very good approximation of electoral victories, since we have never had a two party election (i.e. an election where only two candidates won electoral votes) where a candidate won the popular vote by more than 1% and yet lost the election in the Electoral College*. So let’s take at popular vote estimations in the most recent national polls – those that have been taken this month:

Obama vs. McCain in national polls – May 2008
Hotline FD – Obama + 4
CBS News/NY Times – Obama + 11
Today/Gallup – McCain + 1
Ipsos – Obama + 4
LA Times Bloomberg – Obama + 6
Rasmussen – Obama + 1
Gallup – Obama +3
Average of 7 above polls – Obama + 4

So Obama has won 6 of the most recent 7 national polls against McCain. That being said, three additional points need to be made about these polls. First, the sample size for the 7 polls combined is plenty large enough that the 4% Obama average lead is far above the margin of error. Second, if he wins the popular vote over McCain by 4% on Election Day there is virtually no chance that McCain would prevail in the Electoral College. And third, these polls include ALL demographic groups, roughly in proportion to their prevalence among actual voters.

Thus, no matter how you slice or spin the demographics, Obama is currently the choice of far more Americans than is McCain – notwithstanding all the attacks that he has recently had to put up with. His lead over McCain is getting larger. And his demonstrated record fund raising capabilities predict that he will have substantially more money than McCain to spend on the summer and fall campaign.

Sure, it’s quite possible that this could all change between now and Election Day. But attempts to spin Obama as “unelectable” have no basis whatsoever in the reality of Obama’s performance, the demographics of his Democratic primary wins and losses, or current national or state polls of head to head competition against John McCain. Rather, they are nothing but cynical and subtle but barely disguised predictions that racism will overcome the American electorate to defeat Obama this fall.


* In 1824, Andrew Jackson won the popular vote with 41%, compared to 31% for his nearest competitor, but since four candidates split the electoral vote, the contest went to the U.S. House of Representatives (in accordance with our Constitution), which voted John Quincy Adams into the Presidency. In 1876, Samuel Tilden lost the Presidency (by one electoral vote) to Rutherford Hayes, despite winning the popular vote by 3%. However, that was because a special commission awarded Hayes the electoral votes of three states that he hadn’t officially won, while leaving the popular vote as it was (in favor of Tilden) in those states. In 1888 Grover Cleveland lost the Presidency to Benjamin Harrison despite winning the popular vote by 0.8%. And in 2000 Al Gore lost the Presidency to George W. Bush (by a 5-4 vote of the U.S. Supreme Court) despite winning the popular vote by 0.5%.