Fantabulous Awesomeness

This is a really good diary about how Obama supporters should approach Clinton supporters who may be hesitant about supporting Obama.

If you look at the list of grievances against Obama by Clinton supporters, one of the things near the top if not at the top of the list is the shit they got from Obama’s supporters.  That shit is the reason why I left Daily Kos for the time being, even though I basically don’t care who wins.  If it was getting too much for me, someone who had no horse, think about how bad it was for people who have invested time, money, and their own personal hopes and dreams into the Clinton campaign.

Also, I should remind Obama’s people that Obama was the one who fired the first salvo in the primaries, mainly because the media urged him to since he wasn’t gaining on Clinton in the polls.  And when Clinton fired back, Obama’s supporters went ballistic that Clinton would dare attack The Chosen One and thus the blog wars began.  Yes, Obama was the one who started it, not Clinton.

Not that it’s surprising since he was the underdog trying to catch up at the time, but there seems to be a sense among Obama’s supporters that everything was going swell until Clinton and her supporters got all nasty.  In reality, it was the other way around.

On top of this, as the diarist notes, there is a sense that Obama’s supporters have a feeling that Clinton’s supporters “don’t get it” as far as not realizing how historic and amazing Obama’s campaign is, since he’s black and is all for “hope” and “change” while pooh-poohing the historic nature of Clinton’s run as the first woman trying to win back the White House.  That pooh-poohing also doesn’t help persuade anyone to come to your side either, and has been responded in kind by similar accusations from some of Clinton’s more hard-core supporters (and ultimately evolved into this silly “you must be a racist if you don’t like Obama”/”you must be sexist if you don’t like Clinton” crap).

I would probably add to the diary that, if someone runs into a democrat who just absolutely will not vote for Obama ever, ever, ever, then at least persuade them to not vote for McCain.  It’s better to lose a 1 net vote instead of losing 2 net votes.

I think, by the end of the next 5 months, a vast majority of the Clinton people will be on board with Obama since the contrast will all be about Obama vs. McCain and how much McCain sucks.  And for those who complain that Obama is an empty suit, he’ll be forced to lay out concrete positions on issues.  Or at least I think he better – McCain will try to force him to anyway.  If he doesn’t, he may very well lose, because while “hope” may win a democratic primary, it probably won’t win the general election on it’s own.

McCain’s insane web manager

First it was redesigning the home page so that it is mimicking Obama’s campaign page and taking Obama’s catchphrase.  Then it wass putting a prominent link to McCain golf gear.  Yes, that’s right.  Nothing reminds people that McCain is old and of Bush’s failings as much as golf.

Now it’s putting a link to a Adobe Presenter presentation of the campaign’s strategy meeting as the main thing on the website.  Like people visiting your website give a shit about listening to your strategy meeting.  In any case, McCain’s website delves deeper and deeper into bizzaro world.

A different way to see 2008 vs. 2004

This is something amazing. Yes, it’s still 5 months until the election, but look at the polls of what McCain and Obama are getting in each state vs. what Bush and Kerry won in those states in 2004 (I’m using the pollster.com average. If there aren’t enough polls to do an average, I’m using the most recent poll assuming there has been a poll in May or June):

State	Bush %	McCain %	% Diff.	Kerry %	Obama %	% Diff.
Alabama	63%	58.4%	-4.6%	37%	33.2%	-3.8%
Alaska	61%	50%	-11%	36%	42%	+6%
Arizona	55%	50.9%	-4.1%	44%	38.3%	-5.7%
Arkansas	54%	57%	+3%	45%	33%	-12%
California	45%	38.2%	-6.8%	54%	51.7%	-2.3%
Colorado	52%	41.5%	-10.5%	47%	48.5%	+1.5%
Connecticut	44%	44%	NC	54%	47%	-7%
Florida	52%	47.4%	-4.6%	47%	40.1%	-6.9%
Georgia	58%	45%	-13%	41%	35%	-6%
Iowa	50%	42%	-8%	49%	45.9%	-4.1%
Kansas	62%	51.9%	-10.1%	37%	37.6%	+0.6%
Kentucky	60%	56.8%	-3.2%	40%	32.5%	-7.5%
Louisiana	57%	50%	-7%	42%	41%	-1%
Maine	45%	38%	-7%	54%	51%	-3%
Massachusetts	37%	39%	+2%	62%	49.5%	-12.5%
Michigan	48%	43%	-5%	51%	38.7%	-12.3%
Minnesota	48%	39%	-9%	51%	50.8%	-0.2%
Mississippi	60%	50%	-10%	40%	44%	+4%
Missouri	53%	44.5%	-8.5%	46%	44%	-2%
Nebraska	66%	52%	-14%	33%	36%	+3%
Nevada	51%	46%	-5%	48%	40%	-8%
New Hampshire	49%	45.1%	-3.9%	50%	43.3%	-6.7%
New Jersey	46%	41.3%	-4.7%	53%	48.3%	-4.7%
New Mexico	50%	42.9%	-7.1%	49%	45.7%	-3.3%
New York	40%	37.5%	-2.5%	59%	50.3%	-8.7%
North Carolina	56%	45.5%	-10.5%	44%	40.8%	-3.2%
Ohio	51%	43.2%	-7.8%	49%	44%	-5%
Oregon	48%	39%	-9%	52%	50.8%	-1.2%
Pennsylvania	49%	41.3%	-7.7%	51%	45.9%	-5.1%
Texas	61%	52%	-9%	38%	36.9%	-1.1%
Virginia	54%	46.5%	-7.5%	46%	43.1%	-2.9%
Washington	46%	38.7%	-5.3%	53%	51.4%	-1.6%
West Virginia	56%	45%	-9%	43%	37%	-6%
Wisconsin	49%	43.5%	-5.5%	50%	46.3%	-3.7%
Wyoming	69%	53%	-16%	29%	40%	+11%

States which Obama is relatively stronger than McCain
(they both have a minus % change from 2004, but Obama has a smaller drop than McCain)
Alabama
California
Georgia
Iowa
Louisiana
Maine
Minnesota
Missouri
New Mexico
North Carolina
Ohio
Oregon
Pennsylvania
Texas (note: Bush’s home state)
Virginia
Washington
West Virginia
Wisconsin

States which Obama is absolutely stronger than McCain
(Obama gains or stays the same from Kerry while McCain loses from Bush)
Alaska
Colorado
Kansas
Mississippi
Nebraska
Wyoming

States which McCain is relatively stronger than Obama
Arizona (note: McCain’s home state)
Florida
Kentucky
Michigan
Nevada
New Hampshire
New York

States which McCain is absolutely stronger than Obama
Arkansas
Connecticut
Massachusetts (note: Kerry’s home state)

Push
New Jersey

As you can see, the map is much more favorable to Obama than McCain when compared to Bush vs. Kerry, and Kerry only need about 20 more EVs to win. Obama is outperforming Kerry in 24 states while McCain is outperforming Bush in 10 states, with 1 state being the same and having 15 states with no recent polling.

You can clearly see the areas where Obama is doing better (which is about everywhere): the South (Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, and Texas), the Mid-Atlantic (Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia), the Mid-West (Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio, and Wisconsin), the Great Plains and Mountain states (Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, and Wyoming), and the West (Alaska, California, Oregon, and Washington).

The only region where McCain seems to have some consistency in outperforming Obama is in the northeast, where he does so in Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and New York. Other than that, it’s just a state here and a state there, but no real trend (Arkansas and Kentucky are exceptions in the south, Michigan is an exception in the midwest, Arizona and Nevada are exceptions in the west – possibly due to McCain’s home state being Arizona).

There are some red flags for Obama here, though, namely Florida, Connecticut, Michigan, and New Hampshire. He can afford to lose Florida if he can pick up Ohio and Colorado in it’s place, but it would be hard to lose either Connecticut’s 7 electoral votes or Michigan’s 17, though picking up Iowa and Missouri would offset losing Michigan.

However, the biggest red flags are reserved for McCain who is being pressed in many states which Bush won handily. Currently McCain is under-performing Bush by 10% or more in Alaska, Colorado, Georgia, Kansas, Nebraska, North Carolina, and Wyoming (in contrast, Obama is only under-performing Kerry by that much in Massachusetts and Michigan). A lot of states which usually don’t get much attention in the general election may be getting some this year. And when was the last time a candidate visited Alaska during a presidential campaign? I bet it will happen sometime this year. All of this will, of course, stretch McCain’s already thin checkbook.

Like I said, it’s still 5 months out. At this time last year, Kerry was leading in Florida, Iowa, Missouri, West Virginia, Nevada, and New Mexico – all states he would eventually lose (Bush won every state he lead at the time).