We shall see
It is interesting that Senator Obama has not won the largest states in the primaries, including New York, California, Texas, Ohio, Florida, Michigan, nor probably Pennsylvania. The WSJ describes part of Senator Clinton’s strategy:
With neither Democratic presidential candidate likely to reach the number of pledged delegates required to secure the nomination, the Clinton campaign is relying on its argument that victories in big states such as California and Ohio make Sen. Hillary Clinton a stronger candidate to defeat presumptive Republican nominee Sen. John McCain.
Clinton aides are highlighting that Sen. Barack Obama has won among affluent voters in caucuses and primaries in states with small populations of Democrats — such as Idaho and Wyoming — and among African Americans in Republican states unlikely to turn blue in November — such as South Carolina and Georgia. A Clinton campaign memo released early this month noted Sen. Obama has won 10 out of the 11 core Republican states that have held primaries or caucuses this year. Wyoming, for one, the campaign later noted, hasn’t voted for a Democratic presidential candidate since 1964…
Allan Lichtman, a political historian at American University, says a candidate’s primary showing has very little to do with the general-election result. “The argument holds no water at all, not even a thimbleful,” Mr. Lichtman says. He points to the 1980 primary, when incumbent Democrat Jimmy Carter carried most of the big swing states, and early polls predicted he would defeat Republican Ronald Reagan in the general election by as much as 25 percentage points. Instead, Mr. Reagan decisively captured the White House. Former Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis and Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry racked up primary victories in key swing states in 1988 and 2004, respectively, only to then lose those states to Republicans.
Senator Clinton may be the stronger candidate against Senator McCain in the general election for a number of reasons, not the least of which is Obama’s poor handling of the Wright controversy, which is completely unappreciated by the elite media. Today Robert Novak added an interesting element to the discussion of that issue, namely that the issue has crossed over from the world of the political junkies who are normally the only ones paying close attention at this time: “The problem for Obama is that furor over Parson Wright has reached beyond voters normally interested in political controversies. Over the last week, I have been repeatedly asked by non-political people about Obama’s connection with Wright’s tirade.”
This has been an election cycle in which “inevitability” has had the shortest of half lives, and perhaps that continues to be the case. We will just have to wait and see how this all plays out.