Game, set and match — and it’s only June
Eleanor Clift is in a darned good mood about the election in November:
If Obama holds all the Kerry states, he’s at 252. Add Iowa for 259. Add a win in Virginia or North Carolina, “and it’s game, set, match,” says Plouffe. Or add Colorado and New Mexico, Republican states where Obama now leads, to reach 270. The campaign last week put up a biographical ad in 18 states, including Alaska and Montana, historically Republican states. It looked like Obama was just trying to taunt McCain, lure him into spending money in states where he shouldn’t. But Plouffe insists “there’s not a head fake in the bunch.” Alaska’s octogenarian Sen. Ted Stephens, under investigation for corruption and the sponsor of the infamous “bridge to nowhere,” is in a tight race for reelection. Montana, which Bill Clinton won in ‘92, has a Democratic governor and senator.
And Plouffe is just getting started. There’s Georgia, a state that hasn’t gone Democratic since 1976, but the presence of former Georgia Rep. Bob Barr, who’s running for a third party—Libertarian—could drain 2 to 4 percent from McCain and put the state within reach for Obama. “Indiana is another place where I would ask you to reorder your thinking,” Plouffe said with clinical certainty, adding it to his list of states “behaving” more Democratic. “Our goal is to adjust the electorate more to our liking,” he said, explaining how registering a record number of African-Americans and young people under 40 could swell Democratic turnout and swing Republican-leaning states to Obama.
Plouffe made several references to a “persuasion army” of Obamacons deployed everywhere and turning the campaign’s 50-state strategy into reality…Obama enjoys a healthy gender gap, leading McCain among women by anywhere from 12 to 21 points (Kerry won women by 3 points; Gore by 11, and Clinton by 16 points over Bob Dole in 1996). Public polls also show Obama winning Hispanics over McCain with a margin of between 21 and 29 points (Kerry won Hispanics by 9 points; Gore by 27).
Some Democrats differ with this bubbly analysis. We’ll just have to wait and see who is right.
June 27th, 2008 at 9:40 pm
Wasn’t it Evan Thomas, also of Newsweek, who said the Media would be worth 15 percentage points to Kerry?
On second thought, they probably were worth 15 points given how bad of a candidate Kerry was.
If the R’s play the $4/gallon gas card correctly, 15 points won’t be enough for the big ‘O.
In the end, will voters over 40 who suffered through the Malaise from Plains, be able to hold back a youth vote that actually shows up in ‘08?
June 28th, 2008 at 1:22 pm
Actually, we have no idea about Eleanor’s mood. She’d write the same thing regardless of what she believed. In the past, she’s chirpily predicted big Democrat wins the day before an election, then evinced no surprise the day after big Democrat losses.
She is, in a word, worthless.