Kentucky And Oregon
Dana Goldstein explains why Barack Obama won’t be able to just “declare victory” after tomorrow’s primaries. I think she’s right — by the math and on the merits, he’s entitled to do so, but the backlash against an explicit effort to force Clinton out before she’s prepared to concede would be too big.
The backlash would be particularly great if he didn’t win either of the primaries and then declared the race over. Clinton’s lead in Kentucky is so gaudy and embarrassingly large that his supporters have been reduced to talking about Oregon “cancelling” out a Kentucky loss, even though they are comparably important states in delegate count (52 vs. 51) and she stands to win by 25+ points while he might win by ten if he’s having a good night. It’s very, very unlikely that he would lose both, but if the margins are anything like the four or five-point margins that we have been seeing in the most recent polls his Oregon victory will not appear to be that much of a victory. It will definitely put his Portland mega-crowd into perspective, and in the very unlikely event of an Obama loss in Oregon the gigantic size of his Portland crowd will be rather grimly contrasted with his limited support throughout the rest of the state.
Update: Okay, SUSA gives Obama a sizeable lead in Oregon, and his support outside of Portland is quite strong.
Second Update: Kaus notes late pro-Clinton movement.
Filed under: politics
As usual, impervious to reality. If Obama wins Oregon by 10-15 points tomorrow, you will still be writing on Wednesday about how his loss in Kentucky shows he can’t possibly win white people. Nevermind that Oregon is largely white and blue collar; Larison will not be dissuaded by facts! Your routine is as boring as it is insane.
Would someone “impervious to reality” bother to update a post with new information? Of course not. Stop wasting your time and mine. Please, if I bore you, stop reading.
Losing Kentucky will demonstrate that he isn’t popular in Kentucky, which is true. Winning in Oregon will prove that he is popular in one of the most progressive states in America. He won among blue-collar white voters in Wisconsin, too, which has been the exception to the rule. Hence my point in a separate post that Wisconsin has been fairly exceptional.
As for my “routine,” the last 30 posts have included 21 that were not related to this topic at all.
Incidentally, you haven’t produced a single fact in any of your comments. How can I be dissuaded by something you’re not even offering?
I produced a fact in this post: Oregon is largely white and blue collar. It is only partially, as you attest, “one of the most progressive states in America”. 538 had a nice post the other day about how Oregon has both the most liberal Democrats and the most conservative Republicans in the country. That creates an interesting tension and usually results in the close results we see in that particular state - Gore’s victory by 7,000 votes, for instance.
So yes, in a closed primary, Obama is going to win among a very progressive group of Democrats. But he also enjoys a pretty impressive general election lead according to most polling, and that lead can’t be attributed merely to the state’s progressivism because the state isn’t really that progressive in a voting-for-president sense.
Okay, you did produce that fact. I acknowledged it, and noted that it was similar to Wisconsin in its acceptance of Obama. Fair enough?
Oregon is, however, a reliably Democratic-leaning state in presidential voting. When was the last time Oregon voted for the Republican nominee? 1984? It may not be all that progressive in both parties and statewide, but it is pretty reliably Democratic.