Posted on 08/17/2008 5:59:04 AM PDT by jmaroneps37
A July 27 Washington Post analysis pointed out the actual numbers involved in a Barack Obama victory in some of the Southern states. These numbers make it very clear that it is all but impossible. We will hear over and over about how Obama will be competitive in some Southern states and Virginia will always be mentioned. Nevertheless, heres the truth: In order to win Virginia he has to A) hold ALL the White votes John Kerry got in Virginia. THIS ALONE IS A GAME ENDER, but theres more;
B) He has to increase the Black turn out by 30%
AND
C) He has to get 95% of the Black vote.
While A is already is a serious threat to Obamas plan, B and C present equally daunting and dangerous ground to build a dream of victory on.
Anyone who has worked in a campaign knows that Get Out The Vote (GOTV) is time and money consuming and that the very best campaigns can only increase a demographic groups turnout by about 4 to 6 %. For Obama to do 30%, his campaign would HAVE to spend every dime it had allotted to Virginia on GOTV. That means No TV and or Radio spots except on eh, urban stations. That means NO door- to- door canvassing except in inner cities. That means No outreach to Whites whatsoever. There would be no time, no money and certainly no one to spare. It also means only Black door- to- door volunteers for obvious reasons. Getting his 95% is nowhere near a given. An August 4 Zogby poll revealed that Mr. Obama has lost some support among African Americans.... Mr. Zogby's decision not to release the actual numbers of Mr. Obama's loss of Black support tells me it was a serious fall. Zogby is a Democrat himself. So unless Obama was sitting on 100% of the Black vote, which is simply not possible, losing ANY support among African Americans puts him below 95%.
Nevertheless, however difficult a victory for Obama in Virginia appears to be, winning in other Southern states is still more difficult, substantially more difficult. In North Carolina Obamas A and C items are the same, but in the Tar Heel State he has to increase the Black turnout by 36%.
In Georgia, which is the other Southern state the delusional media is trying to sell as a Democratic presidential pickup, the picture is fairly glum as well. In the Peach State Obama would have to arrange a Black turnout increase of 64% to win, provided he can hold all of John Kerrys White vote.
The effect all of Obamas emphasis on wooing a larger and larger Black turnout and an unprecedented vote percentage would have on his efforts to bring White males back to the Democrats is hard to determine. What is clear is that it would hurt Obama rather than help him. Since 1964 no Democrat presidential candidate has won the White male vote. That this streak will continue this year is a given. The question is how poorly Obama will do and how much he will hurt down ballot Democrats.
Starting with the middle of September the media will crank up its efforts to make America believe Obama will win. They will use push polls to try to fool voters into thinking an Obama victory is coming. Its not. Dont buy it. The numbers tell the story.
They appear to have a limited world view, which makes them terribly disappointed when actual election results come in.
If I subscribed to a print newspaper, I would feel obligated to pay a little extra just to provide grief counselors for journalists after each election. Maybe the newspapers should lobby the government to make "Liberal Journalist Grief Counselor" a check-off box donation option on tax returns.
I suspected that Obama had lost some minority support. I know his comment about Spanish hurt him a lot locally here in VA. A local conservative talk channel had a very large number of blacks calling in complaining about that statement. I expect Obama to do better in the minority community but this article is right. He will not have a blow out and he will have big trouble winning anywhere in the South.
I’ve noticed that locally Mark Warner supporters are not putting up Obama signs in the vicinity of his signs. It is almost as if they think Obama will hurt him and from what I’ve seen going door to door that is true. I expect Mark Warner to suffer a fall off in state support after speaking at the Democrat convention. Right now he is riding high with a significant amount of conservatives who don’t really know Mark Warner outside of the media which has been covering for him.
This race isn’t over provided some ads start running up until election day.
how do we transfer Obama’s unwinability onto other candidates.
Obama needs to be an albatross for ALL democrats.
The black turnout in metro Atlanta depends on how many different polling places the rented buses can get their riders to before the polls close.
This year the Democrats may need to hire a team of NASCAR drivers to drive the buses on election day. They can pay out of the money they save on cigarettes since their voters will vote for Obama for one or two less packs of smokes than they would get for a white candidate.
warner is speaking at teh DNC convention?
well that stinks of the “speak like a christian” effort by the Mr. Walis consultant.
Me too christianity of the chinese menu.
I remember the Greek Orthodox ArchBishop at the GOP conventions. (plural)
how about cross border voting.
if you live along the border just vote in two states.
use homeless shelters as the “other address”
And they are still stuck on stupid after they lose, pointing at the exit polls and blaming the loss on ballot fixing by the opposition.
Thanks for posting that, re his comment on speaking Spanish/ the blacks were angry.
It’s nice to gather hard data about this.
I wonder if this comes from the political science studies that showed an increase in a politicians vote percentage when people perceived that the politician was going to win. The studies showed that some people, maybe as much as 5%, would vote for the perceived “winner” because they wanted to be associated with the “winner” of the contest.
If there is something most journalists believe in, it is political science courses. It appears to me, though, that many times, if the race is percieved as close, a perception that a candidate who a large group of voters perceive as “dangerous” might win, would energize those voters to go to the pols, and bring as many of their friends as the can. Fear is a powerful incentive.
Thus, I suspect that the this “perception of winning” may actually work against the liberal candidate in many elections.
I think if the DNC can't work a miracle at the Denver Convention -- Obama WILL in fact become a stinking albatross around the neck of the DNC....
Compounding this will be Obama's campaign, history and attempt to trump the facts about Black Liberation Theology with the race card....
Obama has revealed a level of black racism and white hate amongst the black community that many were unaware of existing in America.....
Race relations have and will worsen as a result of Obama's campaign.
America will see the DNC as an organization taken over by a mixed bag of radical special interest groups -- including the homosexual lobby, Welfare leaches, Marxists, surrender monkeys, black racists, Islamists and your run of the mill idiots, morons, felons, a$$holes and former hippy senior "citizens".
An interesting side note...
The ONLY Obama poster in our neighborhood in wrapped around a tree in the yard of the neighborhood's acknowledged village idiot.... "And there's your sign!"
Obama will not win any Southern states, but I predict that he is going to do surprisingly well in many of them.
First, let’s get the “black vote” out of the way. Obama is going to get 95% of it, easily. Just as there are whites who may not tell the truth to pollsters, there are blacks who [despite what they reveal to pollsters] will, at the very last moment, cast their ballot for one of their own. They want a black man to win, plain and simple - because it’s “our time”.
As for black turnout - well, let’s just say that it is going to be phenomenal. There is no historical “predictor” of how blacks will turn out to vote for a black for president, of course. I sense polls are meaningless this time around, insofar as black turnout is concerned. In states with large black populations, like Georgia - this is going to give Obama a strong color-base.
Of course, “the black vote” - even with 100% of eligible blacks turning out and casting their votes for Obama - can’t do it for him. He has to get a proportion of the “White vote”, too.
Even in the conservative South, there remains a cohort of committed democratic white voters who will vote Obama. Certainly not a very large cohort, but I feel comfortable predicting that Obama will garner at least 25% of the white vote in these states, possibly more. You’ve got that share of “white guilters” who will vote for Obama to assuage their consciences, and also another group of “broken glass ‘rats” who are going to vote for the ‘rat candidate no matter what. After all, we have the “broken glass” contingent on _our_ side, as well (and I’m pretty much one of ‘em!).
As I stated at the outset, Obama won’t win any of these states, but he will run more strongly in them than any non-Southern democrat has done in a long time. The race factor actually HELPS him down South.
Interestingly, I think the states in which McCain will do best will be those that have a “mix” of blacks (not constituting a lopsided percentage of the population, vis-a-vis nationally, but not “overwhelmingly white” states, either). Again, the race factor comes into play here. In states with next-to-no black population (such as Iowa), it’s easy for white voters to feel magnanimous towards blacks, because they have little actual _contact_ with them in day-to-day life. Often their only perceptions blacks are formed by what they’ve seen in the media, etc. Not so in those states where white populations are forced by proximity into frequent contact with blacks - these whites “know better” regarding the true nature of race relations and cultural conflicts, and their vote is going to reflect this.
The states in which Obama will do best are the “lily-white liberal” states, such as Vermont. These people are the “dreamers” to whom liberalism calls loudest. McCain will be trounced in them.
Of course, we still have to wait and see what happens in the debates, if indeed they occur. I’m wondering if - after last night’s performance, which I didn’t watch but in which others think McCain did surprisingly well against Obama - the Obama campaign will start looking for some possible way in which to scuttle the upcoming “real” debates, or, in lieu of that, find a way to “tilt them” to their candidate’s favor.....
All predictors are off this year. This will be the first presidential election in which race plays a major role. Folks don’t want to talk about this, even folks right here on FreeRepublic, but race is the “elephant in the room” this time around. I have no problems with that; it’s time things like this were discussed openly, without fear of having the taunt of “racist” hurled around.
- John
I missed that, what did he say?
Oh, never mind. I didn’t realize you meant where he said we should teach our children spanish. I thought it was something in the thing that was on last night.
I totally agree. All opinions need to be heard and discussed. An open dialogue is the best way to get race issues behind us.
I thought Zell did the state good too. I think there is a distinct difference in the Southern Democrat and the Liberal Democrat.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.