Legal Commentary

Electability: Part A Million

By Big Tent Democrat

One of the more infuriating pieces of "head in the sand" syndrome that I see is the denial of the obvious - Hillary Clinton, right now, looks to have a better chance of winning states like Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida (which is NOT to say Obama can not win those states, well, except Florida) than does Barack Obama. Of course she does. But Obama has more appeal in the West, some midwestern states (Iowa, Wisconsin) and in other reddish states (Virginia, etc.). To re-coin a phrase, he "expands the electoral map." These are two competing electability arguments that are perfectly consistent.

Josh Marshall plays the ostrich game and then strangely cites Peter Hart in support basically contradicting him:

Hillary goes deeper and stronger in the Democratic base than Obama, but her challenge is that she doesn't go as wide. Obama goes much further reaching into the independent and Republican vote, and has a greater chance of creating a new electoral map for the Democrats.

Hart is right. And Hart understands that there are two competing electability theories. Not inconsistent theories. Just different. Is this that hard to understand?

By Big Tent Democrat

Full post as published by TalkLeft on April 24, 2008 (boomark / email).