Legal Commentary

Obama As Electable As Kerry? And That's A Good Thing?

By Big Tent Democrat

So writes our friend SusanG (and TalkLeft does think of her as a friend) at the Great Orange Satan's place (also our friend Singer at MYDD), citing Gallup:

Obama stacks up against McCain at this point is similar to the way in which Kerry performed against Bush in 2004 within several key racial, educational, religious, and gender subgroups. That is, the basic underlying structure of the general-election campaign this year does not appear to be markedly different from that of the 2004 election.

Assuming that is true, and I do have quibbles with that, it is important to remember John Kerry LOST to Bush in 2004. This is not exactly the electability argument I think I would want to make. More . . .

Now my quibble - Gallup says losing whites 37-53 (10% undecided) is equal to losing 41-58 in November. I submit that that is a questionable assumption. Obama has not been particularly adept at winning undecided white voters.

Further, in each of the groups Gallup identifies, Obama polls lower than Kerry, but McCain polls lower than Bush. In short, there is a much larger undecided component in the McCain-Obama numbers. How will these undecideds break in a McCain-Obama race is the issue here. How confident can we be that whites and Latinos will break for Obama over McCain? That is the issue.

By Big Tent Democrat

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Full post as published by TalkLeft on May 08, 2008 (boomark / email).