Politics

The Clinton-Huckabee Vote

By Matt Cooper

If you look at the Clinton and Huckabee votes in Virginia, they mirror each other. They both do well where it's poor and white. Look at the few counties in Virginia where she managed to prevail. She generally took them by 3:1 or greater margins which would be good for her except they're tiny depopulated rural counties near the Tennessee border like Scott and Washington. I should note that my spouse works for Clinton. If her trends continue like this she'll resemble Huckabee--a boutique candidate, catering to a small portion of the electorate. In fact, she's worse off than Huckabee who did much better versus McCain than she did against Obama. Ohio and Texas are still a long way off and Clinton could come back. But tonight Obama put together a winning majority. She has to get it back.

I've been wondering whether Obama could break into downscale voters. He has.

It would be one thing to blame all of this on caucuses as the Clintons tried to do after the most recent Obama string of victories but Virginia is a real primary in a real state where Clinton has had her headquarters for a year and she couldn't seriously compete. Obama hasn't won in the big states yet, except for his home. He lost CA, NY and NJ. He lost MI and FL, even if their delegates weren't seated. He needs to win a top ten state besides his own Illinois

Clinton needs to completely reframe the race at this point. Experience didn't work as an argument. Ready on Day One? Who cares? She needs an issue that can galvanize her support but given the small policy differences with Obama, she doesn't have much to work with. I don't know why the campaign hasn't done more with Obama's saying that he was open lifting the taxable income cap on Social Security above its current $97,000. That's a huge tax increase for people who don't think they're rich. It's a place to start.

Full post as published by Portfolio.com: Capital on February 12, 2008 (boomark / email).