HillBuzz has been thinking long and hard about Pennsylvania for some time now. We’ve listened to all the pundits, and have heard from a lot of people in the state as well, both via email and from our time on the ground in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia in the 6 weeks since the Ohio, Texas, and other March 4th primaries. We’ve noticed the media, especially Tim Russert and Chris Matthews at MSNBC, have been making a big deal about what percentage of a win Hillary Clinton should have in Pennsylvania today. We think these pundits are missing the biggest point of all today: the simple fact that, if Barack Obama was really the best candidate in this race, he would easily win Pennsylvania. If, as the pundits like Russert and Matthews say, Obama should be the Democratic nominee, then why can’t he win Pennsylvania? Russert, Matthews, and Obama’s other surrogates (in the media, and in other realms), say the Democratic race should end, before many states and territories have their chance to vote. If Obama can’t win Pennsylvania, then how does their argument stand, and what does it really rest on?
The Obama campaign poured more money into Pennsylvania than any campaign in history. More than any Democratic or Republican primary race, but also more than any candidate has ever poured into a GENERAL ELECTION. It’s truly staggering and obscene, the amount of cash Obama has spent on field offices, canvassers, Get Out the Vote initiatives, phone banks, television and radio advertising, internet marketing, rock concert-style rallies, and direct mailings focused on Pennsylvania. Most estimates we’ve seen have Obama outspending Clinton, overall, by 5:1 in the Keystone State. With all this money, and all this effort, Obama should easily win the state. One of the Obama surrogates’ chief arguments in his favor is that he outraises Clinton on the internet and has a massive war chest of campaign contributions to burn through. But, HillBuzz begs the question: what good is all that money if it doesn’t win him Pennsylvania?
HillBuzz thinks back to the Romney campaign for the Republican nomination. Here was another incredibly well-funded candidate, who just didn’t connect with the voters he needed to connect with. No matter how much money Romney threw into the race (from his own pockets, mostly), Romney never expanded his core base of fiscal conservatives (who approved of his business acumen) and faith-based voters (who overlooked Romney’s more liberal positions as Massachusetts governor and did not oppose his particular denomination of faith). Obama, similarly, has not expanded his core base of support, no matter how much money he has thrown into the race. He has not won the traditional blue-collar, bread and butter Democratic voters, the “Reagan Democrats”, who returned to the party, after a 12 year absence, to support the centrist campaign of Bill Clinton in 1992. This renders Obama’s impressive campaign fundraising moot. If all that money can’t expand his base of support in Pennsylvania, then what good is it ultimately for? All the money Obama’s supporters contribute ends up in the pockets of marketing firms and television networks, without convincing any Reagan Democrats to support Obama in the end.
This is troubling, for any Democrat who wants to win the White House, because Obama has more of a problem with core Democratic voters than John Kerry had in 2004, Al Gore had in 2000, or Michael Dukakis had in 1988. Kerry, remember, had at least a connection to Pennsylvania, through his wife Thereza Heinz, and the well-known Heinz family in Pittsburgh. Kerry’s blunders on the campaign trail allowed the Republicans to paint him as effete and out of touch (the windsurfing, snowboarding, and Potemkin Village hunting photo ops). Thereza didn’t help matters by asking someone in a restaurant, “What’s chili?” when offered some on the campaign trail. Obama’s inexperience on the campaign trail has reared its head already (in California, with the famous “bitter, guns, and God” remarks), including other not-as-well-publicized incidents, (refusing to take a picture with one admirer and saying he “wouldn’t smile”, telling another person in a diner he wouldn’t talk about the endorsement he received from Hammas because he “wanted to eat (his) waffle”). Obama has claimed that “everywhere is Barack Obama country” and that “to know (him) is to love (him)”. That does not seem to be the case in places like Ohio or Pennsylvania, where Obama spent copious amounts of time, with few converts to show for it.
Voters seem to have made up their mind about Barack Obama, and the rustbelt states have been immune to his charms (though the media, epitomized by Russert and Matthews, swoons like teenagers at prom). His core supporters are indeed fervent, and appear unwilling to abandon him, no matter what revelations are made about his ties to characters like Jeremiah Wright, Tony Rezko, William Ayers, James Meeks, Louis Farrakhan, and others. His core support from the African American community, upscale white voters, and college-aged voters who are involved in a political campaign for the first time is indeed impressive. However, this coalition, alone, cannot run the board in the Electoral College and deliver the White House to the Democratic Party against as appealing a candidate as John McCain.
If Obama does not win Pennsylvania, with as much time and money as he put into it during these past 6 weeks, how can he argue he’d win the state against John McCain in the fall? McCain is not the typical Republican candidate; he’s not Bush or Dole, and certainly not a Huckabee (all of whom, it seems, would have lost Pennsylvania easily to whomever the Democratic candidate would be). McCain is well-liked by voters in the rustbelt, comes across as “real”, and is appealing to independents who want assurance the next president will know exactly what she or he is doing. These are people who will vote Democratic in 2008, because of 8 years under George W. Bush, but who do not object to voting Republican if they feel McCain is the better choice of the two candidates before him.
This is an issue that gets no play in the media: Obama’s core supporters are people who would never in their lives dream of voting Republican. Clinton’s supporters are people who will stand with her to the end, but who will find John McCain very appealing in the fall if Hillary Clinton is not on the ballot when they enter that voting booth. True, a large part of Obama’s younger supporters may stay home on election day if their candidate is not the nominee, but it’s incredibly unlikely they would switch over to the Republican side if Obama’s not on the ticket. They just won’t vote, the same way they didn’t vote in 2004 (while Clinton easily wins the Electoral College because of the stronger coalition of women, older voters, blue collar voters, and Hispanic voters she has over Kerry, Gore, and Dukakis’ performances). Voters in Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, West Virginia, Tennessee, Arkansas, New Jersey, and even New York, could vote against their Democratic inclination in 2008 and side with McCain if Clinton is not the nominee. And that’s not even factoring in Florida, California, and western states where John McCain’s appeal to Hispanic voters will dwarf Barack Obama’s (as indicated by the failure of Obama’s campaign to capture Hispanic support in voting contests thus far). If Obama has not been able to capture these voters’ support thus far, it seems unlikely he would do so as the Democratic nominee. These voters will not magically decide to like or trust him with Clinton out of the race.
Pursuant to that, HillBuzz also had the thought that if Obama did indeed change his tune and try earnestly to appeal to these voting groups that have been thus far out of his reach, his sudden about-face would seem insincere at best, and would have limited appeal to blue collar voters, Hispanics, and other groups. This tactic may also alienate Obama’s core supporters, who would see their ideological candidate as just any other politician, who changes his game when he needs to pivot and become a whole new person to reach a whole new demographic. His supporters are indeed fervent, so there is no telling how many of them would be disillusioned by this obvious change in focus on Obama’s part, but there is a real danger for him that has not applied to any other candidate in memory. Obama’s entire candidacy is based on the fact that he has promised he would be a different kind of politician and that he had a “message” he claims he’s destined to share with America. His supporters are those who have bought that message, and have fallen for his charms hook, line, and sinker. Those immune to his message seem unlikely to suddenly fall for it, this late into the game. So, if the message suddenly changes in his basely political effort to garner new supporters, his “message” thus far has to be revealed as not his “real” message all along (or why would he change it?). But, the trap is if he doesn’t alter his message, he never grabs any new voters from blocs he’s been unable to crack so far.
This is what happens to a candidate whose entire campaign is focused on his personality, his charms, and his public speaking abilities. Large numbers of people have fallen in love with the idea of Barack Obama, without really knowing anything about him. Those immune to this crush have proven to be unreachable to him in states such as Ohio, Texas, and Rhode Island, during the last primaries of March 4th. If Obama does not win Pennsylvania, this means that even a 6-week onslaught on his part, in a state where he’s expended more resources than any candidate in American history, will not convince those disinclined to his charms to take a chance on him. Obama needs to win Pennsylvania, if even by a single point, to prove he can convince blue collar, core Democrats, to support him in the fall against John McCain.
There is, thus, just no excuse for an Obama loss in Pennsylvania today.
HillBuzz Note: Just to show we aren’t in left field on this, here’s another analysis that concurs with ours (and, with more statistical analysis than we’ve provided) Thanks to TexasDarlin for this second opinion.
