Interesting night last night. My predictive powers are impressive. A colleague asked me to predict the gap yesterday morning. I resisted. He prodded. I tried to give a range. He wanted a specific number. So I said 11 points, allowing for a percentage point made up of votes going to other candidates and write-ins. His gap was in the single digits, as were the gaps predicted by several other people I asked after being inspired by the question. In fact, the percentage gap was 10 points (Clinton's 55 versus Obama's 45 percent, 1,258,245 versus 1,042,297). Clinton thumped Obama, as I predicted.
How could I know this would happen? Because Obama can't win the states needed to win the general election - Ohio and Pennsylvania. He can't even come close. Clinton can and does. Obama's slogan "Yes we can" simply doesn't work in the battleground states. The fact is No he can't. Democratic elders better wake up and realize this. No amount of stage-managed roll-out of superdelegates or endorsements from military commanders for Obama will change the brutal truth that McCain will beat Obama in the general election.
This is one of the wonderful things about actually having a competitive primary race: we can see the lay of the general election map before mistakes are made (although it looks like Democrats are going to make this mistake anyway). Dukakis was trounced by Bush Senior in 1988 nationally. Bush Senior was the last Republican to take Pennsylvania. John Kerry, the liberal senator from Massachusetts, barely won the state, and he was running against a very unpopular incumbent. Obama is presently the most liberal senator in that body, even more liberal than Kerry. Narrowly or in a blow out, Obama will lose Pennsylvania to McCain. He will lose to McCain in Ohio, too. In other words, Obama will lose the general election.
Make Clinton the nominee, and you get enthusiasm from women. Whereas African Americans make up less than 13 percent of the US population, women make up more than half of the population. African Americans will voted for Hillary; they have no alternative. Latinos will vote for Hillary. Make Obama the nominee, and white blue collar voters have an alternative: John McCain. Many more Latinos will vote for McCain.
Clinton has been thoroughly vetted, and while people may not like her or trust her, they know her, and they agree with her policies. The feel she represents blue collar interests as much as any political elite can. And they agree with her tough foreign policy stance. For many working class white folks, Obama is weak on national defense issues and, rightly or wrongly, they are worried about external threats. Obama can't change their minds on that. Clinton is seen as tough. McCain will have a tough time tagging Clinton with weakness on defense. Obama is seen as weak. As I have said before, Obama swiftboats himself.
As the start of the evening, my father-in-law, who is visiting from Sweden asked me how many people will vote in the Pennsylvania primary. My prediction was around 2.5 million, maybe a little less. Everybody in the room doubted me. What was the actual number? 2,300,542. "How did you know that?" I pay attention.
I have my finger on the pulse of this country, dear readers. I get it. Those who read my blog profit from the experience. Tell your friends and neighbors about it. I have a track record.
And please do something else: write the superdelegates and politely ask them to do the right thing for the Democratic party and, more importantly, their country, and cast their vote for Hillary Clinton. Clinton is the only chance Democrats have to regain the White House. Making Barack Obama the nominee is political suicide, a blunder of historic proportions.
We live in screwy times. Because of years of growing political ignorance among those who self-describe as progressive, we have millions of Democrats, who like many of my Marxist comrades, fundamentally misunderstand the purpose of a bourgeois election. We do not vote for our dreams and aspirations in November. This is a capitalist system with a capitalist state that elects capitalist leaders. Moreover, the system is much more closed now than it was even thirty years ago. The conservative countermovement has been institutionalized. The center has been shifted rightward. What we can do now is prevent the election of a president from the reactionary right-wing side of the political spectrum.
This is why you vote. You vote to prevent the election of leaders who will further entrench the conservative countermovement, especially in the federal judiciary - especially in the Supreme Court. Gore won in 2000 but was denied the presidency largely because of the Court's need for more conservative justices. Gore even said during the debates that the election of Bush was about the composition of the courts and preserving or reversing fundamental freedoms won in the judiciary. Roe v. Wade is just one of the freedoms citizens enjoy that is one justice away from being overturned. And overturning Roe v. Wade is tantamount to giving the states a license to terrorize women with the criminal law.
We're not talking about what happens over the next four or eight years, but what happens over generations. You are naive and foolish if you vote for Obama because he makes you feel good, because he inspires you, or because you believe he is a once-in-a-lifetime leader. First, he isn't a once-in-a-lifetime leader. If you can't see that now, then you are a true believer - you have, frankly, fallen for a personality cult. But more importantly, you can't vote on how you feel or for who inspires you. You have to vote to keep John McCain from winning the White House. (Clearly Obama isn't in Clinton's league in terms of experience, skill, and practical solutions for voters, so I don't really feel the need to go through the record in this blog entry.)
You have to be rational, dear readers. You have to convince those around you to be rational, too. You have to recognize the reality of the situation. You have to understand the limitations of bourgeois "democracy." Vote to prevent the cryptofascists from winning.
Don't throw your vote away on Nader. Don't weaken our chances to defeat McCain by supporting Obama. Talk to the superdelegates. Talk to your friends and family who live in states that have yet to vote. Tell them what's at stake. We need to shift the direction of the primary dramatically at the end. Give Clinton the most unified party possible, and send her out to scrap with McCain. She is the best chance progressives have to slow down the entrenchment of right-wing hegemony.
Don't commit political suicide. Fall off the Obama bandwagon.
How could I know this would happen? Because Obama can't win the states needed to win the general election - Ohio and Pennsylvania. He can't even come close. Clinton can and does. Obama's slogan "Yes we can" simply doesn't work in the battleground states. The fact is No he can't. Democratic elders better wake up and realize this. No amount of stage-managed roll-out of superdelegates or endorsements from military commanders for Obama will change the brutal truth that McCain will beat Obama in the general election.
This is one of the wonderful things about actually having a competitive primary race: we can see the lay of the general election map before mistakes are made (although it looks like Democrats are going to make this mistake anyway). Dukakis was trounced by Bush Senior in 1988 nationally. Bush Senior was the last Republican to take Pennsylvania. John Kerry, the liberal senator from Massachusetts, barely won the state, and he was running against a very unpopular incumbent. Obama is presently the most liberal senator in that body, even more liberal than Kerry. Narrowly or in a blow out, Obama will lose Pennsylvania to McCain. He will lose to McCain in Ohio, too. In other words, Obama will lose the general election.
Make Clinton the nominee, and you get enthusiasm from women. Whereas African Americans make up less than 13 percent of the US population, women make up more than half of the population. African Americans will voted for Hillary; they have no alternative. Latinos will vote for Hillary. Make Obama the nominee, and white blue collar voters have an alternative: John McCain. Many more Latinos will vote for McCain.
Clinton has been thoroughly vetted, and while people may not like her or trust her, they know her, and they agree with her policies. The feel she represents blue collar interests as much as any political elite can. And they agree with her tough foreign policy stance. For many working class white folks, Obama is weak on national defense issues and, rightly or wrongly, they are worried about external threats. Obama can't change their minds on that. Clinton is seen as tough. McCain will have a tough time tagging Clinton with weakness on defense. Obama is seen as weak. As I have said before, Obama swiftboats himself.
As the start of the evening, my father-in-law, who is visiting from Sweden asked me how many people will vote in the Pennsylvania primary. My prediction was around 2.5 million, maybe a little less. Everybody in the room doubted me. What was the actual number? 2,300,542. "How did you know that?" I pay attention.
I have my finger on the pulse of this country, dear readers. I get it. Those who read my blog profit from the experience. Tell your friends and neighbors about it. I have a track record.
And please do something else: write the superdelegates and politely ask them to do the right thing for the Democratic party and, more importantly, their country, and cast their vote for Hillary Clinton. Clinton is the only chance Democrats have to regain the White House. Making Barack Obama the nominee is political suicide, a blunder of historic proportions.
We live in screwy times. Because of years of growing political ignorance among those who self-describe as progressive, we have millions of Democrats, who like many of my Marxist comrades, fundamentally misunderstand the purpose of a bourgeois election. We do not vote for our dreams and aspirations in November. This is a capitalist system with a capitalist state that elects capitalist leaders. Moreover, the system is much more closed now than it was even thirty years ago. The conservative countermovement has been institutionalized. The center has been shifted rightward. What we can do now is prevent the election of a president from the reactionary right-wing side of the political spectrum.
This is why you vote. You vote to prevent the election of leaders who will further entrench the conservative countermovement, especially in the federal judiciary - especially in the Supreme Court. Gore won in 2000 but was denied the presidency largely because of the Court's need for more conservative justices. Gore even said during the debates that the election of Bush was about the composition of the courts and preserving or reversing fundamental freedoms won in the judiciary. Roe v. Wade is just one of the freedoms citizens enjoy that is one justice away from being overturned. And overturning Roe v. Wade is tantamount to giving the states a license to terrorize women with the criminal law.
We're not talking about what happens over the next four or eight years, but what happens over generations. You are naive and foolish if you vote for Obama because he makes you feel good, because he inspires you, or because you believe he is a once-in-a-lifetime leader. First, he isn't a once-in-a-lifetime leader. If you can't see that now, then you are a true believer - you have, frankly, fallen for a personality cult. But more importantly, you can't vote on how you feel or for who inspires you. You have to vote to keep John McCain from winning the White House. (Clearly Obama isn't in Clinton's league in terms of experience, skill, and practical solutions for voters, so I don't really feel the need to go through the record in this blog entry.)
You have to be rational, dear readers. You have to convince those around you to be rational, too. You have to recognize the reality of the situation. You have to understand the limitations of bourgeois "democracy." Vote to prevent the cryptofascists from winning.
Don't throw your vote away on Nader. Don't weaken our chances to defeat McCain by supporting Obama. Talk to the superdelegates. Talk to your friends and family who live in states that have yet to vote. Tell them what's at stake. We need to shift the direction of the primary dramatically at the end. Give Clinton the most unified party possible, and send her out to scrap with McCain. She is the best chance progressives have to slow down the entrenchment of right-wing hegemony.
Don't commit political suicide. Fall off the Obama bandwagon.
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