Behind Obama's Wave of Victories: The More They Know Him

Behind Obama's Wave of Victories: The More They Know Him...

By Paul Rogat Loeb

Created Feb 13 2008 - 2:27pm

In a race where Clinton seemed to have every advantage, why has Barack Obama

now won eight primaries and caucuses in a row? If you look at the rhythm of

the campaign, this is the first point where most of America's voters have a

chance to consider him as a candidate with a serious chance of victory, and

to genuinely engage his message. Democrats passionately want a candidate

they can believe in, but also one who can win--and reverse the Republican

disasters. As the presumed nominee, Clinton did everything she could to play

on this, proclaiming herself as tough, experienced, and capable of taking

everything the Republicans could throw at her. She lined up massive insider

support, including commitments from 154 superdelegates [1] (versus 50 for

Obama) before a single vote was cast.

But as Obama began winning, voters who'd been paying only peripheral

attention have started taking him seriously. The more familiar they've

become with him, the more they've liked his message and chances, while their

reservations about Clinton have only grown. Now, she and her surrogates are

in a position of trying to rationalize eight straight Obama wins, including

his 29-point Virginia victory in a state where she was up by 24 points less

than four months ago [2], and her-23 point loss in Maryland [3], which she

also led by roughly the same margin.

These recent losses, claims Clinton [4], were due to states with caucuses,

major African American populations, or large numbers of young liberal

professionals. But not only did Obama rout Clinton in Virginia [5] among

younger voters, African Americans, and independents, he also won a majority

of white voters [6], staked a 55-to-43 lead among white men [7], and led

among voters in every income and education level. Maine is one of the

whitest and poorest states in America, yet Obama won it convincingly despite

election-eve reports that blue-collar women might hand it to Clinton [8].

And if you compare caucus margins, Obama won Iowa by a modest nine points

and narrowly lost in Nevada. Since then, he's now won Washington, Nebraska,

Georgia, Colorado, Minnesota and Kansas by more than 35 points, and Idaho

and Alaska by more than 50. In my state of Washington, Obama took every

single county [9], including the highly conservative rural ones, and the

blue- and white-collar suburbs and exurbs. These weren't just latte-drinking

liberals. Participants in my caucus couldn't stop talking about relatives

and friends who'd never voted Democratic in their life, but were inspired by

Obama's message.

The pattern in every state has been the same: Clinton started out with a

massive early lead based on her (and Bill's) huge name recognition,

connections with Democratic insiders, and the early endorsements gained in

significant part on the desire of key leaders to go with the inevitable

winner. Then Obama started campaigning, people responded to his story and

his message, and the gaps begin to narrow. As recently as mid-October [10],

national polls had Obama 28 points behind, and he trailed by 20 points [11]

going into the Iowa caucuses. He's now won 22 of the 32 legitimate

elections, not counting Michigan and Florida. And given that he's now far

ahead in recent momentum, even or ahead in national polls, and ahead in

elected delegates, Democratic voters who earlier dismissed him as a

candidate are far more primed to take his message seriously.

Before Super Tuesday I remember thinking, "if Obama only had three more

weeks." To establish his electoral viability, he had no choice but to focus

overwhelmingly on Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina, hitting

town after town to convince people who'd barely heard of him that he should

be America's next president. He had no choice about doing this--a Rudy

Guiliani big-state strategy would have been disastrous, as it was even with

Guiliani's far greater name recognition. But it meant that Obama had no

chance to create more than the most fleeting presence in the 22 states that

voted on February 5th.

Although Obama and the other candidates did campaign earlier in some of

those states, few voters were paying much attention until the caucuses and

primaries began. And because of the massive compression of schedule, Obama

didn't have time to do more than jet in and out of states that represented

over half the total convention delegates. Think about the states that

Clinton ended up winning that day. Following his initial Iowa victory, Obama

had time for just three brief visits [12] to California, one to New York

State, one to Massachusetts, two to New Jersey, one each to Arizona and New

Mexico, and none at all to Tennessee, Arkansas, or Oklahoma. Clinton faced

the same time constraints, but began with infinitely more name recognition

and institutional connections, and a superstar surrogate in Bill, so needed

the boosts from her personal visits far less. By the time most Super Tuesday

voters began to realize that Clinton was no longer inevitable, Obama barely

had a chance to do more than briefly get their attention.

That doesn't even count the impact of early voting, where people made up

their mind before they had the chance to be seriously exposed to Obama's

ideas. As many as half the California ballots [13] may have been cast well

before Super Tuesday--before the Kennedy endorsement, Obama's major

California campaign stops, or the massive Los Angeles Oprah rally. Most were

cast before Obama's massive South Carolina victory, and the backlash against

Bill Clinton's racially charged attempts to dismiss it. Early voting had a

comparable likely impact in New Jersey, Arizona, New Mexico, and Tennessee

[14], with Obama surging late, but with much of this momentum being moot

[15] for the significant numbers of people who'd already voted. In the words

of Clinton campaign director [16], Ace Smith, "our whole campaign is based

on reaching those voters....with millions and millions of ballots cast

before election day. And we've been trying to identify those people for

months." No doubt the Obama campaign tried to reach these voters too, but

they had far less initial visibility to use as leverage. Obama still emerged

from the day with a plurality of delegates, but would certainly have had

even more if voters had just had more time to get to know him.

Even in constituencies where Obama is still making up ground, you see the

same pattern. White voters backed him in Virginia, for the first time in a

Southern state. Maine was supposed to go to Clinton because of blue-collar

women, but Obama won by 18 points. He got 26% of the Latino vote in Nevada

[17], and polls before Super Tuesday [18] showed him getting just 19% of the

national Latino vote. But he averaged 35% on Super Tuesday [19], even

counting the early voting and other obstacles, and actually won Virginia's

small Latino population [20]. Clinton began with massive advantages among

Latino voters, having locked up early endorsements from people like LA mayor

Antonio Villaraigosa, former San Antonio Mayor Henry Cisneros, and United

Farm Workers co-founder Dolores Huerta. Their political networks helped

immensely, but mostly the margin has been simple name recognition. Clinton

supporter Huerta joked that when Latino voters [21] were interviewed about

Obama, "A lot of them would say, 'Senor como se llama?' They didn't know

Obama's name." But as Obama stressed in one of the debates, Latino voters

did vote for him in his Illinois races, and are beginning to in his

presidential quest. In the words of Obama supporter Miren Uriarte [22], head

of a Latino research center at the University of Massachusetts at Boston,

"What we've seen is the longer people become familiar with Obama's thinking,

the more prone they are to vote for him." So his challenge with Latinos

really does rest significantly on their simply not knowing him--a situation

he's now beginning to change.

All this creates a critical argument to stress, both to residents of states

yet to vote and to the superdelegates who will hold the convention's balance

of power. In addition to Obama's dramatically expanding Democratic

participation among young voters, African Americans and independents [23],

and polling ahead of Hillary when matched against McCain [24], it means that

his baseline of support may actually be much greater than we've seen so far.

Those of us who support Obama need to raise this not as an excuse for

complacency--we'll need to keep doing everything we can to get him nominated

in August and elected in November. But we can make clear that his potential

electoral strengths may just be starting to come into play. It seems the

more voters know him, the more they like him.

_______

--

NOTICE: This post contains copyrighted material the use of which has not

always been authorized by the copyright owner. I am making such material

available to advance understanding of

political, human rights, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues. I

believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of such copyrighted material as

provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright

Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107

"A little patience and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their

spells dissolve, and the people recovering their true sight, restore their

government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are

suffering deeply in spirit,

and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public

debt. But if the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have

patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning

back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at

stake."

-Thomas Jefferson

"Gandalf Grey" <valinor20@gmail.com> wrote:

>Behind Obama's Wave of Victories: The More They Know Him...

Obama is a personality cult. He has nothing beyond

glittering generalities and his "Change" slogan. It

is his charisma, his persona, that attracts people.

Comes across as a great and compassionate guy.

But then so did "W" way back when ...

On Feb 14, 6:38 pm, B1ackwater <b...@barrk.net> wrote:

> "Gandalf Grey" <valino...@gmail.com> wrote:

> >Behind Obama's Wave of Victories: The More They Know Him...

>

> Obama is a personality cult. He has nothing beyond

> glittering generalities and his "Change" slogan. It

> is his charisma, his persona, that attracts people.

> Comes across as a great and compassionate guy.

>

> But then so did "W" way back when ...

Wait Hillary needs to do right now is to get back to the very basic

question: Why does she want to be the president of the United States?

Is it to SERVE or to be SERVED? Stay on the message of SERVICE and

all inspirations come through that passage way. Are we doing what we

are supposed to be doing? Is it what we are here to do? Stay away

from petty politics. There's still time. There's still Hope. But it

takes a lot of HARD WORKS. When in doubt goes inward; listen to the

voice inside. Forget the polls. True humility comes from our

willingness to listen. Guided with a conscience, there is nothing

impossible we can achieve in this world, for we ARE change. Each in

our own ways, we are all tryng to make a difference. And the highest

virtue rests on whether we can ACT rightly regardless of self-

interest, despite our self-interest. This goes back to the idea of

SERVICE. If we are doing what we are supposed to do, then we would

stand out and stand apart from a crowd. A leader has to have a

vision. A leader should do things that people can look up to.

Stay above the transient popularity contest--the polls, for THINGS

_WILL_ Change. Do things even when they may be "unpopular" at the

moment. Focus on herself. Focus on what she will do, instead of

playing the game of catch-up. Obama is his own thing; he does his own

things. And when all things are said and done, then the rest we leave

to God Almighty. Thy Will Be done. And it is _still_ possible we

may have for the first time in history that the "meek shalt inherit

the Earth." As George Bernard Shaw said while in his 80s, "You see

things; and you say, 'Why?' But I dream things that never were; and I

say, 'Why not?'"

And I would want to ask Obama the same question: Just why would he

want to be president? He runs because he could? And that's a very

troubling thought. It reminds me of George W. Bush 8 years ago. A

young guy; Equally brash; "A breath of fresh air" some may say; Who

talks things that lack specifics; Who championed "Change" from the

Clinton White House, which happened to work quite well for many

Ameicans--education, innovation, technology, economy to lead the world

instead of military might. Well, quite a "change" that was I have to

admit. Haha...

The problem I see with Obama is that it is a tough job. The job is a

heavy duty. He is going to HIRE somebody else to delegate his

responsibilities, like every president does. "Oh, there you go

again." It is another Deja Vu... Aaah! He may be smart. But he

may also turn out to be another tony blair. Isn't that guy smart?

Who happens to be another lapdog of big businesses? Or he may be

another Jimmy Carter with his own stalemate in Congress. There are

powerful forces at play in this country. And this nation needs to

harness the power and creativity of big businesses to drive this

country forward. Moving America forward, I don't mind supporting big

businesses that have proven their loyalty to this country and the

American people, just as Teddy Roosevelt favored a selected few

companies despite his popular message of anti-monopoly.

And I end this message with a quote from nobody but the great Franklin

Delano Roosevelt:

""It is of the utmost importance that the people of this country, with

the best information in the world, _THINK_THINGS_THROUGH_. The most

dangerous enemies of American peace are those who, WITHOUT well-

rounded information on the whole broad subject of the past, _the

present_and_the future_, undertake to speak with assumed authority, to

talk in terms of GLITTERING _generalities_, to give to th nation

assurances or prophecies

_which_are_of_little_present_or_Future_value._" Thank you.

Have you forgotten that invading Iraq has nothing to do with the

culprits who perpetuated 9/11?

"We've had no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with

September 11." --George W. Bush, 9-17-2003, 182 days after the

Invasion of Iraq began

=======================================================

ADS

"I mean [pause]... afterall [semi-pause], this (Saddam) is a guy that

tried to kill my dad." George W. Bush, 9-26-2002, in a fund raising

function for GOP Senate Hopeful John Cornyn in Houston, 380 days

after the tragedy of 911 where he revealed his true intention on his

meaning in a speech on "terrorism"

On Fri, 15 Feb 2008 07:53:29 -0800 (PST), lorad474@cs.com wrote:

>On Feb 14, 10:10

On Fri, 15 Feb 2008 07:45:30 -0800 (PST), amatbus2002

<amatbus2002@yahoo.com> wrote:

>On Feb 14, 6:38 pm, B1ackwater <b...@barrk.net> wrote:

>> "Gandalf Grey" <valino...@gmail.com> wrote:

>> >Behind Obama's Wave of Victories: The More They Know Him...

>>

>> Obama is a personality cult. He has nothing beyond

>> glittering generalities and his "Change" slogan. It

>> is his charisma, his persona, that attracts people.

>> Comes across as a great and compassionate guy.

>>

>> But then so did "W" way back when ...

>

>Wait Hillary needs to do right now is to get back to the very basic

>question: Why does she want to be the president of the United States?

Power, wealth, the intoxicating joy of #1-ness of course. :-)

>Is it to SERVE or to be SERVED ?

BE served.