Last week I wrote about Barack Obama’s opportunities to beat John McCain in The Mountain West, an area where both Al Gore and John Kerry failed to win even a single Electoral Vote.
The South is another region where Kerry and Gore failed miserably during the past two Presidential Elections. The only two states that were even close for either of them were Florida and Tennessee for Gore in 2000.
Florida isn’t even really a part of The South culturally, except maybe in The Panhandle, and Tennessee, which Gore lost by 4-points, was his home state.
Kerry did not even make an effort to win any of these states with the exception of Florida, but as the nation’s oldest state, with a large Cuban population and with the President’s brother Jeb as Governor, Kerry was beat solidly there in 2004.
Fortunately for Democrats, The Nation and the rest of the world, 2008 is shaping up to be quite different in The South.
Barack Obama has a chance to win five states in The South (including Florida) that add up to a total of 76 Electoral Votes, and here they are:
Georgia: The Peach State is an excellent example of the general philosophy with which the Obama Campaign will approach The South. In fact, The Senator himself summed it up the best when he said "...Mississippi is 40% African American, but it votes 25% African American. If we just got the African Americans in Mississippi to vote their percentage, Mississippi is suddenly a Democratic state." Long story short, Georgia, and the rest of The South is going to be all about motivating the Black vote to get out to the polls on Nov. 4, 2008.
The other piece of the equation in Florida is the candidacy of former Republican and Georgia Congressman, Bob Barr.
Barr is the Libertarian Party’s presidential candidate.
While he may not win any Electoral Votes, Bob Barr does have the potential to pull enough votes away from McCain to throw the Election in Barack’s favor.
A recent Insider Advantage poll had McCain at 44%, Obama at a surprisingly strong 43% and Bob Barr pulling in 6%.
Don’t just take my word for it though, ChasingAmerica over at EyesOnObama.com recently wrote an excellent piece about Obama’s chance to pick off Georgia’s 15 Electoral Votes from the GOP this fall.
Florida: Two weeks ago I thought anyone who claimed Obama (or Hillary Clinton for that matter) had a chance to win Florida was crazy.
I was wrong.
Two lifetimes ago, at least in political terms, the race for The Sunshine State began to tighten and it is all tied up at 45% each at this point.
The big issue to watch between now and November is going to be offshore drilling. Up until recently it was considered to be the "third-rail" of Florida politics and the mere mention of it was thought to be a terrible political decision.
That may be changing now that McCain has flip-flopped on the issue and suddenly decided he is in support of offshore drilling. Gov. Charlie Crist, who promised to protect Florida’s beaches and tourist economy from the evils of offshore drilling in his inaugural address seems to be poised to follow McCain’s lead on the flip-flop and now is open to it.
With gas prices reaching above $4 a gallon and maybe headed towards $5 in the near future, some Florida Republicans are calculating that a shift in public opinion is on its way. If those Republicans are right then John McCain will win the 27 Electoral Votes up for grabs in The Sunshine State.
If they’re wrong, Obama wins. And if Obama wins Florida there is really no chance for McCain to win the General Election.
Virginia: Barack Obama actually holds a slight lead in The Old Dominion at this point. Virginia has been a target for an Obama pick-off since even before he won the nomination.
As the Washington Post explains in this article, Obama is doing very well in areas that are prospering. Virginia is one of those areas and as of this writing, The Senator from Illinois maintains a 45% - 44% over Sen. McCain.
What should be most concerning to McCain is Obama’s performance in Virginia during primary season.
Barack Obama beat Hillary Clinton by an impressive 29 points, but more important was the Democratic turnout for the Virginia Primary. A whopping 979,712 voters came out to vote for a Democrat while only 487,656 voted for a Republican...and a massive 50% of those Republicans voted against John McCain, despite the fact that he essentially had the nomination wrapped up at that point. Of that 50%, about 41% voted for Huckabee.
It looks like Virginia is Obama’s to lose, but if he does select Sen. Jim Webb as his Vice Presidential running mate that will change. It will seal the deal and the state’s 13 Electoral Votes will drop into the Democrat’s column.
North Carolina: As it stands, Barack Obama trails John McCain 43% - 45% in The Tarheel State. Despite the closeness of the race however, there are some huge hurdles Obama will have to jump in order to take the state’s 15 Electoral Votes.
Racism is alive and well all over The South, but the North Carolina GOP has a special knack for exploiting white racial fears for political gain.
Just a few months ago the North Carolina GOP ran a racially charged attack ad against two North Carolina politicians who endorsed Obama. McCain quickly denounced the ad, but the North Carolina GOP refused to pull it off the air.
The top ranking GOP official in the state, Elizabeth Dole (wife of former GOP Presidential nominee Bob "Viagra" Dole) refused to denounce the ad and ask the state branch of the party to pull it saying she "didn’t want to get involved."
North Carolina is also the state which, for 30 years continued to send one of the most racist members of The Senate this nation has ever seen back to Washington. Jesse Helms, who retired from Congress in 2002 had a solid 50+ year record of racism and homophobia.
In one of Helms’s more blatant displays of racism when Carol Moseley-Braun, the Illinois Senator who was the first African-American woman elected to the Senate, got into an elevator in the capitol with Helms he began singing "Dixie". He later bragged about it and added "I’m going to make her cry. I’m going to sing "Dixie" until she cries." That was in 1993.
The good news for Obama is that, like in Virginia, there was a lot of excitement and participation in the Democratic Primary while the GOP primary drew less than half as many people to the polls way back on May 6.
Mississippi: Clearly the quote I used above from Barack Obama to explain Georgia's strategy applies to Mississippi as well.
While McCain currently holds a solid, but not unbeatable 6-point lead over Obama, at the very least McCain will be forced to spend a lot of money in The Magnolia State.
So although Obama’s chances of actually claiming Mississippi’s six Electoral Votes are slim, when combined with states like Wyoming, Arizona and Idaho, John McCain’s limited financial resources (compared to what Obama is expected to raise) will be spread very thin. A few decent poll numbers right before Election Day could make it very difficult for Sen. McCain to compete in other important battleground states like Ohio and Michigan.
Conclusion: It is unlikely that Obama will carry all 76 Electoral Votes mentioned here, but even if he manages to pick up half of them, McCain will have an extremely difficult time reaching the magic 270 mark in November. Obama's team knows this and they are already fighting hard in this new region of battleground states.
As a side note, many of you are probably wondering why South Carolina wasn’t included. Some people have discussed it as a possible upset state for Obama, but Obama trails McCain by almost double digits there. If that changes significantly between now and November we’ll revisit it at that point.
Finally, in regards to last week’s post about The Mountain West, it is worth clicking here for Madame Fleur’s piece about Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer.
I live in Alabama and have recently flipped from being a lifelong Republican to now being a big Obama supporter. Heck, I support the man so much that I started a blog about my new political views at www.excons.org. I also know a handful of other people at my work and in my family who have voted mostly Republican in the past, but, now support Obama. A couple of them are even pretty emphatic supporters like myself.
I am not sure if anyone fully appreciates yet just how much damage George W. Bush has done to the Republican party and just how uninspiring John McCain is.
This is just my opinion - but, given the people that I know, (and granted it is a very small sample) I think that McCain is going to face a much tighter race in the South than anyone anticipates.
Posted by: TheExCon | July 01, 2008 at 07:20 AM
The real issue is not how well Obama or McCain might do in the closely divided battleground states, but that we shouldn't have battleground states and spectator states in the first place. Every vote in every state should be politically relevant in a presidential election. And, every vote should be equal. We should have a national popular vote for President in which the White House goes to the candidate who gets the most popular votes in all 50 states.
The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC). The bill would take effect only when enacted, in identical form, by states possessing a majority of the electoral vote -- that is, enough electoral votes to elect a President (270 of 538). When the bill comes into effect, all the electoral votes from those states would be awarded to the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).
Because of state-by-state enacted rules for winner-take-all awarding of their electoral votes, recent candidates with limited funds have concentrated their attention on a handful of closely divided "battleground" states. Two-thirds of the visits and money were focused in just six states; 88% on 9 states, and 99% of the money went to just 16 states. Two-thirds of the states and people have been merely spectators to the presidential election.
Another shortcoming of the current system is that a candidate can win the Presidency without winning the most popular votes nationwide.
The National Popular Vote bill has been approved by 19 legislative chambers (one house in Colorado, Arkansas, Maine, North Carolina, and Washington, and two houses in Maryland, Illinois, Hawaii, California, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Vermont). It has been enacted into law in Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, and Maryland. These states have 50 (19%) of the 270 electoral votes needed to bring this legislation into effect.
See http://www.NationalPopularVote.com
Posted by: susan | July 01, 2008 at 12:03 PM