The Obama Path to Victory

Tuesday's election results confirmed what before I have speculated: that Hillary Clinton cannot come back to democratically win this nomination. We have, at my count, six primaries to go. After the last one on June 3rd, all the remaining delegates will be superdelegates, or party leaders and insiders given votes in what is usually an honorary decision.

With Obama now taking the lead among these delegates, many have pointed out that he now leads by every possible indicator:

• states won
• pledged delegates
• popular vote
• superdelegates

I have long expressed my openness to a Clinton nomination. I honestly prefer her health care plan, and think that she may well be a stronger general election candidate. However, the people have spoken. Obama has been chosen, and it would be a slap in the face to the millions of voters who waited on line to vote to replace the democratically elected winner with the loser.

There has been speculation over an Obama-Clinton ticket. This will not come to pass. Hillary has, as Bob Herbert pointed out today, has been using rhetoric reminiscent of the Nixon's famous racist Southern Strategy against the first ever viable black presidential candidate. Now that the dust has settled, he has, for better or worse, been selected to lead the party to November. Hillary, however, has other ideas. She is now trying to subvert the democratic process by fighting to count the millions of votes in Michigan, in which Obama, in accordance with a party request, did not put his name on the ballot. Her childlike refusal to accept her loss each day causes more hate and vitriol in between the two bases.

She has proved that she can't play nice. If she won't play fair, then Obama won't let her play ball by picking her as VP. It's that simple.

When you look at the polls for an Obama-McCain matchup, you see a false representation of the outcome. This is for a number of reasons:

• Obama has, in cooperation with the DNC, set the table for a massive, nation-wide voter registration drive. I have written a number of things over the past few years over the necessity of doing this. Unregistered voters tend to be poorer and more progressive. They are disproportionately black and hispanic. Well-orchestrated drives in the southwest and Florida especially, where unregistered voter rates are through the roof, can deliver these states in the fall. Polling even suggests that Texas, which is majority non-white, could become a tossup. This can only happen, however, if we dedicate all our resources to registering voters in droves. For information on getting involved, check out my friend Duncan Hosie's Kids for Change site.
  
• People have seen McCain for years portrayed as a moderate, a maverick, and a free-thinker. Unfortunately, this is not the case. As Steven Colbert pointed out: Where was Bush on the morning of Katrina? Answer: He was at McCain's birthday party, eating cake while tens of thousands suffered and died in New Orleans. Marie Antoinette, anyone?
• Much of people's impressions of Obama have been driven by the Clinton campaign's focus on what my friend calls "Rever-off-the-deep-end Wright's" ties to his family. Wright has gone completely nuts recently, claiming that the government caused 9/11, among other things.
• Obama, thanks to his brilliantly run campaign and the power of the internet, has been raising record amounts of dough from record numbers of people. He, unlike McCain whose fundraising has been lackluster at best, will have almost unlimited resources in the general election.
• I think that Obama will pick Governor Bill Richardson (D-NM) to be his vice-presidential candidate. The popular Hispanic governor has four times been nominated for the Nobel Peace prize and has negotiated tight situations on five continents. He was also Clinton's secretary of Energy. With Richardson's help, I think Obama consolidate his support among hispanics and do very well in the southwest.

This map is a representation of what I think the race will look like after the conventions. I believe that Obama will pick Bill Richardson to be VP and that John McCain will pick Charlie Crist, the governor of Florida. As it stands, I am putting Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Minnesota, and Iowa in the Democratic column. Based on polls and common sense, I think that these states will be Obama's to lose. However, I don't think the Democrats can expect to win Florida with Crist on the ballot. The remaining states: Michigan, Wisconsin, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Ohio, New Hampshire, and Virginia will be contested states. McCain has a very slight edge in Missouri, New Hampshire, and Virginia, while Obama has a slight advantage in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania.
_________________________

It is worth noting that all of these states strongly disapprove of the way Bush is handling his job. The reason McCain does well there is that many moderate voters place him in a separate category from the President. The job of the Democratic party in this election is to show the world that McCain only offers four more years of Bush. If Obama can show voters that McCain wants to continue Bush's policies that have ruined our economy and standing in the world, then it is his to lose.

The challenge is to make a distinction between our beliefs and theirs. While we want to end the occupation of Iraq, balance the budget, make sure that everyone has health care, and start making the top 1% pay their share so everyone else can have it a little easier, McCain just wants more of the same.

So let's start thinking about what we individually can do to make sure that on November 5th there we don't see four more years of Bush. We've got our work cut out for us.

-The Young Sentinel
Obama 2008
"Be the change you want to see in the world." -Mahatma Gandhi.