“One Little Hour”

The Grand Old Party should lose this year. The first Tuesday in November should be the greatest Republican rout in recent history. America is in a recession, in the middle of an unpopular war, and the incumbent Republican President, who has the highest disapproval ratings on record, is at the end of his second term.

Yet national polling shows Republican John McCain in a dead heat, and at times with a slight lead, over either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama. Incroiable!

The principal cause of McCain’s domestic “surge” in the polls has nothing to do with him and everything to do with the conduct of his two potential foes in the general election, Obama and Clinton.

Both candidates have sorely wounded each other and spent money that would otherwise have been hoarded for a general campaign war chest. Hillary has just reminded everyone of her instincts for skullduggery and managed to alienate some of her natural supporters like the New York Times.

Republicans rejoiced Tuesday over Clinton’s double digit win in Pennsylvania, ensuring that the inconclusive status quo be maintained for at least several more weeks. Yet even if Hillary had received a 20+ point mandate from PA or Obama had finished her off once and for all, I think each candidate is copiously bleeding from primary-inflicted wounds.

Clinton is famously unpopular among Republicans, so her candidacy would arouse the conservative base around even that popular bugaboo John McCain. She is seen as intensely partisan, which would scare off many independents and some moderates. She carries a good deal of political baggage from her husband’s term of office and her more moderate years in the Senate, like Bill’s support for NAFTA and her vote for war in Iraq, positions which cool sympathy for her among the liberal elite.

At first Obama appeared to be the candidate of “change” who would be able to garner support from all corners. However, this campaign has started to wash out that image. His possibly duplicitious response on the gun control survey, the constant attacks on his associations, and his elitist comment about rural Pennsylvanians has worried some “Reagan Democrats.” Sure, he can win 92% of the black vote in PA, but if working class white men don’t vote for him, than he will be in trouble. That demographic defected once before rather than vote for a perceived liberal elitist (Mondale); there’s little reason why they shouldn’t again.

Obama leads Hillary in most national polls, but I don’t think he is a significantly stronger candidate over all. The Clinton campaign is right to point out Obama’s struggles in key contested states like Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Florida. Take a look at the exit poll data for any of those states. I’ll highlight the Ohio data for sake of example.

Obama won in the major cities, Cleveland, Cinncinati, and Columbus, but Hillary dominated the more rural counties (indeed the map looks like that infamous 2004 Red State-Blue State Map). As already mentioned, Obama dominates the black vote and the educated liberal vote whereas Hillary does better among whites and the less educated. This reveals that Obama finds his greatest support from the solid Democratic base. This is great for a primary campaign, but a Democrat needs more than blacks, college graduates, and urbanites to win in the general election.

The trend is exacerbated by the way the age groups skew. Young people are more likely to vote for Obama. Older people are more likely to vote for Clinton. While enthusiastic college kids may make great volunteers for the campaign, they simply don’t vote in large enough numbers compared with the ever reliable elderly vote. Aging communities in the rustbelt and in the sunbelt are typically a bit more conservative than their younger counterparts and have been more likely to back Hillary.

Come November, all these divisions within the Democratic Party can translate into voter defection to John McCain. Obama will win overwhelmingly in securely Democratic states, but may falter in the same states he lost to Clinton, and for some of the same reasons. “Frustrated” working class gun owners, 2008’s “soccer moms,” might find more in common with a hardnosed war veteran than with an Ivy League educated lawyer. Older folks in Florida might decide to vote for someone who was more than a tween when Vietnam ended. Residual racism may encourage some cultural Democrats to vote for a McCain rather than for a black man or simply not vote at all.

Both Democratic candidates have potentially fatal flaws.

John McCain for President 2008 should have about as much of a prayer as Herbert Hoover in 1932. Yet McCain has something Hoover couldn’t have had in his wildest dreams: a fractured and bruised Democratic Party that has been hamstrung by its own system (Thanks George McGovern. Proportional delegating has really worked out swell!).