CA: Rasmussen: Clinton Leads CA by 5%; Obama Leads by 7%

[The Duke]

What people forget about California is that the mosdt important fact about this state is not veter registration or demographics or ideology or the economy.

The most important fact about this state is its sheer size.  We have nearly double the population of New York.  Its amazing how often this gets forgotten.

Because of the size of the state there is tremendous inertia that favors Democrats.  Democrats clearly have an advantage here in generic terms of maybe 8% or so in most years.  What I mean bythat is that if everyone in state showed up to vote and knew nothing about the two candidates except their party affiliation the Democrat would win by 8% or so.  This year, the Democrat would win by more than that because the year will not be a good one for Republicans.

In order to break through this inertia that favors Democrats, you must spend a massive sum of money to advertise in huge, expensive media markets.  If a Republican cannot advertise himself as an individual who is compelling to voters he cannot win here.  He will be no more compelling than his party affiliation, which is to say he will not be very compelling at all.

If John McCain had Bush's or Obama's fundraising prowess and this were not such a Democratic year, he could win California.  He does well among latinos, suburbanites, and independents (The three most important groups for California Republicans to win).  But he simply does not have the money required to run competitively here, and even if he did, this is such a Democratic year that even a herculean effort would be unlikely to win California.

[The Duke]

What people forget about California is that the mosdt important fact about this state is not veter registration or demographics or ideology or the economy.

The most important fact about this state is its sheer size.  We have nearly double the population of New York.  Its amazing how often this gets forgotten.

Because of the size of the state there is tremendous inertia that favors Democrats.  Democrats clearly have an advantage here in generic terms of maybe 8% or so in most years.  What I mean bythat is that if everyone in state showed up to vote and knew nothing about the two candidates except their party affiliation the Democrat would win by 8% or so.  This year, the Democrat would win by more than that because the year will not be a good one for Republicans.

In order to break through this inertia that favors Democrats, you must spend a massive sum of money to advertise in huge, expensive media markets.  If a Republican cannot advertise himself as an individual who is compelling to voters he cannot win here.  He will be no more compelling than his party affiliation, which is to say he will not be very compelling at all.

If John McCain had Bush's or Obama's fundraising prowess and this were not such a Democratic year, he could win California.  He does well among latinos, suburbanites, and independents (The three most important groups for California Republicans to win).  But he simply does not have the money required to run competitively here, and even if he did, this is such a Democratic year that even a herculean effort would be unlikely to win California.

Yeah I agree Mccain could win California if he took some socially liberal position and the republicans had a good year. But to the best of my knowledge Mccain has not taken any socially liberal position and this is not a good year for republicans. Plus Obama is a good candidate for California as he maximizes his vote amongst the affluent areas here in southern california. But Mccain is strong with hispanics which could get him a victory yet i am guessing after the whole immigration issue, hispanics arent really itching to vote republican.

I don't agree McCain would need to move left on social issues to win California in a normal year.  He is already left of the GOP on gay marriage and the environment, and he does not emphasize things like abortion and guns.

I also disagree that Obama is very well suited to California.  He has little appeal among upper class whites thanks to his ceaseless promise of higher taxes.  I suspect Obama will underperform in the south and over perform in the north.  Latinos have shown tremendous resistance to voting for Obama and a Democrat can't win California without a large majority of them.  Obama is not an ideal California candidate.  This is, after all, the state that gave us the term "Bradley effect".

[The Duke]

John, I think you're projecting the primary to the General election in a wrongheaded way re: Latinos.  Even considering the Latino protest shift, national polling has Obama doing essentially as well among Latinos as John Kerry did. 

If only Obama is doing as well among latinos as Kerry did, that's a huge problem for him.  After all, John Kerry lost in 2004.  Obama has to do better than Kerry if he wants to win Florida, Nevada, New Mexico, or Colorado.

The GOP has not exactly endeared themselves to the Hispanic voting base in four years.  McCain's moderate stance on immigration will help, but I doubt Obama will perform much worse among Latinos than Kerry.

Again, Obama can't simply do as well as Kerry, he must find some group he can do better among than Kerry.

And when you say Obama is doing about as well as Kerry, do you mean the 55-44 win Kerry got in the exit polls or do you mean the 61-38 margin most analysts think he actually recieved?  There's a big difference.  If Obama is only polling about where Kerry did in those unweighted exits, congratulations Democrats, you just lost the election.  For your sake, he better be close to the 20+ point margin the revised numbers showed.

Taxes were an issue levied against Kerry too, and with little success.  Invariably, Obama's best group that Clinton does not win tend to be affluent, well-educated males.  He's polling better among them than Clinton by a good deal, and better than Kerry too.

Obama is doing well among affluent well educated Democrats.  I don't dispute that.  But that is very different from sbane's claim that Obama will do well among rich white people in Orange County.

I suppose he could collapse, but I'm always skeptical of "once they know what he's really like..." arguments.

I'm not making a "once they really get to know him" argument.  Voters in California already know Obama and McCain pretty well.  And Obama is only ahead by 7% in an exceddingly Democratic year.

And remember, Obama never does as well when people actually vote as the polls say he will.  In California, the RCP average had Obama up by 1.2% on election day.  He lost by 9.6%.  That's means Obama did 10.8% worse when people voted than he did when they answered the polls.  If that happens in November, there are going to be a great many nasty surprises for Demcorats.

Again, I'm not saying McCain can win California.  I've said he doesn't have the money and the atmosphere is too poisonous for Republicans, even though I think McCain could have won California in, say, 2000 or 2004.  What I'm saying is that Demcorat are about to nominate a horrible, horrible candidate.

[The Duke]

Ah, Alcon.  Still impervious to evidence, I see.

Lets talk for a moment about the California Democratic primary polls.  Obama in fact did outperform the polls.  Lets exclude Zogby.  Field had Obama by 2.  Suffolk had Obama by 1.  Rasmussen had Obama by 1.  Even if you disregard Zogby, Obama still did much better in the telephone polls than he did in the actual results.

This trend is duplicated in most of the states to vote.  Obama underperformed the RCP average in Arizona, New Jersey, Ohio, Texas, and Pennsylvania.  He underperformed in Massachussetts by 8%.  He underperformed in New Hampshire by 10%.  And of course, he underperformed in California despite your protests to the contrary.

As for hispanics, I think it is a bigger problem than you concede.  Right now, Obama is well behind McCain in Florida, so much so that it seems there is little chance he will take the state in the fall.  Given this, Obama must find his electoral votes somewhere else.  He two ways of getting the needed electoral votes, assuming he holds all the Kerry states and adds Iowa (Adding Iowa seems a safer bet than holding all the Kerry states):

1) He can add Ohio.  This would get him to 279.  This is a problematic strategy because of Obama's deficiency with the white working class vote.
2) He can add Colorado plus either Nevada or New Mexico.  This would get him to 273.  Unless he gets well over 60% of the latino vote, it will be hard for him to do this.

At some point it will have to sink in with Democrats: America is not electing a black man President in 2008.  They will either come to understand this before their convention and save their party from blowing the election or they will wake up the day after the election with President McCain.

[The Duke]

In addition the financial industry went down the sh**tters and it is possible many in that field voted democrat for the first time.

I suspect that irt wasn't just people in the financial ndustry who voted Democrat for the first time after the stock market crash.  The crash is the #1 reason Obama won the election.