CO-PPP: No love for Hillary

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

I can't wait until 2016 when Christie's cruel position on medical marijuana is made clear and known to the voters.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

So, why does Hillary do worse here than Obama does?

Colorado's Democratic base is very anti-establishment.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

So, why does Hillary do worse here than Obama does?

Colorado's Democratic base is very anti-establishment.

Sorry to ask, but what do you mean by that?

Well, Hillary Clinton is a very establishment candidate.  She's a Washington insider, she has a lot of experience, she voted with the Republicans on foreign policy a lot of times, and her ideology as a whole is built around left-populism.  Contrast this to Barack Obama, who was fresh in the political scene at the time he first ran for president and represented a much younger generation of Democrats.  I don't have any statistics to back me up at the moment, but I'd assume that Colorado's Democratic base tends to be younger and ergo favorable to younger candidates.  (Colorado is also a more diverse state than say, Arkansas, so minority Democrats will tend to favor minority candidates.)  If Hillary underperforms with young voters, which I assume she will if she's the nominee, that will cost her states like Colorado where the base simply won't be there for her like they were for Obama.  Those losses could be made up for in states like Arkansas, whose Democratic base tends to be older, whiter, and not surprisingly, very favorable to the Clintons.

Also keep in mind that Colorado has better known universities than Arkansas.  Ergo, younger Democratic voters.

Another way of looking at it is seeing the US as not a collection of red states and blue states, but "libertarian" states and "populist" states.  It's a shoddy way of looking at things, sure, but the lesson from this is that older "white working class" voters tend to favor populist-based establishment candidates, and other states tend to be more supportive of newcomers.

That is, at least, my interpretation of things.  Ask me why Obama carried a rural, heavily white state like Nebraska over Hillary by such a huge margin and I couldn't tell you.  The key to winning a state is empowering the state's base and that should be enough to understand.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

So, why does Hillary do worse here than Obama does?

Colorado's Democratic base is very anti-establishment.

Sorry to ask, but what do you mean by that?

Well, Hillary Clinton is a very establishment candidate.  She's a Washington insider, she has a lot of experience, she voted with the Republicans on foreign policy a lot of times, and her ideology as a whole is built around left-populism.  Contrast this to Barack Obama, who was fresh in the political scene at the time he first ran for president and represented a much younger generation of Democrats.  I don't have any statistics to back me up at the moment, but I'd assume that Colorado's Democratic base tends to be younger and ergo favorable to younger candidates.  (Colorado is also a more diverse state than say, Arkansas, so minority Democrats will tend to favor minority candidates.)  If Hillary underperforms with young voters, which I assume she will if she's the nominee, that will cost her states like Colorado where the base simply won't be there for her like they were for Obama.  Those losses could be made up for in states like Arkansas, whose Democratic base tends to be older, whiter, and not surprisingly, very favorable to the Clintons.

Also keep in mind that Colorado has better known universities than Arkansas.  Ergo, younger Democratic voters.

Another way of looking at it is seeing the US as not a collection of red states and blue states, but "libertarian" states and "populist" states.  It's a shoddy way of looking at things, sure, but the lesson from this is that older "white working class" voters tend to favor populist-based establishment candidates, and other states tend to be more supportive of newcomers.

That is, at least, my interpretation of things.  Ask me why Obama carried a rural, heavily white state like Nebraska over Hillary by such a huge margin and I couldn't tell you.  The key to winning a state is empowering the state's base and that should be enough to understand.

I thought of that, too. But Hillary did well in New Hampshire, right?

White working-class New Hampshire?  She sure did.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

So, why does Hillary do worse here than Obama does?

Colorado's Democratic base is very anti-establishment.

Sorry to ask, but what do you mean by that?

Well, Hillary Clinton is a very establishment candidate.  She's a Washington insider, she has a lot of experience, she voted with the Republicans on foreign policy a lot of times, and her ideology as a whole is built around left-populism.  Contrast this to Barack Obama, who was fresh in the political scene at the time he first ran for president and represented a much younger generation of Democrats.  I don't have any statistics to back me up at the moment, but I'd assume that Colorado's Democratic base tends to be younger and ergo favorable to younger candidates.  (Colorado is also a more diverse state than say, Arkansas, so minority Democrats will tend to favor minority candidates.)  If Hillary underperforms with young voters, which I assume she will if she's the nominee, that will cost her states like Colorado where the base simply won't be there for her like they were for Obama.  Those losses could be made up for in states like Arkansas, whose Democratic base tends to be older, whiter, and not surprisingly, very favorable to the Clintons.

Also keep in mind that Colorado has better known universities than Arkansas.  Ergo, younger Democratic voters.

Another way of looking at it is seeing the US as not a collection of red states and blue states, but "libertarian" states and "populist" states.  It's a shoddy way of looking at things, sure, but the lesson from this is that older "white working class" voters tend to favor populist-based establishment candidates, and other states tend to be more supportive of newcomers.

That is, at least, my interpretation of things.  Ask me why Obama carried a rural, heavily white state like Nebraska over Hillary by such a huge margin and I couldn't tell you.  The key to winning a state is empowering the state's base and that should be enough to understand.

I thought of that, too. But Hillary did well in New Hampshire, right?

White working-class New Hampshire?  She sure did.

I thought NH was educated and rural, not industrial.

Clinton won because southeast NH (the most populous, urban part of the state) strongly favored her.  Obama did better in rural NH.

I think this speech may have had a slight impact too, but I'm not sure.  I do know that the NH primary was very close (less than 3% decided it), so it wasn't exactly "made" for either candidate.

But like I said, I can't explain why every state voted the way it did.  Colorado and Arkansas are pretty easy to explain, but many of the primary states were very competitive.