Last week, Chris Cilizza posted excerpts from an Obama electability memo (h/t notlarrysabato in Breaking Blue) sent around to superdelegates. The memo touts Obama's ability to expand the map as evidence that he's a stronger nominee in November than Hillary Clinton.
"His ability to expand the Democratic base, and his ability to capture the crucial Independent vote, make him a stronger general election candidate than Senator Clinton, who would enter the fall campaign with the highest unfavorable ratings of any nominee in half a century," reads the memo. OUCH!The memo goes on to detail polling from across the country that makes their case -- breaking down the map into "big states," "traditional battlegrounds" and "making new states competitive."
Here's how the memo breaks down the states within those categories:
Big States: California, New York, New Jersey and Illinois.
Traditional Battlegrounds: Iowa, North Carolina, Oregon, Wisconsin, Michigan, New Mexico, Nevada, Minnesota and Pennsylvania.
New States: Colorado, North Dakota, Virginia, Montana and Texas.
Putting aside for a moment the absurdity of placing North Carolina on par with such blue states as Oregon, Michigan and Pennsylvania in the "traditional battleground" category, notice a couple states missing from the analysis altogether?
Two states that are not mentioned in the Obama memo are Florida, the key battleground in the 2000 presidential race, and Ohio, the Florida of the 2004 contest.
Any Democrat making a case for his electability had sure better address the scenes of the crime from 4 and 8 years ago but here instead, it's as if Obama is saying, well...that Florida and Ohio just don't matter.
It's a tough case to make to Democrats, it seems to me, that Florida and Ohio are irrelevant in the scheme of the presidential race, but it's no wonder why he'd ignore the states. According to the latest Quinnipiac University polls, taken April 23-29, not only does Hillary Clinton crush John McCain in these two states, but Obama comes up just short within the margin of error against the Republican.
Florida
Clinton (D) 49%, McCain (R) 41%
McCain (R) 44%, Obama (D) 43%Sample: 1,411 Florida voters. Margin of error: ±2.6%.
Ohio
Clinton (D) 48%, McCain (R) 38%
McCain (R) 43%, Obama (D) 42%Sample: 1,127 Ohio voters. Margin of error: ±2.9%.
As the Quinnipiac analysis puts it plainly:
"If the super delegates are looking at electability, these results could be a shot in the arm for Sen. Clinton. No one has won the White House since 1960 without carrying two of these three swing states, Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania. And she clearly is running much better against Sen. McCain than is Sen. Obama, at least for now," said Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.
Now, I've said before that, while it makes it more difficult, either Democrat can win without Florida or Ohio. You add New Mexico and Iowa to the states John Kerry won and the Democrat would need only 6 more EVs to reach the magic number of 270. Clinton could deliver that in Arkansas (6 EVs) and Obama in Colorado perhaps (9 EVs.) But when you're living in world in which the nomination is essentially in the hands of superdelegates who are likely to be swayed by traditional electability arguments, I suspect Florida and Ohio matter indeed.
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