After the past 11 political contests, it seems that the once well-oiled Clinton machine is starting to see some oxidation. Even though the past 11 primaries and caucuses have not gone Clinton’s way, that is no excuse to dismiss Obama’s wins as unimportant — especially when you consider that he won in such a smart and stylistic fashion (similar to his clothes).
According to the Clinton camp, the Southern states (South Carolina, Louisiana, Georgia) weren’t really of consequence because Obama had the black vote in his basket. Plus, they’ve become redder states in recent years, so it’d be harder for a Democrat to win there in the general election.
Then Obama won Washington, Nebraska and Maine; followed by Utah, Idaho and Colorado. But Obama naturally does well in caucuses because he attracts more affluent voters who can make it to the caucuses on time before they close, so it’s really not fair to Clinton, as her base is mainly blue collar voters and primaries allow her voters to come through on Election Day.
The Potomac Primaries really aren’t a good assessment either, because Obama was expected to win those. Plus, like the Deep South, they have a large contingent of blacks and they’re toss-up states for the general election. (Conventional wisdom thought that Clinton was supposed to do well in primaries.)
And finally we come down to the two most recent contests: Wisconsin and Hawaii. Obama’s wins in the Aloha and Badger states again aren’t significant to the Clinton camp because Wisconsin has independent voters and Hawaii is like Obama’s second home state, in addition to Illinois (which didn’t really matter either). For the icing on the caucus cake, Obama won the Democrats Abroad contest, winning nearly two-thirds of the voters.
For those keeping score, we might as well discount a good chunk of Americans. You have to wonder, if all these states didn’t count, then which states do?
For starters, New York counts, because that’s Clinton’s home state, although if you ask me, she didn’t win any home state. Just because she carpetbagged herself to a state where there was an open seat as a New York Senator, doesn’t qualify as her “home.” Her actual home state would be Illinois, where she grew up in a suburb of Chicago, and she only got 33 percent of the Democratic primary voters.
The petty comments regarding her losses are a lot of excuse making — reminiscent of the broken down Washington we are trying to change. The $64,000 question is, can Clinton rebound to save her bid for the nomination, and if it really looks like she can’t, will she continue to downplay the states that Obama wins from here on out? At this point, it looks like Texas and Ohio will be the political mirrors on the wall to determine who really is the most presidential of them all.