2008: More Election Fallout + Obama's November Nuke

Pundit David Brooks sees 2008 shaping up has a very different election than 2000 & 2004.  The previous two were "base elections"--won by the GOP turning its base out better than did the Democrats.  But 2008 will be, writes Brooks, a contest for the swing-vote middle.Obama has been, essentially, McGovernized--perceived by much of the electorate as more liberal than the country as a whole is (correctly so viewed).  But the GOP cannot simply pull out the GOP anti-liberal playbook, because the GOP is a damaged brand in American politics today.  Key this year: Compared to 10 percent undecided in 2004, a whopping 36 percent of voters in 2008 say they are undecided.

RCP's Jay Cost details Obama's big night.  Hill ran poorer among three core white groups that helped her win Ohio & PA: women, union households and Catholics.  ABC's Jake Tapper offers a to-do list for Hillary between now & June 3, for what meager chance she may have.  The centrality of race to Obama's success is a theme stressed by Jay Carney & Robert Novak in Human Events.

Obama's November Nuke.  No, not a call to "bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran!" per Big Mac last year.  No, not yet another repudiation of his toxic pastor.  Obama's nuclear option is a huge jump in black turnout, which he may get without inflammatory rhetoric, aiding by a mainstream media that literally lay down for him last week, with his latest strategic time-step re his pastor.  The black vote is 12 percent of the voting electorate.  Blacks comprise about 22 percent of the NC racial demographic yet were 1/3 of the vote in North Carolina.  Thus, blacks turned out May 6, 2008 at a rate 50 percent higher than their population share would indicate.  This, against a white liberal formerly popular with blacks.  Now imagine the fall and a GOP opponent, John McCain, who voted against the Martin Luther King holiday ins 1983.  Yes, Big Mac recanted on King's birthday this year, but how much ice will that cut with black voters?  And how motivated will they be to turn out in the fall?

John Podhoretz notes that Democrats turned out 30 million votes in the 2008 primaries, 50 percent more than showed up in 2004, and that John Kerry, a way-lefty, polled 59 million votes in 2004, second in US history to Dubya's 62 million.  WSJ's Dan Henninger observes that had blacks voted in the same percentage in 2008 as in 2004, Hill would be the nominee.  DH says McCain cannot win by running against Rev. Wright, but should instead stress Obama's naivete re Iran, likening Obama (correctly) to Jimmy Carter.

Highly.  If blacks turn out at 18 percent, 50 percent higher than their national total, as they did in NC, that is 18 percent of voters.  Obama will win over 95 percent, probably, 98 or 99 percent.  So make is 17-1 Obama.  He starts with a 16-point bulge.  For Mac to win, drop 1 percent for fringe candidates, and of the remaining 81 percent Mac needs to win them 49-32, or, in percentage terms, Mac must win 65 percent of the non-black vote.  He figures to lose Hispanics, though narrowly.  Let's say Hispanics, 14 percent of the population, are 14 percent of voters, and Obama wins them 8-6.  Mac needs 43 -24 among the rest (whites & Asians), or 64 percent.  So Mac's white vote share must be at or near 70 percent, which was what Reagan, a hugely popular incumbent, won over Mondale in 1984.  This is a tall order in a year when the GOP is disliked by many voters.

Blacks are concentrated disproportionately in the big cities, so their electoral influence is amplified by their impact on the electoral college arithmetic.  Obama need not openly appeal to them racially.  He can woo independents and still get nearly 100 percent of blacks to turn out for "their own" candidate,.  Blacks will truly be able to say that they put their man in the White House.  And they will expect much in return for same.