Horserace
April 25, 2008 11:18 AM

Obama Camp: State-By-State, We're More Electable

Last night the Obama campaign released a memo to superdelegates arguing that Hillary Clinton is not the strongest Democratic general election candidate against John McCain, as her campaign has claimed.

Obama's "ability to expand the Democratic base, and his ability to capture the crucial Independent vote, make him a stronger candidate than Senator Clinton, who would enter the fall campaign with the highest unfavorable ratings of any nominee in half a century," the campaign argues.

The memo notes out a number of big states – among them California, New York, and Obama's home state of Illinois – where polls show Obama faring better or essentially equal to Clinton in head-to-head match ups against McCain. It also spotlights some "traditional battlegrounds" like Pennsylvania and Michigan and notes the relative performance of Obama and Clinton against McCain among independents.

"...when it comes to head-to-head match-ups versus John McCain, Obama performs better than Clinton in key states and shows the potential to put new states in play for Democrats up and down the ballot," the memo claims.

The Wall Street Journal has posted the full memo here.

Clinton, meanwhile, is pushing the argument that she is ahead in the popular vote – a claim that, if they buy it, could be the basis for superdelegates to throw their support behind her.

The argument is based on the inclusion of the vote totals in Florida and Michigan, two states Clinton won, and the exclusion of the results from caucus states, where accurate vote counts are not kept. Florida and Michigan's delegates were stripped because the states held their primaries before the national party permitted; the candidates did not campaign in the two states, and in Michigan, Obama's name wasn't on the ballot.

As the New York Times notes, Clinton has tried to sway uncommitted superdelegates in private meetings in Washington over the past two days, stressing her strength with women and blue-collar workers and her improved fundraising after her Pennsylvania victory.
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by formlessness-2009 April 25, 2008 8:40 PM EDT
Hillary would be the death of the democratic party. She won''t go away once she loses either, in their scorn her and Bill and their lackey''s will continue to burn Obama, they''re gonna McGovern him and in that wake destroy the party for decades to come.
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by obamaslady April 25, 2008 7:15 PM EDT
westafer2, how absolutely right you are - Limbaugh (fatso) had his pugs register as Dems in his usual attempt to alter the primary in PA, so the clintons did NOT do as well as they want to think! This country has to make major changes in order not to have these tactics continue - that is, if they actually care! They are so afraid of Obama because they know they will not be able to continue their sabatoge and other devices to screw this country!
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by obamaslady April 25, 2008 6:40 PM EDT
HRCs argument does NOT hold water; between her new math [for which there is no formula] and her complete lack of ethics and her splitting the Dem Party, she has no chance of winning the GE. If she can manage to STEAL this nomination from Obama, she will be left holding the ''proverbial bag'' because we Obama supporters will simply NOT VOTE - NOT NOW AND NOT EVER for the clintons (don''t forget you will get Slick Willie and his slick wick again). They are snakes, crooks and liars and if this country cannot do better than that in politics, then soon we will not be a country because there will be no future. Personally, I DO NOT WANT A LIAR FOR PRESIDENT SINCE I HAVE HAD TO CONTEND WITH LIARS IN BUSH/CHENEY FOR THE PAST 8 YEARS (MCSAME BEING BUSHCO AS WELL). As a result, our family will stay home rather than vote for another 4 or 8 years of LIARS!
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by igorpdx April 25, 2008 5:58 PM EDT
Thank you David Wu.

Maybe he listened to the scary unrehearsed statement Mrs. Clinton made on Good Morning America when asked about a possible Iranian attack on Israel or other Middle eastern countries.

"I want the Iranians to know that if I''''m the president, we will attack Iran," Clinton said. "In the next 10 years, during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them."

The Republicans will use this Clinton statement relentlessly if she is the Democratic nominee.

So much for calling Senator Obama''''s plan to attack the terrorists in Pakistan "irresponsible."

This should be her "nuclear obliteration/gate." Why is the media so silent about this insane thinking?

What if her intelligence is as faulty as George Bush''''s was? Then she has "obliterated" 65,000,000 Iranians by mistake?

Maybe this is the type of thinking she does at 3 AM. Hopefully she won''''t have the chance.

I trust that when Harold Ickes makes one of his "private smear" telephone calls to the superdelegates, they will reply "not this time."

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by samny2 April 25, 2008 5:48 PM EDT
To truth-hurts; The rules that the party set did not permit Michigan and Florida to change their dates and the candidates agreed that those states would not be counted. The candidates did not actively campaign like they did in the other states and Obama wasn''t even on the Michigan ballet. The process was flawed and therefore the results should not be included.
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by westafer2 April 25, 2008 5:32 PM EDT
With 99.51% of the vote counted in Pennsylvania Hillary Clinton received 1,238,232 (54.6%) votes and Barack Obama received 1,030,703 (45.4%), a %u201Cwinning margin%u201D for Clinton of 207,529 (9.2%) votes. But how many of Clinton%u2019s votes were actually phantom votes cast by John McCain supporters who will vote for McCain in November? How many McCain supporters decided to newly register as Democrats in Pennsylvania or purposely changed their existing Republican registration to Democrat specifically to vote for Clinton in the Democratic presidential primary and artificially boost her standing in hopes of causing trouble for the Democrats in accordance with Republican talk show host Rush Limbaugh%u2019s strategy of falsely promoting Hillary Clinton which he calls %u201COperation Chaos%u201D?
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by truth-hurts April 25, 2008 5:29 PM EDT
SamNY2, Just what would you suggest we do? Sounds to me like you want to scrap the whole thing. Am I right??
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by samny2 April 25, 2008 5:23 PM EDT
The Florida/Michigan vote issue needs to go away. Other countries, like the Soviet Union, hold elections with only one name on the ballet. The people vote and the winner is declared. That is not democracy and is certainly not the example America should set for the rest of the world to watch.
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by megaplazar April 25, 2008 5:04 PM EDT
STOP RACISM,AND VOTE FOR THE BEST CANDIDATE TO WIN THE GENERAL ELECTION,,U THINK THEY CAN VOTE FOR,HER YES-NO-POLICY,,BE CAREFULL OF SECOUND BUSH POLICY.
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by megaplazar April 25, 2008 5:03 PM EDT
STOP RACISM,AND VOTE FOR THE BEST CANDIDATE TO WIN THE GENERAL ELECTION,,U THINK THEY CAN VOTE FOR,HER YES-NO-POLICY,,BE CAREFULL OF SECOUND BUSH POLICY.
Reply to this comment
by samny2 April 25, 2008 5:03 PM EDT
The Florida/Michigan vote issue needs to go away. Other countries, like the Soviet Union, hold elections with only one name on the ballet. The people vote and the winner is declared. That is not democracy and is certainly not the example America should set for the rest of the world to watch.
Reply to this comment
by obamasgranny April 25, 2008 4:59 PM EDT

The Democratic Party cannot withhold the nomination from Obama because some racists won''''t like it. That is ridiculous!
_________________________________
That is ridiculous!! Let''s see,...Obama has 98% of the Black vote, does Hillary have 98% of the white vote? I didn''t think so!! keep playing the race card Obam-Bots!! It is obvious where the racism is coming from!!

Bad Obama-bot!! No Kool-Aid for you!!
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by susan10001-2009 April 25, 2008 4:35 PM EDT
The rules are simple. The person with the most delegates, wins.

The Democratic Party cannot withhold the nomination from Obama because some racists won''t like it. That is ridiculous!
Reply to this comment
by waitfornov April 25, 2008 4:25 PM EDT
Please nominate Obama! Please, please, please.

Obama will get spanked in November.
Reply to this comment
by igorpdx April 25, 2008 4:02 PM EDT
"Why do a majority of voters continue to waste their vote on someone who''''s unelectable?" Memekiller

Memekiller:

I assume you are talking about the Clintons and their negatives in all of the national polls. People simply don''t want a third term for these drama queens. We suffered enough last time under their many indiscretions. The government was literally paralyzed for years after the Monica Lewinsky, Whitewater, travelgate, filegate scandals- not to mention the "suicide" of one of their key advisors Vince Foster. The pardons of 140 felons on their last day in office capped their whole ugly sojourn in the Clinton White House. They both have far too much "baggage" in the closet.

The Clintons are dividers that offer plenty of "solutions." but no intentions of ever getting them done.

Superdelegates: Please hang up the phone on Harold Ickes and his underground group of smear artists. Send "the girl from Scranton" back to her estate in Chappaqua, New York. Otherwise the Clintons will once again tear the Democratic Party apart.

Not this time.
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by okgal08 April 25, 2008 3:55 PM EDT
Hillary just won in Pennsylvania, which should prove there are lots of people in this country that would prefer her. I was about to buy in on the Obama thing, until I saw his reverand of 20 years ask that God *** our country. Race has nothing to do with it, but his judgement in choice of pastoral guidance raises big red flags for me and a lot of the people I have talked with about it. Believe me there are lots of people not too pleased that he may be our only option to another 4 years of "Bush-like" government! Scary times!
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by almitaaa April 25, 2008 3:45 PM EDT
Senator Obama is politicaly lynched by 3 politicians. He is a threat to Republicans that is the reason of the new attacks by republicans.
Republican wants Clinton to be the nominee because Condoleza Rice will be the VP Condoleza Rice is more articulate and will have more intelligent arguments about war than Mrs. Clinton.

Senator Mc Cain has stage II melanoma diagnosed in year 2000, stage II melanoma has 50% survival to 5 years, He already has recurrence of the melanoma, probably he has stage III cancer and that makes him a time bomb, that will leave condoleza Rice as US Presidence, Republican are taking advantage of the polarization of democratic party.
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by stevepam-2009 April 25, 2008 3:41 PM EDT
Youtube Hillary Clinton Peter Paul
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by igorpdx April 25, 2008 3:40 PM EDT
"I want the Iranians to know that if I''m the president, we will attack Iran," Clinton said. "In the next 10 years, during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them."

The Republicans will use this Clinton statement relentlessly if she is the Democratic nominee.

So much for calling Senator Obama''s plan to attack the terrorists in Pakistan "irresponsible."

This should be her "nuclear obliteration/gate." Why is the media so silent about this insane thinking?

What if her intelligence is as faulty as George Bush''s was? Then she has "obliterated" 65,000,000 Iranians by mistake?

Maybe this is the type of thinking she does at 3 AM. Hopefully she won''t have the chance.
Reply to this comment
by waitfornov April 25, 2008 3:38 PM EDT
Please nominate Obama! Please, please, please.

Obama will get spanked in November.
Reply to this comment
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