Obama IS the most electable. If Obama is the nominee, expect record turnouts (over 60%)

[ecstatic]

It will offset any racist defections, while bringing Independents and even a few repugs into the fold.

Millions of new minority and young voters too. The turnout in black communities might approach 100%.

We want change!

YES WE CAN.

GOBAMA GOOO!!!!

FIRED UP!!

[NJSecularist]

1. Turnout was 61% in 2004

[ProgressiveEconomist]

2. Measured how? As a percent of REGISTERED voters, or as a percent of people of age

to vote?

[NJSecularist]

5. Registered voters

[TheWraith]

3. Expect more than that. nt

[ecstatic]

20. hmmm wow I didn't know it was that high in '04

I know it will be higher this year but I wonder just how motivated non-Obama supporters will be vs. new and old supporters.

[Zynx]

27. It was the highest I think since the 60s.

It turns out a lot of voters who sit out elections aren't closet liberals. This shouldn't come as any big surprise to anyone.

[txaslftist]

4. Yep. I agree.

He'll beat McCain like a drum, even after Hillary endorses McCain.

[BzaDem]

6. Exactly what we were saying 4 years ago.

Where Kerry was 10 points ahead in the polls.

With 15% of democrats saying they will vote for McCain over Obama.

With so many scandals that have not been covered yet or brought out much by the Repugs yet.

This kind of attitude of inevitability is why we consistently lose, and probably why we deserve to.

[Qutzupalotl]

9. Kerry got swiftboated.

Obama's got a much better rapid response team.

[BzaDem]

13. Thats precisely my point.

With Kerry, they had to bring out lies to bring him down.

With Obama, they don't even need to do this. They just have to bring out facts that we know about now. Rezko, Farakhan, Ayers, the whole shebang. They will spin it out of control and change the narrative and the public's image of Obama (since he is so unknown now). Obama is (unfortunately) the most swiftboatable candidate we have ever run. And we will (again unfortunately) see the consequences of this in November.

[txaslftist]

14. Who is going to bring it out?

The media are demonstrably timorous with Obama now, and I don't think that's going to change between now and November. They're scared of him, they're scared of pissing off a substantial demographic, and they should be. He has the reverse of the war hysteria that kept Bush teflon for so long.

[BzaDem]

17. No, the media is not scared of him.

They want him to win the nomination. The MSM talked him up, and they will bring him down. They already **mildly** started to do this on March 3rd, and Obama was so flustered he ran away from a press conference of tough questions, saying he was "running late." He has no idea what's coming. It's really unfortunate that the majority of DU seems to think this will be a cakewalk.

[txaslftist]

23. He actually was running late.

And the idea of him "ducking" the press doesn't square with his debate performances or his prior dealings with the media. He can handle a hostile press, he's done so before. The idea that he's gotten only softball questions his whole career while Hillary has had to weather the storm? Hardly.

She sank her own ship.

[txaslftist]

24. He actually was running late.

And the idea of him "ducking" the press doesn't square with his debate performances or his prior dealings with the media. He can handle a hostile press, he's done so before. The idea that he's gotten only softball questions his whole career while Hillary has had to weather the storm? Hardly.

She sank her own ship.

[txaslftist]

15. Who is going to bring it out?

The media are demonstrably timorous with Obama now, and I don't think that's going to change between now and November. They're scared of him, they're scared of pissing off a substantial demographic, and they should be. He has the reverse of the war hysteria that kept Bush teflon for so long.

[ecstatic]

10. But Obama can bring more new voters in, and I don't think Hillary can

She's burned a lot of bridges with younger people and people in red states.

[txaslftist]

11. Obama isn't John Kerry.

You ought to read the latest issue of Rolling Stone. There's a fascinating article there about Obama's web-based campaign machine, and it completely explains why Obama won Texas in the caucuses, despite Hillary's winning the popular vote there. That campaign machine is barely warming up, and pretty much renders what we did with Kerry and what Clinton is doing now obsolete.

If John Edwards had used Barack's campaign model, it would be him who Hillary was offering the Veepship too, not Obama. With Obama it isn't the message so much as it is the method, and he's got it all over McCain (and Hillary, too, for that matter). He was ready to caucus in Texas six months before the Texas primary. He'll be ready for the general election in June.

He's going to win this thing running away.

[BzaDem]

16. Winning the TX caucuses won't get him a single electoral vote in Nov.

Winning 10% more in red states won't give him a single electoral vote in November.

Winning caucuses won't get him a single electoral vote in November.

You need to win PA, OH, and FL in November. You can talk up a 50-state strategy and organization till the cows come home, but in order to win red states, there has to be a huge crossover vote. Right now, twice as many democrats say they will vote for McCain than repubs voting for Obama, and that will just get worse after massive swiftboating campaign starts.

[Qutzupalotl]

21. Winning red states will.

See you in November.

[txaslftist]

22. Having a flexible, motivated and bottom up campaign structure

will win him a lot of states in November. Hillary doesn't have that. Could she beat McCain? Maybe. Can she bring the number of people to the polls for Democrats across the board that Obama can? No way. Obama will beat McCain in a landslide and bring millions of new Dem voters into the process.

I'm sorry Hillary's sense of entitlement doesn't allow her to see this, but it doesn't matter. He's already beaten her. The only issue left is whether she'll torpedo him out of malice or not.

I wish I knew the answer.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

7. This may be partly the result of an Obama technological coup, ending TV negative advertising's

domination of campaigning. See a great GD:P thread today on this at http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x5007616 .

Apparently, Obama's campaign has become the first to integrate the latest internet technology with Alinsky-type community organizing on the ground. People who attend Obama events must fill out cards with their smail-mail addresses, email addresses, and telephone numbers. All these person-by-person data go into databases that tens of thousands of local operatives use for followups until Election Day. This kind of organizing and use of technology INCREASES the proportion of people of voting age who actually go to the polls, many for the first time in their lives.

Compare this use of technology to Rove-style negative mass media buys. Many studies have demonstrated the measurable and predictable effects of negative mass-media advertising on an opponent's turnout. If you can't win them over, negative campaigning allows you to induce an opponent's supporters to become more apathetic and cynical about politics, and to stay home on Election Day. UNLESS, of course, one-way mass-media negative campaigning somehow is offset by repeated POSITIVE messages that can address media negativity in a timely fashion.

Apparently, Obama's campaign is the first to figure out just how to do this.

[Carrieyazel]

8. Yes, but a lot of the turnout will be neutralized in states no Democrat can win

His highly motivated base of supporters in places like Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, North/South Carolina will outnumbered by white voters who will vote Repube and give the state to McCain

In states like Connecticut, Delaware, Washington, Vermont, Maine etc., massive turnout isn't needed to win because any Dem would win those states.

And a small universe of Dem presidential voters in the Plains/West will easily be consumed by the vast majority of Repubes in those states.

The electoral college is not Obama's (or Hillary's) friend.

[txaslftist]

12. I think Obama is going to take Texas.

And maybe even some of those states you mentioned. As for "white voters" who are going to vote repub, don't assume that. You'd be amazed at how many white, conservative voters are pulling for Obama. Here's the secret: They're as sick of DC as you and I are, and they're ready for a major overhaul.

[Zynx]

28. In Georgia we already have a 450,000 vote margin to overcome.

That simply can't be overcome. 17% spread.

[laugle]

29. I think if Hillary

gets snubbed in the end, some women will be very offended and angry and may not vote for Obama.........

He should not take us for granted!

[Scurrilous]

18. K & R

:thumbsup:

[sonias]

19. kicking it for higher turnout

:kick:


Sonia

[Straight Shooter]

25. Every time I hear the word "electable" I want to grind my teeth.

Lawyers, Guns and Money
The Empty Calculi of Electability

The ghost of John Kerry haunts many of the various discussions about "electability" I've read on the web. There seems to be a consensus that Kerry was the nominee in 2004 because Democrats thought he was the most "electable." There's also general agreement that the Democrats were out of their minds on that one because Kerry turned out to be highly unelectable... In 2004 Iowa and New Hampshire decided the nomination for the rest of us by handing Howard Dean his hat. Maybe Iowans based their decision on Kerry's supposed greater "electability." The rest of us were just along for the ride, hoping that Kerry was in fact electable.

But the proof offered that he wasn't actually electable is simply that...he wasn't elected. There's a sense out there that Kerry should have won. This idea seems to have two meanings in one. Kerry should have won because all the advantages were his and he should have won because in a fair and just universe George W. Bush would have been thrown out of the White House on his ear and by losing to that jamoke Kerry committed a sin and a crime against nature and the nation.

Behind both senses is the belief that, no matter how electable Kerry was, George W. Bush was indisputably not re-electable. Which brings us back to this: The fact that Kerry could not get elected over an obvious loser like Bush is proof that Kerry was unelectable.

http://lefarkins.blogspot.com/2008/02/empty-calculi-of-electability.html

Electability is a myth, a talismanic word to hang around your candidate's neck to ward off the evil of potential defeat. Kerry has jinxed the word, so I'll take it one step further and say that to christen Obama as "the electable one" is the kiss of political death. Whether he can wipe that kiss off his face or not is another matter. But the words "Kerry" and "electable" are inextricably linked, just like the words "Kerry" and "flip-flop" are linked.

[cooolandrew]

26. EXACTLY, America gets it and Brack has the vision a vsion so real you can almost taste it. The

Millenium begins 2008.