Following up on "the other Klein's" observations about SC (which I covered here), Ezra writes:
At this point, there are two main electability arguments in the primary. There's Clinton, who assures us that she understands the smear machine, and can match whatever it throws at her, and there's Obama, who assures us that he can make Americans understand the smear machine, and condition them to reject whatever filth it generates. It's hard to believe the latter is viable, but it's certainly better. And, in South Carolina, it appears to have happened.
Maybe I'm just naive, and maybe I'm too idealistic, but I don't think its all that hard to believe that Obama's strategy is viable. Its rare that such a strategy would work - you need the right person at the right historical moment - but given both of those, anything is possible.
If you can change the metaphor, you can change the world.
UPDATE: Joe Taplin takes a look at the Super Tuesday map and concludes:
Looking at the blue & purple states (Red represents Republican only Primary) on the Tsunami Tuesday map above, a couple of themes resonate from last night’s coalition. First, Barack can take the South (Tennessee, Georgia and Alabama), ceding only Arkansas to the Clinton Machine. In the urban northeast, Obama should be able to fight Clinton to a draw, maybe pulling Massachusetts to his column, especially if Ted Kennedy joins John Kerry and his niece Caroline Kennedy in endorsing Barack. He wins the biggest prize in the Midwest, Illinois and ekes out a victory in the Minnesota Caucus because he gets the Iowa type college student participation.
That leaves the Far West as the battleground. The key will be to build upon the coalition of boomers, their children, black voters and most importantly to make a strong message that the Clinton’s cannot set Hispanics against a Black candidate the way they tried (and maybe succeeded in Nevada).
Long-time readers of this blog know that for as long as I have been writing about the potential for a realignment in 2008 or 2012, I've been stressing the importance of the transformation of the states of the Mountain West. At first it sounded crazy - the idea that Montana, Colorado, Nevada, and Arizona could move into the Democratic column was just too much for some people to take. But then people like Schweitzer, Napolitano, Richardson, Salazar, Tester, Freudenthal, and Ritter started winning elections, and pretty soon the idea that Rockies could turn blue didn't seem quite so nuts.
And now, in 2008, we come to the showdown on Super Tuesday, and look which states loom large? Colorado, New Meixco, Arizona, Utah, and Idaho. I've long argued it would take a new kind of Democrat to complete the transformation of the Mountain states. It looks like in less than 2 weeks my theory will be put to a very real test. Stay tuned...
Subscribe to this blog's feed
