How Obama Can Win Tsunami Tuesday
Barack Obama’s campaign manager, David Axelrod, summarized last night’s South Carolina results in classic Chicago style,
“This was a good, old fashioned butt kicking — as we say in this business.”
He credited turnout, which he said approached half a million people and Obama’s broad support, including getting 24% of the white vote, according to exit polls. “He’s bring new people into the party,” Axelrod said, adding, “It’s just a harbinger of things to come.”
As we have maintained, the key to Obama’s Post Partisan appeal is to increase turnout and “grow the party”. Bill and Hillary think you have to fight like a pit bull over the existing voter pool. Barack says bring in the young, the dispossessed and the alienated. That’s what he did in Iowa and South Carolina. The Shaheen Machine in New Hampshire plus the fact that out of state New Hampshire college kids are very conservative (Dartmouth is a base of the college right wing) made that state an outlier. Barack’s remarks to George Stephanopolous on ABC this morning are key:
Savoring his landslide in the South Carolina primary, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) said Sunday that Bill Clinton is clinging to an outmoded “frame of reference” for racial politics that voters rejected this weekend.
“I don’t think [Bill and Hillary Clinton] were trying to demonize me,” Obama told George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s “This Week.”
“But I do think that there is a certain brand of politics that we’ve become accustomed to, and that the Republican Party had perfected and was often directed against the Clintons, but that all of us have become complicit in — where we basically think anything is fair game.”
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). In his victory speech last night Barack set the right tone that he must continue,
When I hear the cynical talk that blacks and whites and Latinos can’t join together and work together, I’m reminded of the Latino brothers and sisters I organized with, and stood with, and fought with side by side for jobs and justice on the streets of Chicago. So don’t tell us change can’t happen.
When I hear that we’ll never overcome the racial divide in our politics, I think about that Republican woman who used to work for Strom Thurmond, who’s now devoted to educating inner-city children and who went out onto the streets of South Carolina and knocked on doors for this campaign. Don’t tell me we can’t change.
Yes we can change.
Obviously if Bill Richardson would get off the fence and support Barack, that would help. As I said last night, it is also time for John Edwards to stop his self serving game of playing Kingmaker in a brokered convention. He should remove himself this week from the race. One more thing, If Bill Clinton insists on keeping himself in the game, Michelle Obama should just get back on the campaign trail and “take him to school.”
UPDATE: As we hoped, Ted Kennedy will endorse Obama. On This Week George Will has made the point that Obama’s pitch is that he could attract enough Republicans and Independants to produce a “Landslide Election” like 1932 or 1964 after which transformative legislation (Social Security, Civil Rights, Medicare) gets passed. Will makes the point that Hillary Clinton has a ceiling of 51% of the vote.
I am celebrating this win! This win was not for Barack Obama alone, but for all Americans. I believe desperately in what Barack and our campaign stands for – Uniting America and changing the world. I am calling on all Independent voters to seriously uplift Obama to become President and I truly believe he will uplift you and your concerns. I am calling on all Republicans that want to change America’s present unproductive path to uplift Barack to re-transform our nation and the world. I am calling on fellow democrats to turn the page and realized that we are all equal and that our fight is for a more prosperous and open society. I am calling on you to uplift Obama to take back our country and steer her on a just and efficient path. Obama campaign is a campaign to accept the young people, the new voters, the immigrants, the elderly and the hopes and dreams of us all. I support him because of his character, his commitment and his desire to bring us together. The past has pasted the future beacons!
I am celebrating this win! This win was not for Barack Obama alone, but for all Americans. I believe desperately in what Barack and our campaign stands for – Uniting America and changing the world. I am calling on all Independent voters to seriously uplift Obama to become President and I truly believe he will uplift you and your concerns. I am calling on all Republicans that want to change America’s present unproductive path to uplift Barack to re-transform our nation and the world. I am calling on fellow democrats to turn the page and realized that we are all equal and that our fight is for a more prosperous and open society. I am calling on you to uplift Obama to take back our country and steer her on a just and efficient path. Obama campaign is a campaign to accept the young people, the new voters, the immigrants, the elderly and the hopes and dreams of us all. I support him because of his character, his commitment and his desire to bring us together. The past has pasted the future beacons!
I am celebrating this win! This win was not for Barack Obama alone, but for all Americans. I believe desperately in what Barack and our campaign stands for – Uniting America and changing the world. I am calling on all Independent voters to seriously uplift Obama to become President and I truly believe he will uplift you and your concerns. I am calling on all Republicans that want to change America’s present unproductive path to uplift Barack to re-transform our nation and the world. I am calling on fellow democrats to turn the page and realized that we are all equal and that our fight is for a more prosperous and open society. I am calling on you to uplift Obama to take back our country and steer her on a just and efficient path. Obama campaign is a campaign to accept the young people, the new voters, the immigrants, the elderly and the hopes and dreams of us all. I support him because of his character, his commitment and his desire to bring us together. The past has pasted the future beacons!
I am celebrating this win! This win was not for Barack Obama alone, but for all Americans. I believe desperately in what Barack and our campaign stands for – Uniting America and changing the world. I am calling on all Independent voters to seriously uplift Obama to become President and I truly believe he will uplift you and your concerns. I am calling on all Republicans that want to change America’s present unproductive path to uplift Barack to re-transform our nation and the world. I am calling on fellow democrats to turn the page and realized that we are all equal and that our fight is for a more prosperous and open society. I am calling on you to uplift Obama to take back our country and steer her on a just and efficient path. Obama campaign is a campaign to accept the young people, the new voters, the immigrants, the elderly and the hopes and dreams of us all. I support him because of his character, his commitment and his desire to bring us together. The past has pasted the future beacons!
With respect to Obama’s wonderful quote that you cited, Jon:
“The choice in this election is not between regions or religions or genders. It’s not about rich versus poor; young versus old; and it is not about black versus white. It’s about the past versus the future.”
I love how he also is trying to speak to the “old.” In that spirit, if anyone has an “in” with the good Senator’s campaign, they should get this piece to him and/or his inner circle asap:
The item, which was featured in today’s Outlook section of the Washington Post, deals with the baby boom retirement question, and specifically the issue of longer life expectancies and a desire by many to give back in creative new ways (yet uncertain about how to do so). Here’s a salient passage:
“Making the most of this opportunity will require a round of rethinking and reform commensurate with the demographic transformation unfolding before us. We need, first of all, a vision for longer working lives that’s as appealing as the golden-years dream of shorter ones (and ever-longer retirements) was for earlier generations. That means going beyond such oxymoronic concepts as “retirement jobs” or “the working retired.” We need an ideal that swaps the old notion of the freedom from work for a new freedom to work — in new ways, on new terms, to new ends.
Today’s circumstances call for a new social compact: In return for working longer in areas of high national priority and social need, boomers should get help making the transition. Policymakers need to get rid of vestiges of the old deal, the barriers and disincentives that discourage work and penalize individuals for continuing to contribute. This means changes in Social Security, pension rules, health coverage and other areas.”
I’m convinced that this forward-looking approach to the baby boomer/work/retirement issue would strike some real chords for Obama with the over-50 generation on BOTH sides of the aisle–people who want to do more than take on a post-career job (out of necessity) at a Wal-Mart or “give back” only through non-inspiring consumption. Sure, not all will bite (as they’ll hear a “we want you to work till you drop” message and miss the main point–that for those who want it there should be life after their main career, and life with passion, spirit, and fulfillment). But many will…and if Obama were to embrace the author’s point that it will take guts, foresight, and honest thinking and explanations (and the ensuing shift in policies and strategies in Washington and corporate America), he’ll begin making even deeper inroads in the older demographic, with independents, and across the aisle. I should know–my Mom (bless her once misguided heart) was once a Nixonian Republican…but guess who she’s jazzed by these days? One Barack Obama. The times are indeed a-changin’! And for the better.
John King: here’s one who seems to have heard the call:
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/01/evolution.html
It is not how ,it is by how much the Obama is going to win by.
Craig- I think your point is tremendously important. If you look at the Dennis Hopper Ameriprise commercials, they are directed at Boomers who are about to retire and want to keep living an idealistic life.
How do we spur this idea forward
[...] How Obama Can Win Tsunami Tuesday « Jon Taplin’s Blog [...]