I post this with great trepidation. I mean it as analysis, not as a judgment of any sort.

Please be kind.

"with his support from African Americans, Obama could lose everyone else by 20 points and still win the popular vote."

Gallup survey polling disagrees: (excerpts)

But it appears that the way Obama stacks up against McCain at this point is similar to the way in which Kerry performed against Bush in 2004 within several key racial, educational, religious, and gender subgroups. That is, the basic underlying structure of the general-election campaign this year does not appear to be markedly different from that of the 2004 election.

This overall comparison, in and of itself, suggests that Obama, assuming he captures the Democratic nomination, begins the general-election contest in roughly the same position in which Kerry ended his unsuccessful quest in 2004 -- that is, with the prospect of a very close race.

Democratic candidates at the presidential level have traditionally received the overwhelming majority of black votes. In 2004, Kerry won over Bush among blacks by 88% to 11%. At this point, Obama is winning over McCain by a 91% to 5% margin. So, there is little difference in how Obama fares among blacks compared to how Kerry did in 2004, in part a result of the already very high, "pre-existing" Democratic tilt of black voters as seen in previous presidential elections.

At the moment, Gallup Poll Daily tracking indicates that this November's election could be close, as has been the popular vote in 2000 and 2004. In other words, just as 2004 was in many ways a replay of 2000, this year's election could be a replay of 2004 with minor changes around the edges.

Certainly the current data show that the patterns of support for Obama when he is pitted against McCain -- among various key racial, educational, religious, and gender groups -- do not look like they have changed dramatically from the 2004 contest between Kerry and Bush.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/107110/Obamas -Support-Similar-Kerrys-2004.aspx

Agreed.

Looking back, I have a slightly different take. Before Iowa, it was my belief that Obama had to win Iowa, NH, and SC to really have a shot. Clinton's lead in national polls was just too substantial for me to believe that Iowa alone would make him competitive. And, as an active volunteer in SC who consistently witnessed the AA reluctance to support Obama, I certainly felt that Clinton would retain at least 30-40% of the AA vote even with a victory in Iowa and NH. A couple of things changed this.

First was Oprah. It seems silly, but I can express enough how much the rally here in SC did to excite things (among all voters, but especially the AA community).

Secondly, yes, the win in IA helped a lot. The day after IA, everyone in my area (Charleston, SC) was suddenly a supporter. Again, it wasn't just the black vote, but the younger white vote.

Between IA and SC, things just got really weird. I never was inclined to characterize various statements from the Clintons and surrogates as racist. And, there were certainly some unfair reactions to many remarks. There was, however, a certain kind of dismissiveness about the Clinton rhetoric that upset Obama supporters, particularly African Americans. Bill Clinton's attitude toward Obama when he appeared on Charlie Rose was particularly insulting and disrespectful. I'm sure many would disagree, but that's how many of his supporters felt.

That said, both campaigns were disappointing during that period. I emailed to Obama campaign several times urging them to have a little more class. Things got a little better just before SC primary day. In any case, as we know, Obama won SC big, which he needed to remain truly viable. It was an awesome, emotional night for me personally. I had really lost a lot of "hope" after NH, but I was optimistic again.

Another next big deal was the farsightedness of the Obama campaign. I remember seeing on onemillionstrong (an Obama community blog) all these reports about offices opening in Utah, Idaho, Nebraska, etc. I had no idea it would make such a huge difference, but it is what kept Obama in the race after Feb. 5. He would not have made it past super tuesday on the strength of AAs alone. Only a few of his wins relied on heavily AA support (GA, AL, MO, and DE).

All this allowed him to take advantage of the post-Feb 5 states in February, where he had both organizational and demographic advantages. And, he won very big in almost all of them, building an insurmountable delegate lead. In my mind, it was really over after Wisconsin.

Since then, it has just been a predictable exchange of victories, with hardly any surprises. Well, that's not quite true. Obama did go through a very rough period, which had the potential to change things dramatically. I know that when I first saw the Rev. Wright clips, I told my wife that it's over. The tapes didn't really bother me, but the coverage was just too damaging. However, Obama made it through--damaged, to be sure.

Anyway, that's how I remember it. When I started posting here about a year ago, I had no idea it would be this exciting. I watched an inevitable Hillary charge ahead, and it didn't seem to matter what we did. Iowa did change that more than anything. But, as we know, that was just the beginning of a lot of madness.

You've been a good voice for your candidate, so thanks for that.

that I'm ashamed of.  I was SO wrong.  I wrote this the night Obama lost the New Hampshire primary.  On DailyKos, Jan 8:

Actually, I think it might be too late to jump (17+ / 0-)

on the Obama train.  We'll have a better idea of that in coming days.  But the window of opportunity for stopping Hillary may have passed tonight.  

If there is still a chance for Obama, he could use the help.  But I think the people still supporting Edwards, at this point, have already reconciled themselves to the probability of a Hillary victory without qualms.   Those, like me, that were ready to switch from Edwards to Obama to stop Hillary, already have, I suspect.

I can't believe Markos's front-page comment that, oh boy, now it's a real race.  No.  It's not.  There was never any chance of it being a real race that would extend to February 5.  The only real chance of stopping the establishment candidate, Hillary, was to do it early and with momentum.  And tonight was devastating, even if Obama loses by just a couple of points, because the expectations were so dramatically at odds that it is like an earthquake.

I'd still like to know WHY this happened, though.  There is something really screwy going on here.  Wilder effect?  The "Tears?"  Tweety?  GOTV failure?  We really need to know before we can fully evaluate any plan.

I'll call Obama's L.A. office tomorrow to volunteer.  I'd do it tomorrow but I'm too depressed for that.  I wasn't sure who I was going to work for this primary (I sorta had a prior campaign commitment), but I guess I'll hate myself now if I don't at least try.

So, no, I don't think that Obama had it won as soon as he won Iowa.  There were a NUMBER of critical points at which Hillary blew it.  But I can point to three:

1. The AUMF vote.  She and Bill made lifelong enemies of many people in the base, like me.  They even acknowledged this in that HuffingtonPost tape where they blamed their loses on "activists" that don't like her foreign policy.  She had plenty of opportunities later, as well, to moderate her position, but she kept aggravating the situation, such as with the Kyl-Lieberman vote, last November, and her "obliterate" comments just two weeks ago.

2. The race-baiting.  Oh, I KNOW how that makes people angry.  Personally, I don't care about this as much as the war, but it really did offend a number of people, including many in the AFrican-American community who are sensitive to those dogwhistles, or at the very minimum, their perceptions of those dogwhistle calls.  When Clyburn called out Bill Clinton for that, it solidified opinion.  Before South Carolina, the Clintons were doing reasonably well with African-Americans.  After South Carolina, they lost them for good in extraordinarly lop-sided numbers.

3. And this is a huge strategic mistake... they didn't plan for post-Super Tuesday.  They didn't plan for the expenses, they didn't plan for the campaigning.  As a lifelong tournament chess player, I find myself stunned by this. These people were supposed to be the pros!  This didn't need to happen.

After that, everything else kind of fell like dominos.  We can point out a few other mistakes, perhaps, after that, but they all pale in comparison, because the Obama February sweep doomed them.  No matter how well they campaigned, they were very unlikely to repair the damage.

That's my take on it.

Yes, Obama pulled impressive numbers with African-Americans.  Still, they are a distinct minority within the Democratic Party, and any winning coalition would have to include far more than just their votes.  Obama has obviously got a coalition that could win.

I've seen a lot of people also make the claim that Hillary had an inherent advantage due to women making up between 55% and 60% of the vote in every state, with the usual retort being that she is not racking up 90% of the vote with women.  True, she isn't, but narrow the category to white women, and she gets over 60% in most states, narrow it to white women over the age of 50 and the percentage rockets up even higher.  We can all parse demographics however we like to show what we want to see.  White women over the age of 50 are also a minority demographic within the Democratic primaries, and she pulled impressive numbers with them too.

In summary, both Obama and Clinton had groups of people that believed very much in their candidacies, perhaps it started with a sense of affinity, but that just got them to take a closer look, and most probably liked the policies too.

It's no secret that a much higher percentage of the Clinton supporters here (and elsewhere on the internet) are women than the usual blogging crowd, which tends to be mostly male.

Obviously, people like alegre and Jeralyn over at TalkLeft are not supporting Clinton just because of gender, but I don't doubt that it played a part in getting them to notice Hillary Clinton early on when the field of candidates was still large.  Of course, they support her policies and feel she would be the best president, but occasionally you will see them refer to the struggle women face in politics, and mention how Hillary is giving hope to women across America.  It plays a role, just as Obama is inspiring African-Americans all over the country.

The Democratic Party is great because of its diversity and commitment to equality.  The fact that our last two candidates standing this year are a woman and an African-American says a lot about how far we've come.  And I would be remiss to ignore the fact that a Latino candidate beat the likes of experienced politicians Dodd and Biden.  Had Richardson caught fire and made it into the top tier, he may also have pulled astronomical numbers among Latinos.  And heck, Edwards ran the most openly populist campaign of any top tier Democrat in recent memory, which makes him a minority in his own way among the corporate friendly Democrats that control our party...

Just take a look at the 10 white guys the GOP served up last year.  I'm proud to be a Democrat, and despite the internal divisions we sometimes face, I'm pretty sure that at the end of the day we'll come together.

However AA were not the group who made him viable, it was the citizens of Iowa.

And two, there have been other AA candidates.  This is not simply racial.  He has his own unique qualities.  The AA vote has not been at all monolithic in the past and has rejected black candidates.  This is mostly about who Obama is, not what he is.

And if white women had voted as a bloc in the same manner as AA's did for Obama - Hillary would have been the nominee easily.

Although white women did turn out to be her largest voting bloc - they did not support her in the 70% range which would have tipped these scales massively.

For that to have happened, she would have had to play the gender card (just as his camp played the race card) and she NEVER DID THIS.

Very interesting theory. I've long thought that she lost the nomination on Feb 5, though none of us knew it then. She thought it would be over that day. She had no strategy for later states, whereas Obama always knew it would be a long race. She lost so many contests in a row because she was unorganized and unprepared. By the time she got her campaign back on track, it was too late. Oh well... hindsight is 20/20.