Obama's Hillary Problem

Over at Daily Kos, DemFromCT puts a worrisome stress on the "fundamentals" of the 2008 election.

The important numbers are Bush at 31 and wrong track at 82. McCain may run better than most other Republicans, but he still has to run against the fundamentals. In addition to right track/wrong track and Bush unpopularity, far more people (38%) are uncomfortable with McCain's age than an African-American President (12%) or a woman President (16%) - the explanation for the pushback against McCain 'losing his bearings'.

Obama will run as a fresh face, and do his best to highlight where McCain and Bush are inseparable (Iraq, health care and the economy). McCain will do the usual Republican shtick about "liberals and Pelosi and San Francisco values", all the things that didn't work in IL and LA special elections (there are new Dem congressmen as a
consequence).

I'm optimistic about the chances for Obama in the general election. I think he'll win by something like 57-43. Currently, the ABC/WashPost poll has Obama up by 7. Others have Obama by 9 or 11. That looks good given that Obama is probably in a trough as a result of the Jeremiah Wright and "bitter white people" comment.

McCain has all of those "fundamentals" going against him as well.

Interestingly enough, Hillary Clinton had a lot of fundamentals going for her at the beginning of the Democratic primaries. She had universal name recognition, nostalgia value from the Clinton years, an experienced campaign team, good poll numbers, and the prospect of being able to raise record amounts of money.

But she still lost because a good chunk of her support was never very solid and her campaign turned off a lot of undecided Democrats with its arrogance, clumsiness, and racially-tinged comments.

Unfortunately, Obama has the same problem. He's solid with upper-income white liberals and suburbanites, African-Americans, and young voters. But support from independents, moderates, hispanics, and blue-collar whites is hesitant and thin. In the final analysis, Obama is going to convince large constituencies of uncertain voters to vote for him over John McCain. The presidency isn't going to be handed to Obama as the default candidate of the Democratic Party. Obama is going to have to "win" it.