Palin/Armey vs Obama/Biden

[pbrower2a]

Im not really sure even Palin would win Alaska.

Id see it happen more like this:

Yeah, that seems about right.  Obama could win Montana too, though. Kentucky would be a bit of a stretch, I think.  And I don't think many white people in Arkansas or Louisiania are ready to vote for a black man, but other than that the map is pretty good.

The south isn't as biggoted as you seem to think; or more accurately those who vote in the south are not as biggoted as you think.

It depends, I don't say all whites were bigots, but I suspect there are at least quite a few.  A large number of southern counties shifted solidly into the Republican collum during an overall 9% shift to the Democrats nationwide.  Pretty odd, don't you think?  Even though white votes in genral voted for the Republican, the case was much more extreame in the South.  McCain got 80%+ of the white vote in Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiania.  And most of the other states he got around 70% or so of white voters.  In many other states, Republicans get in the 50% or low 60% range, which, in comarison to the numbers in several southern states, is much smaller. 

What those numbers say is that a large majority of southern whites are conservative, not racist.  You are right, there are some who are racist but they are a minority.  The number of racists that vote is an even more miniscule number.  Generally, and yes this is a blanket statement, racists are uneducated white trash uninterested in politics when it goes beyond parroting Rush Limbaugh to actually getting off the couch/out of the trailer and voting.

Alright,  but voting differences of that magnitude seems at least somewhat odd during a very Democratic year.

It's a symptom of the increasing polarization of American politics.  I predict we will see it even more in 2012.

I suspect that interstate polarization peaked in 2008. Barack Obama's campaign strategy targeted states that he thought he had a good chance of winning, and his campaign completely ignored those that he seemed unable to turn fast enough. So he spent lots of time in Indiana and his campaign flooded the media with ads; contrast Tennessee.Is Tennessee that much more conservative than Indiana? That's how the opportunities appeared.

Southern whites thought that as a black man from Chicago that he would be another Jesse Jackson -- a rabble-rousing ghetto fighter more likely to see social causes (oppression and poverty) to crime than personal vice. Southern whites are also more deferential to the military than others, and John McCain was a legitimate war hero.

Recent polls suggest that President Obama has been gaining in some of the Southern states (notably Kentucky, South Carolina, and Tennessee) where he lost by margins in excess of 8%. It could be that President Obama has not realized the fears of Southern whites. Southern whites hate crime -- but President Obama has proved anything but soft on crime. He has also gone after economic corruption  by Wall Street shysters who have never garnered sympathy in the South.  The South is about as much populist as it is conservative, and if Obama gets populist results without the fiery rhetoric typical of a populist, then Obama does far better in the South in 2012 than in 2008. Barack Obama did not run as a populist in 2008 and probably couldn't have gotten away with doing so.


Southern whites will probably give him more of a break in 2012 if he shows that even if he is a black man he isn't the black man that they feared.  He's no Uncle Tom, but he is no rabble-rousing demagogue, either.

[pbrower2a]

328-210

This coincidentally is about the best case scenario I can see for Obama against any opponent.

You honestly think that Palin can win back Indiana and New Hampshire?  That would be more like the map for if Gingrich ran.

I honestly think that, with the sorry state the economy and the country will be in by 2012, even Palin will be able to defeat Obama. Democrats should be careful what they wish for in hoping Palin is the GOP nominee.

LOL, Pollster shows her Favorable to unfavorable numbers are at -15%.  Using the same standard, Obama's fv/ufv are at +5% on Pollster, which is different than his Job Approval (although his job approval is at -4%).   But Palin isn't holding office, so the fav/unfav is the only comparable standard.

It won't matter who the opponent is.

Barack Obama will be as electable in 2012 as Herbert Hoover was in 1932.

Obama hasn't been claimed responsible for 20% unemployment like Hoover was.  Plus, compared to other presidents two years into their terms, he's actually doing okay.  Even compared to Clinton and Reagan.

And did the polls I listed mean anything?

Like Presidents Reagan and Clinton, President Obama has taken his chances early and taken his lumps. So far he has rarely attacked GOP leaders who have offered little other than "back to [George Worthless] Bush". The alternative is either to do little and hope that all goes well or (and I thought this impossible until I saw Dubya do it) lie one's way into what looks like an easy and cheap triumph.

What do the polls mean? That President Obama will have some campaigning to do in 2012 if he wants to be re-elected. The polls suggest that if he doesn't state his case in time, then he will surely be defeated.  But he has a case -- that his Presidency has made things generally better. Do the Republican right-wingers? Only by default, and only if they can hoodwink Americans into believing that the most rapacious and ruthless people are the only ones who can accomplish anything.