2012: Hillary Clinton vs John McCain

[Bo]

McCain will narrowly win if the unemployment rate is 7.5% or lower. Clinton will narrowly win if the unemployment rate is 7.6% or higher.

[Bo]

No way. If unemployment is about 6.5% with a democrat in office, then the democrats lose. Everyone forgets how much a bad economy hurt Jimmy Carter in 1980. It hurts the incumbent party, not just the Republicans.

Unemployment was 7.5% when Carter lost his reelection bid, not 6.5%. There is a difference between a 6.5% and a 7.5% unemployment rate, especially in terms of public perception.

[Bo]

no way. Never forget how many ppl are against Hillary and can't stand her. She would never win Arkansas in today's day and age. She would be associated with Obama. Conservatives would talk about her views on healthcare. It's just not something that could happen. In 2008 I think it would've come down to Ohio for her and McCain.

Does that exclude the majority of Democratic primary voters (18 million+) who voted for her, the 77% approval ratings she has as Secretary of State and not to mention how she's been named the most admired woman in America for the past 7-8 years? I flagrantly disregard the "people can't stand her" claims. If anything, she's proving to be the winner in this failing administration.

And the only reason Obama lost Arkansas by such a large margin, and why Democrats are in such trouble in Arkansas going into 2010, is because she wasn't the nominee. Of course she would win Arkansas. With her on top of the ticket, the state would have swung probably more Democratic in 2008 than it did Republican. But I'm sure the people in Arkansas did not appreciate the way the Democratic establishment threw her under the bus in 2008 and now they're making them pay for it. Why else would a state as heavily Democratic as Arkansas, where Democrats maintain super-majority status in the state legislature not to mention controlling all statewide executive offices, just all of a sudden swung so suddenly and strongly away from their roots? Yes, I'm sure race had something to do with it, but the Clinton factor is/was the determining reason. I'm sure if you could find any hypothetical general election match-up poll in Arkansas say between Hillary and any generic Republican, she would crush them all, save for Mike Huckabee which it would be a close race. 

Arkansas is only a Democratic state on the state and local level. On the Presidential level it has become solidly Republican--even before Obama, Gore and Kerry both lost the state. Even on the state level Arkansas might become more Republican now.

[Bo]

If McCain's approval numbers are in the mid fifties (53-57) he certainly wins.

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