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A lot of people are hoping that Indiana will put an end to this contentious contest between the Democratic Presidential nominees, so this may be the last time for this thread. There is a feeling that if Barack Obama can run the table and win both Indiana and North Carolina, the race should be over. The two states together have 187 delegates at stake. Depending on whose count you accept and how many delegates he captures that could put Obama within about 150-250 delegates of sewing up the nomination. That lead would be too much for Clinton to overcome in the remaining contests unless she wants to drag this out until Obama actually wins enough delegates in the remaining primaries to have a majority.
According to CNN’c much-discussed and valuable “delegate meter,” if Obama were to win both contests, even by a narrow margin Clinton could not catch him in total delegates even if she piles up an improbable 70% of the vote in the contests remaining after Tuesday. Her only hope would be to snag more superdelegates. So, in short, Indiana may be the key to how much longer this contest goes on.
North Carolina
I had not included North Carolina because up until the last minute it seemed Obama would win the state. Admittedly his lead had gone from double digits to single, but still seemed secure. This morning the polls have narrowed even further, but even more ominously note the rapidly rising line for Hillary Clinton in this poll from Real Clear Politics.
The most logical outcome is a split, but as close as the polls are, it is easily possible either candidate could win both. If Obama pulls off the double-double he is all but assured the nomination. Should Clinton win both it will bolster her case that she is the only candidate who can win. But unless she wins big–which is unlikely–the scenario is a protracted fight. The other equally scary risk is that Party officials will step in to broker a deal–which neither candidate’s supporters will stomach.
Frankly Obama needs at least one win to prove his mettle. Otherwise the talk that he is unelectable will continue to grow. The responsibility for this lies partly with Obama and partly with his supporters. The strategy of remaining above the fray by claiming to be pursuing a new kind of politics increasingly looks to be a failure. At some point people expect a candidate to fight back.
More telling is that Obama’s big name supporters have left him to fight alone. While Hillary Clinton has the considerable efforts of her husband and various surrogates, Obama’s supporters have not been as vocal or visible. Where are they when he needs them most?
To me this is a more telling argument than Reverend Wright or his bowling score or whether he wears a flag pin. If his support is so lukewarm as to desert him in his time of need, then he is in deep trouble. His campaign is beginning to resemble a fourth quarter collapse where the home town fans sit on their hands or leave the stands instead of rallying their team.
Indiana
Polling data currently shows Clinton with lead in Indiana. Here are the latest polling data for the state .
Source: RealClearPolitics
This poll is perhaps the most interesting of the campaign, for its lines provide a history of the campaign’s ups and downs. We see Clinton’s early large lead, then the surge for Obama, and now a new surge for Clinton. In about one week Obama has declined about eight points–an incredible slide for a campaign that has been going on this long. This race has gone from too close to call to a clear Clinton lead in less than a week.
Of course, the press will try to invoke Reverend Wright as the cause of this decline, so perhaps we should have a column on the table below for how many times his name is mentioned.
Primary Rules
Indiana, as everyone probably already knows, is an open primary. With the Republican Presidential race over, that means GOP voters can throw a wrench into things. Rush Limbaugh has openly urged that his dittoheads vote for Hillary Clinton. This prompted Indiana Law Professor Pat Baude to: comment:
While it would be difficult to prosecute individual voters, it is a crime for Limbaugh to encourage such actions. A third party who induces a voter to engage in felonious conduct is, himself, committing a felony.
There is an interesting twist to this, though. Indiana election law states:
IC 3-10-1-9
Challenging voter
Sec. 9. A voter in a precinct may challenge a voter or person who offers to vote at a primary election. The challenged person may not vote unless the challenged person:(3) either:
(A) at the last general election voted for a majority of the regular nominees of the political party for whose candidates the challenged person proposes to vote in the primary election and intends to vote for the regular nominees of the political party at the next general election; or
(B) if the challenged person did not vote at the last general election, intends to vote at the next general election for a majority of the regular nominees of the political party holding the primary election.
In other words, if a voter happens to see some of those dittoheads trying to vote in the Democratic primary, she or he can challenge them. The problem is how do you verify this past voting? According to the law the voter executes an “oral or written affidavit.”
There is a second wrinkle to this. Everyone also knows about the Supreme Court’s voter ID decision, but how many remember what sparked the voter ID laws in the first place? It was Indian’s lousy voter record-keeping. So we have a state where in 2006, the Secretary of State admitted:
As many as 1 in 4 registrations are no longer accurate.
While Indiana has worked to correct this, the primary will be the first big test.
Also troubling are reports by Verified Voting about how Indiana will count the results.
Indiana does not yet have a law requiring voter-verified paper records or voter-marked paper ballots. A majority of votes in the May 6 primary will be cast on paperless electronic machines that cannot be properly audited, and some votes will be cast on optically scanned paper ballots. There will be no post-election audit.
According to the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette in early April:
Secretary of State Todd Rokita has filed a court petition to begin collecting more than $360,000 in fines from one of Indiana’s primary voting equipment companies – MicroVote General Corp.
So in short we have a state with questionable voter rolls, questionable voting machines and a potential cross-over problem. It sounds like a recipe for a perfect storm. Don’t be surprised if the primary results are disputed given what is at stake.
Demographics (Census Data)
The big picture is that like Ohio Indiana should be a Clinton state. Its demographics very closely parallel those of neighboring Ohio, which Clinton won comfortably–54% to 44%.
Obama will need a high turnout of African American voters to offset Clinton’s current lead in the polls and that means Gary and the East Chicago area. Census data show African Americans make up 8.9% of Indiana residents–which is less than either Ohio or Pennsylvania. If Obama can keep the race close and this figure approaches the mid teens it would be VERY significant.
Typically when Obama has won he also has captured 85% or better of the African American vote. So the first trend to watch is the turnout percentage then as the evening wears on watch the voting percentage.
Young voters have always gone for Obama and he will need them to win. Census data show 20.7% of potential Indiana voters fall into the 20-34 year-old age group–which is more than either Ohio or Pennsylvania. Even though these voters tend to have low turnouts, if Obama can move this number into the mid 20s, he may have a chance. Watch for turnouts in college towns such as the home of the University of Indiana-Bloomington.
The one group that has stayed with Hillary Clinton is older voters, especially voters over 55. In Pennsylvania almost a quarter of all voters fell into that cohort, but in Indiana that number drops to 21%. Typically Clinton has won when the turnout among these voters is in the 30% range and she captures close to 60% of their votes.
The balance between older and younger voters in the Census data explains why this race is closer than either Ohio or Pennsylvania. The results in Indiana could well depend on which group turns out.
Indiana is also almost evenly split between male and female voters–another difference between this state and Ohio and Pennsylvania. Clinton will need every one of the votes of her core supporters of older voters.
This spreadsheet has columns labeled “$$” and “Ed,” for the less-educated and those living in poverty since they have tended to not vote in recent elections. These voters need to turn out if the Democrats are going to win in November. In Indiana 14.3% of eligible voters make under $15,000 and over half of all eligible voters have a high school degree or less.
Union members, especially those from American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) have helped Clinton win the large industrial states that have kept her in this race. Did you notice all the AFSCME shirts around the podium in Pennsylvania when Clinton gave her victory speech? Data from the AFL-CIO shows union membership in Indiana almost equals that of Ohio–12%. A little-known fact is Indiana:
Continues to lead the nation in manufacturing’s share (18.3 percent) of all payroll jobs and in manufacturing’s share (30.2 percent) of the state’s GDP, or overall economy.
In past predictions I have said the union voters would be the key, but in Indiana I think it will be the cross-overs and Independents. Pollster Brian Howey unequivocally states:
The historic Indiana Democratic presidential primary race between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama could well be decided by … Republicans. According to the Howey-Gauge Poll conducted April 23-24, entirely after the Clinton Pennsylvania primary victory, Hoosier Democrats are evenly split at 46-46 percent.
The fascinating wrinkle comes when the poll reveals that the race could be determined by the 9 percent of independent voters expected to participate, and 10 percent Republican crossover.
Howey-Gauge shows that self-identified Republicans favor Clinton 50-44 percent, while independents favor Obama 54-38 percent.
The Bottom Line
This race will be decided by whether Rush’s dittoheads can turn out in higher numbers than Obama’s Idependents.
Your Tally Sheet
As with previous primaries I am attaching below a spreadsheet you can actually print out and fill in as the night goes on, sort of like a political box score. Actually, you will need to print the entire page, but you can use the rest to put your beer and pizza on.
Making the Call
By filling in the information as it comes in, much of it first on the Internet, you can begin to make your own prediction based on the demographic section above and what is in the tally sheet. Not to broadcast any commercials, but I have found in the past CNN tends to have the first reliable data. Fox will sometimes try to release data earlier than the others, but it can be iffy data. What none of them tell you is that all their data come from the same place, it is just when they choose to release it, which data they emphasize, and how well their talking heads can explain it.
For the Pennsylvania primary, I turned off the spam filter and comments filter only to attract a nasty virus that somehow slipped through the firewall, so unfortunately, I will have to leave it on, although I promise to monitor it closely so comments get up quickly.
See you Tuesday evening.
Print Posted by: liberalamerican
