Let the market decide

I was at a mall last night, and noticed a display of politically-themed calendars that included calendars that count down to [your favorite candidate]'s victory in the presidential campaign. There were four types: Clinton, McCain, Giuliani, and Obama.

Poor Obama and Giuliani, theirs were both marked 50% off.

The sales clerk said that the stickers were supposed to be on all of them, and that they weren't trying to make a political statement. I say that the market has spoken, and Obama and Giuliani ought to give up already.

If only I'd had my camera...

Cross-posted at Cogitamus.

No race card up my sleeve, nosiree

I was rather disappointed to see the way Obama felt the need to step in to the "Clinton's going racist," "No she's not!" argument, and be the Reasonable Black Man (who abhors racism, but doesn't think you're racist at all, not one bit!) and make a big deal about how not-racist Clinton is. I've heard the idea floated that the tone-deaf-to-plain-racist comments coming from Clinton's "surrogates" (I'm just not sure what's up with that term) are intended to incense black politicians, and therefore prompt a bunch of angry black folk to show up both and angry and black on teevee and scare white liberal voters about the prospect of racism being amongst their own motivations for voting how they plan.

But if that's the case, Obama has played to the defensive white liberals' feelings very well, by downplaying race as an issue in the election. Kevin Drum quotes Obama:

I think that I may disagree with Senator Clinton or Senator Edwards on how to get there, but we share the same goals. We're all Democrats. We all believe in civil rights. We all believe in equal rights. We all believe that regardless of race or gender that people should have equal opportunities....I think that Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton have historically and consistently been on the right side of civil rights issues. I think they care about the African-American community and that they care about all Americans and they want to see equal rights and justice in this country.

Given all that's been said and done, it's arguable that Obama is giving the Clintons (and Democrats in general) too much credit. But Obama is working to win a large number of votes (even from defensive white people), and if it takes a pep talk from a Real Live Black Person to comfort a white liberal about his or her own unresolved issues with race to do so, then I can see why he'd go that route.

Poisoned coattails

Ezra Klein's LA Times op-ed about the extent to which Hillary Clinton actually polarizes voters was interesting in itself, but especially interesting in the context of Idaho Democrats' anti-Clinton pro-Obama push as of late. Many Idaho Democrats (amongst other Westerners) are concerned about the down-ticket effect that Clinton might have on other candidates in the state. It's no surprise that Clinton isn't a popular figure in Idaho, but Klein argues that Clinton's high negatives aren't any worse than the stats that both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush rode into office - twice each. Klein:

Before his successful 2004 reelection campaign, George W. Bush was
viewed favorably by 52% of the populace and unfavorably by 47%. That
means he was even more unpopular than Hillary Clinton is today -- yet
he won. Worse yet, at the end of his 1992 election campaign, Bill
Clinton was rated unfavorably by 49% of voters (thanks, in part, to
Gennifer Flowers and allegations of draft dodging), and during his 1996
reelection campaign, 44% of voters said they had an unfavorable
impression of him. Yet not only did he win both elections, he's one of
the most popular political figures in the country.

This is all well and good when we're speaking about a national race for one office, but voters in Idaho have long understood their irrelevance to the Presidential race anyway.

No one is expecting Idaho's electoral votes to go toward anyone but the Republican nominee for President, but there is cautious optimism for other Democratic candidates in Idaho this year. The state party's gotten quite ambitious with its ground game, we look forward to a vigorous three-way primary for the 1st CD nomination, and there are rumblings about Larry LaRocco's campaign gaining ground in competition for Larry Craig's* presumptively open Senate seat.

Looking at election results from the past several elections, I don't notice much of a down-ticket effect, either in presidential election years or election years where there is no presidential race. The clearest trend, until 2006's election, is Idaho's increasingly locked-in status as a Republican state. Bill Clinton - if not the most liberal, definitely the largest-looming boogeyman in a Republican's dreams between he, Kerry and Gore - got a larger plurality (33.6% vs. Dole's 52.2%) of Idaho's votes than either Kerry (30.3% vs. Bush's 68.4%) or Gore (27.6% vs. Bush's 67.2%) did in their elections. Down-ticket races basically followed suit, with Democrats as shut out in 2004 as they were in 2000.

2006 was the year I actually started volunteering in and following Idaho politics very closely, so it's hard for me to very accurately gage things like momentum. But comparing congressional and gubernatorial numbers between 2006 and 2002, I'm confident that I can't chalk entirely up to my imagination a change in momentum. Democrats showed improvement in their vote numbers in both CDs, as well as the governor's race.

I'm positive that Hillary-phobia is endemic in Idaho, but I'm not so sure that a race so predictable in Idaho as the one for US President is going to have much effect on Idaho's other elections. I'm also a little lonesome in this opinion, so I'm not willing to make any bets. Looking at past election numbers, though, I'd rather see Idaho Democrats attempt to capitalize on dissatisfied Republican voters and a stable, strong state party than try to dodge a Hillary bullet.

*It is apparently hard to make it in Idaho politics if you are not named Larry.

Cross-posted at Cogitamus.