An interesting comment by one of my fellow TPM inhabitants on the I’m Done blog by one_wilson (brilliant, by the way) led me to this thought:
Was the democratic primary designed this year to go to all 50 states in advance of the 50 State Strategy that Howard Dean described for the general election, both as a candidate and when he took over the DNC?
If by design or by happy coincidence, the race that Barack is running against Hillary Clinton is the exact same race he will run against John McCain in following a 50 State Strategy. The primary was a grueling warm-up against an extremely capable opponent. He is now hitting his stride, ready to turn around and do something he just finished doing. He has probably examined from each and every mistake he made in each and every state in the union, modifying his final game plan. All the groundwork is in place. All the infrastructure remains on stand-by. Millions of local volunteers in every state will bust ensure his election is a landslide, a true mandate to govern.
McCain will be ten steps back once the race against him officially starts. It’s going to be a massacre of epic proportions.
Sorry for typos. We really need a more robust commenting and blogging application with the ability to edit posts. The one on Blogger is nice. Easy-to-use interface with commenting features consistent with blogging features.
This was mentioned a while ago Jason….I just wish I could remember where, I’ll try and go through some notes the rest of the day and maybe find it.
But it had a link to the Obama site where others were discussing this very same thing in March.
The thought was, with quotes from some advisers was about how it was actually helping the party to keep this going because every state they go allows Obama to setup his campaign. Once he is setup, like the previous primaries, he can get a jump on the competition and let the people their know him a little better. As well as setup HQ’s and look at demographics for who is supporting and who isnt and set up a better plan of how to deal with it for Primary, AND for GE(if he was to make it).
But I think the above is a good positive and it does make sense. Look at what John McCain has been doing since the Republican Primaries have ended. It feels like he has to start all over, it will also be toughm, if he can do it at all, to bring new voters to his platform. Where Barack Obama has been bringing in new people by the truckload and I doubt that many, if any at all, who joined up with him(new voters or not) are going to defect to McCain.
p.s. The thought process at the time was “If he makes it”, obviously now, all signs point to this being over and done with.
Yeah, the problem was never the prolonging of the Democratic primary but the negative politics that was threatening to tear apart the party. If Hillary were running a campaign along of the lines of Mike Huckabee’s no one would would complain.
I don’t think a positive primary would have had the same results. Facing a formidable (and divisive) opponent helps to galvanize support.
As long as Hillary is able to mitigate the damage she did during the primary by vigorously campaigning for Barack, I actually think every one of her tactics will be a net benefit to Barack. By running the republican campaign against him during the democratic primary, she has pushed many of Barack’s issues into the realm of voter fatigue while giving him a chance to hone his narrative for the general election.
The media, too, has done us a service by running the same shit over and over until most of the electorate tunes out. When McCain tries it, the vast majority will have already moved on. A wonderful irony is the republicans have no choice but to follow the failed strategy that Hillary employed and the American voter rejected. They don’t know how to run any other way now.
Again, Barack has a chess strategy while his opponents play checkers.
I agree.
And Garin is out there saying Obama can’t get the white vote. Read this on the women’s vote in IN:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/5/7/112410/1487/624/510921