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Straightforward Answers To Bizarre Questions

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I wish I was making this up, but:

The inference is that by winning the small red states with caucuses, but not the big blue states like California and New York, Obama is likely to repeat McGovern’s blowout in the general election.

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Any thoughts on the validity of this scenario?

It is wholly invalid.

Really, the fallacy here is transparent; indeed, I can’t believe that someone as smart as Merritt believes this is serious. By the same logic, Clinton will go down to a crushing defeat because she can only get a small fraction of the African-American vote. The fact that Obama has lost a couple states that Democrats reliably win by 15 or 20 points in a Democratic primary means absolutely nothing in the general, just as Hillary Clinton would obviously not struggle to win Illinois or Connecticut or Maryland. (Inferences about Obama’s ability to win solid-red states would be similarly invalid, but I think there’s a hack gap here; I don’t recall seeing a prominent Obama supporter talking about how he’s going to carry Alabama and South Carolina — after all, Jimmy Carter won them in 1976! Correct me if I’m wrong.) And to repeat what I’ve said before, to the extent it means anything (which probably isn’t much) Obama’s greater strength in states that aren’t Democratic electoral college locks is clearly a point in his favor in the general election, although one can reasonably argued that this is balanced by Clinton’s apparently greater appeal in a swing state such as Florida. At any rate, one cannot infer from Obama losing California to Clinton that he would do less well against a Republican, and even it was true who cares if the Democrats win the state by 18 or 14 points anyway?

Really, people need to keep some perspective here. Either Clinton or Obama would almost certainly be better candidates than John Kerry, and Kerry won 251 electoral college votes against a wartime incumbent in a decent economy. We can argue about which one is marginally better, but the Dems are in good shape either way, and bringing George McGovern into the discussion is simply absurd.

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