Why Obama Should Quit

DALLAS--

In American political lore we're enamored by the possibility of the underdog defeating the establishment.

I think that's because America still sees itself as the ultimate underdog in the world. But we're the underdog that wins. We're noble and good, and we're faced with a world full of evil tyrants who cause pain, agony, despair. And we'll use our military for humanitarian needs and nation-building when necessary and we'll raise money and donate, and provide food and medicine, and still wave the flag of America and all that it represents. Don't you forget it, no matter what, we're still the United States of America—the last best chance the world has.

It takes a special kind of person to lead the United States of America. We want Saints not Sinners. We want Angels not Demons.

And that's why in some corners we wanted Barack Obama. He seemed so unlike anything we've ever had. He is so unlike anything we've ever had. The press fell in love with him. New voters all across America fell in love and packed stadiums nationwide, from the metropolitan coastal cities to cities in the heartland which still believed in a place called hope. He was it. He brought people from across the political spectrum and promised them that "Yes, we can." That yes, we can bring about change; that yes, there was a better way. And people believed him. They still do. I still do.

But then we saw Rev. Wright who came out of his self-imposed exile this weekend and brought his controversy back to the front of the political fore. Jeremiah Wright was a reminder of the unfounded fears that some Americans have about Barack Obama. They see him as something alien, they think he's a Muslim, there's a church that put on its sign "Obama-Osama: Are They Brothers?" Americans fear what they do not know. And it didn't help that Obama is seen as unpatriotic. Making a point causes him to lose political traction. Why won't he just wear the flag lapel? And why did Michelle Obama say that for the first time ever she's proud of her country and that America in 2008 is a mean country? These are things you do not say when your husband is running for President of the United States. Not wearing the flag lapel is something that you do not do if you're running for President of the United States.

But he seemed to overcome it all. In fact, in today's NBC News-Wall Street Journal poll, Obama still leads Clinton nationwide 46-43% (one must take into account that there was an oversample of Black voters in this poll).But he hasn't won in a while. Yes, he still leads among delegates, among the popular vote and among most states won. But he lost in Pennsylvania and he lost badly. Indiana, neighboring his home state of Illinois, is now in play and Hillary seems to be a contender there. North Carolina down the road may follow South Carolina and give Obama a win. In a previous post I wrote that Hillary should quit not because she was losing but because she was going to gain traction and momentum and win. She has. There's going to be no stopping Hillary now, no matter what. It's too close. This reflects what I wrote in another previous post reflecting on why he can't put her away, and all those factors remain. The Clinton Political War Machine is a force to be reckoned with. Obama still seems too much of a lightweight, too much of an amateur to go against the Clintonistas.

And Obama isn't gaining in the demographics that he needs to win. His sub-constituency coalition is falling apart. He's not targeting the right voters. In South Carolina he was winning among White Men. In union-strong Pennsylvania he lost them. Lately, he's only winning among Blacks, and among the more educated Democratic primary voters. Hillary's winning everything else.

It seems counter-intuitive to suggest that the frontrunner quit. A frontrunner hasn't faced an internal challenge this strong and this heated for the nomination in a while. Hillary believes that this is rightfully hers. She believed that she worked too hard, waited so long and poured so much money and heart and tears (oh the tears!) into this that it's not fair that it's being taken away from her. She's going to stay in this. Dean can't make her get out no matter how much he's telling the super-delegates to have this wrapped up by mid-June. Hillary's expanding, there's no question about it, and she's out to swift-boat Obama before the Republicans get to him. Say what you want about Republicans but we're great at winning elections. Hillary and Bill always knew this and they've always tried to be Republicanesque in how they conduct a viable electoral strategy. Hillary went on O'Reilly tonight for God's sake…

Obama's inability to put her away casts doubt in his ability to win a general election campaign against John McCain this November. McCain gets independents, the Republicans are going to come out for him, and he may even get a substantial Democrat vote. And this is the reason why Obama should quit. Give it to Hillary. McCain-Clinton. Nothing will bring out Republicans in droves to vote for McCain than to have a Clinton on the ballot. They'll come out strong. And in every head-to-head matchup McCain beats Clinton. McCain ties Obama. McCain beats Clinton is the operative event though. It's in Obama's best interest to win the nomination clean and easily. He already fought for this one. Giving this to Hillary makes him noble, makes him a saint, makes him an angel, makes him a gentleman. He showed deference and the party is never going to forget that. He brought the Democratic Party together again. To say nothing of the possibility that McCain might not run for re-election because of his age in 2012. Obama's still a young man. He can wait. The Democratic Party, historically, never forgives its losers. It's not the era of Adlai Stevenson anymore where he kept running over-and-over again. The Democrats give you one chance and you're out. Give Hillary this one. Give it to her and she'll be out and retreat into the hallow chambers of the United States Senate and the Clinton name will become nothing more than an afterthought. Give Obama 4 years to rebuild, regroup, and re-inspire. He'll be stronger in 4 years, he'll be ready. He won't be making amateur mistakes and he'll be the leader that we all expect him to be, that we all know he can be.

So Sen. Obama give it to Sen. Clinton. Her new narrative is the one in which she states ad nauseum that she's the only one that can defeat Sen. McCain. Show America that she's wrong. Show America that ultimately, she's not a winner, but a loser. Show the Democrats how their inability to decide cost them yet another election. Be gracious. Be ready for your turn.

Super Tuesday Results 5

CLINTON, MCCAIN WIN CALIFORNIA

The big results came in almost simultaneously around 12:15am.

Clinton: Held onto lead in California, lower-than-expected African-American turnout, Clinton keeps Hispanics without much erosion. An important factor that might have been a key to her success was early-voting: Many people voted before Obama took off as of late with his momentum, adding credence to the conventional wisdom that if Super Tuesday would have been held one week later, Obama might have fared better in California. Clinton's lead in California is indeed quite substantial. Women made up 55% of California Democratic voters, 57% voted for Clinton. 65% of Hispanics voted for Clinton. As the delegates come in, we'll have a clearer picture as to where this race stands, but I believe it's not completely over for Obama.

McCain: Arnold Schwarzenegger's endorsement might have been the key to putting McCain over the top. Among Republican voters many approved of Gov. Schwarzenegger and among those who approved of him, they went for McCain. More exit polling data to be posted as they become available.

Today, Wednesday, Romney will have "frank discussions" with his staff as to where he goes from here.

The narrative will be on full display later this morning as the spinning continues when Today, Good Morning America, and The Early Show go live on the East Coast.

Update (12:57am ET): NBC News predicts that the Delegate count for Democrats as of right now has Obama +4, 841-837.

Update (8:25am ET): RCP's delegate counts with the overnight numbers coming in have Clinton leading Obama in the Delegates count, 897-822, which has Hillary +75.

Update (8:43am ET): Tim Russert went on the Today show, saying that NBC's projections hold that Obama captured 840 delegates last night, to Clinton's 830. The Obama Campaign believes that they won 845 delegates to Clinton's 836, as shown on a spreadsheet which they released. They also state that in terms of total delegates number, Obama has 908 pledged delegates to Clinton's 884.

Note: RCP is using projections gather from the Associated Press, Washington Post, CBS News and RCP's own numbers. At this point, however, with how NBC and the Obama campaigns have successfully analyzed the race (the Obama campaign was the first to accurately state that they had indeed won more delegates in Nevada), I trust that the NBC News and Obama numbers give us higher confidence in their prognostication. DrudgeReport also believes this as he has made "Election Shock: Obama passes Clinton in Delegate Count" as its top headline.

Super Tuesday Results 4

At the end of the day, it's about the delegates. The widget that I have on the right side-bar denotes the official delegate count as assigned by official election results, according to the NBC News Politics Desk.

Obama and McCain are still awaiting the results coming out of California, which might take awhile to come in. More than a million voters voted with absentee ballots and they need to be counted and can indeed sway the campaign. We may not have substantial numbers until early tomorrow morning.

That being said, McCain is pulling far ahead of Romney in delegate count, and Huckabee might even have more delegates than Romney when all is said and done. If this happens, Huckabee, who until tonight was a one-hit wonder (Iowa) might indeed become viable again and be the "Conservative" alternative to McCain. Depending on what happens in California, McCain may not have this completely locked. Again, it's all California. As of right now (11:33ET), with 6% of precincts reporting, McCain leads Romney by 100,000 votes in California. Romney might indeed not pursue this to the end, positioning himself for another presidential run. He's not that popular within the establishment and he doesn't want to ruin his chances to become the standard-bearer of the party in the future. We might have a Republican nominee by the end of the week, even as early as tomorrow.

The Obama campaign says that their internal Delegate number shows Obama leading 606-534. Conventional wisdom holds than neither candidate on the Democratic side pulls away from a with a substantial delegate margin after tonight, therefore the nominee may indeed take some time to decide, with a small possibility that we'll once again witness an honest-to-God Convention floor fight when the Democrats meet in Denver come late August.

Update (11:45ET): Obama: "Our Time Has Come..."

Sinking

A couple of days ago, the NBC NEWS/WALL STREET JOURNAL poll was released.

On the night that the poll was released, the NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams' lede was "Angry America." What an apt statement about a mad country.

According to the results, 70% of Americans believe that the country is heading in the wrong direction with only 1 in 5 Americans believing that the country is heading in the right direction. The record high for "wrong track" number was 71% hit in July 1992, when the president's father was campaigning against then Gov. Clinton.

66% of Americans disapprove of the the job George W. Bush is doing as president. With only 29% of Americans approving, this is a new record low for George W. Bush.

Congress isn't faring that well either. 23% of Americans approve of the job Congress is doing, with 64% disapproving. The record low in this poll for Congressional approval was 15% held in April 1992. The Democrats kept the House in the 1992 election, but of course lost it an election cycle later.

Looking ahead to 2008: Clinton has increased her lead over Obama, with Clinton actually gaining traction following the debates and Obama losing some of it because of the debates. Inside the GOP: Giuliani's lead is much more fluid, with him also losing from the debates, and Thompson--who hasn't officially declared, and of course, hasn't participated in the debates--now #2 in the race. In a head-to-head, Clinton beats Giuliani (48-43), with the numbers reversing from three months ago(47-42), and Obama beats Thompson (50-31).

But what's going on here?

The Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll also released earlier this week has fascinating internals.

In the GOP, Thompson's surge can be seen coming directly from the Religious Right, with Giuliani holding slightly because of Independents. And while Giuliani got into a religious controversy a la John Kerry a couple of weeks ago, after Thompson, he is the RR's candidate of choice.

With the Democrats, Clinton is building a perfect trifecta, bringing in Independents, Moderate and the Liberal Democrats all together to propel her to the top. (Another interesting part of the poll is that Gore is #3 following Obama.) Clinton's mastery shows how she has the best politics people of the Democratic Party working in her camp. More liberal democrats are going for Clinton over Obama and Edwards, even though, arguably, she is the most hawkish of the bunch.

And now the issues: Republican primary voters are putting national security over social issues for 2008. Among RPV's 48% say that whether or not a candidate is for/against abortion is not a factor in their deciding whom to vote for president.

And here's the two big ones: Among all primary voters, 94% believe that Iraq is an important issue that will affect the way they vote, and 81% say Immigration is an important issue that will affect the way they vote.

(Breakdown: Republicans are more interested than Democrats and Independents about the Iraq issue: 97, 94, 91; the same is true of Immigration: 88, 78, 79.)

But really, what's going on?


Is Iraq that important of an issue? Sure it polls well. But really? I think that the majority of the people whom get contacted by these pollsters volunteer Iraq as the reason of why they're so unhappy with presidential/congressional job handling. But I don't think that that's the reason. I hold onto the theory that Americans are like a movie audience. And the reason that they don't like what's going on in Iraq is because it's been going on ad nauseum. Nothing's really changed, and they want this movie to finally end. The amount of reasoned, informed discussion of the situation in Iraq is minuscule at best. Rather Iraq is what ties the American people's dissatisfaction into one nicely, defined package. The amount of American families that are being directly affected by Iraq--in terms of loved one's there, etc--is an infinitesimal proportion of the population. But it is what the American people hear day in day out about the situation in Iraq that makes them so against the war. Conventional wisdom holds that Congressional approval is so low because the American people elected the Democrats in thinking that they were going to pull the plug on the war. And that didn't happen. And no informed person thought it was going to happen either. Reality hits. Anger foments. And disapproval ensues.

Same thing with immigration. Polls contradict each other. A majority of Americans are for granting some sort of permanent status to the illegal immigrants already here, knowing that deportation isn't realistic, yet they are against the Immigration Bill. They're against the bill, but doing nothing--which is the other alternative--creates a silent amnesty by maintaining the system in a perpetual, broken-down, status-quo.

And that's the problem. The American people are indecisive. Congress and the President in turn become indecisive because they don't know what the American people want. And, its surely been the case that at times, what the American people want isn't what's right for the country. Leadership is needed. People who know what's right for America should be standing up and persuading Americans to do what's right.

But nothing is happening. Not in Washington. Not in Iraq.

And the sinking numbers will continue.

Speaking of sinking, another thing that apparently is: The Jefferson Memorial.