Many important votes lie outside cities and suburbs
April 24th, 2008
Rhodes Cook, Senior Columnist
Barack Obama caused quite a stir a fortnight ago when he told a suburban San Francisco fund raiser that small-town Pennsylvania voters were “bitter” about their economic plight. As a consequence, he added, “they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them…”
As political comments go, it was [...]
History versus circumstance in the general election
April 17th, 2008
Larry J. Sabato, Director, U.Va. Center for Politics
It’s obvious to just about everyone that, at least theoretically, the Democrats have a near-perfect climate for presidential victory in 2008. A deeply unpopular Republican President is mired around 30 percent in the polls; last week, Bush was at 28 percent, a couple points higher than Richard Nixon on the day he resigned. Bush [...]
Crossover voting and defection in past elections
April 17th, 2008
Alan I. Abramowitz, Guest Columnist
Democratic leaders are becoming increasingly worried about the long-term consequences of the drawn-out and contentious presidential nomination race between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. In the past few weeks a number of prominent Democratic elected officials, including Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont and New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, have called on Hillary Clinton to [...]
Who has the right credentials?
April 10th, 2008
Rhodes Cook, Senior Columnist
One of the basic themes of the long-running Democratic nominating campaign between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton speaks to the need for a new era in American politics. But increasingly it seems as though their race could be decided by a method quite old–a decision by the convention credentials committee that is voted up [...]
Without proportional allocation Obama would trail
April 3rd, 2008
Wesley Little, Special Guest Columnist
Wesley Little is the Political Chair for Washington & Lee University’s “Mock Convention”, the nation’s most accurate mock convention since its inception in 1908, and a political columnist for several Virginia news papers, including the News Advance and the News-Gazette.
Even as the Obama and Clinton campaigns fight frantically to establish the appropriate [...]
Unpledged delegate projections don't favor Clinton
April 3rd, 2008
Alan I. Abramowitz, Special Guest Columnist
Dr. Alan Abramowitz is the Alben W. Barkley Professor of Political Science at Emory University, and the author of Voice of the People: Elections and Voting Behavior in the United States (2004, McGraw-Hill).
It is becoming increasingly clear that the outcome of the Democratic presidential nomination will hinge on the votes of the [...]