Primary day: Scenarios, scenarios
Posted: Tuesday, May 06, 2008 9:08 AM by Mark Murray
The New York Times’ Nagourney delves into the potential results of tonight -- from a Clinton sweep (it could change the world), to an Obama sweep (lights out for Clinton), to somewhere in between (his most likely outcome).
The Washington Post's Balz has his now-traditional eight questions that tonight's results could help answer.
The Boston Globe’s Canellos: “Voters in today's Democratic primaries in Indiana and North Carolina will offer the first real evidence of whether Barack Obama's campaign has been damaged by the latest controversy surrounding his former pastor, while Hillary Clinton faces another make-or-break moment.”
INDIANA: Obama strongholds:
-- Indianapolis (26% of the overall population is African American)
-- Northwest: Gary (84% of the 100,000 population is black.) Gary and other Lake County and surrounding counties are familiar with Obama as they are in the Chicago media markets and the only areas in the Central Time Zone.
-- Bloomington: Indiana University, with its 50,000 students, fits Obama's demographics perfectly
Clinton strongholds:
-- Northeast: Large Catholic populations. South Bend is where Notre Dame is.
East: Muncie, Anderson: Areas that basically look like Ohio; they've been heavily affected by manufacturing job losses.
-- Southwest: Terre Haute, Evansville
-- Southeast: This is the Ninth Congressional District, which includes the famed Milan High of “Hoosiers” movie fame, and it’s one of those battleground districts with LOTS of general-election swing voters.
The New York Post: “Clinton attacked the financial backbone of her home state when she told Indiana voters it's time to hit the ‘Wall Street money brokers’ over the nationwide recession. Clinton leveled the comment -- one of a series of increasingly populist remarks she has made -- just hours after also targeting OPEC, vowing to bust its ‘cartel, a monopoly that gets together once every couple of months in some conference room in some plush place in the world.’”
Just why did Rep. Baron Hill (D), a perennial GOP target of the GOP, decide to pick Obama and not Clinton, even though Clinton will carry his congressional district? Is this about decades-long Clinton baggage vs. weeks-long Obama baggage?
MSNBC.com’s Andy Merten writes that in traditionally conservative Southern Indiana, picking a choice for the top of the ticket can be a politically risky move for a Democratic congressman. This quandary is illustrated in both districts, here. In CD-9, Rep. Baron Hill announced his support for Obama last week, but in CD-8, the tough-talking Rep. Brad Ellsworth, a former Vanderburgh Sheriff, will hardly comment about the presidential race.
USA Today wonders if the college vote will turn out big in Indiana.
Relatedly, the Wall Street Journal wonders if this being exam week on college campuses across both states will cost Obama votes.
Under intermittent drizzle at the American Legion Mall in Indianapolis last night, Obama rallied a crowd of 21,000, NBC/NJ’s Athena Jones notes. His message was a standard stump speech with a laundry list of goals for an Obama Administration. He also hit his rivals once again on the gas tax holiday issue, linking it to what he called old politics and truthfulness. And he criticized Hillary Clinton's call to fight the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.
"Today Sen. Clinton said 'I'm gonna take it right to OPEC," he said. "Well, I thought to myself, you say you've been in the White House for eight years, you've had two terms as a United States senator and haven't said a word about OPEC and now suddenly you're going to take it right to OPEC, when you've opposed fuel efficiency standards that would actually reduce demand for oil and put OPEC in a bind? That's not being straight with the American people. That's not the kind of politics we need. We need real relief."
Meanwhile, NBC/NJ’s Mike Memoli reports that Clinton -- running on fumes as the campaign winds down in Indiana -- made one last push for her gas-tax plan last night in Evansville, arguing that being president is not “some abstract exercise.”
“I want you to know the solutions that I am proposing to solve the problems that America faces,” she told a modest but enthusiastic crowd at Central High School. “This is not some abstract exercise for me. This is about rolling up our sleeves and getting to work and making life better for hard working middle class families.”
NORTH CAROLINA: Obama strongholds: Coastal Carolina (with large African American populations), Charlotte, and the Research Triangle (Chapel Hill, Durham, and Raleigh).
Clinton strongholds: the Western part of the state bordering Tennessee, as well as the counties bordering South Carolina.
Bellwether? One area to watch that could tell how the whole state’s votes go: the suburbs outside Raleigh. One North Carolina Democrat says if Obama wins 55%-45% in those areas, then that could be a 7% statewide finish in his favor.
