Tuesday's contests: Setting the CW
Posted: Monday, May 19, 2008 9:25 AM by Domenico Montanaro
Filed Under:
Democrats
KENTUCKY: Former Louisville Courier-Journal political guru Al Cross sets the CW for tomorrow’s race. "As he did in West Virginia last week, near-presumptive nominee Barack Obama has conceded in advance. But will Kentucky be more like the Mountain State, where Hillary Clinton got 67 percent of the vote to Obama's 26 percent, or more like our closer cousin Tennessee, where Obama also let her run essentially unchallenged on Feb. 5 and she won by 54 to 41? The average of those margins is 27 points, not far from the 32-point Clinton margin in Survey USA's automated telephone poll in Kentucky a week ago, and the latter figure seems about on track, in light of Kentucky's much smaller African-American population. Blacks are 17 percent of Tennessee's population, 7.4 percent of Kentucky's and 3.2 percent of West Virginia's.”
“For Kentucky, Tuesday's story may be less about the point spread than the box score -- the exit poll conducted for national news organizations. It will provide an unusually detailed and public glimpse of Kentuckians' voting patterns and some reasons for them. The polls in other states, including our neighbor Indiana, have made plain the obstacle Obama faces among white voters without college degrees."
Bigger than West Virginia? “Introducing the New York senator here, Clinton's state chairman Jerry Lundergan, also the former Kentucky Democratic Party chairman, called for a victory that was ‘bigger than West Virginia.’ That may be tough; Clinton won in West Virginia by 41 points last week and recent polls here show Clinton with a lead of around 30 points. But the former first lady is making stops all throughout this state in an effort to drive up turnout, stopping in small towns like Mayfield (population 10,000), as well as targeting the big media markets around Louisville, Ky., and Cincinnati (much of Northern Kentucky watches Cincinnati television) with repeated visits."
OREGON: Can Obama win this state by a margin that will offset Kentucky? "Oregon is well known for the sharp divide between its more liberal and populated west and its rural east,” the New York Times says. “That tension has often made statewide races close. Yet while the farmers who once dominated this part of Oregon still own much of the land, they no longer own most of the vote. Urbanites arrived long ago, promoting preservation of all this beauty, but bringing change, too. Michael Dukakis won Hood River County in 1988 by 18 votes out of 6,968 ballots cast, and Democrats have been gaining ground ever since."
Wow… 75,000 to 80,000 turn out for a Sunday Obama rally in Oregon. "Obama has been campaigning extensively in Oregon, a state he hopes to win in Tuesday’s primary, as the Democratic presidential nominating race ticks down to its last handful of contests. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton has been on a four-day swing through Kentucky, which also holds its primary on Tuesday and where she appears likely to draw the most votes."
(Is that the largest political rally ever? The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported Oct. 28, 2004 that Kerry-Edwards drew 80,000 in Madison. And that was a week before the general election.)
The Boston Globe: "[A]nalysts say the contest [in Oregon] could be an important barometer on the latest issue in the political slam dance between Obama and Clinton: the conflict between blue-collar and white-collar Democrats.”
