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Clinton (Hillary), general election campaign, missouri, Missouri Sixth, Obama (Barack), outstate voters
All right Democrats. It is time to get our collective act together and put the past behind us. It isn’t about anyones hurt feelings. I voted for Hillary in the primary and one of the checks I wrote this primary season was to her campaign. But I can read the tea leaves, and Obama is going to be the nominee.
So take the long weekend to lick your wounds, and when Tuesday rolls around, start with mending fences. It is time to get over yourself. It isn’t about you, or me, or even the candidates. It is about electing a Democrat and saving the Supreme Court.
Looked at through that lens, Obama is perfectly suited for the job, because he was a Constitutional Law professor. That is hugely important with a Supreme Court that has a liberal wing that is as chronologically advanced as our liberal justices are. Especially with Roberts as Chief. Ugh…
McClatchy has an article on the importance of Missouri this fall. Obama carried the state – narrowly – on Super Tuesday – because of St. Louis and Kansas City. In the outstate areas, Hillary is the overwhelming choice. At the State Democratic Convention I saw Hillbillies for Hillary t-shirts, and my father in law, who has voted in the primary for the guy who eventually won the White House since 1980 is a huge Hillary Clinton supporter. I have been telling everyone since September, when we went to the country for bow season, that she is the outstate favorite.
Obama – and the state and national party apparatus – have challenges in this bellwether state – but they can be overcome with grassroots organization, and most importantly – presence. When Missouri voters in outstate areas are asked about Obama and the response ranges from
“I feel like I just don’t know him yet.”
to
“I can’t vote Republican. I’ll either vote for Obama or not vote. If it were today, I would not vote. There’s still six months . … He’s gonna’ have to convince me. I haven’t seen it yet.”
Our mission is clearly defined. Convince voters. I spoke to my father in law before the state convention and asked him if there was anything he wanted me to impart to the leaders of the party. He said I should tell them to make their presence known, that no one was going to vote for them if they didn’t bother to ask.
So here is how Obama wins in Missouri, and helps deliver the Missouri Sixth congressional seat to Kay Barnes, the Democrat opposing the odious Sam “96%” Graves, (as in he votes the way aWol wants him to 96% 0f the time), and takes a congressional enemy off the chessboard.
It’s politics 101. What Howard Dean did for the nation with the brilliant 50 State Strategy, the Obama campaign and the Democratic Party (national and state need to get their act together and combine resources for this) need to do in Missouri. Call it a 114 County Strategy.
Get someone on the ground in every county – it can be as simple as a dedicated cell phone and someone willing to answer and return calls, and store yard signs, bumper stickers, lapel pins and campaign literature in their garage or basement and pass it out when people ask for it, and put an add in every county paper every single week.
If Obama campaigns hard in Kansas City, St. Louis, and the Sixth Congressional District…He wins. KC and StL are reliably Democratic. The Sixth is vulnerable and due to flip. The Sixth is also huge in area – the population isn’t dense, but the people aren’t either. They know that republican policies have damaged them economically and sent their kids to fight and die in a senseless conflict that should never have been undertaken. A couple of stops in St. Joseph would pull supporters for both Kay Barnes and Representative Nancy Boyda of the KS 02 and fill the stadium at Missouri Western. Do the same thing in Hannibal and bolster democratic turnout among rural voters in three states. What’s not to love about this plan?
Now the Democratic Party needs to get their act together and start plotting strategy. Ask any veteran and they will tell you – It is always – always – a bad idea to cede the hill country in any fight.
This election has always been about the Supreme Court for me so, deep down, I’ve never worried about who the candidate was because every Democrat would do right by the court.
Anyone who has time should check out last Friday’s broadcast of Bill Moyer’s show on PBS. Jeffrey Toobin was his guest. He has a new article on the New Yorker regarding John McCain’s statements about his potential court picks – more Roberts and Alito types. We have to stop that plan.
btw, I suspect we’re going to see a lot of organization in the state. I was at the St. Louis Jefferson-Jackson dinner a month or so ago, talking to state party people and they were just itching to get started.
I know that I’m ready to go. I’ve been wanting to focus on McCain and start turning Missouri Blue for some time now and not just at the Presidential level. I want the governor’s office. I want MO-06. And MO-09. And a bunch of legislative seats.
A 114 County Strategy is brilliant for any statewide operation. Especially in regards to the potential we have for winning all five statewide offices and taking back the state house.
Anyways..
66% of voters will be in the 14 largest counties (and STL City), the other 33-34%ish are in the 100 other counties.
The 14 largest counties are Buchanan, Platte, Clay, Jackson, Cass, Jasper, Greene, Boone, Cole, Franklin, St. Charles, St. Louis, Jefferson, and Cape Girardeau. A good cross-section of counties which obviously favors Dems.
For the sake of analysis, the rest of the state gets to be “outstate”
In the 2006 Senate race, the split was as follows
Top 15 (1.41M): 54/44 McCaskill (8 won by McCaskill, 7 by Talent)
Outstate (717K): 54/42 Talent (83 won by Talent, 17 won by McCaskill)
In the February primary, the split is slightly uglier
Top 15 (603K): 55/43 Obama (10 won by Clinton, 5 by Obama)
Outstate (221K): 62/34 Clinton (99 won by Clinton, 1 by Obama)
Back in 2004, in one of the bigger worst-case scenarios, the 15/100 split was
Top 15 (1.84K): 51/48 Kerry
Oth 100 (887K): 64/36 Bush
Basically, areas of interest, both in the 15 and the 100, should include:
Buchanan, Clay, and Platte Counties in the 6th district are pretty important to do well in. I think Northwest Missouri shouldn’t be too bad for Obama compared to other regions.
As for the 9th, which is also going to be in play Congressionally. Boone County, Adair. Hitting points in between would be useful too (Moberly?).
Winning in Jefferson County and Ste. Genevieve will be pretty necessary too.
I think St. Charles County will be a swing county within a few years at this rate. It looked promising in 2006.
There’s obviously a lot more to winning in Missouri than running up massive margins in KC, STL, and Columbia and praying for a good showing elsewhere.
We see the differences in the ‘Outstate’ between Kerry in 04 and Claire in 06. So where did she really excel?
Bates: 7.14% diff, Benton: 8.07% diff, Butler: 7.41% diff
Caldwell: 7.82% diff, Camden: 7.17% diff, Carroll: 7.79% diff, Cass: 7.91% diff, Cedar: 7.37% diff, Clinton: 7.59% diff, Cooper: 7.43% diff, Crawford: 7.59% diff
Daviess: 7.25% diff, DeKalb: 7.27% diff, Dent: 8.19% diff, Douglas: 8.76% diff
Gentry: 7.13% diff, Grundy: 7.34% diff
Harrison: 7.2% diff, Henry: 9.75% diff, Howell: 7.83% diff
Iron: 8.35% diff, Johnson: 7.84% diff
Laclede: 8.28% diff, Lafayette: 7.25% diff, Linn: 7.29% diff, Livingston: 7.55% diff
Oregon: 9.36% diff, Ozark: 7.55% diff
Pettis: 9.38% diff, Phelps: 7.12% diff, Pulaski: 9.56% diff
Randolph: 7.53% diff, Ray: 9.24% diff, Reynolds: 10.17% diff
Shannon: 12.1% diff, St. Clair: 8.38% diff, Stoddard: 9.2% diff
Texas: 8.72% diff, Washington: 8.24% diff, Wayne: 9.22% diff, Webster: 7.13% diff, Wright: 7.45% diff
So yes, a cross section of northern, southeastern, northeastern, and southwestern. With some interesting possibilities, and places which some consider former “Sundown Towns”
Compared to Kerry, Obama should run even or ahead of him in Southwest Missouri. It’ll depend on how many Huckabee supporters get enthusiastic about McCain. McCain ran 11 points behind Huckabee in the “outstate”, getting 30% total. And Northeast Missouri might be the same too.
Southeast Missouri is not entirely confidence inspiring now, but good showings in the Firso Curve (St. Francois, Iron, Reynolds, Shannon, Oregon) would be pretty good. Along with good showings in New Madrid and the Bootheel.
STL County and Eastern Jackson County are worth some work too. In order to make sure there’s no suburban surprise or anything.
Overall, I think that there’s going to have to be something to show that Obama can be ‘trusted’. I don’t know what that will be for the reachable, but something big to show that not only does he deserve the job, but that it’s worth getting excited about.
It’s going to take more than mailers with Obama and a cross to disable the lies spread. The people on the fence can be won no matter what.
When you compare the reality of Obama and McCain, Obama is much more of a straight-talker than John McCain. It’s not straight talk to waffle on your views between 2000 and 2008. It’s not straight talk to give off the impression that you’ll let Bush lackeys run your show. And vetoing improvements for Veterans is not something I’m looking for in a President.
Perhaps a good first question to ask is “What do you think of the last 8 years”, if someone wants to say the last 8 years have been a disaster, but they’re voting for McCain, then they’re about to make a mistake.
I have enough confidence in Missouri to know that whatever cable news media nonsense that is applied to other areas can’t be applied here. We’ve had parts of our history that have been bad in regards to race, but that’s the past.
I think Obama is going to do pretty well here. Even if Jay Nixon has to win a 18 point landslide to pull Obama over the finish line.
The work seems overwhelming at some point.
Nixon already has six offices open – rather the “Coordinated Campaign” of the Missouri Democratic Party has six offices open. In KC, they are doing phone banking on the weekend for state house races.
Before Blunt dropped out, I was almost sure that Obama would help Nixon win but I am feeling that it is the other way around now.
Cheers!
I live in Johnson County. Here it is all about voter registration, and I am going to do my bit.
The students must get registered and vote here. It will probably help to run an absentee campaign, but there is a lot of uncertainty with that.
Having Whiteman Airforce base nearby, it will be important to tell people how McCain doesn’t want our troops to have the same education benefits as WW II veterans.
However, here the real deadline is when registration ends in October.