Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Crossing Over Obama

Here is yet another in my series of glorious posts that I wrote while commenting at other blogs which really needed to be told to you guys; an idea I explained here. This was in a discussion on Obama's supposed success at getting independents and Republicans to vote for him in primaries and the general election. I was responding to someone who pointed out that Virginia had an open primary.

Texas also has an open primary. Or at least, anyone can vote in it as long as they didn’t vote in another primary or attend the Republican convention. And so some of this cross-over vote could come into play here too. But honestly, if these people were smart, they’d have supported Hillary. If nothing else, they want this to go all the way to our national convention, with us duking it out the whole way; while McCain rides easy street. So if they were smart, they’d have voted for Hillary. But if they were dumb and just hated Hillary, they’d vote against her. But a vote for Hillary is a vote to get to keep beating her up, so maybe they’d have thought it all the way through that. But whatever it is, if people are crossing over to pick Obama, that’s going to hurt Hillary here too.

Beyond that, I really do think Obama has cross-over appeal. Everyone hates Bush. Everyone. Even the people who won’t admit it to themselves. They’d be just as happy if the last seven years never happened and everyone forgot about the war. And while old habits never die, I strongly suspect that a lot of people who voted for Bush are going to want to turn the page and forget that any of that crap ever happened. And the best way to get that is through Obama.

Now, I don’t expect to see 50% or even 15% of these people to cross-over, but it doesn’t take much. Virgina’s already going blue, and a 5-10% pick-up by Obama could make all the difference. Even in the worst of times, the Bushies could barely steal the election. I don’t think this one’s even going to be close. Anyone can naysay me if you want, but pessism doesn’t sell candidates. I remember people naysaying that we’d ever win Congress back too. But I didn’t doubt it at all.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey, Doc. Thanks for keeping us, your loyal readers, in the loop.

One thing to remember about the Texas primary is that it's a hybrid. Immediately after the primary, there will be a caucus. 2/3rds of the delegates will be determined by the primary election, and 1/3rd by the caucus that evening. So if you want to support your preferred candidate, make certain you're at your local polling place around 7:00 PM (NO LATER than 7:15 PM, because that's when they shut the doors) on March 4th. More information about it from the Burnt Orange Report.

http://www.burntorangereport.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=4877

Doctor Biobrain said...

Thanks for the heads up, John. But I'm already on it. The only problem is that I never updated my voter registration address when I moved last year, so I'm going to have to find out what that means for me. I've actually voted since then and they did whatever I needed to so I could vote, but they still have the wrong address. Plus, that was early voting, which can be done anywhere, so it wasn't important that I wasn't at the right place. I really didn't think it would be important until it was too late. Isn't that always the way...

This is so exciting. I don't think I've ever voted in a primary before, and definitely never in a caucus. I've heard such great things!