Which Will Turn Out To Be *More* Difficult For Obama To Win: The Primary, Or The General?

(This turned out to be longer than I supposed it would at the beginning. Even if you don't read it, do me a favor and think about the question for a few seconds before voting! :) )


I was just thinking about it, and the obvious answer (the general) no longer seemed as obvious to me.

Note that I'm not suggesting that the general will be *easy* - I'm just asking about which will be *harder*.

I'm perfectly well aware of what difficulties the general will introduce, and I'm sure responses will mention them too, so I won't.

But think about just what an incredible feat it was for Obama to win the primary:

At the start of the primary:

1) Who the hell's Obama?
2) Obama's policies are almost identical to Clinton's
3) Clinton is well-known
4) Clinton is far, far ahead in every single poll
5) Clinton has The Democratic Machine working for her
6) Obama is black (yes, people - that makes things more challenging)
7) Obama had to beat 2-5 other people (depending on how you count - but he had to at least worry about Clinton and Edwards)
8) Clinton is very smart


In the general:

1) false - Everybody knows Obama
2) false - Obama's policies are WAY different from McCain's
3) true - McCain is well-known
4) false - McCain is ahead in *some* polls, but not by much in those. And in some polls he's not even ahead at all
5) false - McCain doesn't have The Democratic Machine working for him
6) true - Obama will still be black
7) false - Obama can devote his full, scarily impressive mind to beating JUST ONE PERSON
8) false - McCain is very stupid, so stupid that he's a republican, in fact

A note about the black thing, since it's certainly people's biggest worry, even if they're too scared to say it outright. Stipulated: that a bunch of white folks won't vote for Obama simply because he's black (whether or not they admit it). But while it hurts, it's not THAT big of a deal: 3/4 or more of them weren't going to vote for the Democrat *anyway*. We're certain to lose a *few*, but it seems more likely than not that those losses will be more than offset by the various "new" groups that Obama has a *decisive* lock on.

Additionally, by shining campaign light on the west, Obama lessens the impact of his blackness. "Ooga booga a black guy!" just doesn't work as well in the west as it does in the east (i.e., the south, Appalachia, etc.). Combine that with a canny choice of VP, and the losses due to racism are more than made up.


This all occurred to me while thinking about Obama ripping McCain a new asshole for the 2nd time in as many weeks:

http://www.eschatonblog.com/2008_05_25_archive.html#8666932033370928887

It's not *hard* to campaign against McCain: The whole country hates Bush, Bush = McCain, ergo the whole country hates McCain - in a nutshell. But when you add on to the equation that McCain is *stupid* per the link, as just one example, then it seems like the ONLY thing Obama has to deal with is the inevitable smears. And that's all.

So I'm no longer convinced that Obama's general election campaign will require as much ingenuity as his primary campaign did. Not that it'll be easy, just that it won't be as hard.

I'm not suggesting that an *electoral* landslide is the most likely outcome. Rather, I'm suggesting that a victory (by however many electorals) might well be the result of an *easier* general election campaign than the one he had to put together for the primary. Not easy, just easIER.


What do you think?



EDIT: Ugh - Now I *really* see how long this was. Sorry, folks. :(

Synonyms: arbitrary, arrogant, authoritative, biased, despotic, dictatorial, doctrinaire, doctrinal, dogmatic, fanatical, fussy, imperious, intolerant, magisterial, opinionated, overbearing, pedantic, peremptory, pompous, pontifical, precise, prejudiced, pronunciative, scholastic, self-assured, sophomoric, subtle, totalitarian

:eyes:

The Primary is definitely the more difficult race of the two because Hillary Clinton is at least 10,000 times the candidate that John McCain will prove to be.

...Primary will have been the harder of the two races. Also, a lot of stuff that Sen. Clinton has trotted out against Obama would have been used by McCain, and the first time people see this sort of thing it makes more of an impact. I think McCain may nolonger have the element of surprise in a few fields which Clinton's camp has been (attempting) to beat Obama with.

  Again, after 8 years of this horrible shit nobody here has enough hubris to expect it to be easy, but I think easier than the GE.

PB

The amount of racism that still exists scares the shit out of me.

it just helps to put the *results* into more doubt than they would otherwise be.

Put it this way: It's not like Obama's gonna spend a great deal of time campaigning for the David Duke demographic.

I steel myself with the last 8 years. I figure most people don't want to continue with this republican shit. I say, can they possibly be this stupid?

based on the Bush administration.

campaigning. Kerry for-it-before-he-was-against-it comes to mind, for example.

I'm not wondering whether Obama, or anyone else would win. I'm asking *which campaign is more challenging* for Obama? That's all.

I'm just suspecting that the general campaign is a simpler one, with fewer "moving parts" as it were, than the primary campaign was.

Still hard. Just not *as* hard.

But mebbe not. :P

are the ones who say one thing and then get behind the curtain. We won't know about them until the day after.

:rofl:

(Nothing wrong with squeezing a little humor out of a tense situation, imo)

Man, what a crazy five months it's going to be.

The MSM in general and Newscorp in particular will be the main problem in this campaign.

(Along with the RW smear machine and hate radio, of course.)

ABC, McCnn, and Faux will be anti-Dem 24/7 pretty much as they were in 2000 and 2004.

I hoping we get something of an even playing field from NBC and CBS but am not counting on it.

Romney or Huck will be the nominee. Obama wins with 400 EV.

Bookmark it.

In the primary, he only had to fool Democrats. In the general, he'll have to fool everybody.
McCain is very beatable. I just don't think Karl Axlerod is the guy who can do it.

anyone who thinks the corporate media is going to let this one go easily is deluding themselves. The powers that be want McCain to win, and that will be very difficult to overcome.

Indeed, I repeatedly said the opposite.

Defeating a Clinton in the Democratic Primary is no small feat. I also think he is running out of crazy pastors.

People who haven't been paying attention will at that point, and I think that there are a lot of them.

Middle of the roaders, NOT DUers, who don't want another 4 years of Pubbie rule might think twice. More people judge you by the company that you keep than you might imagine, unfortunately, and I don't think that they'll like Wright and now Pfleger. Or former members of the Weathermen, for those of a certain age.

I'm not sure that they'd go for Clinton, either. One picture of Monica and it will be, "Yuck, I don't want any more of that."

If they can get over the baggage each carries and focus on issues, then I think that we will have a better chance.

However, the baggage has VERY COMPELLING visuals that can simply overwhelm like a great movie.

candidates having already taken hold, and being "fixed" in the voters' minds.

Hard to say which way that would go.

It could be a interesting fall.

I'm kind of dreading it, though.

new material. It is not possible that anyone who watches any news at all, or is on the net, does not know Reverend Wright. Reverend Wright probably got more air time than the Iraq War. Even my sister, who never watches the news, and uses the internet only for shopping knows all about Reverend Wright. And that Ayers story never had legs. There is no there, there. And it's stale. I think they will go after him on the usual bullshit. Be afraid, be very afraid.

Synonyms: arbitrary, arrogant, authoritative, biased, despotic, dictatorial, doctrinaire, doctrinal, dogmatic, fanatical, fussy, imperious, intolerant, magisterial, opinionated, overbearing, pedantic, peremptory, pompous, pontifical, precise, prejudiced, pronunciative, scholastic, self-assured, sophomoric, subtle, totalitarian

:eyes:

:hi: Dat wun iz noo tew mee, tew.

I predict ... the General Election will be more difficult.



:smoke:

The media will be gunning for all Democrats, trashing all of our people running, and republican support will start to consolidate around their nominee. Not to mention the electoral college bias in favor of republicans that so many here seem to forget about or ignore. It isn't as though Obama can't win the most votes yet still lose, and I wish some on our side would remember that.

NOTHING

they have to run away from who they are and what they have done. "Baghdad Bob" all the way. I don't know how much more racism they can stir up without having it back fire on them. All we need is a collective refresher course in the last 8 years.

when you add Bill into the equation it only becomes more unbalanced.

Only because we haven't even begun to see what the right-wing smear machine has in store for Obama. I think he'll prevail, but as we've learned from the last presidential election, even damned lies can damage a candidate.

who he really couldn't fight fairly or get in the ring with, being the gentleman that he is. After many many months of

playing mostly defense, he is now in a league of his own, forged in the fire of HC's Kitchen Sink Whirlwind (remember, in

the colloquial saying it's "everything BUT the kitchen sink) Sneak Attacks.

John McCain may pull a Scott McClellan in mid stream, get to go on all the 'more progressive' comedy shows again to talk

about his new book and about how much he wants to work with Obama in the future, come what may.

ANYTHING good CAN happen too. :)