We are a three-party nation.

[milkyway]

Here's the 2004 electorate breakdown by party affiliation:

Democrat: 37%
Republican: 37%
Independent: 26%

http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/president/

I think some people don't realize the sheer number of independent voters. It is impossible for the Dems to win back the White House without getting a substantial number of independents or Republicans. Among independents, Kerry beat Bush 49-48, yet still lost.

Unfortunately for the Dems, the repugs did not nominate someone like Romney, who any of our candidates, past or present, would have beaten like a rug. McCain is, by far, the only repug with a chance to win. Whether his maverick image is a media creation or not, independent voters vote strongly for him. It is difficult to see how Hillary Clinton can get enough indie votes to win a contest with him. She will even have a difficult time holding onto some white male dem voters, who surely will find McCain preferable to Hillary.

I am an Obama supporter, but I don't mean this as an attack against Hillary. I also don't mean this to suggest anyone should not vote for Hillary because of the electability argument. I know if Obama gets the nomination the repugs will throw so much filth at him that he also will have a lot to overcome. I simply have always thought that the repug's best chance this year is a McCain/Clinton matchup.

It is quite possible that an energized dem party can increase that 37% number (but we heard the same thing in 2004 about how the Dems would send more to the polls than the repugs). It is also quite possible that the repug number of 37% can go down because of a lack of enthusiasm for their candidate. But the one person who can energize the repugs is Hillary.

I really don't see how Hillary can get to 50% against McCain, and that's knowing that Hillary will be able to run up the score in the popular vote in large blue states like NY, Ill, Mass, and Cali.

Keep in mind that Kerry lost 11% of the Dem vote. Assuming that the balance between dems and repugs favors us by 39% to 35% this year, with a significant portion of white males voting for McCain, Hillary could get between 32-34% of votes from Dems. Kerry won 6% of the repug vote. Hillary will get less. Let's say 4% of the 35% repug vote--that gives her just 1.4% from the repugs. Added to the Dem vote, of 32-34, this would give her at best 36% of the popular vote. Meaning she would have to add 14% of the 26% indie vote to get to 50%. But how does she get more than half of the indie vote from McCain? That certainly won't happen.

Looking at the Super Tuesday results in Missouri, the "bellwether," shows that Independents comprised 22% of the electorate, and they favored Obama 67-30%. Repugs were 6%, and they favored Obama 75-21%. Dems were 73% of the voters, and they favored Hillary 50-47%. What this shows is that, yes, Hillary has slightly more support among Dems, but she simply does not have much appeal outside the party.

http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/primaries/results/epolls/#MODEM

The numbers I'm projecting for this year are, of course, only my own wild guess. And I'm only speaking of the popular vote, which doesn't decide the election. Looking at the 2004 map at the first CNN link, we can see some red states that Hillary would have a chance of flipping: Arkansas certainly (whose six electoral votes wouldn't give her the 18 needed), and perhaps even New Mexico, Arizona, or Ohio. But it's just as easy to find some blue states that could turn red, like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Minnesota.

The only way Hillary can beat McCain is that the Dems flood the polls in overwhelming numbers. But if they did, it's likely that any of our candidates would have won, not because of the candidate them self, but because they had the D next to their name. And you will have a difficult time arguing that Hillary will bring more Dems to the polls than Obama. The youth vote, especially, seems vulnerable to this.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. Thank you for a thoughtful post

This is my real fear. To ignore this threat is to put your head in the sand. I challenge Clinton and Obama supporters to come up with ideas of how their candidate can attract independents and lure them away from McCain.

[Happyhippychick]

2. I agree that this is a concern. However, please remember that this is an

unprecedented situation: the republicans absolutely HATE their candidate. His doesn't have the support of his base so you cannot assume that the 35% or Republicans are a lock. He may only get a portion the Independents because a lot of the Republicans will vote for a write-in out of protest.

The Democrats are very happy with their field despite the trolls' attempt on this board to show otherwise. There may be some ideological differences between Obama and Hillary but I have no doubt that when one is chosen the party will unite. We have a chance to make history with one or the other and no Democrat is going to vote Republican with this field.

[Tesha]

3. They hate their candidate now; they won't hate him in November.

Clinton hate (on the left as well as on the right),
on the other hand, will run for decades more.

Tesha

[hogwyld]

4. They may hate McCain, but one thing's for sure

They hate Hillary a LOT more.

[anigbrowl]

5. Hating McCain

Indeed, McCain is markedly unpopular within his own party - although many will grit their teeth and vote for him, and some more will do so if he picks an appropriate VP, it was Romney I was really worried about running against. He's smarter, understands economics far better (which will matter a lot this year), and can point to his moderately successful term as governor of Massachussets, a liberal state, to show that he can both get elected and govern in a liberal environment.

Democrats should not be complacent about running against McCain, but he's the weakest candidate, who made it through largely because the GOP couldn't agree about who was sufficiently pure to be anointed as a successor to Bush.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

6. Karl Roves analysis of the 2004 electorate, which was effective, was..

Karl Roves analysis of the 2004 electorate, which was an effective analysis (no matter who really won Ohio), was that conventional wisdom about independents was flawed because the majority of independents are not independent. They have ALWAYS voted Democratic or Republican, but happen to be registered as independents.

In 2000 he believed that the way to win was capturing the middle. But studies done in 2001 showed that *persuadable* independents, true non-partisans, were only 10% of the electorate. That's why they went base instead of middle in 2004, including using attacks and theories that only the base would believe. (Kerry was a coward, the WMD were stashed in Syria, Saddam ordered 9/11)

Things have doubtless changed some since 2004. I offer this as background on the independent question.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

7. Horseshit.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:U.S._party_affiliation.svg


Imho, Dems are less likely to vote and the majority of Independents(Repugs, for that matter) don't know their ass from their elbow.