As an Obama supporter I am disappointed by the vote in Mass. I didn’t think he’d win it but thought he’d get a little closer than he did.
When you look at the map, Obama was not able to break out of liberal cities and affluent suburbs and small towns of western mass. His map looks a lot like Shannon O’Brien’s in her loss to Romney in 2002 or Bob Reich in losing the primary for governor in 2002 – pinned to liberal cities and affluent suburbs. And in certain places where Obama won, like Newton, it was only by a hair. Clinton did well in those places with older voters (lots of grey hairs in liberal towns like Brookline, which she was very competitive in) and got enough liberals to keep the tally honest there while racking up in more moderate communities.
Obama lost big in places like Peabody and Quincy among more moderate and modest-mean dems. The crushing in those places was mostly by women as exit polls say he drew with white men in Massachusetts, but lost white women big time. And women vote more so you do the math.
What does it all say and mean? Who knows. The coalitions each candidate has built nationally with Clinton’s (white women, lower educated, lower income, Hispanics) versus Obama’s (blacks, higher-educated, liberals and rural voters and white men) are interesting and seem to be hardening – not good news for party unity. The candidate who can break free from these chains should win the nomination or just grind the other down in a war of attrition with the size of the coalition making the difference.
It remains Clinton’s race to lose. Her coalition at this point is just bigger. Obama will have to pull off a big state sometime or go down eventually I think. Pulling out Connecticut last night shows he can break out in a place that was hard core Clinton territory but the northeast won’t now be where the race is won.
All roads lead to Texas and Ohio on March 4th as the next big crunch point. Interesting states both with certain dynamics that could favour either/or. Clinton should start ahead in both places given her name. Obama has to rack up wins through Feb to keep momentum and then pull off an upset in one of both of those big states. Ties won’t be good enough eventually, as the leader stays the leader with ties. Given the proportional distribution of votes, it is also hard come back that is why Obama keeping the delegate totals close (well within 100) is so important.
Given Obama’s loss in Mass is there any read-across to the Patrick coalition and his fortunes? Maybe some, but Patrick won’t be running against a Clinton in 2010 and Patrick has been pretty moderate in his policy proposals. If anything, the Obama loss shows the continued popularity of the Clinton brand in Mass., Hillary’s own competence as someone seen as ready for the job, her appeal to women and the fact that endorsements by big names don’t do much beyond get some great headlines. This is not a loss for Patrick, Kennedy or anyone else – machines don’t exist and people choose for themselves.
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p>I think Hillary’s ability to pull out a big win in Massachusetts speaks volumes for her organization and her own abilities.
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p>But, the results in Massachusetts have to be a huge embarassment for Sen. Kennedy, Gov. Patrick and Sen. Kerry. The three most influential male politicans in the Bay State put a lot of effort into this…they essentially tried to elbow the woman aside in favor of the new guy on the block, and they failed miserably. Their organizations pulled out all the stops for their guy, and Hillary beat them all handily.
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p>I see this as a big victory for her, as well as being an embarassing loss for them.
given that they did not endorse all that long ago and also the fact that they have been campaigning for Obama out of state. Who knows, perhaps Hillary would have won even more convincingly without their endorsements.
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p>In any case, they are both too senior to suffer any real political damage from this. I also doubt that Menino will suffer any damage from not being able to deliver Boston for Clinton.
Nobody in their right mind would think that anybody could “deliver” Boston to Clinton. The fact that he kept it as close as he did speaks volumes.
The fact is Kennedy and Kerry spent more time campaigning for Obama outside their home state then within it. And what organisations do we speak of? Its not like Kennedy and Kerry have 10,000 loyalists that do whatever their “boss” says. Kennedy supporters are often Menino supporters or Frank supporters or McGovern supporters, etc…And Patrick folks could be all the above and many of them liked Clinton.
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p>Ultimately, this isn’t an organisational triumph or defeat. Clinton won a decisive victory because more people voted for her – not because who told them to or not. And Obama didn’t get enough votes from white working class women across the state. They certainly didn’t take endorsements very seriously. But many of them will gladly vote for Kennedy again and Kerry and Patrick even if they disagreed.
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p>MACHINES DON’T MATTER. If they did – Menino wouldn’t have lost his home town – which may also mean that in the scheme of things, Boston doesn’t matter very much to state election outcomes , even for Dems
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I think Deval Patrick has had and still has the most active grass roots political organization in place that this state has seen in a long while. I don’t know about you, but I got many e-mails and phone calls from the Patrick campaign in support of Obama.
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p>The organizations of all three – Kennedy, Kerry and Obama – were working yesterday to get the vote out for Obama. And every time I turned on the TV in the past few weeks I saw Obama advertisements and such featuring Caroline and Ted Kennedy. So, yes, I think the Clinton win was a major embarassment for all of them.
if Obama had been expected to win and then lost. But he was down in Mass big from the beginning and he closed from th 30 point deficit – but not close enough. We grossly overstate the ability of one politician’s endorsement to help another. Different votes and contests.
…if you check back on this blog a few days ago, Feb. 4 to be exact, David front-paged a story touting the latest poll done in Massachusetts, which showed Obama beating Hillary by 2 points…
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p>I think a lot of people were seeing the Clinton/Obama race in Massachusetts as a toss up in the last week or so…and so I stand by my claim that Clinton’s huge win here was an embarassing defeat for the male political establishment (Kennedy, Patrick & Kerry) in Massachusetts
in all of this is something that I’ve known for a long while. Deval’s campaign was not a shining example of organizational strength. Grassroots can be powerful, but they have to be nurtured and valued to continue participating. Although many people involved in Deval’s campaign did jump on the Barack bandwagon, it didn’t have the anticipated outcome because many people long ago ceased to be actively involved. Disillusionment happens when newly active people don’t see expected outcomes and are not encouraged to stay active. I am convinced this was a factor in the Clinton win.
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p>I think the Clinton campaign proved that organization is very important. I’m also wondering if their tools were better. I was touched multiple times by the campaign via phone and email (no I never signed up for anything). They used the VAN system, and I can’t help but wonder if they were better able to target people because of it.