Entries for April 2008

On Monday, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright spoke at the National Press Club in Washington, with nationwide reverberations. On Tuesday, Barack Obama denounced Wright and his statements. Judging from the talk I've been hearing from Democratic insiders since Wright's Monday speech, Obama did what he had to do. But the problem remains. Obama has now taken two positions on Wright. March 13: No, I cannot disown him. April 29: Yes, I can. Left still unanswered is the question: How can the man we heard deliver that speech in July 2004 about what unites us—in which his strongest line was "in the blue states we worship an awesome God"—how could that Barack Obama have attended the church of that Rev. Jeremiah Wright for 20 years? And not just attended: He and his wife contributed more than $20,000 to the church. It just doesn't add up. It undercuts Obama's very appealing theme of bridging divisions in our society.

I think this is going to be a continuing problem for Obama. As I suggested several weeks ago, it threatens especially to dampen the support Obama has won from young voters—the millennial generation. He has brought them out in great and unexpected numbers to vote for him in primaries and caucuses. It's not clear he will be able to do that in the general election—and the argument that he can has been one that has had weight with many Democratic superdelegates.

Here are the Pennsylvania primary results by congressional district. Barack Obama carried two districts, the Philadelphia-based First and Second, by wide margins and three others—the suburban Sixth, the Lancaster-based 16th, and the central Pittsburgh 14th—by narrow margins. Hillary Clinton carried the other 14 districts.

Reihan Salam, formerly Ross Douthat's partner on the late theamericanscene.com, takes off from the Democratic primary results and posits the existence (or emergence) of an Anglo-Latino working class. For nearly four decades, enlightened opinion has seen Latinos as "people of color," who will respond to American politics much as blacks have done. All recent experience (and my own The New Americans: How the Melting Pot Can Work Again) suggest this is not so.

Here is an excellent post on the exit polls by the estimable Mark Blumenthal of pollster.com. This year the exit polls have been pretty close to the mark in the Republican primaries but have tended to overstate Barack Obama's support in the Democratic primaries.

I have been assuming that Indiana's demographics are similar to those of Ohio and Pennsylvania. But I have noted that Barack Obama has been doing better in polls there than he was in those two states, and I have read that Indiana has a younger population. So I decided to compare the 2000 Census Bureau demographics for Indiana with those for Ohio and Pennsylvania. It turns out I was wrong. Here's a table showing, rounded off to the nearest percentage, my calculation of the percentage of 18-and-over residents in the 55 and over, 35–54, and 18–34 age groups in each of these states.

These aren't huge differences. But in a contest where there have been bigger differences between the preferences of old and young voters, they're significant, and Indiana seems to be demographically more favorable to Barack Obama than either Ohio or Pennsylvania.

My recent post noting that Clinton is currently ahead in popular vote (with Michigan and Florida included) has inspired many comments in which many reasonable arguments have been advanced on all sides. One criticism that I should note is that the realclearpolitics.com compilation of the popular vote doesn't credit Obama with the votes cast for "Uncommitted" in Michigan, and that if he is credited with those votes Clinton's current popular vote margin disappears. Probably most, though certainly not all, of the votes cast for "Uncommitted" were intended for Obama (John Edwards was still a live candidate when Michigan voted); reasonable people can argue about how many should be attributed to him.

Finally, six weeks after the last primary, Pennsylvania has voted. Polls taken just before the race showed Hillary Clinton ahead of Barack Obama by 49.5 percent to 43.4 percent. The actual vote was 55 percent to 45 percent with Clinton winning (official county results here).

Some interesting patterns here. As I noted in a previous blog post, Obama carries blacks, academics, and state capitals—and not much else. He carried seven of Pennsylvania's 67 counties: Philadelphia County (44 percent black in 2000, by 65 percent to 35 percent), Delaware County (suburban Philadelphia, 15 percent black in 2000 and probably higher today, by 55 percent to 45 percent), Chester County (historically Republican, affluent suburban and exurban, by 55 percent to 45 percent), Lancaster County (heavily Republican, Pennsylvania Dutch country and exurban, by 64 percent to 36 percent), Dauphin County (state capital, 18 percent black in 2000, second-highest percentage in state, by 58 percent to 42 percent), Union County (Bucknell University, by 52 percent to 48 percent), and Centre County (Penn State University, by 60 percent to 40 percent).