The electability argument

The Democratic race is basically a tie. Obama has won more delegates, Hillary has won more votes (if you factor in Florida and Michigan).

So what it comes down to is the argument each candidate makes. Everyone assumes that Obama has the stronger argument, as Robert Novak is reporting today. That argument is, I've won more delegates, so I get it. And you're not really going to deny a black man who's won more votes--because if you do the anger of black voters will ruin your chances to win in November.

Hillary's argument is that she's more electable. The problem is that there is a gigantic jump from primary results to general election results that you just can't make. Uber-blogger Jay Cost makes this point even as he meticulously breaks down Obama's weakness with lower-class white voters. Analyze all you want, but it's not meaningful to draw conclusions for the general election.

As Carolyn Lochhead reports:

"I've been there," [John Edwards campaign manager Joe] Trippi said. "Walter Mondale won all kinds of states against Gary Hart in 1984. Ronald Reagan beat him in every state but one, his own. I've never seen any argument that something you win in a primary means you're the lock on winning it in the general."

In Virginia at least, Obama is probably right, said Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics, who said the state harbors a distaste for the Clintons.

In Pennsylvania and Ohio, "McCain has a chance to do against Obama what no other Republican could probably do against any other Democrat, which is win," Sabato said. "She's right about those two key states. She's wrong about most of the others."

What matters is the 13 states listed as battlegrounds this fall, said Simon Rosenberg, president of NDN, a centrist Democratic think tank once closely allied with former President Bill Clinton.

Throwing out Florida and Michigan, which had flawed primaries, Obama has won six swing states (Virginia, Missouri, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Colorado and Iowa) to Clinton's five (Pennsylvania, Ohio, Nevada, New Mexico and New Hampshire), leaving Obama with more potential electoral votes.

Clinton's strength among working-class whites, Rosenberg said, is based largely on women, not necessarily men.

Pinkerton notes that Republicans would hammer Clinton just as hard as Obama, exploiting her own rich history and high negative ratings in polls.

Pinkerton argued that Clinton's apparent strength among working-class whites is a mirage based on a small subset who vote in Democratic primaries.

"She's not going to carry blue-collar workers against John McCain," Pinkerton said. "No way. She'll get creamed."

So Clinton's strength among lower-class whites is more with women, not men, and white women were a whopping 46% of the PA primary electorate (to 33% of men). Hillary got 68% of white women and 57% of white men. But these are a subset of the population--Democratic primary voters. Voters in a general election will not be as favorably inclined to Hillary. Lower-class voters without built-in sympathies with Hillary, based on being a committed Democrat, will be susceptible to Republican persuasion. So while she might do well with this subset, including winning white men, there might be a big drop-off for her, particularly with white men, in the general.

But we just don't know. It's impossible to tell. That's the fundamental flaw of any electability argument based on primary results.