Misreading the primary
March 4 results didn"t reveal who can win the general election in November
By Dan Williamson, The Other Paper, Columbus
March 17, 2008
A pop quiz from Chris Redfern: “Who won Mississippi in 1976?”
Uh, Jimmy Carter?
“You’d be one of the few who know that,” Redfern said. “Why? Because most people don’t pay attention to details like that. They understand the election’s going to occur this November, but 90 percent of Ohioans haven’t really paid as much attention.”
In his own convoluted way, Redfern was trying to make a point about the March 4 Ohio Democratic primary, which Hillary Clinton won by 10 percentage points over Barack Obama. Redfern was suggesting that come November, Clinton’s Ohio win March 4 won’t mean much more than Carter’s Mississippi victory in November of ’76.
“It’s a long road,” he said. “I wouldn’t read into it whether Barack Obama won Ohio or Hillary Clinton won Ohio. It’s far too early.”
That’s an interesting argument for him to make when you consider that Redfern is chairman of the Ohio Democratic Party — an organization for whom last week’s primary was a rather big deal.
It also puts him at odds with his governor, Ted Strickland, who has said the primary offered evidence that Clinton has a better chance than Obama of carrying Ohio this November.
So it’s kind of a weird thing for Redfern to say — except that he’s right.
It is natural for Clinton to sell last week’s result as proof that she can win Ohio against Republican nominee John McCain. She’d be foolish not to.
What’s strange is that so many pundits independent of the Clinton campaign have bought into that idea.
Think of it this way: McCain won the California Republican primary but lost Alabama. Obama won the Democratic primary in Alabama but lost California.
But no one thinks McCain will win the Golden State in the general election. And nobody thinks that Obama, if he’s the Democratic nominee, will beat McCain in Alabama.
Primaries are interesting, but they foretell next to nothing about a general election, which will feature a different candidate matchup than the ones in the intraparty contests and will be decided by a different electorate.
Clinton deserves credit for pulling out her Ohio win, but she had a lot of help from Strickland, who was able to lend his personal popularity and formidable campaign operation to her cause.
If Clinton loses the nomination, Strickland and his political infrastructure will presumably be working on behalf of Obama. Same goes for those televised testimonials from John Glenn.
Other factors that helped Clinton win Ohio — such as her appeal among women and working-class whites — are unpredictable in terms of how they would play out in an Obama-McCain or Clinton-McCain contest.
Then there’s the race issue. Some observers, such as the former Cleveland Plain Dealer reporter Tom Suddes, have suggested that’s one problem Obama encountered last week that is sure to cross over to the general election in Ohio.
In a column published in the March 9 Columbus Dispatch, Suddes said the huge margins Clinton racked up in predominantly white regions of the state are evidence that there is a significant number of Ohioans who simply will not vote for an African-American candidate.
Certainly race has been and will continue to be a factor for the senator from Illinois. On the other hand, it was just two years ago that Ohio Republicans nominated a black man to be their candidate for governor.
Blackwell forced one popular, credible opponent, Betty Montgomery, to exit the race early and defeated another, Jim Petro, in the spring primary.
And though Blackwell was crushed by Strickland in the 2006 general election, few attributed his loss to his race. In fact, Blackwell did better among white voters than he did among his fellow African-Americans.
None of this is to say that Barack Obama will win Ohio eight months from now. He could lose for a variety of reasons, including the fact that the Republicans have nominated a fine candidate.
If McCain can figure out a way to excite the Republican base while maintaining his longtime appeal among independent voters, he could beat Obama or Clinton — or FDR, for that matter — in the Buckeye State.
Redfern, though, said he’s not worried about that.
“The Democrats haven’t even begun to define John McCain,” the chairman said with a grin. “I’m just getting started.”
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