Julian Guest Blog VP and General Election Predictions

Hi, this is Julian, I’m Lew’s son. And I don’t have my own blog, but as a hopeless political junkie all my thoughts sometimes start to overwhelm me and I need to get them out, so my pa has graciously allowed me to post a guest blog on Morialekafa tonight.
I am a student at University of Washington in Seattle right now. I am gonna graduate next spring hopefully. And then I plan on going to law school eventually. But I also want to run for the state legislature, or any office, in 2010, or at the latest like 12 or 14. I am absolutely obsessed with running for office. I want to run for something so badly!!! I would die to be running for congress this year. Well, as long as Obama is at the top of the ticket. If Hillary is the presidential nominee I think congressional nominees in Idaho and the rest of the west and all swing districts can kiss their chances of going to Washington goodbye.
Anyway, I was also the county captain for the Obama Campaign in Boundary County, Idaho, where we got 76% for Obama I think. And im a delegate to the state convention in June, which I am really looking forward to.
But yeah, in this post I wanted to basically rant about how selfish the Clinton’s are and how they are ruining the democratic party(!), and talk about who I think might end up being the vice presidential selections, and finally, talk about what I think will happen in terms of the general election and the electoral college and who will win which states.


One Hillary Clinton

I was never that big a fan of the Clinton’s. But throughout the course of this campaign I have really lost the respect I once had for them. Hillary Clinton has no chance of winning this nomination without either having the superdelegates overturn the pledged delegates, which I don’t think will ever happen, because the superdelegates realize that that would tear the party apart. Or, if Obama somehow pulls some Larry Craig Minneapolis-bathroom scenario. There are a lot of people who are arguing and saying “oh, well she should stay in the race in case obama does screw up really bad, so that she can then get the nomination”. But the problem is, she can do this, that is exactly what Mike Huckabee did, respectfully staying in the race against McCain, touting his own positives, until he was mathematically eliminated. If Hillary was doing this there wouldn’t be any problem. But she isn’t, she is constantly trying to hurt Obama politically. And not usually in ways that will hurt him in the primaries, but rather in long term ways that raise his overall negatives, and will hurt him in the general election.
I think Hillary fully realizes that she will not be the nominee, but is just staying in the race to try to hurt Obama’s chances against McCain as much as possible, because she is hoping that McCain wins so she can run four years from now. Not so sound to conspiracy-theoristic. Now I don’t think that will happen anyway. I think four years from now if McCain is the incumbent people will remember how shameless she was this time around, and Kathleen Sebelius or Claire McCaskill or Mark Warner or Jim Webb or Wesley Clark will beat her anyway. But I think its clear that this is her strategy- hurt obama as much as possible, and attempt to intimidate voters and superdelegates into going for her, just in case she can somehow pull it off this time, if there are another two or three Reverend Wright incidents.
Finally, I also just wanted to stress how sick I am of all these ‘dream ticket” things people are saying. Obama and Hillary together would not be a dream ticket, they would be a disaster!!! Not just in terms of governing the country, but electorally. VPs are for the most part personality. They are there to balance things out, or to grab you a new state or two, or to reinforce the theme of your campaign. Hillary would be a horrible VP choice, bringing with her all her negatives without really helping Obama, except arguably to keep her hardcore supporters from defecting. But he would be better off picking some other woman if he is worried about losing elderly white female voters.

Two-
Which brings us to the second thing I wanted to talk about! :) Who I think will be the VP’s. First off lets look at McCain. McCain’s choice of VP is going to be fascinating. Actually both parties VP picks will be. I think they will be more important than any Vice President picks in the history of the country. And also quite likely more interesting. Because first of all we have both parties doing it, which almost never happens because theres usually an incumbent. But then also because both McCain and Obama have big problems they need to address with their vp selections.
So McCain, he has several things he needs to address. He needs to shore up support among hardcore evangelical Christians. He needs to shore up support among econonomic free-marketeers. He also needs to add some youth to the ticket. And, although I personally don’t think McCains age really should be an issue (his moms 95 and goin strong), Im sure it will end up being a big one. And then yeah, picking someone from a state he might be able to gain through the selection would be good. Leading to the first of several names that have been thrown out there- Tim Pawlenty, the gov. of Minnesota. I think that is a possibility. He’s very free market. Hes young. But I don’t think he could put Minnesota into play anyway. Similarly, McCain could pick someone from somewhere like Minnesota or New Jersey or Nevada or Ohio or Pennsylvania or Florida. Or he could pick someone who is regarded as really good on the economy- a John Thune of South Dakota (I think that’s right).
The most popular choice thrown around- and the one I have been talking about since last spring, is South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford. He is young, good looking, gregarious, very free market libertarian-ish. But solid on abortion and also from the most southern state imagineable for the most part. He would be a great pick and is arguably the best pick if you are gambling. But yeah, the only reason some ppl say he might not is b/c Lindsay Grahan is so close with McCain and has been such a supporter and he is also from S.C. so McCain wouldn’t pick Sanford instead of him. Which I don’t put any stock into.
K, next are all the ideas that will never happen. First is Condoleeza Rice. Which I think is ridiculous. VP’s are largely just ppl who are make the ticket look better or more complete. Rice is excuse me for sounding mean, but incredibly ugly. I mean she is really really bad looking. And she is way too connected to the Bush admin. There is just no way. It would just be silly. And I don’t think it would steal any woman or black votes anyway.
There is Huckabee. I used to think that he would be VP when I thought Romney would be the nominee (and before they started hating each other). McCain could pick him but he is also hated by a lot of hardcore neo-cons cause they call him a socialist (go figure lol). And because I think his “awe shucks” routine finally started to get kind of old.
There is Romney. And I think that he is a genuine possibility. He would help out a lot in the western states. He could add mormon money to the campaign treasury (which should not be underestimated, mormons are much more powerful and rich than anyone realizes), and (maybe?) possibly get Massachusetts for McCain. Although I cant imagine Mass. Goin Republican.
But yeah, my personal pick for who I think it will be is also kind of a surprise- Kay Bailey Hutchison, the senator from Texas. She is southern- a plus. She is a good looking, handsome, likeable woman. A formidable politician. And she is very good strategically because she could help McCain steal elderly white moderate women. Problems- some Con’s view her as weak on abortion. And that she is from a state that they don’t really need to worry about. And also- she isn’t that young. But I am still gonna go with her. I think she would be a great pick for McCain.

Obama-

As an obama supporter, I think it is sooo unfortunate that he cant pick like four or five VPs. Because he has so many holes he could use the VPship to fill. He has to worry about white women goin to McCain because of the sabotaging Hilary is doing. He could fill this with Claire McCaskill Sen-Missouri (the best possibility for a female president so far in American history in my opinion, apart from maybe Hutchison). I LOVE Claire McCaskill, she is amazing. She is unfortunately a senate freshmen though, which would add to the perception of lack of experience. Kathleen Sebelius- Gov. Kansas is good too. She did the dem response to Bushs last state of the union address.
I don’t think Obama will pick a woman though because I just think that might be too minority-ish unfortunately. So yeah, what else does he need? He needs to shore up the perception of being weak on Isreal- suggesting Ed Rendell, who would also shore up Pennsylvania. However Rendell is unfortunately a hardcore Hillary supporter. The other guy a lot of ppl are talking about is Bloomberg. This would be fascinating. But I think he is just too big government and anti gun and would hurt obama’s legitimate chances in western states like NM, Montana, The Dakotas, Colorado, etc.. And also the minority thing, I don’t think America is ready for Black/Jewish ticket just as they aren’t ready for a black/woman ticket.
Finally obama definitely needs to shore up his foreign policy credentials, and the whole “love for America” thing. This leads to maybe Jim Webb, who would be fantastic. But he is also a frosh senator. And some ppl think is too crucial a member of the senator already. If McCain wins this time, I would love to see Webb run in four years. But unfortunately that will be right when his first term is running out, which sets up an unfortunate dynamic. Anyway though……. This leads me to my choice
Wesley Clark- this is who I think will be the VP for Obama. I predicted the combination back in June. He is technically a Hillary Supporter. But about in as small a way as possible. I think of all the Hillary supporters he would be the easiest to cross over and be Obama’s VP. I think he helps shut down the Rev Wright thing. The inexperience thing. He helps the most of any one individual. And although I don’t think he’ll help get any one state, but I think he will help in Montana, Dakotas, Colorado, everywhere.
Similar choices would be Barry McCafrey and Tony Zinni. But neither of them are as good or have the ring to it as Obama/Clark.

Finally the one other one I think is a serious possibility is the guy who just endorsed him today- Bob Casey- hes from Pennsylvania- which would be a HUGE benefit. And he is a conservative moderate democrat – rural pro gun etc. He would be a really good pick too.



So, we have Obama/Clark against McCain Hutchison.

Three The General Election.



And here are my electoral predictions.
There is my prediction of what it would be between Obama and McCain, compared to Hillary vs. McCain.


So I found some really cool websites where you can do your own electoral map. I couldn’t save my picks on any directly. So I printed them off, scanned them, and have them for you here.

I also included some maps from this site surveysusa.com. You can find them by googling “surveys usa obama” and clicking on the first one. They have done several times, including like march 8th, polls in every single state of how each dem would be against McCain. These are the results. They are absolutely fascinating. Hilary loses to McCain in Oregon and Washington (which I don’t think will actually happen though). And they have Obama winning in North Daktoa. Which I also don’t think will end up happening, but I think shows that the upper Midwest/north/west could be open to Obama. Obama does really well in the upper Midwest, and the west. Although I think McCain will end up winning over 50% of the latino vote, hopefully showing dems that maybe giving voting rights to 20 million more of them might not be the best thing… but anyway I digress.

I think Obama McCain will shake up the map overwhelmingly. It will look drastically different than the Gore and Kerry and Dukakis maps that we are used to seeing, where dems win every state that borders water pretty much, apart from the carribean or lower atlantic.


So yeah, I think Hillary would do better in Florida, but I think it is lost to dems for at least a decade or two. Seriously. Florida is made up of old people (the majority), Jews, Cubans, and an increasing number of moderate evangelicals, and military people, particulary retired ones. That is like the exact perfect McCain electorate right there.

I think Hilary will do better in Pennsylvania than Obama. As well as New Jersey, which I think obama could very well lose. I think obama will win Virginia, and Hill wont. And maybe Missouri. I think the latinos will mean Clinton would win NewMexico but Obama wont. And I do think Hilary will have trouble in states like Wash. And Oregon, although I think she will end up winning them. And I think she will lose New Hampshire, Iowa, maybe Maine. And finally Obama could, if they get enough blacks and young ppl to turn out, could hypothetically win Mississippi and South Carolina.

So yeah, here are my predictions---- and the survey usa current poll result predictions.


Clinton vs. McCain

Obama vs. McCain

Surveys USA March 2008 Clinton vs. McCain polling state by state


Surveys USA March 2008 Obama vs. McCain polling state by state