Liberal Values Defending Liberty and Enlightened Thought

It is hard to decide whether I do not want Hillary Clinton to be president more because she is wrong on so many issues (her support of the Iraq and drug wars plus her conservative positions on civil liberty and social issues) or because the amount of dishonest and irrational arguments from her camp is getting so tedious to listen to. Keith Olbermann already chastised her for a number of such arguments emanating from her campaign. Looking around the blogosphere, it looks like many have heard her bogus electability arguments far too many times.

One of Clinton’s many irrational arguments comes down to claiming that because she has won many big states she is more electable in the general election. Putting aside the fact that she ignores states where Obama has won, this ignores the fact that the big states where she has won, such as New York and California, are just as likely to go Democratic with Obama heading the ticket. There is very poor correlation between place in primaries and winning the general election.

What is far more important than which specific states each wins is who each candidate can appeal to. In general Clinton’s support is limited to Democrats. Clinton receives the support of Republicans in primaries on Rush Limbaugh’s endorsement only because they want to cross over and vote for the Democratic candidate who will be easier to beat. In contrast, Obama has long had the support of many independents and some Republicans. As a result, he is likely to win the blue states which Clinton has won as well as being far more competitive in the battle ground states and even in some red states.

Steve Benen looked at the competing claims from each campaign with regards to electability and concluded:

In some ways, this leads to an interesting dynamic — the Clinton campaign is boasting of its ability to win contests in big “blue” states, while the Obama campaign can tout its success in winning in big “purple” states.

Does this “debunk” Clinton’s big-state argument? Sort of. I’ve never found the argument entirely compelling, but I consider states like Virginia and Missouri pretty big, and if Obama has a better chance of winning these states in November than Clinton, it’s an important angle to consider.

The next question, at least for me, is whether Clinton’s big-state victories are limited exclusively to her. In other words, she won major prizes like California and New York — but does that mean Obama wouldn’t win California and New York? That would matter a great deal, but I haven’t seen any evidence to that effect.

Kos looks at the states in various different ways, comparing them with current polls. Polls taken at this time are certainly not predictive of the general election result, but it doesn’t help Clinton’s arguments that such an analysis goes against her. After analyzing the data a few different ways Kos concludes, “No matter how you parse it, the data is clear that Obama is the more competitive November candidate for the Democratic Party.” There are certainly ways to argue with some of Kos’s assumptions, but they are at least more plausible than the arguments coming from the Clinton campaign.

Update: Pennsylvania Polls Debunk Clinton Electability Argument