David Eisenthal marvels at the parallels between the last season of The West Wing and a possible Obama-McCain match-up in the fall, with Obama played by Jimmy Smits and McCain played by Alan Alda. (Smits won by a hair.) But perhaps Hillary Clinton can take heart in the Simpsons episode "Two Cars in Every Garage […]
Presidential election 2008
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The kiss of death for Obama?
Ted Olson, who represented the Republicans before the Supreme Court in its attempt to untangle the 2000 presidential election, is gleeful that this year’s Democratic nomination may be decided by a court fight over the legitimacy of the Florida and Michigan primaries. He ends his Wall Street Journal op-ed with this bit of snark: "I’d […]
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Obama vs. Patrick
The two maps below show how the votes for Barack Obama in last week’s Massachusetts presidential primary stacked up to the votes for Deval Patrick in the 2006 gubernatorial primary. Both ran as "change" candidates and there were similar patterns of support for both candidates geographically. Obama received 512,000 votes, considerably more than Patrick’s 452,000 […]
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The Census view of Election 2008
Even the Census Bureau is caught up in election fever. Its website has an elections page that summarizes the demographics of each state holding a primary or caucus. Both Maryland and Virginia, for example, have relatively high percentages of African-American residents (30% for the former, 20% for the latter) and college graduates, and both have […]
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Lay of the Land: Maryland presidential primary
Few states have had as many competitive presidential primaries as Maryland, which has elements of North and South, urban and rural, and white and black America. The map below shows how the state broke down in four primaries between 1976 and 1992. The green counties reflect how the state as a whole voted: Jerry Brown […]
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Kennedy votes for Clinton, Clinton votes for Obama
More detailed numbers to follow, but I’ve been tracking how the Democratic candidates are doing in counties that were carried by certain other Democratic candidates in past primaries. Despite Ted Kennedy’s endorsement of Barack Obama, so far Hillary Clinton is ahead 54-43 among counties that voted for Kennedy in 1980 — including Los Angeles, CA […]
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Here’s why I’m supporting…
Sunday, February 10, 2008 In my column today on local politics for the Boston Sunday Globe‘s City Weekly section, I look at the increasing use of personal email pleas and other online tools to try to sway the presidential choices of friends and family. In trying to win votes for their candidate last Tuesday, Ted […]
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“What do you mean ‘we,’ kemo-sabi?”
Jay Fitzgerald at Hub Blog already flagged this, but the most startling passage in today’s New York Times post-mortem of the Mitt Romney presidential campaign, written by Michael Luo, was this: “Ultimately, we thought if we put everything into the crucible, people would say, ‘Wait, this guy is conservative, and he’s honest and straightforward,’ ” […]
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Clinton vs. Obama, ward by ward
Matt O’Malley has a great rundown on how Boston’s 22 wards voted in Tuesday’s Democratic presidential primary. (It’s also on Blue Mass Group.) With most election analysis centered on county-by-county returns, this is a good reminder that there’s a lot of variation within large American cities. One key finding: Ward 5 (Beacon Hill/Back Bay)Obama, 3724 […]