The Dreaded E Word

Electability. I’ve never heard the word before more in my life. It’s actually not a word at all, but let’s not get into that.

I have been thinking about electability alot over the last few weeks, trying to answer a critical question in the Democratic primaries.

Hillary Clinton has generally won the big states, including New York, California, and Ohio. She has used this to claim that it proves Obama cannot win in large states, and therefore is more susceptible to losing to a Republican in the general election. I was sceptical of that claim, to say the least. Conventional wisdom would say that though he may have lost the contests in the primaries, Obama would still certainly pick up the big Democratic states in the general election, plus do better than Hillary would in the smaller, redder states, which would mean a much better chance of winning the popular vote come November.

There’s a reason why nobody trusts conventional wisdom, anymore.

I have been weighing this for some time, trying to come up with a real answer before I wrote about it. Today’s Real Clear polls finally gave me the answer I was looking for.

In a theoretical General election matchup between John Mccain and Barack Obama in Ohio, Mccain leads by 7 points. In Florida, he leads by 6.8 These are crucial battleground states that have secured the last two elections for the Republicans, (though you can argue whether 2000 was actually an election or not.) In the same contests, Mccain is a half a point behind Hillary in Ohio, and only 3 points ahead in Florida.

God bless Rush Limbaugh for being wrong about practically everything. Those hoping to get Hillary the nod because Obama is a tougher opponent in the GE are being proved very very wrong. These polls clearly show that in battleground states and large delegate states, Hillary Clinton has a clear edge over Barack.

Yes, Obama has a delegate lead that would be very tough for Clinton to overcome at this point, but to keep saying that Hillary needs to drop out for unity’s sake is unfair and unrealistic. The longer that Barack Obama is in the public eye, the more his magic will wear out. By the time the big election comes, it may not be nearly enough to defeat John Mccain.

So who’s unelectable now?