Why McCain Will Win in November

Posted on June 3, 2008 by Dave Pollard
US Electoral College
US electoral college votes, 2004; 2008 might be even worse

It now appears that Barack Obama has enough delegates to win the Democratic Party nomination for this November’s election. He will be running against the heir apparent to the most unpopular president in history. When Bill Clinton left office eight years ago, he was much less unpopular, yet his bumbling was still too much for his successor, Al Gore, to overcome (though, thanks to the inability of the US system to accurately identify the winner of the election, we may never know who actually won in 2000).

So why is John McCain, who has done little to distance himself from his incompetent and despised predecessor, running neck and neck in the opinion polls with Barack Obama?

If you’ve read Joe Bageant’s Deer Hunting With Jesus, you’ll know why. There is a core group of white, uneducated working class Americans, perhaps 30% of the total electorate, who would vote for any Republican for president (other than those directly tainted with the Iraq failure). That core group is spread across most of the states other than New England, NY/NJ and the West Coast states. Those 39 Southern, Central, Midwestern and Western states are worth 385 of the 538 electoral college votes.

There is a comparable percentage of Americans who would vote for just about any Democratic nominee, but they are concentrated in the remaining 11 states, with only 153 electoral votes between them. The main so-called “battleground” states, Michigan, Ohio, Florida, Wisconsin, Iowa and Minnesota, have 105 electoral votes between them. All of them have large, white, working-class populations, and are the Republicans’ to lose (or to steal). Look at the state-by-state polls and they are likely to pick up Pennsylvania and Michigan from the Democrats, giving McCain well over 300 electoral college votes.

So despite the fact that McCain is following the dismal Bush, in an economy that’s in a shambles thanks to Republican mismanagement, he would probably win the election over Obama today, and the muckraking, xenophobia-stirring and fear-mongering the Republicans do so well has barely begun. Why is this Republican core vote so solid? Joe explained it simply: White, uneducated working class Americans don’t believe politicians can or will do anything to improve the economy, health care, education, or the environment. The only area of difference they can perceive is the war against Iraq, which they have now been brainwashed to believe is synonymous with the war against global terrorists. And, here’s the kicker:

They are mad at Bush not because he entered a brutal, expensive and devastating war under false pretenses, at a cost of at least a trillion dollars, bankrupting the nation in the process. They are mad at Bush because he didn’t win the war.

Remember: The vast majority of Americans have never owned a passport. All John McCain has to do is say, over and over again, with his war medals displayed, that he will win the war, against Iraq and then against Iran and other deemed ‘enemies’ of America. His supporters can focus their attention on anti-immigration rhetoric and stirring up fear of more attacks (and of rising crime). With that strategy, he can’t lose. And he won’t.

If the Democrats can’t muster any better than a neck-and-neck contest after the Republicans have been overwhelmingly acknowledged to have made everything vastly worse for the past eight years and sunk to the lowest level of presidential popularity in poll history, they have lostbefore they’ve begun.

Category: US Politics

PS: Dave’s travel schedule for the next few months:

  • Seattle June 14-15 (SLA), 
  • Montreal June 18-19 and September 18, 
  • San Jose CA Sept 23-25 (KMWorld), 
  • Bowen Island BC Sept 28-Oct 1 (Art of Hosting). Meetup, anyone?
This entry was posted in How the World Really Works. Bookmark the permalink.

20 Responses to Why McCain Will Win in November

  1. Malva says:
    June 4, 2008 at 06:16

    My canadian perspective: I think the democrats shot themselves in the foot by choosing Barack Obama. When voters are behind the voting screen, a lot of them won’t vote for Obama simply because he is black. It’s wrong but that’s just the way it is.I think it’s really unfortunate that the whole world will have to deal with yet another republican President.

  2. Ashley Johnston says:
    June 4, 2008 at 07:59

    I’m waiting for the debate. Obama is going to make McCain look foolish. It is also expected that Obama will outspend McCain 4:1, presumably mostly on media, and with that kind of attention it will be hard for McCain to stay in control of the conversation. Hillary said that she should be the nominee because she was ahead in the popular vote. I’m not sure if that still stands, but at some point Obama was behind in the pop vote while ahead in the delegate count. His team knows how to play the game. They don’t hedge their bets. They know what they are doing. They can count to 270.

  3. Gordon says:
    June 4, 2008 at 09:57

    For the record, I’m a liberal and always have been. Its the side of the issues I identify with. And there are definitely some Republicans that I wouldn’t mind if something happened to them….like most of the Fox broadcast ‘journalists’. However, I have to say that your tone and attitude really turn me off. One of the main reasons that the 30% of Americans you disparage so throughly hate liberals is that elitist, condescending attitude of yours. Shades of that is what lost the election for both Gore and Kerry. Yes there was chicanery in the election process. And yes, I really do think the electronic voting in Ohio was rigged. But if Gore/Kerry had GENUINELY tried to understand the needs of these ‘racist’, ‘uneducated’, ‘scum-of-the-Earth’, Republicans, the elections shouldn’t have even been close.Dave, you’re a brilliant writer and ridiculously prolific. I’ve enjoyed your blog for years now and I feel its helped me understand some very important issues better. But posts like this one and your Roger’s customer service one (http://blogs.salon.com/0002007/categories/politicsEconomics/2008/03/10.html) just taint the experience for me and I don’t know if I can continue reading your work. Not a big deal in the scheme of things but I felt compelled to share this.

  4. Siona says:
    June 4, 2008 at 10:54

    I am so tempted to just follow you from KMWorld to Bowen Island…

  5. mattbg says:
    June 4, 2008 at 11:11

    But how do you explain the educated people that vote Republican? There are plenty of those, too. Perhaps not a critical mass, though.Another thing mentioned in Bageant’s book about why certain types vote Republican is the condescending attitude that the educated elite have towards them. I see it in Canada, too. Middle-class white people sitting around a table on TV talking about the plight of the “inner-city black community” while refusing to allow the discussion to go anywhere that conflicts with their other white liberal credentials: absence of fathers is not a problem because that conflicts with the idea that fathers are not that important, for example. It’s all about building more basketball courts and blaming crime on poverty (ignoring the fact that there are plenty of other ethnic groups that also live in poverty in large numbers but don’t resort to crime to express their difficulty).So, these white middle-class folks sit around a table having a grand old discussion about what needs to be done, avoiding many of the real problems, and go back to their comfortable lives with their stature raised a little bit amongst their white middle-class friends because of how liberal they’ve shown themselves to be.But what happens in regard to the problem? Not much. It’s exploited to score political and social points, but not much is done. They get to feel good about themselves for putting forward their not-racist credentials. Some guilt is assuaged.Could that itself be construed as racist? Exploiting a situation for personal gain, exhausting people’s interest in the problem and putting forward false hope, without having any real intention of solving the problem?I think that’s part of why people vote Republican, too. They don’t make all that many unfulfilled promises. The message is simple (though not very elaborate) and they often have measurements of their progress when it comes time for re-election. In Canada, too, it’s not too uncommon to hear somethinglike, “at least they did what they said they’d do” when referring to a Conservative’s poor visceral showing.Although I’m somewhat educated and have a pretty clear picture of what modern-day conservatives are all about (and don’t like it), I still find liberals (and Democrats) incredibly annoying at times. The constant reference to “studies” and “research” that rarely includes a full literature review of the subject is used to shut down debate and stifle things that a lot of people know to be true from their own experience.Very frustrating.

  6. Tom says:
    June 4, 2008 at 12:39

    Let us all pray that you are wrong.

  7. Michelle P. says:
    June 4, 2008 at 17:57

    ugh!It’s all so frustratingly stupid. Of course I think you’ll be right though. The majority you speak of though WILL have the world turned against them soon enough.Thing is, when the rest of the world (including nations that are supposed to be america’s allies), stand up and say “ENOUGH!”, American politics will really ramp up the xenophobia to include wars on not just Islamic countries but any nation or group who “opposes” them. When America “lost” the cold war…they didn’t know how to control anything anymore, so they turned their focus elsewhere just to keep the fear alive. For now their focus is all things Islam. Soon it will be just anyone and any country who doesn’t live in America, love America, or think like Americans do.The group of people you speak of have become a modern day Tower of Babel – a people who believe they ARE God!

  8. David Parkinson says:
    June 5, 2008 at 14:08

    Hey Dave:I for one am amazed that you’re willing to make a prediction on this. I feel as though social turbulence is reaching record levels, and it’s foolhardy to try to say what might happen even five months down the road.I also don’t understand why Bush’s razor-thin margins in ’00 and ’04 (if such they even were) should widen for McCain, now that the war on terra is losing its visceral punch for regular folks, and the conomy is looming larger than security.I’m not one to believe that Obama is like the second coming, but I think it’s way too early days yet to call the election, given that we have yet to see even the beginning of the dynamic that’s going to happen between Obama, McCain, the media, and the public’s perception.I’m on the edge of my seat. No idea what to expect. All bets are off. I sure ain’t counting on a happy outcome, for sure; but there are surprises headed our way.

  10. Dave Pollard says:
    June 5, 2008 at 18:12

    Appreciate the comments. I do agree that this attitude is condescending, but that doesn’t mean it’s inaccurate. As Joe explains we need to connect with and understand the struggling underclass. But I don’t see that happening. And of course there are educated people who vote Republican, not many but enough to put the party over the top. David: Nice to see, but the poll at comment #40 to your link says the majority of Americans would support a military strike on Iran if that country were constructing WMD. The same basis for the fraudulent attack on Iraq. Convincing Americans that Iran has or is building WMD should be easy; it might even be true. If I were the object of sabre-rattling by two nuclear powers I’d try to get some nuclear deterrent too.

  11. Jon Husband says:
    June 6, 2008 at 13:12

    I sincerely doubt much will change in the wider scene of things even if Obama gets elected.The changes required are structural, and need to address the structure of capital markets, financial systems, politics, education and health care, at very deep, fundamental levels (as you have often written about).

  12. Melisa Christensen says:
    June 6, 2008 at 21:39

    :(

  13. David Locke says:
    June 7, 2008 at 04:35

    The Democrats didn’t pick Obama, the Republican’s did. They managed to do this via the Democrat’s open primaries. The pick Kerry as well. They picked thes candidates, because Edwards and Clinton are their worst nightmare. To say that Bush mismanaged the economy is to not pay attention to the goals of the right-wing. The right wants another great depression, so that they can rid business of any govermental controls and get rid of social security. Social security dampens the volatility of the business cycle. That volatility is how the wealthy make money, since they have not demonstrated that they can run daddy’s business. So, no, nothing Bush has done has been supid or a mistake if you a right-winger. He got his way every time. No, I’m not a rightwinger.

  14. J Wagner says:
    June 7, 2008 at 09:33

    Unless you are convinced the Republican’s did a reverse rat-fk, I don’t think they wanted Obama. Wasn’t there a attempt to make the R’s vote for Hillary in the primaries?Maybe the situation is too different to apply, but why not look at the 1996 election as a preview? An old war vet (Dole) who got the nomination because he had the most political markers to use. He lost against Clinton because he couldn’t get people excited about him. Why will it be different this time?

  15. em says:
    June 8, 2008 at 11:17

    Hi, I’m a lurker. I like your blog because I enjoy your perspective. I agree with your assessment of our civilizations chances too. But I’m still excited about Obama and here is why. He has more skill at controlling the conversation in the media than any politician I have seen in the last 15 years. As a contrast, Kerry was a failure at it. Edwards (though I admired his politics) failed at it too. That Obama has the nomination instead of Hillary says loads about his political skill. That nomination was hers to lose. I agree with Gordon that your post sounded elitist. It seems to me though that it is because American politics is heartbreaking and the emotional defense is jaded bitterness. The American people have better in them. It’s been buried (they have allowed their better natures to be buried) by years of racist and elitist fear mongering. The middle class willing allowed itself to be winnowed because they arrogantly believed that they were on their way to the economic pinnacle and that they didn’t want to be exorbitantly taxed once they got there. Personally I think the majority of “educated” people in this country got their 4 year degree so that they could control their participation in the economy instead of any desire to allow the available knowledge to change them, and I see many of them as being more knee jerk Republican than the uneducated working class. I think your assessment is off here.McCain has an undeserved reputation in this country, people see him as a moderate. It worries me a little, but I still don’t think that he will be able to stand up to Barack. What I hope though, is that people will listen to Barack Obama (that speech on race was a fundamentally different way to address race than I have heard in the national discussion) and allow themselves to feel a little spark of their better natures. I don’t think it will save our civilization (in fact I *hope* it won’t) but it might help us find a way to move forward.

  16. raffi says:
    June 8, 2008 at 22:36

    When (if ever?) did we stop having true, fair elections in the US?The analysis about McCain might be true and I think the more relevant question is not who votes but who counts the votes (Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone Magazine) and how they will be counted. We’ve had at least two General Selections. Fascinating that I haven’t seen any consideration as to how the powers that be will pull off something like in Florida ’00 or Ohio ’04…And isn’t Obama still part of the same ruling clique that McCain is (Council on Foreign Relations, Bildeberg Group)? Fundamentally are Obama and McCain different? Aren’t they really running against each other? Obama has a powerful presence *and* the Larry Sinclair scandal which has yet to break in the mainstream media is an indicator that he is no different from the rest of the them.People compare him to Kennedy…lest we forget about the darker side of JFK and what he wrought on the US and world…Cuba? Vietnam? Hello?Might the US presidency also be a largely irrelevant (or soon to be irrelevant?) phenomenon much like the nation-state? I’m convinced that if Jesus were elected tomorrow with Gautama Buddha as vice-president it wouldn’t make a difference…instead the story would be about how youtube’s servers crashed because users overwhelmed the site from a scandalous video demonstrating that Gautama Buddha shifted his position ever so slightly during a period of deep meditation…I’m not hopeless, mind you, just perhaps challenging the idea that the (s)election is relevant…

  17. raffi says:
    June 8, 2008 at 22:39

    oops, the question is:”Are they really running against each other?”

  18. mattbg says:
    June 9, 2008 at 07:45

    Raffi, re: “Obama has a powerful presence”He does, but he doesn’t have a warm or personable presence that a critical mass would see as one of their own and would want to have a beer with. He has a packaged, shrinkwrapped presence. John McCain comes across as somewhat of a retired apple farmer. As Dave said, he will connect with the type of people mentioned in Bageant’s book that were largely responsible for electing Bush. Obama will not connect with any of those people in the way that Bush and Clinton could, and that Gore and Kerry could not.Dave’s right… Bageant’s book puts a lot of things into perspective about why certain people in the US vote the way they do, even when it’s against their best interest. I also found it interesting because it articulated some of the things that I often find frustrating about liberal types, too.

  19. raffi says:
    June 9, 2008 at 14:10

    Matt,I think you’re right about Obama’s presence. This McCain and Obama post seems largely a discussion of what the climax of a very expensive theatrical performance will look like. Dramatic and engaging? Yes, much like an Indiana Jones film. Meaningful? Probably not. Meaningful in the sense that neither of these presidents will attempt to take on the deeper structural problems of the country. Might Obama be a more dangerous and harmful candidate in that he may be co-opting appreciative language to gain political power, thereby just using appreciative language as a new tool for mass manipulation, giving rise to an even more powerful wave of cynicism after the (s)elections?What else of consequence might be in these elections?Some of the larger questions for me remain:- Is there a difference between the Democratic and Republican parties?- How long have we had (s)elections? And what opportunities for meaningful citizen participation exist in this life-depleting context of contemporary US politics, if any?- How is it possible to engage with ruling elites in a way that is ultimately life-serving? What body of experience might give us an idea of what meaningful and constructive engagement with ruling elites looks like?- Which national (and state and local) US leaders operate from a life-centered practice? And how can that kind of leadership be further nurtured and supported?- Is the situation any different north of the border?

  20. Chris says:
    June 12, 2008 at 14:32

    Hey, good job. If you intended to offend people rather try to be tolerant and objective in your analyses, then you succeeded. If you tried to be truly liberal and understanding, you failed. First off, don’t call me “white.” My ancestors are from Europe: I am European-American (as, presumably, are you and the majority of americans.) Second, don’t call me “uneducated.” I have 3 university degrees–far more education than the majority of so-called “educated” liberals (such as yourself) have who would vote for any president were he colored or female and appoved unbridled immigration (maybe you would suggest completing a tic-tac-toe as the only requirement?) Third, don’t call me “working class.” I work for a major pharmaceutical company. The work I do requires higher cognitive abilities and the ability to collaborate interdepartmentally. Fourth, I have traveled the world (Europe, Asia, etc.) SO WHY WON’T I VOTE FOR OblahMA? Do you think me brainwashed? Xenophobic? No. I represent the true American that you have no contact with because YOU are brainwashed, xenophic, uneducated, and completely block-headed. I should thank you. I wasn’t going to vote, but you’ve so incensed me that I can only say one thing: see you at the poles!

Comments are closed.