Debunking the "Big State" Myth

In the aftermath of the March 4th primaries a key talking point of the Clinton campaign is to forget about the delegate count because Hillary's primary victories in "big states," demonstrates that she can win states that the Democrats must win in November.

This argument makes me nuts. Viewed in isolation, how does a primary victory against another Democrat say anything about how either primary candidate would run in that state in the general election? Bill Clinton lost the primaries/caucuses in Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Iowa, Maryland, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Vermont, but won them all in November, 1992.

As John Aravosis writes at AmericaBlog.com
... [W]hat success really depends on is how many Dem voters are in the state as compared to GOP voters, and which way independents will swing. If we outnumber them, we'll likely win. If they outnumber us, they'll likely win. (It doesn't really matter if my guy or your guy wins the Dem primary but Dems are only 1% of the voters in the state and Republicans are 99% - then both of our guys are gonna lose in the fall.) The second factor is whether Democratic voters will abandon our candidate should their first choice no longer be on the ballot. Only Hillary and Obama can tell us whether they plan on trying to unify the party or split it come the fall.

More specifically political strategist Robert Creamer writing on HuffingtonPost.com critiques the Clinton campaign "big state" argument as follows:

• Most of the "Big States" Clinton has won are not battleground states in the fall. New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts and California are solid blue states where Obama would do as well or better than Clinton in a general election against McCain.
• Of the states she's won so far, the big exception to this rule is Ohio. Ohio is in fact a critical battleground state where Hillary has demonstrated that she has a leg up among lower income whites and older voters. But the polling also shows that in a general election, Barack offsets this advantage in Ohio among young voters and college-educated independents. In a McCain-Clinton match up the later group could gravitate heavily to McCain in Ohio.
• Obama puts in play a panoply of states where Clinton would have a much tougher time: Virginia, Missouri, Mississippi, Colorado, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan, and New Hampshire.
• Even in states where Clinton could make a case for some advantages relative to Obama, these "advantages" are far from certain. Clinton might claim an advantage among Latinos in Florida, for example, but Obama would likely turn out many more African-Americans. Obama is more likely to inspire new voters to vote, and his record on immigration offers a clearer contrast to Mccain.
• Clinton would energize the cultural conservative base of the Republican party who are are lukewarm in their support of McCain

Read the full analysis here.

See also the Who the Hell Knows Today Who Will Be Electable in November? from RockRidge Nation.