Hillary on Fox: Winning the Bubba Vote
Perhaps missed in the "Democrats don't watch Fox" meme:
Politico:
"It’s an incredibly strong endorsement because Easley is popular among the blue collar 'Bubba' voters who are Democrats," said David "Mudcat" Saunders, a Democratic consultant who advised former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards and former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner on winning rural voters....
Easley, 58, the lone survivor of a class of Southern Democratic governors elected between 1998 and 2000, has managed to thrive by figuring out how to win reelection in a region where the national Democratic party is typically a burden to statewide elected officials.
Wary of the stigma carried by the national party, he skipped the party convention in 2000 and 2004. He's term-limited this year after serving two terms.
Easley has looked to popular culture for clues to help him connect to the average voter. In the past, his pollster has asked respondents whether they watch the popular animated Fox series, "King of the Hill." Easley, it turns out, is a fan of the main character Hank Hill, a small-town Texas propane salesman who likes guns and NASCAR. The governor has made the show’s audience his lodestar.
Between the Easley endorsement, an appearance on Fox, the work of Elizabeth Edwards and the recent Wright flareup, Hillary's "likely voter" component could change greatly over the next week. Buckle your seatbelts.
Politico:
"It’s an incredibly strong endorsement because Easley is popular among the blue collar 'Bubba' voters who are Democrats," said David "Mudcat" Saunders, a Democratic consultant who advised former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards and former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner on winning rural voters....
Easley, 58, the lone survivor of a class of Southern Democratic governors elected between 1998 and 2000, has managed to thrive by figuring out how to win reelection in a region where the national Democratic party is typically a burden to statewide elected officials.
Wary of the stigma carried by the national party, he skipped the party convention in 2000 and 2004. He's term-limited this year after serving two terms.
Easley has looked to popular culture for clues to help him connect to the average voter. In the past, his pollster has asked respondents whether they watch the popular animated Fox series, "King of the Hill." Easley, it turns out, is a fan of the main character Hank Hill, a small-town Texas propane salesman who likes guns and NASCAR. The governor has made the show’s audience his lodestar.
Between the Easley endorsement, an appearance on Fox, the work of Elizabeth Edwards and the recent Wright flareup, Hillary's "likely voter" component could change greatly over the next week. Buckle your seatbelts.
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Desidero, I haven't seen you post in a while. Given the latest Hillaria outbreak, this post hasn't a chance in hell of hitting the list, but I'll give it a recommendation to give it a fighting chance in any case.
BTW, what happened to red states not mattering?
PS I recommend "quote" rather than "bold" for quotes. It's more readable.
April 30, 2008 1:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
Hi Genghis, yeah, I had quotes inside the quotes so I chose bold instead, maybe italics or magenta highlights next time.
Everything matters to some extent - it's a question of how much and in what context. NC presumably will go Republican in the fall (though netroots challenged some presumptions in 2006 and won), but Obama doing worse there can signify a shift in his base nationwide - after all, the primaries/caucuses aren't just local, they're a moving timeline of how candidates are perceived nationwide. If it's perceived that candidates' supporters are turning against them, superdelegates and earlier pledged delegates may indeed take that into account (as Dean pretty well said last week). If Obama takes a PR onslaught and comes out undamaged, he can also claim that he'll be robust in November.
Thanks for the recommend, 1 or 2 more and I may achieve 20 minutes of internet fame.
April 30, 2008 6:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
Obama could carry NC in the fall. Clinton would get her butt handed to her on a platter. Just the way the state works. It's one of those places where the general election invariably proves the rule that given the choice between Republican and a Republican, the voters will pick the Republican every time. But real Dems can do well here, especially as the state's demographics shift. Since 2004, NC has passed NJ to become the 10th largest state, and almost all of that growth happened in the Research Triangle and Charlotte regions. Both are Democratic strongholds.
There have been several recent polls in which Obama has polled even with McCain in NC. There haven't been a lot of match-up polls, and Obama hadn't really started campaigning here when most of those were done. But from the movement on the ground, this is Obama country. There's no McCain organization here at all. There's some Clinton mo just because of the primary season and the fact that Bill's basically lived here three days of the week for the last month. But she doesn't have a lot of ground game, either. The Obama campaign has had some NC field operations in place since before the SC primary. He's got the game here to carry the state in November, if he can just get through to June without Clinton kneecapping him.
April 30, 2008 6:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
"Democrats don't watch Fox" news... correct. Obama's Fox appearance and Hill's O'Reilly stint both beg the question: what can they possibly hope to achieve among Dems by appearing on Fox, except for the self-referential echo that will bounce around the blogosphere for a day or two. The candidates would be better off appearing as animated avatars of themselves on King of the Hill.
April 30, 2008 2:16 AM | Reply | Permalink
Perhaps nationally Dems don't watch Fox, but the article gives an inkling that Dems in North Carolina (and elsewhere in the South?) have it on their playlist.
April 30, 2008 6:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think the FOX appearances by both candidates are an attempt to reach independents and crossover Repubs. My own curiosity is piqued to imagine Clinton and Bill O'Reilly having a face-to-face. I'm looking forward to seeing it.
I'm also curious how the Wright fight (and I call it that because I think both men are angry at each other right now) is going to play in NC. I'm sure Bill O'Reilly will ask Sen. Clinton about it, keeping the issue alive for one more day.
April 30, 2008 3:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, I'm also interested to see if HRC makes any news on O'Reilly. She's struck me as very good at staying on message, so I would doubt being on the Factor will produce anything controversial, really. Funny, that I assume cross-over Repubs favor Obama, but that's probably a pretty flimsy assumption overall. So, yeah, it makes sense for her to reach out to those who have sworn off voting R this cycle.
But I do wonder how she'll weigh in on Rev. Wright. For better or worse, I can't see her response making news this week since the whole Obama-Wright rift, IMO, is likely to dominate the entire week's news.
April 30, 2008 3:16 AM | Reply | Permalink
Hillary has cut loose the netroots and is going after the bubba vote, and it just might work. A Hillary supporter pointed me to this endorsement the other day:
And there's a lot more. Read the whole thing: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,327605,00.html
Hillary has Fox News cred like Obama will never have.
I'm going to go out on a limb and predict that she's going to have a love-fest with O'Reilly. He'll throw her a few softballs, give her a chance to talk about obliterating some country full of brown people again, and then they can get down to brass tacks and talk about Wright, Ayers, flag pins, etc.
April 30, 2008 3:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
But isn't that really a function of the Repub mind game, talking up HRC in hopes of running against her in the fall? I've never really watched Fox, so I dunno how much their viewers have been bred and fed on Hillary-hate. Can this last minute courtship of the conservative media really earn her enough votes to overcome the votes she could lose among Dems who see her appearances as suspect?
April 30, 2008 3:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
No... That is LONG over. Look at the ads that Republicans are running in Mississippi and NC—anti Obama, not anti-Clinton
April 30, 2008 6:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
I get some Republican input from Texas and their take on the Hillary v Obama thing is a little different from what I hear around here.
The Republicans I know are in anybody but Obama mode. They actually think either Dem will beat McCain nationally, and they consider Hillary the lesser of two evils. Good news is they are resigned to a Dem victory. Bad news for Obamanauts is they really prefer the victor to be Hillary if it can't be McCain.
April 30, 2008 10:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
I doubt it will be a love fest but agree with the rest of your comment. I find myself agreeing with you more and more. Not about who the best candidate is, of course, but the logic of your comments. I probably need to spend more time at Taylor Marsh and get my attitude adjusted.
April 30, 2008 10:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
The thing is, Hillary is a tougher opponent for Obama than McCain will be. Obama has to be nicer to Clinton because he doesn't want to divide the base, and she is absolutely ruthless with him without fear of repercussions from the media. McCain actually has to pull his punches sometimes, in order to keep from looking too out-of-control. Hillary, because she has nothing to lose, doesn't care. She can go full on, and she does. She'll say whatever it takes.
As far as the Bubba vote goes, the Dems won't win NC on the Bubba vote. NC Dems are BoBos moreso than Bubbas. Independents might be either, but that's for November, not now. Hillary might cut into Obama's lead by stirring up the parts of the NC Dem coalition who are "Bubbas," but she can't overtake him that way.
It's all part of creating doubt about his ability to carry the general in November. That's what her appearance on Fox is about, that's why she's attempting to beef up her Bubba cred. It's ridiculous, though; short-term silly and long-term disastrous. The Bubba vote will just as likely split for McCain come November, and if there is any chance for the Dem nominee to pick it up the party infighting isn't going to help either candidate. More importantly, the only reason Obama's "electability" seems questionable right now is Clinton. Once she's out of the picture, everything will get a lot clearer.
April 30, 2008 7:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
Everytime someone says McCain will be piece of cake, I remind myself that Democrats remain foolish and naive and fail to learn the truth about GE, time and time again.
The Republicans are clamoring for Obama to demand the nomination now. He will be very easy to defeat because he is finishing the primaries as a loser (despite his lead in delegates). Republicans now will simply need to remind voters that :
- Obama is un-American unpatriot (flag, etc)
- Obama is radical liberal (record, Ayers)
- Obama is an angry black man (Wright)
- Obama has no record and/or experience
- Obama is out-of-touch elitist (gas prices)
- Obama has fatally flawed judgement (20 years of Wright ending at yesterday's bus stop)
Obama's message is tired, deflated and suddenly unconvincing. I understand the emotional investment of his supporters, but it only underscores to me that they want Clinton to fail, not a Dem to won the WH.
April 30, 2008 7:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'm not trying to suggest that McCain will be easy. But I do think McCain will be easier. It is easier for a Democrat to run against a Republican than for a Democrat to run against a Democrat who is using Republican tactics. The Democrat running against the Democrat who is using Republican tactics is handicapped in multiple ways, because you can't call out someone from your own party in the same way you can someone from the opposition party. At least you're not supposed to do so, if you want to keep the party intact.
I just don't think there's any question that Obama has to treat Clinton far more carefully than he will McCain. So given that McCain will be using essentially the same attacks against Obama that Clinton already is (as is the case now), Obama will be able to be much more fierce in counter-attacking
Plus, when it is finally down to only Obama and McCain, he'll only have to field those attacks from one direction. As it stands now, Obama is constantly having to fight off the Clinton-McCain Tag Team Attack Machine. While I realize that the whole Republican machinery will step up when it's just Obama v. McCain, a lot of that machinery is already at work against Obama. But right now he's got a divided Democratic party that isn't helping him to fight it off. Instead, he's got half his party trash talking him and giving the Republicans more fodder.
So, yeah. McCain won't be cake. But he'll sure as all be easier to take on when he's not being aided and abetted by the Clinton campaign.
April 30, 2008 8:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
Nail on the head, Lalo35adm.
But first and foremost, McCain is a POW. Someone who's been tortured automatically wins the sympathy and the patriot vote without even campaigning.
That's why Clinton is careful to articulate respect for McCain publicly. She's very smart to do so, while Obama seems clueless about positioning himself this way.
But then again, Obama seems clueless about everything lately.
April 30, 2008 11:27 AM | Reply | Permalink