There’s obviously plenty of stuff available today about Barack Obama’s double-digit win in Wisconsin yesterday, but perhaps the most interesting analysis is by RealClearPolitics’ Jay Cost, who looks closely at the evidence that Obama, for the first time, began to win in demographic categories previously dominated by Clinton. He concludes that we may finally be seeing evidence of a “momentum effect” for Obama. But it’s a relatively small effect, and Cost thinks we won’t know for sure if it’s in play until Texas and Ohio weigh in.

NOTE: This, the second item in The Democratic Strategist’s Roundtable Discussion on swing and base voter strategies, is an excerpt from political organizer and strategist Robert Creamer‘s recent book, “Listen To Your Mother: Stand Up Straight! How Progressives Can Win.” It’s reprinted with permission of the publisher.
In election campaigns our goal is to change the behavior of the voters, since they are the actual decision-makers. Sometimes there are secondary targets as well, but the secondary targets are only important insofar as they can help us impact the primary targets—voters.
And our primary targets are not just any voters. They are the only two categories of voters whose electoral behavior can be changed by a campaign. We call them persuadable voters and mobilizable voters.
Persuadable voters have two characteristics:
•They generally vote.
•They are undecided.
Mobilizable voters also have two characteristics:
•They would support our candidate.
•They are unlikely to vote unless they are mobilized to do so.
In many political campaigns, massive amounts of political resources are wasted because they are used to communicate with voters who are not part of one of these two groups. They are spent trying to convince voters who always vote Democratic to vote for a Democrat, or they are spent trying to convince people who always vote Republican to vote Democratic. They may also be spent trying to convince voters who never vote, but would vote Republican if they did, to vote Democratic. All of these are wastes of campaign resources, since the behavior of these target voters will not likely change.
Democrats are particularly prone to target voters who always vote Democratic—and always go out to vote—with resources that should go elsewhere.
Of course, base Democrats who always vote are critically important to campaigns as potential sources of volunteers and contributors. But they are not primary targets for the campaign’s message since we don’t want their voting behavior to change. They always vote Democratic, and always go out to vote. They behave that way no matter what is done by the campaign.
In an election, persuadable and mobilizable voters are never the same people—and our communication with these two distinct groups has two different goals.
This is one of the most important rules of effective electoral politics, — and one that is most often violated, forgotten and confused.

Read more…

(NOTE: As explained in the previous post, this is a guest item from Jonathan Krasno, Associate Professor of Political Science at Binghamton University).
With John McCain the all-but-certain Republican nominee, the obvious question emerges: which Democrat is likeliest to beat him? This, of course, is a purely hypothetical question. John Kerry won the Democratic nomination in 2004 in large part because of the perception that he was the strongest candidate against George Bush. He lost, but we have no way of knowing whether John Edwards or Howard Dean would have done better. The same is true of many of the judgments that people make of candidates. We’ll never know whether Hillary Clinton would be a better president than Barack Obama, whether his foreign policy would work better than hers, and so on. The best we can do make an informed guess. On the question of electability, my guess without question is Obama.
The case for Obama as the strongest candidate comes from simple electoral math. The 30+ primaries and caucuses to date, plus the polls and the pattern of endorsements from red-state Democrats, show that he has more appeal to independents, to a handful of Republicans, and to casual Democrats than does Clinton. Clinton’s support is largely concentrated in core Democrats, the sort most likely to vote in primaries and the reason why she remains in serious contention despite a string of loses. Obama is almost certainly right to claim that he would be more likely to win over Clinton’s voters in the fall than she would be to win over his. Although widely interpreted as a reference to blacks, it is independent and Republican supporters who are most out of her reach. In short, Obama begins with a larger pool of potential supporters, one that encompasses the core Democrats currently on Clinton’s side and extends past them.
The key word in that last sentence is “potential.” The main knock against Obama as a candidate – and the main argument for Clinton – involves his ability to withstand the withering attack to come. Obama has enjoyed a charmed political life, with fawning press and weak Republican opposition. Can he maintain his exalted status a fresh, new voice (for change!) once the campaign really begins? The Clintons, after all, knocked him off his stride for several weeks after Iowa with some hardball tactics, although by South Carolina he managed to turn those tactics against them.
Once the campaign begins, the argument goes, Clinton is better prepared. She has been in the national spotlight since 1992, so she knows what the counterattack will be like and what she has to do to get beyond it. She won’t, like Kerry or Michael Dukakis, be surprised by an attack and lose an early lead. She is not invested in a holier-than-thou image, so she can throw some pretty sharp elbows and do whatever is necessary to win, etc. Furthermore, the strong economy of the Clinton years supposedly gives her a solid claim as the candidate best equipped to deal with recession, especially versus McCain.
All of that would be more convincing if Clinton were a proven vote-getter or a proven campaigner. She ran five points behind Al Gore in New York in 2000, two points behind Elliot Spitzer in 2006. (Her husband, his recent missteps notwithstanding, who is a better politician than she is, never managed to win a majority of votes nationwide.) I live in upstate New York and can confirm that whatever Clinton hatred that remains here is muted, proving that with time Clinton can win over her critics. She does not have the time to lavish attention on the whole country as she has lavished it on New York, to get people who discount her to pay attention. More important, against the toughest political opponent of her career in Obama, she has squandered a huge lead and a dizzying array of advantages. If Obama has run a better campaign for the nomination (aimed at appealing to people who will be swing voters in the general) why should Clinton be seen as the stronger candidate in the fall? It is certainly hard to discount his superior rhetorical skills and the organizational success of his campaign.
Nor does Clinton’s ability to match up against McCain on an array of issues seem like a big deal. One of the things that the exit polls have consistently shown is that Clinton and McCain, arguably the two biggest hawks on each side, have done better than their opponents with voters who favor a quick withdrawal from Iraq. What that suggests, of course, is that voters look at a variety of things besides issues. In Obama’s case it is his uplifting message of hope and change; in McCain’s it is his reputation for honesty. Against either one, Clinton’s mastery of the details of government seems wonkish and uninspired. Given the choice between going into the general election with the master of the economy or the charismatic apostle of change, I would opt for the generic message of changing the friendless status quo.
In other words, the argument for Obama is most electable is based on breadth of his appeal, while Clinton is favored for her supposed mastery of the process of running against Republicans. Of the two, the first seems more tangible and more valuable to me. The potential to bring more Democrats to the polls (especially young ones who could help the party in the future), the potential to win more independents and perhaps more than a sliver of Republicans, the potential to keep the Republicans in disarray rather than healing their divisions for them by nominating an opponent who instantly unites them – all these make Obama the stronger candidate. Obama will be savagely attacked, pulled off his pedestal (along with McCain), and possibly even fatally wounded in the process. But will he end up any more disliked or divisive than is Clinton already? Probably not. The campaign against her is, after all, in the midst of its second decade. It will cost the Republicans tens of millions to try to demonize Obama as effectively as they have demonized Clinton, and there is no certainty they’ll succeed.
One of the common observations about Obama is that he is a high risk, high reward candidate, while Clinton represents a surer thing. The risk is that, with his lack of exposure on the national stage, the bottom could fall out; the reward is that Obama fulfills his potential as a transformational candidate. I do not see him doing any worse than Clinton’s worst. But with the stars aligned for a Democratic victory in November, Democrats can afford to think big. Clinton can win a narrow victory, but only Obama can deliver a landslide.

If you read a lot of progressive blogs, you probably already know about this, since it was trumpeted last night as perhaps a bigger deal than the presidential primaries, but in any event: Donna Edwards decisively beat incumbent Democratic congressman Albert Wynn in a surburban DC district of Maryland.
Edwards came very close to upsetting Wynn two years ago. Her candidacy this time around probably drew more national attention and support from progressive netroots circles than any since the Lamont challenge to Joe Lieberman.
Wynn got the bullseye painted on his back for a variety of reasons, most notably his reliance on corporate contributions, and particularly his vote for bankruptcy “reform” legislation, a longstanding progressive cause celebre that’s gained new life thanks to the mortgage foreclosure crisis, which hit Wynn’s district disproportionately. This district, probably the wealthiest majority-African-American CD in the country, is centered in Prince George’s County, with a slice of Montgomery County as well.
There was some talk as recently as yesterday that Wynn might pull a Lieberman and run as an independent in the general election if he lost the primary. But he’s already endorsed Edwards, and this is a heavily Democratic district.
This primary will be treated as another object lesson in the willingness of progressives to “primary” wayward Dems, and also as part of a longer-range struggle within the African-American political community wherein membership in the Congressional Black Caucus no longer ensures perpetual re-election.

In the wake of Barack Obama’s very good week, there are a variety of assessments available about the shape of the Democratic contest going forward.
At Open Left, Chris Bowers offers a state-by-state pledged delegate count that shows Obama up 1,137 to 1,002.
At RealClearPolitics, Jay Cost has a complex analysis of the demographics of Obama and Clinton voters that suggests to him that HRC has a decent chance for a late comeback, particularly if “momentum” isn’t that big a factor, and if she makes no mistakes.
In terms of potential momentum-changers, there’s at least one article, at ABC News, reporting that John Edwards is leaning towards an endorsement of HRC.
And SurveyUSA, which has had a pretty good track record of late, has a new poll of OH out showing HRC with a pretty robust, 17-point lead over Obama in that crucial state.
Democratic Convention Watch, which maintains a fairly conservative list of superdelegate preferences, reports that Obama’s keeping up with HRC in endorsements, but isn’t yet cutting into her lead.
But AP’s Ron Fournier predicts that superdelegates could easily turn against HRC based on a long list of accumulated grievances against the Clintons.
Hard to say exactly where this contest goes next.

As we all await poll closings (7:00 EST in VA, 8:00 EST in MD and DC) for the Potomac Primary, there’s an interesting estimate by Constituent Dynamics of how the Democratic delegate fight will turn out, based on robo-polls and a district-by-district breakdown of where the chips may fall. The estimate predicts that Obama will win 93 delegates, and HRC 62, with 13 “too close to call.” And that’s based on polls showing a healthy but not overwhelming Obama margin in all three jurisdictions.

Most of the national attention being paid to today’s so-called Potomac Primary in MD, DC and VA is about the Democratic contest; even at National Review, that’s what they’re mostly talking about. On the Republican side, the main question seems to be whether Mike Huckabee might be convinced to withdraw from the race if he gets trounced, as expected, today.
But ah, what if Huckabee pulls a rabbit out of his hat and wins something today? SurveyUSA has a new poll of VA out today that suggests that Huck got some real mojo out of his primary/caucus performance over the weekend:

On the eve of the Virginia Republican Primary, it’s John McCain 48%, Mike Huckabee 37%. Compared to an identical SurveyUSA tracking poll released 72 hours ago, McCain is down 9, Huckabee is up 12. McCain had led by 32, now leads by 11. Among Conservative voters, McCain had led by 21, now trails by 5. Among Pro-Life voters, McCain had led by 20 points, now trails by 6. Among voters in Southeast VA, McCain had led by 28, now trails by 12. Among voters focused on Immigration, McCain had led by 16, now trails by 17. Among voters who attend religious services regularly, McCain had led by 24, now trails by 2.

You never know, but it’s unlikely Huckabee’s going to pull out so long as he’s able to make a victory speech now and then. If that happens tonight, then he’ll stick around. It’s not like he seems to need any money.

(NOTE: The following is a guest post by Alan Abramowitz, who is Alben W. Barkley Professor of Political Science at Emory University, and a member of The Democratic Strategist’s Advisory Board).
Now that Arizona Senator John McCain has all but sewn up the Republican presidential nomination, the first task that faces him is winning over disgruntled conservatives, many of whom were supporting former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney in the Republican primaries. To that end, McCain gave a conciliatory speech on February 8th at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, DC, pleading with conservative leaders and activists to unite behind his candidacy.
Meanwhile the two remaining Democratic candidates, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, are locked in a tight battle that could go on for several more weeks and possibly continue all the way to the Democratic convention. This has led to growing concern among Democratic leaders that a protracted battle between Clinton and Obama could make it difficult to unite the party for the general election campaign.
It is clear that unifying their respective parties will be a key task for both John McCain and the eventual Democratic nominee. But for which party’s nominee will this task be more difficult? The answer to this question will depend in part on how deep the ideological divisions are between supporters of the nominee and supporters of the defeated candidates in each party.
In order to compare the difficulty of the task that John McCain faces with the difficulty of the task that will face either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama, I compared the ideological preferences of each candidate’s supporters based on data collected in the Democratic and Republican exit polls for California on Super Tuesday. I used exit poll data from California because California was by far the biggest prize in both parties, none of the candidates is from the state, and the primary was hotly contested in both parties.
I calculated the mean score of each candidate’s supporters on a five-point liberal-conservative scale that was included on the exit poll. The scores on this scale were 1 for very liberal, 2 for somewhat liberal, 3 for moderate, 4 for somewhat conservative, and 5 for very conservative. Thus a mean score of 3.0 would indicate that the average supporter of a candidate was right in the middle of the liberal-conservative scale while a mean score of 2.0 would indicate that the average supporter of a candidate was well to the left of center and a mean score of 4.0 would indicate that the average supporter of a candidate was well to the right of center.
The results of my calculations showed that the mean scores for Clinton and Obama supporters were almost identical: 2.5 for Clinton voters vs. 2.4 for Obama voters. In contrast, the mean scores for McCain and Romney supporters were quite distinct: 3.5 for McCain voters vs. 4.1 for Romney voters. The ideological divide between McCain and Romney voters was six times as large as the ideological divide between Clinton and Obama voters. And on this sort of scale with a very limited range, that is a very large difference.
The average Obama and Clinton voter was a moderate liberal. Similarly, the average McCain voter was a moderate conservative. McCain voters were about as far to the right of center as Clinton and Obama voters were to the left of center. But Romney voters were much further to the right of center. Given that Americans generally don’t like to place themselves at the extremes on these sorts of scales, it is striking that 40 percent of Romney voters in California placed themselves at the far right end of the scale. In contrast, only 12 percent of McCain voters placed themselves at the far right end of the scale and only 18 percent of Clinton voters and 22 percent of Obama voters placed themselves at the far left end of the scale.
These results suggest that despite clinching his party’s nomination much earlier than his Democratic opponent, John McCain may face a more difficult challenge in uniting his party’s voters than either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama. Because supporters of Clinton and Obama have almost identical ideological preferences, it should not be difficult for either group to unite behind the other candidate if he or she wins the nomination. The winning candidate will not need to move to the left or right in order to win over supporters of the defeated candidate.
John McCain, however, may be forced to move further to the right in the next few weeks in order to win over disappointed supporters of Mitt Romney. In fact, this is precisely the course of action that is being urged on him by conservative spokesmen and it appears to be what he was attempting to do in his speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference, a group that he shunned only a year ago. But this may be a risky strategy for McCain since it will delay if not prevent him from moving back to the center to appeal to independents and swing voters in the general election-a move that will be crucial if he is to have any chance of winning in November.

In addition to J.P. Green’s list, here are some good reads for this Friday:
At TNR, Josh Patashnik offers a good profile of Virginia’s Democratic presidential primary next Tuesday, which appears likely to be the major Potomac battleground between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. The piece is a bit argumentative, in that it challenges the DC media assumption that the Old Dominion will be a slam dunk for Obama, but it provides a solid summary of the state’s political demographics.
On the Republican side, you might want to check out John McCain’s remarks to the Conservative Political Action Committee yesterday, which promised a general election full of ideological contrasts. It’s hard to say if the speech achieved its designed effect; at National Review, most of the CPAC coverage was devoted to Mitt Romney’s withdrawal, and speculation about his future. Indeed, Yuval Levin contributes another one of those lists of conservative demands that McCain shoud be forced to accept, Michelle Malkin urges conservatives to ignore the presidential race altogether and look down-ballot, and Mona Charon professes her heart to be broken by McCain’s victory.
Meanwhile, over at the Wall Street Journal, Pat Toomey of the Club For Growth offers a short list of names from which McCain could pick a running-mate to assuage the economic conservative/K Street crowd. The list includes two failed Republican presidential candidates from the past, Phil Gramm and Steve Forbes.

In what will probably be the big Democratic political news of the day, MoveOn.org announced its membership had decided to endorse Barack Obama for president. It appears that Obama narrowly got over the two-thirds-vote hurdle that MoveOn had created for this cycle in terms of an endorsement. In 2000, Howard Dean narrowly missed a lower majority-vote threshold for the endorsement.
What will the impact be? The MoveOn press release linked to above unsubtly notes that 1.7 million members of the organization live in Super Tuesday states. There will also almost certainly be an unsubtle effort in the news media to link Obama to some of MoveOn’s more controversial actions, particularly the famous “General Betrayus” ad last September. But at a time when the Super Tuesday competition was already tightening up, the endorsement will most likely be viewed as another contributor to a late surge by Obama.