I put Middle Earth Journal in hiatus in May of 2008 and moved to Newshoggers.
I temporarily reopened Middle Earth Journal when Newshoggers shut it's doors but I was invited to Participate at The Moderate Voice so Middle Earth Journal is once again in hiatus.

Sunday, April 27, 2008

None of the above....

....or what if none of them are electable!
I suggested below that Hillary Clinton's campaign strategy of making Obama unelectable might be working but in the process she was making herself even less electable than he. But what about John McCain. Now here is a candidate that should be unelectable. He is in favor of continuing an occupation that over two thirds of Americans want to end. On nearly ever issue he promises to continue the policies of a president who has the highest unfavorable reading ever recorded. And the few remaining Bush supporters don't trust him. As Frank Rich pointed out this morning 27 percent of the PA Republicans showed up to vote against John McCain in a primary that is all but meaningless.

I made a prediction two years ago:
I'm not going to predict any individuals but I will predict that the election will be decided by at least two strong third party candidates. I'm not saying one of them will win but they will decide the election. Of course it won't be the first time, Ross Perot's race gave Bill Clinton the win in 92 and Ralph Nader gave the election to George W. Bush in 2000.

This time it will be different there will be two strong third party candidates, one on the left and one on the right. If Hillary gets the nomination there will be a large chunk of the Democratic base will be looking for an alternative.
I was wrong - no strong third party candidates have materialized. So who will decide? Those who simply decide not to participate. McCain's best chance is against Hillary. Many Republicans who might not vote will to keep Hillary Clinton out of the white. Hillary has managed to offend the black voters and the urban white voters. Obama will not inspire the Republicans as much and may pick up some Libertarian and even Republican votes. The only thing that Hillary's campaign has accomplished is to make her the least electable of the three.

As for me - I won't vote for Clinton or McCain and I won't be a part of inflating Ralph Nader's ego. For me it will be none of the above. I will work hard to make sure that progressive Democrats are elected to the House and the Senate.

Update
It's the Independents stupid.
I'm an Independent and I won't vote for Hillary Clinton. I think this is about right.
CLASH OF THE INDEPENDENTS
April 27, 2008 -- It's electability, stupid.
That's what Hillary Clinton and her surrogates have been spinning to super-delegates and anyone else who will listen since she lost her grip on once-inevitable nomination.

There's just one problem – when it comes to independent voters, those crucial swing votes in swing states, Hillary doesn't hold the electability edge: Barack Obama does.

Independent voters favor Obama by a 2 to 1 margin over Hillary – 49% to 24% – according to a NBC/WSJ poll taken after the Jeremiah Wright scandal in late March. His approval rating among Republicans is almost twice Hillary's as well – 19% to 10%.

Crossover appeal is the key indicator of electability – especially for Democrats. Despite Democratic dominance of Congress during most of the 20th Century, no Democratic president managed to win more than 51% of the popular vote, with the exceptions of FDR and LBJ. What's the lesson? Democrats especially depend on Independent voters and even some centrist Republicans to win the White House.

That's true now more than ever: Independent voters are the fastest growing and largest segment of the American electorate, as detailed in former Clinton and Bloomberg pollster Doug Schoen's new book "Declaring Independence: The Beginning of the End of the Two-Party System."

Obama's Independent edge has already had an impact in key 2008 swing states like Virginia, where independents made up 22% of the February 12th open primary. Obama won their support by a 2 to 1 margin, on his way to a 64-35 blowout victory.
As I said above Hillary is the least electable of the three candidates. She has alienated large portions of her own party, Independents will not vote for her and she can anticipate virtually no cross over votes. And Joe Gandelman talks about the very thing that made me go from Clinton to Obama.
And — also something we have noted repeatedly in our posts here — Clinton generates another reaction among many independent voters who detest the Rovian-style negative campaigning politics of division, seeming use of code words, and personal destruction (now widely covered in news reports as the Clinton campaign seeks to drive up Obama’s negatives more than make the case for her strengths against McCain):


Update II
More on McCain's problems.