Yesterday, I posted a diary which speculated that blowing off tonight's debate could conceivably lose McCain one of his most solid states, Mississippi. My initial rationale was this ABC News story on the reaction from Oxford:
Andrew Mullins, special assistant to university Chancellor Robert Khayat, told ABC News that the Ole Miss campus has been transformed to accommodate the candidates and the press. Road blocks are in place on campus and in the community and the debate television set for the candidates has already been constructed. He said the university has spent roughly five and half million dollars getting ready for the debate.
As I noted yesterday,
How fucking rude is that? He waited until less than 48 hours before the debate to blow them off. Yeah, I know the white folks in Mississippi are strongly Republican, and I'm sure many of them are aghast at the thought of a black guy being elected President, but at what point do they say "screw it, McCain's a douchebag, let Obama win"? Everyone has a basic level of self-respect, and McCain disrespecting their entire state has got to be insulting. It's not just the money, it's the prestige of holding a Presidential Debate, which I'm assuming has never happened in Mississippi (or at least not for a long time). It's my understanding that the entire campus has basically scheduled the entire week around this event with related activities, speakers, etc.
Well, today I've gone from thinking of this as a flight of fancy to thinking of it as an actual possibility. From MSNBC:
Republican Gov. Haley Barbour today called for the debate to go on. The state newspaper was filled with editorials and op-eds urging McCain to show up.
The Republican nominee may have thrown a wrench into the plans, but in the debate hall here, workers are drilling the final screws into the debate set; lights are being checked; podiums are being measured; the last of the set's panels are being put up and wires being weaved. Outside, security checkpoints are in place, network TV camera stands are built and set. (And never mind those hotel reservations and flight plans.)
"The debate will go on," University of Mississippi Vice Chancellor Gloria Kellum told NBC's local affiliate, adding, "We've spent two years working on this."
$5.5 MILLION (a million bucks for every year McCain was held as a P.O.W., imagine that!). Hotel reservations and flight plans for, I presume, hundreds of Big Shots from both parties and other VIPs. An entire university prepping for TWO FUCKING YEARS for this. Every media outlet on the planet shlepping their personnel and equipment out to Ole' Miss. The REPUBLICAN Governor of the state telling McCain to get his ass down there. The prestige of the state on the line.
In addition, think of Mississippi's cultural history (Emmitt Till, Medgar Evers, etc), and of Ole' Miss's ugly place in it (James Meredith, etc). What better opportunity for the entire state to at least TRY to show the world that it's changed in than to host a Presidential Debate featuring the first black major party nominee in history, at the same campus that saw riots break out when the first black student tried to enroll 40 years earlier?
How much is on the line here?
Now, to the actual math involved: I know that there were some posts awhile back speculating on just what it would take for Obama to win Mississippi. Here's one I dug up:
http://www.dailykos.com/...
In the 2004 election cycle, 36.9% of the electorate was African American. If we used a 90% Obama victory with this demographic as baseline, which I think is well within the realm of possibility, that would mean that Obama begins with 32.5% of the overall vote -- needing only to carry 26% of the rest of the state, Democrats and Republicans, for a victory. This has to be possible.
OK, let's presume that the turnout actually ends up being more like 38% Black, 59% White, and 3% Latino/Asian/etc.
Let's also assume Obama gets 95% of the Black vote to McCain's 5% (God knows who those people would be, but there's always someone...)
In 2004, total voter turnout in Mississippi was 1,138,225. Let's assume that it's a bit higher this time around--call it 1.3 million.
If so, that would give Obama 469,000 to McCain's 25,000 from the Black voters, or a 444,000 vote lead. McCain would then have to make up that difference out of the remaining 806,000 non-Black voters who turn out.
39,000 or so of those would be Latino/Asian/etc; I'm assuming Obama will pick up around 60% of them, or around 23,000 to McCain's 16,000. That gives Obama an additional 7,000 vote margin.
Out of the remaining 800,000 or so White voters, McCain would then have to get at least a 450,000 MARGIN to cancel out Obama's lead. To do this, he'd have to get something like 78% of the White vote.
Now, I know that the White vote in Mississippi trends extremely Republican, perhaps hitting as high as 85% or so, so the question is, would McCain bailing tonight piss off 7% of the White voting population enough to cause them to vote for Obama (or, more likely, not vote at all)?
UPDATE: Ah, well...CNN now says that McCain WILL show up tonight after all. Well, la-dee-dah, isn't he special?
OK, so that just blew my whole diary premise out of the water. Still, I gotta imagine that his posturing and will-he-or-won't-he bullshit over the past two days has pissed off a lot of Mississippians even if he does end up appearing after all. Obama isn't likely to win Mississippi, but he should do a few points better than expected given this idiocy on McCain's part.