Hillary and Bill Clinton and their campaign were correct in pointing out that Clinton/Obama Obama/Clinton would be a formidable ticket. Not because of some master strategy, because of demographics and the numbers in play. Before the Wright scandal, I heartily disagreed with them. Now I must admit my assessment of Obama's risk has jumped considerably with the Wright issue.
I work in the insurance industry, and one of the core tenets of insurance is spreading the risk. Now the Hillary/Obama ticket would spread the risk a little, but it would also add risk in the form of Clinton baggage.
But there is another way. A solution to spread the risk, lock in demographic sectors, and concentrate on fighting for McCain's voters.
This solution has 2 parts. It can only work if both parts are used together. Both together, not one or the other. Here goes.
I've had this idea for a while, before the Wright thing. Now I believe this is the only way to proceed. Obama must select a strong Latino woman and announce that he will be selecting his cabinet nominees prior to the convention. The Veep announcement with the actual person must be named person, sorry I don't know any, but the Veep candidate must be:
* A strong Catholic, with pro-life leanings
* Can be from the business community, fluent in spanish of course
* Popular within the geographically fragmented Latino community
* If not known 'nationally', from Florida
* Age over 55
* Preferably a woman, very preferably
This locks in the Latino vote, swings older female and female voters in general. African American (AA) voters will already be engaged, so Obama has
*90% AA vote with increased participation
*75-85% Latino vote. This percentage will increase with each attack on the VEEP candidate-just like Obama's did.
*an increase of 5% female vote to Obama, to cancel out an expected white male flight to McCain
Part Two
Announce that you are selecting your cabinet on the same day you select the Veep nominee. This prevents people coming back and saying that you were reacting to an adverse backlash agaisnt the choice. The argument for naming the cabinet is beautiful-SPREADING THE RISK. I know people will feel better about whatever issue -defense, labor, environment, sec of state, you name it.
Naming the cabinet allows Obama the luxury of naming a Veep with no credentials because you are taking care of that with the Sec of Defense and Treasury Sec, etc.
Imagine rolling out safe, popular names every 2 weeks through out the summer. All the free press, spotlight on this nominee, what are his plans? Each nominee could be a popular resident of say, a swing state, or a Republican like Hagel. How about Edwards for the Labor? These are just examples, I am not really floating names, just the concept.
He needs to Spread the Risk. Not with us Kossaks, but with the independents and Republicans he was attracting before this nasty business with Wright. This is the solution to make risk shared, and puts faces of a coalition that is READY FROM DAY ONE-WITH EXPERIENCE!
Don' believe me, look at the numbers I ran for Texas and Florida. If Obama keeps the states Kerry won and adds Texas and Florida, he walks the election and I'm drinking the bubbly.
TEXAS 2004
Total votes-7.4 million Bush-4.5 million Kerry-2.8 million
Total white-5.0 million Bush-3.75 million Kerry-1.25 million
Total Latino-1.5 million Bush-750 thous Kerry-750 thous
Total AA- 900 thous Bush-135 thous Kerry-765 thous
Reminders-Bush was the favorite son. But this is a tall order, a 1.7 million vote gap! Watch when we add a female Latino Veep nominee. I am assuming Obama will hold his white voters with part 2 of the solution, and AA will add 30% to their total vote and Latinos will add 20% to the total vote. White vote will remain the same. Instead of a 83/17 split for Kerry, AA split will be 90/10. Latino with Ms. Latino Veep will swing from 50/50 to 85/15 to Obama with some negative adds we can depend on from the hate-right.
TEXAS 2008
Total votes-8.0 million McCain 4.14 million Obama 3.86 million
Total white-5.0 million Obama-1.25 million McCain 3.75 million
Total Latino-1.8 million Obama-1.53 million McCain 270 thous
Total AA-1.2 million Obama-1.08 million McCain 120 thous
The point is, the state is in play with my scenario. 300 thous votes versus 1.7 million is in play big time. This does not factor in the women wild card of this-white women made up 37% of the total 2004 Texas vote, while white men came up with 29%. There's more than enough room there. That's why Hillary would have made the perfect Veep choice-if not for all that baggage-shame.
Florida 2004
Total votes-7.6 million Bush 3.96 million Kerry 3.58 million
Total white-4.0 million Bush 2.1 million Kerry 1.9 million
Total Latino-1.9million Bush 1.065 million Kerry 836 thous
Total AA-1.6 million Bush 200 thous Kerry 1.4 million
Remember the different Florida latino politics, pretty strong entrenched
republican cuban influence, but I'll predict a huge turnaround if a local is selected. I'll predict a 400 thousand increase in total voting splitting 70/30 Obama/Ms Local Latino Veep. Or Mr.for that matter. I predict a 400 thousand vote increase also for the AA vote with a 90/10 split. No increase for the white vote.
Florida 2008
Total votes-8.3 million Obama 5.3 million McCain 3.0 million
Total white-4.0 million Obama 1.9 million McCain 2.1 million
Total Latino-2.3 million Obama 1.6 million McCain 690 thous
Total AA-2.0 million Obama 1.8 million McCain 200 thous
Name a Latino Veep for awesome Latino gains and name the cabinet to assuade the risk fears of everyone, especially holding your white voters!
I can see no benefit to naming a white Veep. I can not play out a scenario in my head pulling significant voters away from McCain. But the naming of the cabinet is more real, and could give McCain a battle to keep his core, pushing him to the right.
I always believe in winning the water cooler battle. When someone comes up to me at the water cooler and says, yea but Obama has no experience, I say, yea but he's got Hagel as Sec of Defense. I can see wins every angle.
And, this strategy actually wins the water cooler Wright argument, by allowing all the cabinet nominees to drown out the Wright controversy with ideas and solutions to our recession and war and health care. This Wright thing is not going away.
It's all about looking at politics from a new angle. This is a ticket and a strategy for Obama to win on November 4th.