Not-So-Shocking Development: Obama-McCain Demographics Differ From Obama-Clinton Ones

First Read today (my emphasis):

There was a growing consensus during the Democratic primary season that Obama was going to struggle with Latino voters — due to the exit polls, his race, and McCain’s immigration stance. In fact, in that now-famous conference call in which Hillary Clinton indicated that she would be open to serving as Obama’s running mate, that response was spurred by concern by New York Rep. Nydia Velasquez (D) that Obama was going to have trouble with Latinos. But it looks like that CW — at least right now — was wrong. In addition to our recent NBC/WSJ poll, which showed Hispanics breaking for Obama 62%-28%, a new survey of 800 Latino voters from 21 states finds that 60% of them plan to vote for Obama versus 23% for McCain. That is down considerably from the 40%-plus Bush received in 2004. It’s no longer fair to say that Obama has a problem with Latino voters; McCain does.

This should not be a surprise. We’ve talked about this in our podcast before, and I alluded to it a few months ago. The key point is that the Obama and Clinton race revealed sharp preferences within the party, but not necessarilly sharp problems.

For instance, Hillary Clinton did not have a general election problem with black voters. (Bill on the other hand…). Obama did not have a general election problem with Hispanics.

On the other hand, Clinton did have a problem in the northwest. It’s almost certain the Washington, Oregon, Minnesota, and Iowa would be hurt comparably to Obama if Clinton was the nominee. On ther other hand, Obama has real problems in Appalachia. Arkansas would have been at least a swing state if Clinton was nominated; now it is a long shot at best.

That said, there’s an infinite number of ways to divide the electorate, and many show preferences. Women understandably favored Clinton generally in the primary; Now, they’re favoring Obama, because the alternative is McCain. This is not rocket science.

If you can’t decide between a red truck and a blue truck, you don’t arbitrarily decide to buy a white station wagon. It’s only the people who feel strongly about the color red and the color blue that matter. And despite a lengthy, lengthy, lengthy primary, the research into that was somehow so scarce that the best analyst in the news is shocked that Obama is doing well with Hispanics?

Come on now.