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Obama's North Carolina math problem
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| Parent(s) |
Race
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| Contributor | Scott³ |
| Last Edited | Scott³ May 19, 2012 03:17pm |
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| Category | News |
| Author | Peter Hamby |
| Media | TV News - CNN |
| News Date | Friday, May 18, 2012 09:00:00 PM UTC0:0 |
| Description | "The state Democratic Party here is consumed with an ongoing sexual harassment scandal. The embattled governor is so unpopular she decided not to run for a second term. And supporters of same-sex marriage were dealt a crushing defeat at the ballot box last week.
But the biggest challenge in North Carolina this year for President Barack Obama and his fellow Democrats can be boiled down to something simpler: math.
Everything that could have gone right for Obama in 2008 did go right, and yet he still only won North Carolina by just 14,177 votes -- a tiny sliver of the 4.2 million cast statewide.
Thanks to his campaign's striking ability to expand the Democratic electorate, Obama even managed to win the state while losing independents to John McCain.
Volunteers blitzed college campuses and dominated the early voting game. New African-American voters were registered in huge numbers. Obama also performed better among white voters than both John Kerry and Al Gore. Crucially, Republican turnout fell off dramatically from 2004.
Obama world read the victory as a promising sign of Democratic realignment in the South and rewarded the Tar Heel State with the Democratic National Convention, which will take place in Charlotte in September.
Today, though, it's hard to find a Democrat in the capital of Raleigh who believes the president, saddled with the burdens of governing and a sputtering economy, can stir the enthusiasm of 2008 and repeat his near-flawless North Carolina performance." |
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