Media Monsters

According to the mainstream media the democratic race is all but over and Obama has already won. To be fair, they already called it over in Clinton's favor 6 months ago. In much the same way the Republican nominee was guaranteed to be McCain only after it was guaranteed to be Romney, Huckabee, and Guiliani.

I've made no attempt to hide the fact that Obama is not my favorite candidate. I don't want him to get the nomination but if he does I'm not going to lose any sleep over it. That said, I don't think his current bounce in the polls has much to do with him gaining any ground. Sure he's won a lot of states in a row, but most of those are less populous states in fly-over-country. In other words, he's winning in states that he can't take in the fall anyway, the republican party is too good at uniting behind a candidate (even if they don't entirely like him) to allow inroads into the solidly red states. Clinton on the other hand has been doing well in the larger / more populous states (NY, CA, NJ, MA) as well as the swing states (PA, MI, FL, OH).

The largest states Obama has taken are Illinois, Georgia, and Virginia. In terms of the electoral college those are almost worth California (49 vs 55). Until the last week of nearly incessant reporting on how many states (regardless of their delegate counts or usefulness in the fall) Obama has taken in a row, Clinton was leading by a significant margin in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Texas.

I hate to say that some states don't matter but its the truth. No democrat is going to take Georgia or Texas or most of the Midwest. No republican is going to take New York or Massachusetts or most of the Northeast. The only states with significant electoral votes (more than 15) that swing are Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Michigan. The other states are either predictably red/blue with minimal effort or so small that they aren't worth the time and money to sway.