John Nichols: Why Obama will win Wisconsin
Barack Obama will be the Democratic nominee for president, and he will win the critical swing state of Wisconsin by a comfortable margin.
That may seem like a bold prediction. But it was actually confirmed last week, when Obama had his best day on the campaign trail since he swept Wisconsin's Democratic presidential primary in February with 58 percent of the vote.
Obama went into the North Carolina and Indiana primaries with serious challenges to overcome. He had lost key contests in Ohio and Pennsylvania, and he had spent weeks trying to keep ahead of controversies involving his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., and his own fumbled statement about "bitter" working-class voters.
Yet, in high-turnout votes in a pair of states where the campaign of New York Sen. Hillary Clinton threw everything it had at the senator from Illinois, Obama prevailed. He took North Carolina in a landslide result that was almost as broad as his Wisconsin win. And he came within 25,000 votes of upsetting Clinton in Indiana -- the state that was supposed to be her firewall.
Clinton will keep campaigning for a few more weeks. She'll win a few primaries. But Obama will win more. Aiding his case will be the fact that his big victory in North Carolina -- the nation's 10th largest state -- further erodes Clinton's argument that she is the candidate who knows how to carry "big states."
Clinton's left with no good cards to play.
The Democratic contest will conclude in June, giving the senator from Illinois more than enough time to position himself before August's Democratic National Convention for the fall race with Republican John McCain.
That fall race will go very well for Obama in Wisconsin, where he currently leads McCain in polls.
Why? Because Obama is running as an adult, and Wisconsin likes adults.
Clinton staked her run in Indiana and North Carolina on support for a ridiculous "gas tax holiday" that wouldn't lower fuel prices but would encourage unnecessary consumption and further enrich profitable oil companies. Obama was the adult; he refused to engage in phony populism. Voters rewarded him for that, just as they will reward him when he runs against another "gas tax holiday" candidate: McCain.
Wisconsin voters have consistently sided with smart, mature candidates who reject campaign gimmickry.
Last Tuesday, Obama said in his victory speech, "We've seen that the American people aren't looking for more spin or more gimmicks, but honest answers about the challenges we face. That's what you've accomplished in this campaign, and that's how we'll change this country together."
That's the message that will carry Barack Obama to a Wisconsin win this fall -- with a dramatically higher percentage of the vote than any Democratic presidential candidate has won here in decades.
John Nichols is associate editor of The Capital Times.
Associated Press
The Capital Times' John Nichols predicts that Barack Obama will be the Democratic nominee for president.
