Putting Obama’s crossover appeal to the test

As another test of Obama’s potential cross-over appeal to independent and Republicans, consider three counties in Virginia, a state he won with 63 percent of the statewide vote.

Bedford County, near the Blue Ridge Mountains, is a good bellwether for rural, conservative places — which were Democratic 40 years ago — that have turned Republican.

Thirty years ago, a Southern Democrat, Jimmy Carter, carried Bedford County in the 1976 presidential election, but he was the last Democratic presidential candidate to do so.

In 2004, Bush won 70 percent of Bedford County.

In last week’s primary, Obama got 2,435 votes in Bedford County, or 45 percent of the Democratic primary votes. Huckabee was the winner in this county with 4,770 votes, two-thirds of the GOP primary votes.

Obama's success in suburbia
But in fast-growing exurban Fauquier County in northern Virginia which Bush carried easily in 2004, Obama did quite well, winning 60 percent of the Democratic votes. Turnout by Democrats was also much higher in Fauquier by Republicans.

One sign of Obama’s potential strength here in the fall election: he got 1,200 votes more than McCain.

Another high-growth exurban bellwether in northern Virginia is Loudon County.

Bush carried the county in the 2004 election with 56 percent, but 2006 Democratic Senate candidate Jim Webb won it with just over 50 percent the vote, a key to his statewide win.

In Loudon, Obama got 21,271 votes, or 62 percent in the Democratic primary, to Clinton’s 38 percent. Obama’s votes in Loudon were more than twice as many as McCain got in the county.

Finally, consider one of the most Republican places in New Hampshire, a state Democrats should win in November, given their dominance there in the 2006 elections.

The suburban town of Londonderry, N.H. is almost always a Republican bastion. Bush carried it easily in 2000 and did even better in the town in 2004, even as he was losing statewide in New Hampshire to John Kerry.

In the Jan. 8 primary Obama got 1,802 votes in Londonderry, lagging Clinton by 157 votes, but ahead of McCain’s 1,761.

So, what do the actual vote counts reveal?

Obama can do well among Democrats and independent voters in predominantly Republican districts, counties, and towns.

In some cases, mostly in suburbia, he performs better than Clinton, but in other cases, in rural counties, not nearly as well as Clinton.

Does this predict the outcome in November? Maybe, maybe not.

The Nov. 4 electorate will be far bigger, and will, to some extent, include different voters.

For example, the total primary vote for both parties in Virginia last Tuesday, nearly 1.5 million people, was less than half number of voters who cast ballots in the 2004 presidential election in that state

Winning more votes than all the Republicans
Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton said his candidate's strong showing in the Democratic contests in Idaho and other traditionally Republican states offers evidence that he’d be competitive there in November.

“In some of these red states, we’ve won more votes on our own than all of the Republican candidates combined,” Burton said citing the results in Idaho, Colorado, Missouri, Virginia, South Carolina, Kansas, and Georgia as proof.

In one sense it doesn’t really matter whether Obama is or isn’t drawing significant support from Republican and independent voters.

If Obama could motivate enough Democrats to vote in states which have gone Republican in the past two presidential elections, then he’d win. Driving up the hard-core Democratic numbers in cities and suburbs is a proven way to win states such as Virginia and Missouri.

But Obama’s rhetoric is built on the premise that if elected president he would be able to transcend the deep differences in ideology between him and Republicans and get them to support the Democrats’ agenda.

That’s why exit poll data on his appeal to independents will play such a dominant role in the narrative you’re likely to hear Tuesday and in the weeks to come.

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