Trailhead: A campaign blog.

Metaphor Contest: The Winners

Hillary Clinton continues to have a logic problem. After her win in Pennsylvania, her campaign reiterated their claim that winning big, reliably Democratic states means she’s a more electable candidate in November. While that’s entirely possible, there’s no historical or logical evidence to back it up.

But just because it’s wrong doesn’t mean it’s easy to explain why it’s wrong. So we solicited Trailhead readers’ help to come up with the catchiest metaphors to help explain why Clinton’s logic is bunk. 

You responded in record numbers and came up with some truly creative—and odd—responses. Our personal favorite one-line metaphor came from Trena Klohe, who wrote:

You may know how to saddle a donkey, but that doesn't mean you can tame an elephant! 

The simplicity, yet coy vagueness of the particulars delighted Trailhead’s imagination. Have either Obama or Clinton truly saddled the donkey? Does beating McCain entail taming him or attacking him into submission? It’s the most existential metaphor we received, and we’re suckers for existential politics.

Other all-star oddballs came from Billy G. who sent in a lengthy, MadLibs-style post about FHM’s 100 Sexiest Women in the World list. It’s too lengthy to quote in full, but Billy G. was totally convincing in his assertion that Megan Fox is Barack Obama, Jessica Biel is Hillary Clinton, and Matthew McConaughey is John McCain. A snippet:

In FHM's survey [the democratic primary], a sizable minority supported Biel [clinton] over Fox [obama] because they find tattoos [reverend wright] repulsive, or because they prefer blondes [a candidate of the same race/gender], or because Fox [obama] recently made a prominent and profoundly stupid movie [comment] about vehicles that turn into crime-fighting robots [bitterness in small-town america], or because they rallied behind Biel's [clinton's] call for mandatory universal healthcare. 

It gets better from there, but unfortunately doesn’t perfectly explain away Clinton’s faulty logic. Billy’s assertion was that straight men who preferred Fox would always choose Biel over McConaughey. Sure, but the differences between Fox-men and Biel-men weren’t fleshed out quite enough to take the crown.

Outside of the wildcards, the responses generally broke down into two categories—food and sports. The most common response involved a trip to a restaurant, grocery store, or pie shop that forced consumers to confront a painful decision—what to do when your favorite flavor of your favorite food is out of stock. In a nice allusion to McCain’s age, Ryan wrote: 

Just because I choose green grapes over purple grapes now, doesn’t mean I wouldn’t choose purple grapes if the alternative was raisins.

True, but raisins have their own unique taste that you aren’t automatically opposed to. Plus, if raisins come out with a great ad campaign, there’s nothing stopping you from switching sides. The trouble with Clinton’s assertion is that almost all Democrats—even the ones who prefer her over Obama—aren’t going to jump ship just because of a flashy ad. The grape-raisin metaphor doesn’t pick at that weakness.

Instead, let’s turn to the bland world of sprouts, veggie burgers, and tofu. K. Richardson gets closer with his metaphor:

As a vegetarian, I may have a hard time choosing between the pasta primavera and the grilled veggie platter, but I’m still not ordering steak. 

Much closer. Vegetarians have an automatic distaste and unwillingness to eat steak, which fills the void of the last metaphor. But this setup—choosing between two similar items at first, then being forced to choose the loser of the two over a totally unpalatable third item—ignores the big-state, little-state issue. For that, we’re forced to turn to the sporting arena.

The key knot we’re trying to unravel is why Clinton’s success among core, big-state Democrats in the primary doesn’t mean she’s the stronger candidate among all voters in the general election. Plenty of people tried a sports metaphor and missed the mark, but John Zepernick nailed it. I’ve edited his response down a tad.

Hillary has a good passing game (big states), but Obama has been grinding out yards on the ground all game (smaller states). … But it isn't clear that any particular game plan would be better or worse versus McCain. And even if Hillary has more passing yards in the championship game, there's no reason that Obama couldn't throw the ball well versus McCain. Especially since he has a weak secondary defense. 

Spot on, but I’d posit that nobody knows what McCain’s defenses are yet. It may be his secondary, but it could just as easily be an injury-prone offensive line. As the great and clichéd sports aphorism goes, the only way to find that out is to play the game.

Change/Experience

When it comes to exit polls, I’ve taken it as a given that change and experience are just euphemisms for Obama and Clinton. If someone says they want change, chances are they’re an Obama voter; same with experience and Clinton voters.

But these exits show just how thoroughly change has infected the race, to the point that Obama no longer owns the term. (If he ever did.) Fifty-one percent of voters named it as the top quality they’re looking for in a candidate, according to CNN—more than any other quality. (Keith Olbermann says 73 percent of voters say they want to bring change.) Of those, 70 percent voted for Obama. Then take a look at the 26 percent of voters who say they value experience above everything. Ninety-three percent of them voted for Clinton. So while experience is still a signifier for Clinton, change is more ambiguous.

Also: Note that only 8 percent of voters named “electability” as the most important quality. Given that Clinton’s case for the nomination rests largely on electability—how else to convince superdelegates to reject the pledged delegate count?—this isn’t particularly encouraging. Then again, who would say “electability” when asked that question? Does anyone really see themselves as that calculating?

The Exits: Clinton-Friendly Demographics

The exit polls have arrived! All of the highlights below use CNN's numbers, which may change as the night goes on and they iron out their projections.

• The demographics heavily favor Clinton. Fifty-eight percent of voters were women; 38 percent were 60 years old or older. Clinton won 55 percent of women, 59 percent of 60-plus.
  
• Clinton seems to have won the ad wars. Among the 43 percent of voters who said ads weren't important, Clinton beats Obama, as she does among those who did say the ads mattered.
  
• More people think Clinton can fix the economy than think Obama can repair it. More than half the voters say the economy is the No. 1 issue.
  
• Forty-three percent of voters say Clinton isn't trustworthy. Twenty-one percent of those voters supported Clinton anyway.
  
• Outside Philadelphia, Obama did best in central and northern Pennsylvania while Clinton cleaned house in the Pittsburgh area, winning by 23 percent.
  
• Clinton won the white vote by 20 points while Obama won the African-American vote by 84 points. Whites made up 80 percent of the pool; black voters comprised 14 percent of the overall vote. Among white voters in Ohio, Obama's deficit was 30 points.
  
• Twenty percent of voters say race was important in their vote. Fifty-nine percent of them voted for Clinton. There was an even, 50-50 split among those who said race was not important.

Exit Polls Greatest Hits: Republicans

Sure, exit polls are notoriously unreliable and they don’t matter, but they’re all the data we have for a while. So, let’s delve into the juicy stats from the surprisingly close GOP race in Virginia:

• At least one poll leading up to today's event showed McCain making strides among Evangelicals, but it looks like those numbers were very exaggerated. Half of the state’s voters were born-again Christians or evangelicals, and they favored Huckabee over McCain by 40 points.
• Sixty-one percent of voters said McCain was most qualified to be commander in chief, but 30 percent of that bloc still voted for Mike Huckabee anyway.
• Sixty-six percent of voters consider themselves conservatives (rather than moderates). Conservatives favored Huckabee over McCain by 23 points.
• Ninety-three percent of the Republican electorate was white. Sixty-one percent of Democratic voters were white.
• Sixty percent of Republicans said they listen to conservative talk radio. Huckabee led among those voters by 12 points.
• Pro-life Republicans are still favoring Huckabee over McCain (56 percent to 35 percent), while pro-choicers continue to ally themselves with McCain (64 percent to 24 percent).

We offer our usual disclaimer that these numbers can change. All stats taken from CNN’s stats.