Why Obama Has Already Won

I'm not referring to tomorrow's final contest - although we can safely estimate that this could be a landslide win for Obama.  What I'm referring to is that regardless of the outcome of the election, Barack Obama has caused a major shift in the electoral map, and the shift means a fundamental change in the politics of this country.

Barack Obama has changed the culture of politics.  He's changed the culture of politics because he's formed an entirely new "base" of supporters (millenials, Hispanics, and many independents), he's recruited record numbers of organizers and an unprecedented grass-roots structure, and he's been able to get people to participate in the democratic process at record levels, as evidenced by the results of early voting this year.  We're seeing an electoral map that could change politics for 20-30 years, with Iowa going for a Democrat, and former Republican strongholds like Colorado, New Mexico, Virginia, and Florida flipping, or at least becoming battleground states. 

Barack's new political movement raised about $600 million total, and drew from 3.2 million individual donors - a record level. This campaign has transformed thousands of communities-and revolutionized the way organizing itself will be understood and practiced for at least the next generation.  Regardless who governs, Obama has created an organization at the community level that, instead of being based on X leadership roles to fill, it has created leadership roles for as many leaders as there are.  Thus creating a solid, durable, series of existing networks.  And these networks will remain, so that they can become mobilized once again, for any cause.  A note on college organizers put it best:

So we have people in charge of whatever they ARE. We are saying, ‘What's your social network?' We say, ‘OK, you're The Balcony Coordinator-your job is to go party at Balcony [a local bar] every weekend-like you do anyways-but now wear a Barack Obama button-and bring voter reg forms.

Millenials and the largest minority - Hispanics - comprise a large portion of this new coalition.  To me, that means that Latinos and Latinas are not only participating civically, but they are now volunteering and organizing for a campaign in record numbers. 

Another great success story of the 2008 campaign and a reflection of this "new culture" of politics, is the overall success of early voting.  In spite of the glitches and long lines, throughout the country, Americans have cast early votes at a pace that far eclipses past performance.

This is owed in part to the important push on the part of the Obama campaign to encourage early voting.  Barack Obama has invested far more heavily in turning out early votes than past Democratic nominees and that effort has provided results.  Nationally, Barack Obama is ahead 59%-40% among early voters.  Analysts say that 1 in 3 of all voters have voted early, up from 22.5 percent in 2004 and just 7 percent in 1992.

Democrats and Republicans voted in roughly equal numbers. That, however, represents a departure from 2004, when many more Republicans than Democrats cast ballots before election day.  Republicans won the battle for absentee votes, but Democrats won among those voting in person.

Florida is a striking example of this. Republicans were voting at a heavier pace in the absentee ballots, but the number of in-person votes cast exceeded the number of absentees.  38% of all Florida voters have cast ballots - 4.2-million votes - and 331,274 more Democrats voted early than Republicans.  Another 710,066 independents have voted.

In Colorado, the number of early votes cast equals slightly more than half of the total number of votes cast -- early and on Election Day - in 2004.

In Nevada, Democrats have cast 225,670 of the 438,129 ballots (51.5%) in the two most populous counties, Las Vegas's Clark County and Reno's Washoe.  Republicans cast 31.3% with the remainder cast by Independents.  Those two counties account for about 90% of the state's turnout.  Early voting is expected to make up 60% of the Silver State's 2008 ballots. Andres was quoted in the Wall Street Journal, pointing out:

John McCain will need to nab between 75% to 80% of the Independent vote, a tall order given that Nevada polling shows nothing like that level of support. He also would need about 12% to 15% of the Democratic vote, perhaps an easier prospect.

In North Carolina, 2,573,206, or about 41% of the state's 6,232,230 registered voters have voted early, and the vote breaks down as a little over 51% Democrats and about 30% Republicans.  The rest were unaffiliated or libertarian.

In Georgia, more than one million people have voted, a big jump from the less than 500,000 people who voted early four years ago. 

Early voting actually makes it harder for attempts to disenfranchise voters to stop eligible voters from casting ballots.  Dirty tricks are also harder to pull off.  If political operatives want to jam get-out-the-vote telephone lines, as they did on Election Day in New Hampshire in 2002, it would be harder to do if people voted over two weeks.  Early voting also reduces the burden on election systems that are often stretched near to the breaking point.  In 2004, voters waited in lines as long as 10 hours. And there is every indication that lines on Tuesday, in some places and at some times, will again be extraordinarily long.  The more people who vote early, the fewer who will be lined up at the polls on Election Day.

With evident success of early-voting, the states that have not adopted it - including New York - should do so.  Congress should also mandate early voting for federal elections - ideally as part of a larger federal bill that would fix the wide array of problems with the electoral system. Today, the idea that all voting must occur in a 15-hour window, or less, on a single day is as outdated as the punch-card voting machine.