“Obama *won* Maryland. Therefore it’s possible to talk of him having coattails there.

How he did in any one subdivision of the state is irrelevant.”

And after my responses indicating that there were other facts in that race which had significantly more impact that the gain that Obama had over Kerry, you’ve made no positive statement at all.

The first four hits for articles on Conservapedia that mention coattails are for Reagan, James Madison, Ike and Harry Truman and the usage in all four of them matches with the definition on Wikipedia…

My definition matches more or less with what’s on Wikipedia. While a good number of the seats won by the Democrats in 2008 were helped by Obama’s coattails, I’ve given several examples where it was not the overriding criteria.

Please give your definition of Coattails.

No way!! I mean, it’s the *conservatives* who are the small-minded, small-tent, my-way-or-the-highway, I refuse to vote for anyone who doesn’t see it my way reflexive Neanderthals>

This has got to be part of some nefarious conservative plot because a moderate Republican has *never* failed to support the winned of a GOP primary.

Have they?

The coattail effect is the tendency for a popular political party leader to attract votes for other candidates of the same party in an election. For example, in the United States, the party of a victorious presidential candidate will often win many seats in Congress as well; these congressmen are voted into office “on the coattails” of the president.

*However* while it is a tendency, other local effects can override it in the other direction (See Cao - Jefferson in Louisiana) or be *more* significant than the coattail at the local level (See Kirkpatrick - Hay in Arizona 1 or Kratovil -Harris in Maryland 1). Given the close race, if Gilcrest had been the Republican nominee rather than Harris, there is no way that Kratovil would have won regardless of how well Obama did in the State of Maryland.

In 2004, Bush won the district by 62%-36% and lost the entire state 56%-43%. In 2008, McCain won the district by 58%-38% (Dem 4% better, Rep 2% worse) and lost the entire state by 62%-37%.(Dem 6% better, Rep 6 % worse)

In 2004, Gilcrest(R) beat Alexakis(D) by (71%-23%) and in 2008, Kratovil(D) beat Harris(R) (49.1-48.3). (Dem 26% better, Rep 23% worse).

Yes, Obama’s coattails may have had a *small* effect, but local issues including a better known democrat and the support of current Republican Office Holder led to a change roughly four to five time larger than the presidential change.

How he did in any one subdivision of the state is irrelevant.

The other issue that whether or not Kratovil is still in office affects is redistricting. If Kratovil loses, then the Democrats will probably propose a redistricting that looks like the 1990 redistricting since the 2000 redistricting was designed to get rid of Ehrlich’s old district and make Connie Morella’s (a Republican so far left she made Gilchrest look like a CfG member) district too far left even more her. (the 1990 redistricting was relatively sane)

if Kratovil is still in office, I think all of the rules go out the window. Don’t be surprised if the new MD-1 ends up crossing over the Chesapeake at some point other than the bridge to pick up Baltimore City or Prince George’s County African Americans.

I’ve met at least one GOP candidate for this (sorry, don’t recall his name but he is a dentist from Flagstaff) and have heard that there are at least 1 or 2 others working on it.

Add to this the fact that John McCain is running for re-election in ‘10. I know most of us here at RedState don’t care much for McCain, but he is still very popular in Arizona and WILL have coattails.

You’re not really very good at this, are you?