May 1, 2008
Poll Numbers For Obama To Worry About
In the last major contests, he has never done better than a point or two above his RCP average. So he can’t be happy that in Indiana his poll average is 43%. Or that in North Carolina it is down to 48.4%.
Even worse, in the RCP averages, she now leads McCain by 2.7 points, while McCain leads him by .3 points. The latest Q polls show him performing 9 points behind her versus McCain in FL, 11 points behind in OH, and 5 points behind in PA.
Remember, her closing argument to the Supers is that she would run better against McCain in the general. A big win in Indiana (10+ points) and a close race in NC (<= 5 points), and these head-to-head polls become really important.
Next Tuesday could be a turning point.
UPDATE: Oh, and this:
http://race42008.com/2008/05/01/poll-numbers-for-obama-to-worry-about/trackback/
May 1st, 2008 at 1:09 pm
Even if Hillary wins the rest of the primaries, she’d have to do it in spectacular fashion in order to win a majority of pledged delegates. In other words, the realistic best case scenario for her is to take this thing to the convention.
May 1st, 2008 at 2:06 pm
Good call by Chuck Todd on Meet the Press two months ago when he said May 6th was more important than April 22nd. Although calling it D-Day may have been a little overblown.
May 1st, 2008 at 2:16 pm
I’m really starting to worry about Hillary. If the supers go with electability, they’ll go with Hillary, and we could be in trouble.
May 1st, 2008 at 2:28 pm
I agree that it looks more and more like this goes to convention, which I think gives Republicans the advantage regardless of who they choose in the end.
May 1st, 2008 at 3:07 pm
If Hillary really wants to win she needs to lay the foundation now (i.e., move the goal posts again) for staying in the race until the convention. She will not get more pledged delegates than Obama. She will very likely not get more popular votes than Obama (if FL & MI are excluded). Therefore, she needs to address the likely scenario that Obama will soon get enough super delegates to win the nomination (he only needs ~40% of the remaining delegates to wrap it up). She can do this by taking advantage of the bad blow from the switch of former DNC-Chairman Andrew from Clinton to Obama. She just needs to state the obvious: super delegates, even those who announce their support to a particular candidate, are free to change their minds! Without laying that foundation now, Hillary will be pushed out in ~4 weeks.
May 1st, 2008 at 3:14 pm
Therefore, she needs to address the likely scenario that Obama will soon get enough super delegates to win the nomination
Superdelegates don’t vote until the convention, and can change their minds at any time. All she has to do is keep campaigning; if she doesn’t drop out, the race is not over until it reaches Denver.
May 1st, 2008 at 3:15 pm
“they’ll go with Hillary, and we could be in trouble.”
I disagree that Hillary would be harder to beat than Obama. I’ve said this before, but personality trumps issues almsot every time. Obama has a likable personality, he’s young, attractive, charismatic, and radiates “hope” (if idealistic hope) at every rally. Clinton often comes accross as shrill, obnoxious, and liberal. She isn’t likable, she isn’t atractive, she isn’t particularly charismatic, and simply doesn’t radiatie hope like Obama does.
May 1st, 2008 at 3:24 pm
Nonsense. This kind of determination is made in hindsight. Of course history always brands the winning candidate as the one who connected more with voters–the defeated candidate is branded as a loser as soon as the results are known.
If Kerry would have defeated Bush, history would have written that the eloquent and noble statesman John Kerry defeated the incoherent, babbling Bush.
There was nothing wrong with Carter, Mondale, or Dukakis’ personalities. They lost on their records and the issues.
May 1st, 2008 at 3:46 pm
#8 sometimes their personalities reinforce the issues–e.g. Dukakis’ aloofness was personified by willy horton. Carter’s horrible presidency and issue problems were reinforced by his personality kinks, a good-ole-boy who couldn’t handle anything. But voters do vote on personality–I’ve seen it. Some women just vote on who they most want to ****–I’ve seen that too, mostly over a few drinks. Most people aren’t like us political junkies, they are fickle and vote for who they personally like. With Kerry, there was plenty of talk about his stolid nature and Bush was the guy who you would want to drink with. With Snobama, his is losing his halo and is starting to look like a spoiled brat who thinks the presidency is owed to him. That’s why we can beat him.
But let’s be clear, we don’t want Hillary as the nominee, b/c she’ll take Snobama as VP and the chance of McCain winning is less.
May 1st, 2008 at 3:49 pm
IR-MN,
Willie Horton was part of Dukakis’ record. Carter’s horrible Presidency was his record. Neither of these two issues were personality related.
May 1st, 2008 at 3:53 pm
#6, obviously the super delegates do not vote until the convention, none of them do. The point I was making is that public pressure will be intense for her to drop out once Obama gets enough super delegates to announce support for him that would allow him to clinch the nomination. Just look at all the statements from Dean, Reid, Carter, etc. that the super delegates should decide on a nominee by June. 30%+ of Dem voters already want her to drop out. After June 3, when all the states (and territories) have voted and Obama is determined to have won the most pledged delegates, that number will grow exponentially higher. Can you imagine any super delegate changing support from Obama to Hillary if 75% of the party’s voters wants her to drop out? I can’t, public opinion would be too much. That’s why I think she needs to lay the foundation now that the race isn’t over even after all the contests are over & all pledged delegates have announced their support. Otherwise, Hillary will become villified in her own party for campaigning against the presumptive nominee.
The delegates don’t vote in the Republican nomination until the convention either. That does not mean McCain is not the “presumptive” nominee. What would your reaction be if Huckabee was still campaigning against McCain at this point? Or if Ron Paul (who I think has not dropped out) was running negative advertisements against McCain until the convention? You would probably think, what the hell are they doing? Are they deliberately trying to give the election to the other party?
Come June 3, the dems will feel the same way.
May 1st, 2008 at 4:18 pm
We have to switch operation chaos from voting for Hillary to voting for Obama. She is getting too strong and could get the nomination because of it. Im really getting nervous.
May 1st, 2008 at 4:24 pm
I agree Don.
May 1st, 2008 at 4:47 pm
I disagree.
I wanted the GOP nomination to come down to either Rudy or Mitt since they are both proven competent administrators.
I want the Dems to nominate the person that would do the least harm so if McCain doesn’t win, it would only be a disaster, as opposed to a catastrophe.
May 1st, 2008 at 5:21 pm
12, 13,
No. We want this to go to the convention. For that to happen, she has to stop the superdelegates dead in their tracks. For THAT to happen, she needs to overperform somewhere, rather than hanging on.
May 1st, 2008 at 6:02 pm
I’m not convinced that Hillary getting the nomination is necessarily a bad thing — how bad is it for McCain and the Republican down-ticket candidates if a few million blacks, academics, disillusioned young people, and assorted other lefties stay home on election day?
To be a bit less cynical about things — if Hillary would get the Dem nomination, we would have two grown-ups running for the presidency. Much as I dislike Hillary, she could fulfill the duties of the presidency (unlike Obama, who is looking increasingly clueless) and, however liberal she is, she is also a pragmatist (unlike Obama, who appears to be a “movement liberal”.
May 1st, 2008 at 6:12 pm
Those people who want Obama because he would be easier to beat need to remember how George W. Bush signed into law the McCain-Feingold Campaign Reform Act assuming that the Supreme Court would overturn it.
“Best laid plans of mice and men…”
May 1st, 2008 at 9:01 pm
I think Obama is much easier to beat, but I’m not terribly worried about either of them. Unless Obama breaks through with working class whites sometime between now and the convention, he’s going to lose that Demographic by (for a Democrat) near historic margins in November. He needs a watershed moment; a Kennedy wins West Virginia moment. And with Indiana and North Carolina looking like disasters on that front (he’ll probably get 35-40% and 30-35% of the white vote respectively), he has virtually no remaining opportunities to do so. He’s locked out of that demographic, provided John McCain doesn’t do something stupid like making a certain Ivy League Venture Capitalist his running mate. And Hillary can’t win without taking it all the way to the convention; Obama can’t and won’t simply fade away. The moment has passed for the media to entirely toss him overboard for Wright/Rezko/Ayers. Which means he’ll still have millions of fervent supporters, and Hillary will alienate quite a few of the by “stealing” the nomination at a bloody convention. She’ll still probably be stronger then Obama, but not very electable.
May 2nd, 2008 at 11:56 am
Carter had a fantastic presidency, compared to the folks who came after him. HE didn’t LIE to the American Public. Reagan Did. Clinton Did. Both Bushes did.
BRING BACK THE M3, AND STOP LYING ABOUT INFLATION!