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Born at the Crest of the Empire

Monday, February 25, 2008

Clinton getting smashed in the national polls

I know they're technically meaningless to the primary race, but the numbers are substantial.

NYTimes/CBS - Obama 54, Clinton 38.
USAToday/Gallup - Obama 51, Clinton 39.

(Later: I was a little angry last night, so I didn't make this point. This is almost all Obama going up and not Clinton going down. She's down a bit, but she kinda ceilinged in the national polling around 43-45.)

9 Comments:

  • At this point in the game I wouldn't say their entirely meaningless. Something like 3/4 of the states have had primaries/caucuses. Name recognition shouldn't be much of thumb on the scale now either, and there's been plenty of press on Obama, Clinton and the campaigns. It's probably worth while to not how the numbers have tracked over time... and that the coin has flipped.

    Is it too much to assume from these polls that America has gone cold on Hillary?

    By Blogger -epm, at 11:06 PM  

  • I'm not sure America, or even the Democrats, were ever all that warm on Hillary. They just weren't sure if they liked anyone else better. Now some of them ARE sure, and a lot of the rest are hopping on the bandwagon.

    The power of momentum in these campaigns never ceases to amaze and annoy me. People seem to bet as though it were a horse race, and there were some value in having correctly predicted the winner.

    So, yeah, I do think these polls might have an effect. It's another nail in the coffin. I would imagine a lot of potential Hillary voters will either switch or just stay home.

    It's rather absurd--if Ohio and Texas had been a couple of weeks ago, the race might still be quite close. The schedule shouldn't matter that much. I don't know what the fix is, but I do know that this system is as broken as the electoral college system.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 3:17 AM  

  • Well I'm not so sure the primary system is all that broken. In fact Obamba supporters might say the system did what it was supposed to do: give people with little name recognition and organization a chance to compete on a level(ish) playing field. The long slow march to the convention allows a candidate to introduce himself/herself to the voters. When this happens, Obama comes out ahead more times than not.

    By Blogger -epm, at 7:03 AM  

  • I think TG makes a good point. (So good I added a bit of it to the post.) Almost all of these polls is Obama up. Clinton ceilinged at about 43-45.

    ....

    TG, I'm curious,

    Do you really think there's a psychological component that people would switch after all this just because of the perception of a winner? Would that even be conscious? Makes sense actually. It's just like a psych experiment, her behavior, something like that.

    The one thing I would say is that here in Texas, and Ohio, it's still close and all to play for, and those national polls really don't matter except as environment.

    ---

    And regarding the primary schedule, it's inherently unfair to somebody everytime, but you can't really do a national primary day either because that would just elect the biggest money/highest Q rating candidate everytime.

    Of course, if the Clinton campaign had figured out a way to win Iowa, none of this would have happened.

    ....

    EPM, I kinda answered your points in the rest.

    By Blogger mikevotes, at 7:27 AM  

  • It would be rather myopic of Obama supporters to say the system works just because it allowed their guy to win the nomination. If he wins in November, then they can say it works.

    And even if he does win the general election... well, even a stopped clock is right twice a day. When you look at some of the bad candidates the system has produced (Kerry, Dukakis, Mondale) and the long list of highly questionable results this year (Michigan, Florida, superdelegates being the deciders, bizarre caucus rules, complete inconsistency from state to state), it's just a horrible and very undemocratic way of picking a candidate.

    I'd agree that a good system should allow for a dark horse candidate to build support. But achieving that need not mean distorting the electoral process to the point where some voters count more than others, and some don't count at all.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 8:15 PM  

  • Like I said above, the calendar is inherently unfair to somebody everytime.

    (And I like your assumption that if the system picks Obama it must inherently be bad.)

    I'm sorry, I know this must be hard watching this slow death, But the calendar was published. The state rules were published. The Clinton campaign started with a huge national polling advantage and at least as much money as Obama.

    It wasn't the calendar that lost it. It wasn't the rules. It was the decisions.

    (And if you want to play the what if calendar game, what if New York and California were in May? How would Clinton look then?)

    I'm sorry, I know this isn't pleasant for you, but trying to blame the rules just isn't going to fly.

    By Blogger mikevotes, at 10:37 PM  

  • Wow, I don't think I got my point across at all.

    My point is not that the system was unfair to Hillary, and that's why she lost, boo hoo. The system gave her plenty of advantages as well as disadvantages.

    My point is that the system as it stands is excessively arbitrary and
    insufficiently democratic. If you believe that Hillary was the wrong candidate, look at how dangerously close we came to nominating her.

    It's not about the result of this particular matchup (IMO Hillary vs. Barack was a choice between the third best candidate and the fourth best candidate anyway), it's about the process. And having a process that is random in its unfairness is NOT the same as having a process that is fair. It doesn't cut it to say, Oh, the rules are the same for everyone.

    Because, remember, this is not a zero-sum game between the candidates. There is a third party involved. The voters are more than just poker chips; they are the ultimate winners or losers.
    And when the process is f***ed up, they are getting short-changed.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 12:53 PM  

  • By Anonymous Anonymous, at 11:38 AM  

  • By Blogger raybanoutlet001, at 8:33 PM  

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