PrintJuly 7, 2008
About That Democratic 'Unity'
It seems that despite the media-targeted love-fest in Unity, New Hampshire a week and a half ago, the Hillary-Obama marriage of convenience hasn't really taken off. CNN posted the following story on it's website on Saturday: Poll: Some Clinton supporters still not embracing Obama. And the Wall Street Journal posted its own take this morning, concentrating more on Hillary's financial backers: Obama Faces Resistance From Top Supporters of Clinton.
The title of the CNN piece downplays the findings of Friday's CNN/Opinion Dynamics poll. It's not just "some" Hillary supporters who are not climbing aboard Obama's bus -- it's nearly half (43%) who would still rather see Hillary as the nominee, and the number is trending up:
A growing number of Clinton supporters polled say they may stay home in November instead of casting their ballot for Obama, an indication the party has yet to coalesce around the Illinois senator four weeks after the most prolonged and at times divisive primary race in modern American history came to a close.
This number is going to get worse for Obama because of one simple fact -- and it's not the "sexist treatment of Hillary" anger that we've heard so much about. Obama became popular, and 'won' the nomination (so far), because he took positions that were consistently to the left of Hillary Clinton. Those positions -- on such things as FISA and the Iraq War -- were the bait that lured his supporters in. As Obama bails out of his promises to the Left (the media calls it "tacking to the center"), he is becoming virtually indistinguishable from the hated Hillary -- one of the main targets of his "change" message. This is only going to further enrage Hillary's base, and disappoint Obama's.
The Wall Street Journal article examines Hillary's monetary supporters, using the "look at what I do, not at what I say" method. And what the WSJ finds is pretty striking:
...an analysis of campaign-finance records conducted for The Wall Street Journal by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics shows that in May, when Sen. Obama was widely believed to have clinched the Democratic nomination, only one Hillraiser had switched allegiance to the Obama campaign. And while 115 individuals who had donated at least $1,000 to Sen. Clinton made their first donations to Sen. Obama, another 115 former Clinton backers made their first big donations to Sen. McCain.
It will be interesting to see what those fund-raising numbers are for June. The CNN poll, taken at the beginning of July, seems to indicate that rank-and-file dissatisfaction is growing among former Hillary supporters. Let's see if that trend is true with her donors. Remember, if Obama gets in he's probably in for eight years -- by which time the possibility of a Hillary Presidency could be long past it's prime.
One other thing to keep in mind, and for this we have to first go back to the 2004 Presidential race between President Bush and John Kerry. During that campaign, Evan Thomas of Newsweek infamously said that the media bias towards John Kerry was worth about 15% in the polls. It's clear that Barack Obama is a vastly superior candidate to John Kerry, and the media bias in favor of him makes any comparison to their affection towards Kerry look like a bad joke. I'd be curious to know what Thomas believes the current pro-Obama bias in the media is worth to the candidate: 20%, 25%?
With most responsible polls (not the outliers) now showing Obama with a lead of anywhere between 4%-8% (Gallup, Rasmussen), this is not an inconsequential question. If the New York Times editorial from July 4th (New and Not Improved) is any indicator, important Obama promoters in the media are beginning to get quite upset. And these are the same promoters who remained staunchly pro-Kerry throughout the 2004 campaign.
Even a slight crack in the solidarity of the pro-Obama elites could have a significant affect on the outcome of this election. And if there's one thing the drive-by media loves to do, it's to take down Messiahs. We shall see if they are reluctant to do so now, since He is one of their own making.
