New lefty Polls: The Democratic Party is falling apart
Watch out for the splinters!
By Mark Kilmer Posted in 2008 | Democratic Party — Comments (16) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
I'm just here to pass on word of some anxiety forming in the gut of the Dem beast. A lefty polling outfit called Public Policy Polling has unveiled the results of their surveys in Ohio [pdf] and Florida [pdf], and the news is not good.
The Democrats are not the party of inclusion. What they are brewing is a disaster draught.
To wit, from Ohio:
Clinton leads McCain 45-44 in the state [Ohio], while McCain has a 49-41 advantage over Obama. …
Clinton leads McCain just 47-27 with the key demographic of African American voters, while Obama pulls just 62% with respondents who identified themselves as Democrats.
“Some of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama’s supporters dislike the other candidate so
much that at this point they’re not committing to voting for the eventual Democratic
nominee in the general election,” said Dean Debnam, President of Public Policy Polling.
Hillary's numbers have to be much higher with African Americans, and Barry has to score better with Democrats. It's not working out.
Read On…
And from Florida:
Clinton is only pulling 51% of the African American vote against McCain with 36% of black voters saying they’re undecided. Obama is similarly having trouble with his base,
leading McCain only 60-25 with poll respondents who identified themselves as Democrats.“Clearly Hillary Clinton is not going to win Florida without 75% of the black vote and
Barack Obama is not going to win it without at least 75% of the Democratic vote,” said
Dean Debnam, President of Public Policy Polling.
In North Carolina [pdf], the left wing PPP poll shows the race realigning:
Obama leads 44-43 in the state, after leading by four points in a similar poll conducted by PPP two weeks ago. Clinton has particularly made gains with female voters, with whom she now has a slight lead after trailing in the previous poll.
Teagan Goddard headlined this: Rift Forming in Democratic Party.
Some folks think it could be worse than that.
Last Sunday on CBS' Face the Nation, host Bob Schieffer asked Massachusetts Governor and Obama spokesman Deval Patrick [pdf]:
If Senator Obama does not get the nomination, do you think black voters will stay home [on Election Day]?
Or worse yet.
Doug Wilder appeared on the same show, February 17, and intoned:
"You know what a mess that [Dem Convention, Chicago, 1968] was," Wilder, an Obama supporter, told host Bob Schieffer.
"If the majority of the American people" voting in the Democratic primaries and caucuses back either Obama or Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton "and if the superdelegates intervene to get in the way of it and say, 'Oh no, we're going to determine what's best,' there will be chaos at the convention," Wilder said.
"It does nothing to help the Democrats -- and if you think 1968 was bad, you watch 2008," Wilder said. If that happens, "it will be worse."
Politico.com has the Wilder wildness vid.
This could all be a disaster, or maybe Howard Dean will intervene and save the day. (Yeah, right.)
From an electability standpoint, John McCain is the best candidate the GOP has run since Ronald Reagan. What was to be a Dem year has been turned, by the Dems themselves, into a potential disaster.
I remind myself: IT IS ONLY MARCH! The economy and Iraq could turn this election in an instant, eclipsing the best laid plans of men. (Mice are sneaky, but they'd better have a good plan.)
The rank-and-file might not feel it now, but the Democratic Party (old guard, new guard) is fragmenting, crumbling into further fragmenting blocks. The Party's elder-statespeople, those who could step in and save the day, are the likes of: Teddy Kennedy, Al Gore, Geraldine Ferraro, and Bill Clinton. The DNC is piloted by Howard Dean. This is insane!
And it will be carefully documented, right here at RedState.com.
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New lefty Polls: The Democratic Party is falling apart 16 Comments (0 topical, 16 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
I haven't seen any polling data, but it will be interesting to see how McCain does in that area, particularly as the election nears. I think he's going to win the military vote decisively and it will bleed into the black vote in a populist we want to win this war way, the question is how much. It's his beachhead into the black vote if there is one, especially if these voters are influential with any family members at home.
Just a theory.
"Honor is self-esteem made visible in action." - Ayn Rand, West Point, 1974
but it's anecdotal and young. Young blacks are less attached to the Ds (although Obama is helping to make them more affiliated with the Party). Young, military blacks that I know respect McCain generally but that doesn't mean he'll win their vote.
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But upon further reflection, since there are no credible black R elected officials that fit the bill, the most plausible Vice Presidential candidate that would help McCain make real in roads with African Americans if he was running against Hillary is none other than....
Southern Baptist minister Mike Huckabee.
I'm just saying.
Nothing John McCain can do will disasscoiate the incumbent party from the state of the economy. It's not fair, but the second rule of democracy is that the party in control of office gets blamed for any economic woes.
The first rule of democracy: the general who wins the war gets to be president.
“One element in the strength of any government is the patriotism of the people, their love for its institutions, their pride for its name and achievements.” ~ William McKinley
Does that mean McCain is a shoo-in?
Unfortunately, I don't think the economy plays so easy.
If it's bad, the GOP would be smart to blame the Dem Congress - "We had 5 years of economic growth, until we elected a 'Do-Nothing' Dem Congress who have wasted time trying to pull troops out of Iraq rather than 'fix the economy'?" Frankly, I think there's some truth in this line of argument.
If it's good, the Dem nominee will try to take credit, via that same Dem Congress.
So I'm not sure the economy really benefits anyone.
About all we can say is, if the economy goes bad, incumbents in general will be in trouble. But no one running for President can really claim to be an "incumbent" this time around. (Or rather, they're all Senators, which cancels out.)
No one can say how many will vote this way, but if a Republican president cannot fix it, they will follow the Democrat promising a new direction rather than more of the same, as McCain is. The economy augurs poorly for our success, but it does not mean our fate is sealed.
“One element in the strength of any government is the patriotism of the people, their love for its institutions, their pride for its name and achievements.” ~ William McKinley
McCain is clearly different than Bush on spending, and his maverick reputation will only add credibility. I'd give a the voters a little credit in their ability to distinguish that much. They know more taxes and more spending is not the answer.
"Honor is self-esteem made visible in action." - Ayn Rand, West Point, 1974
or DEM run congresses.
McCain spent the GOP years on the side of fiscal conservatism. He made some maverick votes that he can point to, if they dems try to hang it on him.
While McCain isn't my ideal candidate, I think at this point in time he is probably sitting in a good place-he doesn't have an easy row to hoe, but I think it is going to be tough for them to hang the state of the economy on McCain-good or bad.
For once McCain's maverick bent will likely help him, but it is a long time until November.
If you look at the internals of the Ohio poll McCain will easily beat Clinton. They just vastly oversampled Democrats.
This is going to be SO MUCH FUN to watch!
If white GOP voters who don't buy Obama's BS are racists, why shouldn't his followers also see Hillary and her followers as racists? They should identify HER as the one who's derailing his candidacy, not McCain. If she manages to steal the nomination from Obama and any significant number of black voters decide to sit it out, she has no chance to win.
Everyone's talking about race, but in at least a couple of ways Obama has introduced age as an issue.
1) At first he blew off Wright's remarks as being like the crazy old uncle everyone has. Is that a slam against older people in general?
2) Yesterday he excused Wright's wrongs (I like the sound of that heh heh) as being due to what his generation went through. Is he saying it's okay for old people to say stupid things because we're just supposed to ignore them anyway?
I don't know - either of these on its own is maybe no big deal, and two comments don't necessarily make a pattern, but if Obama in any way turns off older voters he has zero chance of winning in November. We'll have to see what develops.
Survey USA concurs.
...a long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right...
---Thomas Paine---
honestly, why that chickenfeed outfit is still allowed to broadcast is beyond me.
on larry king last night they had closeted communists on giving the folks advice about the economy.
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China is evil boycott the olympics
And florida and michigan reverse both situations.
Naturally I am dreaming, but it gives me a warm fuzzy feeling.
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"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777
I do think the D's will pull together in the end, and even if Hillary weasel's her way to the nomination, Bill will work the black Church circuit relentlessly from August-November and rebuild the support from the black community.
Half my kingdom that we had a good, solid well experienced African American conservative in a governor house or Congress that McCain could tab for the VP slot- that really would devestate the dem base. But JCW has been gone for too long, Swann/Steele/Blackwell lost, and I don't think Condi is a good political candidate (as opposed to cabinet secretary).
It's hard to imagine the D's tagging JMAC with a "James Byrd" type commercial, but at the same time I don't have a good feel for how he really connects with the black community. Does he at least have any good AA surrogates who could vouch for him?
Its nice to imagine the D base fragmenting, but I just can't see it, too many well entrenched and vested interests to tank it all over bad blood from the primary.