Hillary Supporter James Carville: National Polls Are "Meaningless"
James Carville has repeatedly identified himself as a Hillary supporter (though he doesn't work for the Hillary campaign). But he diverged pretty wildly from Camp Hillary's message yesterday, when he had this to say about Hillary's lead in national polls on Meet the Press:
MR. CARVILLE: Well, first of all, she’s gotten a lot, lot stronger since this campaign started. I mean, it—I’d—to be fair, I would be more than fair to her because, as I said, I’m very sympathetic to her. Everybody says she’s overperformed, and now she’s starting to lead in all of these national polls. These things are pretty sort of meaningless at, at this point. Her negatives are nowhere near as high as President Bush’s was before the election of 2004.
That assertion, of course, might be contested by another Hillary supporter -- Hillary pollster Mark Penn, who likes to argue that the national polls show that Hillary's "better positioned today than ever before to become the next President of the United States."
Comments (8)
Taniel wrote on September 4, 2007 4:12 PM:The main question right now for the Clinton campaign is if she can still hope to get an advantage out of Florida. She was planning to use FL as a firewall in case of a poor showing in the early states, but the CW is that recent developments in the primary calendar make FL meaningless. Yet, there are plenty of reasons why Clinton can still hope that Florida would give her the momentum she needs in case of a poor showing in IA and NH.
Read full analysis, and know why all is not lost for Clinton in Florida, here. Paula wrote on September 4, 2007 4:49 PM:
They are meaningless insofar as the first caucus is four months away, but no Dem who's been consistently as high as Hillary (over 35 percent) in national polls has ever lost the nomination. We'll just have to see how it plays out.
NCSteve wrote on September 4, 2007 5:58 PM:After weeks of arguing that horserace polls this early had meaning, I was compelled to acknowledge their meaninglessness at this stage by this:
http://www.pollster.com/blogs/a_three_act_play.php
and, today, this:
http://www.pollster.com/blogs/dueling_memos_and_late_decider.php
Carville knows this. Its what he does for a living. When guys like Carville or Rove talk about poll standing and the numbers game, and they aren't actively employed by a campaign, if they say something that's totally non-issue related, non-policy number crunching kinds of stuff, they're usually just flat-out talking shop without any deeper agenda other than preserving their credibility for shrewd observations among potential future employers. They go into uberwonkgeek mode and they usually can't help but mostly tell the truth about what they think. I do not get why their statements about their assessment of data are always viewed through the filter of whether they're being loyal or a team player. They're just giving their wonky-ass assessment of the data.
In context, "these things" may be a reference to Rove's invoking Hillary's high negatives as the reason she's a flawed candidate.
But these things are all pretty sort of meaningless this far out, sort of.
die tpmelectioncentral DIE wrote on September 4, 2007 7:13 PM:another meaningless post spun by meaningful clintonistas to promote meaninful hillary messages at tpmelectionclinton.
CalD wrote on September 4, 2007 11:08 PM:Actually if you go read Carville and Penn's statements in context, they're really not contradictory. They were obviously talking about different things.
Carville was speaking to the right-wing talking point of a "deeply flawed" candidate with such high unfavorables, advanced by his dour and horse-faced spouse and picked up by the other right-wingers on the panel. His point appears to have been that while on the one hand, it's true that Clinton's negatives are on the high side for a candidate at this point in the race, it's also true that historically, by that time election day rolls around, whoever wins a presidential election does so with a favorable/unfavorable rating that looks about like Clinton's does now. It's probably also misleading in general to compare Clinton's favorability numbers to those of a typical presidential candidate at this point in the race because very few non-incumbent candidates begin the race as a household name. They usually start the season fairly unknown, with most people willing to give them the benefit of a doubt, then see their favorability ratings decline steadily as the campaign season rumbles along.
Penn on the other hand seems to have been talking mostly about ballot test numbers, which of course indicate Clinton running very strong in the primary races and suggest she’s gaining strength in hypothetical match-ups with Republicans as well. However he did also make the point that Clinton’s favorables actually seem to have edged up a little in some polls since the race began, which is pretty unusual.
gonzone wrote on September 5, 2007 8:49 AM:On Carville: blind hogs, acorns, etc.
F*ck Carville and Penn, two of the beltway's very well paid "serious people."
Karen wrote on September 5, 2007 10:02 AM:There are a lot of poll numbers we only get glimpses of:
(1) What are Clinton's state by state unfavorables? I saw one poll where she's 16+ negative over positive in Colorado, which was supposed to be a swing state. Where is she in OH, PA, MI?
(2) Where is Clinton on "strong positives" vs just "positive?" Because there are a lot of people who say they have a "positive" view of her who won't vote for her.
(3) What is a realistic probability for how high her negatives can be driven up in the general election? According to an article that got a lot of attention a few weeks ago - I think the author was Ron Fournier - negatives always go up during the course of a campaign.
