The spin mode is in full operation. Her majesty fumbled a little last night and showed some cracks, so what does HMM (Her Majesty's Memo)do? It posts another gd poll attempting to paint her coronation as inevitable.

BUT, and a big, BUT, both she and mr. perfect hair are trailing mr. 9/11 nationally! Only obama (I haven't come up with a name yet, I'm working on it) is leading mr. 9/11. Why isn't that the headline????? This is really pathetic. How many polls are you guys going to post as opposed to actually doing some journalism. Where's the indepth story about the incessent dodging and failure to answer a question by her majesty? Nowhere.

Michael, judging by your rant above, it seems you have issues that go well beyond politics. I'm not sure this blog will be able to help you with them.

Some of the comment posters think that TPM is biased in favor of Hillary. If you read Josh's posts you'd realize that this is not the case. Moreover, the facts are the facts. The Q-poll just came out and it reports a large lead for Hillary. In of itself this is a newsworthy item that is of interest to those following the race.

Now this polling took place before the debate. It is a snapshot of voter sentiment. Let's see if the poll numbers change after the next Quinnipiac poll. If the pounding Hillary took last night was effective in changing voter views then the next poll will reflect that fact and, in fact, we will be pleased to have a pre-debate reference to compare against.

Finally, just because the poll results are not what you want them to be that does not make the reporting of these results either biased or non-newsworthy. I have no doubt that if these numbers favored your candidates then you would be happy to have them touted. (For the record, I have not decided who I will vote for in the primary.)

Interesting to me is that Edwards and Obama beat Clinton in these matchups; Clinton and Edwards are down 3 points to Guiliani, but Obama beats him by one; all three candidates tie McCain; Clinton tops Thompson by 5, but Obama tops Thompson by 8 and Edwards tops Thompson by 10; both Clinton and Obama top Romney by 10, while Edwards tops Romney by 13.

But, you are right Michael, the header for this ignores the electability details and pushes the intra-party numbers. Those numbers, of course, precede last night's debate in which Clinton fence-straddled in real time and was called on it in real time, for all the world to see.

Ok Leon, I'll tone down the tone. It comes from annoyance and frustration from the likes of dc. I think that it is important for people to get informed and not buy the spin machine that is spinning no substance.

Dc, too funny. So, when you are comparing reasonable requests to get information regarding your boss's policy positions, "experience," or position on anything for that matter, that type of inquiry is comparable to the stasi and east germany, as you posted before, that type of comparison is not "strange." When you ignore facts and merely continue repeating the same generalities, that is not OCD. I don't think so.

I found the favorability information to be a bit interesting. I'm not sure how the debate last night affects things, but it's intereting that Clinton's favorability dropped (and unfavorability rose) during a period when she was getting pretty good press. Still early though, this could change over the next couple of months--though I don't think the Drexel debate helped.

Clinton also has seen her favorability among American voters drop from 48 - 43 percent August 15 to 46 - 46 percent today.

[snip]

Favorability ratings for other contenders are:
47 - 32 percent for Giuliani;
49 - 25 percent for McCain;
50 - 26 percent for Obama;
46 - 29 percent for Edwards;
31 - 21 percent for Thompson;
28 - 25 percent for Romney. President Bush's Approval

dcshungu says, "Would it not be a dereliction of duty for a site named 'Election Central' to avoid reporting on the horse race aspect of the election?"

Well, no. What is a dereliction of duty is to only report on the 'horse race' aspect and to avoid reporting on substantive matters relating to the candidates. I was surprised to see that some really relevant issues avoided by EC about the 'front-runner' were actually brought up at last night's debate: 1] the matter of that retired female general endorsing Hillary and stating in NH that she herself was never 'against the war' nor had she ever heard Hillary speak against the war, and 2] the matter of Hillary touting her First Lady years as experience while simultaneously hiding the official records of those years. In contrast to anything substantive regarding Hillary, notice how many EC posts were devoted to the Obama/McClurkin matter.

So, dcshungu, my comment is a bit of opportunity if you need another adrenaline rush. By the way, did you know that adrenaline is actually a poison when overused to the point where it accumulates in the body? Secondly, adrenaline used addictively for the 'rush' bespeaks a certain lack of deep centering. Just saying......

Keith wrote on October 31, 2007 10:57 AM:

I found the favorability information to be a bit interesting. I'm not sure how the debate last night affects things, but it's intereting that Clinton's favorability dropped (and unfavorability rose) during a period when she was getting pretty good press. Still early though, this could change over the next couple of months--though I don't think the Drexel debate helped.

A relative unknown when he won the Dem nomination in 2004, Kerry had an unfavorability rating of 13-20% when he started campaigning for the GE. By the time the Repubs were through "introducing" him to the public, his unfavoravility rating was about where Hillary's is now. Hillary's unfavorability do not where anywhere to go because she is now a well known quantity so that most people who have a negative opinion of her have probably already been counted (statistically speaking), meaning that, as Ezra Klein had posited over at TAPPED (see also below), her so-called 'negatives' are now as high as they'll ever get. The other candidates have low negs because they have not yet been "introduced" to the public.

HOW POLARIZING IS HILLARY?

The question of whether Hillary Clinton is uniquely polarizing is actually pretty hard to answer. For instance: The metric you use matters quite a lot. If you're going by how many voters "definitely would not" vote for her, she's less polarizing than John Edwards, Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, Fred Thompson, or Mitt Romney. But some say that number is a function of name recognition -- that folks are sure they won't vote for candidates they don't know. So if you're going by favorability numbers, then Clinton's 44% unfavorable is fairly high. But that may just mean she's further along in a process that any high profile Democrat will undergo. At this point in the 2004 cycle, John Kerry's unfavorables were between 13% and 20% -- by the time the election rolled around, he was in the mid-40s, posting numbers pretty comparable to Hillary's.

So that's the question: Not whether Hillary Clinton is more polarizing right this second. Given that everyone knows who she is, that simply has to be true. But whether she'll be more polarizing than John Edwards after eight months of haircut and hedge fund smears, or Barack Obama, after an election full of madrassa insinuations. Clinton's numbers probably reflect the end point of that process -- she's been smeared with maximum energy and efficiency for 15 years now. Edwards and Obama haven't, but if either captures the nomination, the GOP's attack machine will boot up, and do to them exactly what it did to John Kerry. If someone has an argument for why, at the end of that political war, they'll be less polarizing than Clinton, than that's a fair comparison. But the current numbers are not.

--Ezra Klein

Posted by Ezra Klein on October 22, 2007 11:57 AM

dcshungu-

Your earlier post stating Edwards or Obama vs. Giuliani would struggle in NY,NJ,CT and probably CA. Really? I'd bet my life savings that either would carry all those states in a landslide. Giuliani vs any dem in NY loses double digit.
I think the only candidate that makes Giuliani viable is HRC. The rest coast against hizzonor.

The one Democrat who didn't slip versus
the Republicans is Obama. I really think if he selects an attack dog as his running mate, he could win.

Looking at the Q-poll overall, I think there's some real nervousness among swing voters about giving the Democrats the trifecta. Congress' low approval ratings are dragging down the party's chances. As for specific events that might trigger such a decline, especially for HRC, it might be nervousness about Iran. Just my two cents. I want see some post-debate polling before drawing anymore conclusions.

moondancer wrote on October 31, 2007 11:50 AM:

dcshungu-

Your earlier post stating Edwards or Obama vs. Giuliani would struggle in NY,NJ,CT and probably CA. Really? I'd bet my life savings that either would carry all those states in a landslide. Giuliani vs any dem in NY loses double digit.
I think the only candidate that makes Giuliani viable is HRC. The rest coast against hizzonor.

You think so, ey?

Here we go:

NY MOE +/- 4.3% 10/30/07
Clinton 64% Giuliani 30% Undecided 6%

CA MOE +/- 4.5% 10/29/07
Clinton 55% Giuliani 39% Undecided 6%

NY MOE +/- 4.3% 10/01/07
Clinton 59% Giuliani 35% Undecided 6%
Obama 49% Giuliani 44% Undecided 7%
Edwards 45% Guiliani 46% Undecided 8%

CA MOE +/- 4.4% 09/30/07
Clinton 57% Giuliani 37% Undecided 6%
Obama 48% Giuliani 44% Undecided 9%
Edwards 46% Guiliani 44% Undecided 11%

In these usually reliable Dem bastions without either of which no Dem can be elected POTUS, Giuliani could make life difficult for the Dems if either Obama or Edwards go against him, and the Repub smear machine is booted up to "introduce" them to the public. Hillary takes both states off the table.

dc, when is the last time a repuke took either ny or ca? Reagan? When was the last time a repuke even tried? Reagan? Come on, you can't even believe your own claim, can you? I'd put my life savings on any dem, other than your boss, in both states as well.

Mr. 9/11's warmongering rhetoric, among other things, will sink his ship in either state and if he gets the nomination, I bet he doesn't even try to make a play for either state. It's way too expensive for ad time and there really is no up-side, when he can beat the war drums and run the ads in other smaller states where it matters and will have an impact.

It's interesting to me to see so much talk about Giuliani's rather striking lack of appeal to the Evangelist base of the Republican party and how much polls like this are being talked about without any real consideration of taking the into account when considering the other. The question the pollsters are asking is something along the lines of "If the election were held today and your choice was between Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani, for whom would you vote?"

The problem is, if certain Evangelists follow through with their promise to launch a third-party candidate should Giuliani receive the nomination, a question like that is completely pointless. He might seem to lead presently, and of course given the choice between a disliked Giuliani and a loathed Clinton you'd choose Giuliani in a poll. Of course, if it came to an election, they may still very well unite against Hillary in a way they wouldn't and couldn't against either Obama or Edwards. It's a strange dynamic. Christians, myself included, like Barack and not so much Hillary because he certainly seems to be the best representation of what many of us think Christianity ought to be (though admittedly the church he attends in Illinois can be a little... odd).

Sorry, I strayed from my point. I think what this poll is missing is that a Giuliani-Clinton race would actually be very close. When it comes down to it, however, I think either Barack or Edwards would whoop Giuliani quite squarely in the ass.