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Zogby: Obama Leading Clinton By 13 Points
A new Zogby poll has Barack Obama leading Hillary Clinton by 13 points, with significant movement since the last poll from a month ago:
Obama 51% (+4)
Clinton 38% (-6)
One caveat: The poll was conducted Thursday through Saturday, mostly done before the "small town" flap broke out. On the other hand, other polls taken over the last week haven't shown the controversy affecting the numbers.
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It's time for pundits to realize this "small town flap" thing isn't making a dent. Why? Those really offended by it either aren't Democrats or were voting for Clinton anyway.
How many posts do we have to see that say, "Well, the small town comments may not have sunk in yet" before we realize the reality of the situation?
April 16, 2008 9:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
It's silly of Eric and Greg to keep saying this. It makes them look like craven journalists that they're not supposed to be.
April 16, 2008 9:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
Agreed. Yet, yet, yet -- how many shoes are pundits expecting to drop?
April 16, 2008 9:07 AM | Reply | Permalink
They keep hoping at the NY Times, Politico and here that the small town controversy will affect numbers. Otherwise, the media will be seen as fanning an overheated faux controversy.
Here's the money shot from today's New York Times re Bittergate. A reporter tried to find people's reactions in PA:
"Despite the political controversy over Obama’s San Francisco remarks, only a few of the more than two dozen people interviewed said they had heard of them."
April 16, 2008 9:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
This is a national poll?
April 16, 2008 9:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
Scroll down the Election Central page, and look at how many posts have direct reference to "small town" in them. It's funny, after a minute, how many.
Meanwhile, even the MSM, the people who eat this sort of sh#t for lunch, are laying off it. For days McCain has lead the news with his "Economic Plan." (It's finally beat out McCain on CNN.com political page. Good job blogworld! MSNBC.com, meanwhile, is hardly biting on it.)
Meanwhile Democrats do what Democrats do best: Everything they can to lose an election. Sometimes I think the best thing that could happen would be a Hillary nomination grab and loss to McCain and an Obama 2012 ticket with a new party. I read somewhere that's how the Republican party started, but I might be remembering that wrong.
What do the Democrats do well. Lame opposition party as we've seen. Not too hot in the president's chair: Carter and Clinton and Johnson. it's like the only thing they've (we've) got going for them is that they're not evil bastards.
I'm so sick of this primary and its fire-stoking enablers.
April 16, 2008 9:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
Here's all I see on this this morning:
http://www.suntimes.com/news/mitchell/894548,CST-NWS-mitch15.article
And don't look at me - I didn't say it - the press did.
April 16, 2008 9:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
Here's another one to enjoy:
http://weblogs.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/blog/2008/04/clintons_offended_pa_voter_not.html
"Barack Obama can take some solace out of Hillary Clinton’s new television ad in Pennsylvania. At least one of her supporters featured in the spot hammering Obama for his small town comments isn’t registered to vote in Pennsylvania."
The Clinton campaign is a farce!
April 16, 2008 10:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
Agreed. I also assume this poll was taken before Bill Clinton completed the Insult Fellow Democrats trifecta. Young voters are idiots, black voters are only voting for Obama because of his skin color (just like Jesse!), and the rest of us are latte sipping elitists who "don't need a president."
April 16, 2008 9:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
haha - can't wait to see clinton kick the empty suit's ass tonight! i bet he stayed up all night with his speech-writers coming up with clever little things to connect with the everyday man. hope and change indeed!
April 16, 2008 10:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
Like "change you can xerox"?
That sure went over well.
April 16, 2008 10:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
LOL - a Hillary supporter accuses OBAMA of being scripted. She's as "hollow as a drum," as I saw her described on Andrew Sullivan's blog this a.m.
April 16, 2008 10:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
"i bet he stayed up all night with his speech-writers coming up with clever little things to connect with the everyday man."
Like years working as a community organiser in Chicago.
April 16, 2008 11:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
or michelle obama's time with treehouse foods, a major wal-mart supplier!
hope and change indeed!
April 16, 2008 6:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Whenever Sen. Hillary Clinton is trailing in the polls, a racially divisive issue pops up."
Why are people surprised by this? It's a gimme - the surest most cost-effective tool that comes to hand.
If you're an tennis player, you don't care about exciting volleys, you develop an unreturnable serve. Doesn't result in a pretty game, but you win.
If you're running against a black man, you don't engage the issues, you say "have you noticed he's black?". If anybody thinks some variation of this will not be the central issue in the general, they're dreaming.
April 16, 2008 10:16 AM | Reply | Permalink
Of course everyone expects this in the general. That's why it's surprising, that it's already started, and from Dems.
April 16, 2008 10:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
Some of us think there are some things you just don't do to win. Others just want to win. Hillary's one of those. It's not an exclusively Republican trait.
April 16, 2008 10:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
no, it's not an exclusively republican trait.
but since you brought it up...what do you think the repubs would do if hillary was one of theirs and she was wrecking the all-but-confirmed nominee's chances? i think GOP leadership would take her out. or at least tell her to cut out the attacks that will help the other side in the general.
one of the real problems here is that there is no one on the democratic side willing to take the clintons on. no one is willing to stand and say 'have you no decency?' and so they continue their mad quest for murder-suicide. i'm not saying to call for her to drop-out of the race---she has every right to continue her ill-fated campaign. but the Dem leadership should summon to cojones to publicly tell her chill out the attacks that only serve to amplify the inevitable right-wing assaults. that's the real issue---not that she's attacking but that she's giving credence to right wing hitjobs that have been used to destroy Dem candidates before. now all mccain will do is run attack ads with hillary quoting Barack as elitist. he won't even have to get his hands dirty.
the good news is that none of this will matter. Obama will be the nominee and this 'bitter' flap hasn't affected his numbers at all---I suspect because many people are actually feeling bitter these days and too many people have access to the internet and have looked up his quote in its entirety and can interprate for themselves what he was saying. but that still doesn't diminsh Clinton's odious dealings or that fact that she is now allied with and parroting the talking points of the same forces that once tried to destory her and her husband. After this, I don't think she ever occupies a place in Democratic party leadership.
And it's probably all just as well.
April 16, 2008 11:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
Here's a caveat about Zogby results: They've been crap, all primary season long.
April 16, 2008 10:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
Springsteen endorses Obama. That elitist prick.
April 16, 2008 10:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
Totally awesome: The Village Voice's guide to the wingnuttosphere.
http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0816,a-confederacy-of-dunces,411897,1.html/full
Enjoy!
April 16, 2008 11:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
Lots of "caveats" today, Eric. On this poll AND on the PPP Poll showing him 3 points ahead.
Can anyone else hear the frustration that Obama is not only surviving through each "campaign ending scandal" but thriving?
April 16, 2008 11:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
Looks like Obama minimized his speaking engagements for today -- which is a good thing. He can concentrate on kicking Hillary's anus tonight. If he hammers her effectively enough, he may swing a lot of last-minute undecideds in PA. And thereby close this thing down.
Really, he should be the nominee already, as he was clearly on track to win Ohio just before that BS fraud NAFTA story come out.
Let's see if Clinton pulls some more dumb shit (aside from this 'bitter' crap which is already blowing up in her face).
April 16, 2008 11:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
Just amazing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exsmFDYyK4U&eurl=http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/
April 16, 2008 12:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
That's pretty funny - and disturbing. I hadn't seen Clinton's pro-NAFTA video before. Thanks for the link.
April 16, 2008 12:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
liar, Zogby
April 16, 2008 12:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Henceforth, Obama should conduct his campaign from the three-point line of basketball courts.
Dribbling (bonk, bonk, bonk).
Q: Senator Obama, what do you think about NAFTA?
(Bonk, bonk, bonk. Shoots ... swish.) A: I think it was a give-away by business elites that hurt working Americans.
Q: Senator Obama, what do you think about the lead-up to our invasion of Iraq?
(Bonk, bonk, bonk. Shoots ... swish.) A: I think it was misguided at best, but probably the worst manipulation of this nation's neocon elite to send a hard-working Americans to war against a contained enemy. We took our eye off the ball, so to speak.
(Bonk, bonk, bonk. Shoots ... swish.)
And so forth.
April 16, 2008 12:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
where is"idiotic"?
April 16, 2008 1:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
You try to quiet a bratty but shrewd kid in church, what does he do? Calm down, lower his voice, behave? No, he yells "I won't hush up". He knows the scene he'd make is worse than the scene you're trying to stop.
If Hillary was a Democrat first and a candidate second, she might listen to reason. But who in the Democratic establishment has the stature to get her to pipe down when she's convinced that shouting is the way to get what she wants?
I think if the Repubs had a similarly close race between two similarly determined alpha candidates, they would have similar trouble calming it down.
April 16, 2008 1:48 PM | Reply | Permalink