Reply #20: I don't understand why people are turning this into a Hillary vs Obama thread [View All]

[Nine]

That was not my intention. My point is that a lot of assumptions are made about a particular set of voters - those who voted for Clinton in the primaries but are not currently supporting Obama - and that I have yet to see a factual basis for those assumptions. Even the data contained in the Newsweek article itself don't seem to support it; this group has come to regard both Obama AND McCain more favorably over the past few months. If these voters were simply bitter about the primaries, that's not something I would expect to see.

There's no reason to assume these are voters who share most Democratic values. Perhaps they lean conservative but voted for Clinton because they remembered better economic times under Bill. Perhaps these are people who have a natural inclination for older candidates - see them as more experienced, more likely to share their values, having a longer track record, etc. Perhaps they are the sort of voters who judge a candidate more on personality factors, and Clinton just connected with them in a way that Obama has not. Or maybe there is some particular issue on which they just felt more aligned with Clinton than Obama.

My personal hunch is that a lot of moderates saw Clinton as more middle-of-the-road and Obama as more liberal and chose her for that reason. Those same moderates may still believe the McCain=maverick (i.e. not a diehard Republican) thing, so from that perspective it makes sense why they would go from Clinton to McCain instead of to Obama.

But that's just my theory. There could be any number of reasons these voters went for Hillary but are not going for Obama, and there are almost certainly multiple factors in play. It would be nice to really know what's going on there, and hopefully the Obama campaign is doing some intensive polling to figure it out, or perhaps they already know and are "on" it.

All I'm saying is, we DON'T know, so let's stop making assumptions. The Republican-owned media wants to foster these assumptions because they want to create this division in the party. Besides, I think it's always a mistake to say that some group of voters *should* vote some certain way. Voters have to be won over one at a time, and it's the job of the nominee to do that. Hillary has done her part to help and is continuing to do so but it's not like she has control over every single person who voted for her.