PART THREE Of The Electability Issue And Why Clinton Loses. Badly.

[gcomeau]

First, a quick recap. I started this little series of posts in response to one prominent Clinton supporter's attempts to use Rasmussen polling data in the few days after "Bitter" broke to try to declare Hillary more electable.

In Part One ( http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x5501891 ) we looked at the favorability/unfavorability angle. In summary:



Clinton gets creamed. Never beats Obama... EVER... in two months of polling, in either favorability or unfavorability ratings. And that's just Rasmussen, if I had pulled out Gallup it would have been really ugly.

In Part Two ( http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x5524423 ) we looked at head to head GE polling vs. McCain. In summary, Clinton gets obliterated by Obama nation wide in states in play in the GE, AND has a horrible potential effect on down-ticket races in many other red states if she's the nominee by turning out the republican base in droves.

(I don't mind either of those being bumped by the way. ;) )

Now in Part three we're going to look at the third metric our persistent Clinton supporter tried to use to make his argument and show why he goes 0 for 3. Direct Obama vs. Clinton national polling for the nomination. To begin, as usual, I'll cite the relevent portion of the post which inspired this response:

Versus Clinton

4/10: O 48, H 41
4/11: O 47, H 44
4/12: O 46, H 44
4/13: H 46, O 45

Change: Obama goes from leading by 7 to trailing by 1.

And to continue the theme, flesh things out with the latest numbers:

4/14: O 48, H 44
4/15: O 50, H 41
4/16: O 48, H 41

And Obama is right back to leading by 7. Oh yeah, there's an argument for Clinton. But as always we're not stopping there. Oh no, we're going to look at lots of polling results. The whole picture, not one tiny little slice of it.

ABC/Washington Post ... 4/10 -> 4/13 ... O 51, H 41 .... Obama +10
Reuters/Zogby ............ 4/10 -> 4/13 ... O 51, H 38 .... Obama +13
Rasmussen ................. 4/12 -> 4/15 ... O 48, H 41 .... Obama +7
Gallup ....................... 4/13 -> 4/15 ... O 50, H 42 .... Obama + 8

Are we detecting a common theme? Let's expand this view to the longer term trend lines now:



Pay attention to Clinton's level of support from November/December until now. All the way through the entire primary season and its immediate run-up. She has made NO gains in support. At all.

During that time Biden dropped out... where did his supporters go?
Dodd dropped out... where did his supporters go?
Richardson dropped out... where did his supporters go?
Kucinich dropped out... where did his supporters go?
Edwards dropped out... where did his supporters go?

Not saying a few of them didn't go to Clinton... but any few that did have rather clearly been counterbalanced by Clinton supporters either going to Obama or swinging to undecided because nothing is ever moving her numbers upward. Clinton's support level through all of it is completely flat. She's been campaigning across the nation for months and months and she hasn't made one bit of progress in increasing support for her candidacy. None. Nobody is buying what she's selling who wasn't already a customer. That sends a bit of a message for anyone paying the least bit of attention. And we've got people trying to convince us she's the most electable.

In summary. Three metrics down, and Obama wipes the floor with Clinton in all three. Yet somehow they were all presented as an argument for why Clinton should be given the nomination based on a couple day snapshot of a blip that has already passed trying to be pawned off on us as some kind of profound trend that spelled the doom of the Obama campaign.

Coming soon, Part Four. (Oh yes, I'm doing a four.)

[gcomeau]

1. Kick from page 2...

...maybe I should more significantly alter the title for part 4 so it's more clear it's new.

Or, maybe I should alter this one. I wonder if I'm within the editing time limit still?