Focus Group: Pennsylvania Voters Are Suspicious Of Obama -- But Support Him Anyway

[Hope And Change]

Focus Group: Pennsylvania Voters Are Suspicious Of Obama -- But Support Him Anyway


By Greg Sargent - June 25, 2008, 11:15AM

This is pretty interesting: A focus group conducted in Pennsylvania, among Hillary supporters and key swing voters, sheds some light on the challenges ahead for Obama with regard to overcoming questions about his background...

On some questions of character, patriotism, and values (who would you rather carry the American flag at the Olympics, who would you rather carpool with), the focus group overwhelmingly picked McCain. While Jeremiah Wright barely came up and "bitter" didn't at all, two of the respondents -- the Clinton supporter and a female Bush voter -- had very negative opinions of him. "I don't trust Osama ... Obama. It's only a letter difference," said Charles, the Hillary backer. "His middle name is Hussein." Observed Terry, the female Bush voter: "I don't feel he's a true American."

But...the focus group -- which was conducted by Democratic pollster Peter Hart, for the Annenberg School at the University of Pennsylvania -- also found that more of them backed Obama than McCain.

Five backed Obama, four backed McCain, and three were undecided -- despite the fact that the voters were all white, none had previously voted for Obama, and the focus group was conducted in a place not known as sympathetic to the Illinois Senator. Obviously he has lots of work to do with these voters, but it isn't the worst place to start.


more...

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/06/focus_group_pennsylvania_voter.php

[ErinBerin84]

1. heh, focus group questions are so stupid!

"Who would you rather carpool with?"

[livetohike]

2. At least the recent polling shows Obama over McCain by double digits

This is embarrassing though.

[DarienComp]

3. People really don't realize how pathetic they sound when they bring up the "Hussein" thing...

[AllentownJake]

They are from York

If you explained it to them they still wouldn't get it.

[AllentownJake]

4. 12 people from York, PA

This makes news?

This isn't even an appropriate statistical sample to asses the opinion of York, PA as a whole.

[napi21]

5. Barack should make it more widely known that he was named after his father,

Barack Hussein Obama I. I only read that ONCE, and it was on DU. I think a lot of the people who have a problem with his name would understand IF they heard that it wasn't a name picked by his mother or father BECAUSE it was a muslim name, but it was a customer that they are used to...naming your first born son after his father. It's things like that that he needs to tell people, especially older people, who are very wary of what they consider strange.