Note to the media: the Obama campaign is well aware that Hillary Clinton's only route to the nomination is to knee-cap Barack Obama, rendering him un-nominatable, or unelectable in the general. They know that. His campaign manager has said as much. The news isn't so much that Hillary's own people know that she has to go Tonya Harding on Barack in order to win. The news is that the media is surprised.
But one thing to remember about Ms. Harding: in the end, her knee-capping operation hurt her reputation more than it hurt her then opponent, Nancy Kerrigan. Harding became a punch line, a loser making a living doing amateur, B-list celebrity boxing. And for Mrs. Clinton, the kitchen sink strategy appears to be soaking her, and her husband's legacy, in much the same way.
The latest NBC News/WSJ poll finds that among voters surveyed, Hillary Clinton's negatives have risen more than Obama's, and her positive ratings have shrunk more. Moreover, Hillary Clinton is viewed negatively by more Obama voters than the reverse.
Democratic pollster Peter Hart, who conducts the Journal/NBC polls with Republican pollster Bill McInturff, called the latest poll a "myth-buster" that showed the pastor controversy is "not the beginning of the end for the Obama campaign." But both Democrats, and especially New York's Sen. Clinton, are showing wounds from their prolonged and increasingly bitter nomination contest, which could weaken the ultimate nominee for the general-election showdown against Sen. McCain of Arizona. Even among women, who are the base of Sen. Clinton's support, she now is viewed negatively by more voters than positively for the first time in a Journal/NBC poll. The latest survey has the Democratic rivals in a dead heat, each with 45% support from registered Democratic voters. That is a slight improvement for Sen. Obama, though a statistically insignificant one, from the last Journal/NBC poll two weeks ago, which had Sen. Clinton leading among Democratic voters, 47% to 43%. While Sen. Clinton still leads among white Democrats, her edge shrank to eight points (49% to 41%) from 12 points in early March (51% to 39%). That seems to refute widespread speculation -- and fears among Sen. Obama's backers -- that he would lose white support for his bid to be the nation's first African-American president over the controversy surrounding his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. of Chicago. Had that erosion happened, party leaders' reassessment of Sen. Obama's electability could have tipped the race to Sen. Clinton's favor. Weathering the episode could strengthen his standing among the party leaders nationwide -- the superdelegates -- whose votes are likely to break the impasse. Beyond the nomination race, in hypothetical matchups for November's election Sen. Obama still edges Sen. McCain 44% to 42%. That is nearly the same result as in the early March poll, before videos of Mr. Wright's most fiery sermons spread over the Internet. But Sen. Clinton, who likewise had a narrow advantage over Sen. McCain in the earlier survey, trails in this one by two points, 44% to his 46%. The poll was conducted Monday and Tuesday, a week after Sen. Obama delivered a generally well-received address on race.
And ...
The negativity of the Obama-Clinton contest seems to be hurting Sen. Clinton more, the poll shows. A 52% majority of all voters says she doesn't have the background or values they identify with. But 50% say Sen. Obama does share their values, and 57% agree that Sen. McCain does. Also, fewer voters hold positive views of Sen. Clinton than did so just two weeks ago in the Journal/NBC poll. Among all voters, 48% have negative feelings toward her and 37% positive, a decline from a net positive 45% to 43% rating in early March. While 51% of African-American voters have positive views, that is down 12 points from earlier this month, before the Wright controversy. More ominous for Sen. Clinton is the net-negative rating she drew for the first time from women, one of the groups where she has drawn most support. In this latest poll, voters with negative views narrowly outstrip those with positive ones, 44% to 42%. That compares with her positive rating from 51% of women in the earlier March poll. Both she and Sen. Obama showed five-point declines in positive ratings from white voters. But where she is viewed mostly negatively, by 51% to 34% of whites, Sen. Obama's gets a net positive rating, by 42% to 37%. Among all voters, he maintained a significant positive-to-negative score of 49% to 32%—similar to Sen. McCain's 45% to 25%. The toll on both Democrats from their rhetorical brawling is evident in these poll findings: About a fifth of Clinton voters say they would support Sen. McCain if she isn't the Democratic nominee, and likewise a fifth of Obama voters say they would do the same if he isn't the party standard-bearer.
In other words, negative campaigning may work, but it can sometimes do more damage to your own knees than on your opponent's.
Meanwhile, back at the kitchen sink, Clinton's donors (who are far outnumbered by Barack's donors...) issue oblique threats to Nancy Pelosi (who appears to be an Obama Girl) ... but will they also threaten the Democratic governor of Tennessee over his idea for a superdelgate primary?Labels: 2008 election, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, negative campaigning, polls, presidential candidates, the Tonya Harding option |
