Who Really Has a Better Shot Against McCain?
By Alan Stewart Carl | Related entries in 2008 Election, Democrats, McCainThe conventional wisdom is that Barack Obama would be a much tougher candidate against John McCain than would Hillary Clinton. Writing for RealClearPolitics, Froma Harrop, thinks the opposite may be true. The reason is almost counterintuitive: independents could go for McCain over Obama.
Harrop quotes a recent Pew Research Center poll that shows 20% of Clinton voters possibly supporting McCain if she doesn’t get the nomination. She also looks at the predilections of the so-called Reagan Democrats as well as older independent Democrats, both of whom may find Obama too slim on solutions and experience. They’d be ok with the known commodity that is Clinton but they’d be unable to justify voting for a one-term senator with such a slight record.
Right now, polls show McCain losing to either Clinton or Obama with Obama winning by a wider margin. Obviously accepting Harrop’s assertion requires some conjecture as well a realization that polls in March rarely reflect results in November. Obama’s margin may simply be a new vs. old gap that McCain will easily erase once his superior knowledge and experience becomes evident. Or Harrop might be very wrong.
I think McCain would indeed pose a greater challenge to Obama than is the conventional wisdom and I don’t think Clinton would necessarily have a more difficult time against the Arizona senator. While it’s true that Clinton’s elected experience is not much greater than Obama’s, she has made competency a core part of her message, is married to an ex-president and could have an easier time going against McCain’s long record than would a neophyte who says the right things but has yet to prove himself.
At some point, Obama will exhaust his ability to win support through eloquence. The last laps will be all about concrete issues – and you better believe national security will be an issue. He’ll need more than his initial opposition to the Iraq war. He’ll need to convince the electorate he knows what to do now and in the future. Obama, I think, would still likely beat McCain, but no one should assume it will be easy. Or that Clinton wouldn’t have a better shot.
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March 11th, 2008 at 7:39 am
From the view of the voters, both Clinton and Obama are good candidates for the presidental position, since their vote numbers are too close to call. Then the responsibility of superdelegates is to choose one to win the General Election. Therefore, superdelegates must use their judgment to choose the electable candidate as a nominee for winning the General Election.
I think that experience and ability of Hillary Clinton are important in beating McCain.
It is hard to imagine that inexperienced Obama can be chosen to solve the current mess created by Bush in THE GENERAL ELECTION.
March 11th, 2008 at 8:17 am
The problem with Clinton is that her negatives are so high it allows McCain to convince roughly 15% of the outstanding independents (it may be as high as 40 % this election season) and he wins. Nothing energizes the Rep base like a Clinton – this isn’t about security it’s about honesty – this isn’t about national defense it’s about leadership and making the right decision(s) – this isn’t about cutting taxes it’s about fiscal responsibility, long term planning, and doing what’s best for the American people………no one has a better track record for those things than Obama, then McCain, then Clinton……..she’s heavily over rated, and John McCain is simply too old.
March 11th, 2008 at 8:44 am
the predilections of the so-called Reagan Democrats
Reagan won election twenty eight years ago. If these folks are still voting Republican, that would make them Republicans, would it not?
March 11th, 2008 at 9:10 am
As all most all polls show, Obama will do better against McCain. I know that if Hillary is nominated a ton of young people and independents (such as myself) will stay home.
March 11th, 2008 at 9:11 am
Pug,
Except a good portion of them voted for Bill Clinton in ’92 and ’96 and they just helped the Democrats win back Congress in ’06. I guess we could call them blue collar/rural swing voters but they aren’t all blue collar or rural. Some are just independent moderates. Reagan Democrats is a label that still sticks although, yeah, it’s gettin outdated.
March 11th, 2008 at 9:32 am
Ms Harrop seems to be of the opinion that Sen. Obama owes his success to liberal Democratic primary voters; with Sen. Clinton running ahead among moderate and conservative primary voters.
However, looking at the exit polls, this does not appear to be the case. I’m yet to do a meta-analysis of just the extent to which primary voters are breaking for Obama and Clinton along ideological lines but my instincts tell me it’s not so straightforward as a liberal (Obama) vs moderate and conservative (Clinton) split.
Supporters of the two are, most definately, split along demographic lines – and the concern facing Democrats is that the longer this race plays out, the supporters of either candidate become so entrenched that there’s a greater risk of those who are candidate-exclusivevoting for Sen. McCain in November should their preferred candidate not be the nominee despite the two Democrats being closer on the issues than what either is to McCain.
In sum, however, that given there is no great ideological schism ripping the Democratic Party apart like in 1968, 1972 or 1980, the prognosis for November might not be so bleak as some think.
Independents will decide this election – and signs are that Obama appeals to this constituency more than Clinton. That is going to be important especially against McCain. On the other hand, Obama could, relative to Clinton, be at a greater disadvantage with her demographic base than she would be with his.
Indeed, the bad news for Obama is that the Clinton strategy of making him the ‘black candidate’, rather than the post-racial inclusive candidate that he is, seems to have worked in Ohio and with Latinos – a vital demographic to which McCain won’t be the anathema as other GOP nominees would be.
Although primary voters, clearly have their preferences, Democrats will be hoping that they are more generic in that they’d happily support either as nominee than exclusively for or against the other.
Should Obama be the nominee, a good choice for Veep would be Sen. Jim Webb of Virginia – the quintessential ‘Reagan Democrat’, who could shore support up for him in critical states like Ohio and Pennsylvania, among white blue-collar Democrats.
March 11th, 2008 at 10:50 am
Bottom line? Such opinions are all rectally-extractedGUESSES.
But if one wants to play anyway, be careful not to get any on ya. I think the most compelling reason why Clinton would have a harder time in fall is her much high negatives. It will be interesting to see what has been happening to her negatives over the last two months. My best guess is that they’re stable at a pretty high level on the conservative side, and that they’re growing on the liberal side. I feel very comfortable projecting that far more idealistic Obama supporters will stay home out of petulance than would be the case for pragmatic Hillary supporter should she come up short.
But more importantly, I think that judging who’d have a better is a bit foolish because the match-up will be sensitively dependent on conditions at the time. If foreign policy is for any reason a bigger issue in fall than it is now, that’s bad for Obama against McCain, not so much for Hillary. But if the economy is bad, I think that’s troublesome for McCain, and good for either dem, but especially good for Obama because of his especially optimistic message. If the economy turns very crappy, hope will be the drug we’re thinking of… .
March 11th, 2008 at 10:53 am
Alan, maybe it’s better to call them blue dog democrats now, that’s a more contemporary term.
March 11th, 2008 at 11:25 am
McCain has better knowledge? Problem easily solved, just have a new surrogate with National Security experience come out every day describing how McCain’s imperialistic views and horrible temper would doom this country.
March 11th, 2008 at 1:12 pm
Blue Dog is a better term for Reagan Democrats but I don’t think that’s the whole group Alan is talking about. Not sure where the midwest blue collar fit in since they aren’t really either Blue Dog or Reagan Democrats.