Obama Supporters Much More Excited than McCain’s
By Alan Stewart Carl | Related entries in 2008 Election, Barack, McCain, PollsWhy does Barack Obama seem to be maintaining his momentum despite hispolicy shifts and trouble with Clinton supporters? It’s probably because his supporters are far more excited than John McCain’s. Here’s what a new AP/Yahoo! News poll reveals:
For now, the numbers favor Obama: 38 percent of his supporters say the election is exciting compared to 9 percent of McCain’s. Sixty-five percent of Obama’s backers say they are hopeful about the campaign, double McCain’s, and the Democrat’s supporters are three times likelier to express pride.
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Half of McCain’s supporters say the race makes them frustrated, more than double Obama’s backers who say so. By 2-to-1 or more, McCain backers are likelier than Obama’s to say the campaign makes them bored, angry and helpless. And while 16 percent of those preferring Obama say they may change their candidate, 24 percent of McCain’s say they might do the same.
Yeah … that’s a problem for McCain and a huge advantage for Obama. I don’t see how McCain is going to suddenly start exciting the electorate or his own party. A good VP choice might help, but I don’t see a slam dunk candidate – if McCain reaches to the center for a veep, he’ll just further upset the Republican base. If he reaches to the right, he’ll lose independent support.
McCain’s best hope is that Obama starts disappointing his supporters on a regular basis. His FISA vote was a good start. A few more overtly political maneuvers and maybe Obama’s supporters will lose their wind. But I think Obama is too good of a politician to let that happen. Most likely, it’s going to be a tough contest for McCain.
This entry was posted on Friday, July 18th, 2008 and is filed under 2008 Election, Barack, McCain, Polls. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
July 19th, 2008 at 10:16 am
Actually, McCain’s best hope is that Obama makes a serious mistake in his selection of a VP.
If he picks someone far left, he can start losing the independents. And, after all, the Democratic base is already energized.
If he picks Clinton, he energizes McCain’s base. And probably doesn’t pick up any significant number of voters that McCain would otherwise have gotten.
Obama might avoid either of those kinds of mistakes. But unless he makes one of those, or some other major gaffe, McCain hasn’t got a real good chance of making up ground on the enthusiasm front.