The Electability Issue. Part Two Of Why Clinton Loses. Badly.

[gcomeau]

Yesterday in Part One we looked at an attempt to use Obama's couple day blip in favorable unfavorable ratings in Rasmussen to make an argument for Clinton's greater electability, and how it fell flat on its face ( http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x5501891 )

Today in Part Two we're going to look at a second metric that has also been used to try to make the same argument, and see how it once again results in Obama being far and away more electable than Clinton. Hands down. No question. Today's subject... GE polling vs. McCain.

To begin, I'll copy over the argument one of Clinton's supporters tried to make on this:

Versus McSame

4/10: M 46, O 45
4/11: M 47, O 44
4/12: M 47, O 43
4/12: M 50, O 42

Obama goes from -1 to -8.

First of all, let's flesh that "trend" out with the latest results:

4/14: McCain 49, Obama 42
4/15: McCain 47, Obama 43

Oops, that trend is in the wrong direction. In the meantime on Hillary's side of the graph:

4/14: McCain: 47, Clinton 43
4/15: McCain 48, Clinton 41

Oops, so much for the "we can take the last day or two of polling and say Clinton is more electable" approach. But why stop there? The author of this argument just kept right on digging today and tried to shift the focus from national polling against McCain to state by state polling against McCain by focussing on the latest results in two states. Louissiana and Florida. What a fabulous idea! Let's look at LOTS of states... this will be great fun.

First of all, let's take a look at this map, courtesy of http://www.electoral-vote.com/ This is a breakdown of how Obama and Hillary fare against McCain... relative to each other in latest GE polling in each state.

If Obama does significantly better than Hillary against McCainin a state it's solid brown.
If he does a bit better than her it's brown bordered.
If Hillary does slightly better than Obama it's pink bordered (sexists, of course the guurl is pink!)
If Hillary does significantly better than Obama the state is solid pink.

This only applies in a state where at least ONE of them can get within 5 points of McCain in the GE. If McCain is clearly winning against both then the state is red. If McCain is clearly getting killed by both, the state is blue. So this DOES NOT COUNT where Obama is killing Hillary in solid red states, only in competitive ones according to latest polling.



Ooooh that's a lot of brown. And isn't that Michigan, and Wisonsin, and Iowa... those battleground type places?

And wait a minute... Washington and Oregon aren't blue? Oh... they both lean REPUBLICAN in the latest polls when Clinton is the nominee.

Hey, woah there... is that a brown Texas? Shouldn't that be Red? Oops... Obama is within a single point of McCain in the last poll there. In Texas.

NC is brown because Obama ties with McCain there... meanwhile Clinton is down 11 points. Etc...

But hey, there is some pink in there... if you look for it hard enough. It's over there in the far right side... takes a second to spot it with the brown spreading across the entire map. Of course one of them is New York... but are any of us buying that shouldn't be blue and that Hillary is really only 2 points up on McCain there? Didn't thnk so.So just mentally color it in with blue when you look at it.

In short, Obama slaughters Hillary in GE matchups against McCain. But let's have some more fun with this... let's look at a bunch of those red states with a differentfactor in mind. Down ticket races.

Montana: Obama is down 5 points, Clinton is down 18.
Idaho: Obama is down 13 points, Clinton is down 36
Wyoming: Obama is down 19, Clinton is down 33
Utah: Obama is down 11, Clinton is down 38
Alaska: Obama is down 5 (yes, 5), Clinton is down 25
Kansas: Obama is down 12, Clinton is down 19
Georgia:Obama is down 13, Clinton is down 20
Indiana: Obama is down 9, Clinton is down 17
Virginia: Obama is down 11, Clinton is down 22

In summary, put Clinton in the ticket and the reddest of the red voters show up. A LOT of red states get red enough to burn the retinas of anyone looking directly at them. And that is bad news for down ticket races even if you feel like writing off the states EVs for the presidential race.

Obama is, hands down, better against McCain. Any attempt to argue the contrary by cherry picking one or two states at a time and waving them around is ridiculous.

Part Three Coming Soon.