Hillary Clinton at Barack Obama's Convention
A new Pew Research Center poll shows a surprisingly high level of interest in viewership of the Democratic National Convention, compared with prior years. "The upcoming Democratic National Convention is generating much more public interest than did the party's convention four years ago," according to Pew. "Fully 59 percent of Americans say they are interested in following what happens at the Democratic convention, up from 36 percent in 2004. Nearly a third (31 percent) say they are very interested, while 28 percent say they are fairly interested in developments from Denver next week."
A large chunk of this interest can be attributed to Sen. Hillary Clinton's Tuesday night speech.
More than half of Democrats—56 percent—who supported Clinton in the primaries told Pew researchers they are very interested in hearing her speak.
Does this mean they could be looking for cues from Clinton about whether they should vote for Sen. Barack Obama in November? Obama faces serious obstacles as he tries to woo this key voting block. Yesterday's NBC/Wall Street Journal poll showed 21 percent of them plan to vote for Sen. John McCain and 27 percent are undecided about whom to support, even though they are Democrats and the Democratic nominee is Obama.
I appeared last night on MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews, and he astutely pointed out that while campaigning in Florida yesterday for Obama, Clinton referred to him as her "opponent." (You can see the segment—"The Hillary Factor"—here.)
Was this a signal to her supporters that she's stumping for him because she has to, not because she wants to? Clinton has been an incredibly good soldier in her efforts for Obama since she conceded in June. But are her supporters heeding her call for them to transfer loyalties? Tuesday night's speech will tell us more.
Tags: Democrats | presidential election 2008 | Barack Obama | Hillary Clinton | Democratic National Convention
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Reader Comments
Obama was packaged like a Saturday morning toy commercial. Young, black, big smile, great speech. He looked perfect and everybody had to have him. Except the toys in the commercials never work as shown. And Obama isn't at all what he appeared to be. That is why so many democrats can't support him. You don't unify behind a person leading you off a cliff. McCain support is growing not because McCain is strong, but because Obama is so weak. McCain is another Bob Dole. Clinton could blow him away. You had the perfect choice, but you had to be lured away by that shiny toy.
Hillary Just Can't Understand
I prefer to branch away from the pack on the Hillary issue and focus on the reasons she is not the nominee rather than her bluster and her supporters. Her supporters focus upon her gender while the nation sees her as a divisive egotist who regurgitated her failed health care plan, whiney economic policies, failure to fulfill her responsibilities before voting for war, etc... In short, the Hillary camp are a democrat clone of the hard-core Bush supporters, support your candidate till you drop regardless of the facts. Just as the President has support from those who continue to profit from his policies, Hillary will continue to have supporters who will follow to the end for any gains she can provide. The polls are split not because of differences in issues but differences in the direction of profits. Patriotism and America be damned, Hillary will have her way!!!
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