Tag: Hillary Clinton 2008 (page 3)

Paul Lukasiak continues his number crunching analysis at Corrente Wire today, and concludes,

Based on available exit polling from states that held primary elections, while Obama dominates the “Independent” voter, Hillary Clinton actually does slightly better among “Moderate” voters— and this is even more true in crucial swing states. The data suggests that a more comprehensive review of all such “electability” factors is required.

Paul's prior analysis on the vote is detailed here and explained here.

From a New Yorker interview, Testing the Waters with Barack Obama, November, 2006.

Where do you find yourself having the biggest differences with Hillary Clinton, politically?

You know, I think very highly of Hillary. The more I get to know her, the more I admire her. I think she’s the most disciplined—one of the most disciplined people—I’ve ever met. She’s one of the toughest. She’s got an extraordinary intelligence. And she is, she’s somebody who’s in this stuff for the right reasons. She’s passionate about moving the country forward on issues like health care and children. So it’s not clear to me what differences we’ve had since I’ve been in the Senate. I think what people might point to is our different assessments of the war in Iraq, although I’m always careful to say that I was not in the Senate, so perhaps the reason I thought it was such a bad idea was that I didn’t have the benefit of U.S. intelligence. And, for those who did, it might have led to a different set of choices. So that might be something that sort of is obvious. But, again, we were in different circumstances at that time: I was running for the U.S. Senate, she had to take a vote, and casting votes is always a difficult test.

That was before Barack Obama decided to vote for President. Which Obama do we believe now? [Hat tip to commenter Pavaoh}.

A new Texas Rasmussen poll shows Obama at 48%, Hillary at 44%. But, those numbers should be within the margin of error, and:

Eight percent (8%) remain undecided and another 12% say it’s possible they could change their mind. That latter figure includes 3% who say there’s a good chance they could change their mind.

Also,

• 73% of the undecided have a favorable view of Hillary compared to 69% for Obama (among all voters, it's 76 favorable for Hillary and 75 for Obama.
• Obama leads by sixteen points among men, but trails by nine among women.
• Hillary is still leading among Hispanic voters by 7 points.
• 79% believe Hillary "would be at least somewhat likely to win the White House if nominated" compared to 78% for Obama.

A negative: Obama's NAFTA spin about Hillary is working.

Bottom line: This is a fluid race where either candidate could win.

Sean Wilentz, writing today in the New Republic, argues that it is Barack Obama, not Hillary Clinton, who has played the race card in this campaign.

More than any other maneuver, this one has brought Clinton into disrepute with important portions of the Democratic Party. A review of what actually happened shows that the charges that the Clintons played the "race card" were not simply false; they were deliberately manufactured by the Obama camp and trumpeted by a credulous and/or compliant press corps in order to strip away her once formidable majority among black voters and to outrage affluent, college-educated white liberals as well as college students. The Clinton campaign, in fact, has not racialized the campaign, and never had any reason to do so. Rather the Obama campaign and its supporters, well-prepared to play the "race-baiter card" before the primaries began, launched it with a vengeance when Obama ran into dire straits after his losses in New Hampshire and Nevada--and thereby created a campaign myth that has turned into an incontrovertible truth among political pundits, reporters, and various Obama supporters.

Readers are welcome to weigh in, so long as they don't call anyone, candidates or other commenters, racists. This is about playing the race card, not whether either candidate or anyone on this site is a racist.

A new national AP poll out today finds Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in a statistical tie.

Overall, Obama has 46 percent to Clinton's 43 percent, a virtual tie. Clinton had a slight 5 point lead nationally in early February.

The AP stresses the increase in white male support for Obama. He's also increased among youth, liberals, those earning more than $50k a year and voters with college or graduate degrees. But, Hillary maintains a big lead in her core constituency as well.

Clinton maintains robust leads among some groups that have been cornerstones of her candidacy, including those age 65 and up, white women and people earning under $50,000 annually.

Big Tent Democrat wrote yesterday about the controversy that's developed over Barack Obama's reference in the Texas debate to an army captain who told him or someone in his campaign that his unit in Afghanistan had to fight without proper equipment and training. ABC News spoke to the captain and said he confirmed Obama's account.

Now, the Pentagon is challenging it and Sen. John Warner, who chaired the Senate Armed Forces Committee when the captain was in Afghanistan, has asked Obama for details of the man's unit and when and where the alleged incidents happened. He intends to bring it up at a hearing next week.

What Obama said (from the debate transcript):

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