Breaking Poll: Wright damages Hillary's brand

by Sinbad Sinbad, Wed Mar 26, 2008 at 07:04:42 PM EST

My title is kind of a joke.

Anyway - according to NBC News/McClatchey, the following has occurred over the last two weeks:

Hillary's brand has deteriorated drastically while Obama has remained fairly steady in the face of his worst press of the cycle (the Wright flap).

Here's the data:

Positive rating/Negative rating:

Hillary Clinton March 7-10: 45%/43%: +2
Hillary Clinton March 24-25: 37%/48%: -11

Barack Obama March 7-10: 51%/28%: +23
Barack Obama March 24-25: 49%/32%: +17

So...Barack Obama has slipped a tiny bit, while Hillary Clinton has tanked. All during the Wright scandal. It looks like Jerome was right: Wright hurt Hillary, not Obama! Hillary's sniper story didn't hit until yesterday, so we can't factor that in.

This amuses me. It makes me chuckle.

Analysis:

It turns out that the following is true:

1. Basic psychology and political theory suggests that likable/charismatic politicians weather attacks better than unlikable politicians. I know this will come as a shock to HRC supporters, but Barack Obama is likable, while Hillary is barely "likable enough". People are less likely to believe or worry about negative stories about politicians that they like or relate to. This is why everything stuck to poor John Kerry in the 2004 election. Sadly - the guy lacks charisma and the ability to connect with people - which made folks more likely to believe insane lies about his war record. The same goes for poor Hillary Clinton in the 1990s. Because people found her cold and couldn't relate to her personally, they believed all sorts of BS about her. It all stuck. It's not her fault - she was just cursed with a deficient personality and poor speaking skills. To her credit - she's gotten much better in the last few years and shines (and actually connects) in wonkier debate formats.

2. Obama's race speech DID work. Maybe you think it was a cynical dodge. Some folks think that. But even if it was a cynical dodge, the weightiness and thoughtfulness of his words outweighed that for most people. The Wright issue will haunt Obama, but he's shown that he's resilient. It all goes back to point #1: his charisma means that he is wearing political teflon. The same went for Bill Clinton in the 1990s. No matter what he did, people still related to him.

And that, my friends, is why Barack Obama is a better GE candidate than Hillary Clinton.




Tags: Poll, Branding, Hillary Clinton, Rev. Wright (all tags)

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Permalink :: 32 Comments :: Post a Comment


I am not Sinbad (2.00 / 2)

But I wish I were.


by Sinbad Sinbad on Wed Mar 26, 2008 at 07:06:32 PM EST

Re: I am not Sinbad (none / 0)

As long as we're wishing, can I be Bill Cosby?  WAIT, NO, Eddie Murphy.  NO, Dave Chappelle.  I wanna be Dave Chappelle.  :)


Unseen, in the background, Fate was quietly slipping the lead into the boxing glove.
by fogiv on Wed Mar 26, 2008 at 07:10:23 PM EST
[ Parent ]

lets face who you really want (none / 0)

to be is Kermit


-- be excellent to each other
by kindthoughts on Wed Mar 26, 2008 at 07:50:12 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Breaking Poll: Wright damages Hillary's brand (none / 0)

It also came out in that poll that more people thought Obama has done enough to address Wright...  among WHITE voters.


Beat McCain!
by thezzyzx on Wed Mar 26, 2008 at 07:06:36 PM EST

Mark Penn's head... (none / 0)

...is definitely exploding.


by Sinbad Sinbad on Wed Mar 26, 2008 at 07:07:11 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Mark Penn's head... (none / 0)

Scanner's style.  God, I hope that's on YouTube.


Unseen, in the background, Fate was quietly slipping the lead into the boxing glove.
by fogiv on Wed Mar 26, 2008 at 07:11:09 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Mark Penn's head... (none / 0)

37/48 is just insane...


Beat McCain!
by thezzyzx on Wed Mar 26, 2008 at 07:11:21 PM EST
[ Parent ]

That's not all... (none / 0)

Another interesting point relating to the intra-Demmocratic partisanship, the 'I'll-vote-for-McCain-instead' phenomenon much touted by the media and front-pagers recently:


One thing about these head-to-head matchups: our pollsters found that for the second poll in a row, more than 20% of Clinton and Obama supporters say they would support McCain when he's matched up against the other Democrat. There is clearly some hardening of feelings among some of the most core supporters of both Democrats, though it may be Obama voters, who are more bitter in the long run.

Why? Because among Obama voters, Clinton has a net-negative personal rating (35-43) while Clinton voters have a net-positive view of Obama (50-29). Taken together, this appears to be evidence that Obama, intially, should have the easier time uniting the party than Clinton.

Chuck Todd - NBC-WSJ POLL: NEW CLINTON LOWS MSNBC 26 Mar 08

That's a remarkable difference, -8 for Hillary vs +21 for Obama among supporters of the opposing candidate.  Wow, not what you would expect from reading comments here, is it?  Just goes to show how risky it can be to make assumptions based on anecdotal evidence from personal observations formed by blogging on a particular website.


by Shaun Appleby on Wed Mar 26, 2008 at 07:31:36 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Breaking Poll: Wright damages Hillary's brand (2.00 / 1)

lol aren't you at 2 diaries yet?

ok in the interests of fairness I will say this

This poll over sampled blacks to see how the Wright thing effected Obama, so all we can really take from this is that Hillary really doesn't have the support of the AA community anymore.

now a question for SDs will be there is NO path to the white house without the AA community they are the most loyal bedrock and wins in about 5-6 states depend on their turn out, I don't think any other minority is key in as many states as the AA community.

so they have to wonder can they really over turn Obama and depress the AA base? I am pretty sure we all know the answer


Congratulations to Barack Obama, the presumptive Presumptive Democratic Nominee
by TruthMatters on Wed Mar 26, 2008 at 07:11:26 PM EST

Re: Breaking Poll: Wright damages Hillary's brand (none / 0)

Are the crosstabs out for this?  How far oversampled were they?


Beat McCain!
by thezzyzx on Wed Mar 26, 2008 at 07:14:38 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Breaking Poll: Wright damages Hillary's brand (none / 0)

that I don't know but on MSNBC they article states right there that AA's were oversampled to see the effects of Wright on the AA community

but with only 700 respondents couldn't have been that much otherwise the only ones they would have questioned would have been the AA community hehe.


Congratulations to Barack Obama, the presumptive Presumptive Democratic Nominee
by TruthMatters on Wed Mar 26, 2008 at 07:16:45 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Breaking Poll: Wright damages Hillary's brand (2.00 / 1)

They weren't "oversampled" in the way that you think.

The overall sample did not contain an abnormal number of blacks.

HOWEVER

They surveyed more black people...so they could then take THAT sample (just blacks) and understand the way blacks felt about the Wright scandal. Because if you don't oversample, you have a huge margin of error.

So the poll is fine.


by Sinbad Sinbad on Wed Mar 26, 2008 at 07:21:35 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Breaking Poll: Wright damages Hillary's brand (none / 0)

really!

thanks for addressing that, I was wrong about it so I wasn't going to quote the poll as I try and stay fair but now I can!

woot woot!, then at that point, wow things are bad for Hillary


Congratulations to Barack Obama, the presumptive Presumptive Democratic Nominee
by TruthMatters on Wed Mar 26, 2008 at 07:37:23 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Breaking Poll: Wright damages Hillary's brand (none / 0)

WRONG.

They didn't actually use more blacks in the sample used to make the poll.

They just took a big sample of blacks so their cross tabs would be accurate. Then they reweighed towards the normal numbers.


by Sinbad Sinbad on Wed Mar 26, 2008 at 07:19:43 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Breaking Poll: Wright damages Hillary's brand (2.00 / 0)

Is anyone surprised?  The Bosnia flap reminded voters the problems we had with the Clintons in the 90's.  Rather than admitting she lied, she claimed she "misspoke" or she was "tired."  Does she think the electorate is stupid?


by rejectandenounce on Wed Mar 26, 2008 at 07:11:43 PM EST

Re: Breaking Poll: Wright damages Hillary's brand (none / 0)

Actually, this poll was done the 24th and 25th. The Bosnia lie didn't really explode in the MSM until late on the 25th. The real damage to Hillary's credibility won't be seen until the next poll. If you think she's tanked here, just wait.


by vermontprog on Wed Mar 26, 2008 at 07:14:48 PM EST
[ Parent ]

dream on (none / 0)

that's worked so much in her favor some are claiming she misspoke on purpose (she's sooo prescient?).  She's finally back on television and to the untrained eye, looks scary as all get out. Plus she's got more reporting, she'd also been to two other sites by helicopter than no civilian had gone to, to encourage and thank the troops. She's one brave girl.  


by anna shane on Wed Mar 26, 2008 at 07:38:47 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Breaking Poll: Wright damages Hillary's brand (none / 0)

but I will ask this how much pull does Bill really have!

any other candidate (especially a woman?) would have been done and gone by now, but not Hillary
if though the Supers don't like what she is doing and don't think she can win they won't call for her to leave.

http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2 008/03/26/820834.aspx

seriously this is not because of Hillary a 2nd term senator doesn't have the pull this is call because of her last name and who she is married too.

heh, Bill Clinton - Bulletproof


Congratulations to Barack Obama, the presumptive Presumptive Democratic Nominee
by TruthMatters on Wed Mar 26, 2008 at 07:15:00 PM EST

that's a talking point (none / 0)

with a virtual tie, no one able to win without super's, and more states to vote, no one would get out now, not Edwards, and not Obama were the numbers reversed.  They want to bully her out by creating a false impression that she can't win and is willing to take the party down with her. It's just politics, don't take it seriously.  It's fun or it's slap down, you pick, but it's old fashioned American democracy.  


by anna shane on Wed Mar 26, 2008 at 07:36:24 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: that's a talking point (none / 0)

It's not a virtual tie at all.  Even if she does reasonably well in the remaining primaries, she'd need roughly 3/4 of the undeclared super delegates to get the nomination.  They also happen to be very disinclined to go against the pledged delegate leader.

People are being very deferential toward Clinton not just because of her name but because of the respect people have for her and because she does have alot of supporters.  However, she will not be the nominee unless something an order of magnitude worse than Wright happens to Obama.


by CA Pol Junkie on Wed Mar 26, 2008 at 08:23:35 PM EST
[ Parent ]

worthless (none / 0)

The poll was conducted Monday and Tuesday this week by Hart-McInturff and surveyed 700 registered voters, which gives the poll a margin of error of +/- 3.7%. In addition, we oversampled African-Americans in order to get a more reliable cross-tab on many of the questions we asked in this poll regarding Sen. Barack Obama's speech on race and overall response to last week's Rev. Jeremiah Wright dustup.

This poll is not representative of anything.

And where did the other 15% go for Hillary?


by njsketch on Wed Mar 26, 2008 at 07:15:22 PM EST

Re: worthless (2.00 / 1)

No.

They surveyed 700 people. But their actual sample (for the numbers used) was much lower. But they oversampled blacks so they could get at those crosstabs.

Pollsters do it all the time. If you can't understand how that doesn't effect the final numbers, then you need to take a statistics class.


by Sinbad Sinbad on Wed Mar 26, 2008 at 07:23:06 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Consider the poll source MSNBC/NBC - anti-Hillary (none / 0)

Other, more reputable polls, show that Wright has eroded Obama's support significantly among white voters especially.

Many people I have talked with at work validated this opinion (NH).  

More anti-Hillary spin, courtesy of the GE spin machine that is NBC/MSNBC.


by vtluvr on Wed Mar 26, 2008 at 07:15:27 PM EST

Re: Consider the poll source MSNBC/NBC - anti-Hill (none / 0)

Correct....and I have also talked with many democratic white voters in Louisiana who have said consistently that they do not like Obama, think he is a phony and would never vote for him, and yes I have spoken with many people.


Steven Shaman Publisher Skywatch-Media News
by steve468 on Wed Mar 26, 2008 at 07:29:53 PM EST
[ Parent ]

thanks for YOUR (none / 0)

scientific poll.


-- be excellent to each other
by kindthoughts on Wed Mar 26, 2008 at 07:52:34 PM EST
[ Parent ]

My brother is the longtime chairman (none / 0)

of the Dade County(GA.) Democratic party, and my other brother is an elected Democrat on the County Commission. I also have a cousin who is running for County Executive. My family has been heavily involved in local politics for a long time. Everybody that I talk to that is out campaigning right now says that they have never seen anything like the hardening against Obama that has happened since the Wright scandal. Everywhere they go, they are hearing long-time Democrats say that they will not vote for Obama under any circumstances. Georgia, of course, is going to go red in Nov. anyway. But if this attitude is more than just a local phenomenon, it is a problem.


by georgiapeach on Thu Mar 27, 2008 at 08:55:21 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Breaking Poll: Wright damages Hillary's brand (none / 0)


by poserM on Wed Mar 26, 2008 at 07:17:55 PM EST

Re: Breaking Poll: Wright damages Hillary's brand (none / 0)

LOL: That is why she is so far ahead of him in Pennsylvania that it would take an Obama miracle for him to come back. You must be on drugs if you really think that she has tanked and he has held steady.


Steven Shaman Publisher Skywatch-Media News
by steve468 on Wed Mar 26, 2008 at 07:27:31 PM EST

Re: Breaking Poll (none / 0)

I wouldn't be so sure, I don't like Obama getting tarnished over his pastor and I'm a Hillary supporter but this poll doesn't have a ring of truth. I wonder who was polled and how the choices were framed.  HIllary has been very above board regarding this trouble of Obama, she doesn't go in for 'character' smears, the real issues are enough for her. Don't know about you, but I'm looking forward to the next two debates. i hope they talk about the Iraq exit plan and the economy. I hope they talk about her plans for universal pre-school and universal post high school training or college. I think we all need a lift, and having a more level playing field at home and getting those Bush contractors as well as our troops out of Iraq works for me. i don't give a hoot about his pastor, I give a hoot about his lack of clarity on issues, although when he's clear I find that I objectively prefer Hillary's plans.  


by anna shane on Wed Mar 26, 2008 at 07:30:40 PM EST

Re: Breaking Poll: Wright damages Hillary's brand (none / 0)

"Many people I have talked with at work..."

"and I have also talked with many democratic white voters in Louisiana..."

This is why random samplings are so important.  Even if you're talking to 1000 people, you're not getting a feeling for the country as a whole unless you somehow are talking to a perfectly weighted sampling.


Beat McCain!
by thezzyzx on Wed Mar 26, 2008 at 07:36:58 PM EST

NBC Poll? (none / 0)

ha! ha!

I guess you could have picked Zogby.


by ann0nymous on Wed Mar 26, 2008 at 08:36:34 PM EST

Hillary's fountians of mud backfired on her (none / 0)

NEW CLINTON LOWS

When asked if the three presidential candidates could be successful in uniting the country if they were elected president, 60 percent of all voters believed Obama could be successful at doing this, 58 percent of all voters said McCain could unite the country while only 46 percent of voters said the same about Clinton.


McCain's occupation plan will achieve victory when it bestows liberty to the freedom loving people of Iraq and their freedom loving oil.
by Lefty Coaster on Wed Mar 26, 2008 at 08:49:36 PM EST


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