×
I think Isaac Chotiner gets this right:
In the past two weeks, seven different organizations have polled the races and on average Obama beats McCain by 3.2%, while Clinton loses to the Arizona senator by 2%. Not a single polls has Clinton doing as well as Obama. Normally this wouldn't be such a big deal--after all, most people don't obsessively read polling data. But this year's race might be different. If, as seems increasingly likely, the Democratic nomination drags on all the way to the convention, it's imperative that Clinton close the gap with Obama. Think of it like this: you are a superdelegate or party boss. You have been undecided but now must choose between two candidates with roughly equal numbers of delegates. Most of all, you want to win in November, which is now only three months away. And while one of your two choices is consistently beating the Republican nominee in polls, the other is consistently losing. It's not hard to imagine that many of these people will be swayed by the data above.It really does seem that Obama has opened up a consistent lead in the horeserace polling, and while I'm skeptical of how meaningful that is this early in the campaign, weak data remains better than contrary data, and right now, Hillary is trailing McCain. That matters.But does it matter to superdelegates? I'm a bit skeptical that straight electability concerns will matter enormously, but I could see the case that regional appeal will. If, as we're hearing, red state Democrats are genuinely concerned about Hillary's potential to drag down their tickets, but feel that Obama, by being less polarizing and by supercharging African-American turnout, could actually help them, I'd imagine that would weigh pretty heavily in their eventual decisions. A lot of this, however, will depend on how vulnerable Hillary looks come the convention. My guess is a lot of superdelegates are going to operate under the premise that if you vote against the Clintons, you better be sure they're going to lose.
