The Clinton Factor
Posted Aug 21, 2008 at 10:28 AM by Maurice Berger
A new NBC/Wall Street Journal Poll suggests that Hillary Clinton's supporters are sharply divided in their support for Barack Obama. While the poll directors conclude that “Whatever momentum that Obama took into the summer, he really appears to have lost it,” they attribute this erosion to the candidate's failure to unify his party, in contrast to McCain.
More troubling for Obama, perhaps, are the numbers concerning voters who supported Clinton in the primaries and caucuses: according to the survey, 52% now say they will vote for Obama, 21% are backing McCain, and 27% percent are undecided or want to vote for someone else. As the NBC/WSJ points out, voters who supported Clinton in the primaries — but do not now back Obama--"tend to view McCain in a better light than Obama and have more confidence in McCain’s ability to be commander-in-chief."
Though the NBC/WSJ numbers in contrast to other recent polls suggest a somewhat higher percentage of Clinton voters who refuse to support Obama, the implications for him in all of these surveys are dire. Thus, a major question looms about party unity: will the Democratic National Convention be enough--with speeches from both Clintons and a night devoted to women's issues--or must the Obama campaign go one step further and nominate Hillary Clinton for Vice President?
