In any event, I think it is a significant poll for a few reasons. First, California is a significant state, and not just because of its huge size.
Regardless of who is responsible for injecting race into the Democratic primary (we've duked that one out, I believe. not looking for further argument on this issue) the fact of the matter is that race is now an issue. Perhaps it was inevitable; race is an issue in America that touches us all, sometimes in ways of which we are aware, and more frequently in ways that we don't think about on a day-to-day basis, but which bubble beneath the surface.
Anyway, in California and, to a lesser extent, in New York, the racial divide is no longer only African American and white, but the very important Hispanic constituency enters the picture. This is a new dynamic.
According to this poll, Hispanics still favor Hillary Clinton by a significant margin, but this poll was mostly taken prior to South Carolina, and completed prior to the Kennedy endorsements. Given that we have this fresh poll, it therefore provided a good base against which to measure the effect these events will have had.
There is much in this poll to discuss, but I'll raise one other issue. Clinton runs very strong among registered Democrats, but there has been a recent shift of Independents (known in California as DTS voters (Decline-to-State) toward Obama.
Finally, this polling confirms the opinions of many Obama supporters that Obama looks to be the more electable candidate in the General because he brings many independent voters into the process -- many of whom are more likely to stay home, or even worse, be drawn to McCain if he is the GOP nominee, should Obama not receive the Democratic nod.
But this increased electability assumes that the Democratic party regulars who are now strongly behind Hillary will stick with Obama, should he get the nomination, no matter what. There is a certain logic to that. I am a lifelong Democrat, and I will strongly support the party's candidate whoever it happens to be.
That said, just as many people here have been turned off what they perceive as race-baiting and distortions by Bill and Hillary Clinton (and again, we've hashed this out - not looking to revisit that fight either), the heated and sometimes hateful rhetoric directed at Hillary and Bill Clinton turns me, and I'll bet many other Democratic regulars, off.
At some point, I wonder, could the venom in the race blowback on Obama, and potentially have a corrosive effect on whether that vote will turn out for Obama? (With the general caveat of never say never, not me -- I know where my responsibility lays as a Democrat, and that is to see a Democrat elected).
In any event, here is the link to a release about the poll, and if this post is redundant, I apologize to all in advance.
http://www.calendarlive.com/me...
You do know this, right?
"...but this poll was mostly taken prior to South Carolina, and completed prior to the Kennedy endorsements. Given that we have this fresh poll, it therefore provided a good base against which to measure the effect these events will have had."
How times change!!!A few months ago I wrote this diary in which I defended Hillary against what I perceived were unfair attacks on her and her candidacy on DKos...
[...]
Since just before the Nevada primary, I have watched with astonishment and great shock as Hillary and Bill have distorted the facts. I have watched as Bill, my all-time favorite president until a few weeks ago, went around the country playing on people's worst feelings about race and attempting to stoke racial backlash against a fellow Democrat. This is the kind of behavior for which we justifiably hammer the Republicans every time they play this dirty game. I have been truly shocked and disappointed at the Clintons' behavior, to say the least.
How can America's first "Black President" stoop this low in such a short span of time?
How can a political couple want to win a nomination at all costs, despite pleas from ranking Democrats to play fair?
How could they expect to win the general election without the support of the most reliable Democratic voting block?
How dare they attempt to disenfranchise segments of the Democratic party?
How dare they borrow from the Republicans the worst form of racial politics?
How dare they try to divide and even destroy the Democratic party?
Great questions, lots of us are asking the same. Any answers?
However we got to this point, the next steps clearly lay with the Clintons, mainly. We'll see what they are truly made of based on how Hillary campaigns and debates this week. Will she be able to walk the line and criticize Obama without being divisive? Will she stay positive?
As for Obama, I think the question is whether he will address criticisms on their merits, rather than simply attack the fact of the criticism itself. Will he be be able to look past the slights of South Carolina, real and imagined? Will his campaign lay off the drumbeat of anti-Hillary material it regularly distributes so Hillary does not feel compelled to respond in kind?
For example, I don't know what happened on the floor of the Senate last night with that picture of Obama turning away from Hillary. But on its face, as a moment in time, Hillary seemed pretty gracious to me there, and Obama not so much.
I have said I think Hillary is the right president for the times, but as I think about it, I would put it a little differently. My vote on 2/12 is Hillary's to lose. She has to prove to me that she is a Democrat who cares about the party and our country.
That said, just as many people here have been turned off what (and again, we've hashed this out - not looking to revisit that fight either), the heated and sometimes hateful rhetoric directed at Hillary and Bill Clinton turns me, and I'll bet many other Democratic regulars, off.At some point, I wonder, could the venom in the race blowback on Obama, and potentially have a corrosive effect on whether that vote will turn out for Obama? (With the general caveat of never say never, not me -- I know where my responsibility lays as a Democrat, and that is to see a Democrat elected).
As have you, I've been completely turned off by the heated and sometimes hateful rhetoric directed at Hillary and Bill Clinton here on RK....so much to the point, that if Obama is the candidate, I'm not sure what I'll do. When he could have spoken up and risen above the perceived "racial" comments and reached out to others (like Tiger Woods handling of the lynching comment), he didn't (he snubbed those who support Clinton); which also makes me question just what kind of "uniter" is he; how well can he deal with Republicans, etc.
As to the Kennedy endorsements, I'd still rather have had RFK, Jr.'s endorsement (for Clinton). And to the comparison's of Obama to JFK or RFK, I think that's a dangerous path to go down. He's not at all like them...he appears to be a moral man, unlike the Kennedy brothers who shared Marilyn Monroe between themselves along with hundreds of other women...yes, and with wives and children waiting for them at home.
My point has always been that Hillary is not the evil person she is some derided as. Nor is Barak Obama the saint who is sometimes worshipped, and I think this whole transformation is whistling past the graveyard.
The fact is that both of them are, IMHO, decent people with similar policy ideas, each with their respective strengths and weaknesses, running a hard fought race. They have both made mistakes and will make more in the future, but either one is 100, nay, 1,000 times better than anyone the other party might put up.