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Obama and the Democratic Unpersuadables
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Candidate
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| Contributor | DFWDem |
| Last Edited | DFWDem Aug 22, 2008 10:47am |
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| Category | Commentary |
| News Date | Friday, August 22, 2008 04:00:00 PM UTC0:0 |
| Description | It was probably inevitable that things would end up like this. Here we are on the eve of the Democratic National Convention that will crown Barack Obama, and the national political conversation remains preoccupied with Hillary Clinton and her supporters. What will Clinton say in Denver? And how will her backers respond?
The speculation has endured since the close of the Democratic primary season in part because of the compelling Obama-vs.-the-Clintons human drama, but mainly because, according to poll after poll, Clinton’s primary season supporters have stubbornly clung to their candidate, refusing to close ranks around Obama – and even, in some cases, defecting to John McCain. Case in point: an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released Thursday that indicates that just half of Clinton’s primary voters are prepared to back Obama in November, and than one in five plan to pull the lever for McCain.
Coupled with Obama’s inability to build much of a lead over McCain in national polls (and McCain’s mini-surge in recent days), this data would seem to support the idea that residual loyalty to Clinton (and resentment of Obama) among her primary season backers has prevented Obama from enjoying the kind of party unity past Democratic nominees have taken for granted. If he doesn’t massage the Clinton forces’ egos and if Clinton herself doesn’t take an active role on his behalf this fall, a sizable chunk of her 18 million primary voters will remain off-limits to him, potentially costing him the presidency.
That certainly seems logical, but there is another way of looking at this. |
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