AzAce over at Arizona 8th has a short post up today discussing the latest fund-raising numbers, with Obama expected to top Clinton for the second straight quarter, and some polling figures showing Obama doing better than Clinton in some head-to-head match-ups against Giuliani, should he be the Republican nominee.
This ties in well with this blog entry from a New Hampshire journalist discussing the discrepancy between the fund-raising figures and the polling numbers. To wit: "If Obama is out-raising Clinton, both in over-all money and in numbers of individual donors, why is he lagging so badly in the polls?"
The author felt the difference came down to people who are donating to Clinton are committed to her, while many people making small donations to Obama are still reporting themselves as undecided in the polls. He also thinks young voters (who seem to favor Obama by large margins) were being under-represented in the polls, despite the pollsters claims that isn't the case.
I think there is another contributing factor too. This far out, the people who are donating to candidates are likely to be among those most actively following politics, and they still make a pretty small minority of the overall electorate. I just think poll sampling right now is largely polling people who aren't engaged with the races yet, and really haven't made up their minds. Among this set, most Democrats who express an opinion are going to favor Clinton based solely on name recognition.
Still, Obama is going to need to show, starting in November, that he can effectively translate some of his fund-raising into both getting he name and views out there among primary voters, and in getting young voters to ... you know ... actually vote. Failure in either area is likely to mean failure for his candidacy.
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5 comments:
It'd be interesting to see how many donors are giving to both campaigns...figuring that Hillary will win & voicing support for Obama as Veep.
Hmmm ... an interesting conjecture, but I suspect if there is any such effect, it's minimal. I don't see people donating to a candidate in the expectation he will become Vice President.
I actually voted for Wesley Clark in the 2004 AZ Democratic primary in the hope that Kerry would choose him for VP or make him Defense Secretary. So, its hard to say whether or not people might already be thinking that way about the candidates. I also think that Dick Cheney's reign of terror has infused in the system the expectation that the vice president should be powerful, and people may want to have a say in that choice. A strong runner up is the logical choice for VP.
However, if Hillary wins (God forbid), I have a feeling she will not choose from the other candidates.
"However, if Hillary wins (God forbid), I have a feeling she will not choose from the other candidates."
I would bet real money that Liza is right. I would place Evan Bayh at the top of her list. He recently endorsed her, he is a popular, moderate Democrat from the Heartland of Indiana. He will help her look moderate in the Midwest, which she MUST win to win the Presidency. He also doesn't upstage her. He is well liked and rather blah...
My second choice would have been someone like Mark Warner in VA because of his history of being able to sell Democrat politics to a Southern state, BUT Warner is running for Senate and will undoubtably be around in 2012 if something goes very wrong in 2008.
Other choices...if she picks a rival, it would be a Richardson because of experience and his ability to carry swing state NM...and maybe have some effect on Arizona.
Sleeper choice...
Janet Napolitano, but would America be ready for two women?
I can very much see Clinton choosing Bayh as her running mate should she win nomination. Bayh would be very much in the "establishment" mold.
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