For Democrats, second thoughts about Obama?

With the nation's economy -- and arguably its politics -- in shambles, it is not very surprising to find in a recent Bloomberg poll that 34% of respondents think it would have been better for the country if Hillary Clinton hadn't lost the battle for the Democratic nomination to Barack Obama. A CNN poll released last week put Clinton's favorability rating at a tremendous 69%.

Perhaps no one is questioning the 2008 results more than Democratic politicians who must face the voters next year. Right now, it looks like President Obama, rather than offering coattails to those below him on the ticket, may instead be serving up an anchor. This is ironic, when you look back at what actually happened during the Democrats' 2008 primary, and at who made Obama the party's nominee.

It is often assumed that Barack Obama used his gifts as an orator and his aspirational rhetoric to energize young and minority voters in a way that allowed him to wrest the nomination from Clinton, the candidate favored by the Democratic establishment. This is a nice story, but it is not completely true. For one thing, Clinton actually defeated Obama in the popular vote.

Still, one has to be careful not to read too much into this, since Clinton's very narrow lead depends on counting votes from Michigan. Because Michigan refused to abide by Democratic Party rules when scheduling its primary, Obama had pulled his name off that state's ballot.

1 posted on 10/04/2011 12:42:07 PM PDT by workerbee

fallacy..there is no thought

2 posted on 10/04/2011 12:52:12 PM PDT by Doogle ((USAF.68-73..8th TFW Ubon Thailand..never store a threat you should have eliminated))

Is that a picture of a volunteer in a NASA g-force experiment into the effects of rapid deceleration? It reminds me of this:

3 posted on 10/04/2011 12:56:32 PM PDT by USFRIENDINVICTORIA

Surprisingly, CNN still shows nothing on their front page re the special prosecutor for Holder. It’s buried on their politics page under an innocuous title. Huh. How odd.

/sarc

4 posted on 10/04/2011 1:01:59 PM PDT by workerbee (We're not scared, Maobama -- we're pissed off!)

Given the amount of consideration that went into the original pro-Obama votes, I believe these are called “first thoughts”.

5 posted on 10/04/2011 1:21:21 PM PDT by Pollster1 (Natural born citizen of the USA, with the birth certificate to prove it)

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