Posted on 05/12/2003 2:31:06 PM PDT by Gothmog
Democrats face trouble, poll shows
He may be Florida's most venerable politician, but even U.S. Sen. Bob Graham doesn't have the juice in his home state to overcome the popularity of a wartime president -- at least not now -- a new poll conducted for The Herald and two other newspapers shows.
If Graham were the Democratic nominee for president and the election were held today, he would lose to President Bush 52 percent to 43 percent in Florida, the state where Graham has held elected office since the 1960s, served two terms as governor and 17 years as a senator.
The survey, with a margin of error of four percentage points, puts a ding in the most compelling argument for Graham to win his party's nomination: that he can deliver Florida's critical 27 electoral votes in November 2004 and kick Bush out of the White House.
''Anyone who is a revered elected official such as Bob Graham should be beating George W. Bush, or at least keeping even'' in Florida, said Republican pollster Kellyanne Conway, who conducted the survey jointly with Democratic pollster Rob Schroth for The Herald, The St. Petersburg Times and The Palm Beach Post.
The results also show that, despite Graham's decades of service and consistently high approval ratings, years of low-profile campaigns against weak opponents in a transient state in which millions have moved in since he left the Governor's Mansion in 1986 may have taken a toll on the public's familiarity with the candidate.
More than one in five respondents, for example, did not know enough about Graham to say whether they approve or disapprove of the job he is doing.
By comparison, 99 percent knew enough to share an opinion about the president and 95 percent could speak about his brother, Gov. Jeb Bush.
WEAK IN STATE
Graham appears to be struggling with the same challenge now facing some of his rivals, like North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, who are forced to argue that they can win a national election despite early polls showing their weaknesses at home.
Schroth offered a slightly different conclusion from the numbers, citing the unlikely possibility that a potential Democratic candidate for president is already competitive in a major state with a powerful president whose brother is the sitting governor.
''The fact that any Democrat is within single digits of this popular president is fairly upbeat news,'' he said.
Conducted Tuesday through Thursday, the poll of 600 registered voters came one week after a similar finding by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research giving Bush a 15-point lead over Graham in the Sunshine State.
The Herald survey began the same day Graham won a blitz of media attention across the state for his formal announcement on Main Street in Miami Lakes, the city his family developed from the swamps of the Everglades.
Graham and Bush received high marks from Florida voters of all stripes.
The president's approval rating -- 60 percent -- beats Graham's by a statistically insignificant two percentage points. But the president is far more polarizing, with more than one in three respondents disapproving of his job performance.
HISPANIC VOTERS
Graham remains well-liked by Florida's important Hispanic voter base -- getting high marks from three in four Hispanics polled -- despite repeated attempts by the GOP to bash him because Senate Democrats have been blocking the nomination of Miguel Estrada to the federal bench.
The best, albeit predictable, news for Graham's campaign is that he would easily win the March 9 Democratic primary in Florida, taking 54 percent against his eight rivals.
That number is potentially meaningless, given that a slew of major primaries beginning in January could determine the nominee before the candidates come seeking Florida's delegates. But, then again, if the race is still down to two or three contenders by March 9 -- and the field includes Graham -- the state could put him over the top.
ELECTABLE?
''He was our governor, and I think he did a fairly good job,'' said Joyce Bollotta, a 71-year-old retiree from North Miami Beach, who responded to the poll and said she intends to back Graham in the primary.
As for Graham's pledge that he is the race's most ''electable'' Democrat, Bollotta paused.
''I have my doubts, but I'm thinking in the positive direction,'' she said. ``He's not well-known yet.''
If Graham is knocked out before the Florida Democratic primary, it appears that state Democrats' second choice is U.S. Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, whose 13 percent performance in the poll makes him the only Democrat besides Graham to make double digits.
Whoever the nominee is, analysts continue to say that Florida will be a key battleground, because it decided the 2000 election by a now-famous 537-vote difference and because of its diverse blend of swing voters from suburban women to seniors, Hispanics and registered independents.
Graham's glaring weaknesses, according to the survey, are his sagging appeal among women and independents in a hypothetical race against President Bush and a striking lack of familiarity among black voters, who are considered the party's most loyal voting bloc.
The poll shows that Bush and Graham are even among women voters -- a political death knell for a Democrat already having trouble attracting male support -- and that Bush wins a plurality of independents.
''For Democrats to win in Florida, they must carry the women's vote to offset the lingering problems they still have with male voters,'' Schroth said.
CROSSOVER VOTE
While Bush would take one in five Democrats, Graham wins just 11 percent of Republicans -- another sign that his traditional ''crossover appeal'' does not translate to a face-off with the president.
Graham's strength among moderate voters in Florida over the years has been his reputation as a populist -- an image he hopes to hone on a national stage as he performs his patented ''workdays'' in key primary states. So far, he has worked as a substitute teacher in New Hampshire and as a restaurant worker in Iowa bussing tables.
The poll results cap off a bit of a rocky public relations beginning to Graham's campaign.
Since his announcement on Tuesday, the candidate has been mocked in a Washington Post parody of the meticulous notebook diaries he pens each day, and then questioned about them on NBC's Today Show by host Katie Couric, who apparently did not know the Post parody was a joke.
Later that day, NBC late-night comedian Conan O'Brien took note of Graham's recent double-bypass heart surgery to crack that his campaign slogan is, ``I'm just a little healthier than Dick Cheney.''
Guess Graham's "BUSH KNEW" speech isn't resonating with voters.
We must live in different Florida locations. All the seniors I know are voting for Bush in 2004.
Back in 2002, AP got caught pushing a fake poll. Most Florida papers ran with it - then put out a handful of new unreliable polls to cover up their propaganda.
They are using the same tired tricks again: attack Florida on schools, child welfare, racism ....though every one of these retread attacks is debunked by the facts. When that doesn't work, make the lies more outrageous. These DNC PR agents then pretend outrage when the reality on election day doesn't match the pre-election BS.
UN and ANSWER escalated their attacks against us and defense of Saddam - 'til the day we discovered the warehouses of UN goods, and learned that Saddam starved his own people and shot innocent children.
Many Florida Republicans have learned to bypass the Florida press and choose, instead, to find (and share) facts on their own.
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