Problems are on the horizon for Democrats: the latest Gallup Poll shows that if Barack Obama wins the nomination, 28% of Clinton’s supporters will vote for John McCain, the Republican nominee. If, on the other hand, Hillary Clinton wins the nomination, 19% of Obama supporters will vote for McCain instead of for the Democratic nominee. Both are remarkably high numbers, especially the one about Clinton supporters of course.

There are several issues at stake here: one could very well argue that the fight between Clinton and Obama has become so tough and so dirty, that supporters detest each other and the other candidate. That’s quite likely true. But I think that there’s more going on here: there also are - I think - policy issues at stake and the experience question may also play a role.

For instance see my earlier post about an Obama adviser who basically argued that Jews in America are betraying their country and hindering the peace process in the Middle East. O, and they care more about Israel than about the US.

I’ve heard progressive Jews already say that they will not vote for Obama, because they don’t consider him to be pro-Israel. My former co-blogger at The Moderate Voice, Holly, is one of those Jews - a couple of weeks ago I linked a post she wrote on this subject.

Furthermore, although Obama likes to present himself as a reformer and moderate in style, at the very least, he has a very liberal voting record. He’s a liberal. And one of the most liberal senators in the US senate at that. Some Clinton supporters may not be willing to vote for someone as liberal as Obama; with regards to past votes at least.

Experience, I think, also plays a role. I’m not going to reignite the debate about whether or not Clinton is more experienced than Obama, but I think it’s safe to say that many Clinton supporters think she is more experienced; to quite some of them - especially older voters - experience probably counts. Obama doesn’t have any experience, whereas Senator John McCain most certainly does.

I also know that there are at least some foreign policy hawks / liberals who favor Clinton over Obama, because they consider Obama a dove. Clinton is quite tough on terrorism and on rogue regimes. Obama is, it appears, softer. McCain is, obviously, also quite hawkish. This means that if this is the most important issue for voters, or one of the most important issues, they’re likely to vote for McCain over Obama, if the latter is the Democratic nominee.

Of course, it’s unfair to only spend time on Clinton supporters who favor McCain over Obama (as does this foreign observer). Let us, therefore, also talk a little about why some Obama supporters may support McCain over Clinton if the latter beats Obama.

When talking about experience, Clinton is more experienced than Obama, but McCain is more experienced than Clinton. In other words, if Obama supporters take experience into account, it may very well be that they’ll favor McCain over Clinton. However, since their main man has little to no experience, I think that experience isn’t considered to be important by the far majority of Obama’s supporters. However, when it becomes a Clinton-McCain race, experience may become a factor, also for some of these people.

What’s more relevant, I think, is that many Obama supporters consider Clinton to be nasty, mean, overly ambitious, andsoforth. Obama represents a break with old politics, to them. No more politics as usual. Clinton, on the other hand, is probably the very definition of old politics. If you should give old politics a name, it would probably be Clinton. McCain, on the other hand, is considered to be somewhat of a maverick: straight talk and all that.

Furthermore, I think that many Obama supporters care a great deal about style (Obama’s moderate supporters at least). Obama presents himself as a positive campaigner. His supporters also seem to believe that Obama’s campaign is positive. Many of them, on the other hand, believe that Clinton is a streetfighter, willing to do whatever is necessary to win. If that means destroying the career of a fellow Democrat, quite some Obama supporters think, Clinton is willing to do it.

Go back to McCain and we see that McCain too is viewed by many as a positive campaigner, or at least not as an overly dirty one (remember the ‘you should be ashamed of yourself’ remark McCain made to George W. Bush back in 2000?).

Whatever the reasons, it seems to me that this poll indicates that the Democrats have a very serious problem come November. Something has to change; the party has to unite ASAP. But even when the party unites, I think that the Democrats will not be as strong in November as many had thought only, say, three months ago.