Obama and Hillary; a Strong Team
Lanny J. Davis explains for the Wall Street Journal why Barack Obama should pick Hillary Clinton as his running mate. Firstly, Davis writes, Obama and his followers should keep in mind that ‘Sen. Clinton is the only Democrat who gives Sen. Obama a statistically significant boost in any national poll results.’
In late June, polls conducted by The Wall Street Journal/NBC and Fox/Opinion Dynamics — using entirely different samples — both showed Sen. Clinton giving Sen. Obama a +3% bump, pushing him over 51% for the first time, when the two of them were paired against Sen. McCain and Gov. Romney.
Most recently, in nationwide polling on July 22-23, a Fox/Opinion Dynamics poll showed a more dramatic bump of +8% with Sen. Clinton as Sen. Obama’s vice presidential running mate. In a head-on match, it was Sen. Obama 41% to Sen. McCain’s 40% (this was before the intense media coverage of his European trip). But with exactly the same sample, when all voters were presented with the choice of an Obama-Clinton ticket vs. McCain-Romney, the results were Obama-Clinton, 48% (+7%), and McCain-Romney 39% (-1%).
Interestingly enough, polls show that Republicans will not be more energized to vote for McCain if Hillary becomes Obama’s running mate, regardless of ‘conventional wisdom’ (which is all too often not ‘wise’ in any case). On the other hand, the same polls clearly prove that she will help Obama among Democrats.
She’s too polarizing, some say, but the polls tell an entirely different story altogether. She’s not.
It will be interesting to see whether Obama is able to shove his (wounded) ego aside, and pick Hillary as his running mate, or whether he’s too angry with her to consider doing such a thing.
Romney will be great as McCain’s VP.
Its seems he can get under the skin of an opponent. This is what McCain needs. Someone to be the attack dog. Someone to hold Obama’s feet to the fire. Now he gets a free pass. No wonder this poll says what it says.
Not voting to teach the republicans a lesson does only one thing.
TEACHES THEM THE WRONG LESSON.
Look what happened in the 2006 election. Not voting republican got us Nancy and Harry and 4:00 gasoline.