According to a new poll from the fine folks at Quinnipiac University, Clinton currently leads John McCain in a head-to-head match-up here by a solid seven points, 48-41, and repeats her strong showing in Ohio (48-41) and Pennsylvania (50-37). Meanwhile, Barack Obama trails McCain in Florida (41-45) and Ohio (40-44), and leads by a narrower margin (six points to Clinton’s 13) in the Keystone State. For the suffocating Clinton campaign, stats like these are like oxygen. According to her aides, the Quinnipiac poll proves that Clinton’s crucial argument to the all-important superdelegates–that she will win swing states like Florida and Ohio on Election Day, and Obama won’t–is, in fact, true.
There’s only one problem: it doesn’t. As any pollster will tell you, opinion surveys can’t predict the future–they can only provide a snapshot of the present. That’s an especially important caveat at this particular point in time. With the interminable Democratic primary clash stuck in a strange twilight phase, Clinton’s supporters are still coming to terms with the fact that Obama is all-but-certain to top the ticket–and many feel disappointed, angry and/or vindictive. Obama’s supporters, on the other hand, are celebrating his impending nomination; they largely feel magnanimity toward Clinton, who now poses little threat. That’s why in Quinnipiac’s McCain-Obama matchups, 26 to 36 percent of Clinton supporters in each state say that they’d vote for McCain in November if their candidate isn’t the nominee, and only 10 to 18 percent of Obama supporters respond in kind.
These Clinton-to-McCain defectors fully account for Obama’s deficits in Florida and Ohio. Of the 41 percent of Democrats who back the former first lady here in the Sunshine State, for example, a whopping 36 percent claim they would choose McCain over Obama. Which means that in Quinnipiac’s McCain-Obama trial heat, nearly 15 percent of otherwise reliable Democrats–or 7.5 percent of the overall pool, assuming that Dems account for half of the total electorate–are crossing over to vote Republican. Give all of them back to Obama, and he leads McCain approximately 45-41. Give him less–a likelier outcome–and he’s still ahead or tied. And the same is true in Ohio, where an identical anti-Obama, Democratic swing vote of 7.5 percent could easily erase McCain’s four-point lead. Factor in a reasonable portion of Clinton supporters who currently say they won’t cast a ballot for either Obama or McCain–say, two or three percent of the overall electorate–and Obama’s comfortably ahead. The question then becomes, will every single one these Clintonites oppose Obama as a strongly on Nov. 4 as they do now, with Clinton herself firmly in his corner and hundreds of millions spent delegitimizing McCain? If your answer is yes, then only Clinton is “electable.” But if not, Obama is automatically more electable than he appears.
Call it the Electability Mirage. For Clinton, this is something of a catch-22. Right now, Obama trails McCain in key states because a sizable number of her supporters tell pollsters they will crossover in the fall. In other words, her key claim to the Democratic crown–Obama isn’t electable–is only compelling because Democrats say they’ll vote Republican if she isn’t nominated. Ultimately, many of these folks will come around. But even if not, the only voters who can declare a winner at this point–that is, the superdelegates–are unlikely to favor an argument that rewards their fellow party members for threatening to defect. sounds even a little bit like blackmail.*
*Apologies for the overheated language there. Upon review, I’ve realized I overstated this a bit; blackmail is the wrong word, since no one–neither Clinton nor her supporters–is actively making this argument. I’ve revised to reflect what I actually meant.
