This week’s Rasmussen Reports Democratic primary poll update tells much the same story as many of the others have for the past few months. Sen. Hillary Clinton is continuing to maintain a stranglehold on the position of favorite for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination. After spending the last two weeks in the upper thirties, Clinton returned to the 40% level again this week. To put her domination into context, let me remind you that no other candidate in the Democratic group has broken 33%. Since the end of July, Clinton has spent six of the past eight weeks at 40% or above. Her low, 38%, was still higher than any other candidate’s highest level of support. Clinton has continued to incrementally build support all through the summer.
On the other hand, the ailing Obama campaign has continued to incrementally lose ground. Obama has seen his support slip from the low thirties to the mid twenties to where he is now the low twenties. Obama currently finds himself at 21% for the second time in three weeks. Obama hasn’t been at 25% in over a month now, and he hasn’t been over 25% since mid July. Obama has been stiffled by attacks on his experience, mediocre debate performances, and a lack of ideas that differentiate him from the Clinton campaign. The worse news for Obama is that he now finds himself only six points ahead of John Edwards for second place.
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Edwards finds himself in third place at 15% this week. Edwards seems to have finally gotten over the 13% hump, as he has been above this number for the past four weeks now. It will be interesting to see if Edwards’s gambit of buying airtime on MSNBC after President Bush’s speech last Thursday helps him gain a bit more support and continue to close the gap on Obama. Edwards is clearly the most liberal and antiwar of the top tier Democratic candidates, but even if Edwards is able to catch Obama, he will see need to make up about 15 more points before he will be even with Clinton. Edwards is a candidate that many Democrats have doubts about, so he will need to win early and often to establish himself.
Bill Richardson, who at one time looked like he could have challenged Edwards for third, is in fourth place at 5%. Dennis Kucinich is fifth at 3%, with Joe Biden right behind him at 2%. Rounding out the field is Chris Dodd at 1%, and Mike Gravel at less than a percent. Thirteen percent of the Democrats surveyed were undecided. As the related Rasmussen article that I have linked here points out, the one issue that could derail Clinton is Iraq.
Her current position on the war is still conservative, and if the Congressional battle over war funding heats up again, and Democratic voters get restless, they may turn their gaze more towards either Obama or Edwards. However, right now Clinton is saying all the right things to appeal to Democrats on the war, and it still looks like she will have to lose in multiple early states for either of her main rivals to become serious threats to her grasp on the nomination. For some reason it seems that many Democrats have determined that Hillary is their choice, and Hillary is going to have to show that she isn’t up to the task for Democrats to start looking elsewhere.
Related Rasmussen Reports article
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Rasmussen Reports weekly poll history
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Jason Easley is the politics editor at www.411mania.com/politics His column The Political Universe appears on Tuesdays and Fridays.
Jason is also the host of TPU Radio, which can be heard at www.blogtalkradio.com/thepoliticaluniverse every Sunday morning at 11 AM ET.
2 users commented in " Poll Update: Clinton Dominates the Democratic Field "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackOn an international economic and political level, there is a much larger scale confrontation with Bush from the candidates regarding the Iraq War and the problems it is continuing to cause. Only one candidate, it seems to me, is really slamming the truth and providing the logistics and rationale for ending this disastrous war: Bill Richardson. This article was printed by Washington Post about 9 days ago, and please take the time to read it:
Why We Should Exit Iraq Now
By Bill Richardson
Saturday, September 8, 2007; A15
Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards have suggested that there is
little difference among us on Iraq. This is not true: I am the only leading
Democratic candidate committed to getting all our troops out and doing so
quickly.
In the most recent debate, I asked the other candidates how many troops they
would leave in Iraq and for what purposes. I got no answers. The American
people need answers. If we elect a president who thinks that troops should
stay in Iraq for years, they will stay for years — a tragic mistake.
Clinton, Obama and Edwards reflect the inside-the-Beltway thinking that a
complete withdrawal of all American forces somehow would be “irresponsible.”
On the contrary, the facts suggest that a rapid, complete withdrawal — not
a drawn-out, Vietnam-like process — would be the most responsible and
effective course of action.
Those who think we need to keep troops in Iraq misunderstand the Middle
East. I have met and negotiated successfully with many regional leaders,
including Saddam Hussein. I am convinced that only a complete withdrawal can
sufficiently shift the politics of Iraq and its neighbors to break the
deadlock that has been killing so many people for so long.
Our troops have done everything they were asked to do with courage and
professionalism, but they cannot win someone else’s civil war. So long as
American troops are in Iraq, reconciliation among Iraqi factions is
postponed. Leaving forces there enables the Iraqis to delay taking the
necessary steps to end the violence. And it prevents us from using diplomacy
to bring in other nations to help stabilize and rebuild the country.
The presence of American forces in Iraq weakens us in the war against al-
Qaeda. It endows the anti-American propaganda of those who portray us as
occupiers plundering Iraq’s oil and repressing Muslims. The day we leave,
this myth collapses, and the Iraqis will drive foreign jihadists out of
their country. Our departure would also enable us to focus on defeating the
terrorists who attacked us on Sept. 11, those headquartered along the
Pakistan-Afghanistan border — not in Iraq.
Logistically, it would be possible to withdraw in six to eight months. We
moved as many as 240,000 troops into and out of Iraq through Kuwait in as
little as a three-month period during major troop rotations. After the
Persian Gulf War, we redeployed nearly a half-million troops in a few
months. We could redeploy even faster if we negotiated with the Turks to
open a route out through Turkey.
As our withdrawal begins, we will gain diplomatic leverage. Iraqis will
start seeing us as brokers, not occupiers. Iraq’s neighbors will face the
reality that if they don’t help with stabilization, they will face the
consequences of Iraq’s collapse — including even greater refugee flows over
their borders and possible war.
The United States can facilitate Iraqi reconciliation and regional
cooperation by holding a conference similar to that which brought peace to
Bosnia. We will need regional security negotiations among all of Iraq’s
neighbors and discussions of donations from wealthy nations — including oil-
rich Muslim countries — to help rebuild Iraq. None of this can happen until
we remove the biggest obstacle to diplomacy: the presence of U.S. forces in
Iraq.
My plan is realistic because:
It is less risky. Leaving forces behind leaves them vulnerable. Would we
need another surge to protect them?
It gets our troops out of the quagmire and strengthens us for our real
challenges. It is foolish to think that 20,000 to 75,000 troops could bring
peace to Iraq when 160,000 have not. We need to get our troops out of the
crossfire in Iraq so that we can defeat the terrorists who attacked us on
Sept. 11.
By hastening the peace process, the likelihood of prolonged bloodshed is
reduced. President Richard Nixon withdrew U.S. forces slowly from Vietnam —
with disastrous consequences. Over the seven years it took to get our troops
out, 21,000 more Americans and perhaps a million Vietnamese, most of them
civilians, died. All this death and destruction accomplished nothing — the
communists took over as soon as we left.
My position has been clear since I entered this race: Remove all the troops
and launch energetic diplomatic efforts in Iraq and internationally to bring
stability. If Congress fails to end this war, I will remove all troops
without delay, and without hesitation, beginning on my first day in office.
Let’s stop pretending that all Democratic plans are similar. The American
people deserve precise answers from anyone who would be commander in chief.
How many troops would you leave in Iraq? For how long? To do what, exactly?
And the media should be asking these questions of the candidates, rather
than allowing them to continue saying, “We are against the war . . . but
please don’t read the small print.”
The writer is governor of New Mexico and a candidate for the Democratic
presidential nomination.
Jason,
You know as much as I do that these polls deal w/ voters limited awareness of the candidates. Sen. Obama is only at 80% w/ the public. At the beginning of the year, he was in the teens!!
Hillary has had 100% recognition since 1992. No Dem candidate would be able to “pass” her in the polls before Iowa.
Thank goodness the caucuses and primaries illustrate grassroots, party activist strength rather than the average voter – which would be Clinton’s demographic.
Did you see the Harkin steak fry? Hillary’s support was not up to par w/ Obama or Edwards, rather a little more than Biden.
But, perhaps Hillary has the biggest obstacle, she is largely not liked by the general public and she rates nearly dead last in likeness in Iowa.
But the mainstream media,based in NYC and DC, love their script for a NYC showdown between Giuliani and Clinton.
If Iowa’s any indication, the heartland of America may just flip the script.
It makes sense why Hillary implored her supporters to talk about her friends and to volunteer…the Clinton ground game is the weakest part of her candidacy, next to her character negatives.
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