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New Poll: Obama Inspirational But Can't Win

A new Washington Post poll today has a few interesting nuggets that help answer that nagging question of the current presidential campaign: "What happened to Obama?"

Buried deep in the data is a question about which presidential candidate has the best chance of winning the White House next year. Hillary Clinton stomps on all the closest rivals, with 57 percent of the poll respondents favoring her. What's interesting, though, is that the runner up, with 20 percent, is John Edwards. Perhaps this is to be expected. After all, he's run before. But given his fundraising prowess and media prominence, it's surprising to see that Obama comes in a distant third in this category, at 16 percent. By comparison, 37 percent of those polled thought Obama was the most inspirational candidate, compared with 41 percent for Clinton and only 14 percent for Edwards.

Obama's poor showing in the polls on the electability question is probably fatal. People obviously love Obama, but don't think he can win in '08. The Post doesn't ask why people believe that, but it's hard to imagine that race isn't a big factor. It's not that Democrats won't vote for an African-American, but that they don't believe Republicans will.

One question the poll can't answer: If Obama can't win, why are so many people giving him money?

Comments

Claiming that someone "can't
win" this early only makes sense
if you're throwing in a
completely unelectable candidate, i.e., Foghorn Leghorn CAN'T WIN. To wit, remember when Bush COULDN'T POSSIBLY beat McCain to be the GOP candidate for PREZ?! It's NEVER (I said NEVUH!--f.l.)
wise to rule out a good candidate, in case Hillary has
her own campaign-wrecking "Dean Scream" moment.

Posted by: danby nickles on 10/03/07 at 8:47 AM

didn't the Dem party decide that Mike Dukakis was the guy who could unite the Dem party and win, and that was the most important thing?

wasn't the story on Al Gore that he was the guy 'who could win', and that Bill Bradley couldn't?

John Kerry... the same story 4 years later

i don't know why the 'party faithful' don't grasp that they do their country and their party no service by trying to pick candidates based on who they think 'can win' and consequently refuse to vote for the person they think is the best candidate in the field?
all that thinking achieves is a consistent failure to field the best candidate for the office, while proving that they are usually wrong in their 'can win' evaluations anyway

Posted by: jet on 10/03/07 at 9:25 AM

why the disparity for Obama?
the electability polls are unbiased (in theory at least), but donations are very biased.

Posted by: Clammy on 10/03/07 at 11:47 AM

I suggest that Obama continues to get substantial amounts of money because we collectively have decided we want him to assume the role that Barbara Jordan served in the Democratic Party: an unimpeachable gatekeeper of issues of our community who has an all-access pass to what used to be known as the "smoke-filled room."

Posted by: Egalitare on 10/03/07 at 1:09 PM

He will never be the U.S. President.

Sorry people...

Posted by: Ames Tiedeman on 10/03/07 at 6:00 PM

Mr. Obama may or may not win the presidency. I just don't understand why he would want it. The country is too far gone to save from itself. The present regime, Democrats and Republicans, seem to be creating a sort of police state where all freedoms taken for granted in the early 50's are null and void.

Posted by: condi on 10/07/07 at 10:01 PM