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?
