Is Hillary the most polarizing candidate?

Ezra Klein links approvingly to a post on the blog Liberal Oasis that claims Hillary Clinton is "no more polarizing than other Dems":

Here's some poll data that I don't believe has received much attention.

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ABC NEWS/WASHINGTON POST POLL. Sept. 27-30, 2007

"If [see below] wins the Democratic/Republican nomination for president would you definitely vote for him/her in the general election for president in 2008, would you consider voting for him/her or would you definitely not vote for him/her?"

PERCENT SAYING "DEFINITELY WOULD NOT"

Obama -- 39%
Clinton -- 41%
Edwards -- 43%
Giuliani -- 44%
McCain -- 45%
Thompson -- 54%
Romney -- 57%

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What's does that mean?

1. Sen. Hillary Clinton is no more polarizing than other Dems, and less polarizing than every leading Republican.

The problem is that the question is not a good measure of whether a candidate is "polarizing" -- it conflates familiarity with approval. In other words, some people may be answering "no" because they don't know anything about a candidate, while others are directly expressing disapproval. Hillary's 41% is likely to be concentrated in the latter group, while Obama's 39% is likely to be a mix of both. You can see this if you look at the numbers in context -- Hillary is the best-known candidate and thus has the highest percentage of voters saying they would definitely vote for her, whereas lesser-known candidates have much less.

A better measure of whether a candidate is polarizing is to look at their favorable/unfavorable numbers, as I've done in the past for Hillary. The most polarizing candidates will have high positives and high negatives approaching 50/50. And guess what? Hillary's most recent numbers, which come from USA Today, show that her unfavorables are in the mid- to high-40s. By comparison, the unfavorables of Edwards and Obama were in the low- to mid-30s. Don't believe the hype.

Update 10/22 4:15 PM: I posted a response to Klein's Tapped post on the subject.

Comments

[Joel]

Brendan, the question wording ought to lead people who are unsure to say "would consider" but as you can see by the % who say Unsure (voluntarily), people aren't all taking it this way (as Fred Thompson/Romney have 7/8% people responding Unsure).

But I think this isn't necessarily a good measure of how polarizing someone is because turnout is such a key issue- no one asks "if X is the nominee of the Democratic/Republican party, will you definitely vote in the election and vote for the candidate of the other(Republican/Democratic) party?"

To really get at these issues, this question would need to have the categories: I will definitely vote and will vote for this candidate; I may vote and if I do I’ll definitely vote for this candidate; I may vote and if I do I may vote for this candidate; I may vote and if I do I definitely won’t vote for this candidate; I will definitely vote and will vote for this candidate’s opponent.

[Worse than polarizing- watch this video for more]

Completely over the top, but so so true on HRC:

"Hillary Knew" video on youtube