Hillary's still more polarizing

For years now, I've written about the potential weaknesses of Hillary Clinton in a general election campaign due to her high unfavorable ratings. Ezra Klein disagreed (here and here), arguing that any candidate in national politics becomes polarizing over time. But as I argued, there's a big difference between ending up as a polarizing figure (Obama, potentially) and starting out as one (Hillary).

If you don't believe me, consider the numbers. Obama has been pounded for weeks now by both Hillary and John McCain and embroiled in the controversy over his pastor Jeremiah Wright. And yet his profile is still much stronger than Hillary's. Her current rating of 37 percent of Americans having positive feelings toward her "is the lowest the NBC/WSJ poll has recorded since March 2001, two months after she was elected to the U.S. Senate from New York." The number of Americans with negative feelings in the same poll was 48 percent. Both numbers represent a significant dropoff from a March 7-10 poll showing 45 percent positive, 43 percent negative. In addition, Gallup recently found that Hillary "is rated as 'honest and trustworthy' by 44% of Americans, far fewer than say this about John McCain (67%) and Barack Obama (63%)."

By contrast, the same NBC/WSJ poll shows Obama's personal ratings at 49 percent positive, 32 percent negative. While his negative numbers have edged up, NBC found that "he's still much more competitive with independent voters when matched up against John McCain than Hillary Clinton" and that "the biggest shift in those negative numbers were among Republicans." Similarly, CBS found that "Unfavorable views have risen among Republicans" and that "[i]ndependent voters - a group Obama has successfully courted in many primaries and would try to draw in the general election - still view him favorably, about the same as last month."

In short, to the extent that candidates matter (an open question in political science), an objective observer would still probably take Obama over Clinton. Endi3ng up as polarizing just isn't equivalent to starting out that way.

Update 3/30 8:52 PM: Via Tim Russert on Meet the Press, here are the positive/negative feelings cross-tabs from the NBC/Wall Street Journal poll -- wow:

Here's the favorable, unfavorable. Hillary Clinton. It is now 37 positive, negative 48. Just two weeks ago, Clinton was at 45, 43. She's dropped 8 points with her positive rating in two weeks. And look at the breakdown by party. Republicans, 10 positive, 79 negative; independents, just 24 percent positive, 56 percent negative; Democrats split 66, 17.

Obama, his positive is 49, 32. Two weeks ago, it was 51, 28. A modest drop in two weeks during the whole Reverend Wright controversy. Here's breakdown by party. His positive amongst Republicans is 19. Remember, Clinton's was 10. Independents, it's 49. Clinton's was 24. Democrats, it's 71. Clinton's was 66.

Comments

[BG]

Based on anecdotal evidence, I would tell you that Obama has tanked among southern white voters. The group was never big on him to start with (remember the Louisiana exit polls on satisfaction if the other candidate got the nomination?), but I think the Wright comments shifted the feeling from discomfort to distaste. I would be really interested in seeing some regional crosstabs on the Gallup defection question analyzed yesterday.

[Jinchi]

I would tell you that Obama has tanked among southern white voters

Looking at Brendan's primary charts, I'd say Obama was rejected by southern whites long before most had heard of Rev. Wright.

The south is still very unique politically and racial politics plays a huge part of that. The question is how he's doing in the rest of the country. If he's competitive in most of the states LBJ won in 1964, he doesn't need southern whites.

[psmarc93]

It is amazing that Hillary has so alienated her own party in her primary run. At some point, I expected her to realize that if she ever wanted a future in the party, she would have to throw support to the party in general, if not Obama in particular, and gracefully bow out. At best, she's missed the opportunity to unify the party, throw her support behind Obama, make it look like her idea to heal the division, beat the Republicans at all costs, and turn the nation around. Instead, she's put her entire future in one campaign. She lost a month ago, and yet she's still stabbing herself in the throat (under sniper fire, etc.) All America will remember this in 8 years when she again gets the chance to run. We will remember how she lied, how she played racist politics, how she encouraged breaking the rules to win at all costs. And I doubt that her career will ever, EVER rise above the level of the Senate again. Tragic.

[BG]

Jinchi, I referenced the Louisiana exits, which I remember as the worst in terms of white/black divide (though if I remember correctly, Mississippi was bad, too -- can't find the charts you speak of). My point is that Obama has "gone south" from that starting point. While white southern voters preferred Hillary, they have now strayed in large numbers to the column of Democrats who would vote for McCain if Obama were the nominee. I wholeheartedly agree with you that Obama does NOT need these voters to win the general election, and that they are significantly different from other Democrats. That's actually the whole point in looking at regional crosstabs.

If we were able to look at these regional crosstabs on the Gallup defection question I referenced, and as I said, southern white Democrats were overwhelmingly defecting from Obama, then that would skew the results for the nation as a whole. Thus, learning what southern white Democrats think about an Obama candidacy actually could tell us a lot more about how Obama is doing in the rest of the country than a national poll by itself.