Source: The Politico – 11/27/2007
Thoughts: As we were discussing the other day, key demographics are going to play a major role in the race between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. They key segments to watch will be the female vote and the black vote. In a recent poll (again, I don’t put too much weight in polls, but since both results come from the same pollster I’ll use this for discussion purposes), Hillary Clinton is viewed as more favorable than Barack Obama by black voters. Out of 750 voters, 83% viewed Hillary as favorable, while Obama received 74%.
A trump card Obama carries in his pocket that he hopes will win him this key Democratic category is Oprah Winfrey. She has been a great source to pull in campaign funding, and her reputation carries as much weight, if not more, as Hillary’s in the general public. If there is any chance that Barack can secure both the black vote and the female vote, Oprah will deserve a lot of credit. (But don’t expect to see an Obama/Winfrey ’08 bumper sticker any time soon.)
This is setting up to be a great battle.
Article: “Clinton tops Obama among African-Americans”
By David Mark and David Paul Kuhn
Six weeks out from the first round of presidential voting, Hillary Rodham Clinton gets better reviews than Barack Obama among African-American voters, a crucial voting bloc in Democratic politics, a new poll shows.
The survey of 750 African-Americans, conducted from Oct. 5 to Nov. 2, and released Tuesday found that the senator from New York was rated favorably by 83 percent of respondents, while 10 percent perceived her negatively.
Obama, meanwhile, garnered favorable ratings from 74 percent of blacks, with 10 percent viewing him negatively.
Former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina was rated favorably by 45 percent of respondents, while 19 percent rated him unfavorably, found the poll, sponsored by the AARP.
For Obama, the poll provides one more indication of just how steep a climb remains for his campaign to overtake Clinton.
Obama has mounted possibly the most viable presidential run by a black candidate ever.
(Read the rest of the article here.)
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Although the strategies of the candidates will vary in response to what the others do, I am certain that this will be a very tight race. I don’t think that any of the candidates have such overwhelming appeal that we’ll know the outcome before election day. What I am really concerned about is that we have a fair and transparent election.
Can an election be truly fair when two parties dominate the system and block those with alternative views that go beyond “blue” and “red?”
Sorry, I was being philisophical again.
It will be interesting to watch how Obama and Hillary play out over the next few months. I am hoping to see the two of them basically split the delegates, forcing the Democratic Convention to actually decide for the party which of the two will head the ticket.