First, all the usual stipulations — 2008 is very far away; the public is having a hard enough time being engaged in the elections that are two weeks away, better yet two years; we have no idea who’s going to run and/or how well they’d do; and I don’t have a personal favorite yet.
With that out of the way, a new CNN poll was surprising.
If presidential elections were held today, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton would likely have a comfortable edge over Sen. John McCain….
So say the results of a CNN poll released Friday by Opinion Research Corp., which asked 506 adult Americans whom they preferred among potential 2008 presidential candidates. The margin of error for the survey is plus or minus 4.5 percent.
Asked if they preferred Hillary Rodham Clinton to McCain, respondents gave the Democratic New York senator and former first lady a 51 percent to 44 percent advantage over the Republican Senator from Arizona.
Moreover, when poll respondents were asked if they prefer Hillary Clinton or Rudy Giuliani, Clinton has a 4 percentage point advantage, 50% to 46%.
Now, CNN got bogged down in some trivia about the poll results and whether use of Clinton’s middle name influenced the results (she lead McCain and Giuliani with or without “Rodham”), but the results are rather startling on their face.
Isn’t Clinton supposed to be a polarizing figure, while McCain and Giuliani have broad bi-partisan appeal?
Indeed, the conventional wisdom is that McCain and Giuliani are practically folk heroes. The nation knows them and loves them. They remain not only two of the most popular Republicans in the country, but also the most popular people. Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, is generally described with words such as “divisive,” “polarizing,” and “controversial.”
Or so the cw goes.
A poll like this one isn’t particularly reliable in a 2008 context — no one’s even announced, better yet started campaigning, better yet still presenting issues for voters’ consideration — but it’s nevertheless a gauge of how the landscape generally looks two years before the next election. And right now, it ain’t bad.
The poll asked respondents about national figures they’re already familiar with, and the conventional wisdom, as if often the case, appears entirely wrong. Clinton not only held her own against the most popular likely Republican presidential candidates, she’s actually beating them. As Atrios put it, “Some people, all by themselves, have come to the conclusion that John McCain isn’t the greatest human being to ever walk the Earth. That’s encouraging.” Indeed, it is.
I’d add that this may also be an instance in which a shrinking Republican tide lowers all Republican boats. The GOP is in the midst of a fairly obvious freefall and voters appear anxious for a change. This isn’t to take away from Clinton’s appeal necessarily, because I think it’s impressive that her lead over McCain in a hypothetical match-up is as big as it is, but I also wonder what the results would be in a generic match-up — unnamed Dem vs unnamed Republican. I have a hunch very few people would welcome the prospect of 12 years of uninterrupted GOP White House rule, especially given the last six years.
Regardless, anytime the media wants to give up on the notion that McCain is politically untouchable, while Clinton is too controversial to have national appeal, that’d be great.