I was quite surprised these past two weeks with the insistent calls for Hillary Clinton to drop out and her adamant refusal to not drop out. Since the Bosnia incident, she has come under increasing fire from the media online and offline to let the democratic party move forward since the latest Gallup poll is showing that Senator McCain can now beat both candidates in the general election. This is not good news for a Democrat like myself or any of the other Democrats in the USA and around the world but we have to take this latest revelation in context of the election so far:
- Senator McCain has had a fairly easy ride recently with both democratic candidates attacking each other with everything but the kitchen sink.
- Both candidates are building up information to use against Senator McCain in the general election so once the nomination process is finalized. The Democratic nominee can fully flex his or her muscles in an attempt to nullify that lead.
- Both Democratic nominees have a lot of money behind them and at the end of the day that money can help spread their message further and faster than Senator McCain and his bus.
- Senator McCain’s lead is within the statistical margin of error so that if the lead held up into the general election, there is a chance that the election could go either way.
- Senator McCain has made great strides these past few weeks in distancing himself from President Bush and the GOP’s current policies. That being said he has outlined no specific plans as to how he would turn around the American economy or improve the image of the USA in the eyes of the world.
I was also shocked to hear that my own candidate (Senator Obama) did not want Senator Clinton to drop out despite the media and many people saying that the fighting is hurting the Democratic Party. Thinking about the situation logically, I now understand why Senator Obama said that… He knew that if Senator Clinton did dropout so early in the race, her supporters would most likely vote for Senator McCain. Looking below we can see some Gallup data going up to March 22nd showing the breakdown of Clinton supporters if the general election was McCain versus Obama:
Now let us look at the hypothetical situation of Senator Clinton winning the nomination and we can see the data is far leaner as we go up to Independents:
I have drawn a few conclusions from the current Gallup data. The first being that the Clinton supporters seem more polarized in terms of the democratic nomination. This is where my point about Senator Obama is relevant to the current situation. If he were to suddenly win the democratic nomination after PA, a lot of the Clinton supporters would feel rather angry and vote for Senator McCain in the general election. My second point relates to what both parties are saying in the media, I believe we can safely say this is more politeness than anything else but I believe the democratic party does need to wrap this up as quick as possible because their is a fine balance between alienating current democrats with the lengthy primary process and having the other nominee’s supporters switch to Senator McCain.
Alright, I will stop with the graphs and figures… with Senator Clinton’s double digit lead in PA non-existent at the moment, I believe that if she does not win by at least 10% in the Pennsylvania primary that she should seriously consider dropping out and endorsing Senator Obama. Senator Obama with his excellent oratory ability could easily win back the independents that have started to lean towards Senator McCain because if we think about the media breakdown in the USA. Fox News is the only conservative channel out there and if we can a have the majority of the major media networks broadcasting Obama’s strengths, Senator McCain will definitely lose.
