In a Survey USA poll released today, Hillary Clinton polled at 40% among 582 likely New Hampshire democratic primary voters. Barack Obama came in second place with 25%, and with John Edwards obtaining third place by coming closely behind him with 23%.
I am slightly shocked by the early polling results knowing how highly HRC is unfavorably viewed, as well as, the soft support she receives nationally by the most liberal/moderate primary voters. But the given outcomes generated by the first-tier of presidential candidates gave me a better understanding on why they performed the way each one did in this specific poll.
As a side note, it was only a week ago when Zoby Polling came out showing John Edwards with a commanding 10% lead in Iowa where he was leading Barack Obama 27% to 17%. As you can tell by these initial results, Hillary may have a tougher time buying votes in Iowa than she would in New Hampshire which is geographically closer to her home state of New York. Also, name recognition of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama has given them both a slight edge in national polls due to their very positive overexposure by the MSM, but this honeymoon is soon to end. (I will be cheering for Fox News and the Murdoch goons to smear Hillary if this means she won’t garner the Democratic nomination for president.)
If you are a political junkie like me, you may have heard about the recent political phenomenon called the "Bradley Effect" (named after former Los Angeles mayor Tom Bradley a gubernatorial candidate running for Gov. in California who eventually lost due to polls not analzying that white voters where lying about thier support of him because he was a minority), in which, likely Caucasian voters claiming to support a non-white candidate when they actually don’t at all.
In the select political races, that were affected by this occurrence, pollsters results were skewed by as much as 5%, to 10%, to as much as 15% in rare cases. However, it wasn’t until last years very close senate race in Tennessee, in which, Harold Ford Jr. barely lost by 3 percentage points to Bob Corker (which matched the final polling results for the race from the previous week) when national pollsters unanimously felt that the candidate’s race was no longer negatively skewing the polling results.
Instead of the 2008 democratic presidential race being dictated by the race, or gender, of the candidates as a hindrance in the past, it will be mostly looked upon by how likely voters view and respond to Hillary’s extreme political polarization. Furthermore, how this scenario plays out in both polling of likely democratic primary voters and more importantly in the voting booth during next year’s presidential primaries.
After all that has been previously stated, I am one falling into a category which believes a sizeable segment of primary voters are lying to pollsters regarding their support of Hillary Rodham Clinton. For starters, I believe many of these individuals understand how damaging a Hillary presidency would be to the Democratic Party and will do anything to avoid a Democratic Party doomsday. Even if this means that contacted voters will straight out lie to pollsters to purposely skew the results in favor of Hillary Clinton. In order to give fake support to HRC which makes it more possible for a upset victory by John Edwards or Barack Obama.
It was only yesterday when Gallup released a poll stating 60% of democratic voters believe their next presidential nominee will be a white male. The Hillary saga continues and will only get more interesting when she tries to buy off more primary voters with her massive pile of cash.
As of this moment, I am strongly supporting John Edwards and believe he will win the democratic nomination for president. As a side note, I may very well be working for the official Edwards campaign in the immediate future once they start the hiring process in the next month or two.
Hillary Clinton for many democrats is just as unpopular as George W. Bush.