The Des Moines Register Poll which has Obama up 32-25-24 on Clinton and Edwards respectively, is get a huge amount of push back, primarily from the Clinton and Edwards. So much so, that the DMR published a piece on the complaining. The complaints center around the high numbers of 1st timers and numbers of independents. Of course, the large numbers of independents that outnumber both parties,
Democratic: 602,947
Republican: 575,025
No Party: 740,400
may have something to do with that, but that's not what I'm writing about specifically. How Obama has flipped the script below the jump.
Even though the pushback from Clinton and Edwards sounds more like sour grapes to me, Obama doesn't go there. He sure could have mocked Clinton, who is was as reliant on polls as anyone for picking apart one of the polls that shows her behind while not challenging any of the others. Instead he uses it as a motivational tool to these new voters.
DAVENPORT, Iowa -- At his first event this morning on his final day of campaigning before the Iowa caucuses, Obama asked a packed gymnasium how many people were planning to caucus for the first time. About a third of the crowd raised their hand.
"You know, lately some of the pundits have been skeptical that you folks who say you're going to caucus for the first time are actually going to caucus," he said.
"So the question is? Are we going to prove them wrong?" Obama shouted to a cheering crowd of about 250 people headed out to canvass. "I couldn't hear you. Are we going to prove them wrong? Is everybody going to caucus?!!"
Pure brilliance on the part of Obama. If there is one thing that Americans don't like, it's the feeling of being dismissed or made to feel as you don't matter. And make no mistake, that is what the Edwards and Clinton campaigns are doing. They are dismissing independent and first time voters. The only thing I would have done differently was to call out the Edwards and Clinton campaigns specifically. Mr. Gibbs, Obama's Communication Director, points out the fallacy in the logic of the DMR poll complainers:
Robert Gibbs, Obama's Communications Director, pointed out this morning that last night when Obama asked the same question at a 10pm CT rally in Dubuque, nearly half the people in the room raised their hands.
"If you're willing to come out at 11 o'clock [at night] when it's zero degrees," Gibbs said, "why wouldn't you come out at 6:30 [p.m.] when it's 20 degrees out?"
Indeed. The complaints make little sense to me. This is a new election with many more people engaged, and to say that turnout will not increase seems not to jive with reality. Kudos to Obama for turning the complaints into a motivational tool for his supporters.