Those of you who have been watching CNN have probably seen the South Carolina primer featuring a black voter who says that black Democrats inclined to support Obama are "still waffling" because they are not convinced about his chances in the general election. I nearly fell out of my chair. For pete's sake, King George received news from the front-lines of the American revolution faster than these voters.
If you look at the head-to-head matchups, Obama commands about a 7.3 point advantage over Clinton versus the leading GOP candidates. While these numbers are, of course, subject to change, they indicate that the current electability debate is, as President Clinton might say, "the biggest fairytale I have ever seen." Here's how I arrived at the 7.3 point estimate . . .
First, I averaged the results of the last last three head-to-head matchups between Obama, Clinton and each GOP candidate (e.g., for HILLARY v. MCCAIN, the last three polls are +6 MCCAIN, +5 MCCAIN, +7 MCCAIN; the average of the three is +6 MCCAIN or -6% HILLARY).
HILLARY V. MCCAIN
-- MCCAIN +6.0%
HILLARY V. GIULIANI
-- HILLARY +1.0%
HILLARY V. HUCKABEE
-- HILLARY +5.0%
HILLARY V. ROMNEY
-- HILLARY +2.3%
HILLARY V. THOMPSON
-- HILLARY +5.7%
OBAMA V. MCCAIN
-- TIE
OBAMA V. GIULIANI
-- OBAMA +8.3%
OBAMA V. HUCKABEE
-- OBAMA +10.1%
OBAMA V. ROMNEY
-- OBAMA +14.0%
OBAMA V. THOMPSON
-- OBAMA +12.0%
Second, as Obama fares better than Hillary against all GOP candidates, I simply subtracted Hillary's respective margins versus the GOP candidates from those of Obama.
OBAMA's ADVANTAGE OVER HILLARY
v. MCCAIN
-- +6.0%
v. GIULIANI
-- +7.3%
v. HUCKABEE
-- +5.1%
v. ROMNEY
-- +11.7%
v. THOMPSON
-- +6.3%
Third, I averaged these numbers.
AVERAGE OBAMA ADVANTAGE = 7.3%
As you can see, its not rocket science. Obama is more electable than Hillary. The next series may well give Obama an even greater advantage because Iowa and even New Hampshire showed that Hillary is not inevitable and that Obama can win or compete in the whitest parts of America.