In the aftermath of Hillary Clinton's stunning speech yesterday night, the talking heads are all atwitter over how the speech--soaring in its rhetoric, piercing in its logic, and stirring in its message--may not have "been enough" to win over disaffected Hillary Clinton voters.
From the media's coverage of the convention, you would think that Denver is the gathering ground for such voters, that you can find a PUMA behind every bush and around ever tree.
The reality on the ground is that the vast majority of Clinton supporters here will be voting for Obama in the fall, many of them enthusiastically. You can observe throughout Denver Democrats wearing Hillary shirts with Obama pins, or vice versa.
And yet, we are treated this morning by punditry and articles about how "many Clinton supporter say speech didn't heal divisions."
It is one of the favorite tactics of the traditional media to build coverage upon false equivalency in order to portray friction or controversy in a given situation. A global warming expert--representing the opinion of 99% of scientists--is put up against a fringe climate change denier and is presented as being on equal footing. There's no reason I suppose why coverage of the convention should be any different.
The press loves its PUMA hunting, stalking through the streets of Denver, seeking out anyone who fits the supposed profile of a "Disaffected Hillary Voter"--a 40-something woman decked out in HillaryGear whose Obama pin is glaring absent, or a visitor wearing an anti-Obama shirt. I myself witnessed such a hunt on numerous occasions (including at the Denver airport, where the reporter literally stopped interviewing a group of Democrats to go chase a lone guy in an "18 million cracks" t-shirt).
PUMAs though are a rare breed. To put things into perspective, a rally for Clinton here yesterday reportedly drew about 1,000 people. Keep in mind there are about 50,000 here for the convention.
Yes, they do exist, but in small, clustered numbers, and by all measures, they are an endangered species of voter. A March 2008 Gallup poll showed that 28% of Clinton voters would vote for McCain in the fall. Now, that same poll shows that number standing at just 16%. Other polls have the number in closer to 20%.
The shrinking population of stubborn "Hillary or Bust" voters makes sense. Democrats had a bruising and bitter primary, and wounds from that fight are understandably slow to heal. But for most, they do heal. After Hillary Clinton's moving call to unity yesterday, and after the convention, expect to see the number of such voters continue to dwindle, until all that is left is a tiny cluster of Republicans and so-called "Democrats" who voted for Hillary in the primaries and are eager to vote against their best interests in the fall. That's their prerogative, but if they think--and if the media believes--that this election will hinge on these fringe voters--well, that dog just won't hunt.
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