The polarization of the United States, version 2007
Posted by Moonage on 17 May 2007 | Tagged as: 2008 Presidential Race, Polls
Gallup came out with their most recent polls on the candidates, and non-candidates who are polling. Here’s the dirt:
Democrat:
- Hillary Clinton, 35
- Barack Obama, 26
- Al Gore,16
- John Edwards, 12
- Bill Richardson, 2
- Joe Biden, 2
- Al Sharpton, 1
- Christopher Dodd, 1
- Wesley Clark, 1
- Dennis Kucinich, <1
- Mike Gravel, 0
- Other, 1
- None, <1
- All/any, 0
- No opinion, 4
And the Republicans
- Rudy Giuliani 29
- John McCain 23
- Fred Thompson 12
- Mitt Romney 8
- Newt Gingrich 6
- Sam Brownback 2
- Tommy Thompson 1
- Mike Huckabee 1
- Tom Tancredo 1
- George Pataki 1
- Duncan Hunter <1
- Jim Gilmore <1
- Chuck Hagel <1
- Ron Paul 0
- Other 2
- None 5
- All/any 0
- No opinion 8
As it stands now, 65% of Democrats will be dissatisfied with their nominee, and 71% of Republicans dissatisfied with theirs. Now, the long term problem this presents to me is X number of people will cross over after the primaries to support their party’s nominee, but X number will do so grudgingly. And, even worse, X number won’t at all. They may vote for their nominee, but they won’t necessarily support them. When hard decisions have to be made or something bad happens, those people are the first to jump. IMO, that’s what we’re seeing now in spades. Neither candidate really excited their party during the last election, with the main thrust of the public and media being which one was less capable of leading the country. When things got tough, those un-excited non-supporters jumped ship. It doesn’t take much for that to happen either. The result? 65% negativity ratings regardless of how good or bad things might be going. The second result is media constantly whining about the polarization of the US without having a clue how it got that way.
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