Gallup poll: Obama fading
posted at 4:47 pm on April 19, 2008 by Ed Morrissey
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National poll results don’t mean much in April, since more than 40 states have already held their primaries, but Gallup’s trends may hold more significance than the remaining primaries indicate. Barack Obama lost the top spot to Hillary Clinton for the first time in a month, and after Wednesday’s debate performance, the trend may become even more pronounced:
Gallup Poll Daily tracking shows that Hillary Clinton now receives 46% of the support of Democrats nationally, compared to 45% for Barack Obama, marking the first time Obama has not led in Gallup’s daily tracking since March 18-20.
These results are based on interviewing conducted April 16-18, including two days of interviewing after the contentious Wednesday night debate in Philadelphia and the media focus that followed. Support for Hillary Clinton has been significantly higher in both of these post-debate nights of interviewing than in recent weeks. The two Democratic candidates are now engaged in intensive campaigning leading up to Tuesday’s Pennsylvania primary and are under a continual and hot media spotlight, increasing the chances for change in the views of Democrats in the days ahead.
Assuming this holds up, the results could spell trouble for Obama. Hillary has been trying to make the electability argument for several weeks among the superdelegates. If Obama continues to decline in national polling, that argument could resonate, especially given the steep decline this month in Obama’s polling He has lost seven points in the last two weeks, six of those in the last four days. That could give considerable heartburn to the superdelegates, who may very well wonder whether Obama’s terrible performance this week could presage a complete general-election collapse.
Obama has to show that he can handle tough questioning, and not just to get through the primaries against Hillary Clinton. He can keep claiming to have been victimized by ABC, but Americans don’t usually elect people for whining. He has to overcome a little hostility from the press, or voters will rightly wonder whether he can handle himself under much more pressure once ensconced in the White House. Even the superdelegates may be asking themselves that question.
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It’s gotta suck when you fly too close to the sun that way and you don’t know what the H_LL you’re doing…
I knew a man, Bobama and he’s dance for you…
with Liberal Platform Shoes…
He’d jump so high…
He’s jump so high…
Then he’s lightly touch down (not anymore)
Mr Bobama…
Mr Bobama…
Mr Bobama…
DANCE!!!
CynicalOptimist on April 19, 2008 at 8:22 PM
The headline gives me hope.”Obama Fading” YaY!!
Geronimo on April 19,2008 at 8:01PM.
Geronimo: By any possibility that your looking in your
rear mirrior by chance!
canopfor on April 19, 2008 at 8:24 PM
MVRWC calls him BooHoo Obama. I agree.
themediansib on April 19, 2008 at 8:28 PM
know that most of that is not Bush’s or Republican’s fault, although some of it is, but whom do you think folks are going to blame?
Themselves? Nope.
MB4 on April 19, 2008 at 6:05 PM
Personally I’m much better off. and thanks to the Fed’s actions and bush’s treasury admin It appears that many millions of families will also stay that way. Oil is in a bubble, trading on news not fundementals it will crash soon, the dollar is headed higher as soon as the fed stops cutting rates, Food prices and quanity IMO are going to be the major issue in nov. We are already seing some roits in 3rd world nations over food. It will only get worse. food unlike oil and gasoline is trading on fundemetals (low supply) not hype. Not one of the canidates is talking about what they are going to do to enable our farmers to grow more food.
mcCain made a great start with his tax break for gasoline, his idea of increasing deductions, getting rid of the AMT, keeping the tax cuts for all americans. Now he needs to deal with the supply of food. america has a golden oppurtunity to become the world’s breadbasket. We could start to have dollars returned to the USA by greatly increasing our exports IRT food. We have the technolgy, the means, the land and the fertilzer. Already china, parts of Asia,Afica and South America are showing strains on food production. If we need oil, the rest of the world needs food.
unseen on April 19, 2008 at 9:05 PM
I like the cut of your jib…
mikeyboss on April 19, 2008 at 9:14 PM
UMM I guess no one told you YOU DON”T HAVE TO PAY IT NOW! The gubments gonna bail you out.
Bicyea on April 19, 2008 at 9:20 PM
I don’t think Obama is too worried:
http://www.tmz.com/tmz_main_video?titleid=1511163426
SoulGlo on April 19, 2008 at 10:28 PM
I don’t know about that. If the price of gasoline goes down it will just encourage people to use more of it than they already do. That will put upward pressure on prices.
And besides, McCain has bought into Al’s Global Warming, so that would seem to be going in two directions at once.
And to top all that off, McCain seems to be using some kind of “really new math”, as he has said that if the federal gas tax was suspended it would lower gas prices by 20 percent. The federal gas tax is only about 18+ cents a gallon, I believe, which would mean that a gallon of gas must cost about 90+ cents a gallon in “Juan’s World”. Talk about being “out of touch”.
MB4 on April 19, 2008 at 10:43 PM
I doubt they are asking themselves that question. I mean, they should be, but they won’t be.
AbaddonsReign on April 19, 2008 at 11:49 PM
Aristotle is often considered to be the father of both psychology and public speaking. In the Rhetoric, he claims source credibility is one of the largest persuasive influences. Its two major dimensions are character (trustworthiness) and authoritativeness (knowing what you are talking about).
Since two of Obama’s main arguments for supporting him are character issues (1] he will bring us together and 2] his superior judgment trumps his lack of experience), the 50 minutes ABC spent examining his statements and associations seem vitally important, not trivial as Obama and Nonfactor disingenuously imply:
How much, for example, can we trust Obama’s promise to bring us all together if he privately makes denigrating comments about large segments of our population? Also, how much can we trust his judgment when he hangs around a race-baiting minister and an unrepentant bomber who regrets failing to blow us all apart?
Indeed, what issue could affect the American people more than the quality of the person they elect? The Left, itself, recognizes this fact. Have they not spent seven plus years screaming Bush is dishonest and incompetent? If Bush’s character is important to them, then why shouldn’t Obama’s character be important to us?
And as to nonfactor, himself/herself, my advice is this: delink, please.
Dr. Charles G. Waugh on April 20, 2008 at 1:05 AM
Couldn’t have said it any differently or any better so I won’t. Well said.
MannyT-vA on April 20, 2008 at 1:33 AM
I think what we’ve got here is a classic case of premature Obamulation.
Left-leaning folks were seduced by Obama’s silver tongue. They were intoxicated, he whispered sweet nothings about hope and fairness and change – he said exactly what they wanted to hear. He seduced them with his sweet talk about how good they could be … together. They were putty in his hands - a frenzied communion of kindred spirits. It was a time of sublime ecstasy, building momentum to a fever pitch. Oh joy, oh rapture, moving faster and faster to a nomination.
.
.
.
Oops. Sorry.
I’ll bet it’s never happened to him before.
Garnet92 on April 20, 2008 at 2:31 AM
Link, dink.
Jaibones on April 20, 2008 at 8:05 AM
Barack Obama has no idea what hostility from the press is. He should live one day in Dick Cheney’s shoes to understand what hostility really means.
When “naked fishing” goes national, you know you have a hostile press…
gridlock2 on April 20, 2008 at 8:09 AM
Posting drunk is bad policy, son. And if you think that HotAir commenters are McCain sycophants, you must truly be drunk. It’s not clear what you are saying about Obama, though. He “causes depair among people who actually cling strongly to their [leftist] principles”?!
Good luck with that headache.
Jaibones on April 20, 2008 at 8:12 AM
Worth repeating. They are the change they’ve been waiting for.
Jaibones on April 20, 2008 at 8:21 AM
You are unaware of the fundamentals of commodity pricing, if you think oil is not trading on fundamentals but other commodities strictly are.
Caustic Conservative on April 20, 2008 at 8:31 AM
This new poll could simply be an anomaly. Until we see more data, the poll averages are more relevant and they show Obama with a consistent lead. The SDs will pay more attention to this than a single poll.
NuclearPhysicist on April 20, 2008 at 8:36 AM
So… is it AQ being trained in Iran or is it terrorists?
J_Gocht on April 20, 2008 at 11:47 AM
For what it’s worth, he regained his lead against Clinton but fell against McCain in the Gallup today. Both are within the margin of error though.
Typhonsentra on April 20, 2008 at 1:14 PM
Obama’s ability to regroup and win is predicated on McCain’s ability to sufficiently enervate the conservative base.
Obama will change gears and drop the Marxism once he has the primary in the bag. Then you’ll see the full force of hatred poured out on McCain, to which he’ll reply by further dumping on the conservative base and promising to enact wide swaths of leftist policy (e.g. his current global warming evangelism).
Let chaos reign for as long as possible. Keep it up, Rush, because the longer we keep the media focused on the bloodletting in the Democrat party, the less time they’ll have to vivisection McCain during the general campaign.
spmat on April 20, 2008 at 3:10 PM
Good luck with that case of rampant cranial-rectal inversion, ***daddy****.
And while I perhaps could have stated it more precisely, it is obvious that your reading comprehension is lacking even more than my writing competence.
LegendHasIt on April 20, 2008 at 4:11 PM
I’m just going to post this here:
Is anyone else having trouble viewing this site through Firefox right now? It keeps happening to me.
Typhonsentra on April 20, 2008 at 4:21 PM
Not for me.
It is probably one of their ad servers causing trouble for you. They tend to do that sporadically when they serve an ad with lousy or invasive code. Rarely affects me because I have altered my hosts list. (Google it;-)
LegendHasIt on April 20, 2008 at 5:26 PM
If history is any indicator, Obambi and cHillary HAVE to win this go around or fade to insignificance. Simply put, dems don’t like losers and will eagerly await the next new messiah. GOPs on the other hand tend to come back the following election.
Dems: JFK, Jimmah Cartah & Bubba came out of no where and won, while Teddy (hic), Biden, Gore, Jesse, Moseley Braun, Kookcinich et al try and try again to no avail. Bubba was lucky to win re-election due to Perot and a liberal Dole.
GOP: Nixon, Reagan & McVain lost but came back to win the next season’s primaries - remains to be seen if McVain wins in Nov. Ford and Papa Bush could have won a 2nd term, but for demoralizing the base.
Based on that, I look forward to both dems going down in defeat this year so we can relegate them to the ashheap of history posthaste. I’d just dread the next marxist to come along. But there’s always hope that after two tries, the nutroots will give up and quit in disgust, move aboard even. And that the adults will take back control of the donkey.
Now if there was a 3rd party conservative I could get behind, McVain would be the exception to the trend. Oh well.
AH_C on April 20, 2008 at 10:57 PM
Nor I
AH_C on April 20, 2008 at 10:58 PM
And consumer prices will lower in response to reduced energy costs, increasing net spending power. Pretty much nullifies the effect of consumers using “more” of it.
AH_C on April 20, 2008 at 11:08 PM
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