John McCain can beat Barack Obama. Barack Obama can beat John McCain. John McCain can beat Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton cannot beat John McCain.There, in a nutshell, is Presidential Election 2008. If the Democrats want to beat John McCain, they had better nominate Barack Obama.
Let's break it down using the latest Rasmussen numbers.
Hillary-the best known of all candidates- trails McCain 42%-48%
Obama-the least known- leads McCain 45%-42%
This means that in one matchup, the Democrats have a small, margin of error lead, with a 13 percentage point group of non- committeds. The range of this poll would be from 58-42 Obama to 55-45 McCain. The average result puts us at Obama 51.5 McCain 48.5. Pretty close.
Let's look at the other matchup. Clinton 42 McCain 48 with a smaller 10% group of uncommitteds. The Range is from Clinton 52 McCain 48 to McCain 58 Clinton 42. The average would be Clinton 47 McCain 53.
Let's look at it another way. In the first poll, Obama gets to 50% with 38.5% of the uncommitted vote. This is a percentage 6.5% below his 45% Horserace number- Highly plausible.
On the other hand, McCain can get there with 61.5% of the uncommitted. A number 19.5% above his 42% horserace number. Considerably more difficult, if possible.
Hillary, to reach 50% needs an astounding 80% of undecideds to reach 50%. That number is 38 points higher than her horserace number. McCain, on the other hand, gets to 50% against Hillary with just 20% of the Undecideds, a number 22 points lower than his national horserace number.
This means that if it were election eve, and these were the numbers.....
Obama would have a 61.5% chance or better of beating John McCain while Hillary would have less than a 20% chance.
Obama is, by far, the most volatile of the 3 and his numbers could change dramatically, in one direction or the other. It is easy to see a scenario where he loses big to McCain but it's also easy to see a scenario where he wins big.
Hillary's numbers won't budge. There is no one in America undecided about how they feel about Hillary. They either love her or hate her and the 'hate her's outnumber the 'love hers' by about 3/2.
I cannot guarantee you that John McCain will be our next President but I can absolutely guarantee you that Hillary won't be. A very smart strategy for Republicans with deep pockets would be to flood Hillary with cash to help her defeat Obama.
~Sonlit
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