Hillary Clinton Falsely Claims She Leads In Every Poll

Democratic Senator Hillary Clinton is now saying that, unlike Democratic nomination rival Senator Barack Obama, she beats GOP presumptive nominee Senator John McCain in “every poll.” The problem: it is not true.

On May 26th this site ran THIS POST about Bill Clinton making the same claim – -and we offered links to pages that clearly show that, in some polls, Obama beats McCain and, in some polls, by a bigger margin than Clinton.

Now CBS’ Fernando Suarez reports on Hillary Clinton picking up her husband’s line — and he calls her on it:

During an evening rally in Montana’s largest city Tuesday night, Hillary Clinton explained to the crowd why she should be the Democratic Party’s nominee, but what ensued was a list of overstatements and exaggerations as she made her case. “You have to ask yourself, who is the stronger candidate? And based on every analysis, of every bit of research and every poll that has been taken and every state that a Democrat has to win, I am the stronger candidate against John McCain in the fall,” she said.

The problem is, there are a number of polls that show Clinton in a close race with John McCain, many within the margin of error, not including a few that show Barack Obama beating McCain by a larger margin than Clinton. The comment was intended to prove to voters that despite Obama’s popularity, she has what it takes to beat John McCain. Clinton said that voters have to ask themselves, “Who is the stronger candidate against John McCain? We have not gone through this exciting, unprecedented, historic election, only to lose,” she said.

There is an irony, and perhaps a red flag here. Today is a day when the news cycles are dominated by news that President George Bush’s former press secretary Scott McClellan has a memoir that is about to come out blasting Bush, Karl Rove and the White House and further documenting the reasons why the administration has one of the worst credibility gaps in American history.

There are continued indications that Hillary Clinton is nurturing a big credibility gap of her own. A look at all the polls simply does not support her assertion that she is ahead in “every poll” — unless that means every poll that she wants to include because it’s a poll that shows her ahead. CBS again:

For days, Clinton has been grasping at almost anything to make her case to voters as the clock in the campaign winds down. Most recently Clinton compared the plight of Florida and Michigan voters to the struggles of the early suffragists and likened the primaries of those states to the fraudulent election that took place in Zimbabwe.

Creating a credibility problem could be an unwise move. Superdelegates can do a bit of “Googling” themselves and see that her assertion does not check out.

Go to the link to our other post and follow the links on polls, as a shortcut. You’ll see that polls vary.