Various polls are now suggesting that Democratic Senator Barack Obama could be heading for another highly-impressive and historic victory in Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary — one that will spell further trouble for the sagging campaign of longtime perceived front-runner Senator Hillary Clinton.
How delicate is it for the Clinton camp? So delicate that The Politico reports Clinton’s advisers have opted not to run negative ads against Obama, for fear it could hurt Ms. Clinton. The polls coming out now must hurt enough already.
The most stunning is the new USA Today/Gallup Poll:
Sen. Barack Obama has opened up a 13 percentage point lead over Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton in the battle for votes in Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary, according to a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll conducted in the state from Friday through this afternoon. The results were just released.
On the Republican side, Sen. John McCain is 4 percentage points ahead of Mitt Romney.
If this is accurate, it is a MAJOR political development — almost a political firestorm:
• Obama: 41%; up from 32% in the last USA TODAY/Gallup New Hampshire poll, taken in mid-December.
• Clinton: 28%; down from 32%.
• John Edwards: 19%; up from 18%.
• Gov. Bill Richardson: 6%; down from 8%.
• No one else above 3%.
And then look at a new CNN-WMUR poll:
Two days before New Hampshire’s Democratic primary, Sen. Barack Obama has opened a double-digit lead over Sen. Hillary Clinton in that state, a new CNN-WMUR poll found Sunday.
Obama, the first-term senator from Illinois who won last week’s Iowa caucuses, led the New York senator and former first lady 39 percent to 29 percent in a poll conducted Saturday and Sunday — a sharp change from a poll out Saturday that showed the Democratic front-runners tied at 33 percent.
Former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina is at 16 percent in the new survey, down four points from Saturday. Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico is in fourth place, with the support of 7 percent of likely New Hampshire Democratic primary voters, with Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio at 2 percent.
Nor is there good news for the New York Senator from Rasmussen Report’s daily tracking poll in data released Sunday:
The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey in New Hampshire shows Barack Obama earning 39% of the vote while Hillary Clinton attracts 27%. The survey was conducted on Friday night and Saturday afternoon. All interviews were conducted after the Iowa caucuses and before last night’s debate.
Rasmussen notes that Clinton is ahead in polls nationally. But she has to first get through the primaries and this could be troublesome:
Eighty-eight percent (88%) of Primary Voters say they would be at least somewhat likely to vote for Barack Obama if he is nominated. An identical number, 88%, say the same about John Edwards. Just 80% would consider voting for Hillary Clinton if she is nominated. Those figures reflect a bit more unity than is found among Republicans. John McCain is the only GOP candidate to top the 80% mark on this question.
Obama is seen as the most electable Democratic candidate. Eighty-seven percent (87%) believe he would be at least somewhat likely to win if nominated. Seventy-six percent (76%) say the same about Clinton and 75% think Edwards would have a chance. Fifty-one percent (51%) of the Likely Democratic Primary Voters believe Obama would be Very Likely to win. Just 38% have such confidence in Clinton.
So Clinton’s electability argument is now being rejected by many voters.
Zogby still shows the Demmie race in a “dead heat” between Clinton and Obama but notes:
“Make no mistake about it, there is movement here. Only 50% of this sample is after the Iowa caucus results were known and there has been a 5-point swing on the Democratic side. Clinton started out leading 32% to 26% over Obama and now she is in a dead heat at 31% to 30%. Obama has won in that part of the sample taken since Iowa – and just this past one day alone Obama led by 8 points.
Real Clear Politics has the best compilation of polls, and out of 8 polls, it shows Clinton is only ahead in one of them.
Meanwhile, the great site Political Wire has just posted this summary:
* CNN/WMUR: Obama +10, McCain +6
* USA Today/Gallup: Obama +13, McCain +4
* Strategic Vision: Obama +9, McCain +8
* Rasmussen: Obama +12, McCain +2
* 7NEWS/Suffolk: Obama +2, Romney +3
* McClatchy/MSNBC: Obama +2, McCain +8
* Reuters/Zogby: Obama +1, Romney +1
* Concord Monitor/Research 2000: Obama +1, McCain +6
* American Research Group: Obama +12, McCain +14
Not good news for the Clinton camp.
How will they handle this? According to The Huffington Post’s Thomas B. Edsall, by doing “trench-to-trench warfare”:
Hillary Clinton’s campaign, anticipating probable defeat here in New Hampshire on January 8, is gearing up for an extended trench-warfare battle against Barack Obama.
The former First Lady is planning to fight Obama in South Carolina on January 26, and in the gargantuan nationwide primary on Tuesday, February 5 — with contests in 19 states, including New York, California, New Jersey, Georgia, Minnesota, Massachusetts, and Colorado. If she remains competitive, Clinton’s plan is to continue to compete in Louisiana on February 9, in Virginia and Maryland on February 12, in Wisconsin on February 19, in Ohio on March 4 — and beyond, if necessary.
In an approach redolent of Walter Mondale’s 1984 “Where’s the Beef?” tactic against Gary Hart, Clinton has adopted the less memorable slogan “Rhetoric vs. Results, Talk vs. Action.”
The problem is: rhetoric — particularly hopeful and upbeat rhetoric — does move voters. People talk about JFK and RFK. But there once was a man named Ronald Reagan…..
The Clinton campaign is sparing no effort to pressure the media to lean on Obama’s perceived vulnerabilities. Looking to leverage Obama’s slender resume, a Clinton operative argued to HuffPost that the campaign will be able to demonstrate that “Obama is just not a plausible person in this environment of international peril,” and that the longer the primary campaign can be extended, the better chance Clinton will have to prove that “there is not even a second level to Obama, there is no depth.”
So does mean that we’ll now have a Democratic version of the Karl Rove/John Ashcroft/Rudy Giuliani argument that if you elect Democrats it might not be good for you or your family or the nation’s physical health? Democrats (including Clinton) had decried this tactic when it was used against them. (But if there were consistency, it wouldn’t be “politics” in 21st century America.)
The results of this gambit are far from certain. Many political observers here see Hillary on the ropes. “I think Iowa was the best she is going to do. Now she has the stink of a loser on her,” said an official from the upper echelons of the 2004 Democratic campaign. In the upcoming states, voters “are just now starting to pay attention, and all they know is that he [Obama] is a winner and she’s a loser.”
It still is way too early to county Hillary Clinton out. But the Clinton campaign made a huge error by putting all of its eggs in the electability basket. It’s hard to argue that when you can’t get elected. And experience is increasingly being seen as being trumped by a thirst for change.
Trending is important in polling — and there is little good in this trend for Hillary Clinton. The key will be tomorrow: will her associates and/or surrogates start pooh-poohing the importance of a New Hampshire win?
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.