Rasmussen: Hillary 43% Obama 21% Edwards 11%

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/election_2008__1/2008_presidential_election/daily_presidential_tracking_poll

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Saturday shows Senator Hillary Clinton maintaining steady support in the race for the Democratic Presidential Nomination. Clinton now earns 43% of the vote, while Barack Obama attracts 21%, John Edwards is preferred by 11%, and Bill Richardson is supported by 5%. No other candidate tops the 3% level among Likely Democratic Primary Voters (see recent daily numbers).

These results are based upon nightly telephone surveys and are reported on a four-day rolling average basis. Approximately three-quarters of the interviews for today’s update were conducted following Tuesday night’s Democratic debate. For the three nights following the debate, the results are Clinton 44%, Obama 22%, and Edwards 12%.

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll is typically updated Monday through Friday. This special Saturday update is being released due to interest in the impact of Tuesday night’s debate. The next tracking poll update will be released Monday morning by noon Eastern. The Presidential Tracking Poll will be updated seven days a week beginning Saturday, December 1, 2007.

A separate analysis released yesterday noted that Clinton did not lose ground on the two days following the debate. Partly that’s because the audience was very small and many Americans were not paying attention. Clinton remains the unifying theme of Election 2008.

I thought she was finally slipping. Making unforgivable errors. Sliding downhill.

So confusing.

Hillary has an enormous amount of goodwill generated over the last 16 years. It's going to take a lot more than 1 night of pile on gotcha attacks to have any measurable effect on her candidacy.

picnics draw ants. Every vote for Hillary in the primaries is a vote for super nasty Republican attacks in the election. If you want no discussion whatsoever of issues and mudslinging 24 hours a day from February through November and on and on, vote Hillary. Most Democrats are just too idealistic and naive to understand what they are really voting for when they vote vote for Hillary.

Of course, any Democratic candidate will draw the Republican pit bulls, but the dogs will be more determined against Hillary than any other candidate. And, frankly, Hillary offers the pit bulls more material for attacks than do any of the other candidates. Much as I like him, I would say Biden is the close second.

Edwards is my candidate. He will also draw attacks, but he has a southern gentleman lawyer's way of dealing with them. It works because it comes from the heart and people feel just what a kind, loving, self-deprecating man he is. That is the only way to deflect anger. "A soft voice turneth away wrath." The important thing is to speak softly but to be firm.

Somebody did a study a few years back (which is why I haven't a clue how to link to it) that showed that people attribute the negative TO THE PERSON MAKING THE ATTACK. I say so and so is a whiny little coward and people think I'm the whiny little coward. Going negative is very dangerous because of that possible association.

Haven't you noticed that the whistleblower is always the one being bitched about? It's side by side with blaming the victim. The one who makes the fuss is the one who is disliked.

Note that Hillary's negative comments have been mostly mild and humorous, or thoughtful and serious without any frontal attack. You don't see that "right wing conspiracy" stuff. She's learned from Bill who never has a bad word to say about anybody. He ALWAYS looks for something nice he can say, even about George. Even about the superpricks who made his White House tenure a living hell. (I am so not like him.)

Most voters are smarter than than most jury members.

;-)

And, that you need to look at Iowa and New Hampshire, the states that are paying close attention, and where the race is pretty much within the margin of error. Zogby was being interviewed on the POTUS '08 XM channel on satellite radio.

:crazy:

(And why do you have to bring facts into the discussion? :P )

I haven't seen individual state polls for Iowa and NH posted in awhile. You would think the media was playing us again.

sort of surprising, actually. you hear all the time that
debates don't move numbers, but I have never believed it.

or maybe the MSM is overblowing both "the fight" and "the
stumble".

it would also seem to demonstrate that hillary's support is
firmer than people would want you to believe.

They made it out to be about the "fight" and "attackers" so any policy differences sort of got blended away into just politics as usual and desperate candidates behind in the polls attacking Hillary.

when he said before the debate that he was going to draw
distinctions and be more aggressive. the MSM pounced on
that, and the story from that point on was predestined to
be all about "the fight".

the MSM craves a horserace to cover, and if they can't have
that (and they don't right now), they will settle for a fight.

in effect, I think obama stepped on his own story.

but all things considered, I thought it pretty civil.

The campaign has been going on so long and there have eben so many debates that most people are bored and tired of it all. No more than a million or two hardcore political junkies who are already firmly in one camp or another watch the debates. The truth is nobody cares about them. They have no real meaning.

If anything the debates can be used to Hillary's advantage for fundraising to rally her supporters not to be complacent because of her large lead in the polls. They will have to work as hard and harder than all the other campaigns because everyone is attacking her and she is under the gun. This is good for Hillary. Awakening the sleeping giant is good. Complacency is always a risk in frontrunner campaigns.

Having 6 men attack her also gives her the moral justification and high ground to go negative in a big way if she believes she has to and she has about $40 million cash on hand for negative advertising if she has to.

What are the other candidates going to do whine she is going negative? She won't go negative unless she feels clearly threatened in the polls and that hasn't happened yet but the door is open. The Clinton machine is at its best in war room type politics. She is in it to win it. If she feels she has to get down and dirty, she will and I wouldn't want to be Edwards or Obama when that happens. The Clinton's have the best opposition research team in the business. If Edwards or Obama had one incautious fart in the last 2 years, the clinton's know about it.

although I'm not sure how much stock I put in iowa in the
first place . . . . but we have been saying "it's early"
for a long time now, and it just isn't anymore.

and I originally thought that hillary would nuke obama and
edwards after the "initial contact" in the last debate, but
she seems to be holding her fire. no one does negative as
well as Team Clinton.

The polls show there has been no change in her standing. The attacks have backfired. She looks more presidential being above the attacks and maintaining the high ground.

But make no mistake about it, if the Clinton team feels the attacks are gaining some traction and jeopordizing her lead, they'll go negative in a big way.

I think what they are doing is saving the negative stuff as a contingency plan. They will only go negative if they have to.

They don't have to yet.

when you're up by 20 points, there is no reason to change anything
that you are doing. I just expected the numbers to move after the
last debate.

The Republicans will go negative, and unless the potentially negative stuff has not been aired during the primary, we could find ourselves surprised by ugly stuff. I want to know about all the candidates, the good, the bad, the ugly. We can't afford to lose this election because of something we should have but did not find out about our candidate until October. We do not need an October Surprise in 2008 that reveals some negative thing about our candidate that we did not know. So, whoever is in the lead has to expect to have his or her faults thrown in his or her face. That is a good thing.

presidential campaign should Hillary win the primaries. Are we going to hear complaints about the attacks of the Republicans for the nine months from February to November? Heaven forbid. I'd like to hear about th issues every once in a while during the campaign and not just on and on about how everybody is being unfair and beating up on Hillary. I wish Hillary would not run. She is going to ruin our chances of winning. She is such a bad choice as a candidate. If she were the only qualified Democrat, I'd support her as a last resort. But we have other choices, better choices who don't draw the ire of the right wing like a lightening rod. Can't we for once do something unpredictable and get a fighter for a candidate -- someone like say John Edwards. Please, please, folks. Wake up to what is going on. We have to win in 2008. We won't have a country. We may not even have a planet if we don't. Don't risk the election on Hillary, the most hated of all the candidates on either side. Check out her negatives.

I had a hunch that the increase in DUers supporting Biden was just hot air and not much else.