McCain has been more successful in rallying Republicans to his side than Obama has been in unifying the Democratic Party. Indeed, McCain is now garnering more support from Republicans and white evangelical Protestants than he had June, and steadily gained backing from white working-class voters over the last two months.Are the differences between Republican and Democratic support of their candidates based on different approaches to party loyalty or are they based on Obama's attempt to move to the middle and away from populism after the Dem primaries?
In contrast, Obama made little progress in increasing his support among core Democrats since June. In August, 83% of Democrats favored him compared with 87% of Republicans who back McCain. And the poll found that the presumptive Democratic presidential candidate was still getting only modest support (72%) from Hillary Clinton's former supporters.
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Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Support from Their Own
Pew opines:
The former...along with the fact that most people who didn't really buy into the Republican party already left to call themselves independents or Democrats; whereas there are many rural and Southern Democrats who are that way because their grandiddy was a Democrat.
ReplyDeleteBut Obama's numbers among self-identified Democrats aren't worse then they were back in late May early June, before this supposed shift to the center took place.
The latter. Obama has never been on board with a truly progressive agenda and since he became the presumptive nominee he has shown time and again that he is a corporatist through and through. He will not fundamentally change the things are done in this country and he will not challenge the wealthy and ruling elites. From campaigning for Blue Dogs over real progressives to supporting the FISA debacle to repudiating Wes Clark for stating the obvious to pandering to the religious right to show his prove christian bona fides and on and on, Obama has eroded his own tenuous support, and guaranteed that new support will be a long time in coming.
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