Michael Barone parses a raft of state polls to tackle the question of whether Clinton or Obama is the more electable Democratic candidate. Barone’s general conclusion:
Barone’s comments echo what I wrote the other day — that while Obama may have a higher ceiling as a candidate, he also has a lower floor. Read Barone’s entire piece for more on how Obama and Clinton perform in different states. Polls go up and down, but one thing has changed for good: many now realize that Obama may not be a strong candidate in the general election. In fact, he might not appeal to any more voters than Hillary does. If that is the case, the Democrats will be locked into a general election strategy of using negative advertising to try to destroy John McCain. They’ll need to make sure that however unpopular their candidate may be, McCain looks worse. So if Obama can’t recapture that old magic, prepare for an extremely nasty race. And for your amusement, an interesting graphic from Intrade. It seems as if the market thinks Al Gore’s chances of being the Democratic nominee have increased significantly in the last two weeks. It’s still only trading at $3, but it looks like a stock on the rise.
