I doubt this is anything more than temporary hard feelings resulting from the intense, closely contested primary campaign. As Ezra notes, once somebody is finally crowned the Democratic nominee and these voters seriously consider the choice between that candidate and McCain they will come back around.

As loathsome as Kaus can be (for example, Americans must not have seen Obama's speech because they don't share his view of the speech, and aren't as racist he thinks they are), I think his pumping of the Feiler Faster Thesis is mostly correct: 2 months is an eon now.

Just think of it this way: From Texas and Ohio to Pennsylvania will be just 7 weeks. We are 3 weeks since those primaries, and just two weeks since Mississippi. I'm not willing to accept that a General Election wouldn't have a ton of news in that time?

Further, the chance that this campaign, in earnest, goes till the end of August seems far fetched.

And this poll only tracks Democrats, not the independent voters turned off by the daily Judas/McCarthy food fight.

You are assuming that all of these people are the unwashed masses. My boss is a huge democratic donor, the kind of guy who all of the presidential candidates make sure to invite to lunch and makes personal calls to Howard Dean to make suggestions as to how to deal with the Michigan/Florida fiasco. He became a big Obama supporter and now "despises" Hillary Clinton and will cross party lines to vote for McCain if Obama loses. Even extremely savvy people can get caught up in the vicious "my way or the highway" mentality. My point is that I don't believe that this insistence that people will cross is due to a lack of knowledge of McCain's policies. What I'm trying to figure out is whether this all just posturing or whether the cancer really runs this deep.

FYI, my boss also reports that among his community of elite party donors the Clinton and Obama supporters have stopped speaking to each other entirely over the last few months.

I fear you are very correct. Yes it could get better, but I don't see reason to be confident they well.

If we lose the election because of this, I think in the end HRC won't get the blame. She's just running for office. The party leaders who didn't end this early, who all they needed to do was say "50 of us will definitely vote for the winner of the pledged delegates" or any commitment, will be to blame.

Heck, at this point I'd rather Dean, Pelosi, and 100 superdelegates announce their giving the nomination to Clinton and ending the campaign now, rather than let it drag on till August (despite my preference for her opponent).

A lot has been written about whether Clinton actually wants to hurt Obama's chances or she just doesn't care if she does. It has also been more and more frequently suggested that her only chance of winning is to make Obama unelectable. Now I am beginning to think of another possibility. She doesn't really think she can totally sink Obama. After all, what could achieve that if even the Rev. Wright story could not? Rather, she wants the Supers to think that she will spoil the general if she is not the nominee by being a constant distraction, by thrashing Obama and talking up McCain, as Bill never fails to do recently. Look, the nomination may be over sometime bw. mid-May (best case) or August, but that need not stop both Clintons from doing what they are doing now. But the point is not that they WILL do this. The point is to make the Supers THINK that they will. If I am right, then this is as cynical as it gets. They are essentially saying: nominate me because I am so evil it's not beyond me to spoil the general if you don't, whereas this other guy is surely not as evil as that. It's paradoxical, but we know that in politics a reputaion for badness can be a good reputation. Now, I am not sure this is what is going on, much less that it can work, but then they don't have that many options left, right?

Sean,

Dean shouldn't be taking calls from folks that SAY they'd vote for McCain.

...but I think it runs pretty deep...an otherwise sane Obama dude said to me:

"If I vote for McCain in the General election and McCain wins I'm sure I'll never have to worry about that old bitch again and in 2012 Obama will be the front runner"

Obama would be helping himself politically if he would tell some of his more rabid followers to calm down and shut the bleep up. The above comment turned most of the conversation in the bar to "why are Obama's people so effing nuts"

I'm pretty sure the "Obama is God" crowd don't mean to come off this way...but they do.

Both Barak/Hillary are showing themselves to be back stabbers extraordinaire. The fact that each has repeatedly accused the other of behavior that they themselves are clearly engaging in seems to have escaped concern of the blogging generation. Both are sleazy politicos, that is why this is a backbiting bitchfest. Anybody who'd go to the wall for either one of them is a self deluded douche bag. On November 7, I expect to say "yeah, I voted for the creepy little bastard/bitch...scummy as he/she is it's better giving the election to McCain".

If Clinton is the legitimate Democratic nominee, I'll vote for her. But if she becomes the nominee through backdoor scheming or by waging a scorched-earth campaign against Obama, I'm staying home. Politicians like the Clintons -- especially the Clintons -- need to learn that their actions have consequences and that the party is not merely a platform for their personal ambitions.

Clinton has already said that my deep south state is one that "doesn't matter," so she's just going to have to live with that.

I have to say that whatever goodwill I have toward Clinton supporters gets turned around whenever I read comments like S. Brennans's. I'm not sure the poll cited in this post means much, but it is pointing to a trend in which Clinton supporters are more willing to ditch the party for the sake of their candidate than Obama supporters. Now that's a cult of personality! S. Brennan somehow manages to suggest the reverse. Obama's supporters are the rabid ones, whose foul language he does not dare repeat.

What gets lost in all this is that many of us are supporting Obama because we feel he is the more substantial candidate, and I say that not merely because of his prescience about the fiasco of the Iraq war. The groundmark civil rights legislation he passed in the Illinois state legislature requiring the videotaping of interrogations and confessions impresses us; his ability as a junior senator to co-sponsor important legislation on loose nukes and possible flu pandemics impresses us; his understanding of the incentives the government can and must give to "create" new jobs in growth industries impresses us; his understanding that freezing interest rates on mortgages for five years, as Clinton proposes, would kill the already tottering housing market and send us spiralling into a depression impresses us; his understanding that what we must aim for is a mandate on the government to provide health insurance to those who cannot afford it rather than mandate consumers to purchase private health insurance impresses.

On virtually every issue he has shown that he understands the economic, constitutional, and foreign policy implications of proposals better than HRC. HRC has the strengths but also the weakness of someone who is exclusively a technocrat. She will get my vote in November if she's the nominee, because a McCain administration is downright frightening. But I deeply resent the narrative that has developed that Obama supporters are starry-eyed syncophants. We've seen both candidates, listened to their proposals, and studied their position papers and on the basis of this research have decided that Obama's grasp of issues is better than Clinton's. All these factors, coupled with Obama's ability to move and inspire people, is what makes us so enthusiastic about his candidacy.

If this polarization between the two keeps up it may well force the winner (likely Obama) to choose their opponent (probably Hillary) for VP. I wonder if Hillary in the VP spot would help keep her disaffected supporters from defecting to McCain.

Dear tobie 3:20 PM,

Those thinking I am a Hillary supporter, you are wrong, I dislike the Clintons for EXACTLY the same reasons I dislike the politics of Barak Obama [Yes, Barak gives great speech, but then too, most of history's evil doers had that talent]. Additionally, both are vapid self serving souls who have never shown a trace of moral courage and as the campaign continues, each are showing themselves to be back stabbers extraordinaire. The fact that each has repeatedly accused the other of behavior that they themselves are clearly engaging in seems to have escaped concern of the blogging generation. Better to support your guy than to be truthful?

But back to the point of this post, the other night I was chatting with a Republican Big Pharma lobbyist, he was laughing at the fact that many Obama supporters were parroting Republican talking points. While I have never enjoyed his Machiavellian humor, I did have to admit that the Democratic elite attacking Hillary/Barak were being useful Republican tools...but hey, don't take my word on it, The Village Voice lays it out in...

Hillary and the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy
The strange case of conservative pundits and their love for Barack Obama
by Wayne Barrett
March 11th, 2008 12:00 AM

http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0811,374100,374100,2.html/full

The prime movers of both political parties have long tried to game the presidential nominating process—not only to choose their eventual winner, but also to pick their November opponent. And in this landmark election without incumbents, the media wing of the Republican Party, in particular, has quite visibly been playing that game. Right-leaning pundits for months now have very openly not just called for Hillary Clinton's head, but also coddled and promoted Barack Obama, salivating over the prospect of facing him in November.

Meanwhile, voters have been echoing that program: Barack Obama has been beating Hillary Clinton in part because Republicans are helping him.

Sixteen of the 45 Democratic primaries and caucuses held before this week were open affairs, allowing Republicans and independents to take part, and Barack Obama has won 11 of those contests. He almost invariably carried the Republican vote, which accounted for as much as 9 percent of the total in Wisconsin and Texas, and frequently ran even stronger among independents, who represented a fifth or more of Democratic primary voters in state after state. The 75 percent of the Republican vote that he won in Missouri, for example, may have pushed him over the top, and certainly, when combined with his 67 percent of the state's much larger independent vote, it delivered many of the district-apportioned delegates to him. Republicans in Obama states like Washington, Wisconsin, and Virginia were even freer to cross the aisle, since by the time they voted, John McCain had already sewn up the GOP nomination. While Obama often won some of these states so handily that Republicans and independents could not have provided his margin of victory, there is no way to know how many delegates in close congressional-district contests will wind up in Denver because of the impact of Republican or independent voters. And there is no exit-poll data to measure their impact on the caucuses.

Nor can the exit data reveal the motive for so many crossovers. These voters may have been attracted by Obama's message of transcending politics as usual, or they may simply have been trying to tilt the scales to help nominate the candidate they believe Republicans can most easily beat. In the lead-up to Texas and Ohio, Rush Limbaugh, whose radio show reaches 13 million, dropped his "mafia wife," "Nurse Ratched," and "testicle lockbox" descriptions of Hillary Clinton long enough to urge his listeners to vote for her "if they can stomach it." His rationale was to keep the bloodbath going. Up to then, he was unabashedly boosting Obama with the same perverse purpose. Obama still carried most of the 252,000 Republicans who voted in Texas—a Limbaugh stronghold—but his percentage dropped from 72 percent in Wisconsin to 52 percent.

Limbaugh is one of the opinion makers on the right who made little secret of his early preference for Obama. Conservative pundits slammed Hillary early and hard, exploiting every opportunity to widen the racial divide among Democrats. Though their party is so white that the networks have no ethnic exit-poll data to analyze, these reliable partisans have expressed shock at a number of supposedly race-baiting Clinton comments, with the New York Post's top campaign columnist even calling Bill and Hillary "modern-day George Wallaces, standing in the White House door."

Once Obama became the apparent nominee, especially after the Wisconsin primary on February 19, these same pundits began turning on him (though, it has now become clear, perhaps a bit prematurely). As often as some of them have declared that Clinton is the most beatable Democrat, their own agenda suggested otherwise. George Will may have inadvertently tipped this card when he wrote after Obama prospered on Super Tuesday: "The Republican Party's not-so-secret weapon always is the Democratic Party, with its entertaining thirst for living dangerously." It is possible, of course, that their hatred of the Clintons was all that drove these right-wing pundits in their early targeting of Hillary, but it's more likely that they were collectively so confident of beating the black guy in November that they became his unofficial advance team.

Since few Democratic voters—theoretically—should be affected by anything this cabal has to say, its impact on the nominating process has been, at best, indirect. But the right's talkers have helped to shape the way the election is covered. And even if they've only affected the margins, it's precisely those margins—in states like Missouri, or in district delegate fights, or in the narrowing popular-vote contest—that matter. Perhaps the more important point for Democrats is why these drum beaters have been so universally on the same beat.

I think I've seen that Barrett article posted at least one other place today (perhaps by Brennan both times), and it strikes me as thoroughly bullshit.

Oddly, I've seen a lot of "oh noes -- if the Dems nominate the candidate I don't support, I won't vote Dem. in the General" rhetoric on my wife's synagogue's listserv ... and the majority of people who engage in said rhetoric are pro-HRC and anti-Obama, but that is a function mainly of closet racism (judging by some of the language they use). I think that should it actually come down to Obama vs. McCain, fear of the kind of judges McCain would appoint would trump even racism amongst all but people who would not really ever vote Dem. anyway.

OTOH, the person I actually know very well, face-to-face (a coworker) who feels strongly about "I'm not votin' for McCain over the other Dem" is anti-HRC rather than anti-Obama. But even there, I suspect the HRC hatred will also evaporate once people start thinking about what a McCain presidency would really mean.

The lesson is, of course, we Dems. need to stop it with our circular firing squad and start telling people what a McCain presidency would really mean.

S Brennan...so what is your suggestion? Now that you've put out the idea that the Democratic primary has been choreographed by the Republicans, what are Democrats to do? Vote for Hillary, or pressure the superdelegates to choose her, since that would be contrary to what the Republicans want, based on the evidence you have produced?

I'm really concerned with what has gone on during this entire election thus far, since I do feel as though many times, the media has been playing a role in framing the narrative of both campaigns, rather than the campaigns framing their own narratives.

I wouldn't really read too much into these kinds of polls at this point. Since the beginning of 2008, virtually the entire political news cycle has been focused on the Democratic Primary rather than the Republican, which was more or less over by the end of January. There are tons of low information voters that are registered democrats and have been turned off by all the turmoil between Obama and Clinton, and don't know much about John McCain except for "he seems different from other republicans".

I've seen this first hand over the last week as I visited AZ, deeply McCain territory. I've met at least 3 or 4 registered democrats considering a vote for McCain in November. After a 20 minute talk with them, they swore against ever voting for McCain.

I think what is being missed here is that not only has all negative focus been taken off of McCain for months, but that making the case against McCain is actually VERY easy. A handful of choice quotes and in-depth discussion of his policy positions on Iraq, health care, and the economy was enough to swing the Democrats I met right back to reality.

This will not be a problem come November, no matter how long we have to campaign.

Veronica,

No I don't think we need to do anything other than stop playing into it using the weapons they keep handing to us. As for Hillary, I don't like either candidate, I think they are both full of it, but if you read my earlier post:

"...the fact that each has repeatedly accused the other of behavior that they themselves are clearly engaging in seems to have escaped concern of the blogging generation. Both are sleazy politicos, that is why this is a backbiting bitchfest. Anybody who'd go to the wall for either one of them is a self deluded douche bag. On November 7, I expect to say "yeah, I voted for the creepy little bastard/bitch...scummy as he/she is it's better giving the election to McCain". - Posted by: S Brennan | March 26, 2008 2:20 PM

You see, I'm willing to vote for either of the hacks.

Hillary's folks are okay with that, not happy, but okay. But Obama's folks don't want just my vote, oh no...not good enough, they want me to worship their golden calf...and ain't gonna happen

Blog left & Blog people are doing everything in their power to turn this into a Republican victory.

Josh Marshall, Kevin Drum, Matt Y... et al have all been saying what a wicked witch Hillary is...yeah, they're right, but what's their point, Obama shares the same flaws. Besides, all the above were pro-war dudes, that's hardly a crowd I want to follow.

Veronica asks what is my solution? Blog left, shut-up on the nomination subject, commenters shut-up on the nomination subject...but THAT ain't gonna happen.

What is going to happen is:

Either Hillary or Barak will win.

The bad blood will ensue if the winner will not pick the other as VP, or the loser will not accept....and THAT ain't gonna happen.

If Barak tries to smooth things over with a white woman, he'll get creamed by the McCain.

In fact, it is the VP spot for Obama that causes the greatest political problems for Barak, just about anybody he picks will seem to have more experience than he...and it's even worse if the VP pick doesn't.

Hillary has a similar problem with VP..nobody is going to want to be VP with Bill running around in the background.

BTW, Republicans who want to avoid the specter of prosecution for their crimes are working like mad right now to get Powell to accept the VP ...fortunately, so far, no luck. Because for those idiots who are keeping this bitchfest going...and here, I again identify blog left and their fans, whatever you think of Powell, if he runs with McCain as VP both Hillary and Barak stand a very strong chance of losing in a year where an old shoe could beat a Republican presidential candidate...

Other than blog left stopping their idiocy, the only way I see this working out well is if the convention deadlocks and Barbara Jordan rises from the dead to give the two rich kids a lesson in civics and oratory.

...and it ain't gonna happen....her rising from the dead that is.

Before all you faithful followers reply, take a moment to read a little about who Barbara Jordan was so you know what a REAL DEMOCRAT used to be like.

Barak on his best day would sound like a little boy next to Jordan's booming oratory, a woman who put meaning in her words.

Hillary on her best day, would seem like a pre-schooler when placed against Jordan's complete knowledge of law, history and ethics.

Both Hillary & Obama are spoiled children from upper-upper-middle class backgrounds, Neither has seen a day of hardship in their lives. Barbara Jordan had no such luck, but through shear force of will she became a Nobel woman.

Thanks for your response S. Brennan. I don't know who Barbara Jordan is, but I will read up on her.

Dear Bloggers,

I tend to agree with Mr. Brennan. I do think both candidates have gone negative. What I am really upset about is Florida and Michigan. I am one of those that if Hillary is not given a chance to contest Florida or Michigan I will too turn my vote over to McCain. It will be my protest vote. I am really starting to think that Barack is very anti-Latino. He talks about how the voices should be heard and that Hillary should not over turn the peoples vote. Only when it goes his way, then its not to over turn the people but, when it comes to counting Florida and Michigan he is doing the best he can to supress the Latino vote in Florida. How can he ignore two of the biggest states in the nation and still say he has the popular vote by ignoring millions of people. This year is very crucial for the latino voter. Whether it was a Republican plan to mess up yet again the Florida vote. No matter what the mess was. My take is that all VOTES should be counted. Why is Barack so, afraid of. Now if he wins Michigan and Florida I will be glad to support Obama but, to think that he can ignore millions of VOTERS. I rather vote for McCain!!!

How do you know these people aren't lying about their intentions as a form of political chicken? "Give my candidate the nomination or I'll go vote for McCain and then you'll be sorry!"

Carloz, above, seems a typical example.

Yes, these numbers just represent the temporary hard feelings generated by a tough campaign; they will go down as the real enemy comes into focus later.

Ezra has become a full-blown Obama surrogate, with the talk of a "cancerous", prolonged campaign. At least you are going to have a great excuse if Obama goes down in November and the recriminations begin; it was the pig-headed insistence of Clinton in needlessly prolonging a campaign that fatally weakened Obama.

Eh, I don't care what their party registration is, anyone who is voting GOP for president is, ipso facto, not a Democrat.

These poll results show that both Dem candidates are capable, to varying extents, of attracting the votes of people who would otherwise be voting Republican. That's a Good Thing, and indicative of a strong Democratic party.

Obama is NOT the reason why many Democrats will not vote for Hillary in November. Hillary is the reason why many of us lifetime democrats will have a hard time voting for someone whose BLIND AMBITION and sense of entitlement seems to over ride reality. She reminds me of a stereotypical spoiled pretty girl who wants what she wants and damn the consequences. I may have to hold my nose and vote for her, if her wicked game pays off, because I do not want to see Justice Stevens replaced with ANOTHER young ultra conservative and have my children grow up with a 6-3 Supreme Court. I don't understand why Howard Dean, Al Gore, John Edwards, and the rest of the Super Delegates are allowing this to go on because it is only allowing the divisions to get deeper and both candidates are wasting money attacking each other instead of focusing on the end game.

S.Brennan,
Obama comes from a single mother home and was largely raised by his grandmother. I didn't know that this qualified as "upper upper middle class" who has "never seen a day of hardship." Do you do any homework before you blog? Now what would you be writing about Obama if he were to take the high road and ignore the attacks of the Clinton machine? That he is a neophyte dreamer who can't or will not play hardball politics? We all know that if a candidate does not respond in kind to attacks they are viewed as weak by the body politik. The slimy yet subtle attempts by the Clinton machine to define Obama as the Black candidate worked to perfection in wooing the Hispanic vote. They sacrificed South Carolina for Super Tuesday playing on the brown/black divide to win California, New Mexico, and Arizona. And who can forget the Hillary 60 Minutes line "as far as I know, he is not a Muslim?" which helped secure the Hispanic vote in Texas and the uneducated white vote in Ohio. She also didn't even bother to campaign in black state Mississippi after her shock at Iowa being compared to it in "anything." Thankfully she has Governor Rendell and Ferarro and now the Wright controversy to capture ALL of the uneducated white vote in Pennsylvania.

Colyn Powell is still alive? I thought he crawled into a hole and whithered away after he lost ALL credibility with the American people and the world with his presentation on Iraqi WMD to the United Nations. I guess you forgot about that too.