Friday, July 27, 2007


Barack v. Hillary, If No One Hears Is There A Sound?

I rarely comment there, but I often lurk at Firedoglake. I find their crew to be very entertaining. This afternoon, Jane Hampsher posted an article entitled The Obama/Hillary Flap — Did Obama Win? She cites a brand new Rassmussen Poll indicating

that 42% of Americans think that the next President should meet with heads of nations such as Chavez, Castro and Kim Jong Il without setting any preconditions, just as Obama said he would during the YouTube debate, while 34% disagree and 24% are not sure.
Ok, at first blush it seems Obama comes out of their dustup better than Clinton, but when I looked at the poll a little deeper I learned that
just 34% of all Americans (and 34% of Democrats) know that Obama made such a commitment. Eleven percent (11%) of all Americans and 14% of Democrats believe the commitment was made by Clinton. Even that level of recognition is probably due more to news coverage of the topic rather than the debate itself. Only 2.6 million Americans watched the debate. Overall, 15% of adults nationally believe the debates are exciting while 58% say they’re boring.

Twenty-four percent (24%) know that Clinton refused to commit to such meetings while 7% believe that Obama was the candidate to do so.
If a tree falls in the forest. . . .