Hillary's "3am Phone Call" Ad Destroys Barack Obama, and also, Herself

Who does this benefit?

John McCain.

Hillary's ad has focused attention on the question, and most Americans say they want John McCain answering that phone call.

Looks like this one backfired on Hillary in the long run. Pundits gave credit for her win in Texas to the “3 AM” ad, but its beneficial effects for Hillary have been short-lived. She only has a nine-point advantage among Democrats on the phone-call-in-the-middle-of-the-night question, but she has put both herself and Barack Obama at a serious disadvantage with regards to John McCain. The question appears to have awakened the electorate to the fact that Presidents do more than talk about hope, change, and handshaking.

The crosstabs are absolutely hilarious. John McCain beats both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama among women, but he creams them among men — 51% for McCain, 19% for Hillary, and 21% for Obama. He wins in every age category except 18-29 year olds, and tops both in unaffiliated voters and self-described moderates, which both Democrats need. It’s as if Hillary decided to start campaigning for John McCain.

And I realize this is a bit of a double-edged blade for us conservatives, but McCain is beating the Obamessiah in attracting cross-over votes from the other party.

And yet the media just keeps talking up "Obama Republicans." Doesn't matter what the actual facts or metrics are; they want what they want, and they're not going to talk about downer stuff like this:

[C]ontrary to conventional wisdom, numbers emerging from polls and primary results show that Sen. John McCain — who has alienated conservatives as he courts independents and moderate Democrats — holds an advantage over Sen. Barack Obama in the race for crossover votes.

There are now more McCainocrats than Obamacans — about 14 percent of Democrats say they would vote for Mr. McCain today instead of Mr. Obama, but just 8 percent of Republicans say they would vote for the Illinois Democrat, according to a Pew Research Center survey on Feb. 28.

Additionally, 20 percent of white Democratic voters say they would defect to Mr. McCain if Mr. Obama is the Democratic Party's nominee — twice the number who would cross over if Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton wins the nomination, Pew found.

"McCain poses a clear and present danger to Obama in that he draws Democrat base support in historic numbers," said Republican strategist Scott Reed.

While Mrs. Clinton would draw far fewer Republican crossover voters and is making little effort to do so, Mr. Obama — who leads in the delegate race for the nomination — is making no bones about courting members of the other party. He tells a story at nearly every campaign event about Republicans quietly supporting him, which always draws guffaws from his partisan crowd.

"They whisper to me. They say, 'Barack, I'm a Republican, but I support you,' " he said in an exaggerated stage whisper last month after winning primaries in Virginia, Maryland and the District.

"And I say, 'Thank you. Why are we whispering?' " Pointing into the crowd with a broad smile, he said: "There's one right there, an 'Obamacan,' that's what we call them." Raucous laughter erupted from his supporters.

Cute anecdote, Barack. But the actual data are less helpful to you.

posted by Ace at 03:28 PM

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