Georgia10 notices that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton received more independent votes than the entire Republican field. That favors Democrats heavily for the general election.
Barack Obama 272,488 56%
Hillary Clinton 205,572 43%
All Republicans 185,786
John "The Maverick" McCain is billing himself as the most electable Republican. I haven't seen anything that has made me believe that. I'm not convinced that Huckabee as a VP nominee will greatly help McCain with the base. People vote for the President. Not Vice-President. If that was the case, Spiro Agnew and Dan Quayle would have never set foot in the White House. John Edwards' appeal did not rub off on John Kerry.
McCain's problems with the base are serious. The fact that he is pulling less independents, in open primaries, than Hillary or Obama leads to the possibility to the biggest Democratic vicory in my lifetime. If Dubya didn't screw things up so badly, Jeb Bush would be the nominee. Jeb is smarter and would run a better campaign than any member of the current Republican field. Thank George W. Bush for screwing his younger brother out of the presidency.
It also must be noted, though, that since the GOP primary isn't really being contested anymore -- but the Democratic primary is the most contested one in ages -- independent voters are more likely to vote Democrat since they're vote will actually count in that side.
ReplyDeleteBut when both party's primaries were still being contested, the Democrat's vote totals were far beyond those of the Republicans. I'd have to check the exit polling data to see where the independents went on those contests, though.