Clinton: Polls Showing Sanders Could Beat Trump "Mean Nothing To Me"

[IceSpear]

No seasoned politicians care about polls this early, except to the extent in which it shapes their campaign's strategy. As Hillary said, if they didn't care about the electability argument coming from a longstanding figure in the party who arguably won the popular vote, why would they care about it now?

http://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2008/Obama/Maps/Jun03.html (Obama 276, McCain 238)
http://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2008/Clinton/Maps/Jun03.html (Clinton 327, McCain 174)

[IceSpear]

And for a while, Ted Cruz and John Kasich were doing better than Trump in the general election polling.

Remember the electable titan Ben Carson? LOL

[IceSpear]

Clinton herself was polling better than Obama after it was obvious that she lost the nomination in 2008 and Republicans stopped attacking her.

Remember this ad McCain released?

https://youtu.be/3NrQ36Djf2E

Republicans constantly kissing your butt or ignoring you because they know you're no threat raises your poll numbers. Who would've thought?!

[IceSpear]

Clinton herself was polling better than Obama after it was obvious that she lost the nomination in 2008 and Republicans stopped attacking her.

No

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationwide_opinion_polling_for_the_United_States_presidential_election,_2008#Democratic_nominee_vs._Republican_nominee_2

The final two polls in that link both show her doing better. And that also overlaps with the mid May/late May/early June state polls I linked to that showed her doing better.

Sorry jfern, she was objectively polling better in the final few weeks of the race.

[IceSpear]

Clinton herself was polling better than Obama after it was obvious that she lost the nomination in 2008 and Republicans stopped attacking her.

No

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationwide_opinion_polling_for_the_United_States_presidential_election,_2008#Democratic_nominee_vs._Republican_nominee_2

The final two polls in that link both show her doing better. And that also overlaps with the mid May/late May/early June state polls I linked to that showed her doing better.

Sorry jfern, she was objectively polling better in the final few weeks of the race.

That's some serious cherry-picking. The last 2 have her doing 1 and 4 points better. The previous 2 have Obama doing 9 and 6 points better. The average of the May polls was a slight Obama advantage.

Dude, you actually have to look at the field dates. Maybe Obama was doing better in early May, who cares? My point is that she was objectively doing better in mid to late May and early June, as the totality of the sparse national polls (and the much more abundant state polls) showed.

[IceSpear]

Hillary admittedly has a point. She's been the subject of attacks from the national GOP and conservative groups for almost 25 straight years without cease. Bernie has had a few afterthought swipes from commentators and candidates about being an avowed socialist. There woud be tremendous opportunity, material and resources to drive his negatives way up if the GOP needed to, but it knows it won't.

All it would take is a few months of truth telling and education on socialism  and Sanders would be McGovern 2.0

Hes 74 years old and never had a chance in hell to beat Hillary .  

If Sanders was nominated he might just be the weakest and most humiliating candidate the democratic party has ever put up.  James Cox and George McClellan are the only two I can think of who might be weaker.  Cox did a perfectly reasonable job in his election and wasn't a damaging candidate, he was just kind of an inexperienced blank slate and got absolutely obliterated because the country was doing so well and nobody wanted to switch parties.  McClellan is one of the worst generals in American history, but he was hurt more by the asinine anti-war platform the democratic party put up and the withdrawal of John C. Frémont than by any ineptitudes of his own.  McGovern was a miserable radical as well, and his "just give everyone $1000" proposal sounded even more flatly ridiculous than Sanders' ideas, but he never truly gave away his dignity, embraced the label of an extremist, inspired and defended civil disorder in his name, or attacked his own party the way Sanders has, although the party absolutely despised him afterwards anyway for being such a bumblef**k.

On another note I'm happy to see Clinton finally getting more aggressive just in general.  She's been so uncharacteristically nice and inclusive this entire election.  I want to see a 3 AM phone call commercial and her deputies blitzing the media with Reverend Wright and cokehead Obama like they did in 2008.  Take your damn gloves off already girl!

She has no need to take the gloves off because she's never really been in much danger. If she's trailing Trump in the fall, get ready for the fireworks.

[IceSpear]

This is the kind of attitude that might make her loose the election. Does she not know that this condescending tone just turns off Bernie voters from considering her?

What is she supposed to say? "Yes, he may be the stronger candidate?"

First you guys accuse Hillary of telling lies. Now she tells the truth and she's not being tactful enough. Some of these Sanders folks are so entitled, seriously. He lost. Hillary owes him nothing. And if it hurts your feelings when she assesses the situation honestly, it beats me how Bernbots could ever expect to actually face Trump from a position of strength.

Sanders has a base of support, whether Hillary and her team of establishment muppets like it or not. When she was in a similar position, she got State. What is she offering Bernie and his supporters? The same thing she's getting from them right now: a raised finger.

Are you implying Hillary would not have supported Obama if he didn't offer her a cabinet position?

I mean, the DNC and Democratic establishment treated Hillary and her supporters far worse in 2008 than they're treating Bernie and his supporters now, despite the fact that she performed far better than he did. People were constantly calling for her to drop out in the name of "party unity", very few people have called on Sanders to do so. Her supporters were constantly slandered as racists. They were also given no concessions in the platform and/or process which Sanders is almost certain to get, they were simply told to shut up and get in line.

So really, if anything, Hillary and the DNC have been relatively magnanimous and exceedingly kind.

[IceSpear]

Clinton herself was polling better than Obama after it was obvious that she lost the nomination in 2008 and Republicans stopped attacking her.

No

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationwide_opinion_polling_for_the_United_States_presidential_election,_2008#Democratic_nominee_vs._Republican_nominee_2

The final two polls in that link both show her doing better. And that also overlaps with the mid May/late May/early June state polls I linked to that showed her doing better.

Sorry jfern, she was objectively polling better in the final few weeks of the race.

That's some serious cherry-picking. The last 2 have her doing 1 and 4 points better. The previous 2 have Obama doing 9 and 6 points better. The average of the May polls was a slight Obama advantage.

Dude, you actually have to look at the field dates. Maybe Obama was doing better in early May, who cares? My point is that she was objectively doing better in mid to late May and early June, as the totality of the sparse national polls (and the much more abundant state polls) showed.

It really varied poll to poll who did better. It's really dishonest to claim that there was much difference once averaged.

Okay, I guess I have to do this...

Let's look at polls conducted in the final 2 weeks of the race, and who performed better. The only two national polls had her doing 4 points and 1 point better, but there was an abundance of state polls during this time.

State polls:
ME: Tie
NY: C+1
OH: C+8
CO: O+9
FL: C+16
MO: C+5
NC: C+14
UT: O+10
VA: O+1
CA: C+5
FL: C+11
NV: C+11
OH: C+11
PA: C+7
MS: O+4
CT: O+14
NH: C+5
PA: C+9
AZ: O+4
CA: O+4
NE: O+2
NV: C+10
MT: O+3
MN: Tie
KY: C+34
MS: O+4
CA: Tie
NY: C+11
WA: O+1
LA: C+2
MA: C+17
CT: C+3


Here it is in map form:

Looks pretty decisive to me. The person performing far better in Florida, Ohio, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Nevada, New Hampshire, and North Carolina vs. the person performing far better in Colorado and a hair better in Virginia. Hmm...who was more electable?!

[IceSpear]

Oh I know, I'm not saying she needs to right now.  Just that I want to see it.  I'm hungry for some good old fashioned Clinton war games, the inclusive mother-bird Hillary is boring.

Lately I've been wondering what the fallout would be if she literally said "f-ck you" to Trump's face. Honestly, I see few downsides.

Imagine if, at the first debate, Trump straight-up calls her an enabler and woman-hater for being angry at her husband's mistresses.

"I've only said this to one other person: my husband. It was in a moment of real anguish. I cannot explain the feelings of betrayal and anger I felt when I found out my husband had been cheating on me and disrespecting me the way he was. I hope no one has to feel that, but those women who have sadly been in the same situation know exactly what I mean. And for you, Donald Trump, womanizer extraordinaire, to stand here and lecture me for simply having these feelings...  I'll say it again: F-ck you. You would be an insult to the office of the presidency."

BOOM.

One can dream.

That would be amazingly epic. Would only be worth it if she needed a gamechanger though. It could definitely cause a backlash among the sexist American public.

Also, that Politifact article was hilarious. It even states that Hillary has had about 1000x as much negative ads and attacks against her than Bernie, but rates it as false because apparently Martin O'Malley (lol) ran a stupid ad against him that he probably couldn't even afford to get on the air. Weak sauce. They really should focus on the point of the matter rather than quibbling about small and irrelevant details.

Oh, and that some guy in Vermont ran ads against him. If only Vermont could be extrapolated to the entire country, Democrats would never lose an election ever again! (unless it was to a left wing third party)

[IceSpear]

Were there really that many state polls in 2 weeks? Or were those the latest poll, even if it was from a year before?

Yep, they were all within 2 weeks. Polls were a lot more frequent back in 2008, for whatever reason. If you scroll along hitting "next report" from May 20th until June 3rd, you'll see all the polls I used.

http://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2008/Obama/Maps/May20.html
http://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2008/Clinton/Maps/May20.html

[IceSpear]

I don't know what your source is. They're all listed here if you scroll down:

http://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2008/Obama/Maps/Jun03.html
http://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2008/Clinton/Maps/Jun03.html

Here is corroboration on the Connecticut poll in late May. It had Obama up 3 and Clinton up 6, thus the C+3 in my list. On second look though, I actually accidentally used the Quinnipiac poll from March as well, so CT should've been red on the map rather than green.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/ct/connecticut_mccain_vs_clinton-526.html
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/ct/connecticut_mccain_vs_obama-527.html