Seriously?
I don’t even know what to say to this.
But there is some bad news for Obama. The poll showed that 66 percent of Clinton supporters — registered Democrats who want Clinton as the nominee — are now backing Obama. That’s down from 75 percent in the end of June. Twenty-seven percent of them now say they’ll support McCain, up from 16 percent in late June.
What exactly are these people looking for in a President? They clearly didn’t support Clinton because of her policies. Otherwise, how could they switch to McCain, whose policy proposals look nothing like Clinton’s? Is it about experience? Doesn’t make a lick of sense to me. Here’s the thing about experience: Ideally, it helps you accomplish your goals. But if you supported Clinton’s goals, how can you support McCain’s? It’s all well and good to admire his knowledge and political savvy, but why would you want someone who will use those smarts and that savvy to successfully enact legislation that you dislike? But there I am, assuming again that these people actually understand and care about the issues. My mistake.
The sentence-long quotes coming from the mainstream media outlets aren’t helping me understand this puzzle at all. Can anyone point me to a thoughtful, detailed explanation of why so many former Clinton supporters are going for McCain over Obama?
Hot Tramp is just another twentysomething Californian sending her opinions out into the aether.
August 26th, 2008 at 6:53 pm
This isn’t specifically an analysis of policy reasons as to why they would do that, but I found it very thoughtful.
Or, as Rachel Maddow says, it’s post-rational - so don’t try to understand it in a rational way.
Or they’re out for attention, and not really about Clinton or policy.
August 26th, 2008 at 9:14 pm
I like the term “post-rational”. It sounds much nicer than “naked stupidity”.
August 27th, 2008 at 12:44 am
For a mechanical system, I could theorize a set of conditions where a particular set of values would work best, but changing one of the values would throw the whole thing off balance; the only hope is to take another approach entirely.
As a hypothetical, because I’ve been thinking a lot about Russia lately:
Imagine that Clinton and Obama both oppose war strongly, and would do anything to avoid it, while McCain would not be as opposed. I can conceive of a voter who is strongly opposed to war with Russia, and would vote Clinton on the grounds that she has enough experience to get out of the situation safely; if Clinton is not an option, then McCain might be a better choice than Obama because McCain stands a better chance of winning a war with Russia and Obama is more likely to fall into a war and not know what to do about it.
August 27th, 2008 at 6:30 am
I tend to assume that among the important things these people are looking for in a president is a little quality, hard to define, but basically best summed up as “not being black”.
August 27th, 2008 at 11:24 pm
My experience is that many Republicans supported a female candidate over a Republican one. Once the female candidate no longer had a chance at the nomination, they went back to their Republican roots.
A few feel absolutely betrayed. One woman blogged that Obama winning the nomination was proof that the U.S. was “more sexist than racist” and she simply wouldn’t vote in this election because of it.
I also see examples of McCain supporters reaching out to PUMAs and the like, offering dinners and events, so I suspect the attention and the feeling that someone cares is a big player in this issue. They feel betrayed by Democrats, but then Republicans give them dinner and the media gives them attention, so they run to the side that validates them.
August 28th, 2008 at 5:54 pm
A lot of people don’t know what McCain actually stands for, relying on the fact that he’s a “maverick” who “speaks his mind” as confirmation that he supports their views.
August 29th, 2008 at 11:06 am
McCain just chose Alaska governor Sarah Palin as his running mate, so expect this to get worse.