If it's true, as Josh Marshall tells us, that "the new Gallup poll says that 19% of Obama supporters would vote for McCain over Hillary and a whopping 28% of Hillary supporters would abandon Obama for McCain," then we have a bigger problem with race than we do with gender.
This would seem to contradict George McGovern's claim that it would be easier to elect an African American man than a woman.
Or is it possible that some of those "Hillary supporters" were never really supporters, just Republicans who are causing mischief, some of whom may have voted for her in the primary, at Rush Limbaugh's suggestion?
If, on the other hand, these are true "Hillary supporters," then that tells me that Hillary supporters are far less loyal to the Democratic Party than are Obama supporters, and believe their candidate is entitled to the nomination, regardless of the poll numbers, delegates won, and the popular vote count, all of which put Obama in the lead. It also tells me that the Republican Party isn't the only party with a race problem.
That said, I don't think these numbers will hold up. When Obama is the nominee, either Hillary will support him, bringing her supporters with her to support the party nominee, or she will not support him, and continue to indicate McCain would make a better commander in chief, proving her to be a narcissistic, poor loser that she has recently appeared to be.
Furthermore, everywhere Obama has a chance to meet voters, his poll numbers go up. As the country finds out what a truly visionary and talented candidate he is, he will win them over. And as the flawed candidate McCain becomes unacceptable to the majority of Americans, no Democrat will vote for him. They may stay home. They may not vote for anyone for president, but they will not cast a ballot for McCain, the candidate who wants to continue the "You're on your own society."
So I'm not worried about what will happen in November, but I think this poll is informative in that it shows us some problems with a large number of Hillary Clinton supporters.
