Houston, We Have a Poll

I thought I was going to burst if someone didn’t leak a poll, but never fear, Obama’s people released a poll to the Hotline–why the Hotline? The big donors get their info from the guys who get their info from the Hotline. As always, polls by candidate pollsters are always subject to favorable questions and interpretations, but this is very interesting despite those reservations:

A Harstad Strategic Research (D) poll obtained by Hotline; conducted 3/25-31 for state Sen. Barack Obama (D); surveyed 806 likely voters; margin of error +/- 3.5% (Hotline sources, 4/8). Tested: Obama and teacher/ex-investment banker Jack Ryan (R).

General Election Matchup

Obama Vote 52% Fav/Unfav 45/9% 73%ID

Ryan Vote 33% Fav/Unfav 31 /20% 84%ID

Undecided 14%

Pollster Paul Harstad: “Capitalizing on his sweeping 53% Democratic primary win over six other candidates,” Obama “starts off with a double-digit lead” over Ryan. The “pivotal” ind. voters favor Obama by a “significant 3-to-2 margin.” The Obama campaign “must raise many millions of dollars to communicate in Illinois’ expensive Chicago TV market as well as its nine other media markets, and to withstand the expected onslaught” from Ryan and the GOP. But “at this early stage” Obama seems “well-poised to continue on his historic rise” (Hotline sources, 4/8).

The 52% number is the important one to me–that means Obama is hitting about the same as Kerry. The 33% number for Ryan is interesting because it is below the Bush numbers and lower than one would expect from automatic Republican voters. The independent numbers are astounding, just astounding.

The one thing to keep in mind is that while I often preach about how Ryan’s name doesn’t matter, this early swing voters might have some confusion about who the guy is. That will clear up by election day.

Assuming the poll isn’t too far off (may or may not be a good assumption) Ryan’s problems only become worse. Supposedly the guy who could challenge in Illinois is fighting off a whispering campaign and bad poll numbers. Given he doesn’t want to fully self-fund, it becomes very difficult to fundraise other than through personal connections–and even those phone calls get returned less and less. He isn’t only going to get 33% in the general, but without some positive press attention, getting on message and clearing out the whispering campaign, he is at best going to reach Durkin numbers which were around 40%. That isn’t a prediction of what will happen because at this point I have little idea of what will happen. A candidate like Ryan should be able to get in the mid-40s. Being dynamic even though very conservative, usually gets you something. Right now, it isn’t.

Look for a poll leaked by Jack!’s campaign or Republican Senate Campaign Committee next week suggesting

A) the problem isn’t that bad
B) people don’t know who this Ryan is yet

Thanks to Ralph for the heads up that the Illinois Leader picked up on the story.

And check out Ralph’s great Illinois/Colorado blog with an even better title, Makes Me Ralph. He’s supposed to be on the front page–one of two mistakes in redoing the blog roll I’ve caught so far. Leader article is here.

The Ryan campaign said today that they weren’t surprised to see numbers like that so soon after the March 16th primary. They are betting that when middle-of-the-road independents become familiar with Obama’s stands on issues, they will re-think their support.

?We expected the first poll done after the primary to show us at a disadvantage, since Obama went through a primary campaign that never truly vetted his extremist liberal views,” Kelli Phiel, spokesperson for the Ryan campaign, said today.

“He is left of John Kerry on taxes, left of Hillary Clinton on live birth abortion and left of Governor Blagojevich on Second Amendment rights,” she said. “His beliefs are out of touch with even the most liberal members of his party and completely out of step with Illinois voters.?

Okay, who else sees the problem here. In a moderate pro-choice state you don’t try to define your opponent as too pro-choice–even if people are against late term abortions, it’s a losing issue. In a state with some of the more restrictive gun control laws on the books and fairly broad public support for those laws, don’t challenge your opponent for being for gun control. If most Illinoisans are reporting similar numbers for Kerry who is for similar tax policy to Obama, don’t attack him in that way. Just don’t, or you will lose and lose badly.

You attack by running to the middle yourself–which Ryan hasn’t done yet and painting your opponent as left in Illinois. So you point out his tax stands that are different than Kerry without mentioning Kerry. You dredge up votes he has that aren’t popular and might be defensible, but require a long explanation. You never play to his strengths and that is just what Phiel did. And for an early poll, you point out that independents are notoriously not paying attention so you play the Ryan card the one time you can get away with it.

The quote doesn’t define Ryan at all and that is leaving it up to Obama to define him for them–never a good thing to do.

Running as Bush or more conservative than Bush really, isn’t a way to win in a state where Bush is unpopular. To date, that is what Jack! has done. Even if you are more conservative than Bush you move the debate away from the where you and Bush are similar and towards local issues your opponent is weak. Phiel misses this. Even in you are serving up red meat to the Leader fans, you want to give them talking points that they can then repeat ad nauseum on talk radio call in shows or letters to the editors. These talking points suck.