Webloggin » Clinton Behind in Poll So Naturally the Problem Lies with the Poll and Not the Candidate

Democrats have been courting independent voters for quite some time, as have their rivals on the Republican side of the aisle. So naturally you would think that any poll that shows a shift in independent voters toward a specific party would be a good thing for the party on the receiving end. That is unless you are Hillary Clinton or John Edwards, both of whom didn’t seem to gain as much of that independent bump as inter-party rival Barack Obama.

As candidates worked New Year’s Day crowds around Iowa, pollsters with Democratic campaigns — other than that of the poll’s leader, Barack Obama — doubted the finding that 40 percent of those planning to attend the Democratic caucuses say they are independents.

Democratic pollsters and strategists agree that more independent voters nationally have supported Democrats than Republicans in the past two years. Likewise, they are seeing rising numbers of Iowa’s unaffiliated voters show up as supporters of Democratic candidates for Thursday’s caucuses.

“I’m sure it will be higher, but that just seems impossible,” Celinda Lake, a Democratic pollster working for Delaware Sen. Joe Biden’s campaign, said about the Register poll’s independent figure. “That would be a revolution.”

The Register’s poll showed Obama, an Illinois senator, leading among likely Democratic caucusgoers with support from 32 percent, followed by New York Sen. Hillary Clinton with 25 percent and former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards with 24 percent.

So far so good. Even though Biden’s campaign is not the recipient of such lavish numbers his campaign is touting the results; but not all Democrats agree.

The Register’s poll showed Obama, an Illinois senator, leading among likely Democratic caucusgoers with support from 32 percent, followed by New York Sen. Hillary Clinton with 25 percent and former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards with 24 percent.

Obama had more support in the poll from independents than any of his Democratic opponents.

Clinton fared better than her rivals among voters who identified themselves as Democrats.

The proportion of non-Democrats in the poll, including 5 percent who described themselves as Republicans, sparked a quick repudiation of the poll by Clinton’s campaign.

Clinton pollster Mark Penn referred to Democratic caucuses in 2000 and 2004, when roughly 20 percent who attended were independents.

“So we do not see this poll as accurately reflecting the trends we are seeing in other polls, or on our nightly canvasses or in our own polls,” Penn wrote in a memo distributed Tuesday morning.

Edwards’ pollster Harrison Hickman echoed Penn, saying the findings were “at odds with known tenets of partisan caucus participation.”

“This matters because the entirety of Obama’s ‘lead’ is due to his advantage among non-Democrats,” Hickman wrote in a memo.

Once again the Clinton campaign attacks polls that doesn’t show Hillary Clinton in the best of light. This is becoming a trend for her campaign and is a strategy that the Clintons are adept at playing. They love to be on both sides of an issue so why wouldn’t they love to selectively chose when to love polls and when to dismiss them?

John Edwards on the other hand isn’t quite as cunning or perhaps the people at his campaign are playing to a constituency that they believe is, ahem, stupid. Note how the Edwards camp unleashed their internal pollster to diminish the results of the Register poll while simultaneously releasing a statement that essentially says that polls don’t matter.

Meanwhile, Edwards, campaigning in Ames, brushed off the results.

“I don’t need a poll to tell me we’re moving and we’re moving every single day and we’re moving in the right direction,” he said.

Hypocrisy reminder: Is this John Edwards?
John Edwards: Why yes it is.
Hypocrisy reminder: We are just calling to figure out why you hired an internal pollster if polls don’t matter anyway?
John Edwards:
John Edwards:
Hypocrisy reminder: Hello?
John Edwards: Is this a poll?
Hypocrisy reminder: Thought so. Bye.

The Clinton campaign on the other hand just releases their statements and move on as if they didn’t say them, but did.

Thankfully the Clinton campaign ruffles some feathers along the way by disparaging the pollsters who defend their methods with vigor.

Flashback 1 month ago, November 27. Zogby ran a poll that showed Clinton trailing most Republicans in a head to head match up while showing both Barack Obama and John Edwards in the lead in most of those match ups. The Clinton campaign was beside itself when it once again released internal pollster Mark Penn to denigrate the poll. The only problem was that Penn himself has been quietly requesting the results of that poll in advance. They had so much trust in it that they were trying to get the numbers ahead of the release to use to their advantage. But when that poll came back “bad” they suddenly felt a need to denigrate the results. Typical Clinton.

Zogby director Fritz Wenzel put this all into perspective when they shot back at Penn and Hillary Clinton.

Penn mischaracterized this latest online Zogby poll as our first interactive survey ever – a bizarre contention, since we have been developing and perfecting our Internet polling methodology for nearly a decade (Zogby Intreractive Methodology), and since Penn’s company has been quietly requesting the results of such polls from Zogby for years. We always comply as part of our pledge to give public Zogby polling results to any and every candidate and campaign that asks for them. What is interesting is that no other campaign has made as many requests for Zogby polling data over the years as Penn has made on behalf of Clinton.

Because Mark Penn is a quality pollster himself, we chalk up his contention that our poll is “meaningless” as a knee–jerk reaction by a campaign under pressure coming down the stretch. Several other polls – Zogby surveys and others – have shown her national lead and her leads in early–voting states like Iowa and New Hampshire have shrunk. This is not unusual. These presidential contests usually tighten as the primaries and caucuses approach.

Fritz Wenzel
Director of Communications
Zogby International

So here we sit once again. Hillary Clinton is trying to have it both ways; the only problem is which Hillary Clinton are we to believe? (Answer, none)