Between Nov. 10 and Nov. 11, I set out to collect information about the party affilliation of diehard Obama supporters. The questions were posted on the main blogs run by the campaign, and I chose a period in which there would be higher-than-normal traffic of posters and lurkers so as to generate the highest possible number of responses. The occasion was the Jefferson-Jackson dinner, a marquee democratic fundraising event in Iowa which took place on November 10 and which generated great interest among Obama supporters.
My objective in this poll was to answer the question: is Sen. Barack Obama truly a candidate whose appeal cuts across party lines? By implication, then, how likely is he to win the White House if he becomes the Democratic Party nominee?
And the answers are a resounding YES, and VERY LIKELY.
First, here is the question I asked:
Which one of these best describes your political/ideological affiliation?1) Liberal/Liberal Democrat2) Centrist Democrat3) Conservative Democrat4) Moderate Republican5) Conservative/Conservative Republican6) Independent7) Libertarian8) Green/Other
By the numbers:
--104 of you responded;
--Together, those in the center of the spectrum -- identified as Centrist Democrats, Conservative Democrats and Moderate Republicans – comprised the largest pool of respondents, at 34.6%;
--The second-largest number of respondents – 30.7 % -- described themselves as Independents;
--Liberals or Liberal Democrats comprised 27.8 percent of respondents;
--There was one respondent identifying himself as a Conservative Republican, another said he was Libertarian, and five -- or 4.8 % -- identified themselves as “Green/Other, and
--Respondents who said they were independents were slightly more likely to describe themselves as ideologically conservative-turned –Democrat just for Obama than to say they were left-leaning. Other self-described Independents said they were ideologically eclectic, likely to vote on different sides of the aisle depending on the type of issue in question.
Some salient points:
--This is NOT a scientific poll; however, each of you only got to vote only once;
--You are all Obama supporters because you visited his web site to complete this mini-poll;
--The vast majority of those who responded are names that have posted here with some frequency, meaning that a vast majority of these responses most certainly describe definite Obama voters, and
--Trolls are not a factor because it is hard to sabotage a poll in which no answer helps or undermines Obama.
Comments are closed for this post.
