Watch For It... At 4pm.. A New CNN Poll Of Texas

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Yes, BHO is ahead in Texas, he'll win it, at least in delegate count.

Even with an Ohio loss he may win all the rest. But will the Clintons/ their campaign workers poison the well?

Posted by Kim | February 25, 2008 4:01 PM

A couple thoughts on CNN's coverage of their Texas poll (crossposted at TPM):

During the "Situation Room" today, Bill Schneider discussed a poll that touches on last week's debate in Austin. It's a potentially illuminating poll, and calls for some detailed analysis:

Texas voters that watched the debate supported Obama by a margin of 20 points;

Texas voters who followed news about the debate but did not watch broke even;

Texas voters who paid no attention to the debate went for Hillary by 20 points.

What does this mean? It could indicate a lot of different things. It could undercut the argument that Hillary's support comes from downscale voters (the debate-watchers supporting Obama cut across different education- and income-groups), or, alternately, it could say that folks with enough leisure time to spend 2 hours on a Tuesday night watching TV are more inclined to support Obama. It could undercut the argument that Hillary draws disproportionate support from the 55+ crowd (debate-watchers tend to skew older), or it could mean that Obama is making inroads into the Latino community (the debate was broadcast on Univision). I won't pretend to know which conclusions are the right ones.

One thing that is clear, however, is that the poll suggests that the more substantive information voters get about the two candidates (and this debate was an exceptionally wonky one), the more they tend to favor Obama. Was this touched on at all?

No, of course not. After describing the poll's findings, they cut to some dude in Texas (an author, if I remember correctly-- anyone catch his name?) to ask him about the results. He explains, most helpfully, that downscale voters look to the political process to "deliver" for them, and that's why they want specifics, and that's why they support Hillary. Upscale voters, on the other hand, want to "identify" with a candidate, and that's why they support Obama. Schneider assents: it's a question of "delivering the goods" versus offering a vision. Never mind that this poll seems to suggest the opposite conclusion.

This really isn't helpful. I wish we could just airdrop about 600 Jim Lehrers into the CNN studios.

Posted by DMS | February 25, 2008 5:58 PM