So, what does it mean?

According to new Gallup polls a significant portion of democrats will vote for McCain if their chosen candidate does not win the 2008 democratic nomination.

I found the results of the poll to be quite shocking and to be a little misleading. I highly doubt that die hard democrats would really vote for McCain if their chosen candidate didn’t make it on the ticket. Especially those democrats that are completely opposed to the Iraq war wouldn’t automatically vote for a war mongering McCain. It is also necessary to point out the fundamental flaw in any poll: There is a difference between what people say they will do and what they actually do. This poll is obviously very emotionally driven and is not necessarily an accurate representation on who people will vote for in 8 months. I’d be interested to see how old these voters were and for these results to be expanded upon.

Although the questions may be flawed and the entire poll may seem ridiculous, the implications of the polls results are interesting in both a positive a negative light:

Positive: The democratic candidates have formed a strong connection with their future? constituents. This connection seems to be on a greater personal level. In some ways this creates are more motivated and representative democracy. People have become passionate about their candidate and truly believe in the candidate’s message. This creates an “all or nothing” type of situation. A supporter wants their candidate to win and that is that. This could mean that Obama and Clinton feel more obligated to their supporters and this promotes more accountability to the candidates to actually do what they say they are going to do.

Negative: The poll proved that the Democratic Party has become increasingly dis-unified. Instead of focusing on the overall picture of a strong democratic party, the candidates haven’t wasted a minute bashing the other one. Each candidate has claimed they only want the best nominee to win the democratic ticket, but at what cost? The unification of the Democratic Party? If the democratic voters can be so easily swung now, then it will only get worse over the next few months. Soon people will feel disenfranchised from the entire party and not vote at all. If the Democrats don’t pull it together by August when they head the convention they’ll be headed face first down a steep cliff. While the democrats wage war on one another, the McCain camp gets to sit back and enjoy the view. Not only can he enjoy the view, but he can also use the fragility of the Democratic Party to his advantage. He can easily claim that Clinton or Obama should not be the next president because they could not even get their party together. The McCain camp doesn’t need to dig up any dirt on any of the candidates because the democrats are doing it for him! McCain has been given a head start on his presidential campaign and can use this time to focus on the larger picture of winning the 2008 election.

Does supporting one candidate mean you have to completely oppose the other especially if they are of the same party? And why does this seem to be the case in these polls? Clinton and Obama only have minimal difference but yet they appear to be completely opposite from one another. Perhaps these framed perceptions of the candidates have influenced people to think that they are much different than they actually are. The media has thrived on creating this war between Obama and Clinton and this might have been a reason why people feel so strongly about their candidate, and furthermore, why a democrat would be willing to “betray” their party and vote for McCain. You’d think there would have been a greater divide in the Republican party because McCain differed so much from the other candidates.

I wonder, if circumstances were different, if these same democrats who abandoned their party if their chosen candidate did not win the primary, would vote for Dick Cheney instead? If the answer is yes, then the Democratic Party is even worse shape than I thought.