Reply #27: Illogic on parade. [View All]

[robcon]

"Sen. Clinton's poll numbers are not indicative of her actual support, not as a function of her gender but because she is the only woman in the race."

Huh? Are we supposed to assume that Clinton will change her sex before the primaries, or that another woman will enter? :wtf: The support she has now, barring any collapse of her campaign (certainly that's possible) will continue to be partly due to the fact that "she is the only woman in the race." Is that going to change between now and the convention? Are you saying her "actual support" and her support in the polls and in the voting booths of the primaries are different phenomena?

"Sen. Clinton's poll number reflect the fact that she is the only female candidate. Allowing ourselves to get caught up in her numbers as indicative of the inevitability of her success distorts reality, in my view."

Ah, that well-worn strawman argument... Clinton's nomination is the result of the "inevitability of her success." I don't know of any pundits who think Clinton can't lose. Do you?

The arguments about inevitability, on DU at least, come almost exclusively from Clinton detractors, not her supporters, and are used as a strawman argument (claiming her supporters think her nomination is inevitable) against her nomination.

"My secondary point is that her support will wane as others drop out and their former supporters are distributed among the remaining candidates."

Are you saying that Clinton will pick up "none" or "almost none" of the Richardson, Dodd, or Biden voters when/if they drop out? I don't doubt that she will pick up a disproportionate percent of women voters among those supporters, but do you think that these candidates, who currently poll at about 5% of Democratic voters, will be decisive, even if she obtains less than proportional support when they drop out?? Even granting that argument, if she can, for example, only gain 1 or 2 points from those candidates - what's the problem?

Clinton currently has voting intentions of 37-47% of Democrats in the last ten polls, and her lead is from 14 to 26 points, according to http://www.pollster.com/08-US-Dem-Pres-Primary.php

She can lose, and we've seen campaigns collapse before. But your argument that she will shed support as the minor candidates fall out, IMO, is sophistry in desperate need of facts or evidence to support your "feeling" or "wish" that she will not win.