Who Really Can Beat John McCain? (Pt. 1)

As John McCain has become the presumptive nominee of the republican party, the two remaining democratic candidates have argued extensively about who is better able to beat Senator McCain in a general election. Camp Clinton has been especially vocal in propagating this message (e.g., see this). Let's unspin the Clinton campaign's rhetoric and explain why Clinton is not the best democratic candidate to beat Senator McCain in November.

1.) Polls overwhelmingly show that Senator Obama is stronger than Senator Clinton in facing Senator McCain

Consider the following polls, aggregated from RealClearPolitics:


(From RealClearPolitics)

2.) Hillary is entering the election with the highest negatives in recent history and Senator Obama has shown that he can consistently attract moderates
Consider the following 2006 article from RealClearPolitics:

Hillary Clinton will begin her quest for the presidency with a startlingly large number of Americans holding a negative opinion of her--somewhere around 40 percent

Consider the following April 2007 article from the New York Post:

More troubling for her White House hopes, her unfavorable ratings have climbed 12 points since she entered the race, and now stand at 52 percent - meaning more Americans now dislike her than like her.

3.) Barack Obama has brought in thousands of new voters and donors, something Hillary and McCain have not been able to do
Consider the following from the LA Times:

As [Obama] battles Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton for the Democratic nomination, Obama -- a onetime Chicago community organizer -- is increasingly relying on donors [with small amounts of money] to fuel his campaign.
...
Obama raised $27.2 million in donations of $200 or less in 2007, compared with Clinton's $11.6 million, Federal Election Commission reports show.
...
Obama has a far larger pool of donors to turn to for more money. His campaign says he has 650,000 donors, manyjust a click away from sending more funds. Clinton fundraisers confide that so many of their contributors have reached the $2,300 maximum that it can be hard to find people to hit up again.

Consider the following article from the Globe and Mail:

Mr. Obama and his team understand this and are driving pollsters crazy by motivating Americans and drawing unexpectedly large turnouts in the primaries and caucuses. Many of these individuals are first-time voters - mostly young people and African-Americans, two demographic groups whose members have generally been less likely to vote because they have been less likely to think it matters. Mr. Obama is talking in a way that matters to them and moves them. He is convincing them that their vote matters and that they can make a difference. In South Carolina, the Democratic turnout was 75 per cent higher than in 2004 - and Mr. Obama, who was predicted to win by nine percentage points, won by 28 percentage points.

4.) Hillary is vulnerable to charges of being an establishment candidate and flip-flopping on the Iraq War.

Consider the following from the Washington Post (see also USA Today):

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton helped secure more than $340 million worth of home-state projects in last year's spending bills, placing her among the top 10 Senate recipients of what are commonly known as earmarks
...
Clinton supported almost four times as much spending on earmarked projects as her rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.), whose $91 million total placed him in the bottom quarter of senators who seek earmarks
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Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), the likely GOP presidential nominee, was one of five senators to reject earmarks entirely, part of his long-standing view that such measures prompt needless spending.