Gallup Poll - Are Clinton and Giuliani Coasting on High Name ID?

by Lydia Saad

GALLUP NEWS SERVICE

PRINCETON, NJ -- Given the advanced start to the 2008 presidential campaigns, one of the uncertainties hanging over the process has been the degree to which voter preferences for the Democratic and Republican nominations might change as some of the candidates inevitably become more familiar to the public. Do the early frontrunners have a greater chance of being overtaken than early frontrunners in previous elections?

Gallup's initial polling on the 2008 race was conducted at a time when, among the current contenders for the Democratic nomination, only Hillary Clinton was universally familiar to Democrats. By February of this year, 98% of Democrats had either a positive or negative view of her while somewhat smaller numbers knew enough about her chief rivals to rate them. Eighty percent could rate John Edwards and 72% could rate Barack Obama. None of the other active contenders for the Democratic nomination have received more than a few percent of the vote, and can be assumed to have hlead even lower name recognition.

According to Gallup's most recent survey, 94% of Democrats are familiar enough with Clinton to rate her, 85% can rate Edwards, and 84% can rate Obama. Based on an aggregate of three polls conducted in July and August, 77% of Democrats are familiar with all three of these candidates, while 23% are not familiar with at least one of the three (generally either Edwards or Obama).



This adds up to good news for Clinton. Among all Democrats, Clinton currently leads the Democratic field by about a two-to-one margin over Obama. Furthermore, Clinton leads with 43% of the vote among those who are familiar with all three top contenders, compared to the 30% for Obama. Clinton also leads with 53% of the vote among Democrats who are unfamiliar with one or both of her chief rivals. In short, although Clinton's lead shrinks among the pool of Democrats who are familiar with all three of the top contenders, she is still on top.



The implication of these data is clear: Even as Obama and Edwards build their name identification among Democrats, it would appear unlikely that this increasing public familiarity with Clinton's rivals alone would upset her lead.

http://www.galluppoll.com/content/?ci=28486

unless one sees this as a plea that early polls based on old name recognition are still relevant. the "good news" is based on name recognition not on the presentation that the focused voters will consider vital near election day. This is still shuffling a lot of surface untimely opinion to argue that tea leaves can still work. This means also that Laura Bush remains the best dressed American woman because she is First lady which is good news because so many people are dressed better than her. And you can't remove name recogniton from early polls unless you can fairly make them choose between masked descriptions of candidates.

Things remain unchanged- which alone is good news for Clinton. What changed for Lieberman is that none of his name recog. Lasted or actually voted for him. What is the relative historical value? Is this a new situation? I can remember a lot of campaigns where the media and polling was not as rabid or at least not as known by circles of internet activists that never existed then and in those campaigns the frontrunner or the party leadership choice tanked out of memory and no names like Carter or Dukakis survived the actual voting process. Of the two both MIGHT have equally unsustainable support come election day for different reasons pertaining to the character of each party. EITHER might be propped by party organizations that succeed in alienating themselves from the voter while cheating them of real choice.

In short, anything can happen. So long as she steps carefully with help the sand might not turn to quicksand. The question for Gules is when, not if, the party organization decides to take him down. Maybe he is the crazy foil they actually want for the mess they made, but only if the overt Bush choices Romney and Thompson manage to fail. With the GOP incredibly Gules it will never look like a plain Bush defeat and the wildness might preserve much GOP power.

In this frustrating long wait for the actually involved it might be better to work for your candidate and ignore this endless, relentless, fairly useless speculation. Hillary's easy ascendancy will depend on whether no one else works to challenge the choice, now, and together on better criterion than inevitability that makes some in the leadership insularly happy but sour on the automatic decrease in popular expectations. What this all says if we focus the tea leaves on ourselves is that not even people more decided and studious than the upcoming electorate have made any effect among themselves greater than the shallow name recognition power.