Democratic pollster Peter Hart recently “conducted a focus group featuring 12 undecided, ticket-splitting voters in Colorado,” as reported by the National Journal.
In 2008, then-presidential candidate Barack Obama had won this group 10 – 2. Now, they weren’t so enthusiastic about the record of Pres. Obama:
”Almost unanimously, the participants said they’d prefer to hang out with Obama over [Mitt] Romney, but no one said that would shape their vote in November. It’s a sign that even if Obama holds a significant edge on personal likability, it’s unlikely to translate into many votes if they view his job performance unfavorably.”
Including those leaning toward a candidate, Romney led 5-3, with the rest undecided.
One of the recent memes of the Left has been the “likability gap,” whether it’s Al Sharpton hailing the president’s likeability, as in the clip above, or Chris Matthews and company talking about how nobody likes Mitt (see below).
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Said Matthews…
“A new CNN/Opinion Research poll asked, ‘Who’s more likable?’ A pretty simple question. The president of the United States, Barack Obama — or Mitt Romney, the presumed Republican nominee? Well, 56% of those polled out there chose Pres. Obama, just 27% for Mitt. That leaves some undecides, but 56 – 27 is serious business.”
In 1993, I was in Israel just before the Jerusalem mayoral election, and legendary mayor Teddy Kollek was pitted against newcomer Ehud Olmert. Kollek’s campaign slogan: “We love you, Teddy.” And all over Jerusalem, one saw bumper stickers reading, “We love you, Teddy — But we are voting for Olmert.”
Olmert won.
