You just have to chuckle at these numbers:
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) kicks off his general-election campaign trailing both potential Democratic nominees in hypothetical matchups, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.
Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) leads McCain, who captured the delegates needed to claim the Republican nomination Tuesday night, by 12 percentage points among all adults in the poll; Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) holds a six-point lead over the GOP nominee. Both Democrats are buoyed by moderates and independents when going head to head with McCain and benefit from sustained negative public assessments of President Bush and the war in Iraq.
When you check out the data page:
901. Generally speaking, do you usually think of yourself as:
| Democrat | Republican | Independent | Other | No op. | |
| 3/2/08 | 40 | 28 | 28 | 3 | 1 |
904. Do you lean more towards the:
| Democratic Party | Republican Party | (VOL) Neither | No op. | |
| 3/2/08 | 46 | 26 | 22 | 5 |
NET LEANED PARTY:
| Democrat | Republican | Independent | Other | No op. | |
| 3/2/08 | 55 | 36 | 7 | 1 | 1 |
With that kind of lopsided polling its a wonder Barack wasn’t 30 points ahead of McCain…
Sigh….
UPDATE
A reader left some other interesting facts about the numbers of this poll:
About 22% of the electorate sampled was between 18 and 29 years old.
About 17% of the electorate sampled was over 65 years old.
Even as bad as the exit polls have been, I haven’t seen the 18 to 29 year old vote equal 22% of the vote. It is probably closer to 15%, if that.
That age discrepancy accounts for a major bias towards Obama vs. Clinton. The results with respect to Clinton vs. McCain are close to other polls I have seen. The results with respect to Obama vs. McCain are not as close. But the poll is absolute garbage with respect to Clinton vs. Obama and Obama vs. McCain.
I would disagree with the reader on the numbers a bit. RCP averages have Hillary/McCain in a dead heat. But he does bring up an issue I didn’t look at. The ages of those polled, and historically those youngsters never show up to vote. They talk a good game but then move on to Wii or something else.
See author page