I originally posted a link to the Clarion Presidential Poll directly from the home page, but after receiving some comments on the fairness of the poll, I decided to move the link here to a blog page so that people can post public comments. A number of Democrats seemed to think the poll is somehow slanted against their candidates.
The main complaint seems to be that I asked the match-up question by asking how people would vote if Clinton or Obama were the Democratic nominees. I did this merely for simplicity sake, since the Democratic race seems to be coming down to a two-way contest.
I could, of course, have done individual match-up questions for all the possible permutations of candidates, but the poll would have ended up with 100 questions instead of 10. I’m not sure I will convince partisan Democrats that no conscious slight was intended, but that’s the truth.
Anyway, here’s the link to the poll
After taking the poll you will be able to see the results to date.
Spoiler Alert: If you keep reading you will get the early returns based on the first 25 voters
McCain strongly favored, Democratic race tight
The first 9 Republicans responding to the Clarion Presidential Poll strongly favored John McCain over Rudy Giuliani by a 7-2 margin. None of the other four Republican candidates received any votes. On the Democratic side, there were 11 votes with Hillary Clinton edging Barack Obama 5- 4 . John Edwards received one vote and one Democrat was undecided.
Of five responders who said they were not enrolled in a party, two preferred Obama with Clinton and McCain getting one vote each. One of the unaffiliated voters was also undecided.
In the controversial match-up question, McCain was the only Republican who was at all competitive against either Clinton or Obama, although both Democrats were favored by the overall sample. Clinton bested McCain 14-11, while Obama was slightly stronger, winning 15-10. Mitt Romney was the next strongest Republican, but lost badly 20-5 against Clinton and 21-4 against Obama.
As far as issues, the war in Iraq and the economy were the two biggest concern, with over 70 per cent calling those issues “very important” in making their decision. The next most important issue was the personal character of the candidate which was cited by 57% as very important. The least important issues were illegal immigration and social issues which were each called very important by only 17 per cent.
Other issues volunteered included the Environment (by 4 people), Health Care (2), Controlling Lobbyists (2), and Social Security (2). The following issues were mentioned by one person each: Gun rights, Open Government, Poverty, Fair Trade and Human Rights.
For complete results click here. The poll will continue for at least another week.
The Clarion News Blog 