Unprompted, 46 percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents pick her as their top choice, and no other Democrat breaks out of single digits.

The problem is, as much as I want Hillary for VP, people vote for the top of the ticket, not the VP. I'm not convinced that putting Hillary on the ticket would deliver the Presidency for Obama.

at 46, g. washington had been a succesfull surveyor, officer in the british army w/some modest achievements fighting in the french & indian war, ran a reasonably profitable plantation, been elected to the continental congress and, had been supreme commander of the continental army fighting the british for two years.

all this with litte benefit of much formal education, but much reading and studying on his own, with the able guidance of his older half-brother and his wife.

sen. clinton and sen. mccain, at 46, also had reasonably substantial resumes'. by comparison, sen. obama's is pretty slim. in fact, by comparison to almost every president, his is nearly nonexistent.

Can't vote for McCain.  Won't do it - he's not a substitute for Clinton in any way, shape or form.

Still waiting to figure out who Barack Obama is, what he really believes in, whether he can represent the interests of long-time Democrats, if he is capable of bringing the party together, what he thinks the party should look like, whether he will do the right thing and allow - allow - Clinton's name to be on the first ballot at the convention.  

I may not be officially an independent, but there are a lot of people like me out there, who are not at all sure we can vote for Obama, not the way things look right now.  We see that he keeps getting these opportunities to be the unifying force he claims to be, and over and over, he chooses to stay on the path of divisiveness.  At some point, one has to ask why that's the choice he keeps making, and what that means for him as a possible president.  I have to say, it seems way too much like Bush for me.

There are millions of us watching and waiting, observing and taking it all in, adding it up to see what we get.  

Plus, her daughter is running for congress and Whitman could have coattails.  

Is it too hard to imagine that of that 15%, which I got from CNN poll results, and again many of those 15% actually voted for Obama, that many of them also being more conservative dems just preferred Clinton over Obama and were voting FOR Clinton and not AGAINST Obama.

Some commenters in this thread point out that is how Kerry / Bu$h xliii played out--a split of the independents.

It seems that prominent operatives in the Obama campaign have stated that it is their goal, intent, & objective to attract a high percentage of independents (as well as GOoPerz & fundagelicals) in order to broaden the voter base & form a more bi-partisan majority.

If that is the plan, as frequently described, then the Obama campaign is not showing much success at this point.  To the extent that polling shows the independent voters evenly split, to that same extent Sen. Obama is not appealing to the largest possible group of "new" voters that he surely will need.

So, when they say they won't vote for the black candidate what reason, other than racism, can it be?

Number one, this isn't what people were saying in the poll. Some number of people said that race was a factor in their decision. The overwhelming majority of those who said that said it was one of many factors, not the only or the overriding factor. No one was asked in the exit polls whether they would have ever voted for any black candidate, regardless of who it was.  If someone had answered "no" to that question then its a reasonable assumption that racism is the reason. But you can't make that assumption just because someone didn't vote for Barack Obama. There are multiple reasons not to vote for him that have nothing to do with race.  

For an example, if I was being completely honest taking an exit poll, I might have said that race was one of several factors that I considered in my vote.(But, honestly, I would never answer that question in the affirmative, because I know that many people like you will misinterpret what  my affirmative  answer means.) I would like to vote for a black candidate, because I would like to encourage more black candidates to run and to serve. But that isn't the only factor I consider. I have to agree with the candidate's agenda and feel that the candidate's character will assure me that they will serve my interests, and their constituents interests, well. For those reasons I would not support Obama in the primaries. On the face of it my vote would be falsely interpretted as a "racist" vote when it is not.

It's as simple as that.

It has nothing to do with the next 4 years.  It has to do with changing the course of the party LONG term.

In spite of your defense, these people are racist because they are unwilling to vote for a non-white person, regardless of what other reasons they may have had.

Nobody asked these people if they were willng unwilling to vote for a non-white person. That wasn't the question. You can't make a statement like that and be truthful. You seem very limited in your view point. Things can only be black or white to you. There can only be one reason for saying that race was one factor in your vote and voting against Obama  in your mind, but yet you fail to realize or accept that not everyone thinks the same way you do.  

Why would you need to vote for a black candidate in order to encourage other black candidates to run?

"Nearly a quarter of those who said they favored Clinton over Obama for the nomination currently prefer McCain for the general election, virtually unchanged from polls taken before Clinton suspended her campaign."

Could it be because Obama's attitude towards Clinton and her supporters also remains unchanged since she suspended her campaign?

Remember kiddos: We're not an automatic Dem voting machine, you need to convince us* to vote for Obama (as opposed to trying to MAKE us vote for him). Screeching about McCain only convinces us not to vote GOP; halfway won't always close the deal.

Truly it seems that the soft sell is a lost art in the Obama generation.

Just to let you know, even though I am African American I plan on voting, again, for Ralph Nader.  For several reasons I consider Nader to be a much better candidate than any that we currently have, Obama included.  I do appreciate the historical context of his run but simply will not vote for him because of several of his views that I will not go into here.

One of the things that makes me maddest about the DNC pushing Obama this year is that the Dems could have had it all.  Clinton would have kicked McCain's butt in the GE.  Eight years of Clinton.  Eight years for Obama to gain some experience, to be put on the national stage, maybe even get some foreign policy experience in the Senate.  Then run in 2016 and the Dems could have had 8 more years.

They could have had 16 effing years in the WH, without dividing the party, without going with a 48-state strategy, without having the travesty of the RBC hearing for all the world to see, and without throwing the base out the door.

So the polling data are only interesting insofar as they illuminate the battleground states. Are the Democratic "holdouts" mostly in red states (as was often the case in 2000 and 2004) or do they pop up in the Rust Belt? Do independents in the battleground states view the economy or "security" as their most pressing concern?

While I think McCain's "credibility" on national security issues is vastly overrated, I do not doubt the perception of his credibility, particularly because it is lionized by the media (and yes, sadly, Hillary lent her prestige to that mistaken concept). If the voters already perceive that Obama is an authentic Democrat on economic issues, then his shrewdest Veep option is one that will shore up his credibility deficit on national security.

Majorities view both men favorably,