Painful as it might have been at the time he was suffering the force of her campaign, there is no doubt that Barack Obama has Hillary Clinton to thank, at least in part, for his strength in states like this:
In Indiana, SurveyUSA has Obama with a 1-point lead on John McCain. A couple of other polls, including one conducted by SurveyUSA in April, had also shown a lead for Obama. But that polling had been done in the run-up to the state's primary, and the results frankly seemed aberrant. For Obama to continue to be battling Indiana to a draw is fairly impressive, and puts a state in play that the Republicans probably never expected they'd have to defend.
One of the happy by-products for Obama of the unusually long and intense nomination battle is that states like Indiana and Pennsylvania are more competitive than they might have been otherwise. All the advertising money and time that his campaign spent in these states during the primary campaign is still paying back. It's helped voters there get to know him much quicker than they would do otherwise - indeed some of them might feel they know this newcomer on the national stage better than John McCain right now.
Comments