Either Obama or Clinton trail McCain Nationally

Yes, in “head to head” matchups by popular vote, some polls show Obama beating almost every Republican and Clinton beating at least some of them:

Obama

McCain leads Obama 45%-43% (statistical tie)

Obama leads Romney 53%-34%

Obama leads Huckabee 51%-36%

Obama leads Giuliani 51%-34%

Clinton

McCain leads Clinton 47%-42%

Clinton leads Romney 47%-37%

Clinton leads Huckabee 47%-38%

Clinton leads Giuliani 46%-35%

The electoral map doesn’t look so good either in a match up with McCain:

Clinton-McCain electoral map

We lose 287-251, with our losing Oregon, Washington (state) and Wisconsin, but picking up Florida.

Obama-McCain: electoral map

We lose 289-242-7, with Oregon tied up, Minnesota and Iowa flipping. But the pollster says that Obama is still not that well known nationally.

In other words, we have a problem, especially in the electoral college.

One thing good for Obama At least the Republicans are taking him seriously:

Dear Heidi,

Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are raking in the campaign cash hand-over-fist.

They begin 2008 having raised more than $200 million combined. In the first eight days of this year, Barack Obama’s campaign bragged they had raised over $8 million — and Hillary Clinton’s campaign is right there with him.

Last year, Democrat presidential contenders and Democrat party committees combined raised more than Republicans. Liberal special interests are raising hundreds of millions of dollars from Big Labor, Hollywood elites and radical protest groups like MoveOn.org to defeat Republicans in November.

Heidi, we must close the gap with the Democrats if we are to have the resources available to elect a new Republican President and Congress. Please help the RNC raise the funds we need to counter the Democrats by making a secure online contribution of $1,000, $500, $100, $50, or $25 today.

The Democrats and their liberal special interest allies will spend and say whatever it takes to win total control of the government. They are determined to push our country to the Left.

Whoever the Democrat nominee ultimately is, we already know their vision for the future. Both Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama want to:

* Implement massive tax increases that punish hard-working American families in order to pay for new government bureaucracies.
* Give government instead of patients and doctors more power and control over health care; and,
* Retreat from the War on Terror and cut off funding for our men and women in uniform.

We cannot allow a return of the high taxes, big government, weakened national security style of governing that Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama embody.

The RNC must raise the funds now to support our eventual nominee if we are to compete with the Clinton/Obama/liberal special interest money machine. That’s why today I’m turning to our Party’s top supporters once again.

Democrats

The most contentious part of the debate.

Fact Check of the debate:

In one of the liveliest debates of the 2008 presidential campaign, the three top Democrats slugged it out in Myrtle Beach, S.C. We noted some low blows:

* Clinton falsely accused Obama of saying he “really liked the ideas of the Republicans” including private Social Security accounts and deficit spending. Not true. The entire 49-minute interview to which she refers contains no endorsement of private Social Security accounts or deficit spending, and Obama specifically scorned GOP calls for tax cuts.

* Obama falsely denied endorsing single-payer government health insurance when he first ran for the Senate, saying, “I never said that we should try to go ahead and get single-payer.” But in fact he gave a speech in 2003 saying, “I happen to be a proponent of a single-payer health care program.”

* Edwards misleadingly claimed, “I was the one who beat John McCain” in a recent CNN poll. The problem is that there is a more recent CNN poll, one that shows either Clinton or Obama beating McCain and doesn’t include Edwards.

My note Obama said all along that if we were to start from scratch, he’d want single payer. But he is proposing at this time what will lead to the best care we can get, given where we are now. Some high powered people in the know (Robert Reich, a former Clinton cabinet member) actually agree with him.

Many are put off and disgusted by Clinton’s campaign tactics. Some might be able to vote for her anyway, others aren’t so sure.

Poll

If Hillary Clinton is the Democratic nominee for president, will you vote for her in the general election?
Yes
47% 202 votes
No
36% 155 votes
Undecided
15% 64 votes

| 421 votes

Not a huge sample, and this diary probably drew many of the anti-HRC crowd.

Interestingly enough, Obama has some Democratic heavyweights coming to bat for him:

Dear Ollie,

Stand Up and Take ActionI support Barack Obama because he doesn’t seek to perfect the politics of Swiftboating — he seeks to end it.

This is personal for me, and for a whole lot of Americans who lived through the 2004 election.

As a veteran, it disgusts me that the Swift Boats we loved while we were in uniform on the Mekong Delta have been rendered, in Karl Rove’s twisted politics, an ugly verb meaning to lie about someone’s character just to win an election. But as someone who cares about winning this election and changing the country I love, I know it’s not enough to complain about a past we can’t change when our challenge is to win the future — which is why we must stop the Swiftboating, stop the push-polling, stop the front groups, and stop the email chain smears.

The truth matters, but how you fight the lies matters even more. We must be determined never again to lose any election to a lie.

This year, the attacks are already starting. Some of you may have heard about the disgusting lies about Barack Obama that are being circulated by email. These attacks smear Barack’s Christian faith and deep patriotism, and they distort his record of more than two decades of public service. They are nothing short of “Swiftboat” style anonymous attacks.

These are the same tactics the right has used again and again, and as we’ve learned, these attacks, no matter how bogus, can spread and take root if they go unchecked.

But not this time — we’re fighting back.

And when I say “we,” I mean that literally. I know Barack is committed to fighting every smear every time. He’ll fight hard and stand up for the truth. But he can’t do it alone.

We need you to email the truth to your address books. Print it out and post it at work. Talk to your neighbors. Call your local radio station. Write a letter to the editor. If lies can be spread virally, let’s prove to the cynics that the truth can be every bit as persuasive as it is powerful.

The Obama campaign has created a place where you can find the truth you’ll need to push back on these smears and a way to spread the truth to all of your address book.

Take action here:

http://my.barackobama.com/factcheckaction

So when your inbox fills up with trash and the emails of smear and fear, find the facts, and help defeat the lies.

Barack Obama is committed to bringing our country together to meet the challenges we face, but he knows that power gives up nothing without a struggle — and to win the chance to change America, we must first defeat the hateful tactics that have been used to tear us apart for too long.

With your help, we can turn the page on an era of small, divisive politics — but only if next time you hear these attacks on Barack, you take action immediately:

http://my.barackobama.com/factcheckaction

The fight is just heating up — we won’t let them steal this election with lies and distortions.

Thank you,

John Kerry

Well, if anything, this primary is NOT boring!