America’s Presidential Idol: Rudy Obama?

Chuck Todd Chief White House correspondent and political director • Profile

WASHINGTON - If one were to allow 12 voters from a cross-section of life and ideologies to pick the next president, some combination of Rudy Giuliani and Barack Obama would be the landslide winner. At least that’s the conclusion of 12 voters from the swing voting area of Baltimore County, Md., via a focus group sponsored by the Annenberg Center of the Univ. of Pennsylvania. 

A handful of political reporters were invited to observe the group behind a wall. The participants knew they were being observed and knew they were being filmed by C-SPAN. (Sometime later this week or weekend, C-SPAN will air the focus group in its entirety including a post-game chat between focus group moderator, veteran Democratic pollster Peter Hart, and the observing reporters.)

While a snapshot of just 12 voters is dangerous to draw conclusions from, the focus group provided me an insight on some things about this race that I had been pondering, but hadn’t written down.

First, some of the big take-aways from the session:

• The group was more interested in a presidential candidate who provided a vision and leadership rather than one who had real-world experience. Hence, the very positive support for both Giuliani and Obama.
• The group seemed torn between wanting a candidate who provided hope and a candidate who made them feel safe. These folks aren’t happy with the country right now (thanks mostly to Iraq), but want to feel good again… BUT, they are still nervous about terrorism and still yearning for safety. In fact, Democratic strategists should take note of this single fact: When the 12 were asked to pick the potential president they viewed as the "safest" choice, 10 of the 12 picked Republican candidates (4 Rudy, 4 John McCain, 2 Mitt Romney, 1 John Edwards and 1 Obama).  At least among these 12 voters, Republicans STILL get the benefit of the doubt on safety and security.
• The longer a candidate has been on the national stage, the less appealing they were to these folks. Clinton, McCain and Edwards all didn’t do very well and, frankly, it’s probably because they aren’t seen as "fresh" or "new."
• It’s amazing the benefit of the doubt that is given to both Obama and Giuliani. The less they know, the better? Possibly so.

Heavy negatives
Now, let’s dig into the details a bit for each candidate.

Previous NBC/WSJ polls (pdf files) June 17, 2009 April 28, 2009 March 3, 2009 Jan. 14, 2009 Dec. 10, 2008 Nov. 3, 2008 Oct. 21, 2008 Oct. 6, 2008 Sept. 24, 2008 Sept. 9, 2008 Aug. 20, 2008 July 23, 2008 June 11, 2008 April 30, 2008 March 12, 2008 Jan. 24, 2008 More polls

The other big news from this focus group, beyond the very positive initial response for Obama and Giuliani, is the very negative reaction they had toward Clinton. If these 12 folks are truly a cross-section of the electorate, then Hillary Clinton has a LOT of work to do. Eight of the 12 said they could not support her under any circumstance and seven of the 12 said she has the "furthest to go" in winning their trust. The word "cold" was tossed around a few times by a Democrat and an independent member of the panel. In fact, when asked to give one word or phrase that comes to mind when they heard her name, the only positive adjective used was "determined."  The rest of the responses were negative.  By the way, Hart asked for adjectives on Bill Clinton and the responses were just as negative, with only a couple offering a positive expression.

Obama clearly was the "hot" candidate as far as this group was concerned. He was the candidate a plurality wanted to meet with personally -- more so than Giuliani or Clinton. And when asked, early on, (before information on each candidate was introduced), who they wanted as the next POTUS (President of the United States), Obama came out on top, with 5 votes, compared to 3 for Giuliani, 2 for Clinton and 1 each for McCain and Edwards. When asked what word or phrase comes to mind when Obama was mentioned by name, just one negative was used - "inexperienced." The rest of the adjectives were positive - "charismatic, smart, articulate, potential, independent and excitable" (It seemed to me the person was trying to say exciting).

Picking the president — the candidates Click a name below to visit that candidate’s MSNBC page • Joe Biden                 • Sam Brownback     • Hillary Clinton          • Chris Dodd • John Edwards         • Rudy Giuliani           • Mike Gravel              • Duncan Hunter • Mike Huckabee        • Dennis Kucinich     • John McCain           • Barack Obama • Ron Paul                    • Bill Richardson      • Mitt Romney            • Tom Tancredo • Fred Thompson To subscribe to a candidate page RSS feed, click here.

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