Fight for nomination may benefit Democrats

The jousting match between Sens. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., could have mixed results for the Democratic Party in November’s general election, political experts said.

Conventional wisdom has held that a prolonged intraparty fight for the presidential nomination will hurt the Democratic Party. With Obama leading Clinton by 171 pledged delegates, according to CNN, the Democratic nominee might not be decided until August’s Democratic National Convention.

Matt Grossmann, an MSU assistant political science professor and national election expert, said he disagrees with traditional philosophy because of a shortage of supporting evidence.

In fact, the battle might be helping the Democrats, he said.

“More people get to know the candidates, and they are at least in the news so people get exposure to them,” he said. “That’s especially helpful for someone like Obama, who the electorate doesn’t know very well.

“Attention is basically the primary advantage.”

Despite Grossmann’s claims of a lack of evidence, a survey of 350 MSU students conducted by Nat Ehrlich, a research specialist with the Institute for Public Policy and Social Research, revealed that 49 percent of Obama supporters would vote for Clinton if she received the nomination. Conversely, 77 percent of Clinton supporters said they would vote for Obama.

Grossmann said the opinions of MSU students might not be representative of the country’s population because young people generally identify more with Obama.

Steve Ross, Midwest regional coordinator of Students for Barack Obama, said he doesn’t expect the party to splinter over who is on the November ticket.

“America is ready for a Democratic president,” he said. “We will have a united party no matter who the candidate is.”

However, Grossmann said that November is too far in the future to judge whether people would remain loyal to a candidate or the party.

“It’s hard to know right now whether to believe people saying they wouldn’t vote for a different nominee,” Grossmann said.

“In general, if you vote in that party primary election, you are likely to vote for that party in the general election.”

Published on Wednesday, March 19, 2008