More Columnists

• Brent Batten: One marathon ends, another begins in Florida
• Jay Ambrose: A lesson from India: We must remain prepared to fight terror
• Thomas Sowell: Freedom, as understood by the far left, is oppression

Tell us about it

• What would you add to this story? Tell us what we missed.
• Do you have photos from this event? Documents we need to see? Share with us.
• Upload photos & videos
• More ways to get your stuff online and in the paper.

STORY TOOLS

• E-mail story
• iPod friendly
• Printer friendly

Share and Enjoy [?]

DENVER — Democrats were certainly energized by Sen. Hillary Clinton’s home-run speech Tuesday night and the energy level at the Democratic convention was clearly kinetic.

But the national polls are showing something completely at odds with Democrats’ spirits. Normally it’s dangerous business to pay too much attention to daily presidential tracking polls.

But early this week, both Rasmussen Reports and Gallup were reporting some pretty stunning trends. In a week when the candidate whose party is having its convention should be heading toward the traditional five-point bounce, this year’s Democratic candidate is in a dead heat or slightly behind his Republican rival and losing ground instead of gaining it. When I suggested to Democrats at the convention that this was fairly predictable, they looked at me cross-eyed.

All the hubbub over Clinton’s former supporters has focused on why her base, predominantly white working-class conservative Democrats and white women over 40, isn’t transferring over to the Barack Obama camp. But missing in this question is the difference in perception of the two candidates.

Despite Clinton’s claim that her supporters should be behind the candidate who is similar to her on the issues, the two candidates are perceived as being miles apart. She is seen as a centrist, moderate Democrat and Obama is seen as extremely liberal. Even the National Journal named him as the most liberal member of the U.S. Senate based on a series of important votes. The Journal named Clinton as the 14th most liberal member — that from among some 50 Democrats in the U.S. Senate, putting her much closer to the center than Obama.

So it is no wonder the Gallup Web site on Wednesday reported that Obama has been struggling to maintain his Democratic base thus far in August, and, according to weekly averages of Gallup Poll Daily tracking, the problem seems to be with conservative Democrats. Within the Democratic Party, Obama’s losses are primarily evident among the relatively small group that describes its political views as conservative. The 63 percent of conservative Democrats supporting Obama over John McCain in Aug. 18-24 polling is the lowest Obama has earned since he clinched the Democratic nomination in June.

At the same time, there have been no similar drops in support for Obama in the preferences of liberal or moderate Democrats. And the Rasmussen Reports Web site added that its daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Wednesday showed Obama and McCain each attracting 44 percent of the vote for the second straight day. When “leaners” are included, though, McCain picked up another point and now has a statistically insignificant one-point advantage over Obama, 47 to 46 percent

This is the first time since Aug. 9 that McCain has held any advantage over Obama. The candidates have been within two points of each other on every day but two for the past months. The Democrats nominated a junior, inexperienced senator with no legislative accomplishments on his resume that young Americans and latte liberals swarmed due to his cool, celebrity-like demeanor.

But then, those same Democratic leaders act surprised that Middle America isn’t following suit. How bizarre!

At times in Denver it felt as if there were still two candidates running for the Democratic nomination, as if Clinton was still running. This despite Clinton’s best efforts to unite her supporters behind Obama. I attended the convention’ Women’s Caucus event, where diehard Hillary fans were to be found in great numbers, talking to media and sporting Hillary paraphernalia.

On Monday night I ran into a lifelong Democratic activist and fundraiser trying to promote a story about “Obama camps,” where where young Obama fans were trained to disrupt and take over caucuses in caucus states. Then there’s the “get over it” crowd. But the diehards I encountered weren’t getting over anything.

The race is far from over, but Obama has a bare two months to convince Middle America he is not as liberal as his record shows him to be. In the process, he has to manage the very tricky track of not being accused of flip-flopping.

He’s already run right into that obstacle on taxes, on offshore oil drilling and on surveillance issues and has failed miserably to keep his liberal base energized as a result.

— Scripps Howard News Service