02-13-2008, 02:58 AM
Clinton or McCain? That's a tough one
By Shmuel Rosner
Tags: Israel Factor
1.
Analyzing data for The Israel Factor has become a habit in the weeks of every important vote.
Just before the Iowa caucuses our panel concluded that "On just three questions is there something close to a consensus: The panel feels that it doesn't yet know enough about Huckabee, and it also feels that it is familiar enough with Clinton. They are also certain that Clinton is the better Democratic candidate for Israel."
A week later, just after the New Hampshire primaries, the panel responded to our question regarding the Republican candidates and Iran thus:
"McCain, with his relatively measured response ['don't think that this wasn't a serious situation of the utmost seriousness in one of the most important waterways in the world'], was acceptable to all panelists. He got a score of 4 from all of the panelists save two (who gave him a 3 and a 5), showing that they all liked what he said, but weren't completely bowled over."
2.
Before Florida voted, when we realized that Giuliani would probably not be able to stay in the race for long, we indulged in some guess work, to try to understand how the panel would react to a two-way race between Clinton and McCain: "This month, there are three panelists who rank McCain higher than Clinton, two who rank Clinton higher, and three who give them the same mark."
So who would the panel prefer - a President Clinton or a President McCain? Here is your answer, for now:
3.
Understanding how and why the panel is tied regarding such race requires some explaining.
Here are two other questions we asked this week:
The differences are minor, and more importantly, the panel is in agreement: All the panelists but one gave McCain a 4 or a 5 on both questions. All the panelists but two on the first question and one on the second gave Clinton a 4 or a 5 on both.
If you want to see a difference you'd have to turn to the issue of Iran. Clinton got a 3.875 for her policy regarding Iran, McCain a little more, with 4.375. But what's really interesting here is to see the way the panelists who favored each of these candidates differed on the question of Iran.
The figures above in blue are the members of the panel who support Clinton for president and the figures in red represent McCain supporters. As you can see, Clinton supporters scored McCain almost as highly on Iran (two scores of 5, one of 4 and one of 3), while three out of four supporters of McCain for president gave Clinton lower marks (two scores of 4 and two of 3), dragging down her average.
As we argued time and again, for the Israel Factor, Iran has been a very good predictor in this presidential race.
4.
And here is another example. We asked the panel to judge to what extent they trust the candidate not to change their policy positions after the elections. McCain, again, fares better (4.25 to Clinton's 3.75), but look who's dragging her down.
Three out of the four panelists who'd rather have her as president don't see much difference between the two on the question of reliability. But of the four who think McCain is the better candidate for Israel, it's a mirror image: three rank him higher, and only one thinks they are they same.
5.
And there are also things on which Clinton fares better. For example: The question of "emotional attachment". Here, Clinton is definitely the favorite (she gets a 4, McCain a 2.125).
And even more so, as you can see, here even the panelists who generally prefer McCain see Clinton as the one more attached to the Jewish state.
What does it mean?
As we've seen in the past, this panel never thought of McCain as an emotionally attached friend of Israel. Some panel members think such attachment is critically important. Those are the panelists who'd rather have Clinton as president.
6.
And here is another good predictor of the Clinton-McCain race - but also a confusing one. A couple of months ago we asked the panel what kind of American involvement it wants in the peace process. Five said "like Bill Clinton or more," three said "like George Bush or less." Now look how these panelists voted, taking into account their answers on the current question of whether they prefer Clinton (blue) or McCain (red):
Apparently, the panel thinks Clinton would be more heavily involved in the peace process and don't always like that. Here's proof: When we asked more than a year ago how involved a President Clinton would be, three out of the four who thought she'd be heavily involved now prefer McCain. (The results below show a breakdown of how the panel scored Clinton when we asked this question last year, with those who now prefer McCain shown in red and those who support Clinton in blue).
Does this mean that the panel does not want a peace process? Not at all. As we saw a couple of months ago, it certainly does.
7.
Plenty of new panel data this week.
Yesterday we started with the more entertaining, easy, questions (True or false: Obama is pro-Palestinian, McCain will appoint James Baker).
Today we have Clinton vs. McCain, and later in the week we'll examine Obama vs. McCain.
By Shmuel Rosner
Tags: Israel Factor
1.
Analyzing data for The Israel Factor has become a habit in the weeks of every important vote.
Just before the Iowa caucuses our panel concluded that "On just three questions is there something close to a consensus: The panel feels that it doesn't yet know enough about Huckabee, and it also feels that it is familiar enough with Clinton. They are also certain that Clinton is the better Democratic candidate for Israel."
A week later, just after the New Hampshire primaries, the panel responded to our question regarding the Republican candidates and Iran thus:
"McCain, with his relatively measured response ['don't think that this wasn't a serious situation of the utmost seriousness in one of the most important waterways in the world'], was acceptable to all panelists. He got a score of 4 from all of the panelists save two (who gave him a 3 and a 5), showing that they all liked what he said, but weren't completely bowled over."
2.
Before Florida voted, when we realized that Giuliani would probably not be able to stay in the race for long, we indulged in some guess work, to try to understand how the panel would react to a two-way race between Clinton and McCain: "This month, there are three panelists who rank McCain higher than Clinton, two who rank Clinton higher, and three who give them the same mark."
So who would the panel prefer - a President Clinton or a President McCain? Here is your answer, for now:
3.
Understanding how and why the panel is tied regarding such race requires some explaining.
Here are two other questions we asked this week:
The differences are minor, and more importantly, the panel is in agreement: All the panelists but one gave McCain a 4 or a 5 on both questions. All the panelists but two on the first question and one on the second gave Clinton a 4 or a 5 on both.
If you want to see a difference you'd have to turn to the issue of Iran. Clinton got a 3.875 for her policy regarding Iran, McCain a little more, with 4.375. But what's really interesting here is to see the way the panelists who favored each of these candidates differed on the question of Iran.
The figures above in blue are the members of the panel who support Clinton for president and the figures in red represent McCain supporters. As you can see, Clinton supporters scored McCain almost as highly on Iran (two scores of 5, one of 4 and one of 3), while three out of four supporters of McCain for president gave Clinton lower marks (two scores of 4 and two of 3), dragging down her average.
As we argued time and again, for the Israel Factor, Iran has been a very good predictor in this presidential race.
4.
And here is another example. We asked the panel to judge to what extent they trust the candidate not to change their policy positions after the elections. McCain, again, fares better (4.25 to Clinton's 3.75), but look who's dragging her down.
Three out of the four panelists who'd rather have her as president don't see much difference between the two on the question of reliability. But of the four who think McCain is the better candidate for Israel, it's a mirror image: three rank him higher, and only one thinks they are they same.
5.
And there are also things on which Clinton fares better. For example: The question of "emotional attachment". Here, Clinton is definitely the favorite (she gets a 4, McCain a 2.125).
And even more so, as you can see, here even the panelists who generally prefer McCain see Clinton as the one more attached to the Jewish state.
What does it mean?
As we've seen in the past, this panel never thought of McCain as an emotionally attached friend of Israel. Some panel members think such attachment is critically important. Those are the panelists who'd rather have Clinton as president.
6.
And here is another good predictor of the Clinton-McCain race - but also a confusing one. A couple of months ago we asked the panel what kind of American involvement it wants in the peace process. Five said "like Bill Clinton or more," three said "like George Bush or less." Now look how these panelists voted, taking into account their answers on the current question of whether they prefer Clinton (blue) or McCain (red):
Apparently, the panel thinks Clinton would be more heavily involved in the peace process and don't always like that. Here's proof: When we asked more than a year ago how involved a President Clinton would be, three out of the four who thought she'd be heavily involved now prefer McCain. (The results below show a breakdown of how the panel scored Clinton when we asked this question last year, with those who now prefer McCain shown in red and those who support Clinton in blue).
Does this mean that the panel does not want a peace process? Not at all. As we saw a couple of months ago, it certainly does.
7.
Plenty of new panel data this week.
Yesterday we started with the more entertaining, easy, questions (True or false: Obama is pro-Palestinian, McCain will appoint James Baker).
Today we have Clinton vs. McCain, and later in the week we'll examine Obama vs. McCain.