Dems prefer Hillary

Devastating news for Obama today. The FOX News poll says Obama’s favorability rating dropped. 48% of Democrats think Clinton has a better chance of beating McCain compared to 38% for Obama, a significant shift from March when Democrats thought Obama had a better chance. Democrats continue to prefer Clinton as the nominee, 44%, compared to 41%. Last month, she was preferred by 2%. Nearly a third of Clinton (32%) supporters would vote for McCain instead of Obama and 21% of Obama supporters would vote for McCain over Clinton.

Melissa met Hillary in Indiana today! Her story from the field:

It was a townhall-style event, so Hillary gave a short speech and then took questions from the audience. (The guy who introduced her said she had “testicular fortitude,” which prompted her to note when she took the mic that both women and men could have fortitude of their own—and she has it! Lots of applause.) She was totally compelling, extraordinarily competent, a great extemporaneous speaker with an unbelievably detailed grasp of the issues, and funny as hell. (”I wouldn’t trust the Bush administration to organize a two-car parade.” This gave me the image of Bush and Cheney each driving clown cars in different directions, which sent me into fits of giggles.)

The one thing KenBlogz and I just couldn’t. get. over. was how profoundly not the Dragon Lady she is, despite what we are meant to believe. KenBlogz’s comment was, approximately, “The way the media represents her is a complete lie; they might as well say she stabbed someone onstage, which would be just as truthful as the way she is represented.” This, from an 18-year-old. The reporter in front of us (we were in the media section) reading The Drudge Report through most of her speech would no doubt be shocked by his observation.

In person, from about 10 yards away, Hillary was as warm, friendly, charming, and engaging as any politician I’ve ever seen. And the crowd—way more diverse than I expected—adored her. She got several standing ovations.

In the parking lot afterwards, I heard a woman—middle-aged, wearing a union t-shirt, either white or Latina—telling her friend she was glad she came. “She totally won me over,” she said. Wheeeeeeeeeeee! Yay, democracy!