Democratic divide gets wider

More and more Clinton, Obama backers say they couldn’t support the other Democrat if their choice loses

BY ALAN FRAM - The Associated Press

WASHINGTON — Loyal Democrat Richard Somer says if Hillary Rodham Clinton gets his party’s presidential nomination, he just might sit it out this Election Day.

A Barack Obama supporter, Somer says he has been repulsed by her use of “slimy insinuations” in the campaign. He especially disliked her attacking the Illinois senator for his relationship with William Ayers, a former Weather Underground radical with provocative views.

“She’s better than that,” said Somer, 72, a retired professor from Clinton, N.Y. He said he expects the Democrats to carry New York anyway, so he might not vote “as a protest to Mrs. Clinton.”

Somer is not the only Democrat whose views of his party’s rival candidate have soured.

Party members increasingly dislike the contender they are not supporting in the bruising nomination fight, an Associated Press-Yahoo News survey and exit polls of voters show. That is raising questions about how faithful some will be by the November general election.

In the AP-Yahoo poll — which has tracked the same 2,000 people since November — Obama supporters with negative views of the New York senator have grown from 35 percent in November to 44 percent this month, including one-quarter with very unfavorable feelings.

Obama backers who don’t like Clinton say they would vote for Republican candidate John McCain over her by a two-to-one margin, with many undecided.

As for Clinton supporters, those with unfavorable views of Obama have grown from 26 percent to 42 percent during this same period — including a doubling to 20 percent of those with very negative opinions.

The Clinton backers with unfavorable views of Obama say they would vote for McCain over him by nearly three-to-one, though many haven’t made up their minds.

“I’d be hard pressed” to vote for Obama, said April Glenn, 66, a Clinton supporter from Philadelphia, who said his handling of the controversy over the anti-American preachings of his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, made her doubt his leadership skills. “I don’t think he’s capable.”

Clinton backers who have taken a dislike to Obama have a sharply lower regard for his honesty and ethics than they did last fall, the poll shows.

Obama supporters whose view of Clinton has dimmed see her as far less compassionate and refreshing than they did then. The feelings seem especially widespread among the candidates’ strongest supporters:

• About half of Obama’s white backers with college degrees have negative views of Clinton.

• Fewer black Obama supporters dislike Clinton but their numbers have grown faster, more than doubling to 33 percent.

Among Clinton’s supporters, Obama is disliked by nearly half the white people who have not gone beyond high school, a near doubling since November. Four in 10 white women backing her have unfavorable views of Obama.

Intensified passions during contentious intraparty fights are nothing new, and voters often return to the fold by the time the general election rolls around and people focus on partisan and issue differences.

South Carolina Democratic Party chairwoman Carol Fowler believes the policies of presumptive Republican nominee John McCain will unify the left.

“Once it’s all over, Democrats will look at our candidate ... I think people will get over it.” Fowler said. “John McCain offers an opportunity for four more years of George W. Bush.”

Yet with the battle between the two contenders threatening to stretch into June or beyond, some Democrats wonder whether the party will have time to regain the loyalty of those whose candidate doesn’t win the nomination.

Fowler believes it “will be apparent who has the majority of votes before the (August) convention.”

Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter, D-Orangeburg and a so-called superdelegate, said if the losing candidate chooses not to exit gracefully, then some voters could be turned off for the general election.

Others express concern — but argue — the divisions are not nearly as intense as when the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago was split over the Vietnam War; when Ronald Reagan unsuccessfully fought President Ford for the Republican nomination in 1976; or when Sen. Edward Kennedy lost a bitter duel with President Carter to be the 1980 Democratic nominee.

In each case, those parties’ nominees lost the fall election.

“It is not the same kind of rancor or bitterness” as those years, said Democratic pollster Peter Hart. If, by July 4, the Obama and Clinton campaigns still are maneuvering for advantage at their August convention, it will be harder to unify party voters and “Democrats will have done grievous harm to themselves,” he said.

And as the campaign has worn on, Cobb-Hunter said, Democrats have strayed further from the issues affecting Orangeburg and other communities, which she said also hurts the party.

Polling data show a gradual divide among voters that has grown as the race has continued.

In S.C. exit polls from the state’s Jan. 26 primary, 69 percent of Clinton supporters said they would be satisfied if Obama is the nominee. If Clinton is the nominee, 71 percent of Obama supporters said they would be satisfied. Those feelings have hardened in the contests since then.

For example:

• In Pennsylvania’s primary last week, which Clinton won, 68 percent of Obama voters said they would back Clinton against McCain. Just 54 percent of her supporters said they would vote for Obama against the Republican — including less than half her white voters who have not finished college.

• In the 16 states that held primaries on Super Tuesday Feb. 5, a combined 47 percent of Clinton voters said they would be satisfied only if she was the nominee. That figure has grown to 53 percent in the nine states with primaries since then — including 58 percent who said so in Pennsylvania.

• In Pennsylvania, while Clinton voters overall would vote heavily for Obama over McCain, her supporters who expressed displeasure should Obama win the nomination were evenly split in an Obama-McCain contest.

• Obama voters also have grown more surly, though more modestly. On Super Tuesday, 44 percent said they would settle only for him as nominee — a number that has risen to 49 percent in states voting since that day.

Obama and Clinton campaign officials express little concern their fight will leave Democratic voters disaffected in November.

“When the family squabble is over, the family will come back together,” said Obama pollster Cornell Belcher.

Staff writer John O’Connor, AP director of surveys Trevor Tompson and AP news survey specialist Dennis Junius contributed to this report.