If this is momentum . . .
I really hate to see what will happen when Hillary loses on May 6th.
Campaign finance records released this week show that a growing number of Clinton's early supporters migrated to Obama in March, after he achieved 11 straight victories. Of those who had previously made maximum contributions to Clinton, 73 wrote their first checks to Obama in March. The reverse was not true: Of those who had made large contributions to Obama last year, none wrote checks to Clinton in March.
"I think she is destroying the Democratic Party," said New York lawyer Daniel Berger, who had backed Clinton with the maximum allowable donation of $2,300. "That there's no way for her to win this election except by destroying [Obama], I just don't like it. So in my own little way, I'm trying to send her a message."
The message came in the form of a $2,300 contribution to Obama.
Donors are not the only ones who have made the leap. Gabriel Guerra-Mondragón served as an ambassador to Chile during Bill Clinton's presidency, considered himself a close friend of Sen. Clinton, and became a "Hill-raiser" by bringing in about $500,000 for her presidential bid.
But he had a fitful few weeks as the battle between Clinton and Obama turned increasingly negative. Last week, he decided he had seen enough.
"We're just bleeding each other out," Guerra-Mondragón said when asked why he had decided to join Obama's finance committee. "Looking at it as coldly as I can, I just don't see how Senator Clinton can overcome Senator Obama with delegates and popular votes. I want this fight to be over -- the quicker, the better."
The Obama converts include William Louis-Dreyfus. The billionaire New York financier said he had been impressed by Clinton's performance in the Senate and distressed by eight years of the Bush administration when he donated the maximum to her campaign last August. Then, he said, he began watching more closely.
"However much one might have supported the Clintons, or one might support the usual suspects in the Democratic Party, I began to believe Obama represents a new approach. He gives off such a sense of relevance that he's sort of irresistible," Louis-Dreyfus said.
He also expressed, as did other big givers who crossed to Obama, exasperation about the tone of the Clinton campaign and frustration with the candidate herself.
"At the end of the day, all she had to do was open her mouth for me not to believe her," Louis-Dreyfus said.
As Matt Yglesias notes, the real surprise here is that more of Hillary's supporters haven't realized that her continued campaign is doing more to help John McCain than to increase her own chances at the nomination. A good example of this came from the usual suspects at Talkleft and No Quarter over the latest Rasmussen poll out of Pennsylvania.
TalkLeft
A new Rasmussen Pennsylvania poll finds Hillary Clinton still more likely than Barack Obama to beat John McCain in in November.
No Quarter:
In the critical state of Pennsylvania, Rasmussen Reports in a poll released today that Hillary leads McCain by 5 points but McCain beats Obama by 1 point.
In their bashing of Obama, they seem to have missed, (or just choose to ignore), the main message of the Rasmussen poll:
What a difference two weeks of intense campaigning can make. The final two weeks of campaigning in the Pennsylvania Primary may not have changed the outcome of the Democratic race, but it helped John McCain in the Keystone State.
Two weeks ago, in Pennsylvania, Hillary Clinton enjoyed a nine-point lead over McCain and Barack Obama had an eight-point edge over the Republican hopeful. Now, however, Clinton’s lead is down to five points and Obama trails McCain by a point.
. . .
McCain and Obama are each viewed favorably by 51% of the state’s voters, Clinton by 49%. For Obama, that’s a six-point decline over the past two weeks. Clinton’s numbers are down four points. McCain has gained a point during the same two week period.
The infighting is hurting both Democrats while McCain coasts along, but so long as Hillary's supporters remain blind to that fact, the bloodletting among the Democrats will continue.
