Earlier this week, the Israel Factor panelcompared McCain and Clinton and was asked to choose between the two. The result: a tie. Four of the panelists said they'd prefer a President Clinton, the other four thought a President McCain was better from an Israeli point of view.
Today we will deal with other two-way races - one still possible, the other maybe in 2012: McCain vs. Obama and Clinton vs. the no-longer-a-candidate-but-still-loves-America Romney (when we asked, he still was a candidate). Unlike the Clinton-McCain race, in both these cases the verdict was clear and the panel was unanimous or near unanimous.
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Let's start with the still viable McCain and Obama.
The panel, as expected from the marks these two candidates have been getting month in and month out for a year and a half now, prefer McCain.
Here's a table comparing their marks from the panel on Iran:
As we have done before, the panelists who supported Clinton over McCain in our previous analysis are in blue, those who want McCain in red. As you can see, even two of the four "Clinton blue" panelists - and we are talking about experts who clearly don't have a problem with a Democrat in the White House - trust McCain on a nuclear Iran better than they trust Obama.
Earlier in the week we explained that "this panel never thought of McCain as an emotionally attached friend of Israel." This is true when one compares McCain to Clinton. But look what happens when McCain is compared to Obama on this same question (blue still represents pro-Clinton panelists and red pro-McCain):
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Now let's look at the Clinton-Romney race. Romney is no longer in the race, but one learns something here about the preferences of the panel.
Take a look at this table: The panel trust Clinton on a whole range of issues important to Israel.
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Now look at this table. It's complicated, but even more revealing. In the upper row are the marks Romney got from the eight panelists on his position regarding Iraq. In the second row are the marks Clinton got on the same questions.
And here comes the tricky part: in red are those panelists who prefer McCain over Clinton, in blue those supporting Clinton over McCain. What you see here is remarkable: Even two of the panelists who support McCain over Clinton gave Clinton higher marks on Iraq than the marks they gave Romney.
Wouldn't you think Romney's policy in Iraq would be more similar to the one McCain prescribes than to the one Clinton supports?
Apparently, some members of the panel don't see it like that. Either they did not believe that Romney would actually follow the policy he swore he supported - or they thought that the identity of the candidate is more important than the policy s/he vows to pursue, prior to the election.
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And what about a race between Obama and Romney? We asked the panel about such race too, but will not bother you with the specifics. Bottom line: Five preferred Romney, three thought Obama was the better candidate
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