| Apr 8, 2007 @ 7:19 AM |
From Front-Runner to Dead in the Water
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eastham
Posts: 6,317
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John McCain had a really bad week last week -- from the political missteps of his trip to the Baghdad market, to anemic fundraising (he's trails badly behind Romney, Guiliani, Clinton, Obama and Edwards) to lousy polling numbers in New Hampshire. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the buzzards are already flying overhead.
Frankly, I'm a little surprised. Both Guiliani and Romney have baggage vis-a-vis the social conservatives in the Republican Party. Also neither man has been through the ringer of Presidential politics, which is far tougher than mayoral or gubernatorial races. Also, McCain has a better organization on the ground than either Romney and Guiliani.
Polling, fundraising and organization are the key components to a solid win, yet none of the three frontrunner possesses all three. Romney is ahead in fundraising, and while he has a lead in New Hampshire, he's well behind Guiliani nationally. Neither Romney nor Guiliani have McCain's organization, which is essential to GOTV efforts and caucuses. Some have speculated, including Ken Mehlmann, that Republicans may be looking for someone else. Perhaps, this could explain the flirtation with Fred Thompson.
Anyway, here's the whole Wall Street Journal article. http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB117590747371462798-pl4_ZpgWwASwrTPX7c4jioPu6jc_20080406.html?mod=blogs
That said
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| Apr 8, 2007 @ 8:42 AM |
From Front-Runner to Dead in the Water |
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Novalite
Posts: 3,009
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Time has a different poll with different results.
In our poll, Hillary Clinton loses to John McCain, 42%-48%, and to Rudy Giuliani 41%-50%. Even though Clinton maintains a 7% edge over Obama among Democratic respondents, Obama fares better in the general election matchups. It's so close that it's a statistical dead heat, but Obama still loses: 43%-45% to McCain, 44%-45% to Giuliani .
As for being behind Guiliani, he seems to be catching up.
In the G.O.P. race, Giuliani's post-announcement honeymoon appears to be over. The former New York City mayor's lead over erstwhile front-runner McCain has narrowed to 13 points, 35%-22%, among registered Republicans, down from a 20-point lead two weeks ago.
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| Apr 8, 2007 @ 8:50 AM |
From Front-Runner to Dead in the Water
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eastham
Posts: 6,317
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What a difference a couple of weeks can make in polling. The Time article is from March 29 (so the polling data is from the week before as Time is a weekly journal versus WSJ which is daily). In the intervening two weeks, we've seen Romney's fundraising juggernaut kick into high gear and McCain make those stupid comments, which he'll be recanting all over the talking head shows this morning.
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| Apr 8, 2007 @ 9:19 AM |
From Front-Runner to Dead in the Water |
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Novalite
Posts: 3,009
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Eastham
The Time article is from March 29 (so the polling data is from the week before as Time is a weekly journal versus WSJ which is daily)
And has no poll cited (other than the 'recent poll' telling us nothing about McCain or the electectoriate's favorites) which makes the article pure opinion, suposition and conjecture.
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| Apr 8, 2007 @ 9:27 AM |
From Front-Runner to Dead in the Water
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spongebob777
Posts: 7,904
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Polls are crap even though I suspect any poll calling McCain "dead in the water" is probably correct based on pure chance alone.
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| Apr 8, 2007 @ 5:59 PM |
From Front-Runner to Dead in the Water |
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MusicMonster
Posts: 2,954
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McCain has definitely lost his spark it would seem. I really never thought he had a chance. At one point he was way too much of a Bush clone, I think most recognized that, in spite of his personal attacks from Rove and the Bush machine in the primaries of 2000, and Bush clones just wouldn't fly these days. But I have to agree with some of the comments we hear anyway. He seems tired and sort of misdirected recently. Somewhat disheveled. And the Iraq trip didn't help him a bit either with the "safe-streets" commentary. Another thing that hurts him IMO is that he just doesn't seem "Presidential". He doesn't have the necessary presence.
I suspect we'll either ultimately see Giuliani (who does indeed have a lot of baggage), or Thompson as the nominee on the Repub side. If it comes down to a shoot-out, I'd put my money on Thompson over Giuliani I think.
Just a side-note that does enter in. Giuliani has stated many times that Bush is "a great president". That's likely to scare people if it comes up.
-MM 
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| Apr 8, 2007 @ 6:12 PM |
From Front-Runner to Dead in the Water
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ToucherinSparks
Posts: 6,701
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Something I've noticed about McCain is that he is looking really old and tired recently, this race seems to really be wearing him out.
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| Apr 8, 2007 @ 6:18 PM |
From Front-Runner to Dead in the Water |
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spongebob777
Posts: 7,904
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I think Duncan Hunter has a great deal of potential. He's done surprisingly well in the straw polls despite his lack of money finishing tied for second in South Carolina and winning in Arizona.
He a hands off social conservative. Strong on border control and he has attractive fair trade policies that will play well with what's left of the middle class. I've been hearing a lot of good things about him from union members here in Michigan.
The election is a long ways off and I suspect we'll see some real surprises before it's done. Personally I don't think it's going to be an election between big name candidates.
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| Apr 9, 2007 @ 4:17 AM |
From Front-Runner to Dead in the Water
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atropos9119
Posts: 178
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Hunter is a 7 percenter like Alan Keyes/
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| Apr 9, 2007 @ 7:15 AM |
From Front-Runner to Dead in the Water |
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eastham
Posts: 6,317
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The problem with candidates who do well without money in the early days is that after the initial bump of curiousity, they melt into the background. Poor fundraising translates into no advertising and a poorly organized campaign team on the ground. Without the fairness doctrine second, tier candidates do not get any juice unless they do or say something so provocative it gets them in the news, but that only lasts for a day or two, perhaps a week. I haven't seen any proposed debate schedules for the Republicans (the Democrats are talking about six), but in 2000, the Republicans (and to a lesser extent the Democrats) tried to reduce the number of actual debates and who would participate. This does a further disservice to lesser known candidates.
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