It Was Fairly Inevitable
Hillary Clinton Leaps Ahead in Latest PollUnless she really botched the race, Clinton was going to start pulling away from Obama at some point, because she can win the general election and he can't.
By Susan Page, USA Today
Posted: 2007-08-07New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton has significantly widened her lead over Illinois Sen. Barack Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination in the wake of a dispute over handling foreign policy, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds.
The survey, taken Friday through Sunday, puts Clinton at 48% - up 8 percentage points from three weeks ago - and Obama at 26%, down 2 points. Among Democrats and independents who "lean" Democratic, former North Carolina senator John Edwards is at 12%, [and New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson is at 4%.]
The 22-point gap between [Clinton and Obama] is nearly double the margin found in the July 12-15 poll. [...]
[The Democratic race is much closer in the states where opening contests will be held and campaigning already is fierce. Clinton and Edwards are essentially tied in Iowa, according to the three most recent statewide polls aggregated by the political website RealClearPolitics.com. She holds a small lead over Obama in New Hampshire.]
[In the survey, Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents by overwhelming margins say Clinton would do a better job as president than Obama in handling terrorism, the Iraq war and relations with unfriendly nations.
If the nomination comes down between the two, Clinton was preferred over Obama 59%-36%.]
Bill Burton, Obama's spokesman, dismisses the findings. "National polls may go up and down before people actually start voting, but their irrelevance will not," he says.
[Of course, of course - LOL. Those grapes were sour anyway, eh? And nobody's going to base their decisions about to whom to contribute money based on the candidate's popularity and the perception of their ability to win, right? - M.H.]Among Republicans, the race was stable: Former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani at 33%, former Tennessee senator Fred Thompson at 21%, Arizona Sen. John McCain at 16% and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney at 8%. [...]
Also in the poll, President Bush's approval rating ticked up to 34%, [from] his low of 29% in July.
And Congress? The approval rating for congressional Republicans sank to 29%, for congressional Democrats to 37% - both new lows in the eight years since the question was first asked.
The survey of 1,012 adults has an error margin of +/- 3 points for the full sample, 5 points for the Republican and Democratic subsamples.
What puzzles me is why so many people think that Edwards has better than a snowball's chance, and that Richardson, the only "real" candidate with executive-branch experience in the Dem race, does not.
(Dennis Kucinich was briefly the Mayor of Cleveland, but he's not a serious candidate, in the sense that while he might be completely dedicated to his mission, there is no chance whatsoever that he will be POTUS, at least not in this dimension).
The wildcards on the GOP side are: Will Thompson's popularity survive his actually entering the race? My guess is no.
And, can Giuliani translate national popularity into top-two finishes in conservative-state primaries? Beats me.
posted by Oroborous at 7:07 PM
17 Comments:
I don't see how Giuliani can win a national election. He has too many obstacles to overcome. His personal history is a mess and open to all kinds of interpretation and criticism. He's made statements in the past that need "clarification" in light of today's world and most importantly, he's charismatically challenged. He's also a brusque New Yorker with health issues and a "foreign" sounding name that ends in a vowel.
Hillary will do a reprise of his family's alleged mafia ties and remind everyone that his father was in prison for armed robbery. Perhaps even now there's a new bio being readied for publication even meaner than the one published just before her first senatorial campaign when he was in a weakened state while fighting prostate cancer.
Giuliani is a smear campaign's dream candidate.
That said, I don't like any of the candidates of either party, but I will vote the straight Republican line in the interests of saving the world from the rule of the moonbats.
Richardson's a fat guy governing one of the most persistently failing states in the US.
Giuliani is interesting. No one thinks that he can be the Republican nominee, but he's been the consistent leader for a long time now.
erp: If he can get the Republican nomination, why couldn't he win?
Hi ali, nice to see you again.
I don't see how Giuliani could get the nomination for the reasons already stated, but should it happen, I don't think he could be elected. For one thing, both he and his wife will be pounded by the media which was smart enough to treat Mrs. Bush with kid gloves, so the president didn't have to rise to her defense. Also Giuliani like McCain has a short fuse that's easily ignited.
Richardson has been Hillary's designated lap dog for so long that I think it's obvious he will be her vice-presidential choice. What's not to like? He's chubby, answers to the name Bill and is a womanizer. He's also smart enough not to cross her.
Lots of unknowns yet.
If the Republican candidate looks too strong, I'm pretty certain a third party will emerge to siphon off votes ala Perot.
What do you think of our quadrennial circus?
David, I mistakenly answered your last comment as if it came from ali. Sorry about that. Taken in that context, the last sentence makes a bit more sense.
Are you supporting any of the candidates?
Ali:
New Mexico is one of the poorest states for a lot of structural reasons that no Governor could do much about.
But I agree that it doesn't lend any importance to his campaign.
David:
He ran an uphill campaign to be Mayor of New York too, against Dinkins in '89 and '93, and ended up being a very popular Mayor, even aside from his response to 9/11.
erp:
If the Republican candidate looks too strong, I'm pretty certain a third party will emerge to siphon off votes ala Perot.
If you mean orchestrated by the Clintons, then if it works I'd consider it to be both an example of competence by the Clintons, and a vote of unconfidence in the GOP by the electorate.
Both would strengthen the case for why Hill should be Prez - assuming that it happens, of course.
Remember, however, that Perot had a personal grudge against Bush pere, and so if the Clintons did have anything to do with Perot running in '92, I'm sure that it didn't take much convincing.
Cheers erp.
Oro: Daily Duck could really use an RSS feed.
No Clinton fingerprints will be on a third party candidacy should there be one. Perot ? I'd love to know the real skinny on the little general.
I think Giuliani would have a chance against Hillary. She's got just as many negatives as he does. It would be close, though.
I guess I'm pretty far out of it, erp, but what did Laura Bush do that would have needed defending?
Killed her high school boyfriend.
I'm not actively supporting any of the candidates. There's no point, since I'll support whoever the nominee is. My only concern is winning in November '08 and any Republican (except Ron Paul and Tancredo) is vastly preferable to any Democrat.
In order, my preference probably goes: Giuliani, Thompson, Romney, McCain, any of the others, my dog, Hillary, Paul, Tancredo.
Hmmm. I read the Snopes version. Pretty thin gruel.
I was imagining something to do with her girls-gone-wild daughters.
In order, my preference probably goes: Giuliani, Thompson, Romney, McCain, any of the others, my dog, Hillary, Paul, Tancredo.
Damn.
Coffee on the monitor again.
David:
Why is Thompson so high on your list ?
In other words, why does he have your support ?
O: Because it's all about winning in November and I think that he has the best shot at winning of any Republican candidate except Rudy.
I do worry that, by staying out of the fight, he's lost some valuable learning time out of the spotlight. But staying out has been helpful in so many other ways that I think it washes.
We'll see, but I suspect that the Thompson groundswell is simply a "not any of these guys" phenomenon, and will largely evaporate once he gets down to business.
But anything's possible.
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