I don't think so:
Hillary leads Dems, Republicans in poll: NY voters would choose senator over Obama, Giuliani 2/4/07
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1783559/posts
Hillary 53%
Rudy 32%
A 21-point deficit in New York State.
New York stateis overwhelmingly Dims, no?
Why are we looking at polls now, isnt it too early? That's all I hear whenever a postive Rudy poll shows up, guess the negative polls are accurate!... ;)
thanks.
I've seen other polling data showing Hillary will beat Guiliani in New York.
One thing to bear in mind about these polls is that Hillary vs Guiliani in New York is neutral with regard to home state.
Another is that we are SOOO-O out of it in New York, that it's a waste of resources for a Republican to campaign there (where Hillary was just re-elected Senator by a huge margin).
The question is this: does Rudy enable us to win in the purple states while not causing us to lose in the red states?
Right now, it looks as though Rudy is our only possible candidate who is able to do that. Not even McCain is able to, and he was the only other possible candidate who was able to.
Things can change, in fact, they will change. If, one year from now, we're not withdrawing troops from Iraq, forgetaboutit, the Republican nomination won't be worth a bucket of warm spit. We will have a Democratic President, increased Democratic majorities in the House and Senate, and increased Democratic majorities among Governors and state legislative chambers. In short order, we will also have a Democratic majority on U.S. Supreme Court.
On the other hand, if we're withdrawing in any way that is honorable, I dare say whomever is the Republican candidate will have a chance, and McCain will rejoin Rudy as clear winners.
This is why President Bush has to start, right now, laying the ground work for our withdrawal, saying that we have done more than can be asked of any nation in terms of providing the people of another nation with the opportunity to have freedom and democracy. Our armed forces have performed marvelously well through the war and the post-war effort to reconstruct Iraq. In the end, however, a free and democratic Iraq was for the people of Iraq to achieve.
If we start withdrawing our forces, we will be able to continue to aid the Iraqis with money, technical support, special operations and air power. We can maintain that kind of support almost indefinitely. But, if we try to continue to support Iraq with ground forces, the Democrats will take over, and then completely pull the plug on that country.
The Bush administration has to figure out what kind of fallback line we have if the surge does not quickly achieve whatever it's supposed to achieve, or else we're going down and so are the Iraqis.