Posted on 04/23/2007 11:05:52 AM PDT by meg88
Polling is not voting.
There is a party primary for the democrats in New Jersey. When there is a list of candidates, the people who support each candidate tend to say they’d vote for the opponent (in polls) so as to make that candidate look weak against the opposition, to make more support for their own candidate.
So Rudy beats each democrat candidate in a 1-1 matchup ONLY because in each case, he gets the votes of all the strong supporters of the other two democrat candidates.
But there is no way that those strong supporters of other candidates will actually VOTE against their party candidate in the general election. It’s a pipe dream.
I am sure the Rudy supporters understand this. They certainly are instructed to vote for the democrat in any opinion poll which asks about other candidates.
Leading Edwards by 16 in Flrodia is pretty darn convincing, since he polls better than Hillary nationally most of the time.
We shouldn’t run a red/blue campaign, but we shouldn’t run a blue/blue campaign either. That’s a defeatist campaign, a “if you can’t beat them, join them” campaign.
Why is it that Rudy doesn’t suffer from the “republican” backlash? Because he’s not seen as republican right now, so people will say they’d vote for him.
When Rudy is the “republican” candidate, and there is a single opposing “democrat” candidate, Rudy will lose any state that would be falling to democrats. He has no message to inspire people to come vote for him, just an aura of inevitability.
If you run a liberal to win liberal votes in liberal states, you won’t get people out to the polls who will vote for “R”s downticket, you will draw out new voters who will for for democrats downticket.
Rudy worked hard to get republicans elected in 2006. His coattails can be seen in the losses we suffered.
And if you want more evidence, Arnold is seen as a “rudy” prototype in california, and you will see that Arnold didn’t help a single republican get elected in 2006. Republicans suffered greatly with Arnold at the head of the ticket.
BTW, putting new york “in play” just means democrats in new york will be encouraged to show up, which will endanger other republicans running for office.
I stand by my initial remark.
Write this down, so you can laugh at me in 2008. If Thompson is our nominee, we will win Maine.
Leading Edwards by 16 in Flrodia is pretty darn convincing, since he polls better than Hillary nationally most of the time.
You're not convincing me! Sway me by the strength of Rudy's positions - not his poll numbers. That may work on sheeple. It won't work on me. FWIW.
TS
Your whole comment sounds like defeatism, like you are looking for terms of surrender. You don’t even say what you think we should DO about the doom you see approaching.
and he was a screaming far-right conservative compared to Rudy Giuliani.
Not saying how it will turn out...just that there’s a shot. BTW, I voted for Shundler in the primary, but he lost to Forrester.
“Generic Republican” = person whose only tie to being a repubican is that he is a republican. Taft was an “R” but wasn’t a conservative, he was a crook.
“Generic Republican” = a person who republicans vote for because they have the “R” by their name.
Rudy is the “generic republican” for republicans. His supporters count on that, they count on republicans voting for him NOT because of his views, but because he has the “R” by his name.
What we NEED is a candidate where people are excited to vote for him because of his position on the issues.
Try telling the Rudyites that! They seem to think that Rudy can throw liberal states into play. Reagan Democrats gave Reagan victories in traditionally Democrat states because they were fed up with liberalism. There won’t be any “Rudy ‘Rats” because his politics will be the same as the ‘Rat nominee’s.
Sort of like the Democrats all got stampeded into picking J.F. Kerry in 2004 because opinion polls showed he could beat Bush before people knew anything about him other than his Viet Nam resume. We all know how that turned out, don't we?
Comparing the straight party affiliations is also misleading. Minnesota's House Republican are all solid conservatives and one of the Democrats (Colin Peterson, 7th district) is a genuine blue dog (votes with conservatives sometimes because he beleives it, not to cover his rear end because he's marginal). I wonder how many of NJ's Republicans are merely RINOs. And I don't mean slight RINOs like Norm Coleman. Norm's a good guy and is probably the most conservative fellow you could elect in a statewide congressional race.
You can do slightly better in an executive position (see Pawlenty) because the mushy middle sheeple are less inclined to tinkle in their own water supply than in the whole country's.
You have mail.
Gov. Pawlenty does buck the trend, but Minnesota has always had less trouble electing Republicans at the state level than at the federal. Norm Coleman was only elected because of the unusual cirumstances - Wellstone would have beat him, and he won’t be re-elected in 2008. He’s a RINO and a scumbag anyways, so frankly I don’t care if he loses.
I don’t need to “visit” anywhere. I have family spread out all over the state, and I have lived in and out of the Twin Cities. What a lot of people don’t realize about Minnesota is that the rural areas are full of dyed-in-the-wool DFLers. Many are outright liberals, and even those that are conservative still vote DFL. The DFL has a complete lock on the Twin Cities and the Iron Range, and the RINO-leaning Western Suburbs are increasingly turning DFL. The only strong conservative pockets in Minnesota are the 2nd and 6th Congressional Distircts, i.e. the Southern and Northern suburbs of the Twin Cities. Despite that, the DFL was still close to pulling of a victory in the 6th.
I’d like to see this data saying that Republicans carried 5 of 8 districts, because it goes without saying that they lost the 4th, 5th, and 8th, and the 1st, 3rd, and 7th are all conceivable wins for the DFL. I believe I remember hearing that Kerry won the 3rd, despite that district having a RINO Congressman. I’m skeptical that Bush really won 5 districts twice, though I’m not saying it’s impossible.
As for New Jersey, from what I’ve gathered, the average person here is much more conservative than in Minnesota, but the state GOP suffers from both massive voter fraud and a never-ending conflict between its moderate and conservative wings.
Jim Ramstad a solid conservative? You gotta be kidding me.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.