Posted on 04/19/2007 7:49:28 PM PDT by Mr. Brightside
Giuliani’s Lead Shrinks
By Michael van der Galien
Bad news for Rudy Giuliani: his lead in the polls is shrinking quite dramatically. The main cause seems to be… (growing) support for Fred Thompson - who still has to announce his candidacy. Where, in February, “44 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents preferred” him for the nomination, “that figure is [now] down to 33 percent.”
McCain, meanwhile, holds steady at 21 percent, Fred Thompson “ran third in this poll, with 9 percent, tying him with former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney.”
Romney, in other words, is rising in the polls. To be frank, I find it surprising that his numbers are still, relatively, low. Romney is a terrific CEO, became Republican Governor of a Blue state and handled himself well. He saved the Olympic Games in Salt Lake City, which made him popular among quite some people (and gave him experience useful for a presidential candidate, to say the least).
Romney is, in my opinion, a good candidate. Better than most.
Support for him rising, and I am sure that it will continue to rise.
That being said, he has one major problem: 44% said they would definitely not vote for him.
44%.
Considering his resumé on the one hand, and the fact that most people don’t know much about him on the other, leads me to believe that these individuals have a problem with Romney… because of his faith. That, I have to say, is something I find quite appalling. He is a Mormon: so what?
McCain has a major problem as well in this regard: where he was first popular among Republican leaning independents and, yes, even among Democrats, that has now changed: 47 percent of those asked said that they would definitely not vote for him.
This means that McCain is now a more-polarizing figure than Hillary Clinton: 45% of Americans said that they would definitely not vote for her.
Talking about Hillary Clinton: as said, she still - easily - leads the pack in the polls. Her numbers remain the same: 37 percent (against 36% in February) of Democratic voters say they intend to vote for the former First Lady. Barack Obama is falling behind with 20% - down from 24%. Al Gore - who has not announced his candidacy yet - received the support of 17% of Democratic (leaning) voters. John Edwards is in fourth place with 14%.
“It shrinks ?”
“Like a bashful turtle.”
;-D
The ascension of Fred combined with a steadily increasing number GOP voters now hip to Rudy's liberalism. It's all downhill for Giuliani from here.....
The truth is, in the past week, Giuliani has gained about 8 points even after exposing himself on abortion and guns. Here are the polls if you want to see them:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/polls/
If you want to know why all the anti-Rudy tirades on FR tonight, I suggest you take a look at the today's Fox News poll showing Rudy at 35 and Thompson at 8. All of the buzz Thompson is trying to generate has born little fruit as he has lost 7 points in the past few weeks.
I think some good and decent conservatives are reaching the tipping point. The realization is sinking in that the political center has indeed shifted away from us, yet again. And yet again we are confronted with having to choose between ideology and relevance.
Even if Rudy Giuliani is not welcome in your house, I am sure all conservatives will always be welcome in his. He will have milk and chocolate chip cookies waiting for you.
The Republican party conservative base is hungry for an electable CONSERVATIVE. Fred Thompson is just that man.
I have to wonder what will happen when McCain and Romney start running ads pointing out Giuliani’s previous record of liberalism, his chumminess with Clinton, etc. This could cause him to fall.
Having said that, if RG is the GOP nominee anyway, I would support him over any Democrat. I would just be wary after he became president. :-\
I think all these polls are meaningless until and unless Fred Thompson announces and begins campaigning. Right now he has very little name recognition nationally. When he spends as much time in the public eye as McCain and Giuliani do, we can compare apples and apples.
Yeah, I have been reading them. I thought I could lighten things up a little.
With Giuliani gaining 8 points in the last week in spite of numerous MSM hit pieces attacking him, I think the guy is pretty much immune from attack. He was inoculated the day his city was devastated by terrorists, and any hits targeted at him will backfire on the attacker. We are already seeing evidence of that.
Whoever wants to beat Rudy will have to generate some positive reasons to support the alternative, not the least of which will have to be a demonstrated ability to beat the Dim nominee in the general. I don't believe it will happen.
I find it amusing that all these conservatives are so excited about someone whose biggest achievment while Governor was instituting Hillarycare statewide.
Romney’s Mormonism doesn’t matter to me. Mormons may have some odd religious ideas (IMHO) but many of them are reliably conservative.
But Mitt Romney has a lot of strikes against him. He seems willing to say whatever it takes to please people, and then to shift and change as soon as people want to hear something else. I just don’t trust him.
Giuliani could have been the best candidate IF he had changed his positions on abortion, guns, and a few other things. He didn’t. I think he blew it. I hope Fred Thompson has got what it takes when the heat is on, because he’s the last one left at this point.
That's very disturbing if true. Got links?
To what? The 8 point gain? It is at realclearpolitics.com. I linked it. Fox News today has him at 35, as did Gallup yesterday. Last week he had fallen to the mid 20's. Exposing himself on guns and abortion? There must be 100 threads at FR alone.
There's simply no one on the Republican side who inspires interest in the general, non-hardcore right public.
I know that you didn’t miss JR’s words today on continuing to pimp for Rudy. Why do you continue?
realclearpolitics.com is not a link to a poll, foxnews.com is not a link to a poll. Do you have a direct link to the polls? Are they online polls or actual polls?
You're the band that's continuing to play while the Titanic is going down.
ROTFLMAO!
I had a private discussion with him. As I understand it, he does not object to my supporting Giuliani, but to my criticizing conservatives. So I have agreed to refrain from criticizing conservatives or conservatism, which is not hard for me to do since I am quite conservative myself, as JimRob well knows. I have been around these parts for 9 years and if you want to traverse my thousands of posts going all the way back to Clinton's impeachment, you will find that I have been consistently a hard-line conservative constitutionalist.
In fact, in Rudy's house, conservatives will be offered a warm blanket, hot chocolate and oatmeal cookies. I am a conservative, and I am in Rudy's house, and I tell you it's nice and warm and the future is bright and free of negativity.
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