Why are those states critical? The Dems usually carry those states anyway. They weren't considered "battleground" states as far as I have ever heard. What made Giuliani interesting is that he could have helped sway the traditional New York Dems over to his side. How does Bloomberg take away from only Giuliani? Seems like he would hurt Hillary more. Even though he is a Republican, he is a New York liberal and would draw as many Hillary voters as Rudy IMHO. Oh, and all the Jews I know LOVE Rudy; especially on Israel and terrorism.
For us to win we have to run the table as we have the last two elections which I fear would be unlikely.
We did not "run the table" in the last two elections. We had two hard fought elections where votes in two battleground states (Florida and Ohio) turned the tide for Bush. Both Kerry and Gore carried New York and New Jersey if my memory serves me correctly.
This is why I favor Rudy because I believe he can win New York and New Jersey and maybe Penn.
That part, I agree with. Rudy is strong in the east and could help to sway votes in those traditionally Democratic strongholds. The problem is that Rudy has huge negatives on abortion and illegals. It is not about Condi being a good candidate, but the ticket would need another candidate to carry the south and not hurt them on abortion or illegals with the party faithful. So far, Thompson has that southern base along with the perception that he has been strong on abortion and immigration. Condi is an unknown on the issues and is from the west coast and has zero pull in the south. You might like her, but in the final analysis, her status of "woman-hood" would probably be trumped by the attraction of a southern candidate/northern candidate ticket. Especially when you analyse the issues. Granted, this is all conjecture, but I think the case for Condi is pretty weak right now.
With Bloomberg running there is a good chance that he will win New York. If he wins New York then it will kill Hillary because she can not win without winning New York.
As a third party candidate? Nope, don't buy that part at all. He will not gain the electoral college votes in New York even if he has strong popular vote numbers. I think he will disrupt the vote in New York state, but which way is not clear. It would be definately true that Hillary needs New York, but Bloomberg may or may not cause it to go against Hillary. Giuliani won't cause a problem on the ticket in New York and will definately help in other eastern and midwestern races. He is a positive and recognizable figure to the middle of the road voters. That might be enough to swing the election in those states that are not entirely decided- as long as the head of the ticket is a strong well recognized conservaive like Fred Thompson.
Thompson is having trouble raising money and quite frankly, if he didn’t have his TV show no one would be intersted in him.
Say what? Thompson is raking in some serious cash at his fundraisers as we speak.
http://http://www.theolympian.com/national/story/177395-p2.html
Fred Thompson raises nearly $3.5 million
-Aides pointed to a spending rate of 18 percent, far below those of Thompson's prospective rivals who, unlike him, have been operating full-blown campaigns for the past six months or more.-
...and that is without even running the campaign yet. He has some serious momentum here. They won't throw Condi into this grinder just because of her gender IMHO.
New York is critical because the democrats can not win without it and the Republicans have proven the last two elections that they don’t have to have it.
Democrats would not have come close to winning as they did the last two elections without New York. Without New York they have NO chance.
Condi was born in Alabama and moved to Denver as a younster. Her West Coast connection was as Provost at Stanford.
We did run the table the last two elections. We won every small state there was except for a couple of the New England states and New Mexico, Northwest. We did not win a single big state other then Florida the last two elections.
Bloomberg has a great chance of winning New York. He is a popular Mayor and a mulit billionaire with plenty of cash to burn. He is also Jewish and New York City is a Jewish town.
John