John Anderson: "If the Republicans nominate Mr. Reagan, it's political suicide."
Anderson would like to amend his statement to say that if the Republicans nominated Reagan, it would be political homicide (of the Democrats), which it was. 44 states, 12 Senate seat pickups.
"He is too right wing and makes too many incredible gaffes".
The MSM is busy cutting and pasting that line into every story on Fred Thompson even as we speak. Sorry, fellas. It didn't work then and won't work now.
Ping!
Or they could turn out to be absolutely right. Ask President Goldwater. President Reagan defeated an immensely unpopular and incompetent president of the opposite party. Reagan also possessed immense (and genuine) personal charm. Fred Thompson's bounce in the polls was no surprise. He may lose it, and I am guessing he will. Actually, good polls are not usually wrong about who will win. Both Reagan's and Carter's campaign polls showed a huge landslide for Reagan in the last week before the election. They were correct, but remained unpublicized until much later. So the voting public was taken by surprise (I know, I was one of 'em). But the polls were not wrong; they were right, and the better ones continue to be largely correct. The rise in cellphone use and caller ID may or may not prove to be a problem for accurate polling. We don't know yet, but this election will probably tell quite a lot about that.
And Howard Baker, (to be kind) moderate Rockefeller Republican, remains FDT’s mentor and advisor to this day.
I would say that Duncan Hunter is the right winger MSM and company don’t want in office, just as they ‘warned’ about Ronald Reagan. IM0 the American people want the most conservative possible Republican to win.
Provided the poll was reasonably accurate, Carter beat Reagan in the poll because nationwide, people did not really know Reagan yet. Then during the runup to the election they got to know him, and compared him to Carter, and Carter suffered a humiliating defeat which he still to this day has not gotten over.
Fred will do same to Hillary. It might even be worse than the Reagan landslide. Everyone hates hillary, even her supporters. Everyone likes Fred even his enemies.
BUMP
I'm betting that Hillary go the way of the Wicked Witch and pretty boy Edwards will be the Democrat nominee.
It seems to me that it would be much more difficult for the Hillary supporters to portray Thompson as the bully who is “hitting the girl”. His quiet gentlemanly yet very strong and pointed demeanor are a direct contrast to Hillary’s shrill persona. Thompson seems positioned, much more so than Guliani, to pick up a lot of the womens’ votes.
After eight years of one party in office, though, the odds are on the side of the opposition.
If you want to see parallels to this election. Consider 1976, 1988, and 2000, not 1980.
George H.W. Bush was able to overcome the "curse" of eight years in and eight years out. Gerry Ford wasn't. And then there's 2000 ...
Polls are used to influence public opinion - not to guage public opinion. Look at who commissions/pays for the polls. The MSM. Do you think for one minute, if the results were not what the MSM wants, the polling companies would get repeat business? This is the true Clinton legacy. In 1990 the Clintons taught the MSM how to manipulate public opinion. The MSM is now truely the propoganda wing of the Democrat party - (little Goebels).
The MSM reports left wingers ahead and shows conservatives with a HUGE time lag to show them in the lead.
This is like the Fox News Dynamics polls which are ALWAYS inaccurate.
only Rudy can beat the beast
This is from June 06 - but just a true today, in fact more so.
The Top 8 Reasons Why Hillary Clinton Is a Weaker Candidate Than People Think
We’ve heard a lot about why Hillary Clinton will be a strong candidate in 2008. In fact, there are whole books on the subject.
However, Hillary Clinton is actually a much weaker candidate than many people seem to believe. Here’s a short, but sweet primer that may help explain why that is the case:
1. Likeability and Charisma
If you look back at the last eight presidential elections, at least, the more likeable candidate has won every time. That’s unfortunate for Hillary because unlike her slick, gregarious husband, she does not have the gift of gab or a warm personality. If Hillary has to pass the old, “Gee, would I rather go to a ball game, grab some pizza, or get a beer with Hillary or the Republican candidate,” test, she’s going to be in a lot of trouble unless the person asking the question is wearing a tinfoil hat or is such a radical lefty that she has a “I (heart) abortion” bumper sticker on her car.
2. Gaffes
Hillary not only lacks charisma and likeability, she’s more gaffe prone than most people seem to realize. For example, back in March she suggested that the illegal immigration bill in the House, “would literally criminalize the Good Samaritan and probably even Jesus himself.”
Then there were her wacky comments about school vouchers back in February:
“First family that comes and says ‘I want to send my daughter to St. Peter’s Roman Catholic School’ and you say ‘Great, wonderful school, here’s your voucher,’” Clinton said. “Next parent that comes and says, ‘I want to send my child to the school of the Church of the White Supremacist ...’ The parent says, ‘The way that I read Genesis, Cain was marked, therefore I believe in white supremacy. ... You gave it to a Catholic parent, you gave it to a Jewish parent, under the Constitution, you can’t discriminate against me.’”
As an adoring, if somewhat puzzled, audience of Bronx activists looked on, Clinton added, “So what if the next parent comes and says, ‘I want to send my child to the School of the Jihad? ... I won’t stand for it.”
Criminalizing Jesus? Cain and the Church of the White Supremacist? The School of Jihad? What?!? You put this woman in front of a camera for a year, in a presidential campaign, where every word the candidate utters is scrutinized like the Zapruder tape and she’ll give plenty of ammunition to her opponent.
3. She Can’t Win in the South
The only two Democratic candidates for the presidency who’ve won elections since Lyndon Johnson was in office have been two Southern governors, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton. Why were they able to win? Because unlike John Kerry or Al Gore, they were able to win southern states. Northern liberals like Hillary? They don’t do well in the South and Hillary will have a lot of difficulty reversing that trend. After all, not only is she a liberal, from a liberal state, with a liberal voting record, she apparently disliked living in the South so much that she moved to New York. Good luck connecting with the NASCAR crowd after that Hillary, ’cause you’re going to need it!
4. Hillary’s Base Problem
Here’s a little secret: a lot of liberals don’t really want Hillary as their candidate in 2008. Some of them don’t like her stance on the war. Others don’t like her close relationship with the DLC, which is perceived as being too moderate. There are even some liberals that are probably unhappy with her, as much as anything, because she has been treated like the “chosen one” for the Democrats since the 2004 election.
The result of this is that some of the more hardcore liberal activists aren’t thrilled with Hillary’s candidacy and they’re not shy about saying so. In fact, it has gotten so bad that the more time Democrats spend reading liberal bloggers, the cooler they get to Hillary. That’s not exactly the kind of reaction a candidate hopes for from people who should be some of her biggest supporters.
5. Hillary Will Increase Turnout—for the GOP
Remember how the Democrats turned out in droves in 2004 so they could vote against President Bush? Well, the same thing would happen on the Republican side if Hillary were the Democratic nominee. There are few words in the English language more terrifying to Republicans than, “President Hillary Clinton,” and it’s almost guaranteed that they will turn out in record numbers to make sure it never happens.
6. Hillary as Commander in Chief?
In general, the Democrats have serious credibility problems on national security and Hillary is not going to be the one to reverse that trend. Unlike candidates like John Kerry and Jimmy Carter, she doesn’t have a military background to fall back on. Moreover, her husband’s administration was lackadaisical about fighting terrorism and although Hillary did vote for the war in Afghanistan and Iraq, she certainly hasn’t developed a reputation as a hawk, like say Zell Miller or Joe Lieberman. Although at this point, it’s hard to know exactly what the foreign policy landscape will look like in November of 2008, it’s unlikely to be tranquil and that will be a major strike against Hillary.
7. Her Polling Numbers Aren’t Very Good
Since Hillary has been the frontrunner on the Democratic side from the moment that John Kerry conceded, she has been the subject of a lot of 2008 related polls. Unfortunately for her, those numbers haven’t looked particularly good.
For example, In mid-May of this year, Rasmussen Reports had Hillary’s unfavorable rating among adults at 39%. Another mid-May poll, from the New York Times, had 34% of Americans viewing her favorably and 35% viewing her unfavorably.
Perhaps that sort of soft support explains the results of a January 2006, CNN/Gallup poll which found that, “By a margin of three to one, Americans say they would “definitely” vote against Hillary Clinton for president.”
Given that Hillary already has extremely high name recognition, these bad numbers don’t bode well for her chances to win the presidency.
8. Baggage
Hillary is carrying around as much baggage as any of the other five candidates combined, starting with her philandering husband. In fact, there are so many controversies that have swirled around Bill and Hill than you can hardly list them all: Gennifer Flowers, Monica Lewinsky, Paula Jones, Kathleen Willey, Juanita Broderick, Whitewater, selling the Lincoln bedroom, using the IRS against political enemies, selling pardons, taking the White House furniture, shady cattle futures deals, impeachment, firing the travel office staff to make room for cronies, it goes on and on and on. Discount these scandals as old news if you like, but the American people are going to think long and hard before they vote to turn the White House into the sort of sleazy circus sideshow that it was during Bill Clinton’s tenure as President.
Conclusion
Although Hillary Clinton would be far from a pushover, she’s not an unstoppable juggernaut either. To the contrary, Hillary is a deeply flawed candidate who would have great difficulty beating a credible, conservative Republican. So while it’s important not to get overconfident about a potential race against Hillary Clinton, we shouldn’t minimize her numerous weaknesses either.
Way to early to tell, FT has not even debated yet.
Here is a rather recent overview of American politics that would make a great starting point for many discussions along with the current dearth of serious behind-the-scenes players’ reliance on polls and personalities.
http://www.sonoma.edu/users/w/wallsd/conservative-movement.shtml
“How did the conservative movement, routed in Barry Goldwater’s catastrophic defeat to Lyndon Johnson in the 1964 presidential campaign, return to elect its champion Ronald Reagan just 16 years later? What at first looks like the political comeback of the century becomes, on closer examination, the product of a particular political moment that united an unstable coalition.” [EXCERPT]
David Walls seems to have a ax for everyone’s head, an ox in every gory pot... and a caution that the stage may prove to be but the product of the characters in the wings
Pre-election polls have a poor record of predicting winners.
Actual elections have a poor record of selecting winners.