That would be better advice for Ron Paul or one of the other asterixes.
Posted on 10/04/2007 9:38:23 AM PDT by TitansAFC
If Rudy Giuliani wins the Republican nomination and a third party campaign is backed by Christian conservative leaders, 27% of Republican voters say they’d vote for the third party option rather than Giuliani. A Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that a three-way race with Hillary Clinton would end up with the former First Lady getting 46% of the vote, Giuliani with 30% and the third-party option picking up 14%. In head-to-head match-ups with Clinton, Giuliani is much more competitive.
Over this past weekend, several Christian conservative leaders indicated they might back a pro-life, third-party, candidate if Giuliani wins the nomination.
The latest poll highlights the potential challenges for Giuliani, but the numbers must be considered in context. A generic third-party candidate may attract 14% of the vote in the abstract at this time. However, if a specific candidate is chosen, that person would likely attract less support due to a variety of factors. Almost all third party candidates poll higher earlier in a campaign and their numbers diminish as election day approaches. Ultimately, of course, some Republicans would have to face the question of whether to vote for Giuliani or help elect a Democrat.
The telephone survey found that 17% of Republicans believe it’s Very Likely conservative leaders would back a Pro-Life candidate if Giuliani is nominated. Another 32% believe it is Somewhat Likely. Among all voters, 22% think a third party approach is Very Likely and another 33% say it’s Somewhat Likely.
Most Republican voters consider themselves Pro-Life on the issue of Abortion. Most Democrats and Unaffiliated Voters are Pro-Choice.
The bigger question for Giuliani might be how this possible challenge from the right might affect perceptions of his electability. Currently, Giuliani is seen as the most electable Republican candidate which helps overcome concerns that some have about his ideology. A survey conducted earlier this month found that 72% of Republicans think Giuliani is at least Somewhat Likely to win the White House if nominated. However, the current survey finds that number falling to 58% if Christian conservatives back a third-party option.
With a third-party option on the table, only 18% of Republicans believe Giuliani would be Very Likely to win the election if nominated. That’s down from 31% in a two-way race.
Among all voters, 49% say Giuliani is at least Somewhat Likely to win a two-way match-up. That falls to 43% with a third party candidate in the mix.
Electability is a crucial issue for Giuliani because two-thirds of Republican voters seen him as politically moderate or liberal. That is a challenge unto itself in a political party where most primary voters consider themselves politically conservative. Fred Thompson is currently viewed as the most conservative candidate in the field.
Three of the last four Presidential elections have seen a candidate win with less than 50% of the total votes cast. If Hillary Clinton wins the Democratic Presidential nomination, there is a very reasonable possibility that neither major party candidate would top the 50% mark in Election 2008. With such a scenario, third party candidates on either side of the political spectrum could play a significant role by peeling away one or two percentage points of the vote.
Clinton is currently leading the race for the Democratic Presidential nomination, but her victory is not inevitable. Among Republicans, Thompson and Giuliani lead in the Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll.
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Rasmussen Reports is an electronic publishing firm specializing in the collection, publication, and distribution of public opinion polling information.
The Rasmussen Reports ElectionEdge™ Premium Service for Election 2008 offers the most comprehensive public opinion coverage ever provided for a Presidential election.
Rasmussen Reports’ Election 2006 coverage has been praised for its accuracy and reliability. Michael Barone, Senior Writer for U.S. News & World Report and co-author of The Almanac of American Politics, mentions, “One clear lesson from the Republican victory of 2004 and the Democratic victory of 2006 is that the best place to look for polls that are spot on is RasmussenReports.com." And University of Virginia Professor Larry Sabato states, “In election campaigns, I’ve learned to look for the Rasmussen results. In my experience, they are right on the money. There is no question Rasmussen produces some of the most accurate and reliable polls in the country today.”
Rasmussen Reports was also the nation's most accurate polling firm during the 2004 Presidential election and the only one to project both Bush and Kerry's vote total within half a percentage point of the actual outcome.
During both Election 2004 and Election 2006, RasmussenReports.com was the top-ranked public opinion research site on the web. We had twice as many visitors as our nearest competitor and nearly as many as all competitors combined.
Scott Rasmussen, president of Rasmussen Reports, has been an independent pollster for more than a decade.
That would be better advice for Ron Paul or one of the other asterixes.
And what exactly will your vote on principle accomplish? Do you really think Republicans will want anything to do with those that acted like petulant children and allowed Hillary to win? I am one Republican that will have nothing to do with them if it happens.
Actually it’s proof of both. Welcome to hell.
You will not be deciding things. If the GOP sees that they can't win without the values voters, they will do what they did in 1994, shift their policies to attract the disaffected voters. It is not like they have ny principles to stop them from doing this. If you don't like it, you can go start a new party in 2010.
I disagree. I think almost any of the Republicans could beat Hildabeast if Bush had not done so much to disappoint and demoralize Republicans during the last four years. Now we can’t trust any of the candidates because the GOP has behaved as bad or worse than the Democrats in some cases.
Won’t happen. Like entropy, the size of government will continue to increase. And in turn a greater quest for power. I’d love to see a real conservative in the White House but it’s not likely to happen. So I can wish for what won’t happen or make the best choice of available options.
Government grew under Reagan and I wouldn’t describe him as a socialist...
My biggest problem with Rudy is not that he's pro-abortion. Though I don't like it. I can even buy into his federalism explanation of being a gun grabber and pro-gay marriage. Though I don't like it.
My biggest problem is that he is held out as the only alternative to beat the witch. And he's ducked running against her twice for the relatively low office of New York's junior senator. If he wouldn't take her on when the Republican nomination was his for the asking, why should we take him seriously now?
>>Actually his version of free trade differs from the current Administration and the Xlinton’s rather dramatically. The Bush’s while trying to claim they are merely following in his footsteps, would, if he was still available to commment, condemn hims as merely a fair trader, because he explicitly declared that our being open, while the other side wasn’t, or cheated...was not free trade. He also never believed in an international organization to decide our trade disputes...abdicating our rights to the WTO. This also has become a lynchpin of the last two administrations. Note, we have never formally executed a Treaty to become a part of this. This was merely done by legislation enacting the “Agreement” of NAFTA, appended as an 8-page addendum thereto. Congress cannot by simple legislation elevate something to Treaty status, and usurp our own Constitutionally-structured system so cavalierly. And it cannot also enact excess delegations of authority to the executive branch of functions fundamentally reserved to it alone.<<
I’m old enough to remember the speech that Reagan gave that kicked off his 1980 campaign - he devoted a great deal of time to something he called “a North American accord”, which became the precursor to NAFTA. Whether this means that he would have endorsed NAFTA, etc. in its current form obviously we don’t know, but I suspect that he would have concluded that the benefits of low tariffs are worth the price of having these cumbersome agreements. I agree with Milton Friedman - we don’t need any agreement to lower tariffs, we can do so unilaterally.
Amen. Voting for Giuliani will only encourage the propagation of more RINOs. Don't waste your principles with a vote for Giuliiani. Vote Third. It's the only way to be stand up and be counted.
It was the last time. It ushered in the first truly conservative congress we have had during our lifetimes and created the first budget surplus ever. Republican control since has ruined all that.
Your "less strident one" will appoint people to the RNC and it's powerful committees -- liberal country club Republicans. Your "less strident one" will result in the prolife plank being stripped from the party platform -- effectively killing the GOP in future national elections.
“It’s proof that a Pro-Life third party would be idiotic, not proof that Rudy can’t win.”
it’s ‘proof’ that some ‘pro-lifers’ are not pro-life. Else they wouldn’t put Hillary Clinton in charge of the future of the Supreme Court.
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