Posted on 01/13/2008 5:43:00 PM PST by freespirited
This weekend, CNN released results of general election trial heats, pitting each of the four leading Republican candidates for President against both of the leading Democrats.
The unmistakable message from this national exercise (surveying 840 voters on January 9 and 10th) is that Mitt Romney unequivocally qualifies as the weakest candidate the G.O.P. could field.
In the head-to-head contest with Barack Obama he is utterly wiped out, losing by a margin of 22 points (59% to 37%). Against Hillary Clinton, Romney fares little better, falling 18 percentage points behind (58% to 40%).
The results for other candidates show that this is a Romney problem, not a Republican problem.
John McCain, for instance, virtually ties both Obama and Clinton – running 48%-49% against Obama and 48%-50% against Clinton. In other words, in a trial heat against Barack Obama, Senator McCain runs a startling 21 points closer than does Governor Romney.
Even Mike Huckabee (despite remaining virtually unknown to many Americans) draws slightly stronger support than Romney – running 3 points closer to Obama and 4 points closer to Clinton.
After spending more money than his major opponents combined, Romney appears more and more clearly unelectable, and a Saturday column by Gail Collins in the New York Times gives a clear explanation why. “Unfortunately, there’s something about Romney’s perfect grooming, his malleability and his gee-whiz aura that seems to really irritate both the other candidates and the voters,” she writes. “What bothers voters about Romney, as it turns out, is not his Mormonism but his inherent Mitt-ness.”
She’s right, of course. As I’ve said repeatedly over the last several weeks, the problem for Romney isn’t his faith, it’s his phoniness. It’s even worse to see that in-authenticity combined with an all-too-visible mean and nasty streak in going after his rivals.
I know many good people and committed conservatives who say they like Romney and insist, despite his back-to-back losses against flawed candidates in Iowa and New Hampshire, that he’d still be the strongest Republican in November.
How then, do they explain his devastatingly poor performance in the latest trial heats – a performance that corresponds to his similarly feeble showing in prior polls (particularly against Obama) conducted by Rasmussen, USA Today/Gallup, and Zogby?
With key primaries coming up in Michigan and South Carolina, support for Romney would seem to indicate a powerful and problematic Republican death wish.
They are all pretty weak.
If you ignore melanin and genitals, there's not much difference between them.
Enough read.
CNN? Not a legitimate pollster.
The Democrats certainly are. The GOP candidates are much stronger, each and every one of them.
Except Ron Paul.
I think Medved is right that it’s another warning against putting Mitt at the top of the ticket, but it’s also a case where the big dog that didn’t bark. That is they either didn’t poll or didn’t publish on the likely strongest candidate’s results: Fred, of course.
The problem with Romney is that he’s a Mormon. The GOP base won’t support a Mormon, and the Dems certainly won’t support one, particularly a Republican one.
Very sad in my view. I don’t think this race should be about religion. But it looks like it will be, and it looks like the determination of the GOP rank and file to vote based on religion is going to hand this to the Democrats.
These head to heads mean nothing more than name recognition at this stage.
LOL. CNN doesn't do the polling. They contract it out to a real polling firm.
What's the difference between losing 48-49, and losing 20-80?
If we have to nominate McCain to get up to 48%, and still lose, then is it worth it?
I don't think so.
Besides, I think O'bama and Clinton will chew each other up between now and July.
Exactly - bigger gaps than this have been overcome after both candidates were nominated.
This far before the election, this is measuring name ID and little else. Romney polls the weakest, because no one knows who he is. McCain, Giuliani and even Thompson are better known.
That said, I wish we could just pick “none of the above,” and start the process over.
I’d rather not let the MSM tell me who’s an electable republican..... if that’s ok with Wolf Blitzer.
The top 3 or 4 are running to see who gets the privilege of getting whooped in the general election.
Indeed. Many people don't want to admit that Mitt being Mormon is one of the reasons they don't support him. They blame on his liberalism, flip-flop, etc. However, I don't think that is enough to explain his very high negative ratings. There are other Republican candidates with much worse records yet they don't receive that high of negative ratings. In one survey recently, they found 4% of Americans would not vote for a female for president, 2% would not vote for Black, and 14% would not vote for a Mormon.
Two words, McCain-Feingold. Two more words, McCain-Kennedy.
I fear that long-term socialism is truly coming to the U.S. soon.
I agree. Be thinking about which foreign country you’ll flee to. I hear Costa Rica is nice.
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