Decision ‘08

New Poll: All Tied, Again

The Cook Political report has a 2008 poll out, and - you guessed - Rudy G. and John McCain are tied at the top, as the preference of 30% of Republican voters apiece. Consider this, for those who think neither gentlemen can win the primary: that’s 60% for the two ‘unelectable’ moderates…methinks that little piece of conventional wisdom is gone the way of the dodo bird…

Hillary trounces all Democratic challengers by a wide, wide margin - and then (and this is pretty consistent with other polls, too) loses to McCain by ten points in a head-to-head…

Rudy G. is going to have to decide soon if he wants to run against McCain - he’s young enough to wait an election or two, but for McCain, it’s now or never…and you can bet he’s going to go all out…

2 Responses to “New Poll: All Tied, Again”

1 Muffin the Cat Says:
February 27th, 2006 at 10:02 pm
I do prefer Rudy over McCain at this point. I see Rudy as having better leadership skills but I do feel he will have a hard time in the south. I was reading through the recent report on left wing bias in the news via the UCLA study a few months ago and they have McCain as a middle of the road Republican.
2 Dennis Says:
February 28th, 2006 at 10:37 am
The prospect of a McCain candidacy is fascinating if only because I’ll be very curious to see how he gets treated in the media. He’s a rarity among politicians in that he speaks to journalists in a way that indicates he’s actually talking with him, not spitting out soundbites in the robotic way that most candidates wind up doing. For all the talk about media bias, I think this is the biggest reason why he gets good press. (See the Michael Lewis book “Losers” about the ‘96 Republican primaries for a good example of how this works. Whether it’s deliberate ego-stroking or simple people skills, it works.)

But assuming he runs in 2008, he’d no longer be the maverick; he’d be the front runner, or at worst a co-front runner with Giuliani. Will he still get such slavish press, especially when he starts reminding people regularly that he’s pro-life, pro-war, etc.?

I lean a little more toward Giuliani, mostly because as mayor, he accomplished a lot, and senators by nature tend to be showhorses. But if McCain’s the nominee, I’d probably vote for him without a second thought. (Well, maybe without a third thought; I don’t like his stance on campaign finance, and I think he’s squishy on tax cuts. But if he really is dedicated to cutting spending, I can accept limited tax squishiness.)

One other thing I would hope for under a McCain presidency is some of the BDS would die down among the opposition. It’s hard to get MDS when John Kerry was courting the guy to run for veep in 2004. Of course, the most ardent BDS folks have turned on Joe Lieberman, so maybe that’s a false hope.