Election Central Saturday Roundup
Iowa GOP Hosts The Candidates Tonight
The Des Moines Register reports that a whopping 10 candidates will speak at tonight Iowa Republican Party's annual spring fundraiser: Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney, Duncan Hunter, Mike Huckabee, Tom Tancredo, Jim Gimore, Sam Brownback, Tommy Thompson and John McCain, plus longshot candidate John Cox, a businessman from Chicago. About 1,000 top Republican activists in the state are expected to attend the dinner, where the committed one will show their support and the uncommitted will be wooed by the candidates. "It will be like a mini straw poll," said Iowa Republican Party executive director Chuck Laudner.
Breaux Will Not Run For Governor Of Louisiana
The New Orleans Times-Picayune reports that former Senator John Breaux (D-LA) will not run for Governor, after Democratic state ATtorney General Charles Foti declined to issue an advisory opinion on whether or not Breaux — who has worked in Washington as a lobbyist since leaving the Senate two years ago — would be eligible under the state's residency requirement. This currently leaves Democrats without a major candidate against GOP Congressman and 2003 nominee Bobby Jindal.
CBS Poll: Hillary, Rudy Expand Leads
A new CBS News poll finds Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani expanding their national leads in their respective primary fields. On the Republican side, Giuliani leads with an astonishing 47%, followed by John McCain with a distant 25%, and Mitt Romney at 10%. On the Dem side, Hillary Clinton has 39%, with Barack Obama and John Edwards fighting it out for second place. Obama has 24%, and Edwards 21%.
Huckabee: GOP Support For Iraq War Could Dry Up
The Des Moines Register reports that Mike Huckabee said yesterday at a stop in Iowa that Republican support for President Bush's war policies could wither between now and the Iowa caucuses if things do not improve. "I think we've always got to be re-evaluating where the country is," Huckabee told the Register. "If things are not really improving at that point, then, you bet, it requires all of us to rethink it."
Hillary Rolls Out Government Reform Plan
Hillary Clinton unveiled a 10-point government reform plan yestersday, saying, "This is a plan to enhance accountability and transparency and make government more efficient and effective for taxpayers." Included are proposals to reform the government contracting process, expand voting access, and strengthen protections for government whistleblowers.
Could Rudy In a Dress Damage His Chances?
The Associated Press speculates on whether Rudy Giuliani's old gimmick as Mayor of New York City of frequently appearing in drag could damage his chances with conservative primary voters. Neal Thigpen, a political science professor at South Carolina's Francis Marion University, said, "People think of him as a leader and a tough guy, and he has this image as somebody who tamed the city of New York and made the trains run on time, and seeing him dressed up like a girl would run contrary to all of those things."
Corzine Stable — Rarely Buckled Up
The Newark Star-Ledger reports that Governor Jon Corzine (D-NJ) is stable after follow-up surgery for severe injuries sustained in a car accident on Thursday. Meanwhile, the Ledger also reports that aides to Corzine admit he rarely wore his seatbelt and would brush off suggestions that he do so — and everyone else in the car escaped with only minor injuries. Corzine chief of staff John Shea admitted that if an investigation showed the Governor was not buckled up, "We would certainly expect and encourage the State Police to issue a citation to him."
The new CBS News poll showing Hillary Clinton expanding her national lead is consistent with the last three Gallup polls and the recent ARG polls.
Sure, it's a loooong way off before the primaries and caucuses, but it seems to indicate that Obama's 1st quarter fund raising prowess means little to the electorate (other than showing he's a politician - his rhetoric notwithstanding).
Stay tuned...
April 14, 2007 1:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
You are appearantly going to continue to "cherry pick" any poll that supports your candidate, and ignore the ones that indicate she is in trouble.
I am going to continue to point out your misrepresentations. Rasmussen has the race closing to 5% points between HRC and Obama, Time had her lead down to 7%. Another has it at 10%.
The disparity between individual polls is probably best explained by the fact that some poll "all Dems" and others screen for "likely Dem primary" voters. Not surprisingly, Hillary does better in the polls that survey all Dems because of her much higher name recognition and familiarity numbers among the general population. Obama does much better in polls that screen for likely Dem primary voters because those are the folks who have been paying enough attention to have an opinion about him.
This analysis is further butressed by demographic breakdowns in several of the polls. Hillary has higher numbers among the less educated population that tends to be less engaged at this point. Obama does much better with college educated Dems, the people who have much higher participation rates in the primaries.
Bottom line: the polls tend to overstate HRC's level of support because they are unable to identify the people who will actually vote in the primaries.
At this point the most representative and complete information comes from looking at poll averages and trend lines. Once again, I would refer everyone here to go to Pollster.com. Thus far, the trend lines show that Obama has substantially narrowed the gap over the past two months. Of course past performance is not necessarily a predictor of future performance. There is a long way to go.
pacc, it would be nice if you would actually look at the best information available and apply sound analysis to these numbers. It is fine to disagree, not so fine to continually misrepresent.
April 14, 2007 3:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
Not sure even trends mean much this early. Among Republicans Giuliani is soaring and McCain falling off a cliff. I don't think many needed a poll to tell them that but I think Giuliani is headed for his own cliff. Those hoping for Thompson to come riding to the rescue may not be disappointed when the bad stuff becomes better known among the more casual observers. Pollster.com doesn't include Thompson at all.
Meanwhile the only Republican Clinton beats is Romney and she trounces him.
Romney who?
Get the point?
Early polls tend to be little more than name recognition.
Best, Terry
April 14, 2007 4:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
Whack that pee-pee!
Here's a repost from today's hillary.com:
We have seen a wide range of national polls. The latest Gallup poll shows Hillary leading her closest competitor 38 percent to 19 percent, and leading with 43 percent without Al Gore in the race - more than twice the vote of any other candidate. This mirrors several other polls - Fox/Opinion Dynamics, RT/Cook Strategies [plus ARG and CBS News] - that came out at the same time and all show widened leads. Then something like Time Magazine comes out and says the lead is 7 points (similar to their last poll), and LA Times/Bloomberg puts it at 10.
So who is right and what accounts for the difference?
Well, when in doubt about the national polls, go to the state polls - they have larger samples and tend to talk to actual primary voters based on the state's criteria.
In New York, New Jersey and Florida, Hillary leads by 20-30 points. In California, Texas and Pennsylvania, she leads by 13-19 points. These states have the lion's share of Democratic primary voters and delegates. And without Gore, who is not currently running, the lead is even larger.
In fact, Hillary is ahead in 32 of the 34 states with recent polls, and every significant population center without a favorite son is in double digits.
So if you are looking at Democratic primary voters nationally, the state-by-state evidence supports the findings of Gallup [and CBS].
April 14, 2007 6:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
As usual you don't respond to the substance of my post. I will leave it to others to judge what that implies.
The nice thing about this little argument, we will find out next year when we get to the actual primaries and caucuses. I think Hillary is in for rough sailing, you don't. We will see.
April 14, 2007 9:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's too early to tell anything from the polls. At this point in 2003, Joe Lieberman was well in the lead.
As for Hillary's government reform proposals, they go in the right direction, and I'm certainly for reducing the number of contractors. I'd like to see her go further, but it's a start.
Sen. Clinton makes one goof, though: she proposes to restore the Office of Technology Assessment. That would be a good thing, but the OTA was an arm of Congress, and used to provide technical analysis of the President's proposals. Abolishing it gave more power to the president and less to Congress, because the Congress now lacks the skilled analysts who can call bullshit on presidential proposals. Hillary's in Congress now; she can introduce a bill at any time restoring the OTA. She doesn't need to be president to do it. What is she waiting for?
April 14, 2007 10:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
J. McCutchen
For the Sunday Roundup Eric..
Sunday WaPo O!$$$
April 15, 2007 5:37 AM | Reply | Permalink