The Candidates
I was catching up on today’s Hotline when I stumbled across this quote from South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford:
When we asked him about John McCain’s trip to SC this weekend, Sanford seemed confused: “To be honest, I didn’t know he was here.”
What’s going on here? I had assumed that Sanford was solidly in McCain’s corner based off his 2000 endorsement of McCain. But in that case, wouldn’t Sanford know of McCain’s high profile announcement tour through the state? Maybe Sanford is really keeping his options open during the primaries. It’s very interesting, nonetheless.
April 29th, 2007 at 12:26 am
Wow. It’s more than that… a Republican governor would normally know of any Republican candidates coming to his state, regardless of past support of the candidate.
April 29th, 2007 at 12:33 am
Sanfords top aide is working for the Rudy camp….
April 29th, 2007 at 1:54 am
I guess in light of McCain’s announced desire to appoint a Dem or two to his cabinet, Sanford figured he didn’t need to play nice with Johnny Boy any more.
April 29th, 2007 at 8:33 am
What we have here is in line with my basic observations of the McCain campaign so far. When he spoke in Memphis, I had no idea he was in the state until after the fact. Either his campaign is suffering through serious signs of miscommunication, or he’s in trouble. I’m not sure which is true at this point, or if it is both. I’m not one of the states insiders, but am well connected enough that I would usually know of a candidate campaigning in the state well before hand. There was absolutely no coverage of his stop beforehand in east Tennessee, and the only after coverage it recieved was a comparison with Edwards, who was in the state at the same time, and had a larger audience.
April 29th, 2007 at 10:19 am
From Lew Rockwell Blog: “Ron [Paul] had a ‘warm’ phone conversation with South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford recently. They worked closely in Congress and Ron is optimistic about an endorsement at some later date.”
April 29th, 2007 at 11:07 am
Mark Sanford may be friendly with Ron Paul but I doubt he is so stupid to endorse such a campaign.
April 29th, 2007 at 11:16 am
I have been looking over the presidential candidates on You tube, and the worst performance, by far, is John McCain. Bungling is a mild word for it. John’s time has come and gone. Like Obama, he can make good stump speeches, but in interviews, where you really get to know him, he is not a good communicator. After suffering through 6+ years of mediocre communication of our current president, I could not tolerate something even worse. I could not find a interview with Obama on You tube since he began his campaign, his clips were all stump speeches (if anyone can send me a link for one of his interviews, I’d appreciate it), which I guess means he is wisely avoiding interviews. Barring some miracle, I would say that John McCain’s candidacy is winding down. In contrast, Romney’s interviews shine- the guy is unbelievable. His only problem is that people may think he is too good- they may want someone they can beat up on as president. He is so far ahead of anyone on the curve that by the time people give him advise on the blogs, he’s already made the course correction and is two more steps ahead of the game. I could be wrong, but it seems to me that the train has already left the station.
April 29th, 2007 at 11:17 am
Romney’s train has left the station? I suggest you check the polls. He’s been placing FIFTH in a lot of them.
April 29th, 2007 at 11:28 am
To be fair, he’s placing fourth more often than fifth– behind one rather than two unannounced candidates.
April 29th, 2007 at 11:57 am
David,
For the 1,000,000 time please understand Presidential Primaries are not won on national polls. I find it interesting you refuse to look at the polls from Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina which show that Romney is certainly in the thick of things.
April 29th, 2007 at 11:59 am
He’s doing better in the early states, and I’ve given him credit for that. Polls tell us where we are now. He has not LEFT the station. You can argue he will, but he hasn’t.
April 29th, 2007 at 12:03 pm
Bottom line, the GOP is too smart to risk everything on 51% of Americans being willing to vote for a Mormon Republican.
April 29th, 2007 at 12:12 pm
Michael, Romney’s in fifth in the SC polls, and if I recall, not doing all that well. Straw polls are inconsequential…. John Cox won a straw poll, need I say more.
Not to jump on the Romney bashing bandwagon, but let’s be straight on the polling data we have and the perceptions or boosts that we can predict.
April 29th, 2007 at 1:08 pm
What polls are you talking about Tommy? He is polling 3rd ahead of Thompson on the Real Clear Politics list of polls from April.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/sc/south_carolina_republican_primary-233.html
April 29th, 2007 at 2:59 pm
The Zogby one last week had him fourth, not fifth (my mistake)
http://www.wpde.com/news/viewarticle.asp?view=4740
April 29th, 2007 at 3:00 pm
The other polls on realclearpolitics are pretty dated.
April 29th, 2007 at 5:40 pm
One is 10 days old and one is three weeks old. Look at the average, Romney 12%, Thompson 6.5%.
You can say that you think Thompson is trending up, but if you do more than that, I think you overstated Thompson’s strength in SC. He still could beat Romney there, but Romney is trending up in Iowa, NH and SC polling and he led all the other candidates in fundraising in Iowa, NH, SC, and Michigan.
April 29th, 2007 at 5:46 pm
Thompson’s only been in two polls. Of course his average is going to be 6.5%. 3 weeks ago Thompson was barely on the radar. That took place before his cancer announcement, any endorsements, DC meeting, blogs etc….
Mitt’s been in every poll in SC, a recent trend up or down won’t affect his average.
I’m only talking about the SC polls, not the others. And I wasn’t even comparing the two, I was remarking to somebody that the straw polls weren’t something to go on.
April 29th, 2007 at 9:19 pm
Go through Race 4 2008’s very own poll archive here to see a recap of every GOP poll in pretty much chronological order.
April 30th, 2007 at 1:18 pm
“In contrast, Romney’s interviews shine- the guy is unbelievable.”
Romney is very good but he does say some wierd things sometimes–the hunter remark and the Bin Laden thing. I get that they were both defensible, but a smart pol wouldn’t have said them. Romney benefits from the long primary season which allows him to hone things.
His least emphasized strength is how good an interview his wife is. I loved the Van Susteren interview with them both where Ann Romney started talking about how important immigration is to people in the red states. That’s what I like to here.