- Mitt Romney 30% (27%)
- Mike Huckabee 19% (12%)
- Rudy Giuliani 12% (13%)
- Fred Thompson 11% (10%)
- John McCain 7% (5%)
- Ron Paul 5% (4%)
- Tom Tancredo 2% (2%)
- Duncan Hunter 1% (1%)
- Undecided 13% (22%)
Survey of 600 likely Republican caucus-goers was conducted November 9-12. The margin of error is ±4 percentage points. Results from the poll conducted October 12-14 are in parentheses.
- Rudy Giuliani 26% (20.5%)
- Mitt Romney 20% (20.5%)
- Fred Thompson 18% (16.8%)
- John McCain 14% (13.0%)
- Mike Huckabee 12% (8.3%)
- Other 6%
- Undecided 4%
Survey of 577 Likely Republican Primary Voters was conducted November 9-11. The margin of error is +/- 4.2 percentage points. Each candidate’s RCP average in South Carolina is in parentheses.
A little sidenote: This NRLC couldn’t of at a better time for the campaign. We were on the ropes, if you go by the polls. Now, we’ve just been handed the keys to a Lamborghini, and now the campaign has to get it rid of its learners permit and pass it’s drivers test to get a license. For months, TV analysts and the 24 hour networks have relied on pundits to analyze or defend Thompson, and not all of them were necessarily on board with him. Now, we’ve got representatives willing to step up and take charge. I will be gone for a few days to work for the campaign, but will be back soon.
First sign of preperation for the drivers test? Fred finally caved in and gave his first speech from a teleprompter. 
Anyway, here is Thompson’s white papers with regards to Israel, from fred08:
The United States is committed to the security of Israel and the safety of the Israeli people. The historical, familial and cultural ties of our peoples are the basis of this commitment. It is strengthened by the shared values and shared interests of our nations. Our mutual goal is an economically and militarily strong Israel at peace with its neighbors. We must exercise our traditional leadership role in the region and continue our longstanding support to Israel to achieve this vision.
Drudge’s headline is “HUCKABEE SURPRISE“:
CBS/NYT GOP Iowa Caucus Poll, conducted Nov. 2nd-12th, 2007
- Mitt Romney 27%
- Mike Huckabee 21%
- Rudy Giuliani 15%
- Fred Thompson 9%
- John McCain 4%
- Ron Paul 4%
- Tom Tancredo 3%
And here’s New Hampshire:
CBS/NYT GOP New Hampshire Primary Poll (pdf), conducted Nov. 2nd-12th, 2007
- Mitt Romney 32%
- Rudy Giuliani 16%
- John McCain 16%
- Ron Paul 8%
- Mike Huckabee 6%
- Fred Thompson 6%
Yes, you read that correctly. Fred Thompson is in 6th place behind Ron Paul and Mike Huckabee in this poll.
Is Your Mind Made Up?
Iowa: Yes 43% -Too Early 57%
New Hampshire: Yes 34% – Too Early 66%
James Dobson may be waiting to see who emerges as the SoCon alternative to Rudy…
Dr. James C. Dobson of Focus of the Family, meanwhile, has made it clear that he is “not on the verge of endorsing anyone,” including Huckabee. Dobson said Monday that he personally knows and likes Huckabee, but denied reports claiming he planned to endorse the Republican presidential contender in the next few days.
“I’m telling you, it’s not true and never has been,” said Dobson on Focus on the Family broadcast on Monday. “I may eventually endorse somebody, but if I do, it won’t be done here on Focus on the Family. It will be done as a private individual and, more than likely, it will be later in the campaign when the situation has clarified itself.”
He further noted that he has never endorsed a candidate in a primary.
“I’m watching these people very carefully. I’m seeing how they hold up in a presidential campaign,” he said. “That’s a difficult road out there, and weaknesses begin to fall out, and people say stupid things. They reveal untenable positions, and I’m not going to go put my name on somebody at this stage before I see how they’re going to handle that. So I’m not on the verge of endorsing anyone.”
Yet Dobson clearly stated that one thing is certain: His vote will always be a vote for life.
I personally think that Dobson will wait to see who emerges the victor in Iowa…Mitt or Huck…Obviously an earlier endorsement is something we would all like to see (if its your guy he is endorsing), but it doesn’t look like that is going to happen…
The indispensable Jim Geraghty (whose website should defiantly be on your browser tab on election night) has this to say about Romney’s numbers:
I realize everything can change fast in Iowa and New Hampshire, and some are rightly skeptical about the value of polling in a caucus state. I also recognize that some pollsters’ methods of figuring out who’s a “likely voter” are better than others.
But if I were a Romney guy, I’d be pretty pleased about the trends in those two primary states.
…
Even the South Carolina numbers are starting to look better across several polls – he’s leading the field at 29 percent, up 6 percentage points on Giuliani in ARG (okay, really, how is Fred Thompson getting 10 percent in South Carolina?), tied with Giuliani and one point behind Thompson in Winthrop/ETV, in a three-way tie for second and five points behind Thompson in InsiderAdvantage, leading the previous ARG by 3, and down 9 percent in Rasmussen, and even that’s five percent higher than the previous poll by that organization.
JG attributes the NH success to the serious attention that Romney has given to the state.
One Romney campaign operative told me that they are literally stunned at how little the Rudy folks are in NH. They feel its “there for the taking” and they’ll take it if no one else will.
I couldn’t agree more!
David Brody brings up a good point…
Well, you can blow off Huckabee all you like by saying how money is an issue or whatever the argument of the day is against him. I know Romney still has a sizeable lead in the polls there but the reality on the ground in Iowa is that Huckabee is on fertile soil. His pro-life, pro-Bible thumping message plays well and his poll numbers have moved north. The last thing Romney needs is pesky little Huckabee buzzing around like a bumblebee with a killer sting. Remember, Romney needs to be seen as the champion for social conservatives, not Huckabee.
Romney has been leading for so long in Iowa. It’s almost like the big lead there is working against him. The expectation now is that not only does he have to win there, he has to win big. If Huckabee is a close second or actually wins,…wait..hold on…I need to interrupt this blog for a moment. Can someone get me some smelling salts? We have a couple of Romney advisors down on the floor. Please revive them. Please tell them that Huckabee hasn’t won Iowa. I’m just saying “if he does”. They’re OK? Good.
The way things seem to be developing in Iowa, it looks to be a battle for second…Rudy is playing hard enough to be respectable…McCain is playing hard enough to show NH that he has still got it…Fred Thompson…Well no one really knows about him and his strategy…Huckabee is looking to win but knows a strong second is a win and even concedes that a finish below 3rd and he drops out next day…So it seems all the pressure is on Mitt to make it happen and make it happen big…Anything else will be weakness…That said…If Mitt wins Iowa and NH…even by small margins…He will be sitting pretty…I think Huck needs to win Iowa…But…you know…I think he can…
In today’s New York Times, David Brooks has a wonderful column on John McCain. It perfectly encapsulates his utterly unique presence in American politics and why I’ve been a devoted supporter for years.
About six months ago, I was having lunch with a political consultant and we were having a smart-alecky conversation about the presidential race. All of sudden, my friend interrupted the flow of gossip and said: “You know, there’s really only one great man running for president this year, and that’s McCain.”
The comment cut through the way we pundits normally talk about presidential candidates. We tend to view them like products and base our verdicts on their market share at the moment. We don’t so much evaluate their character; we analyze how effectively they are manipulating their image to appeal to voters, and in this way we buy into the artificiality of modern campaigning.
My friend’s remark pierced all that, and it had the added weight of truth.
Eight years ago, it was fashionable for us media types to wax rapturously about McCain. That vogue has passed, but I’m afraid my views are unchanged. I have seen McCain when his campaign was imploding, and now again when he’s rising in the polls. I have seen him shooting craps and negotiating in the Senate. I have seen him leading delegations like a statesman and bickering with his old Hanoi Hilton prison-mate Bud Day like a crotchety old lady.
And I can tell you there is nobody in politics remotely like him.
…
Telling the truth is a skill. Those who don’t do it habitually lose the ability, but McCain is well-practiced and has the capacity to face unpleasant truths. While other conservatives failed to see how corporations were insinuating themselves into their movement, McCain went after Boeing contracts. While others failed to see the rising tide of corruption around them, McCain led the charge against Jack Abramoff. While others ignored the spending binge, McCain was among the fiscal hawks.
There have been occasions when McCain compromised his principles for political gain, but he was so bad at it that it always backfired. More often, he is driven by an ancient sense of honor, which is different from fame and consists of the desire to be worthy of the esteem of posterity.
Other Republicans used to accuse him of kissing up to the news media. But when the Iraq war was at its worst, and other candidates were hiding in the grass waiting to see how things would turn out, McCain championed the surge, which the major Republican candidates now celebrate.
He did it knowing that it would cost him his media-darling status and probably the presidency. But for years he had hated the way the war was being fought. And when the opportunity to change it came, the only honorable course was to try.
And now he pushes ahead, building momentum, but desperately needing a miracle win in New Hampshire. Everyone will make their own political choices, and you might plausibly argue that the qualities John McCain possesses are not the ones the country now requires. But character is destiny, and you will never persuade me that he is not among the finest of men.
That human point seemed worth remembering, even amid the layers of campaign pretense.
Brooks, of course, has been a longtime McCain backer, supporting him over Bush in 2000. Like Brooks, it’s precisely the fact that he’s not willing to toe the line 100% on the conservative checklist that endears him to me. He’s authentic. Even if you disagree with him, you know where he stands. Who else was willing to stand up for the surge in the golden days of the Bush Administration? Who else stuck to their principles and advocated for badly needed immigration reform despite it’s unpopularity? That takes real character.
As he has often said:
We are taught to understand, correctly, that courage is not the absence of fear, but the capacity for action despite our fears.
For the greater good of the country. Win or lose, McCain will always be a true American hero.
The California Republican Assembly, reportedly California’s largest and most conservative group of political volunteers, voted to endorse Mitt Romney over the weekend at their annual convention.
This endorsement is surprising on a few different levels:
The endorsement won’t offer much in the way of finances, but it does add the all important organizational and logistical support, as well as giving Romney added volunteers in the state.
Also, don’t look now, but Romney just passed McCain and Thompson and is in second place in California according to pollster.com.
This is guaranteed to generate some discussion:
Rasmussen Daily Presidential Tracking Poll
- Rudy Giuliani 27%
- Mitt Romney 16%
- John McCain 13%
- Fred Thompson 11%
- Mike Huckabee 11%
- Ron Paul 5%
Survey includes approximately 600-650 Likely Republican Primary Voters. The margin of error is +/- 4 percentage points.
It’s official. The National Right Life Committee has endorsed Fred Thompson for president.
From Lifenews…
Dr. Wanda Franz, NRLC’s president, told LifeNews.com that the group’s endorsement “is a testament to Senator Thompson’s long-standing pro-life record, his commitment to unborn children, and our belief in his ability to win.”
LifeNews.com attended the weekend board meeting where representatives of statewide pro-life groups from across the country, representing thousands of local chapters and millions of pro-life advocates, came together to back Thompson.
Members of the National Right to Life board considered the position of all of the Republican candidates for president and ultimately supported Thompson based on this pro-life voting record and second-placed standing in most national polls.
Franz said the endorsement is important because National Right to Life is the first grassroots organization to weigh in on the presidential race.
“Unlike endorsements by single individuals, this endorsement was made by representatives of statewide pro-life organizations across America which themselves are comprised of local community chapters and grassroots activists,” she said.
More this afternoon…
Romney appeared on Scarborough Country to differentiate himself from the crowd when it comes to immigration.
- Hillary Clinton 46%
- Rudy Giuliani 43%
- Hillary Clinton 47%
- John McCain 39%
- Hillary Clinton 52%
- Fred Thompson 34%
- Hillary Clinton 53%
- Mitt Romney 34%
A plurality of 43% think Rudy Giuliani is the Republican candidate with the best chance to win the presidency if nominated.
Survey of 500 Likely Voters was conducted November 7. The margin of error is +/- 4.5 percentage points.
- Rudy Giuliani 45%
- Hillary Clinton 42%
- Fred Thompson 54%
- Hillary Clinton 41%
- Hillary Clinton 43%
- Mitt Romney 42%
Thirty-three percent (33%) of Tennessee voters say Thompson is the GOP candidate most likely to win it all if nominated, 28% say Giuliani.
Survey of 500 Likely Voters was conducted November 7. The margin of error is +/- 4.5 percentage points.
Rudy Giuliani
John McCain
Fred Thompson
Mitt Romney
Mike Huckbee
General Race 4 2008 News
Hillary Clinton
The good folks at NRO seem to be engaging in a bit of a debate over the merits of Joe Lieberman for veep…on the Republican ticket. Peter Wehner agrees with Bill Kristol that it would be an interesting idea given that Joe was basically excommunicated from the Democratic Party for the heresy of being a grown-up on national security. Ramesh has other ideas. Money quote:
I’m not sure what the case for putting him on the ticket is. To prove that Republicans are willing to reach out to Democrats whom most Democrats hate? To show that Republicans are the hawkish party? I think people already know that.
Ramesh seems to be implying that a good vice presidential candidate serves to balance the ticket, as it were, and that Lieberman fails to fulfill that role on a Republican presidential ticket. This constitutes a reasonable view to be sure, but one that I’m not certain is correct given the lessons of the last few elections.
In 1992 and 1996, Bill Clinton won two landslide victories by basically selecting himself as his running mate. Al Gore was both cleaner and more of a true believer than the former president, but other than that, the two basically hit all of the same demographic and geographic chords. Clinton’s successes demonstrated that when a presidential candidate finds a winning formula, it is sometimes best to double-down with the selection of a running mate with similar traits. It is this same logic that leads many to suggest that McCain/Pawlenty would be a formidable GOP ticket, and one consisting of two fiscally moderate soft-social conservatives with a maverick streak.
As such, allow me to suggest a ticket that will never come to pass, but one that could potentially yield a seismic shift in the nation’s political tectonic plates. What if Rudy Giuliani, after winning the GOP nomination, were to select Joe Lieberman as his running mate next year? Again, this is the Clinton/Gore scenario, only on steroids. Both Rudy and Joe are Northeasterners. Both come from working class backgrounds. Both are white ethnics. Both are non-Protestants. Both are temperamentally socially conservative but socially liberal on a policy basis. Both are pro-GWOT. Both are pro-Israel. Both are pro-business. The difference seems to be that Rudy often seems like the latest disciple of Milton Friedman on economics while Joe is more of a DLC-style pragmatist and technocrat.
But a Rudy/Lieberman alliance would go farther than Clinton/Gore, inasmuch as Lieberman doesn’t even belong to the same political party as the mayor. In that sense, Lieberman would be to Rudy what Zell Miller was to President Bush in 2004. By fervently and passionately supporting Bush at the Republican convention in 2004, Zell Miller sent a message to folks like him — culturally conservative, hawkish Southerners with economically populist views — who had previously self-identified as Southern Democrats. Seeing one of their own embrace George W. Bush sent the message that it was okay to be a Southerner and vote Republican.
In 2008, though, it won’t be the South that the Republican nominee is most concerned about. As 2006 and 2007 showed, the Deep South is going to vote Republican no matter what. If Rudy Giuliani is the GOP nominee, he won’t have to worry about Alabama or Georgia going off the reservation. He will have to win some blue states though in order to get to 270 due to the possible defection of states like Virginia and Colorado, which have been shifting blue, as well as Ohio and Iowa, which are economically populist, isolationist Midwestern states that seem to be favoring the Democrats this time around. Rudy’s natural base is in the Northeast, where he’s statistically tied with Hillary Clinton in Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and in some polls, New Hampshire and New Jersey. Rudy outdoes Bush ‘04 in these states, as well as his fellow ‘08 GOP contenders, due to his unique appeal to another type of disaffected Democrat. While Bush appealed to the Zell Miller-style questioning Democrats in the South, Rudy’s converts to the party would most likely be similar to the mayor himself: white ethnics from the urban Northeast with a penchant for law and order. And what better way to actually win states like New Jersey and Connecticut than to double-down on them with fellow Northeastern hawk, Joe Lieberman.
So who is the prototypical Rudy/Lieberman convert to the party? While residing in the Northeast, this voter is quite distinct from the tribal Rockefeller Republican WASPs that inhabit the region. To the contrary, this voter is probably tribally Democratic, likes both FDR and Ronald Reagan, has roots in Eastern or Southern Europe, is probably Roman Catholic or Jewish, and voted for John Kerry in 2004. This voter is temperamentally socially conservative inasmuch as he doesn’t want social change forced upon him but is also part of no one’s culture war and doesn’t think the government should be either. This voter remembers 9/11, believes it hit too close to home, and wants a foreign policy that prevents the American mainland from again being hit by the expansionist Islamists. This voter fondly remembers the hawkishness and patriotism of the pre-1968 Democratic Party and has never really felt at home in the Democratic Party since. This voter doesn’t want his taxes to go up and wants the government to keep the trains running on time. This voter cannot connect with Bush Republicanism — a seeming hybrid of Northeastern WASP corporatist Republicanism and Southern religious conservatism — but doesn’t identify with modern Democrats either. He is a voter without a party, and while he could easily vote for Kerry — a Catholic, a Bay Stater, and a military man with a fairly normal personal life — this voter really, really doesn’t want to vote for carpetbagging, ex-wife-emulating Hillary. And so the white ethnics of the Northeast who voted for FDR and JFK and Ronald Reagan and John Kerry are begging the GOP to give them a candidate with whom they culturally identify, who is neither a Northern corporatist nor a Southern evangelical. Republicans have one such candidate for president this time around, and if Lieberman is truly on the table for veep, then Republicans also have one such candidate for vice president.
It will never happen, if only because an all pro-choice, all the time GOP ticket would be a deal-breaker for too many people, but still, a Catholic/Jewish Republican ticket emanating from the bluest of states would do much to introduce new people into a party that simply cannot win with only the voters that cast ballots for GOP candidates in 2006.
