Checking In On Ruffini Redux
With just under 15,000 votes tallied, Rudy G. has 33.4% in the Patrick Ruffini Straw Poll, followed by Allen and Romney in a distant second and third. In the fantasy poll, Rudy G. is second but loses handily to Condi Rice.
Among the 36 D’08ers who voted so far, Rudy G. has a commanding 52.9%, followed by McCain and Huckabee, with Rice again taking the fantasy poll.
It’s not to late to join in the fun…do the patriotic thing and vote here…
If only this were the real primaries. Can’t we contact Ken Mehlman and see if the Ruffinipoll can just kind of, you know, be enough? Rudy at 30+% makes me happy.
C’mon, Ace, Mark and I can’t all be wrong, can we? Rudy! Rudy!
Rudy’s also way up in Iowa and New Hampshire. Didn’t check SC and VA, but Huckabee is (not surprisingly) way ahead in Arkansas.
Giuliani/Huckabee? Or does that sound way too silly? I mean phonically, not politically, although it seems silly politically too.
Maybe instead of ticket balancing, we should double down? Worked for Clinton.
Giuliani/Romney?
One more and then I’ll stop for a while:
Rudy’s %s also seem to have gone up in the key states from the August poll. Assuming
(a) This represents anything out there in actual demographic fact, rather than the errant breezes of the blogosphere
(b) It’s possible to project 28 months into the future on these matters (wow! when you put it like that, 28 months [
Although I voted for Rudy, it’s worth noting that the poll still shows two-thirds of the voters voted for someone else. So I’m sure people who don’t like Rudy can take consolation in that.
But to snatch that consolation away, it’s worth noting that I really don’t see anyone who can make a credible case to be the sole “anybody-but-Rudy” candidate. McCain clearly can’t. Allen and Romney and a handful of others probably can try, but I just don’t see enough to justify saying one of those guys is clearly a better choice than any other. Rudy is a star and they’re too interchangeable.
Sure, Iowa and New Hampshire are a long time away and maybe will someone will emerge from the pack, but in my experience, whenever the pundits start suggesting some challenger might emerge frtom the pack, no one usually does.
Rudy’s my second choice, Dennis, but he seems to be holding up pretty well in Ruffini’s polls. How well that translates into the real world remains an open question.
I’ll disagree with you about the other candidates, though. One of their weaknesses isn’t so much their interchangeability as the sharp differences between them. Most of them seem to appeal to narrower constituencies even among Republicans than Giuliani does, and probably hold much less appeal for independent voters.
One disturbing aspect of the poll was the number of commenters who said, “If the nominee doesn’t share my views on abortion/immigration/gun control/etc., then they won’t get my vote.” I’m hoping this is just ranting from three years out, because most Republicans–roughly 2/3 of them–are going to see the nomination go to someone who wasn’t their first pick, and another Nader or Perot protest candidacy is exactly what we don’t need. OTOH, I strongly recommend this attitude to the other guys. All or nothing, Dems! Run Clark as an independent!
utron, you make a good point. I guess in my mind, outside of Rudy and McCain (and Condi if you include her), the others blend together, but you’re right that they seem to have distinct slivers of appeal. Tancredo is all about immigration, Allen seems to be running as carbon copies of Bush, Romney’s sort of a cross between Northeasterner and social conservative, etc. And that might make it even harder for them to build a broad coalition.
And I agree the my-way-or-the-highway stuff is unnerving. I guess I can sort of understand it; if the GOP put up a dove in 2008, I’d have a hard time getting jazzed about voting for him, even if he shared my conservative views on, say, gun rights, because foreign policy is my biggest issue. But still, if forced to choose between someone who shares 50 percent of my views and someone who shares 10 percent, I’ll take my 50 percent and grumble. Sitting out and waiting for purity? Well, let’s ask the Nader voters how that’s working out for them. At least if you have someone dependent on your vote, he’s more likely to give your issue a bit more consideration than the opponent would.
So, that Crystal Dueker sure is, uh, intense in her support for Condi, huh?