WaPo/ABC: Rudy Up – BIG
Whoa, now THIS is a lead:
In the Republican race, former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, who recently made clear his intentions to seek the presidency, has expanded his lead over Sen. John McCain of Arizona. Giuliani holds a 2 to 1 advantage over McCain among Republicans, according to the poll, more than tripling his margin of a month ago.
The principal reason was a shift among white evangelical Protestants, who now clearly favor Giuliani over McCain. Giuliani gained among this group of Americans despite his support of abortion rights and gay rights, two issues of great importance to religious conservatives. McCain opposes abortion rights.
…In the Republican contest, McCain once was seen as the early, if fragile front-runner, for his party’s nomination, but Giuliani’s surge adds a new dimension to the race. In the latest poll, the former New York mayor led among Republicans with 44 percent to McCain’s 21 percent. Last month, Giuliani led with 34 percent to McCain’s 27 percent.
Former House speaker Newt Gingrich ran third in the latest poll with 15 percent, while former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney was fourth with 4 percent. Gingrich has not said he definitely plans to run, and without him, Giuliani’s lead increased even more, to 53 percent compared with McCain’s 23 percent.
When Republicans were asked to rate Giuliani, McCain and Romney on a series of attributes, Giuliani was seen as the strongest leader, the most inspiring, the candidate with the best chance of winning the general election, the most honest and trustworthy and the one closest to them on the issues. McCain was seen as having the best experience to be president, but only by a narrow margin.
On the Democratic side, we see a continuation of the recent trend of Obama finally making inroads:
The latest poll put Clinton at 36 percent, Obama at 24 percent, Gore at 14 percent and Edwards at 12 percent. None of the other Democrats running received more than 3 percent. With Gore removed from the field, Clinton gained ground on Obama, leading the Illinois senator 43 percent to 27 percent. Edwards ran third at 14 percent. The poll was completed the night Gore’s film “An Inconvenient Truth” won an Oscar.
Clinton’s and Obama’s support among white voters changed little since December, but the changes among black Democrats were dramatic. In December and January Post-ABC News polls, Clinton led Obama among African Americans by 60 percent to 20 percent. In the new poll, Obama held a narrow advantage among blacks, 44 percent to 33 percent. The shift came despite four in five blacks having a favorable impression of the New York senator.
Hillary has got to be getting very nervous, as does McCain – and if Romney can’t get out of the single digits soon, I’m going to quit doing him the courtesy of referring to him as one of the big three GOP hopefuls…
The Obama numbers among black voters are very interesting, since they jibe with that earlier Zogby poll. Interesting that they moved that way after some so-called “black leaders” started making noises that he’s not black enough.
I’m starting to wonder if Giuliani’s appeal might be somewhat similar to Bill Clinton’s in 1992. Bill Clinton was clearly more conservative than his party on several showy issues, the death penalty being a key one. Yet Democrats, hungry for victory, voted for Clinton anyway, because they thought he could win. The same might be true among Republicans who might otherwise reject Giuliani.
Of course, there’s something sui generis about both Bill Clinton and Rudy Giuliani, too – they both have a carismatic appeal that can make you forget about some differences.
My own guess is that if anything sinks Giuliani now, it won’t be abortion or gay marriage; it’ll be gun rights. If I were McCain, I’d be doing everything shy of showing up at speeches packing heat, just to show how pro-gun I am.
I agree with you on Romney, Mark. I don’t begrugde the notion of a social conservative candidate, but the more I see of Romney, the more the guy screams total artifice to me. He’s become the social conservative candidate because he saw it as an opening, not because of principles. If a social conservative is the nominee, I’d rather it be someone like Huckabee or Brownback, who at least believe what they say. (Granted, I think if either of those guys is the nominee, he’ll be slaughtered Alf Landon-style in the general election, but that’s a different issue.)
Giuliani had an affair too, so there’s always that similarity…of course, the attention of the press corpse still seems to be on the Clenis…stupid liberal media.