Giuliani way out in front of rivals in latest US presidential poll

[Rufus T. Firefly]

It'd be interesting to know what his numbers are among likely Republican primary voters. Those are the only numbers that count right now, and I can't imagine they favor him.

[SlowwHand]

Giuliani is favored by an impressive 59 percent of Republican voters over his main rival, Senator John McCain (news, bio, voting record), who trails with 34 percent support, according to the latest Newsweek poll.

Giuliani has surged ahead since a January 25 Newsweek poll, when he had a narrow lead of four points over McCain that was deemed a statistical tie.

When pitted against another Republican candidate, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, 70 percent of Republican voters say they would choose Giuliani compared to 20 percent for Romney.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

interesting. But GOP voters doesn't necessarily mean GOP primary voters; primaries tend to have a much smaller turnout than national elections, and the turnout tends to skew to the base (conservative for the GOP, liberal for the Dems).

Personally, I just can't believe that pro-gay anti-gun Rudy is going to get very far in the GOP primaries; wait til McCain and co start hitting back, and then lets see where his numbers are.

[MrFun]

Do ANY polls of this sort mean anything this early? A lot can change in meantime . . . . . .

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Originally posted by MrFun
Do ANY polls of this sort mean anything this early? A lot can change in meantime . . . . . .

At this point they measure name recognition and whether people are sick of heearing about a person yet. That's all.

[MrFun]

I do find all of this tiring. Presidential campaigns in United States start waaaaay too early.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Wait until the issues are discussed. Someone is bound to say that Guiliani is pro-choice and pretty tolerant towards gays.

I mean, really, he was the mayor of NYC! Do people actually think the Republicans up there are similar to the Republicans who exist in South Carolina?

[MrFun]

Politicians discuss issues beyond soundbites? Since when?

[Zkribbler]

Originally posted by Frozzy
Way out of rivals in US Presidential Poll...

um... 47 to 46 versus Hillary, 47-45 versus Edwards.

Yeah, way out in front

Funny. I interpreted the way it turned out....that Giuliani was way out in front to get the Republican nomination.

Only he and McCain have a lot of name recognition, and in the past couple of years, McCain's priviously iron spine has become very pliable, as he runs around kissing the feet of Repug kingmakers. Plus, Giuliani is seen as anti-al-Qaeda while McCain is seen as pro-Iraqi-war.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Rufus T. Firefly
interesting. But GOP voters doesn't necessarily mean GOP primary voters; primaries tend to have a much smaller turnout than national elections, and the turnout tends to skew to the base (conservative for the GOP, liberal for the Dems).

Personally, I just can't believe that pro-gay anti-gun Rudy is going to get very far in the GOP primaries; wait til McCain and co start hitting back, and then lets see where his numbers are.

Well, according to WaPo Giuliani doesn't agree with your profile:

The former mayor's campaign team believes it has found a credible path to the nomination. Its foundation is a conclusion that while the overwhelming majority of Republicans differ with Giuliani on abortion, gay rights and gun control, a much smaller percentage of GOP primary voters -- perhaps no more than a quarter -- are single-issue voters who would never vote for him because of his views on those issues, a percentage borne out by the latest Post-ABC News poll.

[Frozzy]

Originally posted by Zkribbler
Funny. I interpreted the way it turned out....that Giuliani was way out in front to get the Republican nomination.

Only he and McCain have a lot of name recognition, and in the past couple of years, McCain's priviously iron spine has become very pliable, as he runs around kissing the feet of Repug kingmakers. Plus, Giuliani is seen as anti-al-Qaeda while McCain is seen as pro-Iraqi-war.

I figured it was a poll between a selection of possible candidates (McCain, Giuliani, Edwards, Clinton, Obama)

I guess I don't associate the GOP primary with the presidency automatically

[Rufus T. Firefly]

That's a weird formulation. It's not about single-issue voting. It's about the self-identified "Christian conservative" wing of the GOP, the so-called "values voters." They are a significant part of the party, period, and play a disproportionately large role in the primaries. i really have a hard time seeing them voting for rudy, and iI have a hard time seeing any GOP candidate getting the nomination without them. The whole package -- pro-choice, gay-friendly, twice-divorced, Catholic, lived with his mistress in Gracie Mansion -- just seems anathemam to that voting bloc. But if Rudy's people think he can take it, good for them; the more blood on the walls during the GOP primary, the better.

[The Mad Monk]

Rush Limbaugh brought up a few of the objections you noted, and suggested ways of getting around them:

RUSH: It's interesting. We got behind Reagan twice. Reagan lost? What is this we support losers? That's wishful thinking on these guys' part. I'm going to tell you something about Giuliani. He's a smart cookie. Fox is running a poll that says that it's either 83 or 87% -- I'm not sure which I remember seeing, one of those two numbers -- of Republicans are comfortable with the notion of Rudy Giuliani in the White House, and not as a visitor but as president. Here's the thing about Giuliani. Everybody's got problems with him. Conservatives have problems with him on the social side. He's pro-gay marriage, pro-gay rights, pro-abortion, pro-choice, whatever, these kinds of things. But when you start polling him on judges, he's a strict constructionist. He's out there saying this. He likes Scalia, likes Clarence Thomas, likes John Roberts. That will count for quite a bit. He can fix the abortion thing if he goes out there and says, "Look, I actually think this ought not be something decided by courts. I think this is something that should be decided by the people, in a democratic fashion, at the state level," and he can ameliorate some of that.

So I think he's got potential, particularly, folks, since we're still going to be at war somewhere in 2008 during that campaign, and the Democrats are still going to be who they are, and they're still going to be acting as they are, if not worse by then. Mrs. Clinton, "I will get us out of Iraq!" Whatever they're saying that they're going to do, they're still going to be who they are and somebody like Rudy who has a huge advantage in competence during crises when you poll that, he could overcome some of these shortcomings that conservatives have. Duffy saying rather smugly, "Well, even if Giuliani gets the nomination, he's not a conservative, the conservatives will call him a conservative." That's not how conservatives work, Michael. Yeah, he's potentially good on economics. I think obviously there's been a lot of strategy going on here with Rudy and whoever is advising him on various ways to ameliorate some of these problems that he is said to have with social conservatives that would surface during a primary appearance.

http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/dai...man.guest.html

I haven't heard him mention any of the other candidates having "potential", certainly not McCain, who's been a favorite target over the years. Notice how he's also mentioning Reagan in almost the same breath.

Say what you want about Limbaugh, he does have considerable influence in how the primaries will go -- and with the religious right having serious problems finding a successor in the current crop of candidates, that might be enough.

[Asmodean]

Well - I am not sure Giuliani would be an improvement over GWB. In fact, I suspect it would be more of the same.

And the world truly doesn't need that. Domestic....I don't know about that, but internationally, we've had about enough of American gung-ho politics.

Asmodean

[Pekka]

Giuliani could have a running chance, should the campagn work, but as long as I'm not running his campang, I'm not sure if he can win.

OK, Giuliani is known here for his standing up in the 911, cleaning up NYC, and also fighting the mafia.

That's pretty positive record. We know he is bit of a hardass, but these things weren't easy to accomplish so.. it's not like going soft would work.

So now just keep that image on those things and beat the opponents with dirt. We'll see how it actually turns out.

McCane should wipe the floor with Giuliani though.