TPM Reader DB on McCain-Romney
I have always thought that if Romney could get McCain one on one, especially in closed primary states, he’d likely beat him. All these Super Tuesday states where McCain is “leading” in polls taken recently may be a bit deceptive because they’re still polling significant numbers for Huck and Rudy. If it becomes obvious that Huck and Rudy are out of it, then McCain may have to get a high enough per cent of real Republicans to win an essentially two man race–in other words, he might need at or near 50%. He’s out of line with his party on enough issues, that I think it is questionable he could do that.
This is definitely possible. In fact, in the northeast a lot of the most recent polls (obviously not that recent) have Giuliani either ahead of McCain or coming in second. So presumably those numbers will be reshuffled pretty soon. And there’s a general dearth of good polls for a lot of the Super Tuesday states.
It comes back to the question of just how much of that fabled anti-McCain sentiment among base Republicans is really out there.
From today’s newsletter …
Clearly, John McCain’s stock is up. In both national and state polling, his support and favorable ratings among Republicans are on the rise.
Mitt Romney might be running roughly even with McCain in Florida, but nationally and in most other states, he is not keeping up with the Arizona senator and does not enjoy the same momentum.
The other surviving GOP contenders, Rudy Giuliani and Mike Huckabee, are trying desperately to hang on for dear life.
To be sure, there’s considerable resistance to McCain among many staunch conservatives who have long doubted he is truly one of them. And some members of the party establishment havebeen irritated by his frequent exploits as a “maverick.”
But the alternatives are looking less and less attractive every day, and there seems to be a growing, albeit begrudging, admission among longtime McCain detractors that he may be the only Republican who can beat Hillary Rodham Clinton or Barack Obama.
Romney still has his considerable personal financial fortune to draw on, and the Florida primary is certainly neck-and-neck. The question remains, however, whether Romney could continue spending through the Feb. 5 array of primaries at the high levels necessary for him to capitalize on a Florida win.
Clearly the Romney strategy is to stay alive long enough to get down to a two-way contest with McCain. From there, he can capitalize on the Arizonan’s many enemies within the party, or hope that there’s a ceiling on McCain’s support and force a mistake.
If that happens, the former Massachusetts governor will have the opportunity to pounce. But McCain has made very few mistakes during this campaign, and even many of his critics are starting to come around.
Romney has badly damaged his own personal franchise, and his perceived strengths have faded. At one time, he projected the image of the competent manager — someone who was sharp, analytical and perhaps the perfect fit to fix an ailing economy.But he’s increasingly viewed as a world-class panderer, and his stock has fallen.
Instead of branding himself as the earnest problem-solver, he has attempted to promote the idea that he is the most conservative candidate in the race, which was neither credible nor particularly convincing. If any candidate this year has soiled his own nest and diminished his own substantial potential, it is Romney.
Already some chatter that the Florida and Michigan delegate issue may go to court.
A few readers are suggesting that Rudy could overshoot his numbers in tonight’s primary because of the state’s extensive early voting. This does not just refer to the official ‘early voting’ that began 15 days before today’s primary. There’s also old-fashioned absentee ballots, which the Times says “were distributed as early as Dec. 15.”
That’s significant because that’s back in the Rudy era. So you could figure, especially since the Rudy! campaign has said it put a lot of legwork into early voting, that Rudy may have an unknown stash of votes cast before Floridians decided he was a joke.
But there’s a problem with this theory. As far as I know, the polling organizations are trying to take account of early voting. So, for instance, this SurveyUSA poll notes that the organization determined who had already voted and how they voted. So, as long as the questioning methodology is sound, the existence of early voting should not skew the numbers.
All of which means that Rudy is probably toast just like he looks.
The polls are going to close in a couple hours in Florida. But Mitt Romney has just rolled out a new 2008 campaign ‘mascot’ in an effort to mobilize base conservative voters against quasi-frontrunner John McCain.
Hard to say how it’ll affect the buildup to Super Tuesday. But Mitt is in it to win it.
Jim Geraghty has what he says are early exits numbers out of Florida — McCain 34.3%, Romney 32.6%, Rudy 15.3% and Huck 12%. The McCain Romney number squares with what I heard from another source. What seems unclear is whether these count absentee and early voting.
Time’s The Page has the scoop on a series of attack ads hitting McCain financed by Citizens United, David Bossie’s operation. The ad isn’t really that outrageous in terms of what it says — basically just gives examples of times he’s made common cause with Democrats, not saying he was in Hanoi partying or something while he was a POW.
It’s big news.
But check out Halprin’s headline for the piece: “And So It Begins”
Basically running attack ads on John McCain is on a par, in somberness terms, with initiating genocide or dropping a nuclear weapons.
We’re getting late word on the subterranean Dem campaign going on in the last few days in Florida. A mailer went out from the Hillary-backing AFSCME. And a Clinton surrogate, Rep. Corrine Brown, did a robocall run for a state initiative that happens to mention that she’s going to be supporting Hillary. Meanwhile, Obama’s allies are in the mix too. Unite, an Obama-backing union, has also sent out a pro-Obama mailer.