Both polls out today. Bush up by 8 among likely voters in the Gallup and by 6 in the Post’s poll. Any numbers on the registered voters side?
Will Kerry’s performance in the debates make any difference at all? Or are the debates just confirmation of candidate choice by people who are already convinced about their candidates in the first place?
Will Bush gain in the debates because of his amiable, slightly slower persona, where he doesn’t really have to score a win, but rather just fulfill basic voter perceptions of him that are already developed?
Cogent observation. One can imagine the right cranking up the machinery if Hillary manages to secure the Dem nomination (if Kerry loses in this election) in '08. After all, the Ree-pub field will be wide open and there doesn’t seem to be any serious challenge to her 4 years from now.
Barack’s a smart guy, but like you said, Hillary’d chew him up and spit him out if he decided to chance it in '08. Now, maybe a Vice-Presidential slot would be in the offing.
Edwards makes for a good argument, also. But he’s got to at least break even against Cheney, and Cheney’s a red-meat throwing sonofagun. After all, he’s the guy who admitted telling Patrick Leahy to go and fornicate himself, I think
" I think the office of the President has lost a lot of it’s prestige "
When I was a kid, people always said things like “When you grow up, you can be anything you want to be, even the President.” Do people still have that as a goal for their kids? The public view of the Presidency seems to be more of a political prize and less of a leadership position. Sad.
Each of the Republican candidates has some baggage, though. As you said, Cheney’s a non-starter and doesn’t appear to be the slightest bit interested. McCain has to overcome a non-specific distrust of his motives held by the entrenched power elite in the party, and Giuliani has to overcome the very real dislike of his gay and abortion views by the rightist Republican base.
Not saying it can’t be done, just that it’s going to take some work. In nationwide polling right now, Rudy does beat out Hillary in a head-to-head matchup and she doesn’t even come close to him in terms of personal likeability and trust (both across the nation and in New York state itself).
I think that much of Guiliani’s national popularity is due to the fact that the country for the most part only knows him from 9/11. They don’t know about his record while running NYC. If he runs, whoever is running against him will bring up some stuff that he’ll have to defend.
Why is it that people love Guiliani after Sept 11th? What did he do? I was working in Bermuda at the time and wasn’t following the U.S media so I really don’t know much about him. I know he was mayor during the attacks but did he do anything specific that made him so popular?
Well, first he suggested putting off the mayoral election (in which he was ineligible to run for re-election), but I digress. I’m not sure if he did anything that any mayor of NYC wouldn’t have done. Someone certainly got things organized for the clearing of the WTC site; I don’t know if it was Guiliani that was responsible.
Giuliani’s popularity kills me, because so many people thought he was a real sonofabitch as mayor. Didn’t he have some real racial problems, profiling maybe or something like that?
I am not from NY, and I am certainly no Giuliani fan, but he inherited a real disaster from “mayor for Life” David Dinkins. He cleaned up the city big time, from beefing up the police and driving down the crime rate, to actually getting the Subway system clean. Time Square went from a prostitute and drug haven to a clean and safe area.
Personally, I can’t even imagine how a mayor of any big American city could pull all that off. Admittedly, he caught a lot of economic breaks with boom times that helped provide the money to pull it off, but he did pull it off.
I have many problems with the guy, and I would be hard pressed to vote for him, but he was a terrific mayor from what I understand.
I don’t think he was term limited. He just didn’t run for reelection. He had prostate cancer, a disease that killed his father.
I don’t follow NYC closely, but I believe I all of the above is accurate. Correct me where I misspeak.
I don’t know all the specifics and I’m not a New Yorker, but I think that during Giuliani’s second term, his success were overshadowed by a whole bunch of strange actions seen to be attacking various groups. I think he was setting up weird regulations regarding hotdog vendors and stuff like that. Then there was an incident in which he ordered some police to assault a protest group with mace and nightsticks. Again, I don’t know all the details, but my impression was that his first term was marked by great strides, and then his second term was a disaster.
he did have a slight policing problem with cops firing 41 times and hitting a west african immigrant 19 times in the lobby of his appartment building. Apparently the police had also realised that janitorial supplies also doubled as sex toys in certain precints (broom handles)
That said there is no question under his command the city was safer and cleaner. A friends father who lives out there said Guiliani was a facist (not literally but illustratively) but that it would take a fascist to clean up that city.
On 9/11 he was a leader that people gravitated to, went straight downtown, did not bolt to the hamptons or elsewhere waiting to figure out what was going on.
He was seen to be in control and a person people looked to and he did a stand up job.
More on polls…from last week, NBC News/Wall Street Journal Poll:
“…Bush has some troubling signs of his own. Even though the president has a slight lead in this poll, when voters were asked what they would want in a second term for Bush, 58 percent say they want major changes, compared with only 9 percent who say they want his second term to look a lot like his first term…”
Why would 58% of those supporting Bush want major changes in his policy…why wouldn’t they just vote for someone else?
I still don’t think we’ve come far enough for Hillary to be the nominee if she runs in 2008…do people honestly think (pessimistic Rebublicans aside) that she could be the nominee if up against a decent male candidate? This isn’t meant to be sexist, I’m simply curious as to people’s thoughts on whether or not our country is ready for this in 2008 if it falls into place…I don’t see it happening…
Its amazing what being in the right place at the right time can do for someone. If you were in a position to get your picture on the television at ground zero after 9/11 then you seem to be given a free ride in many people’s eyes…
I am probably as big a Bush supporter as there is, but I would probably answer major changes to that question as well. I won’t vote for someone else, since the only plausible alternatives are far worse from my point of view.
I read an analysis today that opined that Bush is in a relative weak position in that he should be much further ahead than he is given the poll internals. The point was that Kerry was even weaker.
Why couldn’t the Democrats have nominated a serious candidate? Very disappointing.
