Poll Shows Giuliani’s Potential And Hillary Clinton’s Vulnerabilities
A Rasmussen poll shows two things:
(1) Republican former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani is undergoing his own “surge” …upwards, at the expense of Arizona Senator John McCain…and he could beat Hillary Clinton in a hypothetical matchup.
(2) Senator Hillary Clinton does not seem to be winning over many new voters. Are their minds totally made up on her? If so, some conventional talking-head wisdom about her near-certainty as the Democratic Party’s 2008 nominee could prove as accurate as all the old stories about an upcoming President Gary Hart or the “botched” punditry on President John Kerry.
To wit:
In a match-up between the early 2008 frontrunners, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R) leads New York Senator Hillary Clinton (D) 52% to 43%. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds Giuliani’s lead growing in recent months. His current nine-point advantage is up from a six point lead in January and a four-point lead in December.Giuliani has solidified his title as the most popular candidate of Election 2008—his favorability ratings have inched back up to 70%.
This means that we should soon see a spate of news reports originating by either Democratic or Republican operatives attempting to drive down his negatives real fast. MORE:
Clinton is viewed favorably by 50% and unfavorably by 48%. The last four times that Rasmussen Reports has polled on a Giuliani-Clinton race, Clinton’s support has remained unchanged at 43%.While both candidates draw reasonable levels of support from within their own party, Giuliani has an enormous 64% to 27% advantage over Clinton among unaffiliated voters.
This isn’t fatal for Clinton right now. But if it turns out that she continues to build little in coming polls and Giuliani continues to rise, she could be in big trouble.
However, Giuliani’s ascent may not be steady: right now he’s doing relatively-controlled political events and is not enmeshed in the brutal rough and tumble world of party primaries and no-holds-barred media interviews. Right now, though, there are signs that Ms. Clinton will have to start showing that she can expand her coalition of support, rather than just hold onto it…or the new media narrative will be the fizzling of Clinton inevitability and more stories about Barack Obama’s seeming ascent.
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17 Responses to “Poll Shows Giuliani’s Potential And Hillary Clinton’s Vulnerabilities”
This is why the Democrats are screwing up by supporting unelectable candidates.
I am dissapointed about the decision by Vilsack to drop out. It makes a Clinton nomination more likely.
I just posted about the Vilsack decision. See Here
Poll Shows Giuliani’s Potential And Hillary Clinton’s Vulnerabilities…
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I was disappointed to see Vilsack drop out of the field as well. The presidency has become such a money game, and to attract the big money these days, you have to be a rock star like Obama, or have the fundraising ability and ties to big money like Hillary.
I’m not at the point where I’d say she’s unelectable, but it is painful to see a good, decent Democratic candidates like Vilsack dropping by the wayside because of money issues. I wonder if the days when a little-known peanut farmer from Georgia could rise up from the ranks and win America’s top job are long gone…….
It is REALLY too early for this, but…….Rudy…
As for Rudy Giuliani, I haven’t decided yet who I will be endorsing or voting for, but he has an impressive record and on 9/11 he was the face of America. He stepped up to the plate and he showed a courage that not many in this day and age did or cou….
“he has an impressive record”
Indeed! Hehehehe…
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Oh please, I’m so sick of hearing about Rudy’s supposed heroism on 9/11. Did he run into the burning towers to save anybody? What exactly did he do that took courage? It appears the bar is set pretty low in defining courage these days.
BTW Rudy has vulnerabilities as well. Whatever the polls show about Rudy vis a vis Hillary now, doesn’t mean those numbers will hold in the course of a campaign. Of course if Rudy’s opponent is anyone other than Hillary, I would vote for him.
I’m really sick of the venom directed at Hillary.
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I’m a leftwinger who would sooner see McCain or Romney or any other Republican (except perhaps Brownback, who himself started off in KS as a moderate) than Giuliani as POTUS.
I think (hope?) that the independents who are favorable to Rudy largely don’t know much about him. Know this–he won’t win New York, where a Republican has been Governor since Mario Cuomo.
His foreign policy will be very much the same as we have now under Bush. Moreover, his character is similar to Bush’s in disturbing ways–reckless and stubborn. But like Bush, he is a very good campaigner. Maybe he’d retain Cheney in his administration.
I tend to think his relatively liberal stance on abortion and gay rights will not be much of a problem for him, but I can hope his near deviant personal life will. I think he has the potential to be a worse President than Bush.
jjc,
I presume that your objections to Guiliani relate to the comparisons with Bush: stubbornness, authoritarianism, etc.
But what specifically in Guiliani’s history lead you to believe this? I see some tendencies in that direction but in my estimation he doesn’t seem to have these characteristics to a fault the way that Bush does. I’m interested to know why you view him so negatively.
from the Wikipedia site:
Rudy thought he was the only person capable of seeing New York through the post 9/11 crisis. He threatened candidates during the campaign to that effect. That demonstrates a huge amount of arrogance and stubbornness.
Giuliani always supported the police 100% in these cases. He celebrated the acquittal after the Diallo trial. He never showed remorse for the death of an innocent man at the hands of the police. He never condemned “a few bad apples” or pushed for better training to prevent future mistakes. That’s authoritarianism.
And I’d say that’s a biased description of what happened. It seemed to me that he DID condemn a “few bad apples” on the force but he believed that the majority of the police force shouldn’t be condemned for the bad behavior of a few. He refused to declare police officers guilty until proven innocent, which is important because false accusations of police brutality do happen.
I would agree with you that he didn’t go far enough in training to prevent police misconduct; if he had done so in conjunction with taking a supportive stance toward police (again, the innocent till proven guilty stance, regardless of the political pressure to do otherwise in racially tense situations), then I think he would have gotten it exactly right.
CS, here’s a summary of the problems I see with Rudy: Rudy can Fail
Bratton was deposed in favor of Bernard Kerik, one of many skeletons in the closet I can only hope will emerge as Rudy’s campaign gets underway.
As the campaign progresses, I think it will be seen that Rudy has a huge amount of ‘splainin to do. Maybe he could serve a useful role in some other Republican’s administration, but God help us all if he actually becomes POTUS.
Some specific citations would be nice.
Here’s what Time magazine had to say in their Man of the Year piece on Rudy:
So Rudy denounced officers in the Louima case. That was a case in which a policeman bragged about sodomizing Louima. Here’s a view of Rudy’s reaction after winning reelection:
And here’s another:
Poll Shows Giuliani’s Potential And Hillary Clinton’s Vulnerabilities…
Senator Hillary Clinton does not seem to be winning over many new voters. Are their minds totally made up on her? If so, some conventional talking-head wisdom about her near-certainty as the Democratic Party’s 2008 nominee could prove as accurate …
Not sure if anyone’s still following this thread but I’ve only now gotten back online to read the responses.
Mikef,
The references you cite are in regard to what I already conceded: Rudy did not go far enough in acknowledging problems on the force and wasn’t proactive in promoting training or other preventative programs. But when you talk about cases, you’re still naming the three that are common knowledge and your citing a story that says that Rudy supported the cops who were acquitted while he condemned the one who was found guilty of abuse. So I must be missing something…what’s the problem? If there are other cases that I’m not aware of, please cite them.
jjc,
That is hilarious about the New York magazine ads on buses. Thanks for the link; I can see some of the points that were made and will mull them over. Mainly I’ve felt that Rudy’s critics were the people that he made angry, people with axes to grind. I can see the personality quirks too but haven’t thought of them as being as serious as you obviously think they are. Not sure that this changes my mind about it but I’ll try to keep my mind open to being persuaded if there is enough negative evidence about him.