If there’s a week when debates for a party’s nomination could have an impact, this may be it.
Several issues (immigration, the war in Iraq, and terrorism given the “peg” of the unsuccessful plot to blow up JFK Airport and decimate surrounding NYC neighborhoods) have now come to fruition. And media attention (news stories, columns, passionate talk radio discussions on the left and right) on the presidential nomination horseraces have begun to heighten as prematurely given the far-off election date as how early the 2008 campaign began this year.
And then there’s the biggie: if you factor into this mix a new Washington Post-ABC News poll, you realize two things:
- Hillary Clinton remains in front for the Democratic nomination sweepstakes. This means others will double up their efforts to tear her down or manipulate her into into stumbling. But the poll shows her strongest challengers are the ones who are losing support. Will they recover? Will she make a fatal mistake? Due to her continued front runner status she’ll receive extra strong scrutiny from the news media (where a typical news narrative is Candidate On The Way Up followed by Candidate On The Way Down sometimes followed by Candidate Makes A Comeback). It’s a long way to election day. Who will become the leading Unhillary?
- Many Republican voters are indeed still impatiently looking around. There are already signs the perceived GOP front runners are beginning to turn off some party members as Republicans shop around for a new, Reaganesque faced…and they think they have found one (who has a little less hair and is the Republican’s first real, authentic Law and Order candidate).
The poll:
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York holds a solid lead over her rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination, while the contest for the Republican nomination appears even more unsettled than it did when it began five months ago, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.
Clinton’s lead remains steady over her two principal challengers, Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois and former senator John Edwards of North Carolina, and the poll contains troubling news for both. Obama’s support has softened noticeably, highlighting the challenge he faces in turning high interest in his candidacy into votes. Edwards, meanwhile, has lost ground nationally over the past few months.
The poll also contains bad news for former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, bad news for Arizona Senator John McCain and suggests the stage is set for a battle over who is the “real” conservative — Thompson or former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, who has seemingly performed more adjustments in policy positions than a chiropractor does on spines during football season:
Former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani remains the leader in the GOP race, but the poll suggests that the surge in support he received after declaring his candidacy has stalled and that his backing of abortion rights and gay rights has caused more Republicans to turn away from him.
Sen. John McCain of Arizona runs second in the GOP race, but the poll results raise questions about his candidacy. Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, who has spent millions on television ads already this year, has in some ways become an attractive alternative over the past few months, and former senator Fred D. Thompson of Tennessee shows the potential to quickly make the GOP.
Click on the link above to read the specific poll numbers, but the poll paints a picture of a Democratic race where the seemingly stable front-runner is likely to face new challenges from competitors who want to get out in front and from a news media that will intensify scrutiny of her pronouncements and issues positions…and a GOP that has a restless party base.
One question becomes: is all the hype about Thompson just that? Media hype? Apparently not. The Post also has this article about his buzz-generating appearance in Richmond. Part of it:
Actor and former senator Fred D. Thompson of Tennessee rallied a crowd of several hundred Republicans here last night, offering a bluntly conservative appeal in his first major appearance since taking a formal step last week to run for president.
“Folks, we’re a bit down politically right now, but I think we’re on the comeback trail, and it’s going to start right here,” he declared in the deep Southern rumble made famous by his roles in film and on television’s “Law and Order.”
…..Thompson managed to hit most major conservative themes in his 35-minute address. He traced the formation of his political philosophy to Barry Goldwater. While he did not directly invoke Ronald Reagan, to whom his supporters compare him, he closed his speech by echoing the former president’s call for “optimism.” He dwelled on the need for a strong national defense — although he barely mentioned the Iraq war — and urged an increase in defense spending, noting yesterday’s reports of a foiled plot targeting New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport as proof of terrorism’s threat.
“This is a battle between the forces of civilization and of evil,” he said.
He warned against Democratic proposals to repeal tax cuts and against liberal judges, noting that he helped shepherd Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. through his Senate confirmation.
But he received his biggest applause for blasting the bipartisan plan for immigration reform, which he called unworkable. “We are a nation of compassion, a nation of immigrants,” he said. “But this is our home . . . and we get to decide who comes into our home.”
Thompson reminded guests that he now lives in McLean, but he offered himself as a Beltway outsider, saying there was a “disconnect” between Washington and the rest of the country “like I’ve never seen before.” He said the GOP had lost its congressional majorities because “some of us came to drain the swamp and made partnership with the alligators.”
Key question: many conservative GOPers and Republicans who followed and supported the first George Bush don’t like the administration of the present George Bush. Will Thompson separate himself sufficiently to show his administration won’t in effect become Bush III? And can he do it without losing the Bush loyalists (who mostly seem to be talk show radio hosts these days…although the ranks seem to be thinning there now as well)?
The biggest factor if it was Thompson versus Hillary Clinton: the ability to “connect” on television. Ms. Clinton is improving…but has a way to go if she faces Fred Thompson in this era where how you say it and how you come across can influence votes as much as (or probably moreso in some cases) your verbal content.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.