While Newsweek summarizes their latest polling results with the headline "A Sorry State: Bush Hits New Low", the most important bit of news in the accompanying story, it seems to me, is that for the first time Hilary Clinton polls ahead of John McCain and Rudy Giuliani, her most likely Republican opponents in the race for POTUS 2008:
"With about half (48 percent) of voters nationwide saying their opinion of Bush will be at least “somewhat important” in determining who gets their vote in ’08, the two Democratic frontrunners have narrow leads over their potential opponents. In a mock election, Clinton tops McCain by six points (50-44 percent) and barely edges out Giuliani by three (49-46 percent). Obama’s lead over both McCain and Giuliani is by the exact same margins (48-42 percent against the former and 47-44 percent against the latter). The races are tighter with Edwards as the Democratic candidate: the former vice presidential candidate edges out McCain by four points (48-44 percent) and is in a statistical dead heat with Giuliani (46-47 percent)."
The GOP is in deep trouble, especially in the Senate where they will have to defend about twice as many seats (something like 20 to 10) as the Dems in 2008. The thinking is that if the country is still in Iraq by that time, their candidates are doomed. Meanwhile, Presidential front-runner John McCain is starting to look like a grumpy old man in television interviews. Watch for an angry outbreak soon, see if he swallows his dentures. And Giuliani is having his own problems.
These are definitely bad numbers for the Republicans, that being said I am always careful to assume the Democrats will win. Since conservatives are more likely to show up at the polls than Liberals in the United States, the Democrats will have to work hard much like they did in the 2006 midterms to win. Also just as Liberals in Canada have a natural advantage over the Conservatives, in the United States the exact opposite is true as Canada is a Liberal nation and the US is a Conservative one.
ReplyDeleteStill with Bush's low approval ratings, much of the success will depend on how much the next Republican leader distances themselves from Bush.