It’s On In Florida!
Today, Floridians cast their votes for who they believe should be the Republican nominee. As it is, it seems that it’s going to be very close between John McCain and Romney. Zogby says that McCain is leading by 4%, while the American Research Group says that Romney is leading (by 1%). Zogby has Giuliani and Huckabee tied, whereas ARG has Huckabee in third place.
Polls have to be taken with a grain of salt, as usual, but what I always tend to focus on are tends. In this particular case, I don’t see one. Some polls have McCain gradually improving his numbers, while others show Romney doing slightly better every time. In other words, I’m not sure what to make of this. Not even if I focus on trends.
As it is, I think that the order will be:
1. McCain
2. Romney
3. Giuliani
Although Romney has more money than McCain, I think that McCain will go on to win the nomination if my prediction about Florida is correct. Until two days ago I thought that Romney would win today, but I’ve got this gut feeling that the Senator for Arizona will be the one holding a victory speech tonight.
As an aside, if he wins, I think that the Democrats will go on to take the White House, no matter who’s their nominee. Clinton will, I think, win with a reasonable margin whereas Obama will probably destroy McCain.
Unfortunately, I agree with the assesment. My gut is also telling me McCain will win Floriday by a margin of 3% and that sickens me. If McCain gets the Rep. nomination, it will prove to be a disaster in the generals. The Dems will take the White House regardless of the Dem nominee. As a Rep. I WILL NOT vote for McCain in the generals. I will go Democrate to try and stop McCain. I hate to admit it, but that is the reality.
It’s funny how people within the GOP who don’t like McCain keep saying that, but the polls show the opposite so far. Perhaps that will change, but I do think that the part of the base that feels that way tends to overestimate their power in the voting base in general.
My guesses:
McCain 31-35%
Romney 32-36%
Giuliani 10-14%
Huckabee 9-13%
Paul 3-7% I think Romney will squeak out a win and Giuliani will either quit tonight or ride into Super Duper Tuesday on fumes.
Eric; that means you think that Romney will win, or you’re saying it’s too close to call?
Hah, Pete Abel over at TMV wonders if today should be "Goodbye, Rudy Tuesday".
I think he’ll just barely beat out McCain in Florida. It’ll be close, but I think Romney will come out on top. Polls are trending upward for both, but I think Romney’s rising faster.
If McCain takes Florida, I think he’ll have a big boost going into Super Tuesday. If Romney wins Florida, it’ll be a blow to McCain and keep the race wide open going into Super Tuesday.
I agree with what happens if McCain / Romney wins Eric.
Christine: ha! That’s right on me thinks.
BTW, if I had to bet money, I wouldn’t; I’m willing to speculate and predict a winner, but it’s really too close to be certain. I’d guess I have a 60% or chance of being right. It really depends on how much momentum they each have going into today’s voting. They’re aggregated poll plots are just about intersecting as of yesterday. Romney’s slope is steeper, though.
I’d have to agree with your assessment, Michael, of what would happen in the general election with McCain on the Republican ticket.
I know, Christine, that the polls showed the opposite. A few years back, the polls showed Dole as the republican with the best chance of defeating the democrats, too, and we all know how that turned out. I think it’ll be much the same with McCain. There is the same feeling of we’d better give the old geezer/war hero a shot at it - it’s his turn and he deserves a try.
I don’t think the Republican base will be any more motivated by McCain than they were by Dole, aside from the part of the base McCain has alienated.
Now if Hillary gets the nod, that will motivate some Republicans, but I doubt it will be enough to match the motivation of the Dem base. They have been out of power for so long that that is a big motivation, as is the 1st woman/black president thing, as is BDS.
I think that Obama will probably steamroll any conservative opponent if he gets the nomination. His base is so emotionally driven anyway, I just think that if he makes it that far he will have done so by widening his base and that he’ll have such a head of steam that there will be no stopping him.
That wasn’t clear - was I was saying was that even discounting the part of the republican base that McCain has alienated, the rest of the base is not going to be sufficiently motivated by a McCain ticket to overcome the motivation of the dem base.
Anyone else ever get the feeling that the GOP is treating McCain the way the Academy treats actors, directors, and writers who have been previously passed over for Oscars? They often win for less than prize-worthy movies because they’re "due".
Is that true though? Do you have empirical evidence of it, or just a feeling? Because it’s easy to project the way you feel personally, but that doesn’t make it so.
And certainly, I don’t believe that the Republican base is any more motivated to vote for anyone else either. It may be that GOP turnout is just too low, if we’re unenthusiastic about our nominee. But I don’t see that phenomenon being any worse for McCain than for Romney, and at least McCain picks up a bit more from independents and he’d probably get more evangelicals (sad to say that yes, some of them would probably boycott a Mormon.)
Here’s the thing too, in comparing matchups between McCain and either Dem and Romney and either Dem…
McCain’s strong suit is foreign policy/defense. That allows the GOP to play its strongest suit in the general election. Yes, the economy is increasingly on the minds of voters, but that doesn’t mean that the GOP can make that a winning issue for the party. Unfortunately when the economy is turning downward, voters look for which candidate ‘feels their pain’ more. Add to that that the recession will have started on Bush’s watch, so it’s going to be framed as Bush’s recession with the rest of the party guilty by association.
Yeah, it would be nice if people actually thought about which candidate had better credentials to manage the US economy, but it doesn’t work that way.
And furthermore, to me, economics isn’t as important as foreign policy credentials in a presidential candidate. Foreign policy is truly managed by the exec branch, economics more by the legislative- and I actually prefer that none of them try to be too hands on anyway. The best thing they can do is promise that they’ll get out of the way, let the Fed do what it needs to do, and keep to fiscally conservative principles on spending and taxes.
"The base" always threatens that they won’t turn out for the general election if they don’t get their way in the primary. ALWAYS. Then the actual election comes, and the base goes "hmmm, this guy really is much better than the alternative, even if he is a dumb-ass," and goes and votes for the previously maligned candidate.
Frankly I think that’s insulting. By what standard are you saying that he’s ‘less than prize worthy’? He’s gained in the polls because other candidates are beginning to fold and as the choices winnow down, those who supported one of the other guys are casting their lot with either Romney or McCain. No one is awarding him the sympathy vote.
I’m sure he’ll get over it Christine, especially considering the fact that his attacks on opponents aren’t exactly… straight talking.
I’m not referring to poll results. I’m referring only to support by the party elite and the party itself. Continuing the analogy, the top-grossing movies are often not the award-winning, critically-acclaimed movies.From my own perspective, I do find him less than prize-worthy. I don’t want to say more, lest this thread should devolve into a pissing contest between candidates’ supporters.
Eric: We’ll have to agree to disagree about whether or not the party elite are actually good arbiters of who is most qualified. To me it looks like they put loyalty far above other qualities, and if the voters reject that then I think it’s a good thing.
And yes, Michael- lots of twisting of facts but I hope you’re honest enough to admit that it’s like that from both sides (and always is in American politics, and none of that means that I think it’s OK for one because the other does it.) And if you’re trying to pin extra responsibility on McCain because of the ’straight talk’ theme, that’s a different thing anyway. He coined that phrase (or someone else coined it in regard to him, not sure which) because he doesn’t just tell voters what they want to hear. You know, like when a certain candidate tells Michigan auto workers that he’ll get their jobs back for them?
Straight talk = telling people hard things that they may not want to hear, but they have to because policies have to be grounded in reality.
Straight talk = telling people what you believe will personally benefit you the most.
See how easy that was?
Seriously, it’s crazy how different perceptions can be.
I did my part, but it looks like McCain took Florida. What a shame.
I saw, by the way, that contrary to the law, some precints were allowing independents to vote in the Republican primaries.
"We’ll have to agree to disagree about whether or not the party elite are actually good arbiters of who is most qualified. To me it looks like they put loyalty far above other qualities, and if the voters reject that then I think it’s a good thing."
We don’t disagree on that point. I’m sorry if I gave any other impression. To avoid any further confusion, I’ll say that you’ll never see me boarding the Doubletalk Express.
It seems I didn’t make my ranges wide enough. If the final results look like the partials, I missed the mark by about 1% on one side or the other, depending on the candidate. I also greatly underestimated the power of endorsements.
Yeah, because getting beat up by people within your own party is so personally satisfying. That’s what’s crazy to me: how can anyone possibly say that his contrarian positions were opportunistic when they’ve nearly done him in?
You may by now have seen the true story, which is that the exit polls simply allow people to identify themselves as independent if they are registered to a party but consider themselves independent in their thinking rather than being partisans or ideologues.