Free Republic,?the right-side of the right-side of the blogosphere, is hosting an online poll asking members which Republican they’d vote for if the 2008 field narrowed to just Rudy, Romney, and McCain.? The results would be astonishing if it weren’t for the latest GOP Bloggers straw poll, which illuminates the outcome considerably.?
The choices of Freepers are as follows:
Rudy: 45%
Romney: 29%
McCain: 4%
Free Republic is an ultra-conservative site, which means these pro-life, pro-gun, religious conservatives are selecting pro-choice Rudy Giuliani over pro-life Mitt Romney by double-digits, and this is occurring prior to any indication by the mayor that he intends to change his social positions or even appoint conservative judges.? If Romney can’t beat Rudy among the most conservative Republicans now, he’ll never be able to do so.? And McCain appears to be a mere afterthought.
The reason for Romney’s dilemma is that he and Rudy have their base in the same bloc of GOP voters: those who prefer a candidate who’s fiscally conservative, well-spoken, an executive, a partisan, and a candidate a bit less regional than the current president.? As the recent GOP Bloggers straw poll showed, both Rudy and Romney have similar net acceptability ratings.? What the poll doesn’t show, but what can be inferred, is that the two candidates are being found acceptable by all the same conservatives.? Unfortunately for Mitt, it’s Rudy, and not Romney, that is the first choice of this particular bloc of GOP voters.? A Giuliani implosion may allow Romney to pick up the pieces of his campaign, but absent that, Romney will never be able to beat Giuliani in a head-to-head matchup.
We see more evidence for this theory when looking at the other candidates that Giuliani and Romney voters in the GOP Bloggers poll found acceptable.? Giuliani voters like Romney.? Romney voters like Giuliani.??And that large Newt bloc I discussed earlier doesn’t appear ready to consolidate behind Mitt should Gingrich stay out of the race.? If anything, this group finds Rudy more acceptable?than Romney.? Again, Mitt just can’t win.
Mitt appears to be the one who’d benefit the most if Rudy pulled out of the race.? But Rudy’s not going anywhere.? And despite Romney’s two-year attempt to trumpet socially conservative causes to build a red-state base, it appears that Romney’s current status is the second-choice of Giuliani voters.?
Ah well, there’s always vice president.
August 28th, 2006 at 10:48 pm
The difference between Romney and Giuliani is name recognition. No republican had more positive attentionafter 9-11 than Rudy did, but as the campaign moves on and his various moderate stances begin to show through, I think the numbers will change.
I like Giuliani, but I don’t think he overcomes his pro-choice stance and his public infidelity.
August 28th, 2006 at 11:07 pm
Dude, we’ve seen what happens when name recognition is controlled for.
That dog won’t hunt anymore.
And trust me, all you have to do is read some of the comments on 2008 threads on Free Republic to learn the extent of Freepers’ knowledge regarding the ’08 field.
Freepers are a bit much for me most of the time, but there’s one thing they’re not, and that’s uninformed.
August 28th, 2006 at 11:56 pm
This caught me by surprise. If there’s one thing that Giuliani is not, it’s a freeper.
Any reason why the most rabid conservatives out there pick a pro-gay pro-abortion anti-gun guy? Perhaps it’s Giuliani’s abrasive bully personality and utter lack of willingness to be a team player?
August 29th, 2006 at 12:06 am
Dave, we need to develop some kind of cut and paste reponse to the “once people find out about Rudy” meme.
We are taking about Freepers here! Can anyone with a straight face say that someone that frequents Free Republic is really ignorant of politics and wouldn’t know about Rudy Giuliani?
Anytime Rudy wins it’s the same thing. When he wins a Right-Wing blogosphere poll it’s “wait till they find out about Rudy”. When he wins a Iowa Republican Caucus poll its “wait until they find out about Rudy”. These people are just as knowledgable as you and IÂ when it comes to politics. They know Rudy, they know his past, and they don’t care.
Why? Because they trust him in the war with against Islamofascism; and that is all that matters.
August 29th, 2006 at 11:21 am
I have to admit to being one of those “once people find out about Rudy”-people who would love to see Rudy nominated but have doubts whether he can really win over social conservatives when and if they find a viable candidate. I am however slowly being worn down by the polls and your arguments in general except for one thing: Granted voters already know about his views on social issues, what about his personal life? I understand the Media has been reluctant to make an issue of this as indeed I am reluctant to do, but will a social conservative candidate -as long as he does not happen to be Newt Gingrich- be that reluctant as well?
After all, the last time a frontrunner was not nominated by the Republican Party, it was Nelson Rockefeller, and that was not just because of his policies, but also because of his personal life.
August 29th, 2006 at 1:22 pm
You’re right Sebastian. His personal life was indeed a factor. If I remember correctly, he divorced his wife to marry a much younger women named “Happy” who had 4 children herself and divorced her husband to be with Rocky.
All I can say is that this incident was 40 years ago, and divorce is no longer such a scandal.
After Bill Clinton, I don’t think people are that concerned anymore.
August 29th, 2006 at 1:58 pm
I tend to agree that Bill Clinton lowered the personal-life bar to a level that makes it virtually
non-existent.
I do think Rudy’s personal history has the potential to be a problem if he doesn’t handle the inevitable flyers of Giuliani dressed in drag with the finesse of a Clinton. Giuliani has to do what he can to laugh this stuff off, a la Romney making jokes about his own religion, and avoid making the same mistake that Allen did over the whole macaca comment. If Rudy starts apologizing every five minutes for his messy personal history, or makes excuses for it, or tries to cover it up, he will run into problems. If he embraces his mistakes as just that — mistakes of a less mature man who has been tempered by 9/11 — he will come out shining.
You know, like Clinton.
August 29th, 2006 at 4:20 pm
Rudy’s divorces and adultery are not just 40 year old history…he’s got juicy tabloid material in the last decade. How exactly has 9/11 tempered or matured his morals? Perhaps you could apply this argument to his maturing disaster management, or his maturing knowledge of world events and politics. But the root cause of Rudy’s many instances of womanizing and adultery is still the same. He lacks a moral character that is important to social conservatives and their politics. On promoting healthy families, a culture of life, traditional marriage, and other values, Rudy continues to and will always come up short.
August 30th, 2006 at 2:53 am
Free Republic is NOT just a socially conservative site-a lot of the folks there (most of them, I think) are more of the kind of right-of-center libertarians that the GOP has lost by pandering to the religious right. And there are a lot of rank-and-file republicans there who would support Rudy. If you go to some of the threads, you’ll find that Rudy is far more preferable than McCain to most Freepers.
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