As Mitt, Hillary, Barack and a dozen others jump into the presidential stampede, something interesting is happening in New Hampshire.
For seven years, conventional wisdom has said that the state’s pivotal independent voters would line up behind maverick Sen. John McCain, as they did so famously in the 2000 GOP primary. But new polling data, to be released later this week, will suggest that might no longer be the case.
Manchester, N.H.-based American Research Group finds that McCain’s popularity among New Hampshire’s independent voters has collapsed.
“John McCain is tanking,” says ARG president Dick Bennett. “That’s the big thing [we’re finding]. In New Hampshire a year ago he got 49 percent among independent voters. That number’s way down, to 29 percent now.”
For the last couple of years, McCain has been actively courting the extreme conservative base of the Republican Party, hoping that the conservatives would annoit him as the heir apparent to the Bush throne. It is the reason McCain has been a consistent supporter to the Bush war in Iraq--even calling for more troops that what Bush is proposing. It is all a part of a presidential calculation, by McCain, to covet the White House.
But are McCain's presidential ambitions getting ahead of himself--considering that two-thirds of the country reject Bush's troop surge? Continuing with the Boston Hearld story:
American Research Group, which is New Hampshire’s leading polling company and has been operating in the state since 1976, polled 1,200 likely Granite State voters in the survey.
Bennett says ARG is finding a similar trend in other states polled, including early primary battlegrounds like Iowa and Nevada. “We’re finding this everywhere,” he says.
The main reason isn’t hard to find: His hawkish stance on the Iraq war, which is tying him ever more closely to an unpopular president. “Independent support for McCain is evaporating because they view him as tied to Bush,” says Bennett.
The McCain camp yesterday said the senator, who is pushing for a bigger troop surge in Iraq than the president, will stick by his guns. “He has been and will remain committed to achieving victory in Iraq,” a spokesman said.
New Hampshire is among the states that allow independents to vote in either party’s primary. It was their support that gave McCain his huge primary victory there over then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush in 2000.
If the senator is losing that base, it opens the GOP race to other challengers. And it weakens his strongest pitch to Republican die-hards - namely that his appeal to independents makes him the most electable candidate in the general election.
“It’s significant that McCain is going down rather than up at this critical juncture in the early maneuvering,” comments Larry Sabato, who chairs the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics. “It suggests that, contrary to conventional wisdom, John McCain may not be secure as the GOP front-runner. But a lot can change.”
McCain's base of support for his presidential bid is the 30-to-36 percent of Americans who consistently support President Bush's war in Iraq. These are the hard-lined conservatives who still support this Bush administration, and whose support McCain will need in winning the Republican presidential primary. The problem for McCain is that the longer he courts this hard-lined conservative base for the Republican nomination, the more difficult it will be for him to explain his own contradictions, if he tries to moderate his positions for courting the centrists and independents during the general election. And even if McCain continues to back this hard-lined pro-Iraq-war position through the general elections, he faces a greater danger of the moderates, centrists, and independents abandoning him because his hard-lined position is opposite of the position the rest of the country has taken on this war. We're now seeing that scenario play out in New Hampshire with the tanking McCain poll.
But there is some more interesting poll results here. Here is the latest Rasmussan poll results showing McCain's status among the Republican contenders:
Rudy Giuliani (R) remains the top choice of Likely Republican Primary Voters even as many inside the beltway pundits dismiss his chances. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone poll shows Giuliani with 28% of the vote, eight points ahead of John McCain (R). Newt Gingrich is the only other Republican in double digits, earning support from 14% of GOP voters. Mitt Romney (R) is in fourth place with 8%.
Those results are little changed over the past month in stark contrast to the Democratic competition where Senator Hillary Clinton (D) and Senator Barack Obama (D) are now virtually tied for the lead. Earlier, Clinton had held a substantial lead.
While Giuliani has consistently led in polls of potential GOP primary voters, there is an intense debate among political observers as to whether the former Mayor of New York can actually win the nomination. Those who say Giuliani cannot win point to his views on key social issues and his own lifestyle which includes multiple marriages and divorces. Others say that Giuliani’s leadership quotient and charisma will overcome those points for Republicans fearful of seeing a Democrat in the White House.
If Giuliani is not electable in a GOP Primary, then John McCain may be the biggest beneficiary of the Giuliani effort. McCain has long had a tense relationship with many GOP activists and conservatives. Without Giuliani in the mix, it is likely that a conservative challenger would gain traction in an anybody-but-McCain effort.
While McCain may benefit from Giuliani’s presence in the race, he is hampered by the situation in Iraq. Most Americans believe we should be reducing the number of U.S. troops fighting in that country while McCain supports the President’s call for more troops.
We could be seeing a serious race in both Iowa and New Hampshire between Giuliani and McCain. If Giuliani wins either Iowa or New Hampshire, this will certainly give him some momentum against McCain, while going into the Super Tuesday races, where Giuliani may have some trouble defending his views on social issues among religious conservatives in the southern states.
Now a December 16, 2006 Rasmussan poll shows McCain leading Barack Obama 46 percent ot 40 percent. This is before President Bush made his surge speech. What interests me here is how close this poll result is between a hard-lined pro-war hawk candidate of McCain, and an anti-war candidate of Obama, even before Obama announced his candidacy. The December 18, 2006 Rasmussan poll result between McCain and Hillary Clinton is even closer--with McCain leading Clinton 49 percent to 45 percent. This is still so very early in the election, with the candidates only now forming their exploratory committees. The campaign stumping hasn't even started yet. But it is fascinating how these political dynamics are shaping out--especially since they may be starting to go against the McCain campaign strategy.
More to come.
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