CNN Poll Has McCain Leading In New Hampshire

Comments (3)

cleter wrote on January 5, 2008 6:44 PM:

That'll be the end of Romney if he loses by a decent margin. A Massachusetts governor can't lose New Hampshire and stay viable. Especially not since the race goes south after this. Oh, he may hang around for a while and write more checks, but he won't be the nominee if he blows New Hampshire. He's not going to follow double humiliating defeats with a win in South Carolina, either.

Stephen Hendricks wrote on January 6, 2008 10:44 AM:

It's beginning to look incrasingly like a three way race among the GOP candidates: McCain, Huckabee, and Giuliani. Interestingly, these three more or less represent the three legs of the GOP coalition's stool. McCain will hold the national security voters; Giuliani will be the latest Great White Hope among the economic conservatives; and Huckabee will hold the one-fourth to one-third of the GOP that sees little beyond a candidate's "Christian" credentials.

My money's on McCain given his greater perceived "electability" and the fact that he's the least objectionable to the other two groups. His chances are enhanced by the fact that Rudy seems to suffer from "more we see him, the less we like him" pattern among voters. Huckabee is both unelectable and un-nominatable, but he has a lock on the VP slot if he wants it.

An ironic aspect is that the xenophobes in the GOP, who constitute a significant portion of the base, are effectively shut out by a race among these three. And despite the anti-immigrant posturing of the GOP's talk radio contingent, it will turn out to be much less important than the rednecks had hoped a few months ago.

Dan Ramsey wrote on January 7, 2008 5:35 PM:

Stephen, good commentary and I agree with you. I think that, in the end, it's gonna come down to Giuliani, McCain and Huckabee. And of the three, I'd have to put my money on McCain simply because I think he will end up being the best compromise choice of the three.

The social conservatives might not like McCain, but I think they'll see him as preferable to Giuliani, however slightly. McCain does, after all, have solid conservative bona fides on several issues, including abortion and gun control. Meanwhile, the party's moderates, while never being able to stomach a Bible-thumper like Huckabee, certaianly can embrace John McCain, whose positions on most issues are very close to Rudy's.

Finally, there is the overriding issue of electability, and national polls continue to show that McCain is the strongest candidate that the Republicans can field against either Clinton or Obama. In the end, when faced with the prospect of a liberal Democrat as president teaming up with a Democrat-controlled House and a Democrat-controlled Senate, I think that simple electability is going to become increasingly important to rank & file Republicans.

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