Poll: Giuliani Beats Allen, Frist, McCain
Patrick Ruffini has conducted an, um, unscientific poll pitting Rudy Giuliani against George Allen, Bill Frist, and John McCain for the GOP nomination in 2008. Not surprisingly, Giuliani won handily.
Frist is, quite frankly, duller than dishwater. He’s obviously working hard to establish conservative credentials but does not yet have any great appeal to the base.
McCain is widely admired but is also probably the most hated Republican by Republicans.
Allen is a virtual unknown. He’s a former governor and now U.S. Senator from Virginia, where I have lived for the last two and a half years. My guess is that, if these are the only choices given to the nominating electorate, Allen would eventually build up enough steam to win. He’s smart, likable, conservative without appearing nutty, and well regarded by conservative activists.
Any of the three, though, would make a formidable general election candidate.
via Glenn Reynolds
Draft Matt Blunt!
He’s a veteran, he’s fiscally conservative (listen to the wailing as he cuts Missouri’s government), and he will actually be old enough in 2008.
“conservative without appearing nuttyâ€Â
As opposed to a moon-bat liberal with a totally-sane stamp of approval by a socialist press?
I think that your observation about McCain is incorrect. I believe that rank-and-file and ordinary voter Republicans like him very much. He, after all, is the natural heir of Goldwater conservatism and Eisenhower nationalism. No other Republican is as genuinely conservative as McCain. And, even though he’s not a neocon, he did support the war in Iraq and backed the President to the hilt in 2004.
There are Republican elitists who don’t like McCain. But I think that he must be regarded as the frontrunner for the nomination at this time, precisely because he has a lot of grassroots Republican support.