2008 Presidential primaries thread

[CharlieDontSurf]

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Man are Republican's screwed in 08. They realize it too because they're focusing on taking back one of the congressional chambers over maintaining the white house in 08.

There are really only 3 Republican contenders for the nomination, and all of them have very serious problems with turning out the Republican base. The current frontrunner has pictures of himself in drag for chrissake. Contrary to media hype, swing voters only make up a very small portion of the population (and they don't vote as often)- to the degree that many times it's more important to turn out your base than appeal to swing voters.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IrE6FMpai8

If one of those 3 Republicans wins, he's going to sign into law some liberal social policies. The only chance conservatives have of stopping them now is retaking one of the chambers of congress. Now you see why they didn't abolish the filibuster in the Senate after threatening to for 4 years.

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Grey your totally discounting the fact the Dem party will do everything in their power to ensure the Rep base gets motivated by nominating Hillary Clinton. The base will come out and vote for whoever it is to make sure she doesn't win.

[Grey]

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Grey your totally discounting the fact the Dem party will do everything in their power to ensure the Rep base gets motivated by nominating Hillary Clinton. The base will come out and vote for whoever it is to make sure she doesn't win.

[/ QUOTE ]That is certainly the popular media narrative right now, but there is not sufficient evidence for it.

http://pollingreport.com/wh08gen.htm

As you see the name recognition approach the 99% that Hillary has (I think Edwards is only at 80% or so) you will see their negatives rise to similar levels.

[samjjones]

Unless the streets of America become filled with millions of homeless people within the next two years, Guiliani has no chance of being elected President.

[Hoi Polloi]

I think Hillary is in a bind insofar as her strengths play better to the general than to the primaries. Thoughts?

[Boris]

Neither Obama or H. Clinton has a snowball's chance in hell of winning a presidential election.

[EvanJC]

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Neither Obama or H. Clinton has a snowball's chance in hell of winning a presidential election.

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Are you basing these statements on anything other than the fact that one is a woman and one is black?

i agree with you about hillary, fwiw.

[adanthar]

The only thing I am sure of about the primaries is that we've seen absolutely nothing so far and none of the early speculation is worth a damn.

At this point in 1999, the early GOP frontrunner was Elizabeth Dole. At this same point in '03, the 'hot' name was Joe Lieberman, with a very few people on the Internets tossing around Howard Dean's candidacy as if he was the Second Coming.

This year, the GOP is severely damaged goods, while the Dems have a massive frontrunner that also coincidentally sucks in mud, cameras and spin like a black hole. Obama, by and large, is not positioned to overcome this anywhere except on the Internet...but neither are Rudy or (especially) McCain. Rudy, in particular, might benefit from the changed primary dates, but he's already getting backlash a year in advance from forcing himself to the right. If Hillary can't win, neither can he.

I'm not the best political handicapper around, but if I were a betting man, I would not have any $ on any of the above. They are *all* very flawed candidates, and there is far too much time left to come to a conclusion that any one of them can even win a primary (possibly Hillary, except that Obama will force her to spend all of the 100 million she'll have raised by the end of the year.)

To be perfectly honest, using a betting site as a prediction tool, the only odds on WSEX with any value at all today are 1)Al Gore as Dem nominee (there's a 1 in 7 chance he runs, which will spike his value up on his announcement) and 2)shorting the Republican general election chances (not to say there isn't a 40% chance of GOP victory - though I don't think so - but that it's nearly certain that the line will drop at one point or another.) No other lines are any good whatsoever.

However, I will happily lay even odds on Hillary being 'electable', in the sense that, at some point in the next year, she will be ahead of Obama et al. and the GOP nominee in every state amongst likely primary/general election voters who know both of them.

[Borden]

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Grey your totally discounting the fact the Dem party will do everything in their power to ensure the Rep base gets motivated by nominating Hillary Clinton. The base will come out and vote for whoever it is to make sure she doesn't win.

[/ QUOTE ]That is certainly the popular media narrative right now, but there is not sufficient evidence for it.

http://pollingreport.com/wh08gen.htm

As you see the name recognition approach the 99% that Hillary has (I think Edwards is only at 80% or so) you will see their negatives rise to similar levels.

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If any somewhat moderate(peoples minds...not reality) male rep gets nominated--Mccain/Rudy/Hagel/etc...Hillary is toast.

A large portion of the dem/indep male population will tell pollers and their wives that they voted for Hillary, when they really punched the ticket for the other GUY.

Hillary can only win against a hardcore social conservative.
The Reps are praying she is the nominee.

[MrMon]

I see Hillary's real problem as not squashing Obama early. If he gets close, she'll have to move so far left to win the nomination, she'll blow the centrist image she's carefully crafted since being elected to the Senate. Once she's that far left, if someone like Guiliani has already occupied the center, she's going to have a hard time reclaiming that ground. If a hardcore conservative emerges to take the Republican nomination, she'll reclaim it pretty easily and win. She's gotta hope to win early and then spend her money crafting her image as a centrist. A hard fight is the last thing she wants, and I think she may have one on her hands.

[adios]

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Unless the streets of America become filled with millions of homeless people within the next two years, Guiliani has no chance of being elected President.

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Reasoning behind this statement????