Rep. Terry Everett (R-AL) just announced his retirement. I just got off the phone with a party leader in Alabama. It is looking like a two-way primary, at least.
One option is George Wallace Jr. The other is State Senator Harri Ann Smith. She is an up-and-comer, while he is very, very good at pulling Democrats. I suspect that there is an argument Wallace will make that argument in a bad environment.
Other people may show up.
Tags: Alabama, Congress, Republicans
| Virginia | Kentucky | Alabama | ||||
| vs. Hillary | Undecided | vs. Hillary | Undecided | vs. Hillary | Undecided | |
| Giuliani | -3 | 5% | -5 | 7% | +6 | 6% |
| Thompson | -9 | 7% | -7 | 5% | +2 | 4% |
| Romney | -14 | 8% | -12 | 6% | -2 | 6% |
Survey USA released a bunch more general election polling, commented on by the Hedgehog Report and DaveG at Race42008. Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson, and Mitt Romney were matched up against Hillary in Virginia, Kentucky, and Alabama. I have rearranged the data to show both margins and the %-undecided. SEveral things are worth noting.
First, the GOP is in bad shape in both Virginia and Kentucky due to reasons that have nothing to do with candidates. Kentucky has an election this year where a seemingly-corrupt Republican incumbent governor, Ernie Fletcher, is polling down 2-1. This election is probably framing people’s party identification strongly, and that election is in the papers on a daily basis. This poll illustrates the difficulties that Republicans have in that state. I suspect that once the catharsis of firing Fletcher happens, these numbers will adjust somewhat. Similarly, in Virginia, the state GOP has lost two governor’s races in a row with lousy candidates, and the state party has been rolled legislatively on taxes and transportation issues, the bread and butter. Virginia is now, again, a swing-state with popular Dem leaders.
In other words, Kentucky’s numbers are probably more result of the local environment, while Virginia’s actually represents something bad going on.
Second, these numbers show some important differences. Even in the South, Giuliani is performing in a tier above the other first-tier candidates, while Romney is polling a tier below the other first tier candidates. Romneybots will argue that this is due to name ID, but Gallup polling consistently indicates that Thompson’s name ID is lower than Romney’s but his performance in polling is (often substantially) higher. This is yet more evidence that Romney’s electability problem is real.
The inescapable conclusion is that people know things about Mitt Romney and don’t like him for it.
Third, these numbers are likely to move. People are going to learn things about Rudy Giuliani. (divorces, married first cousin, things about his record, etc.) that are going to move his numbers down. They are also going to learn things about Fred Thompson (thin record, blah blah) and Mitt Romney (flip-flopped on every issue in sight), but they both have the opportunity to frame that first impression. In other words, Giuliani’s numbers will fall — they are a ceiling — while Romney and Thompson’s can still go up. Some. The evidence suggests, however, that Thompson’s ceiling is higher than Romney’s.
On the other hand, there is probably nothing to learn about Hillary Clinton. After all, 3 books were written about her recently that were supposed to be interesting. They weren’t, and no one noticed.
In other words, these polls confirm our sense that things in some of these states are weird and that these will be tough elections. They don’t mean that much yet because so few people are paying attention. But we do know where some of the dragons aren’t.
Tags: Alabama, Clinton, Fred Thompson, Giuliani, Kentucky, Polls, Romney, Virginia
This is interesting. Alabama will be moving up to February 2nd. For Republicans, it joins South Carolina on that day, although, the article notes that South Carolina may move up. This move up is on the heels of a previous one last year. But calendar compaction is forcing the state to move up.
Legislation last year moved Alabama’s primary to Feb. 5 and got presidential candidates to visit the state after years of ignoring it. With other states joining the Feb. 5 crowd, they decided to move it to an even earlier date so Alabama would "be a player no matter what," said House Minority Leader Mike Hubbard, R-Auburn, who is also chairman of the Alabama Republican Party.
That may be optimistic thinking considering how many bigger states are looking at early February for their primaries.
"When one state moves, another state moves. There is no way Alabama can guarantee itself a critical vote," said Ferrel Guillory, director of the Program on Southern Politics, Media, and Public Life at the University of North Carolina.
These are both states that John McCain has an organizational edge in. I don’t understand who the edge will go to on the Democratic side. For this to succeed, it has to be pushed on a bipartisan basis.
In thinking about the impact of this, it is worth remembering that in 1992, Zell Miller moved up Georgia to help a certain Bill Clinton. Clinton won Georgia a week before "Super Tuesday" and used that momentum to clean up the next week. With a strong likelihood that the nomination will be determined on February 5th, the winner on February 2nd will be important.
My 2008 Ticker
