A counterpart to this thread. (I think we can pretty much count Giuliani out at this point, and Paul’s chances at the nom hardly bear discussion.) Romney is a flip-flopper who will never really get away from his socially liberal record as governor, and then there’s the Mormon thing. McCain, OTOH, refuses to compromise his hawkish position on the war, and besides he’s just too effing old; why vote for a candidate who almost certainly cannot complete a second term? Huckabee would turn out the social-conservative vote, but would also draw the fiercest opposition from everybody else.
According to the latest NBC/Wall Street Journal Poll, among all voters.
McCain defeats Clinton, 46-44
Clinton defeats Huckabee, 50-41
Clinton clobbers Romney, 52-36
Clinton clobbers Giuliani, 52-37
Of course one doesn’t want to judge entirely by one poll, but this seems consistent with all the results from the past six months. See the link below for an exhaustive list.
http://www.pollingreport.com/wh08gen.htm
I would go with McCain as the most electable of that lot. I’m not really sure Rudy is out…he has a different strategy. But even if you add him to the mix I’d still say McCain is the most electable of the Republicans.
-XT
I count Rudy out. He’s not even winning in FL, has got way too much baggage and it’s only just begun.
Of the 3 listed by the OP, McCain by a long shot. Huckabee gets ONLY the strong religious right, and not even all of those, IMHO. He had a great showing in Iowa, but not so much since then, and I think he did well in Iowa 'cause folks just didn’t know how crackers he was. I suspect if they re-ran that election today, he’d not do so well.
Romney couldn’t even win his neighbor over. Won in MI mostly 'cause folks remember his daddy. He’s changed his stance on major issues too recently (though he’s probably bright enough to not get caught wind surfing around now)
McCain’s age, I don’t think will hurt him significantly. And his hawkish on the war stance gets credibility 'cause he’s a vet (the sullying he took on that from the Bush camp will be ignored )
I would say McCain.
But he’ll do it without my vote!
Just out of curiosity, who are you backing for the nomination?
This is exactly how I see it. McCain is the Republican’s best bet. I think he wins against Clinton, but will have a tough race against Obama. If McCain emphasizes the experience factor and it works, I could see it. Otherwise, Obama.
Romney? No chance. Likewise Giuliani.
Huckabee is an interesting case. I don’t think he would win, but personality and charm can go a long way, especially up against Clinton at her most shrewish. He knows how to work a room. But as long as primary votors have other choices for the GOP, I don’t think y’all have to worry about Huckabee come November.
Why not? McCain will turn 71 this August. Reagan was only 69 when he took office, and he was non copos mentis by the time he left (don’t let nobody tell ya different!).
That makes him look sincere, as I have no doubt he is, but it does not make the war itself any more popular. If the war were the only issue, any antiwar candidate would win the general election in a walk.
won’t hurt his electability. Folks elected Reagan twice ya know. And still praise him to the skies.
And if the war were the only issue (or even the main issue presently), you may be correct. However, as it turns out, our economy sucks, too, and that’s something that resonates very strongly as well. So his hawkish stance won’t hurt him, certainly in the primarie. In the general, I think it won’t be as big a factor, unless (and I think this is why he tracks so much better against Clinton than Obama) the Dem nominee is advocating strongly for a more immediate pullout.
As of now, nobody really. The only candidate I found acceptable that I thought had any chance was Thompson. Now he’s out. Though I disagree with him on some issues, I suppose I could vote for Dr. Paul. But he never had any chance right from the begining.
McCain, Romney, Huckabee and Giuliani all have something in common: Any one of them may win the nomination, any one of them could even win the Presidency.
But none of them will do either with my vote!
McCain certainly looks most electable right now, but I have to doubt his ability to fight a long campaign. I’m no Chick Norris, but at the age of 71, does he have the stamina for the long haul? If he tires his normal acerbity is going to be more and more evident, and I don’t think the voters will like it.
Funny, ain’t it… a half a year ago the “common wisdom” was that Rudy was the obvious general-electable candidate but maybe could not make it through the primaries… and now it looks like unless Super Tuesday bucks the trend they may be able to go on making that claim with a “well, now we’ll never know, will we” coda. While Huckabee was expected to end up… where Fred Thompson did.
Would be interesting to see a Giuliani/Huckabee ticket; the current-environment power ticket seems to be McCain/Huckabee. In either case Huck lines up the hardcore Social (read: religious) Conservative base that probably still doesn’t quite trust the top guy, yet as VP is powerless to install the economic policies that scare the Fiscal (read:Big Biz) Conservative wing of the party. Not that the money folks would be exactly in love with either Rudy or McC. The potential negs on a +Huckabee ticket is that even if the Presidency goes on w/o incident, at the end you have him as a presumptive frontrunner and again set up a potential SocCon v. FisCon fight.
Had Romney not created a record of distancing himself from himself, and were he not such a target for religious bigotry, IMO he would conceivable be the best able to triangulate FisCon and SoCon (Fred Thompson killed too much time making his move, by then many people had made prior commitments to the guys who had been in it long-term, and Fred did not give them any real motivation to switch. I can imagine many folk never got past the notion, right or wrong, that he was the frontman for an attempt of some part of the GOP Power Establishment to manufacture a candidate out of Central Casting)
Yes, as Bill Door mentions, with McCain there’s always the possibility that the campaing stress may bring out the rough edges. George W could get away with putting on the *“amiable goob” *act, but nobody would buy that from someone like John McC, who in any other field of work would be agreed to have earned the right to not suffer fools at all, never mind gladly. Hard to tell what the people’s emotional reaction may be to that, but who knows… by now they may actually enjoy a candidate who ocassionally bites someone’s head off onstage.
In any case, the Republicans needs a powerful ticket, unless events of the year turn things around for the GOP or the Democratic nominee ends the primaries badly bruised (or rather, that the party organization, never that cohesive among national Dems, is fractured by the contest and key people don’t close ranks).
I think talk of McCain/Huckleberry is not quite Kosher. Huck is too odd fiscally, too progressive and way too religious to be anything but a detriment to a very old Presidential candidate. I know I don’t want Huck that close to the job.
I think McCain is by far the most electable and he can take someone like Thompson or better yet, some fairly stable and sober current Governor with a solid fiscal background and do better than Huck.
McCain/Rudy might still be a solid ticket, but Rudy’s star has collapsed so much, he might bring no value. Lets see how he does Feb 5th.
I suspect in the end it will be either McCain/Romney or Romney/McCain.
A crazy wildcard that would bring in a lot of independent voters, how about McCain talks Bloomberg in the VP slot.
Jim
Fine, go cast a third-party vote. Og knows I’ve been tempted to now and again. And it’s even money that the Libertarian Party, the America First Party, and/or the Constitution Party will have ballot lines in your state (whichever state it is) in November.
BTW – as between McCain and Romney, which is the more “conservative”? McCain is the biggest hawk on the war, but Romney takes a harder line on immigration.
Put another way, which one would self-identified conservatives be likelier to vote for (as opposed to staying home) in November?