John McCain Watch: McCain TANKING in New Hampshire?
Boston Herald: McCain no longer rocks in Granite State
As Mitt, Hillary, Barack and a dozen others jump into the presidential stampede, something interesting is happening in New Hampshire.
For seven years, conventional wisdom has said that the state’s pivotal independent voters would line up behind maverick Sen. John McCain, as they did so famously in the 2000 GOP primary. But new polling data, to be released later this week, will suggest that might no longer be the case.
Manchester, N.H.-based American Research Group finds that McCain’s popularity among New Hampshire’s independent voters has collapsed.
“John McCain is tanking,†says ARG president Dick Bennett. “That’s the big thing [we’re finding]. In New Hampshire a year ago he got 49 percent among independent voters. That number’s way down, to 29 percent now.â€
American Research Group, which is New Hampshire’s leading polling company and has been operating in the state since 1976, polled 1,200 likely Granite State voters in the survey.
And why?
McCain’s HAWKISH support for President Bush and the escalation “surge” of the Iraq War.
The main reason isn’t hard to find: His hawkish stance on the Iraq war, which is tying him ever more closely to an unpopular president. “Independent support for McCain is evaporating because they view him as tied to Bush,†says Bennett.
The McCain camp yesterday said the senator, who is pushing for a bigger troop surge in Iraq than the president, will stick by his guns. “He has been and will remain committed to achieving victory in Iraq,†a spokesman said.
New Hampshire is among the states that allow independents to vote in either party’s primary. It was their support that gave McCain his huge primary victory there over then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush in 2000.
And this television ad floating around the internet and New Hampshire by Moveon.org cannot possibly help McCain’s poll numbers.
So, where do these independent voters end up?
Rudy Giuliani on the GOP side? – some, but enough to win?
Possible
On the Democrat side?
Up for grabs……..
This has not been a good week for John McCain.
Can anyone continue to think that McCain is a front-runner?
NOPE…….He is starting to fade……..
Stay tuned……….
Previous:
John McCain Watch: McCain Wants to Patch Things Up with Focus on the Family’s James Dobson
John McCain Watch: James Dobson – Cannot Support John McCain Under ANY Circumstances
Rudy Giuliani Watch: Giuliani Leading in North Carolina Poll
Mitt Romney Watch: Another HYPOCRITICAL Moment? This Time Gay Marriage
Michael Ramirez on John McCain and Presidential Election 2008
Technorati Tags: JamesDobson, FocusontheFamily, JohnMcCain, MittRomney
One Comment
Joe M
One jet passenger never will forget the evening of March 9, 2005. He remembers flying with Rudolph William Giuliani from Dallas, where “America’s Mayor” earlier that day had delivered a motivational address to 10,000 people. En route to New York City, Giuliani perused a volume of Elizabethan literature he had purchased for his daughter, Caroline.
Miles above Pennsylvania, an aircraft door-seal suddenly cracked. The cabin started to depressurize. The pilot nose-dived the plane from 38,000 feet to a safer 9,000 feet. Oxygen masks popped out and dangled from the ceiling above the heads of horrified travelers.
One of them sounded rattled even a few days later, while recalling the incident. What did Giuliani do? “He put his mask over his face, picked the book back up, and kept reading Shakespeare.”
Such steadfastness may be what Americans find most appealing about Rudy Giuliani.