McCain, Huckabee Neck and Neck in South Carolina
Written by Sam on January 17th, 2008The numbers:– McCain, 27 percent.
– Huckabee, 25 percent.
– Romney, 15 percent.
– Thompson, 13 percent.
– Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, 6 percent.
– Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, 5 percent.
– Rep. Duncan Hunter of California, 1 percent.
– Undecided, 8 percent.
The poll also found that the economy is tops on the minds of voters in South Carolina, as it was in Michigan. Voters who said the economy was the most important issue split between McCain, 29 percent, and Huckabee, 24 percent, with 17 percent going for Romney.
Thompson isn’t going to pull this off. He has too much of a deficit to make up with just two days left. If it’s between McCain and Huckabee then I hope it’s McCain that comes out on top.
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Remember the accuracy of these polls. The RCP Average in Michigan missed Romney by 10%!
Other polls have this within 3% of Huck. There is a lot of deciding going on in South Carolina right now. Let’s not make decisions based on polls.
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Come on, Sam, have a little faith. We all know polls can be wrong by a longshot. Sometimes they are reliable, sometimes they are not. What they are good for pretty consistently, though, is tracking momentum. And in this area, Fred’s gaining, and others are dropping.
Of course, I’m hoping for a Thompson win or close 2nd, so I’m biased. But from everything that I read from the Palmetto State everything about Thompson’s campaign seems to be going great right now, while his opponents face some pretty harsh criticism (like McCain traveling with his buddy on Amnesty-before-security, Lindsey Graham, and Huckabee being blasted by the Club for Growth, FreedomWorks, and others today).
I wouldn’t count Sen. Thompson out just yet. He’s “flipped” a lot of voters in recent days, as shown by media reports and videos highlighted on his campaign website, which may very well be an indication of a greater trend that isn’t being picked up by the polls.
Let’s just take a deep breath and wait til the returns come in Saturday night. People may be surprised. Or, I may be wrong. But either way, I’m waiting. There have already been too many times that the media has declared this race “over,” or declared “frontrunners,” or declared candidates “dead” for anyone to make any bold statements now before the voters actually go to the polls.
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I’d be happy to be wrong, I just think that is a lot of ground to make up with only one day left.
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“Oh, my goodness… go against a poll?”
-Fred Thompson at the Myrtle Beach debate
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My comment was accidentally sent prematurely and then I couldn’t edit it. Here’s what I was going to say:
As much as I hate to say this, pray that Huckabee wins tomorrow. Huckabee’s momentum will be easier to halt, because he’s got so many obvious problems vis-a-vis winning the general election that his appeal will wear off more quickly. The large fraction of conservatives who currently support Amnesty John won’t easily be shaken from their support if McCain racks up another victory tomorrow. If McCain wins tomorrow, he may become unstoppable by virtue of appearing to be unstoppable.
I blame Fred Thompson entirely for this. He ran the worst campaign in the entire history of American politics, and he spent so much time and energy dragging down Romney, Giuliani, and Huckabee, while treating McCain with kid gloves, that McCain hasn’t had much of a downward drag of his support. The only person who went after McCain in any serious way is Romney, and even he was muted in his criticism because (1) McCain acts like such a prick when someone attacks him, and (2) no one was going to say anything that would support Romney, the man everyone was trying to tear down.
I’ve concluded that Thompson simply doesn’t deserve to be president. Going after Romney, Giuliani, and Huckabee with such ferocity while uttering only peeps of criticism of McCain (and that, only very recently) shows he doesn’t give a damn about this country, only about being a friend to a man who will make a truly horrible president. Thompson is still my pick for South Carolina, but only by default.
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I totally agree with Alan here about Thompson not slamming McCain for what he is. Good observation!
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Alan and Dave, remember Thompson was heavily involved in the McCain campaign in 2000.
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7: I’ve been trying to forget.
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And thanks to whoever deleted my original, incomplete comment. (Seriously, thank you.)
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You’re quite welcome.
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What are people thinking? With our economy bottoming out, you would think that people would look at candidates to see who understands economic thought, who has vision to address the problems our country is faced with, etc.
I know, according to previous posts, that some of you do not like Ron Paul, and I must admit that I don’t agree with him on everything. However, our country needs someone like him to balance out those in Congress who hold views in direct opposition to his.