Redstate

Is there anyway to add the general election match-ups to this? I saw them elsewhere and I don't understand how we can nominate Romney.

It seems to me that GOP voters around the country have been looking at the polls, see the writing on the wall and want to get behind the winner. I shudder because it's McCain, but I see the silver lining in that we may have someone as the "presumptive nominee" before the Dems. And that will give us time to grieve for the loss of the true conservative candidates, make peace with reality, and rally around the flag.

You don't win by losing.

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Proof that not everyone in the mainstream media is a bleeding heart.

Minn Poll

mong Republicans, McCain led the field with 41 percent, trailed by former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee with 22 percent and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney with 17 percent. Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who quit the race on Wednesday, had 6 percent.
McCain's lead outstripped the poll's 5.5 percent margin of error among 317 Republicans polled, and his support was broad.

"He's able to appeal to a lot of different segments of Minnesota Republicans," said Larry Jacobs, who heads the Humphrey Institute's Center for the Study of Politics and Governance, and led the research. "We're seeing men and women rallying to his side. We're seeing folks who think the country is going in the right direction and the wrong direction heading over his way. And they trust him on the economy and jobs."

The poll shows that Romney's strategy of focusing on the economy isn't working in Minnesota, Jacobs said.

McCain picked up an endorsement Thursday from U.S. Rep. Jim Ramstad, a popular moderate Republican who represents the state's suburban 3rd District. Ramstad said he backed the Arizona senator even though they don't agree on every issue, and praised McCain's integrity and readiness to lead the fight against terrorism.

"Above all, John McCain is a person of complete integrity, which is essential to restore trust and respect," Ramstad said in a statement.

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After Tuesday... we need to rally... and catch up the the Dems. Like him or not... McCain is leading Hillary and will have time to solidify his support. We can win this election people!

I agree the McCain camp is going to need a major boost of donations and so will many state GOP parties so hopefully once Clinton/Ogama Hussein emerge they will be battered, brusied, and broke and McCain/Republicans can identify either one for the liberals they are.

It's sad, but I don't doubt the numbers. It's a major bummer to me, though. OTOH I'll get over it eventually.

Too many winner-take-all states on the GOP side. Maybe Romney fights for a few more weeks, but I don't see any momentum for him going into Tuesday, and after that, 55% of the delegates will already have been picked.

Good rundown.

42 percent Democrat 33 percent Republican and 20 percent Independent....which shows that McCain is still not taking Republicans.

Freedom of Religion not Freedom from Religion

One way to get an idea of what Super tuesday will do for the various campaigns is to look at the winner take all states -- where the winner gets all the delegates -- and then see who is favored to win that state.

McCain: New York (101)
Missouri (58)
Arizona (53)
New Jersey (52)
Connecticut (30)
Total: 294

Romney: Utah (36)
probably Montana (25)
Total: 61

Huck: not leading in any winner take all states

*Delaware (18) is a winner take all state but it has nott been polled recently or maybe at all.

So, given that McCain now has 93, Romney 59 and Huck 40, that means that McCain will start with close to 400 delegates, Romney with 120, and Huck with 40.

The rest of the states award delegates differently, in CD, or whatever, so it's hard to predict accurately.

Take the states that McCain leads in:
Tennessee (55)
Georgia (72)
Illinois (70)
California (173)
Alabama (48)
Oklahoma (41)

Total: 459. Maybe McCain gets 350 of these? Or 300? Anyway he ends up with very likely 700-750 delegates at a bare minimum.

Romeny: Colorado 46), Massachusetts (43)
Huck: Arkansas (34)

Romney gets around 200, Huck gets around 60+.

The remaining states where we don't know enough to predict: Delaware, Alaska, Minnesota, North Dakota, Maine, West Virginia, have a total of 165 delegates at stake. Say they divide up evenly, around 50 each (unlikely), then we end up with
McCain 750-800
Romney 250
Huck 110

Oh yeah: Louisiana has already had some kind caucus, according to Geraghty all or most of the 47 will go to McCain. Let's say 40.

So, McCain ends up with a delegate total of 800+ after Tuesday. He also has some good states coming up, and this is a lowball estimate.

1200 is what you need to win the nomination.

Caveat: Math is not my strong point.

Romney ought to spend money in California and Missouri and pray for the best. Maybe he could put Limbaugh, Levin, Mike Savage, etc. on the stump.

He has a few days to make a difference. He has an important funeral to attend on Saturday, and Sunday is Pats vs. Giants. If he had a few more weeks and hadn't bet the farm and gotten clobbered in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Florida, he might be able to pull this off. Now... he needs divine intervention.

is poll is a bit odd. Two pre FL polls had Romney at 18 and 21, and that latest poll has him at 30 with a big dip or spike in either Hucks or McCain's number. So it would seem that Mitt got a large chunk of Rudy support if this poll is correct.

McCain '08

From www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/election_20082/2008_pre...

Roughly half of the interviews for today’s update were conducted before results were known from Florida’s Presidential Primary. Sunday will be the first update based completely upon interviews since Rudy Giuliani left the race. The next Presidential Tracking Poll update is scheduled for Saturday at 11:00 a.m.

So the Florida and post-Florida endorsements bounces are not completely factored in in the latest Rasmussen results.

Just look at the massive difference in those national poll results. Somebody is very wrong there. Some of those polls have to be way outside of their stated MOE. The Fox poll had a sample size of less than 300 republican registered (not likely) voters. With a sample size that small it would be pretty easy to get screwy results.
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Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. - Milton Friedman

in that TN Insider advantage poll.

McCain '08

That explains why their poll is so different. They're not even trying.

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"If we want to take this party back, and I think we can someday, let’s get to work." – Barry Goldwater

Gallup (McCain up 15) and Rasmussen (McCain up 2; it's a rolling 4 day poll so there are two days post FL and 2 prior. There has been a slight bump for McCain and a slight bump from Huckabee but both within the MOE). That's an average of 8.5%.

The same two polls are showing Clinton and Obama 4.5% apart. So, why is the media saying that Clinton/Obama is a dog fight but the Republican race is over?

I'm sorry, we have been doing non-stop polling for 2 years now and I'm just tired of them driving the news cycle rather than reflecting it.

Polls said that Hillary was unbeatable, we had to have Guiliani or we were toast, that Carter would trounce Reagan, Clinton would never be president (he ran third in early polls in '92), and we would have had Presidents Dukakis, Gore & Kerry.

The difference between now and then is that polls used to be occasional and reported the news of the race. Now, the barrage of polls become self-fulfilling prophecies as individuals look for the person who they're being told could win. I have become weary of reading blogs and talking to friends who say "I'd really like to vote for so and so but I don't think he can win."

Good things we conservative Republicans didn't pay this kind of myopic attention to polls in '80 because they all said that Reagan didn't have a prayer.

"All that need be done for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing."

To know the results of Super Tuesday, watch the west. Especially California with its 174 delegates.

I'm still trying to figure out how the Louisiana caucus works. I guess crazy caucuses are not a regional phenomenom.

http://campaignspot.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NWVmNDBhOGMyOWMxMDk1MmFmY...

Good grief. Stupid, band-wagon following, media-trusting Republican voters. Why do we bother trying to get any message out?

I'm near to being resigned to the fate of having the Republican brand represented by a backstabbing, grandstanding, stupid, arrogant jerk.

I think I'll just work on my cars.

Kill the terrorists
Protect the borders
Punch the hippies -- Frank J

...to join with other traditional conservatives in abstaining, and encouraging others to abstain in some broadly-coordinated manner that can be tallied after the fact.

It would be silly to make a principled stand and not be able to prove statistically that the effort got results.

As the election moves along, I'll do what I can to help traditional conservatives with whom I share a basis of thought. There will be a lot of really great people forced to run away from the microscopic coattails that McCain would surely offer to all Republicans, and principled conservative Republicans in particular. Any of them we can salvage can form a basis for where conservatism goes from there.

Regardless of the results, a McCain nomination puts conservatism back to where it was before 1964. After the election, it's going to be time to sit down and figure out whether or not continuing this now obviously dysfunctional arrangement we have with the party is worth preserving.

I'd rather venture into the wilderness of splintering from the party than feel even the slightest bit responsible for electing someone who so obviously hates my principles and disregards my concerns for my daughter's future.

Look, the guy is flat out lying about so much and cloaking it under the BS of "Straight Talk" that it boggles my mind that so many are buying it. I'm reminded of the fable The King's New Clothes while reading most pro-McCain posts. If elected, a President John McCain will show about as much true capacity for accommodating conservative principles as a British dentist has patients.

I expect that if things hold, sometime next week we'll see an olive branch offered. And I guarantee it will have a snake coiled around it.

If we don't awake from this nightmare, we can only hope against hope that the damage he'll do if elected can be mitigated.

My advice:

Don't trust him on judges.
Don't expect he's smart enough on the economy.
Watch your back regarding his promises, particularly about immigration and first amendment rights.
Get ready for paying fees out the wazoo and caving in to the UN routinely on matters like global warming.
Keep clothes pins close at hand for four years.
And pray for our troops that he doesn't go all Lyndon Johnson and try to micromanage the military.

Better be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident security. --Edmund Burke

Blog: TMYN

The polls in this election have been wrong before, and they could (hopefully) be wrong here. Remember NH? All the polls had Obama winning, yet Clinton ended up winning by 2 points.

A small sample of registered voters who are unengaged
distort the entire process.

Guiliani had massive leads because the voters were unengaged
and was operating on name recognition.

That's still the case for about 75% of the population.

McCain has a lead, but it's no where near that large
among likely voters.

it's the same poll that's giving Clinton a 10 point lead
over Obama which strikes me as the same effect.

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"The bass, the rock, the mic, the treble, I like my coffee black, just like my Metal." - MSI

Here.

California - McCain +8.3% (Giuliani at 11.5%)
New York - McCain +12.5% (Giuliani at 22.5)
New Jersey - McCain +17.3% (no Giuliani in poll)
Missouri - McCain +3.6%
Illinois - McCain +8.0% (latest, not averaged)

1. McCain, 2. Thompson, 3. Giuliani, 4. Romney

Unless there is a serious reversal in polls, McCain is the nominee.

Of more interest to me (and what I honestly think the GOP's prospects hinge on) is how the Democrat Super Tuesday turns out. I'm hoping and praying that Hillary wins it.

“.....women and minorities hardest hit”

In the primary of course, but will be duly nice if it continues to drag out while McCain tries to make peace with conservatives.

Who would have thought this would have happened?

"Now is not time for the philosophical flexibility of our principles." Fred Dalton Thompson

Jason in NorCal

I know a lot of people loathe McCain but who would you guys consider to be a good VP choice or good choices?

http://www.regimeofterror.com/

Documenting Saddam Hussein's support of terrorism

after he spends a ton of money between now and Tuesday.

However, I'm realistic.

If it's McCain then he'll get my backing.

He won't clinch by Wednesday, but he certainly will make a dent in the number of delegates he gets if the polls hold.

I'm hoping that Huckabee backers realize that their guy has no chance and that they switch to Romney between now and then.

If that Fox News poll is even close to being correct, then it looks like I really do need to find a third party, because I am completely out of touch with whatever it is that the current Republican Party and it's voters want and represent.

nt

Huckabee is necessary for mcCain to win, it turns out in the above-cited Fox poll that in a two man race between McCain and romney, Mccain's lead would actually be much bigger:

Among Republicans: McCain 62
Romney 29

Indepenents: Mccain 60
romney 21

You guys should be praying that huck stays in.