AMERICA’S MAYOR IN THE GRANITE STATE

A recent SurveyUSA New Hampshire Poll, released 29 January 2007, that is gaining quite a bit of Media attention, particularly in Boston and the Northeast, shows the following:

GOP:

Rudy: 33%

McCain: 32

Romney: 21

Other: 9

DEM:

Hillary: 40%

Obama: 25

Edwards 23

Other: 11

Nothing new on the Democrat side!

On the GOP side: Even though Rudy is shown to lead McCain in New Hampshire, by 1%, nevertheless I do agree with many commentators, in the blogosphere and elsewhere, that the general value of this latest SurveyUSA poll is quite low in estimating now what the Republican Primary will look like a year from now. Certainly, this Poll’s lack of value to Romney is even more apparent because he reached the 20% level of support ONLY because Newt was removed from consideration by the Pollsters, and this from what should be a State favourable to Romney as the immediate past Governor of neighboring Massachusetts.

That said, please allow me to share with you all again a report/analysis that I first published in this space, on 11 January 2007, and that I have also posted elsewhere in the blogosphere. This report/analysis is, in my judgment, absolutely vital to assessing the state of play in New Hampshire, and I don’t believe any other commentator has mentioned it in connection with this latest SurveyUSA Poll. As you read the following report/analysis, please bear in mind two other Poll results, with which readers of this space are quite familiar, but that seem to have been forgotten elsewhere in the blogosphere:

1. A recent Zogby New Hampshire Poll, conducted 15-17 January 2007, showed the following:

Republicans:

McCain 26%

Rudy 20%

Romney 13%

Condi 7%

Newt 6%

2. A recent Fox News New Poll, released on 07 January 2007, showed Rudy leading McCain by 29% to 24%,

Now the report/analysis:

“I heard an interesting tidbit last night [10 January] in Fox News' Chief Political Correspondent Carl Cameron's report on the ‘state of things’ in New Hampshire, which I think bears on my comments yesterday about the recent poll showing Rudy leading McCain by 29% to 24% in the Granite State, as well as on the New Hampshire Primary in general.

“This tidbit is set in the context of John McCain's 2000 Republican Primary trouncing of George Bush by 49% to 32%. Mr. Cameron talked to a New Hampshire Democrat ‘political insider’ who gave the following analysis: McCain's margin of victory in 2000 was the result largely of registered independent voters who ‘broke’ hugely for the Arizona Senator -- ‘Straight Talk Express’, and all that. The 2006 elections, however, ‘changed all that’. This past November, owing to the war in Iraq and all the other things we all know about, those same independent voters voted overwhelmingly for Democrats, giving the New Hampshire polity a political ‘cast’ at all levels that is hugely Democrat, in fact more so than at any previous time in the State's history. That's more-or-less ‘fact’. The ‘analysis’ is that those voters have cast their lot with the Democrat Party, at least for the foreseeable future, and will not therefore be voting in the Republican Primary in 2008.

“I do not necessarily ‘endorse’ this analysis, but at the same time, I have no reason to doubt it. In fact, it does sound rather intuitive, and it is certainly in consonance with all the ad nauseam Media blather we heard in the wake of the 2006 elections, about how the GOP ‘lost’ the Northeastern Republicans -- the old ‘Rockefeller Republicans’ -- perhaps for good. The ‘poster boy’ example, of course, was Lincoln Chafee, who lost his and his family's long-held Senate seat in Rhode Island, apparently for no other reason than that he had an ‘R’ after his name on the ballot. Moreover, the actual results in New Hampshire in 2006, do seem to support the analysis of Mr. Cameron's interlocutor.

“If the ‘analysis’, actually an educated prediction about voting patterns in the 2008 New Hampshire primaries, proves to be accurate, then, in the current through-the-looking-glass world in which we find ourselves, this can be only good news for Rudy. I put it that way because, in the normal year, independent New Hampshire voters, who customarily vote Republican in the primary, would be exactly the kind of voter one would expect to respond very well to Rudy. Thus, their loss to the Democrat Party should hurt Rudy’s primary electoral fortunes. This time round, however, the defection of those voters to the Democrats will mean principally that the support of Rudy's primary rival has been gutted! Couple that with the recent Fox News poll and the enormous and enthusiastic turn-out for Rudy's appearances in New Hampshire last fall, and it all adds up to a very good ‘alignment of the planets’ for America's Mayor in the Granite State!”

My ultimate conclusion: Run Rudy Run!