McCain Watch Poll Update

Okay, so the results are in. Let's take a look.

The questions: "If AZ Senator John McCain Earned The GOP Nomination in 2008, Would You Vote For Him?"

The answers/distribution:

6.0% - Absolutely, He's My First Choice For The Nomination
16.0% - He's Not My First Choice, But I'd Vote For Him In The General Election
30.0% - I Wouldn't Be Thrilled About It, But I'd Hold My Nose And Pull The Lever
20.0% - Only If Hillary Was The Democrat Candidate
6.0% - I Would Consider Not Voting On Election Day
6.0% - I Would Definitely Stay Home On Election Day
16.0% - I Would Vote Democrat Rather Than See McCain Become President

Of the seven choices, I would aggregate the first three answers as "yes", the last three as "no" and the middle option stipulating only if Hillary were the Dem nominee as a qualified "neutral".

Now, four months ago I ran an identical poll. The results were:

14.2% - Absolutely, He's My First Choice For The Nomination
14.2% - He's Not My First Choice, But I'd Vote For Him In The General Election
35.0% - I Wouldn't Be Thrilled About It, But I'd Hold My Nose And Pull The Lever
18.3% - Only If Hillary Was The Democrat Candidate
5.0% - I Would Consider Not Voting On Election Day
0.0% - I Would Definitely Stay Home On Election Day
13.3% - I Would Vote Democrat Rather Than See McCain Become President

Aggregating the answers, McCain has gone from Yes - 63.4%, No - 18.3%, Neutral - 18.3% in July to Yes - 52.0%, No - 28.0%, Neutral - 20.0% as of this morning. Certainly there is nothing scientific about an internet poll on a blog but I'm operating under the assumption that most of the votes come from people who are Republicans and/or lean Conservative. That being the case, this represents a shift in "favorability" away from McCain among those who would be in a position to vote on the nomination in 2008. In particular, the percentage voting "definitely stay home" or "vote Democrat" aggregate moved from 13.3% to 22.0%.

Now, personally, I would have guessed that McCain would experience a slight increase in the favorability in light of the prospect of a Shrillary Presidency with Dems in control of Congress. Eh, what do I know? It's still two years away and the field is wide-open. Expect at least a dozen or so candidates to throw their hats in. It will be interesting to see how this evolves over time.

Posted by: Gary at 10:45 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 431 words, total size 3 kb.

MSM Beginning To Turn Ugly On Its Favorite Maverick

Well, that didn't take long. The LA Times has an editorial critical of Sen. John McCain and Kevin Drum at the Washington Monthly's blog has jumped on it as a wooden paddle to smack around the MSM's favorite Republican.

Matt Welch, a contributor to the libertarian magazine Reason, is sounding the warning bells about the Arizona Senator.

McCain, it turns out, wants to restore your faith in the U.S. government by any means necessary, even if that requires thousands of more military deaths, national service for civilians and federal micromanaging of innumerable private transactions. He'll kick down the doors of boardroom and bedroom, mixing Democrats' nanny-state regulations with the GOP's red-meat paternalism in a dangerous brew of government activism. And he's trying to accomplish this, in part, for reasons of self-realization.

Remember how the folks in the MSM liked to gush over this "independent-minded" fellow who's not afraid to break with his party? That old routine seems to have become played out. To read Kevin Drum's response, you'd think McCain is now all of a sudden the country's worst nightmare.

This doesn't get nearly the attention it deserves, but despite his soothing speaking style McCain may literally be in the 99% percentile of hawkishness. That is, he may be more hawkish than every single one of his fellow senators. Some "centrist."

McCain has been the focus of some moderately bad press lately because of his notable lack of straight talk ever since he got serious about running for president in 2008: pandering to Jerry Falwell, switching his views on Roe v. Wade, caving in on the torture bill, and abandoning his long-held views on campaign finance reform. And that's all well and good. He deserves to get beaten up for this stuff the same as ordinary mortals do.

It's as if Drum has suddenly decided that McCain is no longer that political rock star who rode the "Straight Talk Express" six years ago and is giving us a "hey, wait a minute" analysis. But then, this shouldn't really come as any surprise. Now that the exploratory campaign has officially launched, the Senator's duplicitous "friends" in the media are going to spend the next two years giving him more than "moderately bad press" - with an eye toward crippling his candidacy.

There are things about John McCain that I like. And there are things that I don't particularly like. But the Senator from Arizona has been used by the MSM as a foil for President Bush ever since the 2000 election. Unfortunately for him, McCain was only too happy to accept their disingenuous praise. Now he'll have to deal with their scorn. Because, frankly, he looks like the one candidate that could handily close the door on Her Shrillness' Presidential hopes.

And the MSM can't have that, now, can they?

Posted by: Gary at 08:34 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 483 words, total size 3 kb.

Election 2008 Has Already Begun

...and I'm already sick of it.

McCain Exploratory Committee will file with FEC tomorrow.

Note: Keep hitting "refresh" and you get new pictures. Sigh.

h/t: The Corner

Posted by: Gary at 04:40 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 37 words, total size 1 kb.