Giuliani Blog Tracking the likely Presidential candidacy of Rudy Giuliani

Saturday, June 10, 2006

Charlie Cook Strikes (Out) Again

There he goes again:

It strikes me as extremely unlikely that the GOP will nominate someone who favors abortion rights and supported gay-rights and gun-control measures as New York's mayor. Therefore, it is doubtful that Giuliani will run. With Hizzoner out of the mix, McCain jumped to 37 percent, Romney came in second with 10 percent, Gingrich got 9 percent, Pataki climbed to 6 percent, Frist and Allen each had 5 percent, Tancredo still had 3 percent, and Brownback trailed with 2 percent.
Dismissing Rudy as a possibility for '08 requires going so far as to disavow the results of your own poll -- and every poll -- that shows Rudy Giuliani at or near the top of the primary pack. It's downright weird.

I'm a Rudy partisan. I don't agree with Cook's conclusions. And that would be par for the course -- except for the fact that Cook can't be bothered to back up his blanket assertions with survey research. Despite the fact that Rudy is in a stronger position than McCain according to most polling, Cook categorically states Rudy is anathema and won't run -- end of discussion. This is an untenable position for a serious political analyst.

All of the statements we make here at Giuliani Blog are backed up with numbers -- numbers Cook either hasn't seen or willfully ignores. With all the numbers in agreement, a quick tutorial for Mr. Cook is below:
  1. Rudy is a whopping 16 points more popular with Republicans than McCain, and is the most popular politician in America amongst Evangelicals, according to the Quinnipiac thermometer survey released this week.
  2. Rudy is the candidate of strong Bush approvers, and McCain is the candidate of Bush-disapprovers within the GOP, according to the Diageo-Hotline poll. The poll also found low favorability ratings for McCain amongst Republicans.
  3. The Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll released last month showed Rudy capturing 86% of the Republican vote against Hillary compared to McCain's 79%.
  4. The Pew typology survey from last year is an old data point, but it shows Rudy leading McCain in favorability amongst all conservative groups, while McCain edges out Rudy in favorability with Democrats.
  5. Now, let's turn to some of the online polls, which enable us to drill down the super-activists who would be most concerned with the Mayor's position on abortion, gay rights, and guns. Let's start with yesterday's find: fully a third of Freepers would support Rudy but oppose McCain in a general election.
  6. Commenter Argo points to the GOP Bloggers straw poll, which showed McCain with one of the highest unfavorable ratings of any GOP candidate.
Did I miss anything?

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