Via Taegan Goddard:
A new Greenberg Quinlan Rosner poll commissioned by NARAL finds that once “balanced information” about Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. John McCain’s respective positions on abortion are introduced, Obama gains 6 points nationally, with his lead in battleground states expanding from a net 2 points (47% to 45%) to a net 13 points (53% to 40%).
Other key finding: “Despite the fact that the national focus seems to be on the economy, among pro-choice Independent women, pro-choice Republican women, and liberal to moderate Republican women, the issue of abortion produces a larger advantage for Democrats than the economy, the war in Iraq, or health care.”
For a long time I’ve thought that McCain’s only chance to get a bang for his buck out of his vice-presidential pick is for him to select a pro-choice running mate. Robert Novak mentioned two pro-choice possibilities in a recent Townhall piece:
Sources close to Sen. John McCain say the Republican presidential candidate likes the idea of Democratic Sen. Joseph Lieberman, re-elected from Connecticut as an independent in 2006, or former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge — if he could get away with it. The political consensus is that McCain couldn’t get away with either, and he knows it.
I really don’t understand why he can’t get away with it. As the polling at the top shows, McCain has a serious liability in his extreme anti-choice voting record. The Republican base has shrunk to such a small rump that McCain is losing national polls even though he runs stronger with self-identified Republicans than Obama does with self-identified Democrats. McCain’s natural constituency simply is not the same as George W. Bush’s. McCain has a much better chance of winning New Hampshire, Connecticut, and New Jersey than he does of winning Minnesota, Iowa, and Oregon. He has to expand his map somewhere, but he can’t attract northeastern voters by picking some southern anti-choice governor. He’d get more bang for his buck out of picking Olympia Snowe, Christie Todd Whitman, Jodi Rell, Tom Ridge, or George Pataki than he’d get out of Haley Barbour or Mark Sanford. At least, I think so.
I have to say that Whitman is a very strong choice for McCain (especially with NJ in play), but she has problem with ‘conspiracy nuts’ that don’t like that she covered up health issues in post-9/11 NYC and downwind as well as her personal financial stake in ground zero and it’s effect on some of the aftermath.
She’ll also be hard to manage, having been used and abused by Bush (or at least how she wants us to think about it – more like ‘run’ by Bush), she’ll not play along for the sake of it again.
She’s also the ultimate Eastern Elite type.
I think McCain needs a horse-farm Republican. I could be wrong.
Simple: if the fundamentalists stay home, he has no shot. He may not have the same ‘natural’ base as Bush, but there aren’t enough ‘moderate’ Republicans and independents to make up the difference…because a lot of them self-identify as Democrats now.
Basically, he’s stuck because Bush made the Republican Party into a regional party.
but psi, let’s talk about how he gets the most votes. I don’t think he can win regardless, but for electoral votes, he’s gotta take a chance that he can hold the red states even without base turnout and get pull the independents in the some blues. No?
He could take that chance, but it would be like playing Russian Roulette with a semi-automatic pistol – not that it hasn’t been tried that before…
I would disagree about the base turnout. If the base sits on its hands in the Deep and Coastal South, overwhelming black turnout will turn the entire region blue. And the electoral votes (from LA, MS, AL, GA, SC, NC, and VA) amounts to 75 electoral votes.
What blue states does McCain honestly have a shot at? MI, PA, and NH (Obama will hold on to the Midwest states like MN and WI without much trouble), which is 42 electoral votes.
So no, I think McCain has to stay firmly anchored to the GOP’s southern base in order to have a prayer.
McCain will do skin tone to kneecap Obama.
Bobby Jindal, the exorcist who supports Creationism as Part of ‘The Very Best Science’
Jindal will be a two-fer – with such a resume, the ticket should harvest a few electoral votes.
How will his skintone help at all? Racists may be one of McCain’s strongest constituency.
I think Bobby Jindahl and his classmates were playing with liquid fire when they performed that exorcism on the young woman involved.
For some startling accounts of exorcisms performed in the United States check out Hostage to the Devil by Malachi Martin, former Jesuit and professor at the Pontifical Biblical Institute. As he puts it,”Possession is real; and real prices are paid.”
If exorcism is on the table, perhaps, Mr. Jindahl could turn his attention to the current occupier of the White House. Now, there’s an evil man if there ever was one.
Lucifer is a registered Republican. He loves to lie and cheat, especially when it comes to making money. Sound familiar?
McCain has quite a few problems when it comes to the female vote. Por ejemplo: