During the past month, there has been a complete reordering of candidate preferences among Republicans likely to vote in California’s February 5th primary election. Four weeks ago, Rudy Giuliani stood atop the field at 25%, followed by Mike Huckabee at 17%.
Now, John McCain, who was in fourth position in December, has vaulted to first place with 22%, just ahead of Mitt Romney, who is now in second place, with 18%.
Support for Giuliani has plummeted to 11% in the current poll, putting him in a tie with Huckabee for third place, just ahead of Fred Thompson (9%) and Ron Paul (7%).
The proportion of GOP voters who are undecided has grown to 21% and is nearly equivalent to that of frontrunner McCain.
These are the findings from the latest Field Poll of 377 likely voters in California’s February 5th Republican primary for President.
“There are so many pro-life candidates in the race,” said Lawrence Lehr, the CPLC’s political action committee chairman. “But Fred Thompson is clearly the one, consistently pro-life candidate with the ability to win in November. It is important that pro-life voters rally around a candidate that can make a difference.”
CPLC is the National Right to Life Committee’s state affiliate; NRLC endorsed Thompson last month, but CPLC executive director Brian Johnston — also the NRLC’s Western Regional director — told me today that “CPLC made its endorsement on its own. All affiliates are free to make their own PAC decisions.”
I asked Johnston whether CPLC had been concerned that the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association had hired Thompson in 1991 to lobby President George H.W. Bush’s administration on behalf of abortion rights. Replied Johnston: “As an employee, and a lawyer, Thompson represented his client. He has made it clear in his actions what his public policy predilections are.”
According to the Thompson campaign’s news release announcing this endorsement:
Fred Thompson is pro-life. He believes in the sanctity of human life and that every life is worthy of respect. He had a 100% pro-life voting record in the Senate and believes Roe v. Wade was a bad decision that ought to be overturned. He consistently opposed federal funding to promote or pay for abortion and supported the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act, the Child Custody Protection Act, and President Reagan’s Mexico City policy. While Fred Thompson supports adult stem cell research, he opposes embryonic stem cell research. He also opposes human cloning.
Apparently the San Francisco Republican Alliance, holding its holiday buffet dinner last night at the Fisherman’s Wharf Holiday Inn, abruptly cancelled its presidential straw poll after supporters of Ron Paul flooded the place.
From the YouTube posting: “The complaints only started after the poll was cancelled. I paid my $33 for the dinner and vote. A $5 option was also offered to vote after the festivities. We patiently listened to the guest speaker support Fred Thompson and talk on the issues of water and budget problems in California. They then held a raffle, while all the ‘cheap’ voters waited in the lobby. When they finally let them in, the room was flooded with Ron Paul supporters and the organizer notified us the poll was cancelled. I started the video after the initial announcement and pandemonium broke out. The sudden cancellation and an attempt to change the rules, understandably, upset quite a few people.”
That’s what the folks at Cellufun must’ve thought as they rolled out “The Mobile Ring,” a downloadable cell-phone game in which you can choose a candidate to face off against another candidate in the boxing ring, and slug it out for the title.
From their site:
You can choose to play as Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson, or a slew of other contenders. Aside from being an exercise in catharsis, there is a populist strain in the Mobile Ring game. You can help your favorite long shot candidates by uploading your high scores to us, and we’ll adjust those candidates’ performances in the game.
The initial release of the Mobile Ring game will give each candidate a rating based on their current real-life poll position. Our frequently released updates will take into account not only the real-life poll numbers, but actual in-game performance by YOU, our players, and which candidates got more wins/losses in the field.
Also, don’t forget to cast your vote now! In the poll to the right, you can vote on other characters for us to include in future releases; either dark-horse candidates, cable television pundits or perhaps currently elected white house officials (ahem).
The Mobile Ring release marks not only the first political boxing game available for free on your mobile phone, but the first mobile action game whose character’s strength changes based upon real world events. So get playing!
I predict this game will be overrun by Ron Paul fans within a few weeks…
A recent telephone poll conducted by Parents magazine asked, among other things, which presidential candidates people would most likely trust and not trust to baby-sit their kids. And in yet another example of Hillary Clinton’s ability to polarize the electorate, she topped both lists.
“Which one of the 2008 presidential candidates would you trust least to babysit your children?”
• Hillary Rodham Clinton: 25%
• Don’t know: 19%
• None: 13%
• Rudy Giuliani: 13%
• John McCain: 7%
• Barack Obama: 6%
• Fred Thompson: 6%
• John Edwards: 5%
• Mitt Romney: 4%
• Refused: 2%
The poll also found that more than 75% of parents say that the government is not doing enough to address the key problems that modern families face. This telephone survey was of about 1,000 parents of children under 12 found that “What Keeps Parents Up at Night” is a variety of issues, including affordable health care, lack of positive role models in the government and the media’s influence on children.
Before Democratic presidential candidate U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., holds a mass grassroots fundraiser in San Francisco next Wednesday, he’ll spend some time earlier that day holding a town-hall meeting with Google employees (an event not open to the public) and touring the company’s Mountain View headquarters.
Fred Thompson, some Republicans’ favorite Law & Order star will be raking in the bucks Wednesday at three Northern California fundraisers: an 8:30 a.m. at the Los Gatos home of Creative Brands Group Chairman and CEO Ken Raasch; an 11:30 a.m. lunch at the Four Seasons Hotel on Market Street in San Francisco; and a 4 p.m. reception at the Carmichael home of Gene Raper, a political consultant to Indian tribes and Republican candidates including 2002 gubernatorial nominee Bill Simon.
All are $250 per ticket, $1,000 with a photo opportunity, $2,300 with a private greeting; yes, it’s Halloween, so maybe everyone will wear masks in addition to the “business attire” requested on the invitation. I’d like to think so, at least. I’d wear a Rudy Giuliani mask… ooooooh, scaaaaarrry… considering the latest poll numbers, which show Giuliani still leading the pack.
Fred Thompson’s presidential campaign has hired veteran California GOP communications strategist Karen Hanretty as deputy communications director to help coordinate the candidate’s media strategy and be its on-the-record spokeswoman.
Hanretty was Arnold Schwarzenegger’s gubernatorial campaign press secretary during the 2003 recall, and after that was the California GOP’s communications director until 2005.
“Quite simply, Karen is one of the best there is and she will be an enormous asset to our team,” said Todd Harris, the Thompson campaign’s communications director — Hanretty’s once and now again boss, as Harris was Schwarzenegger’s co-communications director in ‘03.
