I’m not always comfortable with publishing polls because they’re a snapshot. But we’re only a month-plus out of New Hampshire, and the trends of this CNN poll show that the media simply needs to start running a new story about the Republican race. Because Mitt Romney is solidly in the lead right now.

WASHINGTON (CNN) – Former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson has skidded into sixth place in a new CNN/WMUR poll of likely Republican voters in New Hampshire, edged out by ex-Libertarian and anti-war congressman Ron Paul and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney topped the poll, widening a lead he has held for months in neighboring New Hampshire, while Arizona Sen. John McCain and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani were running close in the second and third spots.

Thompson … has trailed the GOP front-runners in early voting states since entering the race in August, and his support in New Hampshire dropped from 13 percent in a September poll to 4 percent in November’s survey.

By contrast, Romney’s support grew from 25 percent to 33 percent over the same period; McCain held steady at 18 percent; and Giuliani dipped from 24 to 16 percent.

Meanwhile, the percentage of support for Paul grew from 4 percent to 8 percent, putting him fourth among the GOP contenders in the Granite State [...]

Among other contenders, Huckabee — seen gaining ground ahead of the Iowa caucuses — claimed 5 percent support in the new poll. Colorado Rep. Tom Tancredo, who has made opposition to illegal immigration the centerpiece of his campaign, drew 1 percent; and California Rep. Duncan Hunter, the former chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, had the support of fewer than half of 1 percent.

Romney is now well beyond the margin of error in New Hampshire, and 9iu11iani, who’s trying to make a strong showing UP TO THIRD in Iowa, is looking at the same placement in New Hampshire. Meanwhile, Ron Paul is surging and will probably spend as much money in that state as anyone else. And Fred Thompson no longer exists.

All I’m saying is that it might be time to rewrite those stories. If all you’re going to do is focus on the horse race, the least you can do is get it right.

Duncan Hunter, Fred Thompson, John McCain, Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, New Hampshire, Ron Paul, Rudy Giuliani, Tom Tancredo | 5 Comments »

Mike Huckabee is going all in in the Hawkeye State.

Ex-AR Gov. Mike Huckabee will spend most of the next 65 days in Iowa and has moved the majority of his staff to the state in an effort to capitalize on a sense that he’s gaining ground here.

“Well, I certainly think even the Iowa poll numbers are reflecting that we’re in play in a very strong way and continue to move up and other candidates have stalled and are beginning to decline. I think we’re in great position there [...]

“We’re hoping to do what we essentially did with the straw poll, just doing it on steroids. We know we’ve got to get physical bodies that so committed to us no matter how cold the temperature is… no matter how good the Orange Bowl is…. Among those caucus goers who have already made up their mind, we’re in first place.. what we’re doing now is to go down to the precinct level, recruiting chairman in the precincts, getting precincts townships, counties.. We’re developing our efforts where the concentration of voters is likely o be highest…

The Republican race is shaping up very interestingly in the early states. Where Huckabee is focusing on Iowa, the newly flush with cash Ron Paul is focusing on New Hampshire. You can also argue that, since Freddie has fallen back nationally, he’s the “spoiler” in South Carolina. And they’re all doing quite well at this stage of the game in their regional bailiwicks. For the “national” candidates, their problem could be that they never get to fully capture the narrative or any media attention. Chris Bowers says that this favors Romney, because a weakening top tier and all these wild-cards make his early-state position even stronger.

But if you look historically, a Presidential race with all these regional candidates typically ends up in a brokered convention and a compromise candidate. Obviously, the state of things in 21st-century politics would appear to preclude that, but this is a crazy year for The Right’s Field.

Fred Thompson, Iowa, Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, New Hampshire, Ron Paul | 1 Comment »

Primary-calendar brinksmanship is starting to get pretty tedious, if you ask me, but you have to know when the damn things are going to be held. For the record, let it be noted that Iowa Republicans have now determined to hold their caucus on January 3, presumably before everyone fully sobers up from their New Year’s celebrations and notices again what a depressing field of candidates they’ll have to choose from.

That was a joke. The GOP candidates are, of course, wonderful people, and there’s no better way to get ready for the Orange Bowl than to exercise your democratic right to decide whether the party of moral values should be represented in the fall elections by an adulturer with anger-management problems or by an amoral flip-flopper.

Meanwhile, the Politico reports that New Hampshire Secretary of State Bill Gardner is not ruling out a December 2007 primary date. Gardner is standing on the ledge, muttering “don’t make me do it,” waiting for Michigan’s next move:

Gardner pointed out a rarely-noticed part of the New Hampshire law that says he must set a primary date for “each year when a president of the United States is to be elected OR THE YEAR PREVIOUS.” (emphasis added.)

The law anticipates that other states might threaten New Hampshire’s status by moving their contests to very early in January.

And Michigan may do that.

There seems to be a sort of convergence here. I expect that, by mid-November, we’ll learn that Michigan has re-scheduled its primary for three weeks ago, Ron Paul won because his supporters turn up everywhere, even the past, and now New Hampshire is threatening to move its primary date to October 1975.

Iowa, Michigan, New Hampshire | No Comments »

So Mitt Romney is the first candidate this cycle to have bought over 10,000 TV ads — almost all of them in Iowa and New Hampshire, with a handful in South Carolina and Florida.

Tell me, if you live in Iowa, does the face of Mitt Romney haunt you in your dreams? If not, the $8 million he has spent on the teevee isn’t doing its job.

No doubt this goes a long way toward explaining his lead in Iowa, though New Hampshire has suddenly begun to trend against him. Does this mean he has insinuated himself so deep into the voters’ subconscious that he’ll have a natural advantage when the primaries begin? Or does it just make him the hare to someone else’s tortoise?

Iowa, Mitt Romney, New Hampshire | 2 Comments »

American Research Group (ARG) released new figures from the three early states on September 30 — Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina.

Keyes, now only a few weeks into his campaign-destined-for-failure tired Congressman Tom Tancredo (R-Littleton, Colo.) in two of the early states — Iowa and New Hampshire.

Heading into the fourth quarter of fundraising, it begs the question: who will bow out next?

Iowa, New Hampshire, Polling, South Carolina | 1 Comment »

Bad news for Mitt Romney: according a new CNN poll, Rudy Giuliani has caught up to him in the Granite State:

The survey, released Wednesday, shows the former Massachusetts Governor drawing support from 25 percent of Republican primary voters to 24 percent for former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

That statistically-insignificant, 1 point margin is a major change from CNN/WMUR’s last New Hampshire poll, taken in July, when Romney held a comfortable 14 point lead over Giuliani.

Full poll results here (pdf).

Update: Just wanted to note this analysis from the article:

So what’s the reason behind Romney’s 9 point drop here in New Hampshire?

“Romney maintains an advantage over Giuliani among Granite State conservatives; but Giuliani has regained the lead among moderate and liberal Republicans while Romney falls to third place with that group,” says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. In July, Romney had the edge among both moderates and conservatives.

A plurality see Giuliani as the most likeable and the most electable Republican in the field, while McCain is seen as having the right experience to be president.

For the life of me, I’ll never understand how anyone can find Rudy Giuliani “likeable,” but maybe the “electable” part has more to do with his recent gains. Will Romney, just days after taking a Viguerie-esque hard conservative tack, make a new effort to appeal to moderate voters? Will people still think of Giuliani as a moderate if he keeps sounding just as belligerent as the Bush administration? Will Fred Thompson remember what he had for breakfast this morning? Tune in next time, to As the Republican World Turns…

Mitt Romney, New Hampshire, Polling, Rudy Giuliani | 1 Comment »

I didn’t see the Republican debate last night, but from press reports and liveblogs I got a sense of it: they all want to kill the terrists, cut taxes, and make nervous jokes about Fred Thompson to mask their fear. But there seems to be one thing that a lot of people are missing. Yes, Mike Huckabee got to defend the honor of Republicans while condemning the war, which is likely to play well, and certainly was more brave than Mitt Romney, who called the war a mess in a town hall meeting and last night declared the escalation to be “apparently working.”

But Ron Paul is TAILOR MADE for a state like New Hampshire, whose motto should actually be “Get Off My Lawn” as much as “Live Free Or Die.” This is why he actually got the biggest cheers of the night according to most liveblogs, no matter what the newspapers reported. It’s a state full of cranks and “principled tax evaders” like the couple that’s been holed up in their compound for months, a couple that Paul may or may not have compared to Gandhi. It’s a state that has turned sharply against the Iraq debacle, a state which has always been moderate enough on social issues to boo proposals to ban gay marriage like they did last night, and a state whose independent voters can participate in either the Democratic or Republican primary. Things like this happen in New Hampshire.

Before Paul became an antiwar hero, his support consisted largely of libertarian activists–people like Michael Badnarik, the Libertarian Party’s 2004 presidential nominee. Badnarik refuses to get a driver’s license (even though, he conceded to me, “I have my car operational”) and warns against anyone who might try to force a smallpox or anthrax vaccination on him. (”You bring the syringe, I’ll bring my .45, and we’ll see who makes a bigger hole.”) Badnarik recounts rallying support for Paul at a recent conference of the Free State Project, a group of libertarians who have relocated to New Hampshire in the hope of concentrating their power and more or less taking over the state government. “I asked how many people would drive without a license and not pay income taxes, and three-quarters raised their hands,” Badnarik recalls. “I’m choking up. I’ve got my heart in my throat. And I said, ‘We need to do something–and Ron Paul’s campaign is the shining star. We need to contribute the full two thousand dollars now. Tell all your friends.’”

In the first quarter of 2007, Paul raised more money in New Hampshire than McCain or Giuliani.

So Ron Paul will have a lot of support in the first-in-the-nation primary. And when I say a lot, I mean 10%, which is stratospheric for a fringe candidate who happens to be looney tunes. And that will completely change the complexion of that race. I don’t think it’ll die when he doesn’t register in Iowa, either, because he’ll have the money to compete in the Live Free or Die state. I don’t know who will suffer from Paul’s stand in New Hampshire, but it’s an element of the Republican race that shouldn’t be denied.

New Hampshire, Ron Paul | 5 Comments »

FOX News is airing the New Hampshire Republican presidential debate on the cable news network and at FOXNews.com. Grandpa Fred Thompson is skipping this debate to announce his candidacy via web video — an unimpressive entry for a much talked up candidacy that is faltering before it even starts. (Although early reports say that Thompson announced his candidacy at a taping of The Tonight Show with Jay Leno due to air locally at 11:35pm.)

Watch it streaming here.

Post your thoughts on the debate in the comments.

New Hampshire, Presidential Debates | 121 Comments »

Nothing goes over better in New Hampshire than the second-most popular right-wing fundamentalist in a field of mediocre politicians. And Sam Brownback, if this AP photo is any indication, is really taking the Granite State by storm:

A helpful hint, Senator: more people will come if they think you have punch and pie.

Updated 09/05/07 at 11:26am by Matt Ortega: Apparently, the photo was shot after students left for their 1pm classes. (Hat tip: The Daily Brownbacker)

Update No. 2 by Paul Curtis From the Daily Brownbacker:

UPDATE: A reader writes in to National Review’s Kathryn Jean Lopez (see bottom of post) about an e-mail exchange he had with a professor that was at the event. The professor said:

There were about 75 people there, including faculty and students. ….
That particular photo was taken towards the end of the event after some 20 students or so had to take off for class. Such is life.

Fair enough, though I’m not sure the math adds up. 75-20=55. Does it look like there are 55 people in that audience?

On the other hand, it can’t be as bad as Jed Bartlet’s speech in that VFW in Nashua (the one where he pissed off the dairy farmers, remember?). Such is life, indeed.

New Hampshire, Sam Brownback | 5 Comments »

It’s not just the DNC struggling to hold the line against early primaries:

The Republican National Committee plans to penalize at least four states holding early primaries, including New Hampshire and Florida, by refusing to seat at least half their delegates at the party’s national convention in 2008, a party official said Tuesday. [...]

“The rules are clear,” said Tracey Schmitt, a spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee. “Any state that holds their primary outside of the window shall be penalized delegates.”

In addition to Florida and New Hampshire, Michigan and South Carolina also face sanctions for moving their contests before Feb. 5. Two other early nominating states, Iowa and Nevada, will escape Republican sanctions because they hold nonbinding caucuses, not primaries.

While the DNC made an exception for New Hampshire and South Carolina, the RNC has not — which raises the stakes, given those states’ interest in maintaining their position at the front of the calendar. New Hampshire’s Republican chairman was sounding belligerent:

Fergus Cullen, the chairman of the New Hampshire Republican Party, said the party would hold to its primary, now set for early January, to maintain its historic role as the first primary state, even if it had to accept the penalties.

“If we end up being stripped of delegates, that is the price we are willing to pay,” Mr. Cullen said.

The precise outline of the controversy won’t be known until after Sept. 4, when the state committees are due to submit their nomination plans to the RNC. But given the relatively more stringent rules on the GOP side, it looks like the Republicans could be in for an even dicier game of chicken than the Democrats.

UPDATE: Jerome Armstrong points out that, compared to what has happened among the Democrats so far, the Republican approach to the calendar fight is pretty low-key. Jerome argues that, unless the GOP winds up with a brokered convention, the effects of the showdown are likely to be minimal.

Florida, Michigan, New Hampshire, South Carolina | 3 Comments »