Democratic pollster Peter D. Hart and Republican pollster Bill McInturff, who conduct the NBC/Wall Street Journal survey, were just on with Chuck Todd on MSNBC’s Daily Rundown. They noted that in their latest poll, Barack Obama carries rural women — traditionally a Republican-leaning demographic — over Newt Gingrich.
South Carolina Republican women may be comfortable with Gingrich, but women elsewhere are not, it would seem.
In the MSNBC writeup on the poll, there is this ominous note:
“Gingrich is Goldwater,” said Democratic pollster Peter D. Hart, who conducted the survey with Republican pollster Bill McInturff. “In the general election, Gingrich not only takes down his ship, he takes down the whole flotilla.”
There’s plenty of bad news for Republicans in the poll, as Romney does better, but not by a ton:
Women say they would vote for Obama over Gingrich by a wide 69-21 percent gap, far wider than the 54-38 percent difference by which Obama beats Romney. With independents, Gingrich gets just 28 percent against Obama, who wins with 52 percent. By contrast, Obama narrowly edges Romney with independents, 44 percent to 36 percent.
How many times are conservatives going to buy into this nonsense ? Our ability to learn absolutely nothing from past experience consistently amazes me. MSNB reports this as ominous news and we eat it up ? Puh-lease. Lets go ask Zogby and take him at face value too. I live in NY, not exactly a hotbed of conservatism, and Obama is despised by virtually everyone, including ( to their chagrin ) die hard liberals. 69-21 ? Stop it.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseYou miss the point. The question is not whether voters despise a given candidate; the question is whether they will VOTE FOR the candidate, given the candidate's opponent. Your NY colleagues will vote for Obama in large numbers, irrespective of their personal feelings about him.
In fact, if his opponent was Lenin, I myself would probably vote for Barack Obama. That doesn't mean that I like Obama's policies, or that I think he would be a good president. It just means that I think he would be less bad than Lenin as the alternative. To win, Obama just has to be less unpalatable than his opponent, to the median voters in the swing states.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseObama is Lenin. Can anyone explain the difference between their political views in a way that could contain water for more than 0.00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001 second?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseNominating Gingrich would be like Sharron Angle redux, but on a national scale with far grimmer consequences. President Obama reelected, loss of the House, Dems retain the Senate, and a liberal majority on the Supreme Court for decades to come. But the tea partiers would get to vent their bile, and I guess that's important too. Cordially, Bill
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseKeep dreaming, leftist. Between taking out some trash in 2010, and the newly drawn House maps, courtesy of the Republican state legislatures, the House will stay Republican for some time. The Senate’s a goner too – too many Dem from 2006 who rode the anti-Bush wave that year are coming up for a vote.
Leftists love to dream of every year being 64 again. Unless the president get assassinated, his VP is the nominee, and the challenger is diagnosed remotely by the American Psychology Association as being crazy, there’s no 64 style wipe out.
A more fitting analogy is 80. A failed president (Carter/Obama), who’s lead us to terrible economic times and wimpy foreign policy – bankruptcy at home, impotence abroad!
And either the Republicans nominate who they should have last time (Reagan/Romney), or the guy that everyone says will lose badly (Gingrich). Either way Barry is packing his bags.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAnd who put a stop payment on your reality check? Cordially, Bill
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAnd where are the facts to back up your wild claims? A poll hyped on MSDNC? Lame comebacks about reality checks (taxed at 100% by Obama) don't qualify.
Smugly, Mwalimu
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseSmug and apparently proud of it. If you don't like the results of a poll run under the auspices of that bastion of liberal thought The Wall Street Journal, find one that reports differently. I'll not be holding my breath. Cordially, Bill
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThis poll is a bit of an outliar. However, I think the trend (e.g. Newt doesn't score as well as Romney) holds.
Polling for Newt is difficult because the volatility surrounding newt is high. I don't think Newt can defeat Obama (although it would be closer than what the media is reporting). In the end the GOP is going to circle the wagons around whomever the nominee is (likely Romney).
Sadly all the candidates who emerged were fatal. Sadly the one guy I thought was perfect bowed out early (e.g. Pawlenty...who I believe could have won by a landslide). Instead we go with Romney.
A corporate guy, certainly capable of running the country, and certainly not as dangerous as Obama. Unfortunately we don't have a conservative candidate in the mix who has the tools necessary to win a presidential race. Chris Cristie said it best, if you are going to run for President you really have to want it. As far as our class goes...Romney was the only one.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI think the gender gap with Gingrich is real enough to disqualify him as the nominee. There is no way a Republican nominee can win with such low support among women. Once I saw this poll I decided I cannot support Gingrich no matter how much I would enjoy seeing him debate Obama in the fall.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"Outliar"!?! I love it, absolutely right.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWe all know that Gingrich would be a disaster. I'm not worried about the Romney numbers yet. Obama's numbers will never be as good as they are... the focus is on the GOP for now, but that will change once there's a nominee.
Obama will have to convince Americans to accept another four years and that Romney is dangerous.
Good luck with that.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe gap between Romney and Obama among Independents is eight points, not great, but probably manageable. The gap between Newt and Obama in that same group is THREE TIMES higher. Three times. Twenty four points. Percentage points. Yes. Yes indeedy.
"Romney does better, but not by a ton". Really?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWow - the capthca I got was "panic stations". Which is what people seem to be doing over this poll. No one clicked through to see the PDF of the actual poll data? No one noted that the poll was of 1,000 adults - not registered voters, not likely voters, not primary voters, but simply "adults"? We all know that these types of polls are nigh on meaningless in indicating what will happen when actual voters vote, right? C'mon, fellow conservatives, get a hold of yourselves - don't get caught up in individual polls, and for corn's sake, take a hard look at the sample.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseExactly right. Such polls of adults are, at best, worthless.
Also, any commentary by MSNBC on Republicans ought be taken with a life-threatening amount of salt.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI've said it before here. Obama is a dead solid lock to win re-election. I've never been a Romney fan, but I never realized just how passionless and robotic the guy is. He's a poor man's John Kerry and nothing more. He's already trailing in WI by 8pts and that was before the state of the union speech.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIt's time to take bets on how long it will be before Karl Rove and the rest of the the left-wing GOP establishment starts blaming the Tea Party for Romney's impending defeat in November. My wager: October 15 at the latest. Any takers?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseKarl Rove=Left Wing. You have taken leave of your senses. Cordially, Bill
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseGoldwater was an electoral disaster. Which is why NR has apologized profusely for backing him. Right?
Better to have gone with Rockefeller? Johnson was a lot stronger then than Obama is now. Maybe a Goldwater could have beaten Obama.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseUsually, Jim does a deep dive into polling data to determine if it is valuable or not.
But, not today. Why?
I could have gone over to DailyKos to get the same info - with the added benefit of being entertained by the "smart" people debate each other about its meaning.
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