Rossputin.com: Rational Thinking About Our World

In response to my Saturday article wondering aloud whether Huckabee poses a real threat to Rudy, Sue Boyer, posted an interesting comment...and one which I thought the answer to would be suitable for a full posting rather than just another comment.

Here's Sue's comment:

Ross, Rudy is toast. I still think it will be Romney in the end. Huckabee is having a blip but it will fade. And the lib newspapers are starting to endorse McCain who never had a chance. To conservatives an endorsement from a lib paper is the kiss of death. Yes the economy is big but don't underestimate illegal immigration and terrorism as big vote getters as well esp. among traditional conservatives. The real fun so far has been watching Hillary implode with the rising stock of Obama. Wouldn't the GOP just love to run against B. Hussein Obama?

I disagree with one point, agree with another, half-agree and half-disagree with another, and used to agree with a third but am beginning to change my mind.

I disagree that Rudy is toast, or at least that anybody could know that now. This primary season is far too volatile, and voters far too weakly attached to the candidates they currently support to say that any of the top 5 GOP candidates are toast. Just when you think someone is toast, something happens...like Thompson's performance in the Iowa debate the other day. He still probably won't win, but you simply can't rule it out. And you certainly can't rule out the guy (Rudy) who still polls best overall nationally. That said, Sue is not the only one wondering aloud about Rudy's campaign strategy. (Click on the prior link to see Salena Zito's article on the subject.)

I agree that Huckabee will fade, and I hope both for the GOP and the country that he does. I'll probably write more about this soon.

I half-agree and half-disagree with Sue's statement about immigration and terrorism being big vote getters. The latter is clearly a huge voting issue. But I think that Republicans still overestimate the importance of immigration as a voting issue for the general population, even if it may be big among GOP primary voters. The 2006 elections were, in part, proof of that, as GOP candidates pounding the table on immigration didn't keep them for losing. It's hard for me to guess how much more GOP primary voters care about immigration than the general population, but I still believe that if it were that important, Tom Tancredo would be doing better and McCain doing even worse.

And finally, while it's been a lot of fun to watch Hillary Clinton's numbers plunge, I am beginning to question the conventional wisdom (which I have myself believed for a long time) that the GOP would much rather run against B. Hussein Obama than against Hillary.

Some of Obama's weaknesses are obvious: His lack of experience, his left-wing views (to the left of Hillary, but not quite as leftist as Edwards), his middle name, and, like it or not, his skin color. But maybe those of us who don't want any Democrat president (at least not from this group) are not focusing enough on his obvious positives: He's far more charismatic than Hillary, he's very intelligent (even if not wise), he rhetorically quick on his feet, and he represents change in a way that Clinton obviously doesn't. A lot of Americans won't want a presidential pattern of Bush, Clinton, Bush, Clinton. Finally, while I basically think celebrity endorsements are worthless, if you could imagine one that might matter, it's Oprah...including with suburban white women, a group that matters a lot in our elections.

Clinton should and will attack Obama's lack of experience, but her negatives are so high...and deservedly so because she's a tremendously unappealing person in my view. She's shrill, she's unethical (and probably a criminal), she has debate questions planted, etc. It seems clear to me that the only reason she has even the smallest chance to win is that she's married to Bill Clinton. If she did get the nomination, it's quite possible that by the election, more of the country would be moving toward wanting "change" rather than wanting Bill Clinton.

One other reason to consider preferring to run against Hillary than Obama is that Republicans hate Hillary and she's much more likely to get out the vote for Republicans than Obama would be.

So, for these reasons among others, it's no longer obvious to me that Obama would be much easier to beat than Hillary. I'm beginning to care less which one of them gets the Democratic nomination (though I think I'd still rather run against Obama...for now.) Instead, what I'd really like to see is both of them spend a huge amount of energy and money attacking each other, leaving the survivor bloodied and with fewer financial reserves than he or she would have had if the primary challenges weren't so strong.