RUDY COULDN'T EVEN BEAT BLOOMBERG
Posted on 10/20/2007 5:50:31 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
In the last week or so we've seen some people stating that Fred Thompson's campaign was beginning to fade. Well, that looks to me like wishful thinking on someone's part, because that is just not the case.
Now according to Rasmussen, Rudy Giuliani is in danger of no longer being recognized as the most electable candidate on the Republican side. Here's more..
"The perception that Rudy Giuliani is the most electable Republican may be slipping a bit.
The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 66% of Republicans believe that Giuliani at least somewhat likely to win the White House if nominated. That’s down from 72% a month ago.
Sixty-one percent (61%) of Republican voters now say that Fred Thompson is at least somewhat likely to win in nominated. That’s up from 57% last month.
The gap between Giuliani and Thompson virtually disappears at a higher level of confidence—23% of Republican voters say that Giuliani is Very Likely to win if nominated while 22% say the same about Thompson.
Being seen as the most electable candidate is important for Giuliani because two-thirds of Republican voters see him as politically moderate or liberal. Thompson is seen as the most conservative candidate in the field."
If you're Team Rudy, this is of great concern. If Rudy continues to slide here, it could all but finish his hopes of securing the nomination. For Fred Thompson though, this is great news. It looks like as more people see what Fred's about, the more likely he will be perceived as electable.
Also of note from Rasmussen is that Fred has closed to within 3 points of Rudy. Just last Friday Fred was trailing Rudy by double digits and it was looking like Giuliani was settling into a nice lead. More bad new for Team Rudy, but good news for Fred as we head into this weeks debate.
END POST.
When Rudy was winning these polls, we all rightly noted that what people THINK in one party about electability is mostly a matter of the salesmanship of the media.
I believe this poll just reflects that. And might put to rest the oft-claimed ‘bias’ that some claim the “media” has against Thompson, which they suggest shows they are “scared” of him.
Contrary to that, in my opinion, I believe the media has given a lot of good press to Fred and how he appeals to a wide range of people. That has led to the average republicans believing he can be elected.
Contrast to the media’s approach to Romney, supposedly much more “moderate” and therefore more likeable for the media than the strong conservative Thompson.
Not a week goes by without another two or three articles about how Romney can’t get the vote of conservatives, can’t get the vote of evangelicals, can’t get the vote of southerners. The media has drummed into the heads of republicans that Romney is unelectable.
And the poll reflects that work.
So maybe the poll is accurate, and we should be electing Rudy because he’s the most electable still. Or maybe we should view the poll for what we’ve ALWAYS viewed it, NOT a statement of fact, but the “report card” the media uses to see how well they are pushing their preferred candidate on the republican party.
If I am right, we just have to figure out why the media is selling us Thompson, and whether it’s because the media is WRONG about him (it’s quite possible that the media could THINK Thompson’s someone they like, but turn out he’s not, that he is what we want).
If you think of media-driven polls as a report card the media uses to see how well they are getting out their message, the polls make a lot more sense.
Please show me some of those stories that were favorable to Fred Thompson, as much as I've searched, they come up missing
>>Not a week goes by without another two or three articles about how Romney can’t get the vote of conservatives, can’t get the vote of evangelicals, can’t get the vote of southerners. The media has drummed into the heads of republicans that Romney is unelectable.<<
I’ve read the same thing about Thompson. Tons of it.
Didn’t you read the big James Dobson hoopla? Get on the FredHead ping list and you’ll see.
Romney is a nice guy but they are really scared of Thompson.
The media isn't trying to sell us Fred Thompson. If anything, the opposite is true. they're dead set on turning us away from him. They ate into his poll numbers for a while, but now he's getting around them and his supporters are defending him. We're managing to shout over the media and get to the people. That's why you're seeing this uptick.
The media, conservative pundits included, are dead set on Rudy McRomney being the choice. They are stomping their feet and behaving like defiant children, refusing to tolerate Fred Thompson's presence in this race. See, us conservatives were SUPPOSED to see that it was hopeless and settle for someone like Romney. Instead, we found our own guy, dusted him off, and prodded him into running. Now, it's his job to convey to others what we saw in him to recommend him for the job. He's had everyone against him, left and right, but he's still managing to break through.
If the conservative pundits had given him anything approaching a fair shake, he'd be leading Rudy in every poll. Since they didn't, we'll just have to do it a bit more slowly and methodically. The result will be the same.
The media likes to try to pick our candidate. I remember when they pushed McCain over Bush.
I didn’t think Rudy ran against Bloomberg???
He didn’t but I find it, as others find it, quite odd that Bloomberg is favored over him as a mayor 2 to 1. Rudy couldn’t even win his home state in a general election. NY doesn’t like Rudy and the myths associated with him are media perpetrated outside of NY. NY’ers know him.
Oh, I see, I only skimmed it. It was an opinion poll.
I don’t lend those polls much weight either. They probably called all the households with children that get good grades. Bloomberg just implemented a new ‘Pay Kids for Good Grades’. No, I’m not kidding.
I think you are wrong. What I see in the newspapers is positive toward Thompson, even to the point where they sometimes misrepresent his record to sound more moderate, in order to make him more appealing to the general electorate.
I realise that for a strong conservative, that would be considered “negative” since it makes some other conservatives question him. But it helps build him up as electable when the media says he’s not an “ideologue”.
Further, as the FredHeads will attest, they LOVE Fred’s position on his religion for example, so it’s hardly “negative reporting” when the media tells us Fred doesn’t regularly attend church. I mean, some evangelicals don’t like it, but most of the Fred supporters have explained that this makes Fred more likeable and believable.
And I see very little in the paper about how large blocks of people won’t vote for Fred. Instead, the most negative they get is to QUESTION why some groups aren’t supporting him.
ON the other hand, I REGULARLY read articles in the mainstream press about how Romney won’t appeal to evangelicals (even though the evangelical “spokepeople” seem to be saying the opposite), how a “Mormon” can’t win the election (have you seen a poll anywhere about whether a “Church of Christ” member can win the election? Of course not. But the media runs poll after poll asking about ROmney’s religion).
There are also regular stories about how the south won’t like him because he was Governor of Mass, how conservatives should reject him because in the past he wasn’t true to our principles, etc. etc..
I see the media selling Rudy, I USED to see them selling McCain but in my opinion, McCain has been replaced with Fred Thompson.
As a last data point — look at how people get castigated when they try to find negative news articles about Fred. Most of them the Fredheads point out are actually POSITIVE for him, not negative. It’s rare that a posted article is admitted by the FredHeads to actually be attacking him.
So, I restate my proposition: The Media is largely supporting Fred. They supported Fred before he entered, giving him plenty of coverage which drove up his numbers.
When he entered, a small but loud group of CONSERVATIVES and other republican pundits found fault with Thompson, and THOSE complaints resonated with a portion of the conservative population who was waiting for a savior. THAT’S what drove down his numbers, his seemingly lackluster run out of the gate.
THEN, the mainstream media kicked in to prop up his candidacy, and now his numbers are swinging back up. And the attacks on Romney have been stepped up.
I believe an honest search of threads on FR will show that the number of negative mainstream articles about Fred is less than the number of negative mainstream articles about Romney, Hunter, Tancredo, or even Ron Paul who we all know is being pushed by a portion of the mainstream media.
Where are all the Thompson hit pieces?
The “James Dobson” hoopla was JAMES DOBSON saying negative things about Thompson, NOT a “made-up story by the media” trying to knock him down.
In fact, the mainstream media has focused a lot more on the evangelicals leaving the party, but they have said it was against Rudy more than Thompson (thus going against the idea — either the media is really attacking Rudy, or they believe that upsetting the evangelicals makes a republican more appealing to the general public).
I think people are confusing the attacks by conservative pundits with the mainstream media. Sure, conservatives have been saying bad things about Fred Thompson. But the New York Times, the Washington Post, ABC, CBS, NBC, their coverage has been by and large positive. Heck, NBC gave Thompson FREE AIR TIME to announce his candidacy, on a high-rated entertainment show.
I’m betting the front page of the New York Times has had more negative stories about Romney than about Thompson, and more positive stories about Fred than about Mitt.
Now, for the staunch conservatives here, the article will appear negative, as it suggests Thompson is not an ideological conservative. But remember our topic here is electability, which means appeal to the moderates and independents.
When a paper like the New York Times wants to attack a conservative, they paint them as a far-right whackjob kow-towing to the religious right and the rigid ideologues of the party.
So this type of story, which paints in a positive light what Thompson did, which describes in POSITIVE words how he has raised the fears of the "evangelical community", has the effect (and remember, the NY times is the New York paper, read by the New York style republicans) of making Thompson appear more reasonable, more easy to get along with, MORE ELECTABLE.
But I realise the difficulty is in recognizing that distinction. What we see as "bad" is, to a liberal paper trying to sell a candidate to the moderates, "good".
If the New York Times wanted to sink Thompson, this article would have been titled "In Senate, Thompson toed the far-right line".
I love Fred.
In fact, I'm almost tempted to support Fred Thompson just because I would LOVE TO HAVE a US President named "Fred".
Would be the first Fred, would it not.
It is so American.
But alas, I truly believe Fred is too long of tooth, is too curmudgeon-ee (despite his Hollywood thing), and unfortunately, is suffering from that ailment which I cannot remember the name of at this exact moment.
Same goes for McCain, who at 73, suffers from various things -- not to mention a loose screw.
Guliani is young enough, but he would split the GOP wiiiiiiide open, thereby handing the world to sHrillery.
Which leaves Mitt Romney, who has virility, a quick witted intellect, a great campaign staff and structure, great business saavy, and a big campaign warchest.
Plus, Mitt Romney is attracting more and more support, this weekend in particular from the Values Voters evangelical crowd, which I hope seals the deal.
Sure a smaller and smaller percentage of Mormon haters will try and puff up their own numbers to make it look like an anti-Romney tidal wave.
But in the end, that's what it is ... puffery.
Romney is the most conservative and more important, ELECTIBLE, candidate the GOP has for '08.
You're entitled to think what you want, but you are proving to be less than educated on the subject.
I realise that for a strong conservative, that would be considered “negative” since it makes some other conservatives question him. But it helps build him up as electable when the media says he’s not an “ideologue”.
Fred Thompson is a conservative, but he isn't an ideologue. Perhaps that's why people find to paint him that way. It's almost impossible to do so. Apparently, since you remain largely ignorant even about candidates that you support, you haven't bothered to do any research on Fred Thompson either. So, you just assumed that he was a hardline bible thumping ideologue, which to you, in your 'I like the NE liberal who pretends to be the best conservative' mentality, means that he isn't 'electable'. Well, the flaw here is in your thinking, not in Fred Thompson, or even in ideologues.
Further, as the FredHeads will attest, they LOVE Fred’s position on his religion for example, so it’s hardly “negative reporting” when the media tells us Fred doesn’t regularly attend church. I mean, some evangelicals don’t like it, but most of the Fred supporters have explained that this makes Fred more likeable and believable.
The 'FredHeads' this and the 'FredHeads' that. Aren't you capable of discerning what is going on yourself? The press reporting that Fred doesn't go to church regularly IS an attempt to stop him from getting evangelical support. It's a stupid and ignorant method of doing so, but a method nonetheless.
In this respect, many of us do find it refreshing that he doesn't wear his religion on his sleeve. Many squishy moderates were turned off by Bush's use of religion on the stump, because they found it phony. Fred, should appeal to evangelicals because he's on their side, while succeeding in not turning off the moderates by thumping bibles.
And I see very little in the paper about how large blocks of people won’t vote for Fred. Instead, the most negative they get is to QUESTION why some groups aren’t supporting him.
Yeah, nothing negative about questioning why groups that are largely supporting Fred are not supporting Fred. Maybe you should take your head out of that paper and breath some air. Maybe, while you're at it, you should read some online news, rather than your local paper.
I'm not going to even bother quoting and responding to the rest of your silliness.
Suffice it to say that if you want to see some hitpieces, open your friggin eyes and read the articles here:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=fredthompson
There are new ones every day. You can then read the comments and go back to cussing the 'FredHeads' again, because they simply refuse to back your stealth liberal, slimy, gay activist judge appointing, medicine socializing, state funder of abortions, candidate.
A bigger development is Huckabee cleaned up (Romney did well also) at the FRC conference, but Fred Thompson did marginally better then Giuliani in the straw poll.
Thompson did not impress at the FRC.
Uh, “FredHead” is the name the Fred Thompson Supporters have chosen for themselves on this blog. I fail to see why using their chosen name would now be considered an attack, although I guess you are seeing attacks everywhere.
Fred Thompson is no ideologue. I’ve never said he was. I never dreamed he was a “bible-thumping” one.
YOUR premise was that the Media was attacking him. I pointed out that they didn’t call him an ideologue. You responded by saying “but he isn’t one, so why would they call him one?”
My response is, THEY WOULD CALL HIM THAT IF THEY WANTED TO ATTACK HIM. So you concede that at least in this instance, the media did not attack him, but rather truthfully covered him. Can you also admit that being shown to be a non-ideologue, not beholden to the “extreme evangelical wing” of the party, makes a candidate more acceptable to moderates and independents?
On the other hand, you say that the media saying Fred doesn’t go to church regularly is a negative attack, only to say that “many of us do find it refreshing that he doesn’t wear his religion on his sleeve.”. Which is exactly what I said, that the Fred supporters were pleased to learn this about him — kind of an odd thing then to call something a “negatve attack” when you think it is a positive.
Maybe next week the media will report that he cut taxes — oh the horror, what evil thing will the media truthfully report next about our candidate that we love about him?
The next one is actually a little harder: I said “the most negative they get is to QUESTION why some groups aren’t supporting him.”, and you responded “Yeah, nothing negative about questioning why groups that are largely supporting Fred are not supporting Fred.”
Your response was the opposite of what I said, which is the first problem. I said the media is asking why groups that are NOT supporting fred don’t support him, and you said sarcastically “groups that are largely SUPPORTING Fred”.
Further, your sarcasm is misplaced. It is NOT negative when the paper argues that groups that don’t support your candidate SHOULD be supporting him. I think that should be clear. It’s like all the articles that note some conservatives don’t support Rudy, and then wonder why, and show all the “conservative” things he did.
But I guess that’s a half-empty/half-full thing. If the paper says “For some reason, Fred isn’t catching on with “group A”, which seems odd since he’s exactly what “group A” would want in a candidate, I think most candidates would think that was a GOOD thing. But if you were a nervous nellie, you might instead think that was negative, because others like group A would ignore what the paper said and think “If group A isn’t happy, I shouldn’t be either”.
All in all, I find your response was unpersuasive. Fred’s gotten a lot of good press, and it’s helping his “electability” numbers. We should all be cheering, because we need to supplant Rudy.
But the Fred Thompson Supporters, looking for a cloud in every silver lining, have chosen to paint this as some big negative “we are managing to scrape along even while the media is saying all sorts of bad things about us, telling people the truth about our candidate that makes us really happy but it’s still bad of them to do it”.
Whatever. It’s bad enough when supporters delude themselves that it’s the media that keeps their candidate down. To see supporters complaining about media coverage when it’s boosting their candidate just seems a bit psychotic to me.
But if that’s what you all want, go ahead. I choose to look at this as a good thing, happy that for whatever reason we are supplanting Rudy.
BTW, the first article in your “list of hit pieces” was the article that gives the results of the Value Voters straw poll.
Is reporting the results of a straw poll normally consider a negative attack on your candidate, or just this one?
More seriously, I looked down the list of the “hit pieces” you posted, and of the 1st 13, only one could possibly be considered negative, the rest were all positive Fred pieces, including positive headlines from mainstream media sources.
I suppose if I looked at all 50 I’d see a few more negative ones, but the ratio of good to bad proves MY point, not yours.
I KNOW there are bad things said about Fred in the papers. But his coverage is mostly positive, as your link showed.
“Romney is a nice guy but they are really scared of Thompson.”
I know I am, Thompson would be a disaster as president.
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