SC PrimR: Rasmussen: Romney and Thompson tied for 1st, Huckabee and Paul rising
       |           

Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.
Did you miss your activation email?
March 28, 2024, 10:44:01 AM
News: Election Simulator 2.0 Released. Senate/Gubernatorial maps, proportional electoral votes, and more - Read more

  Talk Elections
  Election Archive
  Election Archive
  2008 Elections
  2008 U.S. Presidential Primary Election Polls
  SC PrimR: Rasmussen: Romney and Thompson tied for 1st, Huckabee and Paul rising
« previous next »
Pages: 1 [2]
Author Topic: SC PrimR: Rasmussen: Romney and Thompson tied for 1st, Huckabee and Paul rising  (Read 4691 times)
muon2
Moderators
Atlas Icon
*****
Posts: 16,788


Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #25 on: November 28, 2007, 12:30:05 AM »

I've said it before, but I'll repeat it now.

People here are too influenced by 2004. The nomination isn't always decided by the first states. The fact that every winner except Clinton has won one of the early states is misleading, because in many of these cases the race went on for a long time afterwards.

For instance, Carter won both Iowa and New Hampshire in 1976 but still had to fight for the nomination all the way to the end. Ford in the same year also won both but had an extremely close battle with Reagan into the actual convention. When you have a situation where one candidate is extremely strong in all the later states and they're coming in one big shebang closely after the other states things may be different. While I'm the first to agree that Guliani has a problem in being so weak in the early states I think calling him done because of it is overdoing it.

I think Gustaf is fundamentally correct. For every nomination decided by early primaries there was another where they didn't matter. The mix of candidates and the primary calendar have to be looked at as a whole. This is a very different field from 2004, 2000, or 1992. There might be some resemblance to the Dem field in 1988 (look up jokes about the seven dwarfs, or given the way some fell by the wayside, the seven deadly sins.) Even if there is a resemblance there is a very different calendar in 2008 and that will impact the field as well.

There are voters in the big states on 2/5 who will watch the earlier states, but I think it will focus more on gaffes and collapses, not on specific placing in the early states.
Logged
Mr. Morden
Atlas Legend
*****
Posts: 44,073
United States


Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #26 on: November 28, 2007, 01:16:42 AM »

Well, a couple of points on that.  First, in most of the recent nomination fights, there's been a similar pattern.  You have a strong frontrunner who suddenly looks vulnerable once one of his challengers catches fire by making a strong showing in one or more of the early states.  The frontrunner still usually ends up winning in the end because of money, institutional advantages, or other factors.  So part of it is just evaluating how strong the frontrunners are.  Are they like GW Bush in 2000, who held on to win despite McCain's mo' from winning NH (and later MI), or are they more like Dean in 2004, who crumbled as soon as he came in 3rd in IA?  I think it's pretty clear that there is no strong frontrunner on the GOP side.  Giuliani leads the national polls, but people don't even agree on whether he *is* the frontrunner, for obvious reasons.  On the Dem. side, it's more of an open question as to whether HRC is a strong enough frontrunner to withstand a strong showing by Obama in the early states.

With regard to Gustaf's other point, that the nomination fight can sometimes go on for many months, after the early states have been long forgotten.....well, that's the way it *used* to work.  But the recent trend towards frontloading, and so many primaries coming up at once seems to have resulted in the same pattern replaying itself in each of the last three or four nomination fights: There may be some back and forth in momentum in the first couple of weeks of primaries, but once you have the first big mult-state primary day, one of the candidates sweeps the bulk of those primaries, and their momentum becomes unstoppable.  That's why I think it's very unlikely that the nominations will still be undecided on Feb. 6th.  Not that it's impossible, since we have a small number of elections to use as guides, but the recent trend seems to be:

more frontloaded calendar -> early momentum becoming more important

Of course it doesn't have to turn out that way, but that's the way I'd bet.

Having said all that, I do actually agree with Gustaf that people are overdoing it when they say that Giuliani is "done".  These things are *way* too unpredictable for us to say that at this point.  However, I have a hard time seeing how Giuliani can start out 0-5, and still win the nomination.  He's going to have to win *somewhere* in those first couple of weeks.
Logged
Fmr. Pres. Duke
AHDuke99
Atlas Star
*****
Posts: 24,019


Political Matrix
E: -1.94, S: -3.13

P P
Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #27 on: November 28, 2007, 02:25:51 AM »

I think the giuliani camp has said that they are trying to come in 2nd or strong third in iowa and then hang on to have a big win in Florida and Michigan and carry that over to the Feb 5th primaries. I just read a poll today that had Giuliani at 26% and Huckabee at 17% in second. It would be very interesting if Huckabee wins Iowa and has a strong showing in NH, wins SC, and then finishes close in Florida.
Logged
Gustaf
Moderators
Atlas Star
*****
Posts: 29,770


Political Matrix
E: 0.39, S: -0.70

Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #28 on: November 28, 2007, 11:50:13 AM »

Well, a couple of points on that.  First, in most of the recent nomination fights, there's been a similar pattern.  You have a strong frontrunner who suddenly looks vulnerable once one of his challengers catches fire by making a strong showing in one or more of the early states.  The frontrunner still usually ends up winning in the end because of money, institutional advantages, or other factors.  So part of it is just evaluating how strong the frontrunners are.  Are they like GW Bush in 2000, who held on to win despite McCain's mo' from winning NH (and later MI), or are they more like Dean in 2004, who crumbled as soon as he came in 3rd in IA?  I think it's pretty clear that there is no strong frontrunner on the GOP side.  Giuliani leads the national polls, but people don't even agree on whether he *is* the frontrunner, for obvious reasons.  On the Dem. side, it's more of an open question as to whether HRC is a strong enough frontrunner to withstand a strong showing by Obama in the early states.

With regard to Gustaf's other point, that the nomination fight can sometimes go on for many months, after the early states have been long forgotten.....well, that's the way it *used* to work.  But the recent trend towards frontloading, and so many primaries coming up at once seems to have resulted in the same pattern replaying itself in each of the last three or four nomination fights: There may be some back and forth in momentum in the first couple of weeks of primaries, but once you have the first big mult-state primary day, one of the candidates sweeps the bulk of those primaries, and their momentum becomes unstoppable.  That's why I think it's very unlikely that the nominations will still be undecided on Feb. 6th.  Not that it's impossible, since we have a small number of elections to use as guides, but the recent trend seems to be:

more frontloaded calendar -> early momentum becoming more important

Of course it doesn't have to turn out that way, but that's the way I'd bet.

Having said all that, I do actually agree with Gustaf that people are overdoing it when they say that Giuliani is "done".  These things are *way* too unpredictable for us to say that at this point.  However, I have a hard time seeing how Giuliani can start out 0-5, and still win the nomination.  He's going to have to win *somewhere* in those first couple of weeks.


I will limit myself to agreeing that, yes, I don't think the nomination will be contested after Feb 6th. My point was basically that it oculd be competitive until then.
Logged
Pages: 1 [2]  
« previous next »
Jump to:  


Login with username, password and session length

Terms of Service - DMCA Agent and Policy - Privacy Policy and Cookies

Powered by SMF 1.1.21 | SMF © 2015, Simple Machines

Page created in 0.031 seconds with 15 queries.