Republican Strategists See Doom In Muddled Presidential Race
Sam Stein
December 11, 2007 03:22 PM
The Republican presidential candidates may be waxing optimistically about their chances of winning the White House, but recent polls showing a muddled GOP field has some party insiders increasingly nervous.
On Tuesday, the New York Times and CBS News released a national survey that had none of the Republican presidential hopefuls receiving more than 23 percent support. The top three - Mike Huckabee, Rudy Giuliani, and Mitt Romney - all were within six percentage points of each other, with Giuliani leading at 22 percent.
The results, even Republican strategists admit, reflect a dire political situation: only weeks before the Iowa caucus, the party is extremely vulnerable, and despite nearly a year of campaigning, it remains without a true leader.
"The party is in uncharted waters right now and the GOP had never been so rudderless," Craig Shirley, a Republican consultant, told the Huffington Post. "You combine this with the financial condition of the GOP and the stench of corruption and you'd have to go back to the fall of 1974 to find the GOP as bad off as it is today."
The lack of a consensus conservative candidate has, indeed, led to a historically unpredictable GOP race. In recent weeks, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee has ascended rapidly in the polls, from single digits to the lead in Iowa and a virtual tie in national surveys.
Meanwhile, former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani has seen his support drop seven points in the last two months in the New York Times/CBS poll. Former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson, once thought to be the party's savior, has fallen flat. Sen. John McCain, R-AZ, has yet to recover from early campaign mismanagement. While former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has seen his leads in Iowa and New Hampshire all but disappear.
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2007/12/11/republican-strategists-se_n_76304.html