Cris we want Mitt to win the same way they want Hillary to win. In fact the only matchup Hillary wouldn't be an underdog is to Romney.

me too, I'm really starting to think Thompson may take thier nomination  though, they hate thier choices so much I think he raises money real quick when he gets in and the Reagon comparison's they will make will be powerful among those voters, put it this way I hope we don't have to the visual of him v/s Hillary in oct 08.

Eh, I don't think McCain would be so hard to beat. He reminds me more and more of Bob Dole every day.

If voters were logical, I'd totally agree with you Chris.  Romney has changed his views on so many issues, and so transparently, that it's hard to imagine that he'd be able to appeal to indies and his base at the same time.  But I think that's exactly what he'd be able to do if he wins the nomination.  And that's why I fear him a lot more than I do Rudy.

If Rudy runs, without flip-flopping on the social issues, I can't imagine there won't be a semi-serious third-party candidate running on a christian right/pro-gun platform.  In that kind of race, I think any of the Democratic nominees win.  

If Romney is the GOP nominee, I think that the base will vote for him because he espouses the proper views NOW.  As cynical as that is, there is precedent for the GOP accepting conversions.  Take a look at Reagan himself and Bush I, who was pro-choice till the day he joined Reagan's ticket.  

Assuming no third party candidate runs if Romney is the GOP nominee, the other problem is that Romney is actually an incredibly talented politician.  Even when the guy is spewing forth the crazy stuff he feels is necessary to win the primary, he doesn't look or sound as wacko as most GOPrs.  Similarly, I think he's politically adroit enough to move back towards the center for a general election.  Finally, he can obviously raise some serious cash.  

Maybe I'm wrong, but I think if we hope for Romeny to win we may end up feeling like the Democrats who hoped that Reagan won beccause he was too conservative for the country.  They were objectively right as well, but the country seemed to disagree.    

Sheesh....put down the doobie Chris...

Your two 'front runners' have no chance to win. Rudy 'I had three wives' G. will not bring out the fundie zombies.

McCain is dead meat. He went back to Baghdad so he could walk around with 100 solders, three helicopters and a pre-sanitized neighborhood to try and dig out of his 'stroll hole'; that will not work.

Unless James 'I screw a Republican every night' Carville is running the Dem Presidential campaign McCain has no chance.

None.

Frankly, I do not see the usefulness of this sort of analysis as a the political landscape will be vastly altered when:

Our army in Iraq self-destructs....

Bush or Cheney or Abu Gonzo are impeached....

The economy goes in the toilet...already mostly there Chris....

I can see talking in general terms about the race but this horse racing is absurd.

Too, too many variables in this mix.
.

That's why I've rooting for Romney for a while now.

I agreed with everything except the 8-10 point margin over Romney. Regardless of the nominee from both sides, I can't see the popular vote outside a 3-4 point margin either way. Independents won't back us to the same tilt as '06, and open races are historically extremely tight. See '60, '68, '00.

I think the assertions that Hillary would be destroyed and ruin downticket Democrats are ridiculously exaggerated. She might fare 1-3 points worse than Edwards or Obama. But that point or three could be all the difference.

McCain is looking more and more like a Republican to me. The media isn't even sucking up to him anymore, as evidenced by reports I watched last night basically mocking him for touring Iraq with a bullet proof vest and armed entourage while proclaiming Baghdad much safer than the press is reporting.

The only one I fear is Rudy. As Chris posted, if we defeat him it would be by a squeaker. I look at a race vs. Rudy as something like the '06 Connecticut senate race. He steals from categories we desperately need. Whether we understand it or not, Rudy's level is frozen very high. I'm worried we can pound and pound but not sufficiently dent that dynamic, that Rudy has 9/11 glow and a tough guy aura no matter the drag pictures, etc. Plus he undeniably changes the baseline in many states. A race against Rudy would be like a Price is Right game, with lights flashing and threatening to stop on one of maybe six numbers, but four of the six work against us and not for us. We would probably need perfect timing in terms of Iraq mood and other outside events to defeat Rudy.

I can't see Romney emerging. On balanced sites I post on, too many Republicans show up immediately and say they would never vote for a Mormon whenever Romney's name pops up.

It looks more and more like the Republican nominee will be either Rudy Giuliani or Mitt Romney.  Giuliani, like it or not, will be hard to beat in a general election.  I sure wish we had a better idea of how the Iowa SAtraw Poll will go on August 11.  The winner is the official establishment candidate, the front runner for five months, and the likely Republican nominee.

The Des Moines Register has had more coverage of Democrats in Iowa than Republicans.  The straw poll vote is way more establishmemt than the actual caucuses (more fundy, hard right economic).  Desmoines dem?  Drew Miller?  Anybody got a clue.  This is a one-time bus in (one spot) that pays a heavy premium on organization and money.  Despite the free meals and free bus rides somebody has to talk people into this farce and make them show up.

All five of the candidates in the weekend polling study are pretty well known

No, all five are pretty well recognized.  I'd wager that with the likely exception of Hillary, most voters don't yet know most of what they'll know about the big name candidates by the time they vote in the primaries.

I think what people miss when they talk about how strong Rudy and Magoo will be in the general is the near certainty that they will attract a third party nut job candidate that will siphon off some of the far far right wing vote.  I think you automatically have to slice 5-10 % off RG's and JMcC's votes because of this third party reality when considering their electoral potential.

Interesting take.  

For myself, I just don't think there is enough clear visibility, on any candidate, to know this far in advance.

For myself, I can't see how Guiliani could overcome the marriage thing and the Kerik thing - but stranger things have happened.

And those two things ARE more than balanced out by his ability to speak (a former very good prosector), and the image as "America's Mayor during 9/11").

McCain just seems...old, nowadays.  It's surprising when I see him speak, just how slow, and careful, and plodding he is, while speaking.

Romney IS a good speaker.  And showed himself capable to win in a liberal state.  

You point to the negative of a flip-flopper from Massachusetts.  But Digby has made the point that, when confronted by a candidate that the base doesn't like, they still "man up" and vote for that candidate, misgivings or not.  "Our guy is still better than the other guy".  

Your main negative on Romney is "Romney would just be a another Republican during a time when it is very bad to just be another Republican".

Paradoxically though, IF (and a big if) he wins the primary, he HAS ALREADY SHOWN he knows how to appeal to the center, and the liberal, by his election in Mass.

So I'm not sure that the "just another Republican" negative will be correct, since he can effectively blunt this via his Mass. record.

But again, I have no visibility.  You are definitely right in the polls NOW.  Guiliani is ahead, and that is WITH the current environment's inbuilt advantage for the Democrats.  (Why IS that, by the way??)

Seriously, Rudy and McCain both seem like authoritarian psychos.

Romney will not be the Republican nominee.  I'd love to see that but it's not gonna happen.  It'll probably be Thompson.  When talking about him Republicans can hardly speak a sentence without comparing him to Reagan.

A few months ago I would have said Huckabee but he seems to have lost steam... what are Huckabee's quarter 1 fundraising numbers?

Chris,
I think there's one big oversight in your post: both Giuliani and Romney, if nominated, will virtually guarantee independent candidacies by some right-wing ideologue who will inevitably siphon off the votes of "true conservatives."  The right-wing would never allow the nomination of what are effectively pro-choice candidates to go unchallenged.  Even if Boomberg gets into the race, siphoning independents, the split in the Republican base and hammering of the Republican nominee on "moral" issues means any Democrat will likely win in a walk.

As far as the other candidates go, I'm not afraid of Fred Thompson, and in fact I think that, like Dole in 96', he would provide the perfect "past vs. future" contrast the Democrats wish to project.  He may consolidate the votes of the religious right, but I don't see independent voters gravitating to a candidate who's much to the right of Bush.

I actually used to worry about Huckabee.  I read his book on weight loss a year ago, and hell, I haven't stopped liking the guy since.  He has conservative bona fides without coming across as a crusader.  AIDS in Africa, advocating for the poor...chances aside, I think he has genuine appeal to right-leaning independents who want neither a Club for Growth nor a Family Research Council ideologue.  At the same time, he's a foreign policy lightweight who's hitched himself to the Bush foreign policy as a necessity.  And he's just that...a nice guy.  Hillary and gang would eat him alive in a bare-knuckle campaign.  And Obama is both more articulate, is with the country on the war and cancels out the nice guy factor.  Anyway.

I still think McCain is the strongest candidate.  The hilarity of watching him scramble to save his campaign should not distract Democrats from the fact that the nation opted for "strong and wrong" in the last election, and that, as Chris mentions, the Republicans would likely be better at framing the race and tearing down the Dem nominee than the other way around.  I think Obama put it best when asked how a race vs. McCain would be framed: "war hero vs. snot-nosed rookie."  He may not always walk the party line, but if you look at his record, he is conservative enough.  If McCain winds up with the nomination and doesn't face a general election challenge on his right flank, then the Dems are in for a real fight.  And if that happens and Bloomberg jumps in with both feet, it could spell trouble for the Democratic nominee.

But yeah...the rest of the candidates are stooges.

I'm still in shock that he pried over 20 million dollars away from folks. Completely stunned.

The dem nomination is wide open between four candidates and possibly Al Gore (it might not be so wide open with him running), but on the repub side it is easy to pick Newt with confidence. He doesn't have to prove anything to the wingnut base, he can raise as much money as anyone, he has the national profile and the cult following.

If you gamble, take whatever odds you can get on Gingrich winning the repub nomination.

I hate it when my dark horse bets fall to shit.  Especially after his gem about the evangelicals owing Bill Clinton an apology.  Man... you could have almost at least not hated your Republican friends for voting for a guy like that.

So, we have an exposed faux maverick, a cross dresser and a Mormon?

Let's pray they don't walk into a bar, or hijinks will ensue.

BTW, Guiliani would be an albatross.  Has no one yet figured out that the South tends to give Southerners a break?  Guiliani is a NYC liberal!  Totalitarian or not, Southerners are still going to vote less for the man.

Maybe this is why the chattering class is trying to test market Thompson.

The GOP candidates are simply awful representations of the party itself.

  I wouldn't bet the farm yet. Let's remember one thing about 2008; W isn't running again. I think the Republican personality cult around Bush has had the effect of making everyone focus their eyes on Bush; as such, when he gets ready to leave, I think lots of people will be more ambiguous about 2008, since none of the current candidates look as polarizing as he was. As such, I think the match up between any of the top tier candidates, will be pretty tight.

I dunno, McCain looks more old, cranky, exhausted, and out of touch with every passing day. And this stupid 'surge' idea is HIS. They'd be asking America to vote for the bitchy old guy who yells at them out the window and tells incomprehensible war stories to his dog. And wants to stay in Iraq. I think that's a really tough sell. Bob Dole didn't do so hot.

If they nominate Romney and Republicans are still despised at election time, then we're home free for sure, but if the generic hatred for Republicans slacks off, so does our advantage over him. No matter how America feels about Republicans, McCain will still be old, cranky, and out of touch.

"Whether or not it is justified, as a Mormon, he has a huge problem with national electability..."

You might want to rephrase that comment....  How would it sound if you inserted some other religion for "Mormon"??????

I'm sure you meant that it's not justified, but jeez....

I'm pretty bad at predicting the future ... I was thrilled when the Repugs nominated Bush in 2000. I couldn't imagine anyone actually voting for such a dishonest moron. Clearly some did, even if it wasn't a majority. That said, I also know that poll numbers this early are pretty much meaningless.

I tend to disagree that Mitt would be the easiest to beat. As the only Repuglican with only one wife, as one that toes the party line, and as a Mormon, he is clearly trustworthy by social conservatives (despite his prior positions in Mass ... I think most people understand those positions were taken only to make him electable in that state).

The other Republican nominees are all hypocrites. Guiliani's got so much dirty laundry in his personal life AND as NYC mayor before 9-11 that his popularity will plummet once people start paying attention.

I don't know what to make of McCain, I figured he would be toast already, but he's clearly not even though it is trending that way.

Bottom line, I completely disagree, I think Romney and McCain are the strongest R's in the general election. Guiliani, I suspect, is a relative unknown except for one day of his political career. Once everybody gets to know a few of his other days, he's easily beatable, possibly even by HRC.

Chris: Be careful for what you wish!  The truth is that Mitt is the most feared candidate by any of the Democrat candidates.  Why?   Because none of them can beat Romney during the debates.  Poll numbers can and will be dissolved by the debates.   Hence, despite the bi-partisan nature of the general elections, I hope America will vote based on the merits, skills, experience, intellect, etc., of the candidate.

Before everyone goes all Apeshit for Romney, spend some time with Taylor Marsh!

http://www.taylormarsh.com/tag_results.p hp?displayTag=Mitt%20Romney