It's that time of year again
The political junkie's favorite map is back up and running, although the map on the main landing page is a bit schizophrenic. The red and blue states, as you'd expect, show where McCain is winning or losing to the Democrats, but the brown and pink colors represent which of the Democratic candidates lead the other, and doesn't necessarily suggest that they lead McCain. (Am I the only one who thinks it's funny that the dude used brown and pink to represent Obama and Hillary? I lol'd.)
Anyway, the map will probably make more sense after the Dems are done duking it out. There are previews here and here.
Meanwhile, here's a bizarre poll that has to be regarded as an outlier, but is interesting nonetheless.
A Republican presidential ticket of John McCain and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice would beat a Democratic ticket of Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama - in either combination - in heavily "blue" New York, a surprising poll showed yesterday.The Marist College-WNBC survey found a McCain-Rice team ahead of a Clinton-Obama ticket, 49 percent to 46 percent, and an Obama-Clinton ticket, 49 percent to 44 percent.
I happen to think (hope) such a pairing is extremely unlikely. It's hard for me to see what benefit Rice would bring to the ticket, unless it's just naked identity politics ("we'll see your black person and raise you a woman!") I guess I'm a bit skeptical, but still, if you're a Democrat, you can't be too happy about this. If the Dems even have to compete in New York, that's a very bad sign.
Comments
Okay, I'm finding it difficult to believe that Condaleeza Rice would bring so much to the ticket that they'd win New York. That just seems wrong somehow. Where did they poll? Color me skeptical.
Posted by: K | April 11, 2008 08:48 AM
Maybe they will release the sealed tapes of McCain denouncing the United States over and over, singing like a bird because he was so afraid of the torture that Republicans love to dish out.
Posted by: Anonymous | April 11, 2008 05:32 PM
"I'm finding it difficult to believe that Condaleeza Rice would bring so much to the ticket that they'd win New York. That just seems wrong somehow." (K)
For NYC your view holds up K, but not for upstate NY or Long Island, where the Democrats have pretty much ceded large swaths of those areas to the GOP.
Suburbanites tend to vote "their own interests."
Interests like lower taxes, tough on crime policies, etc., so they tend to vote against "Liberals" at every turn.
Two decades ago, almost 60% of NYS's population lived in NYC, today that's nearly been reversed.
Posted by: JMK | April 12, 2008 05:45 PM
"It's hard for me to see what benefit Rice would bring to the ticket, unless it's just naked identity politics ("we'll see your black person and raise you a woman!")" (Barry)
Well, I see the pairing as "highly unlikely" because I think the GOP, like the Dems, tend to shoot themsleves in the foot a lot.
They could do a WHOLE LOT worse than Condi Rice!
A Lieberman or God forbid,a Jeb Bush VP would royally piss off Conservatives and Mitt Romney probably wouldn't do very much to help McCain either.
There's at least some GOOD NEWS for Romney in that it looks like his old job will be opening back up, as the Bay State wants to run the "Obama mentor" Deval Patrick out of that state on a rail.
With seven months left before November a lot can and probably will happen that'll effect this race, but I don't see anything (so far) that indicates this won't be a very close race, yet again.
Posted by: JMK | April 12, 2008 06:13 PM