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my first official thread, and I've definitely earned it.
nearly every potential candidate has already announced, the fundraising and politicking has started and the media is clamoring for scoops. we're about 10 months away from the first american primaries to determine the democratic and republican candidates for president in what might be the most important election since 1960.
this thread will act as a placemark as otfers have questions about the process, will show polls showing current support and news items in what will be the longest election process in american history.
first: two polls were released this week - one by usa today and the other the wall street journal.
the wall street journal poll shows a remarkably tight race between clinton and obama for the democratic candidacy with edwards and gore trailing, but with respectable scores. a surprising 15% of republicans would consider voting for obama.
on the gop side, colin powell leads the pack (although he's said nothing about even considering a run) with giuliani and mccain close behind.
in a single candidate runoff, clinton still leads obama 20-10 having a large advantage in democrat and independent voters.
lastly, and maybe most significantly, 6% more republicans would be willing to consider a democrat as president than vice versa, and democrats also lead independents by a full 10%. those swing voters determine elections and can help carry downstate races.
clinton still can't pull below 40% unfavorables. obama on the other hand is pulling more favorables than nons as the public learns more about him. giuliani still looks best with a 66% favorability rating, but pundits wonder how long that will last among republicans once his pro-choice, pro-gay rights stands come to the fore as well as his ugly divorce proceedings.
in a poll of 425 (very low) republicans, giuliani is distancing himself from mccain 40-24. no one else is breaking double digits. head-to-head, giuliani leads 57-39. in a poll of 495 democrats, clinton has extended her lead over obama to 40-21, with al gore and john edwards hovering around 15%. head-to-head, clinton crushes obama 62-33.
in theoretical contests, clinton has now taken the lead over mccain 50-47 and pulled within two points of giuliani 48-50. obama is even with mccain 48-48 but trails giuliani 43-52.
considering the high profile of the other three candidates, the numbers are all positives for obama. on the other hand, clinton will be relieved to have not lost any further ground to him while at the same time keeping one eye past the primaries and movin g up against the republicans.
the edwards campaign will be very troubled by these signs. his dramatic speech in new orleans does not seem to have given him the bump he needed. he's competing for air with obama and clinton and they have the senate to broadcast from.
religious and social conservatives are not happy with either mccain or giuliani. a dark horse like sam brownback has a lot of room to flank the two frontrunners on the far right.
the primaries to determine the final democratic and republican candidate begin in january 2008. the actual election takes place in november 2008.
because of the lead clinton has in organization (inherited most of bill's people), money (a loophole in election law means you can transfer money from one campaign into another, so clinton starts off with $20,000,000 she didn't spend on her senate campaign), and visibility most of the democratic challengers entered early to give themselves time to gain ground.
john edwards, barack obama, hillary clinton, tom vilsack, chris dodd, joe biden and dennis kucinich have all announced, with wes clark and bill richardson expected to announce soon and al gore undecided.
the republicans had to jump in early as well to keep the democrats from hogging up all the air time.
john mccain, mitt romney, sam brownback and mike huckabee have all announced with rudy giuliani expected soon and newt gingrich undecided.
fyi...ralph nader is also threatening running under the green party banner again as well.
Isn't McCain a bit old to be a serious candidate? Isn't he 70? Even if you agree with his politics, at that age i'd be put off voting for him.
Then again, if he's still mentally with it then there's nothing to say he'd have to go for a 2nd term should he win the first time round.
I'll make the prediction of Guiliani winning the Republican nomination and Obama is the Democrat's nominee. Guiliani wins the presidency quite comfortably as surely Guiliani's policies would interest a fair amount of Democrats and he's quite a bit more experienced then Obama which IMO will see him through.
*official* 2008 us election thread 
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