Republican presidential frontrunner Rudy Giuliani, not in Armani, hooks up
with Donald Trump.
The new Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) poll is very good news for the Democratic and Republican frontrunners, Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani. It’s actually good times in the Golden State for the two most famous representatives of the Empire State.
The former New York mayor and acclaimed 9/11 figure Giuliani has a big lead in the Republican primary over John McCain and others. He’s sitting at 33%, while John McCain is at 19% and the slow-starting Mitt Romney, despite oodles of publicity, is at 7%. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has 14%, but he’s not a declared candidate, despite his active schedule and somewhat active fundraising. (He’s raised about two million bucks for a personal PAC.)
Current New York Senator and former First Lady Hillary Clinton is also in a strong position, though not as strong as Giuliani’s, in the Democratic primary. She leads rookie phenom Barack Obama — who has twice drawn huge crowds to rallies in Oakland and LA — 35% to 24%. She also raised $2.6 million at a fundraiser at billionaire Ron Burkle’s famed (think Myrna Loy) Green Acres estate in LA last weekend, which I believe is an all-time record for a presidential campaign fundraiser at a private home in California.
The plucky John Edwards, who would be giving Clinton fits right about now had Obama not emerged late last year and early this year, is third with 14%. And New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, in some ways the best qualified of the candidates — two-time landslide winner as governor in a swing state, renowned global trouble-shooter, veteran ex-congressman/House Intelligence Committee member and holder of two Cabinet posts in the Clinton Administration: UN Ambassador and Secretary of Energy — is slowly but steadily emerging from the land of the asterisks, running fourth now with 6%.
In Obama and Richardson, incidentally, we are seeing the emergence of what might be called the Bulworthian universe. In that satirical Warren Beatty film, the rapping former matinee idol called for, in character, a world in which everyone blanks one another till all the races meld together. Obama is the product of a union between an African father and a white American mother. Richardson, the first major Latino candidate, is the product of a union between a white American banker and a Mexican mother, born in LA and raised in Mexico City.
In any event, Obama is the only Democratic candidate who has shown any relaxed confidence in public campaigning in California so far. Clinton, who actually did much better than Obama at last weekend’s Las Vegas Presidential forum, still hasn’t had a real public campaign event in California. Unless you count her appearance with LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, where the pair urged people to pick up their trash.
In sharp contrast to Clinton, the Republican frontrunner, Mayor Giuliani, has shown a notable facility in speaking to large Californian crowds. He wowed the state Republican convention last month and served up a tasty luncheon feast to a big Silicon Valley crowd.
Giuliani, unlike McCain and the others, has a strong theme going. He is presenting himself, in an intellectually coherent yet accessible way, as being in the Churchill/Reagan lineage defending Western civilization, something quite credible given his dramatic role with 9/11. He hasn’t been very accessible to the press, but he has been more accessible than Clinton, McCain, or Obama.
California is absolutely key for Giuliani. He is not the candidate of the right-wing Republican “base,” a vote that may or may not manifest itself in the early states of Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, and South Carolina. I expect Giuliani to do well in Nevada, where he has a clear lead. The other first group states are unclear. So he must win California in order to win the nomination.
Clinton is another matter. Hers is “the name you know” in the Democratic Party. She can survive early losses. She’s in a dead heat in Iowa, leads in Nevada, and leads in New Hampshire. South Carolina will be a challenge for her, with Southern white males inclined to go for fellow Carolinian and blacks increasingly — following the endorsement yesterday of Jesse Jackson — inclined to go for Obama. So she may well need a Golden State win, also.
Which she is well positioned to get. The Clintons have a long and happy history in California. Bill Clinton inherited most of the Gary Hart network here and built upon that, in the process turning California into the mostly blue state we think of it as today. Hillary Clinton has that base, as well as the calling card of being the first major female candidate for president, a card she is increasingly playing as she is challenged by various would-be movement types among her legion of critics.
But in order to win California, Clinton is going to need to get outside her comfort zone shell, something she has yet to do in all her appearances here as a candidate. (She was actually quite forthcoming campaigning for then Governor Gray Davis a few years ago, but that is another matter entirely.)
One noteworthy caveat to this first major public poll of the new, early California Presidential primary is that Fred Thompson was not included in the Republican soundings. The one-term senator from Tennessee-turned Law and Order TV star has started stirring up some real attention. My guess is he hurts and perhaps kills Romney if he runs, since he is a consistent conservative, and draws from Giuliani, since they both have established media images as resolute leaders on the various screens we all use in our lives. (Thompson also memorably co-starred in a couple of blockbuster movies, notably The Hunt For Red October and In The Line Of Fire.)
It’s a new inning for presidential politics in California.
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| Comments (59) |
Thompson is too right wing to be elected.
Crap, I just looked at the Giuliani video with Trump. The Baptists will go crazy!
Omgawd, Giulliani is such a frau as a woman. lol
I didn’t know Rudy was from San Francisco.
Donald Trump built the San Francisco skyline … Or did he?
The Freeway State looks to the Industrial State for a national leader. So much for a western focus…
It’s early, the New Mexico guy is slowly but surely emerging. Meanwhile, I think we would have to say that Rudy is something of a West Coast metrosexual, no?
I bet Obama or Edwards would be prettier in drag. lol
Metrosexual? No.
Cross dresser? Yes.
Oh, General, you’re just not getting into the spirit of the thing …
Villaraigosa – for Clinton
Schwarzenegger – Declines to state
Newsom – for Obama
Chiang – for Obama
Lockyer – for Guliani
Perata – for Clinton
Nunez – for Obama
Ackerman – for Guliani
Villines – for Thompson
I don’t think that’s very accurate there, Hap. Needless to say.
Neither accurate nor amusing.
I think Thompson will prove to be difficult to pigeon hole as a Lungren of Bill SImon conservative, and think he might take votes from Guliani.
Bill Clinton inherited most of the Gary Hart network here and built upon that, in the process turning California into the mostly blue state we think of it as today — This is a very important point in my opinion, one I think tends to be lost on some blog and comment on the left today. Until Clinton blew through the state, drawing votes from the Central Valley, etc, that would naturally leaned to the right, the state was not in the least a Blue state, except perhaps in the unreal reality of the Legislature and the congressional delegations.
There was actually a sophisticated strategy, developed first by the Gary Hart crew, then by the Bill Clinton crew (of which there was significant overlap, Hart having given Clinton his first major job in politics), about how to win California for the Democrats in a statewide race for the Presidency.
California has moved somewhat to the left since the late 1980s/early 1990s. But not all that much, as the PPIC polling demonstrates.
Did Hart give Clinton a job in the McGovern campaign?
Yuk, yuk.
Yes, Gary Hart made Bill and Hillary Clinton the Texas co-coordinators of the McGovern for President campaign.
>Hap Hazard :
Did Hart give Clinton a job in the McGovern campaign?
Mar 30, 2007 08:24 AM
I will vote for whoever you Dems put up…for such an improtant race, it is not very interesting or exciting to me personally…in part because there are so many good candidates! ….for my “political excitement” I am watching to see if Putin “extends” his term or leaves to run the state’s massive energy infrastructure!!!!
Ok, if you are going to post videos like that, you have to give us a content warning! Sweet God Above, I’m never going to get that image out of my head…
Re Guiliani please see today’s NYT article about him, Bernie Kerik and the mob. Seems that investigators told Rudy of Kerik’s ties to Organized crime but Guiliani went on to appoint him police commissioner (after dumping Bratton) and, later, recommending Kerik to be Secty of Homeland Security. Best part of the story was the exchange with a prosecutor who asked him about this and Rudy said he couldn’t recall. Lot of GOP Amnesia going around these days!
Who was it said Rudy’s skeletons fill a walk-in closet?
I agree that Richardson is the sleeper candidate. Right now I’d bet he’s everbody else’s VP choice!
Here’s some more insanity for you. The New Hampshire Legislature has passed a bill authorizing the Scty of State to move up the primary there so that it comes before Iowa and Nevada and keeps it first.
At this rate we’ll be voting this July!
Richard L – I think that Guliani’s work as US attorney in dealings with the mob was exemplified dedicated public service, good character and professionalism, and deservedly put him in position to run for and be elected Mayor in the first place.
Idon’t believe that Mr. Giuliani makes the most attractive female in the race.
Hap, dont forget, Clooney is for Obama-so says Tina ‘fawning over Hollywood’ Daunt in todays LA Times.
Clooney, to his credit, says that he isnt sure if his support helps or hurts Obama given his Hollywood address. I think it helps in the primary but definitely hurts in the general election.
Im still amazed, given all we know about Guliani, that he is doing so well in the ‘family values party’.
Finally, interesting piece in the New Republic on William Buckley and how he, arguably the father of the conservative movement, is against the war and said if he was a Congressman he would be against the surge. He turned against the war, officially, in July 2004.
Bill, I would have bet you were going to put up the MC Rove rap video today…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYZre8kEsuw
I am betting NH votes in December.
Funny!
>Wilbur :
Bill, I would have bet you were going to put up the MC Rove rap video today…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYZre8kEsuw
Mar 30, 2007 11:17 AM
Im still amazed, given all we know about Guliani, that he is doing so well in the ‘family values party’.
mitchell – that may be due to the fact that neither parties nor candidates can necessarily fit neatly into narrow categories and stereotypes some of us place them in.
George Clooney really is for Obama. It goes back to Darfur, which the great Don Cheedle, so good in Bulworth and many other movies including obviously the Ocean’s 11 pictures (another one coming this summer!) got Clooney involved in.
>mitchell :
Hap, dont forget, Clooney is for Obama-so says Tina ‘fawning over Hollywood’ Daunt in todays LA Times.
Clooney, to his credit, says that he isnt sure if his support helps or hurts Obama given his Hollywood address. I think it helps in the primary but definitely hurts in the general election.
Im still amazed, given all we know about Guliani, that he is doing so well in the ‘family values party’.
Finally, interesting piece in the New Republic on William Buckley and how he, arguably the father of the conservative movement, is against the war and said if he was a Congressman he would be against the surge. He turned against the war, officially, in July 2004.
Mar 30, 2007 11:14 AM
Hap, thats true, but…it is amazing that a pro-choice, pro gay rights, thrice married, adulterous, candidate, who even endorsed the liberal icon Mario Cuomo, is leading in the GOP race-though it is early.
Predictions on the first primary anyone?
My guess;
Hillary- 35-40 mill
Barack -16-20 mill
Edwards-9-11 mill
The rest, all under 5 mill.
Sorry, that last post was mine.
Ooh, George Clooney is dreamy, I’m going to vote for him or whomever he’s for … lol
There won’t be that massive a financial difference between Hillary and Obama and I don’t know anyone who thinks there will be.
At least “Miss” Giuliani doesn’t sing.
I based my numbers on what I hear from their campaigns-not directly, just thru the rumor mill. Hillaries folks are saying they will have over 25-that means 35 to me. Baracks folks say they will have over 15, thus my extrapolation.
One of the big differences is that Hillary is raising for the general as well as primary, but will announce the total amount raised. Edwards and Obama, are not trying to raise $4,600 per person, as Hillary is.
The final e-mails from the campaign are very telling. Hillaries and Baracks are pretty upbeat, typical solicitations, whilst Edwards pitch is more …desperate sounding. His e-mail states that everyone is wondering if he’ll have the resources to stay in the race, and that people need to step forward to keep his message alive.
Bill, what are you hearing, or is it just too hard to guess with any degree of certainty?
Shoot, on new computer, and it doesnt save my name. That was my last post.
I don’t really know, Mitch. Hillary will definitely be in the lead, by a lot. The Republican side is quite murky, lots of spin and backspin.
As an Edwards-leaner, it’s been interesting watching a lot of Angelides people I knew moving towards Obama. I would’ve thought that Edwards’ strong stands on healthcare, poverty/econ-inequality, and so on, would’ve appealed to the folks who backed Angelides. But for whatever reasons, Obama seems to be picking up a lot of them.
One part of this, I think, is that people who supported Angelides in the primary have been left feeling, shall we say, a bit disappointed in how that turned out.
As a result, a lot are left saying to themselves, “Huh, maybe my buddy who backed Westly was right.” Pretty much everyone who’s involved in a primary has a friend in the other candidate’s camp. You just agree to tolerate the heresy, as long as she supports your guy when he wins. *g*
Westly himself has endorsed Obama (he’s NorCal finance chair), so for every person inclined to give that buddy who backed Westly extra credence this year, that’s one more activist likely to be pulled over to Obama, rather than Clinton.
Or at least, that’s what I seem to be seeing in the south end of the Bay Area. I suppose this is Westly’s home turf, so he may be extra-influential here.
For those of us still allowed to vote in primaries — i.e., registered with a political party — the choice is clear when it comes to expressing displeasure with the tenor and tone of the Republicrat Party: Dennis Kucinich for the Dems, and Ron Paul for the Reps.
Both are for an end to the Iraq war and an end to the drug war.
The frontloading of primaries only serves to ensure that well-heeled establishment candidates like Clinton/Obama and Giuliani/McCain will be insulated from any insurgent candidacy.
That said, I’m looking forward to being in the tiny minority once again… In fact, my vote for Mr. Paul may be the last vote I cast for a candidate.
How old was Giuliani when he did that?
That’s interesting, RM. You’d think they would be for Hillary, but maybe the Angelides experience turned them off to the lockstep party establishment approach.
>RM ‘Auros’ Harman :
As an Edwards-leaner, it’s been interesting watching a lot of Angelides people I knew moving towards Obama. I would’ve thought that Edwards’ strong stands on healthcare, poverty/econ-inequality, and so on, would’ve appealed to the folks who backed Angelides. But for whatever reasons, Obama seems to be picking up a lot of them.
Giuliani was 56 when the video was shot. He’s now 63.
> Jonas Blane :
How old was Giuliani when he did that?
Mar 30, 2007 03:51 PM
Rudy makes a dumpy gal. I want to see Schwarzeneger in drag. lol
Is there such a thing?
I’d be surprised.
lol
How about a pregnant Schwarzeneger?
And maybe we can stop referring to Thompson as merely an “Actor.” He was the Minority Counsel on the Senate Watergate Committee (and came up with the question: “What did the President Know and when did he know it?”) and was active in TN GOP politics for a long time before he played himself in the movie “Marie” where he recounted his rise to fame as the attorney who defended the whistleblower in the Pardon scandal there.
I’m no fan of his politics but the man has gravitas. Its just that the Republicans love to denegrate Hollywood but seem to love to go there for candidadates that they can sell to the public.
Yes, “Junior!” But as a man …