After Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona surprised absolutely nobody by forming a presidential exploratory committee last Sunday, former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani followed suit by anouncing he had formed his own exploratory committee earlier today.
These two men have, together with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, been named the top-3 likely candidates for the Republican Party by pundits for years. Rice, however, has stated on numerous occasions that she has no intention of running for the presidency.
Polls taken after last week’s midterm elections show radically different numbers on how they would fare in the primaries with Rasmussen predicting Giuliani beating McCain by 7 points in a broad field of candidates while McLaughlin & Associates has Giuliani trailing McCain by 6 points in a similarly broad field.
In head-to-head polling against possible Democratic presidential candidate Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York both pollsters agree that the Republicans are more likely than not to keep the presidency. McLaughlin&Ass. has McCain beating Clinton by 51-35% and Giuliani beating Clinton by 51-37% while Rasmussen predeicts McCain beating Clinton by 48-43% but has Giuliani and Clinton tied at 46-46%. A CNN poll taken shortly before the election sports similar numbers to Rasmussen’s poll and also has both McCain and Giuliani beating Democratic hopefuls Sen. John Kerry and Sen. Barack Obama.
Hillary Clinton has been leading the Democratic pack in virtually every poll taken since the 2004 presidential elections. Pollsters recently consider the other potential candidates to be Barack Obama and former vice president Al Gore, in that order, followed by former Sen. John Edwards and John Kerry.
Personally, I think both Giuliani and McCain are fine candidates and I’m looking forward to seeing them both on the campaign tour. I must also confess to being very interested in what platforms Clinton and Obama are going to choose. They’re certainly both very charismatic people. Whatever happens, it looks like 2008’s going to be one heck of an election year. I’ll be following it closety from the safety and comfort of my armchair.
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