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McCain Slips, Clinton Stands Firm
Dick Bennett at American Research Group has a new presidential preference poll out, and the news is not good for Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) – especially coming on the heels of a Rocky Mountain Poll putting him just 9 points ahead of Rudy Giuliani in AZ. Since January, McCain has slipped 6 points to 34%, while Giuliani has risen 12 points to 25%
In NH, McCain and Giuliani are split by only 4 points, 19% to 23%.
On the Democratic side, Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) continues to run comfortably ahead of her closest rival, Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL), 37% to 23%, with former senator John Edwards at 20%.
Obama is playing it so close to the vest that it’s hard to see how he distinguishes himself as anything more than a strong second in the coming months. If he insists on a strictly positive campaign – no 1984 ads, no calling Clinton out for her politically-calculated pro-war vote in the senate, then he’s stuck.
Obama’s recent Likud-like pronouncements on the Palestinian problem won’t raise his profile among peace activists – the only organizational rival to the NH hackocracy, which Clinton has already claimed as her own.
What other NH constituencies might Obama use to close the gap? Minorities? The poor? Sorry, we don’t have them in abundance in NH. To pull ahead, he needs all the Undecideds, plus Biden’s, Clark’s and Dodd’s support.
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