For pro-life conservatives, the battle is joined. Per the Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg numbers, efforts to raise the profile of the issue and draw attention to Rudy Giuliani's pro-choice credentials seem to be resonating among conservative voters.
Giuliani still sports a double-digit lead over Fred Thompson, but his support is soft, the party seems confused, and Republicans seem to be growing more anxious about his moral issue liberalism.
34% of those surveyed agreed that social conservatives would be within their rights to run a third party candidate if the GOP nominated a candidate who supported abortion rights and gay rights. Paradoxically, a quarter of that 34% say they support Giuliani today.
Abortion is a bigger issue than gay rights; less than half of Republican oppose civil unions (although most oppose gay marriage).
Fred Thompson's support among "white fundamentalists" seems to be growing; that's the only discernable category in which he leads Giuliani, who still retains the support of pluralities of Republican Catholics and self-defined members of the "Religious Right."
Giuliani is much stronger among men than he is among women -- he recieved 36% of the male vote in this sample and 27% of the women's vote.
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I tend to believe that Thompson is an empty suit, but I think the media is counting him out too quickly. He's still second in most national polls and he is leading in THE key GOP primary (South Carolina). I guarantee you if Obama opened up a lead in Iowa, the press wouldn't be saying that he's a disappointment and that he has no chance to win.
The press, for whatever reason, has decided that the GOP race is between Giuliani and Romney, probably because it is in their interest to have a GOP candidate with some major defect (from their point of view)--that's easier to report, after all. It seems to me, though, that Thompson hasn't been as big a disappointment as some might think--he's still plenty popular, it occurs to me. The expectations were a little high, but he's the only frontrunner with the sort of profile that Republicans traditionally like.
Posted by Lev | October 24, 2007 10:54 AM