Last week Rasmussen released polls on 2008 head-to-head match-ups between various Republicans and various Democrats. The Brownback campaign touted one that showed Brownback only 5% behind Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee. Rasmussen notes:
Brownback is an unknown to 43%, and viewed favorably by only 19%. Just a couple weeks after his announcement, the percentage who view him favorably isn’t any larger even among Republicans.
Remember that Sam Brownback is at 1 or 2% in nationwide polls right now. People do not know who he is. It is likely that he is polling as, approximately, a "generic Republican" against Hillary Clinton. Why does this matter? Contrast this with Mitt Romney’s performance against Hillary Clinton:
- Hillary Clinton beats Sam Brownback 46-41.
- Hillary Clinton beats Mitt Romney 51-41
Sam Brownback performs 5% better against Hillary Clinton than Mitt Romney. Now, there are two possibilities: either people are favorably inclined towards Brownback, or they are unfavorably inclined against Romney. As much as I love Sam Brownback, I just do not think that it is credible to argue that a significant number of voters have information at this time that would make them more favorable to him than the average Republican. Therefore, I have to conclude that a significant number of voters have negative information about Mitt Romney.
If I am right that Sam Brownback is polling as a "generic Republican", then Mitt Romney is underperforming the generic Republican by 5% against Hillary Clinton. This is believable. Romney has been beaten up in the press, as I have noted repeatedly. At this point, Romney has a couple of strong negatives, including Massachusetts, his religion, and his flip-flops, which have all been written about in the AP and on CNN, etc. This could easily account for the losses that he is facing, as compared to Sam Brownback who just has not received the same kind of press. This is a dire warning for the Romney campaign.
4 Comments
mymanmitt · March 11, 2007 at 9:09 AM
This is a silly analysis. Please provide links to the actual articles for BOTH match-ups next time please. Why you ask… because there’s a flippin’ month between the Romney and Brownback polls!
Apples and Oranges – The Brownback/Clinton poll was taken this last week. The Romney/Clinton poll was taken LAST MONTH. Since that time a few things have happened like… I dunno… Mitt announced that he would be running for President, Mitt started running the first campaign ads, Mitt one the LA Time insider’s poll, the CPAC straw poll, started running English and Spanish radio ads in Florida.
This comparison just won’t fly.
mymanmitt · March 11, 2007 at 9:19 AM
UPDATED: This is a silly analysis. Please provide links to the actual articles for BOTH match-ups next time please. Why you ask… because there’s a flippin’ month between the Romney and Brownback polls!
Apples and Oranges – The Brownback/Clinton poll was taken this last week. The Romney/Clinton poll was taken LAST MONTH. Since that time a few things have happened like… I dunno… Mitt announced that he would be running for President, Mitt started running the first campaign ads, Mitt one the LA Time insider’s poll, the CPAC straw poll, started running English and Spanish radio ads in Florida.
Secondly, a few things have happened to Hillary since the beginning of Feb like… I dunno… she got a serious challenger, she appeared on Drudge probably 3 times for crazy accents, bad singing, or otherwise, the press has lauded Obama with praise and a fight broke out within the Hollywood community over who to support.
Should I keep going?
This comparison just won’t fly.
ee2793 · March 11, 2007 at 8:52 PM
When Mitt’s Q1 financials come out, please compare his COH to Brownback’s. Will Mitt’s cash be 5, 10, 20, 50 times as much?
eye · March 11, 2007 at 9:17 PM
Hotline is predicting 4-5 times. I would not be surprised by more.
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