Kristol on the Election
January 29, 2008
• By Matthew Continetti
Bill Kristol writes in from Fox News Channel:
"Three points:
"A well informed Democrat told me tonight that it was very doubtful that Al Gore would endorse Obama in the near future - but 'keep your eye on Jimmy Carter.'
"Most interesting statistic in the Democratic exit poll: Obama ran even with Clinton among voters who decided in the last week. That suggests that he has a more even playing field moving ahead toward Super Tuesday than past poll numbers would suggest.
"On the Republican side: About a third of the voters called themselves 'somewhat conservative.' McCain did as well with those 'somewhat conservative' voters as he did with the Republican primary electorate as a whole. Among the quarter or so of the voters who called themselves 'very conservative,' McCain lost to Romney by about 2 to 1, getting only 20 percent of those voters. This suggests to me that McCain's 'conservative problem' is not as dire among conservative voters as you would think listening to conservative elites. And in fact, among the very conservative Republican voters, it's quite possible that they prefer Romney or even Huckabee to McCain, but the fact that they prefer Romney or in some cases Huckabee to McCain doesn't mean that they view McCain as unacceptable.
"What's more, if you look at McCain's favorable/unfavorable rating, it's strong among all Republicans, including conservatives. So McCain has some work to do with more conservative Republicans, but not as much as you would think from listening to some talk radio or reading some conservative blogs.He'll have to figure out which conservative elites can be brought around - and which he'll have to go around."
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