Watcher of Weasels:

The Macaca Hits the Fan

A while back, John Hawkins picked apart the results of a poll that asked bloggers who they liked and disliked as potential Republican nominees in 2008.  He noted that the names topping the list were George Allen, Newt Gingrich, and Rudy Giuliani.  John dismissed Giuliani out of hand as being too far to the left on too many issues, and suggested that Gingrich's personal baggage would probably hold him back as well, leaving George Allen as the apparent man to beat.

(It should be noted that the poll also asked participants to rate their own level of conservatism on a scale of 1 to 10...  with 1 being a "Republican In Name Only" and 10 being ultraconservative.  Giuliani was barely beating Allen among those self-rating as level 7 conservatives, and he won by a substantial margin among level 6 conservatives.  Giuliani did win overwhelmingly among level 5 conservatives, but McCain was also slightly beating Gingrich at that level, so I would probably disregard any results below this point on the conservatism scale.)

I tended to agree with Hawkins that George Allen was probably going to be the guy...  but that was before Macaca-gate.  What are Allen's chances for winning the 2008 nomination now, or even getting on the ticket as VP?  Rich Lowry has noted that Gingrich's recent resurgence might be somewhat due to conservative frustration with Bush's squishiness on certain issues...  and he also wondered if an Allen (and Romney?) implosion might pave the way for Gingrich as the anti-McCain candidate.  Personally, I do hope that Gingrich runs, if only to help shape the debate...  and if Allen did lose any significant amount of support over his recent remarks, I'd be curious to see how much of it ends up going to Gingrich.

Indeed, the latest blogger poll does show a definite loss of support for Allen (pushing him down from first to fourth place) and a definite surge for Gingrich...  but Gingrich still wound up placing second overall, with the top three choices being Giuliani, Gingrich, and Romney.  It was a very close second though, and Gingrich does manage to win out among the most conservative levels of voters...  if Allen loses any more support, then Gingrich could conceivably end up placing first outright.

It's entirely possible that Gingrich will ultimately decide not to run...  but at this point, he is at least in a position to use his support as leverage, as Machiavel at Redstate observes: “It looks like Newt's decision to stay out the race until November of '07 could throw the race into some turmoil, with all the major campaigns calculating what happens if Newt gets in.  He's clearly trying to play kingmaker and anoint the preferred conservative if he doesn't run, and numbers like this suggest he could pull it off.”

A number of social conservatives are already willing to give Giuliani a pass because they have essentially become single-issue voters focused on the War on Terror...  but I think Giuliani could clinch the nomination if he couched his social views in terms that would be palatable to states' rights conservatives.