Mullings An American Cyber Column By Rich Galen

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A Romney Bounce in Florida?

Friday January 25, 2008

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Off the campaign trail and back on TV. Yesterday I was on Neil Cavuto's Fox News Channel program at 4:05 and at 4:45 was debating Donna Brazile with Wolf Blitzer on CNN.

I mention that for two reasons: First, as you know, I have an ego the size of Wyoming and not having been the center of attention for the past five months was a trial (to say the least). Second, I actually prepare for these appearances and, as I did yesterday, I noted something interesting.

On the Real Clear Politics website I was looking at the polling data from Florida. Of the six polls listed as of this writing, three were in the field prior to Fred Thompson's departure from the race. In these three polls, John McCain had a lead of 2, 3 and 5 percentage points.

In the three polls which were taken SINCE Thompson left Mitt Romney leads in two by four points each and McCain leads in one by a single point - a tie.

Taking out the two non-conforming polls - the one which showed McCain +5 prior to Thompson's exit and the one poll showing the tie since - it appears that Romney is getting what amounts to a Thompson bounce of between six and seven percentage points.

SIDEBAR

When reading political polls, it is useful to toss out those which don't match the others - either too high or too low.
Treat it like we used to score Olympic figure skaters: Because we knew the East Germans and the French were cheating, the high and low scores were ignored and the rest were averaged.
A non-conforming poll doesn't mean the pollster is cheating. It could be a difference in methodology, a sampling error, a difference in judging turn-out, or any of a dozen other reasons.

END SIDEBAR

Still looking at those four polls, in one of the pre-Thompson polls Rudy Giuliani was actually leading Romney by the thin margin of two percentage points. In the two post-Thompson polls, Romney leads Giuliani by seven points in one and a dozen in the other.

Mike Huckabee is out of money and out of Florida. That means Romney has a clear running lane to the right of both McCain and Giuliani. Rudy will not leave the race before Tuesday so he and McCain will be battling for the moderate GOP votes - largely in the southern half of the state.

In his curtain-raiser on Florida, Fox's Carl Cameron's writes:

[Giuliani's] staff is working triple time and they are crackerjack pros. Ever optimistic, doggedly loyal, disciplined message managers, they all hate to lose and are not familiar with it.
Do not be shocked by a final Rudy surge before Tuesday.

This is not good news for McCain because a Giuliani surge would largely come out of McCain's vote base, not Romney's.

Tuesday could effectively launch Romney on a trajectory leading to the nomination. Whether McCain comes in second and Giuliani third or vice versa, they will each be effectively bankrupt with few resources to see them through to �ber Tuesday on February 5.

Assuming Ann Romney has given the family checkbook back to Mitt, he is the only candidate with the resources to run in most, if not all, of the contests on February 5.

A quick note on the Democrats whose primary in South Carolina is tomorrow. The Hillary Clinton campaign has been using Bill Clinton to attack Barack Obama by demonstrating the wide experience gulf between the former President and the freshman Senator.

This has the effect of diminishing Obama, but it also has the effect of diminishing Hillary which may come back to haunt her campaign.

I have a bet with Donna Brazile on the outcome in South Carolina. I think Obama will win; she thinks Hillary's campaign is doing everything possible to turn out White Democrats and will prevail.

How do you think the press (and Al Sharpton) would be dealing with this situation if two Republicans were openly appealing to voters solely on racial grounds?

Yes. That's what I think, too.

On the Secret Decoder Ring page today: Links to the Carl Cameron piece and the Real Clear Politics page as well as an interesting Mullfoto showing artifacts from the Thompson campaign and a Catchy Caption of the Day.

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