McCain Within Striking Distance Of Both Clinton And Obama…In NY?

I don’t believe it for a minute but here you go.

Neither Hillary Rodham Clinton or Barack Obama would get the support of 50 percent of New York voters against Senator John McCain, a Siena College poll found today.

With the focus on the Pennsylvania Democratic primary today, even New York has become a tight race for the presidency, Siena found.

Clinton has a four-point lead and Obama has a five-point lead over McCain, the poll found.

“New York is looking more ‘purple’ than ‘blue’ these days, since neither Clinton or Obama gets 50 percent of the vote against McCain, and both Democrats have small and shrinking leads against the Arizona Republican,” said Steven Greenberg, Siena poll spokesman.

When you combine that with this poll showing him close in California, you can only think people are playing with pollsters or the Obama/Clinton fight is hurting the Democrats (at least for now).

If the McCain people believe this stuff I think it spells bad news for conservatives. McCain has said he wants to contest blue states and that means he’s going to have to move further left to do that. And if McCain does win the presidency by taking previously Democratic strongholds, what exactly will he owe conservatives when it comes to appointments and policy decisions?

I know a lot of people deride ‘base elections’ but I prefer it to be clear to a politician what positions and which people are responsible for their success. If Maverick wins with lots of Democrats and independents, it won't be conservatives.

And yes, I know Reagan drew a lot of Democrats but he was a lot more conservative than Maverick is. Let's be honest, McCain's relationship with and to the conservative base of the Republican Party is very different than Reagan's was.

How could this play out and hurt Maverick?

McCain really tries to fight in places like NY, NJ and CA at first. Then as the election gets closer Democrats decide to come home to Obama (or Clinton) and McCain will have spent a lot of his limited resources (remember he's taking the 40 something million the feds will give him and that's all he has of his own to spend) trying to win unwinable votes and he won't have the base of the Republican Party to fall back on.

posted by DrewM. at 02:12 PM

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