Roger L. Simon: Analyzing the votes in the PJM Presidential Straw Poll

We've had over twelve thousand votes cast in the PJM Straw Poll and the results so far are fascinating to me - although I am not clear what to make of them. Apparently our readers, the ones voting anyway, are not too fond of John McCain who is running a surprisingly low 5.3 percent at this writing. Gingrich is running stronger than I expected and Giuliani is in the lead.

On the Dem side, we have Obama strongly in the lead with Richardson second. I think Richardson's high numbers may be accounted for by his being a favorite of Republicans. We encourage people to vote in both parties. (It could be that some voters are choosing candidates in their "enemy" party they think would be losers for that party.) As for Obama, the poll was linked by the Huffington Post and this may account for his popularity. Hillary is known not be a favorite of Arianna's.

But I speculate. The truth is I'm not sure what's going on. I do know that some of the campaigns are watching the poll. I also suspect we will have some profound swings in the weeks to come. (It's a weekly poll.) These swings may even be early harbingers of swings in the wider public. It will be interesting to see.

We inadvertently left off Ron Paul from our Republican candidate list and will add him next week - Fred Thompson also, whose name has been bandied about. We didn't think it fair to either of them to add them midweek. We'll also be keeping an eye out for third party candidates as they surface.

UPDATE: Ed Morrissey has persuaded me that a Bill Richardson candidacy could be formidable. Perhaps his numbers are no accident.

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The charge that Obama (the tall one) attended a madrassa as a young boy in Indonesia has being IED'd by none other than CNN.

My understanding was that the information came through the Clintonians and did not originate on Fox.

I'm actually starting to feel sorry for Barak Hussein Obama. Over time, I guess I will have to control my sensitive side.

Richardson has established an affable public persona and ingratiated himself with Republicans with his low tax rhetoric. But anyone familiar with New Mexico politics knows Richardson is a mean, vindictive man who never forgets a grudge and never fails to punish anyone who crosses him. This has generated some skeletons, along with his well-known and longstanding skirt-chasing ways (he is married.)Republicans like him because of his rhetoric about prosperity without raising taxes. They don't know that New Mexico receives enormous sums (for the size of the state) in oil and gas severance taxes that allow the government there to spend all it wants without raising income taxes. Beware extrapolating such success to the federal level.

None of this has yet emerged, because Richardson is off the radar screen pretty much, so far. But it will.

I am no Democrat, but I rather like Bill Richardson. He appears (and to freetotem's point, there is a lot of vetting left to do) pretty reasonable and affable. By comparison to the rest of the Democratic candidates Richardson appears at least rational. I just can't bear to hear Hillary screech at the top of her lungs for two years leading up to the election. She gives thoughtful women a bad name and comes across as having PMS all the time. Obama is going to have a tough time with the black vote, particularly with the Al Sharpton's of the world. It is really sad, but black voters would rather line up behind someone who is shrill and uses the race card rather than support someone who can win the general election by not pandering. It's a conundrum that will be interesting to see play out.

It's really too bad that for irrelevant reasons Jeb Bush probably couldn't win the nomination but I wouldn't rule out him running.
He is a thoughtful, able man with an excellent record as governor of Florida and it's inexplicable stupidity that the likes of Hill and Obama are taken seriously while he isn't even given a spare thought.
[Maybe the poker playing runs in the family and he's keeping his cards close to his chest]

January 24, 2007: Analyzing the votes in the PJM Presidential Straw Poll

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