Hillary Down, Huckabee Up, O'Reilly admits defeat

In the CNN Polls, released Nov-5; Mike Huckabee was up and Hillary Clinton was down.

To be fair, Clinton (in addition to being pre-coronated president by the left-wing media) was still first among Democrats, although her ranking fell from 51% in Oct to 44% in November. The really amazing thing is that the very next day, CNN posted a story questioning the value of polls this far from the election. The result was that three places above the CNN link titled "Poll: Clinton's Support Slips", was another reading "Analysis: Polls poor predictors."

One would think such a "coincidence" to be a big enough show of Clintonian bias, but apparently it wasn't a massive enough display for CNN. The latter story seems to promise a tale of general polling inaccuracies this far out; But in a flip flop on the scale of Hillary's recent responses on giving driver's licenses to illegal immigrants, CNN basically says that Hillary's coronation by the Democrats is already assured. They then claim the Republicans are in for a "topsy-turvy year."

In that at least, it seems they may be right. The only constant in Republican polling seems to be Rudy Giuliani as the national front-runner; at least so far. But one detail in the CNN poll results tends to confirm the vulnerability of Rudy's lead that has been speculated about in other places. Rudy is reported to still lead among Republicans with 28%. CNN also gleefully reports that 18% of Republicans intend to defect to a Pro-Life third-party, if Giuliani takes the GOP nomination; in an apparent repeat of the Ross Perot scenario (over Bush 41's "no-new-taxes" and "new-world-order") that put Bill Clinton in power.

Meanwhile, the CNN poll showing Mike Huckabee at 10% seems to have been the proof Bill O'Reilly was waiting for. Despite the fact that Huckabee has been between in double digits in the Rasmussen national tracking polls since October 25th, O'Reilly finally conceded on his program Tuesday evening that he owes Dick Morris a steak dinner as the winner of their dispute over whether those polled would ever "like Mike" enough for the "other man from Hope" to reach the 10% milestone.

By some coincidence (or could it be Providence), adding the 18% of dedicated pro-life voters to Huckabee's 10% equals (you guessed it) Rudy's 28%. Of it's likely that some of the 18% are already Huckabee supporters. But the total percentage for candidates at least generally seen as social conservatives is 40% (19% Thompson, 11% Romney, 10% Huckabee). In a poll run by strongly liberal CNN, that's saying a lot.

After Iowa and New Hampshire primaries, social conservatives will probably gravitate toward the one of those three who is the best combination of getting the highest percentage of votes in Iowa (the more conservative of the two states), has the most consistent record as a social conservative, and is the most motivating speaker. So which highly motivating speaker both has the most solid record as a social conservative and is currently polling very well in Iowa? Mike Huckabee of course; and in the Rasmussen polls (historicaly more reliable than CNN's), he's currently in 3rd and moving up, with Thompson showing a significant downward trend and Romney somewhere between stagnant and a slow decline.

If these trends continue, CNN's postulation of Rudy's nomination and an ultimate Hillary victory will be a poor poll prediction indeed. In Huckabee, Pro-life voters would get a President determined not only to appoint judges fair to their cause (to which Rudy gives lip-service), but to actively urge congress to pass pro-life laws. I hope Dick Morris enjoys his steak dinner. O'Reilly certainly made Huckabee work for it!