Poll: As Thompson's star fades, Clinton's on the rise

[Janett_Reno]

Poll: As Thompson's star fades, Clinton's on the rise

GOP presidential candidate Fred Thompson dropped 8 points from September

Sen. Hillary Clinton now has a majority of Democrats polled supporting her

Rudy Giuliani continues to lead Republican presidential field

Clinton leads Giuliani by 2 percentage points in poll matchup

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Like i have reported for along time dude, it is Rudy vs Hillary. I do not think your man, Fred Thompson, can catch Rudy. Fred is just to tired to run. Dude, read what i marked in bold and as i report, Rudy pretends to be Republican now and when he get's the nominee he will flop back to sounding like a Democrat, where he can "try" pull Democrat and Republican votes. He won't beat Hillary but why you have thought it was a chance beating Hillary is because you felt the Democrats was not supporting Hillary. They are as you can go look at the numbers. What you have reported that you thought was a Hillary downfall will actually be Rudy's downfall. The Republicans are split all over the place on who they like and in the end, will they all, including Dobson support and rally around Rudy? The Democrats are comming dude and they are and will rally around Hillary. Barbour does help Rudy in the south dude. Is it enough to take TN, KY, Va and other's, not sure. Just remember these need to be red states. Bayh helps Hillary win two very key states in Oh and Pa and possibly a red state in In. Now Barbour could help Rudy in Fl where that state is very close now and an important one. Clark is another very good choice and helps her across many states but does it put her over the top in Oh? Clark will also help Hillary in the south on trying to take a few red states down south. I don't think Fred is going to cut the mustard and you will have to get behind Rudy dude. A long shot vice pres is McCain but at this stage in his career i think it actually hurts the Republcans. He is getting like Fred, tired and forgetful.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/10/...oll/index.html

Fred Thompson got into the Republican race with great expectations. And sure enough, just after he got in last month, polling showed Thompson and Rudy Giuliani were just about tied for front-runner.

But since then, Thompson's taken a lot of flak for alackluster campaign from party activists in Iowa and New Hampshire.

Support for his campaign has also wavered. The new CNN poll by the Opinion Research Corporation released Tuesday shows Thompson's support dropping -- now at 19 percent, down from 27 percent in September.

He's now running second, slightly ahead of Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, who has 17 percent. Giuliani, the former mayor of New York, still leads with 27 percent.

Of the remaining Republican presidential candidates, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney received support from 13 percent of the Republicans polled, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee received 5 percent, Rep. Duncan Hunter of California received 3 percent, Rep. Ron Paul of Texas received 2 percent, Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas received 1 percent and Rep. Tom Tancredo of Colorado received 1 percent.

The poll's margin of error for the Republican race is plus or minus 5 percentage points.Watch what the polls reveal »

On the Democratic side, Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York continues to gain support and build on her lead. She led Sen. Barack Obama by 23 points last month -- 46 percent to 23 percent. She now leads the Illinois senator by 30 points -- 51 percent to 21 percent.

Of the remaining Democratic presidential candidates, former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards received support from 15 percent of the Democrats polled, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson received 4 percent, Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware received 1 percent, Sen. Christopher Dodd of Connecticut received 1 percent, former Alaska Sen. Mike Gravel received 1 percent and Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio received 1 percent.

On this question, former Vice President Al Gore was not included as a candidate.

The margin of error for the Democratic poll was plus or minus 4.5 percentage points.

The poll, conducted by telephone on October 12-14, involved interviews with 1,212 adults, including 485 registered voters who describe themselves as Democrats or as Independents who lean Democratic, and 374 registered voters who describe themselves as Republicans or as Independents who lean Republican.

A majority of Democrats favor Clinton, whereas fewer than a third of Republicans favor their front-runner, Giuliani.

Now that Gore has won the Nobel Peace Prize, there doesn't appear to be a surge of support for him to make a run. Gore came in third among Democrats, at 14 percent -- about the same as last month -- when included in the poll as a potential candidate.

Expectations are building fast. Nearly two-thirds, or 64 percent, of those polled expect Clinton to be the Democratic nominee. That's four times more than those who expect Obama to be the nominee.

Of those polled, who do they expect to win the Republican nomination? Half chose Giuliani. That's nearly four to one over John McCain.

And who do voters expect to win the election? Clinton was chosen by 45 percent. Only 16 percent expect Giuliani to get elected. Nobody else gets more than 10 percent.

Now it's Clinton who faces great expectations. Here's one reason: Asked if they would vote for the Democratic candidate or the Republican candidate for president, voters prefer the Democrat by 13 points.

But when the two front-runners are pitted against each other, Clinton leads Giuliani by just two percentage points, 49 percent to 47 percent, a statistical tie.

The poll's margin of error for general election questions is plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Why would a Clinton-Giuliani matchup be so close? Mainly because Giuliani does eight points better than a generic Republican.

The race between Clinton and Giuliani is close, not because Clinton is weak, but because Giuliani gets a lot more support from moderate and independent voters than a generic Republican candidate.

That's the irony. Giuliani is trying to sound more and more like a typical Republican to get the nomination. But voters don't see him as a typical Republican.