We're Back and ready to Rank... New Republican Rankings for August 7, 2007... Where do they stand?

Well it's been a while and definitely a long time since the last promised update in rankings. Most of you already know the major changes that have taken place since the last ranking came out. Just for a brief overview of the two biggest happenings...
- John McCain had a major meltdown in his campaign when three top campaign leaders, including the Campaign Manager and the Lead Strategist resigned from the campaign.
- Jim Gilmore dropped out of the race and no one has really missed him.

Now for the good stuff...

Republican Presidential Candidate Rankings as of August 7, 2008 (Pre-Ames Straw Poll)

1. Mitt Romney
Well Mitt's use of the almighty dollar puts him at the front of the pack in Iowa and for that case in the race itself. Romney has made sure he is not unknown going into the straw poll. But is Mitt really how Iowa wants? Polls have shown that Romney's message has just not spoke loudly in Iowa. Not nearly as much as his name and face. Lets face the facts, Mitt Romney cleans up well and is an extremely good public speaker and puts out a great image on television looking like a family man who is just another average American, the only part of that, that will come back to bit him is in the Straw Poll and Caucus the voters get to see the candidates in real life and in real life Mitt does not come off anywhere as good as he does on television. Money and popularity have gotten Romney to the top spot, but it is not likely that he will take Iowa just to the fact that Iowans have through out history filtered the phonies out of the race. And that's all Romney is. A pretty talking head phony.

2. Mike Huckabee
Mike Huckabee has been on an unbelievable tear as of late. It looked as if he was about to take a big hit after the second quarter fundraising figures came out. Huckabee had finished in the bottom 3 of Republicans and it looked like his campaign was about to go into panic mode. However Mike had different plans. Just as the name of his latest book, his campaign has risen From Hope to Higher Ground. After the ABC News debate from Iowa it seems as if Huckabee has an excellent chance at not only placing highly at the straw poll, but even winning the poll in Ames. During the Iowa/ABC News Debate Dr. Frank Luntz (one of the nations top political pollsters) used the new real-time dial technology that let's voters give an immediate feedback to what they think about what the candidate is saying. Dr. Luntz said that Huckabee's numbers went through the roof when attacked the Suadi royal family and their involvement and funding of terrorism with money coming from US oil revenue and that America needs to be independent on energy within 10 years. Read this small portion of a Politico.com article...

"At the session’s start, only one participant picked Huckabee as the candidate he or she wanted to win. Nine chose former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, eight were for former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, five were for the absent Fred Thompson, two were for McCain, and the remaining candidates were picked by one or none.
But when it was over, Huckabee had 14 votes, compared with 10 for Romney, three for Giuliani, one for Fred Thompson and one for Rep. Duncan Hunter of California."
Check out the entire article by clicking here.
This is all great news for the Huckabee camp and he is an a great position to be catapulted to the front of the pack after the Iowa Straw Poll this Saturday.

3-t. Rudy Giuliani
The man who started out the campaign as the favorite to sweep through the primaries with out much resistance has had a much rougher time than expected and has fallen from his top spot. He refuses to get down and play primary politics. Giuliani seems to think that meeting voters one on one in Iowa and even on a big scale by way of the Ames Straw Poll and the September YouTube debate is too much work for him and not enough gain. Not only has Giuliani lost hundreds of thousands of potential votes by trying to play primary politics on a national level, he has alienated much of his support in Iowa which is THE most important state in the primaries for Republicans. Does anyone else remember what happened to the last big name candidate who tried to take his campaign to a national level months in advance and then got blown out in the primaries?
It was only four years ago when just that happened to the democrats original favorite, Howard Dean. Dean had money, a popular name, a message that many democrats were in too and so he thought he could skip the entire primary process that has elected our Presidents all through out history and get a seventh month head start on the general election.
I believe Rudy Giuliani will be wishing he would have learned the phrase "If you don't learn history, you are doomed to repeat it." Because it seems like Mayor Giuliani is totally clueless as to what is about to happen to his campaign in the primary states. And that is fail.

3-t. Fred Thompson
Time is running out for Fred Thompson. All depending on how the Ames Iowa Straw Poll turns out he could find himself losing a lot of his popularity. His name being on the ballot may actually hurt him. If he does not finish in the top two and loses to some one who is not Rudy Giulian or John McCain (which is very likely) he will begin to slip as "the candidate everyone wants". If Mike Huckabee wins the Straw Poll it will likely end the chances of Fred Thompson entering the campaign as the favorite. Right now he thrives on being the "true conservative" which is nothing but a myth. A Huckabee win at the Straw Poll would undoubtedly put Mike in the "top tier" and all it would take to find out that Huckabee is much more conservative than Fred is a few minutes on the internet. Not to mention Huckabee beats him out on experience and record. If Fred Thompson wants to be the Republican nominee, he better hope Huckabee has a bad showing at the Ames Straw Poll or he better jump in the race and try to spin his weak record to people. If he does not, his campaign will be nothing but a "what if" by the end of the month.

5. John McCain
As you saw above, McCain's campaign has taken hit, after hit, after hit and it is really starting to show. He has been declared the loser of ever debate, except for the first according to Dr. Frank Luntz, the Fox News pollster mentioned earlier in the rankings. It seems like Immigration (which if you might remember Republican Race '08 predicted it spoiling his chance at winning the nomination) has destroyed his campaign. He too has decided to skip the Iowa Straw Poll this Saturday, but his campaign had no real shot at showing well in the poll and so he backed out to have a reason for his poor showing. He did not fair well in 1999 in the Iowa Straw Poll and that was the beginning of the end of his presidential hopes in '99 and here we are in 2008 and we are near the end of the end of his presidential campaign this year. And once again the Iowa Straw Poll will show how little his support he really has.

6. Tom Tancredo
Who ever thought Tancredo would make it this far? In the last ranking he was ranked dead last behind Jim Gilmore. He has made a surge taking bold stances on not only immigration, but has widened his spectrum to taxes, Congresses high spending and even has a better grip on foreign policy and the War on Terror and Iraq. He has became more and more popular and is now the leader of "the new second tier" and he had an excellent 2nd quarter in fundraising and has used it to get his name out in Iowa. All depending on his showing in the Ames Straw Poll, Congressman Tancredo could be positioning him self as a leading candidate to be the VP nominee.



7. Duncan Hunter
Duncan Hunter has remained a solid name in the "second tier", but he hasn't really picked up a lot of ground. He did not perform well in fundraising and is not really gaining popularity, but he has been staying in about the same place in polls (around 6th-8th)
He has had two great showings at the last two debates and is still impressing and surprising people, but just like all the other candidates he will find out where it has put him in the eyes of the people after the Iowa Straw Poll.




8. Sam Brownback
Brownback has become the red headed step child of the group. He doesn't get any attention and in an attempt to get more attention he has constantly cried about other candidates and has on two attempts, blamed candidates for things they had nothing to do with (most recently the Huckabee camp for a supporters email). He has not been charming nearly as many Iowans as pundits thought he would. Instead he has become a big annoyance for everyone else in the race and has dropped into the attack mode attacking Romney, Giuliani and Huckabee and it has not helped him in the polls at all and according to Dr. Frank Luntz' real-time feedback dials voters have not liked what Sam Brownback has said about some of his fellow candidate and many did not approve of his campaigns attack phone calls to voters regarding Mitt Romney.

9. Tommy Thompson
Mr. Wisconsin is the only man who has remained in his post from the last ranking. Tommy has impressed many people on Health Care, if he would make that the main topic of his campaign he would probably be a lot higher in this ranking, but he has not played his card correctly and here he is, a spot away from dead last and only above Ron Paul.
Thompson has been performing better in the debates, but he still isn't "clicking" with voters and it shows. In most polls he is barely registering and in the ones he has he is no higher than 2%, with the exception of a few where voters mistake him for Fred Thompson.
Tommy's campaign will likely be over a week or two after the Straw Poll.

10. Ron Paul
Well I guess we'll see how many Ron Paul cronies read Republican Race '08! Dr. Paul has lost just about all credibility by resorting to the "neo-conservative" movement and take over of the Republican Party. That phase will end any chance he ever had of pulling an upset. It has been a phrase that has ended many "true conservatives" campaigns all across the nation in many republican states. Fact being you don't call your potential voters a name just about all of them hate to be called. You can not alienate voters and expect to win and Ron Paul has done just that. Alienated Republican voters. You would think a man as educated as Dr. Paul would know how to speak to voters, but yet he doesn't and that lands him in dead-last.


We will update the rankings after the Ames Straw Poll this Saturday. Please check back within the next day or two or subscribe by email (just put your email in the box above to the right and click submit) We will have new articles coming regularly.
To those of you who want to know... I have been moving to my new apartment, in a new state and that has consumed a lot of my time the last month and a half and I have not had a chance to hit the blog on a regular basis.
But Good News... I'M BACK and Republican Race '08 is back to being a regularly updated web site.

Stay tuned for the best coverage on the 2008 Republican Race for the White House!