We’re posting data today from a new poll today called the Reason-Rupe Poll. The poll is part of a project from the Reason Foundation to measure attitudes toward government.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney holds a 20 percent to 18 percent edge over Texas Gov. Rick Perry among Republicans and Republican-leaning voters in the latest Reason-Rupe Public Opinion Survey.

Two potential candidates not currently in the race, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (12%) and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani (8%), placed third and fourth among Republicans asked to name whom they would favor if the GOP primary were held today. They were followed by Rep. Michele Bachmann (8%), Rep. Ron Paul (7%), Herman Cain (4%), Newt Gingrich (3%), former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty (2%, but no longer in the race), former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman (1%), former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum (<1%), and former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson (<1%). Approximately 16% of Republican voters are undecided.

Emily Ekins, Reason Foundation polling director, discusses findings of the poll:

Responses to “If you were voting today in the 2012 Republican presidential primary, which one of the following candidates would you favor?”

Mitt Romney 20%
Rick Perry 18%
Sarah Palin 12%
Rudy Giuliani 8%
Michelle Bachmann 8%
Ron Paul 7%
Herman Cain 4%
Newt Gingrich 3%
Tim Pawlenty 2%
Jon Huntsman 1%
Rick Santorum <1%
Gary Johnson <1%
Undecided 16%

(emphasis added) Additional info here.

► Jayde Wyatt

Check out Mitt handle a tough question in the video posted below the fold Read more…

A new state poll conducted by the University of New Hampshire shows Mitt Romney continues to widen the gap in The Granite State and would defeat Obama:

The Daily Caller:

WMUR Granite State poll:

Mitt Romney – 35%
Michele Bachman – 12%
Rudy Giuliani – 7%
Ron Paul – 7%
Rick Perry – 4%
Sarah Palin – 3%
Tim Pawlenty – 3%
Herman Cain – 2%
Jon Huntsman Jr. – 2%
Newt Gingrich – 1%

BELOW 1%:
Gary Johnson
Buddy Roemer
Rick Santorum

General election:

Mitt Romney 47% Barack Obama 43%
Barack Obama 47% Tim Pawlenty 38%
Barack Obama 47% Michele Bachmann 41%

Romney would beat Obama in a head-to-head competition, the poll found, surveying both Republicans and Democrats. The former Massachusetts governor got 47 percent of the vote, while Obama got only 43 percent.

Palin and Newt Gingrich top the list of candidates that Republican voters “would not vote for under any circumstances.” 23 percent said they would never vote for Palin, and 16 percent said they would never vote for Gingrich.

The poll surveyed 773 people – 357 likely Republican primary voters and 263 likely Democratic primary voters. The margin of error for the full sample is plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

(emphasis added)

The Gov’s schedule today:

● Mitt Romney
Hosting a townhall meeting at Bayside Grill and Tavern
51 Mill Street, Wolfeboro, N.H.

● Mitt Romney
Participating in a roundtable discussion with small business owners
325 Lafayette Road, Hampton, N.H.

Romney talks economy in visit to Hampton

HAMPTON – Presidential hopeful and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney met with locals from Hampton Tuesday, July 5, to talk about what he claims are failed policies of President Obama that have worsened the economy, and about what he would do if elected president.

Romney met with roughly a dozen residents and business owners during a lunch at the Galley Hatch to hear what they consider the biggest barriers to a thriving economy.

Those in attendance talked about how the economy has impacted their businesses and some said they even fear of the country heading into a double-dip recession.

Romney said if elected president he would concentrate on seven areas to reinvigorate the economy including having tax rates for employers that are competitive with other countries, and trade policies that work “for us and not just the people we trade (with).”
[...]
State Rep. Chris Nevins, R-Hampton, said he was impressed with Romney.

“I really believe this man has the capability to be the next president of the United States. His business background, intelligence, experience history all point to that direction,” said Nevins.

(emphasis added)

Continue reading here.

The Business Insider picked up on Romney’s seven rules of successful economies:

Romney lays down what he describes as seven rules of successful economies.

1. Make employer tax rates competitive, to attract businesses. He argues that U.S. corporate tax rates are now the second-highest in the world after Japan and must come down. (This does not include the state tax burden, which puts the U.S. over the top in most states.)

2. Streamline regulations and create a bureaucracy geared to cooperating with the private sector.

3. Embrace fair trade policies, and work to eliminate unacceptable infractions, such as China’s persistently undervalued currency and theft of intellectual property.

4. Energy policy must be practical; no country should be spending money needlessly on energy imports.

5. Any successful country must have an unquestioned rule of law.

6. Immigration and education policies must ensure the availability of extraordinary human capital.

7. A government should not be spending more than it takes in.

How does the president score on these guidelines?

Read more here.

Romney’s townhall meeting in Wolfeboro, NH today:



H/t Crystal (The Business Insider article)

► Jayde Wyatt

You heard it here, folks. Just before the Jets beat the Patriots out of the NFL playoffs, their owner was Mitt Romney’s travel buddy. POLITICO reports:

New York Jets owner Woody Johnson, the Johnson & Johnson heir and a prominent support of Mitt Romney, traveled to Israel with Romney last week after his team beat the Colts in Indianapolis, a person familiar with the trip said.

Johnson joined Romney in meetings Wednesday and Thursday with Israeli officials, then flew back to the States in time to see the Jets beat the Patriots Sunday.

It’s worth noting that Johnson is a former McCain guy who put together a fundraiser that brought in $7 million on a single night for a McCain’s camp, which at that time was in dire need of a financial boost.

Another interesting side-note: Woody Johnson was on a conference call with other deep-pocketed Romney supporters back in November. On the call, Johnson made a point that many, many former McCain and Giuliani supporters in the Tri-state area were ready and willing to jump behind a Romney bid — they just needed the go-ahead from Mitt and they’d be ready to open the Rolodex and make some calls. To which Mitt graciously replied something along these lines: “Wow. That’s great… I appreciate that.”


-Aaron Gundy- Follow @AaronGundy on Twitter

Embedded below are the speeches for Romney, Huckabee, Giulinani, and Palin.

Romney:

Huckabee:



Giuliani:



Palin:

With rousing convention speech, Palin becomes a force in McCain candidacy

~Nate Gunderson

Click here to view the whole transcript.

Topics discusses: The ‘Are Jesus and Satan Brothers?’ issue, the WV primary convention, the RNC convention, acceptability of Veep candidates, and a possible hurricane in New Orleans during the RNCC. The transcript also has a caller afterwards who says Huck is flat out lying about what happened in WV.

I was only able to skim the transcript. Does anyone who listened to it have some thoughts on it?

~Nate Gunderson

Recap by Lizzie (thank you for doing this):

I heard it. Rush pretty much asserted that McCain and Huckabee combined against Romney in WV. Huckabee said, not so, it was Ron Paul’s group that did it. I wasn’t sure if Rush was doubtful when Huckabee explained how the WV thing went, or if he was “set straight”. But, I do recall one thing of note. Rush said, I had no idea that is how the thing came down. Then Mike said, well that’s how it was, I know because I was there. Then Rush seemed to have a “knowing” sound to his voice, like, “oh, you were there, and you want me to really believe you had nothing to do with it.”

Of course, I’m just remembering this, I didn’t read the transcript. And it could be that I wanted to believe that that is what Rush was insinuating. It was a very veiled comment, but I thought that was the underlying thought.

I was happy that Rush defended Mitt when Huck was saying Mitt went all negative in his campaign. Rush said, yeah, so what, that’s just politics and you and McCain gained up on Romney yourselves. That’s what started the whole WV topic I believe.

Just read the article about Romney helping McCain so much in Florida. It seems like Romney would help signigficantly in several states. So what is all this talk about Kay Bailey Hutchison? Is that a decoy, or is McCain foolish enough to pass on the guy most people want for VP?

The Plank’s Ben Wasserstein assesses Giuliani’s campaign strategy and arguments of inevitability:

I don’t buy the arguments in the Giuliani campaign’s recent conference call outlining their candidate’s inevitable path to the Republican nomination–and not for the reasons suggested by the Romney campaign. On The Stump, Noam Scheiber argues that if Romney comes out ahead in the early primary states, Mitt could start picking up states in the Midwest and West, even Florida, Rudy’s supposed “firewall.” But another looming problem, seemingly unaddressed in campaign’s conference call, is the South. If Fred Thompson continues his swan dive, while Rudy keeps playing the supposed-frontrunner-who-gets-beaten, isn’t it possible that a high-spending family man like Romney could make a play in states like Mississippi and Virginia? Someone’s got to get those voters who are fleeing from Fred–why not the guy with the momentum? And with the RNC granting additional delegates to states that have voted red, Dixie has disproportionate clout. Maybe Giuliani can get away with basically ignoring Iowa and conceding first place in New Hampshire, but if Romney makes a strong showing in the South, he won’t get very far at all.

(One more note: On the call, Rudy’s aides reportedly said that they feel good about their current second-place position in New Hampshire. What if McCain keeps climbing?)

I think Wasserstein has the right idea. Giuliani’s projections assume a static situation once voting begins. As Justin’s historical example of Mo Udall shows, there is little predictability once you get past the early states. Votes will be fluid up until the day to vote based on voter assessment of the race at that time. That’s one of the reasons why winning early and often is so important: voters’ conceptions of the candidates and the dynamics of the race can change quickly (due in part to free media reports of how the voting went). The candidates gain a reputation and sense of viability based on performance. The race is, thus, more fluid than what can be gained from looking at polling in states that don’t vote until February.

In a sense, the Giuliani campaign is trying to (if you’ll permit a sports metaphor) flip a switch for the playoffs. He figures that the early states don’t really matter and that he can somehow shift gears at a later date. The logic for that kind of argument, especially in electoral politics, is flawed to say the least.

Is nothing sacred? Former New York Mayor, Rudy Giuliani is a self-professed Yankee fan. Last week he even joked about making Joe Torre his running mate. Yesterday in Boston, when asked who he was rooting for in the World Series, Giuliani stated,

“I’m rooting for the Red Sox”.

This is a pathetically obvious pandering for votes which no true Red Sox fan/voter would ever fall for. This is the biggest flip-flop in political history. Yankees fans are enraged. Giuliani has been known for his questionable loyalty in the past however as his ex-wife, Donna Hanover, accused him of “notorious adultery” during their divorce proceedings. What’s next? Is he going to start cheering “Yankees Suck” at the Republican Convention?

Mitt Romney would NEVER, EVER root for the Yankees in any game ever played. The Romney campaign’s response to the scandal?

“I guess if Colorado wants Mayor Giuliani to root for the Rockies, they’re going to have to move their primary up.”

This leaves carpet-bagger Hillary Clinton as the only “true” Yankee fan in the race even though she grew up in Chicago.

Go Sox!

Scott Allan

The AFA (American Family Association), one of the largest social conservative advocacy groups, just sent out a poll to its massive email list (P. Ruffini estimates its to be about 3.2 million – surpassing MoveOn.org).

Here’s a quick snapshot of the email I received:

click to enlarge

The poll currently (found here) is running 25 to 1 against Rudy.

Together with the Dobson slam… is this the SoCon death knell for Rudy? Will FRC weigh in more heavily? Or does this demonstrate the waning influence of the SoCons as they vie for their key issues among of host of unknown and unfriendly Presidential candidates?

Ramesh Ponnuru at The Corner this evening:

So I finally read Wayne Barrett’s Giuliani takedown in the Village Voice (I linked to it a while ago). It goes through Giuliani’s five big lies about 9/11. The first three are, if true, pretty devastating. It appears that Barrett’s reporting was pretty meticulous. But he does have an axe to grind —see this Barrett hit on Giuliani’s personal life, for example—so I’m not sure whether he is leaving anything out that exculpates Giuliani.

Having thus far read through the first three (out of five) topics, and even keeping in mind that there is no love lost between Barrett and the former Mayor, devastating is exactly the word I would choose for it. It will be interesting to see whether Team Giuliani addresses these concerns head on, or hopes they can worry about it after the GOP primary.

• From abortion to nuclear pork projects, Thompson’s lobbying record leaves much to be desired for conservatives. Kenneth Vogel over at the Politico has the extensive details on the nuclear blemish on Thompson’s bona fides.

• Rich Lowry says it’s quittin’ time for Sam Brownback.

• “It sounds like an effort by Giuliani to make himself seem like a hawk on immigration when, in fact, he’s been a dove all along,” the executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, Mark Krikorian, said. More here.

• So how is Huckabee taking advantage of his surprising second-place straw poll finish? Apparently courting the media instead of voters.