What a third party "conservative" candidate could do for the Democrats in November

[Lone_Star_Dem]

I got a kick out of this and thought I'd share.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Texans appear poised to favor Republican front-runner Sen. John McCain over either of the Democratic candidates for president in the general election, a CNN/Opinion Research Poll released Thursday shows.

Assuming McCain is the Republican presidential nominee, 52 percent of poll respondents said they would vote for him, compared with 44 percent for Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, the current Democratic front-runner.

New York Sen. Hillary Clinton fares slightly worse, with 42 percent, compared with 55 percent for McCain.

The results are not a surprise, said CNN polling director Keating Holland. "Texas is a pretty red state."

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/02/21/texas.poll/

This is actually an improvement over 2004 and came as a nice surprise to me. Kerry took 38% with a total of right at 2,800,000 votes.

However, a conservative third-party candidate could skew the results -- and spell trouble for McCain, according to polling results. In that scenario, 19 percent of Texas poll respondents said they would vote for the third-party candidate, 37 percent for McCain and 41 percent for Obama.

If Clinton were the Democratic nominee, 23 percent said they would vote for the third-party candidate, 37 percent for McCain and 38 percent for Clinton.

When you look at what's taking place in the Texas Democratic party right now I think the GOP may be just a wee bit worried.

Early voting in Texas is on track to break records, especially among Democrats. After only two days of early voting, according to data from the Texas Secretary of State, early voting totals after only two days are two-thirds the total after two weeks of early voting in 2004.

Texas is playing a much greater role this time around than in recent presidential races. John Edwards, the last serious challenger to Senator John Kerry, dropped out in the midst of early voting in 2004, on March 3. (President Bush, the former governor, was the Republican presidential nominee.) Data from several counties suggests that Republicans are turning out early at significantly lower levels than Democrats.

2004 Early Voting Totals (in person and by mail) in 15 Counties:
Democrats: 165,985
Republicans: 106,737

2008 Totals as of Feb. 20:
Democrats: 126,895
Republicans: 46,329

By County:
Travis
Democrats
2004: 22,389
2008: 12,860

Republicans
2004: 9,972
2008: 2,674

Bexar
Democrats
2004: 17,135
2008: 14,486

Republicans
2004: 7,235
2008: 5,260

El Paso
Democrats
2004: 15,128
2008: 9,380

Republicans
2004: 3,445
2008: 1,902

Harris
Democrats
2004: 21,907
2008: 19,578

Republicans
2004: 27,592
2008: 8,654

Dallas
Democrats
2004: 13,058
2008: 18,364

Republicans
2004: 8,433
2008: 5,504

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/21/early-voting-in-texas/

I also find myself wondering if in their polling for the GE who exactly are they including. If it's only the usual elimination of all those who did not vote in the last two presidential elections method, they may be underestimating Democratic turnout in an election cycle where Texans feel they've finally gotten a chance to be a relevant.

No matter what, it's a good thing for the Texas Democratic party to see the infusion of new blood.

[NJSecularist]

1. Who is going to be the conservative candidate?

And will he be able to get on the ballot? And be a fairly serious contender.

That is the question.

Is Pat Buchanan available?

[Lone_Star_Dem]

2. They don't actually want a real conservative, they want a nutty icon

They want a Huckabee or someone like him.

Huckster was polling at right at 30% of the Republican vote in Texas last week. Even with McCain being a shoo-in.

It's not getting any real press but Texas Republicans are suffering some problems with division within their party.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

3. If Ron Paul ran third party, he'd pick up all the conservatives votes around here

All I see are Ron Paul signs. No kidding. Haven't seen any signs for any other candidate (and my Kucinich bumper sticker is the only Democratic political bumper sticker I've seen around here, so you know it is a conservative area).

[crispini]

4. Shades of Clinton - Bush - Perot

Hmmmmmmmm:think: