ALBANY - Not since Franklin Delano Roosevelt has a New Yorker been elected president and yet another poll out just days ago showed not one, but two Empire State political celebrities at the top of the heap among potential 2008 White House contenders.
The Marist College Institute for Public Opinion/WNBC-TV national poll released Thursday showed Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton well ahead of her potential rivals for the Democratic nomination and Rudy Giuliani, the former New York City mayor, as the co-favorite with Sen. John McCain of Arizona for the Republican nomination.
It has been that way for months in one national poll after another.
The Marist poll did highlight the problems facing Giuliani and Clinton - Republican primary voters may reject his past support for abortion, gay rights and gun control and Democrats will need to set aside concerns about whether Clinton can be elected.
Giuliani has already created a presidential exploratory committee, has a Dec. 19 fundraising event scheduled in New York City and announced Tuesday that he has hired Sandra Pack, a major fundraiser for President Bush. Clinton has begun consulting with fellow Democrats across the country about her possible presidential run and is hiring extra staff to run such a campaign if she goes ahead with it.
Besides those two, Gov. George Pataki is actively considering a run for the 2008 presidential nomination and Democrat Al Sharpton has not ruled out running again. There is also continued speculation that current New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a billionaire Democrat-turned-Republican, might be an independent candidate for president.
While New York has had potential presidential contenders in recent decades - the late Nelson Rockefeller and Mario Cuomo, among others - none has made the cut or even captured a party nomination since Republican Gov. Thomas Dewey lost the 1948 presidential race. Back then, of course, New York was still the most populous state in the nation and, in politics, people often translate into power. The state now ranks third in population behind California and Texas with Florida a close fourth.
And, as the country turned generally more conservative, New York was increasingly seen as the bastion of liberalism.
Marist pollster Lee Miringoff said several factors have come together in the run-up to 2008 to change the equation, not the least of which are the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 that brought down the World Trade Center towers and left almost 3,000 people dead.
“After 9/11, things changed and one of the things that changed was the image of New York,” Miringoff said. “For people like Rudy Giuliani, and to a lesser degree George Pataki, that did create a national presence for them.”
Giuliani's calm, post-Sept. 11 leadership style left him as “America's Mayor” at a time when the nation's concern over security became an overriding issue. His potential candidacy and Pataki's possible run seemed grounded on that remaining the case.
For Clinton, it was a matter of fate.
In truth, had the late Democrat Daniel Patrick Moynihan not decided in late 1998 not to seek another Senate term in 2000, Clinton might never have moved to New York and run for his Senate seat.
“The fact that Hillary Clinton ended up in New York is circumstance,” said Miringoff.
Giuliani, Clinton, Pataki, Sharpton and Bloomberg are also helped by the fact that New York City remains the media and financial capital of the world. They get plenty of attention simply because they are readily available to the media. Equally important is the access to the big bank accounts that fuel the political system.
Polls can, of course, be notoriously unreliable this far ahead of an election. It was a reliance on pre-election polls that contributed in large part to the now famous photograph from 1948 of President Harry Truman holding aloft the Chicago Daily Tribune with its front-page headline: “Dewey Defeats Truman.”
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Marc Humbert has covered New York state politics for The Associated Press for more than 25 years. He can be reached via e-mail at: mhumbert(at)ap.org.
AP-ES-12-09-06 1115EST
It has been that way for months in one national poll after another.
The Marist poll did highlight the problems facing Giuliani and Clinton - Republican primary voters may reject his past support for abortion, gay rights and gun control and Democrats will need to set aside concerns about whether Clinton can be elected.
Giuliani has already created a presidential exploratory committee, has a Dec. 19 fundraising event scheduled in New York City and announced Tuesday that he has hired Sandra Pack, a major fundraiser for President Bush. Clinton has begun consulting with fellow Democrats across the country about her possible presidential run and is hiring extra staff to run such a campaign if she goes ahead with it.
Besides those two, Gov. George Pataki is actively considering a run for the 2008 presidential nomination and Democrat Al Sharpton has not ruled out running again. There is also continued speculation that current New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a billionaire Democrat-turned-Republican, might be an independent candidate for president.
While New York has had potential presidential contenders in recent decades - the late Nelson Rockefeller and Mario Cuomo, among others - none has made the cut or even captured a party nomination since Republican Gov. Thomas Dewey lost the 1948 presidential race. Back then, of course, New York was still the most populous state in the nation and, in politics, people often translate into power. The state now ranks third in population behind California and Texas with Florida a close fourth.
And, as the country turned generally more conservative, New York was increasingly seen as the bastion of liberalism.
Marist pollster Lee Miringoff said several factors have come together in the run-up to 2008 to change the equation, not the least of which are the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 that brought down the World Trade Center towers and left almost 3,000 people dead.
“After 9/11, things changed and one of the things that changed was the image of New York,” Miringoff said. “For people like Rudy Giuliani, and to a lesser degree George Pataki, that did create a national presence for them.”
Giuliani's calm, post-Sept. 11 leadership style left him as “America's Mayor” at a time when the nation's concern over security became an overriding issue. His potential candidacy and Pataki's possible run seemed grounded on that remaining the case.
For Clinton, it was a matter of fate.
In truth, had the late Democrat Daniel Patrick Moynihan not decided in late 1998 not to seek another Senate term in 2000, Clinton might never have moved to New York and run for his Senate seat.
“The fact that Hillary Clinton ended up in New York is circumstance,” said Miringoff.
Giuliani, Clinton, Pataki, Sharpton and Bloomberg are also helped by the fact that New York City remains the media and financial capital of the world. They get plenty of attention simply because they are readily available to the media. Equally important is the access to the big bank accounts that fuel the political system.
Polls can, of course, be notoriously unreliable this far ahead of an election. It was a reliance on pre-election polls that contributed in large part to the now famous photograph from 1948 of President Harry Truman holding aloft the Chicago Daily Tribune with its front-page headline: “Dewey Defeats Truman.”
---
Marc Humbert has covered New York state politics for The Associated Press for more than 25 years. He can be reached via e-mail at: mhumbert(at)ap.org.
AP-ES-12-09-06 1115EST
