2008 Presidential Poll

Tue Sep 18, 2007 at 03:11:23 PM EST

Two new polls out of New Hampshire show Hillary Clinton expanding her lead over Barack Obama, John Edwards stable in third place, and Bill Richardson climbing into double digits hot on Edwards’s heels. The polls in question are the new Rasmussen Poll (500 Dem Primary LVs, September 16) and the latest Franklin Pierce University/WBZ poll (403 Dem Primary LVs, September 11–14, MOE +/- 4.9%.) The past Franklin Pierce polls have Gore in the race, so I’m including no trendlines.

Interesting that the New Hampshire numbers, unlike Iowa, are fairly consistent with the national primary numbers (except for Richardson who does significantly better here than he does nationally.)

This Rasmussen analysis gives more context for why we’re seeing the results we are:

Thirty-nine percent (39%) of New Hampshire Primary voters say Clinton is the candidate of change. Twenty-five percent (25%) say that label applies to Obama and 16% see Edwards as the candidate of change. There is a significant gender gap on this point. By a 43% to 23% margin, women see Clinton rather than Obama as the candidate. Men are evenly divided between those candidates Twenty-four percent (24%) of New Hampshire’s Democratic Primary voters would not want Barack Obama to win the Democratic nomination. Twenty percent (20%) say the same about both Clinton and Edwards. Twenty-nine percent (29%) say any of the those three candidates are acceptable. Once again, a gender gap is visible—28% of men do not want Clinton to win the nomination while only 15% of women hold that view.

And from Frankllin Pierce, Clinton is favored on Iraq, well above her rivals. Most interestingly, Bill Richardson is seen as more credible on Iraq than John Edwards.

Democratic primary voters were asked to identify the candidate who they think is most qualified to handle the situation in Iraq. One-third of voters (33%) identified Hillary Clinton as the most qualified candidate, far more than Barack Obama (10%), Bill Richardson (10%), Joe Biden (8%) or John Edwards (7%). Twenty-three percent of Democratic primary voters are unsure who is most qualified to handle the situation in Iraq.

For this article and more visit www.mydd.com

Fred Thompson courted Cuban-Americans during his stop today in the Miami area. He came down hard on Castro, and let Cuban-Americans know that as President he would stay close to their leaders and be a firm advocate for their concerns:

Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson blamed Democratic rival Hillary Rodham Clinton on Friday for the publicity surrounding his remark suggesting Cuban immigrants are bringing suitcase bombs to the United States.

When asked by Florida’s WTVJ about the perception in the Cuban-American community about his comments, Thompson replied, “I think that was a Hillary Clinton news release that she put out or a statement that she made trying to capitalize on something when she knew better.”

During a trip to South Carolina in June, Thompson was talking about illegal immigration from Cuba and elsewhere and said, “I don’t imagine they’re coming here to bring greetings from Castro. We’re living in the era of the suitcase bomb.”

A day later, he posted an explanation on his Web site, saying he was referring to Cuban spies, not immigrants. Nevertheless, Democrats, including Clinton, assailed him for not understanding Cuban-Americans.

The Clinton campaign didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

On Friday, Thompson said, “Castro is a state sponsor of terrorism. Our own State Department has said that. Any state sponsor of terrorism should not be allowed to send people across the Mexican border into our country illegally. It’s just that simple.”

Earlier, Radio Mambi programming director Armando Perez-Roura told Thompson that candidates come to Miami’s Little Havana, drink Cuban coffee at the Versailles restaurant and declare their support for a free Cuba. Yet little has changed in Cuba under President Fidel Castro. He asked how Thompson can show he’ll do more than just provide rhetoric.

Thompson replied that he was a friend of Cuban-Americans during his eight years as a Tennessee senator and visited the region.

“I understand the price that you have paid. I know your leaders. One of the things that I would do is stay in close contact with your leaders and especially those in Florida,” Thompson said. “The first thing that any president would have to do is recognize the reality. And in this case it’s the reality of the fact that Castro is a dictator and he suppresses his own people.”

For this article and more FOXNews.com

Fred Thompson is barely a week into his official presidential election campaign, and he’s off to a flying start, according to new data from Hitwise.

Fred08.com was the most visited site among presidential candidates for the week ending September 8, 2007, claiming an impressive 34.73% market share. Obama was second (13.49%) with Ron Paul claiming third with 12.88%.

While Fred Thompson’s numbers out of the gate are impressive, it’s hardly surprising that his site was the most visited–considering he had just announced his candidacy. Perhaps more impressive is that Ron Paul is still in the running, thanks in part to his social media efforts. Paul lead the pack in most web site visitors from sites such as MySpace, Facebook, YouTube & Flickr.

Meanwhile, ClickZ reports all candidates were busy sending out emails in August–with both Clinton and Edwards sending out a whopping 15 emails a piece.

Marketing Pilgrim will continue to keep track of the internet marketing efforts of all of the candidates. In the meantime, check out our previous study on the search engine reputation of election candidates.

For this article and more marketingpilgrim.com

Thte former Tennessee senator Fred Dalton Thompson, lobbyist, actor and radio personality will launch his campaign via webcast next Thursday.

“By announcing via webcast, Fred is able to take his consistently mainstream conservative message directly to the voters who are already responding to that message with a strong upwelling of grassroots support,” ” said Bill Lacy, Thompson’s campaign manager in a statement. “The webcast and the following campaign tour will play to Fred’s strengths, a consistent record of conservatism, his ability to clearly spread his message, and his ability to work with and connect with Americans from all walks of life.”

To read more on this visit Wired Blogs 

Presidential candidates use social media to gain voters, Ron Paul is in the lead.

(Based on 4615 random internet users.)