Pollster Frank Luntz conducted in depth focus groups in Iowa and New Hampshire in June and August, bringing people together to listen to most of the potential 2008 candidates. The results are interesting, as Patrick Hynes of Ankle Biting Pundits reports:
Anyone who has ever taken part in a focus group will tell you what a surreal experience it can be. Nevertheless, focus groups often yield far more useful information than polls; they are qualitative rather than quantitative, so things like name ID have less impact on the results, and so forth.
Republican pollster Frank Luntz is well known for his focus groups and his clever, sometimes imaginative, analyses of them. Luntz recently conducted focus groups of Republican voters in Iowa and New Hampshire "to find out what Republican primary voters will be looking for in a presidential candidate." His results: John McCain and Newt Gingrich scored very high, Rudy Giuliani is beloved but faces issues problems, Mitt Romney faces religion problems, George Allen turns women off, and Bill Frist doesn't appear comfortable in his own skin.Here's the line on John McCain, whose Straight Talk America PAC is my client:
Read more at the link above.
I find the results surprising. McCain's strength was perhaps expected - the odd thing about Iowa and New Hampshire is that they are in no way representative of the rest of the country, especially on the Republican side. But Gingrich scoring so well is startling, and the problems facing Allen, Guiliani, and Romney are perhaps more pressing than I had supposed.
That Frist is going nowhere likely surprises no one, though.
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Iowa, McCain, New Hampshire, Polls, Rudy
