WASHINGTON — Hillary Rodham Clinton has a better chance than Barack Obama of beating Republican John McCain, according to a new Associated Press-Ipsos poll that bolsters her argument that she is more electable than her Democratic rival.
The survey released Monday gives Clinton a fresh talking point as she works to persuade pivotal undecided superdelegates to side with her in the drawn-out primary fight.
Clinton, who won the Pennsylvania primary last week, has gained ground in a hypothetical head-to-head match up with the Republican nominee-in-waiting. She leads McCain, 50 percent to 41 percent, while Obama remains virtually tied with McCain, 46 percent to 44 percent.
House Republicans prefer McCain-Obama matchup
WASHINGTON — House Republicans would rather Democrats nominate Barack Obama for president because they think Hillary Rodham Clinton would be more of a threat to John McCain among moderate voters, said Rep. Tom Cole, the GOP’s campaign chief.
The Oklahoma Republican said either Democrat is more polarizing than McCain, but it’s Obama’s inexperience and ideological background that would help Republicans most.
“I think he is the weaker (Democratic) candidate,” Cole told reporters Monday.
As chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, Cole is charged with raising money and setting strategy for GOP House candidates in a year in which every member of that chamber, a third of the Senate and the presidency will be on the ballot.
Cole said McCain has a record so bipartisan on issues such as campaign-finance reform that conservatives sometimes find him hard to support. But McCain’s centrist streak appeals to the ideological center, where Cole thinks the congressional and presidential elections could be decided.
Obama “is by any definition very liberal, to the left of Hillary Clinton, in a center-right country,” Cole said. “That is very, very helpful to us.”
Republicans want networks to pull campaign ad
MIAMI — The Republican National Committee demanded Monday that television networks stop running an ad by the Democratic Party that falsely suggests John McCain wants a 100-year war in Iraq.
The ad says President Bush has talked about staying in Iraq for 50 years, then plays a clip of McCain saying, “Maybe 100. That’d be fine with me.” The announcer then says, “If all he offers is more of the same, is John McCain the right choice for America’s future?”
Republican National Committee Chairman Mike Duncan said the ad deliberately distorts what McCain, the likely GOP presidential nominee, said. The committee’s chief counsel, Sean Cairncross, said he sent letters Monday to NBC, CNN and MSNBC insisting that they stop airing the commercial.
At issue is McCain’s answer, in January, to a question about Bush’s theory that troops could be in Iraq for 50 years.
McCain said, “Maybe 100. As long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed, that’d be fine with me, and I hope it would be fine with you, if we maintain a presence in a very volatile part of the world where al-Qaeda is training, recruiting, equipping and motivating people every single day.”
Democratic Party chief Howard Dean said “there’s nothing false” about the ad. “We deliberately used John McCain’s words. This isn’t some ominous consultant’s voice from Washington. This is John McCain’s own words. And we’ve been very upfront about everything that he’s said.”
