Newsday.com: Poll: Hillary tops McCain, ties Rudy:
BY GLENN THRUSH Newsday Washington Bureau December 18, 2006, 11:28 PM EST WASHINGTON — Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton beats John McCain and ties Rudolph Giuliani in a new Newsweek national poll, a stunning counterpoint to recent surveys showing the former first lady trailing the GOP’s dueling presidential frontrunners. The poll, taken earlier this month, shows Clinton besting McCain 50 to 43 percent among 1,000 registered voters nationwide. It also showed her in a dead heat with McCain among independents, a group that has proven stubbornly resistant to her centrist message. Clinton leads Giuliani — her onetime Senate nemesis — by a 48 to 47 margin, a technical tie that falls within the poll’s 4 percent margin of error. Clinton came within a hair’s breadth of renouncing her October 2002 vote authorizing the Iraq invasion Monday, telling NBC “Today” show anchor Meredith Vieira that she wouldn’t have voted yes if President George W. Bush had leveled with the American people about Saddam Hussein’s limited weapons arsenal.
“If we knew then what we know now there certainly wouldn’t have been a vote and I wouldn’t have voted that way,”
said Clinton, who has been working the TV chat circuit promoting the 10th anniversary reissue of her book, “It Takes a Village.” The Newsweek numbers on the head-to-head presidential matchups were not publicized by the magazine. They appeared in a press release on the magazine’s Web site but weren’t included in a Clinton-Barack Obama cover story, which focused on whether Americans were receptive to black or female presidential candidates. A Newsweek editor said the poll matchups were not pertinent to the cover story. Most recent polls show Clinton trailing both Republican frontrunners by substantial margins; A Los Angeles Times / Bloomberg survey last week showed McCain leading by a 50-to-36 percent gap — with Clinton trailing even worse among independent voters. Newsweek’s poll showed Clinton, who has hinted she’ll announce White House plans early next year, with a healthy 50-to-32 percent lead over Obama in a potential primary matchup among Democrats. Still, there was plenty of good news for the Illinois senator, who was in a statistical tie with McCain and Giuliani in head-to-head matchups.
::Tullycast:: 