In the week in which a future defense secretary announced that an Iranian nuclear attack on Israel is possible, we asked our panel two questions on the candidates and Iran.
First, we asked them if they thought there was any connection between the advancement of the peace process and finding a solution to stop the Iranian nuclear program, and second, whether they believed the candidates would use military force against Iran as a last resort as to prevent Tehran from acquiring the means with which to threaten Israel (and not just Israel).
This is not the first time that we have asked the second question (we asked it in our first survey some three months ago) and the most notable fact in the responses this time was the decline in the marks given to most of the candidates.
In the first survey, Giuliani scored 8.26 for this question, but this time only got 6.63; McCain first scored 7.58 but this time got 6.68; Clinton was at 4.89 and is now on 4.56; Gore scored 4.70 and this time got 3.78. The panel, obviously, is more sober in its assessment of possible American attack on Iran irrespective of who the next president may be.
But there are some other interesting elements in the scoring for the questions on Iran. The marks the panel gave the candidates on this specific question are a pretty good indication of the general rankings. And here are some examples:
The three candidates "best for Israel" - Giuliani, Gingrich and McCain - are the only ones who got more than 6 on the question of force against Iran. Those who ranked less than 4 on the "linkage" question are those who fared generally well with the panel as a whole (McCain is the exception here - he got 4.25 on the linkage question).
But you can also look at specific candidates to see the significance of these questions. Take Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, for example.
Rice is losing ground with the panel in general. She was fairly near the leaders in the first poll, with a score of 6.75 (and ranked ninth), but then started to slump - first to 12th place (with a score of 6.25), then to 15th (with 5.75), and although in this last survey she remains in 15th place, she only has a score of 5.25. One could also argue that 15th out of 20, as she is now, is worse than 15th out of 23, as she was last month.
But why is her star fading? There are many possible explanations, but her stance on Iran - or her perceived stance on the feasibility of military action against Iran - is one possible clue.
In the first survey, Rice scored 5.5 on this question - this time, however, she got only 4.25, the lowest score of every Republican except for Hagel (obviously) and Huckabee (the panelists can't see a candidate with no national security background making such a decision).
And you can see the same pattern with the elevation of Bill Richardson (in our survey, not yet in real life) to the top tier of "good for Israel" candidates. For the second time, Richardson is now the number 2 Democrat after Hillary Clinton (a position he took from Al Gore). But for the first time, Richardson is also the number 5 candidate overall, moving ahead of George Pataki.
Why is that? Again, look to the questions on Iran: Richardson ranked, alongside Clinton, as the second highest on the military option question (the leading Democrat is the one general in the group, Wesley Clark). On the linkage question Richardson ranked the lowest among Democrats - and the third lowest overall. Lowest, in the eyes of the panel, is apparently best, as it means you don't make the link. No wonder the panel ranked him so highly.
Related articles:
Survey Results: Week ending 09/12/06
What is the The Israel Factor?
|
