Here’s a story the mainstream media has missed so far. The most important presidential primary this year may be New York’s and not just because it’s been moved up to February 5th.
Why? Because the leading contender in each party is from New York.
While this fact will scare off most challengers from seriously contesting New York, it also presents an audacious challenger with a rare opportunity.
Beat Hillary or Rudy in New York and you knock them out of the race and establish yourself as the presumptive nominee.
Let’s talk about Rudy. He has no presence at all in upstate NY. He came to Buffalo twice, grabbed some fat cat money and never spoke to a real person. He even refused to speak to the media on one trip.
Eighty percent of the Republican vote is outside of New York City and sixty percent is upstate.
The most recent Siena College poll in July had Rudy at only 40% with 21% undecided.
Turnout is traditionally extremely low in the Republican primary so a vigorous campaign by Ron Paul could carry the day.
The other candidates, lacking real grassroots support, have to allocate their scarce resources to early states such as Iowa and New Hampshire for fear that they will drop out after a poor showing. However, because Ron has real grassroots support everywhere, he can run vigorous campaigns in all the early states and drive his resource and volunteer-starved opponents crazy.
New York is a “closed primary”. The last day to switch parties to vote for the candidate of your choice is October 12th.
The last day for new voters to register is January 11th.
9:36 am on September 16, 2007
