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Poll: Clinton, Clark best Huckabee in potential '08 White House match-ups Friday, Aug 25, 2006 By James Jefferson Arkansas News Bureau LITTLE ROCK - A new poll shows Arkansans favor Democratic Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York over Republican Gov. Mike Huckabee in a potential 2008 race for the White House. The term-limited Huckabee, who is considering a run for GOP presidential nomination when he leaves office early next year after 10 years as governor, also trailed another possible homegrown presidential hopeful, Democrat Wesley Clark, in the poll commissioned by the Arkansas News Bureau-Stephens Media. In poll results released Thursday, 51 percent of respondents said they would vote for Clinton in a head-to-head match-up with Huckabee and 36 percent favored the governor, with 15 percent undecided. Asked about a potential contest between Huckabee and Clark, respondents favored the retired Army General and former NATO commander 51 percent to 37 percent, with 12 percent undecided. Opinion Research Associates Inc. of Little Rock surveyed 500 registered voters - 125 in each of Arkansas' four congressional districts - by telephone Aug. 15-19, and the poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.5 percentage points. Huckabee chided the poll in saying his numbers were encouraging. "Considering the Arkansas News polls having every Republican candidate 20 to 30 points behind the Democrat despite every other poll taken saying the opposite, this would have to be seen as very positive," the governor said. Opinion Research results released this week showed Democrat Mike Beebe 21 points ahead of Republican Asa Hutchinson in the governor's race while other recent polls showed Beebe with a single-digit lead. Also, Democrat Bill Halter led Republican Jim Holt by 25 points in the lieutenant governor's race and Democrat Dustin McDaniel had a 33-point advantage over Republican Gunner DeLay in the race for attorney general. Clinton's office did not return repeated calls seeking comment. Clark, who abandoned a 2004 run for president, was out of the country Thursday. His spokesman, Erick Mullen, called the poll results "affirming, but not too surprising." "Gov. Huckabee serving in public office has had more opportunities to make mistakes and enemies, and Gen. Clark has made fewer of both," Mullen said. "Clearly, Gen. Clark enjoys the advantage of the stature gap that exists between the two men. He is an international statesman as well as a son of Arkansas, and that's tough competition for anybody." Huckabee spokeswoman Alice Stewart said governors make hundreds of tough decisions weekly and that Huckabee has done so for more than 10 years. "To have the remarkable support he has after all that is rather impressive," she said. Hastings Wyman, publisher of the Washington D.C.-based Southern Political Report, said the poll appeared to run counter to the conventional wisdom about the 2008 presidential race. "I would have thought Huckabee would have done better, especially against Hillary Clinton, with the polls I've seen for the South as a whole," Wyman said. "The word has been that the problem with (Clinton) is that she couldn't win, especially in the South. But in Arkansas they know all these people and they may have different views." The Opinion Research poll showed Clinton with the highest favorable ratings among the three possible presidential contenders with 56 percent. Huckabee's favorable rating was 54 percent and Clark's 43 percent. Thirty-seven percent had an unfavorable opinion of Clinton, 35 percent thought unfavorably of Huckabee and 15 percent for Clark. Both Clinton and Huckabee had 98 percent name recognition, to Clark's 63 percent. |
