breaking news - romney rising in the polls

trailing in the polls for less then 3 weeks ago with ongoing poll numbers stating only 11% support in the republican party, mitt romney rises slowly and is now in a tie with giuliani both with 20 % support, this is good news for the romney campaign.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119810092342540425.html?mod=hps_us_whats_news

Ahead of Iowa,
Republican Race
Is Wide Open
By JOHN HARWOOD
December 20, 2007; Page A1

WASHINGTON -- Two weeks before the Iowa caucus, the race for president, while tightening among Democrats, is wide open on the Republican side, highlighting the unusual fluidity of the first campaign for the White House in over a half- century that doesn't include an incumbent president or vice president.

A new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll shows that Rudy Giuliani has lost his national lead in the Republican field after a flurry of negative publicity about his personal and business activities, setting the stage for what could be the party's most competitive nomination fight in decades.


After holding a double-digit advantage over his nearest rivals just six weeks ago, the former New York City mayor now is tied nationally with former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney at 20% among Republicans, just slightly ahead of former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee at 17% and Arizona Sen. John McCain at 14%. Other polls show Mr. Giuliani's lead shrinking in Florida, one of the states he has based his strategy around.

With the poll's margin of error of plus-or-minus 3.1 percentage points, that puts Mr. Huckabee, who had only single-digit support in the previous poll in early November, within striking distance of the leaders. Mr. Romney's national support has also nearly doubled since then.

At the same time, Mr. Romney has fallen behind Mr. Huckabee in the leadoff nominating contest in Iowa. The results signal a dramatic shift in the nature of the Republican contest: In a party with a history of rewarding established front-runners, there's no longer a front-runner of any kind.

"There is no hierarchy," said Democratic pollster Peter Hart, who conducts the Journal/NBC survey with Republican counterpart Bill McInturff. "There is no establishment candidate. The Republican voters are searching."

The Democratic race has remained a more stable contest among the top contenders in the national rankings, with former first lady Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York maintaining a 22-percentage-point national lead over Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois. But she faces an increasingly stiff challenge in Iowa and other early states from Mr. Obama and 2004 vice presidential nominee John Edwards.


• See poll results (Adobe Acrobat required)
• Drilling Down: How support for the Republican field varies by age, gender and other factors.
• Complete coverage: Campaign 2008Mr. Obama's momentum in Iowa has spilled over into New Hampshire, where he has narrowed Mrs. Clinton's lead while arguing that he is more in tune with the national mood for change.

The Journal/NBC poll may fuel arguments by the Obama campaign that their candidate is more broadly acceptable than Mrs. Clinton, a polarizing figure whose 44% negative rating exceeds her 42% positive mark. The poll shows Mr. Obama leading Mr. Giuliani by a larger margin than Mrs. Clinton does -- a change from early November, when the data suggested they would both fare about the same against him.

Against Mr. Huckabee, Mr. Obama leads by 48% to 36%, while Mrs. Clinton has a narrow 46% to 44% edge.

Amid the race's changing dynamics, candidates in both parties are scrambling to readjust their messages and their tactics. With his standing slipping nationally and in key states, Mr. Giuliani this week accelerated his unconventional retreat from the early voting states to focus on later contests where he thinks his Northeastern roots and his record as a moderate on social issues may play better. He was in Missouri yesterday, one of several states holding Feb. 5 primaries. "A baseball game, you've got to play nine innings, and whoever gets the most runs at the end of the nine innings wins," he said in defense of his strategy.

As he climbs in the polls, Mr. Huckabee is starting to get the kind of scrutiny his better-known rivals have gotten for some time, and which could erode some of his newfound support. Mr. Romney released a new ad this week attacking Mr. Huckabee's heavy volume of prisoner pardons as governor, and stepped up criticism of his lack of foreign-policy experience.

"Here at Huckabee for President headquarters we like to call it 'Operation Kitchen Sink,'" campaign manager Chip Saltsman wrote in a fund-raising missive to supporters this week. Mr. Huckabee, a former Baptist minister, has responded with positive rhetoric and an Iowa ad hailing the spirit of "the birth of Christ."

Another factor injecting uncertainty in the race: The mood of the electorate is rapidly shifting, as attention to Iraq fades and economic concerns gain, according to the poll. In recent months, "I kinda switched between Romney, Giuliani and Thompson," says 25-year-old Adam Cates, who works in real estate in Conway, S.C., and attended a Romney rally yesterday. Now rising fears about the economy have him backing Mr. Romney, a former private-equity executive.

Among Democrats, Mrs. Clinton has attempted to win Iowa voters who complain she's cold and impersonal with events featuring her mother, daughter and childhood friends. Mr. Obama, sensing new openings, has spent two days this week in New Hampshire, which votes Jan. 8, to chip away at the firewall Mrs. Clinton has tried to erect there should she lose in Iowa.

The ferment is far more pronounced in the Republican field, partly because of President Bush's low popularity; in the latest survey, Mr. Bush's approval stood at 34%. It also reflects an aging of the conservative coalition that Ronald Reagan marshaled in 1980, with economic, national security, and social-issue voters all vying for supremacy.

"Defining itself as Ronald Reagan's party no longer works," says James Reichley, a onetime White House aide to Republican president Gerald Ford. "There's got to be some new definition of what it means to be a Republican."

Indeed, the serial erosion of support for Messrs. McCain, Romney and Giuliani has alarmed some longtime Republicans about the prospect of disarray persisting until next summer's Republican National Convention in Minneapolis. While that might produce the sort of attention-grabbing suspense that some political reformers have pined for, modern electoral strategists place far more value on rapidly uniting party constituencies for the general election battle ahead.

In such a fluid contest, the pollster Mr. Hart cautions, "Within a month its going to be totally different." A fifth candidate, former Sen. Fred Thompson of Tennessee, also draws double-digit support at 11% after shooting up to second-place in the Republican field earlier this year.

Meanwhile, the campaign agenda is shifting as well. Perceptions of military progress in Iraq have reduced the proportion of voters who cite Iraq as a top priority for Washington to 36% from 46% last month. With many Americans now expecting a recession, health care and the economy now rank nearly as high as Iraq, which could prove unwelcome for Messrs. McCain and Giuliani, both identified with national-security issues.

"I was kind of for McCain but I don't know, it just seems like Romney's got a better act," said Ralph Stork, a 79-year-old retired marina operator at the Romney event in South Carolina yesterday. "We've got a lot of bad things going on in the economy, we've got housing problem, the banks have all a lot of problems with it. It just doesn't look good, you know?" he said. "We need somebody that can really handle and has some knowledge about how to go about doing that."

Mitt romney for president

In these days that we experience a lack of leadership, a strong leader that can secure our country and balance the budget from washington political spending, a time that the strength of america is the strength of freedom, and as a alley to israel, america deserves to be led with strong leadership, and to show that no matter of religion, and no matter of people beliefs, Mitt Romney is the right man at this time to lead our country to a better secure border and a strong economy and to a better and brighter future, so i call upon my brothers the jewish comunnity in all states to support governer Romney on his bid for the republican nomination for president of united states, and we hope and wish for his victory.