GOP Needs a Woman for '08

This morning, I attended CQ's Hotline/Westhill Partners 2nd Quarter Political Briefing at the National Journal headquarters.

We first looked at a Westhill Partners/Hotline Poll that covered, among other issues, the public's opinion of possible presidential candidates for 2008. The most eye-opening finding concerned the gender of potential presidential candidates. If all other characteristics were equal, the best possibility for Republicans to win the next presidential election would come if they ran a woman against a male Democrat. In this case, the Republican woman would trounce the Democrat man 46% to 27%. The reason is that the Republican base would solidly vote for the Republican woman, in addition to pulling a large chunk of Democrat and Independent women. The other scenarios all show a Democrat victory, but never as large as in this scenario. Republican women would not peel off to vote for a Democrat woman over a Republican man.

Republicans need to start looking for a good female candidate for '08!