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Opinion: GOP focus group yields intriguing reactions

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Respected pollster Peter Hart earlier this week convened a focus group of a dozen conservative Republicans in Virginia -- a state the GOP almost assuredly will have to hold onto in next November’s election if it has any hope of keeping the White House. The responses Hart garnered were illuminating, including this one:

The 12, who met in a Richmond suburb, were asked to label the major contenders for their party’s presidential nod as a family member. Most described Rudy Giuliani as a father (though, as one participant stressed, not one to be referred to as ‘daddy’). Fred Thompson, the majority agreed, would nicely assume a grandfather’s role. And Mitt Romney was seen as an uncle, at best, (one person chimed in: ‘a long-lost relative’).

The group may have been small, but their attitudes capture the up-in-the-air nature of the Republican contest, as The Times’ Washington bureau chief, Doyle McManus, writes about here our website and in today’s print editions. Giuliani is respected, but skepticism about him is pronounced. Thompson, by contrast, gets the benefit of the doubt -- these folks want to get behind their fellow Southerner, but he has some work to do to make that happen. Romney, meanwhile, has yet to connect.

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McManus reports particularly worrisome findings for the Romney camp concerning the group’s feelings about his Mormonism. And there was little that came from the gathering that can cause cheer for John McCain.

As we said, it was a small group. But what came out of it is worth perusing by anyone tracking the GOP contest (as well as those in it).

-- Don Frederick

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