Most Canadians would back Hillary Clinton for president in upcoming US elections, and nearly one in six would forfeit their right to vote in the next Canadian ballot for a chance to sway the US result, said polls on Monday.
“What they’re saying is that in the whole scheme of things, the (US) race will have impact on the world and Canada,” Keith Neuman, vice president of polling firm Environics, told public broadcaster CBC.
“The US is a big global superpower and it carries a lot of weight.” A CBC-Environics poll of 2,001 Canadians found 34 percent of Canadians would like to see a Democrat win the next US election while five percent said they were rooting for a Republican to claim the White House.
Fifty-six per cent said they were indifferent. As well, 15 per cent of those surveyed said they would give up their ballot in Canada’s next federal election to vote in the US contest.
A second poll by UniMarketing published in the French-language daily La Presse found 62 per cent of Canadians supported the Democratic Party, while only 17 percent backed the Republicans.
Also, 42 per cent of Canadians supported Senator Hillary Clinton for president, while 27 per cent backed Senator Barack Obama, according to the UniMarketing survey. “Mrs Clinton is well-known in Canada,” explained Raynald Harvey, president of UniMarketing. “And Canadians remember fondly her husband’s term in office.”
A confident John McCain was hoping for a decisive victory in the Republican presidential nominating contest as he set off on a cross-country campaign sweep on the eve of Super Tuesday.
Leading in national polls and in most of the 21 states which will be voting for Republican candidates on Tuesday, McCain was however running neck-to-neck with chief rival Mitt Romney in California which may prove primaries upset. “I’m guardedly optimistic,” he told reporters at a rally in former governor Romney’s home state of Massachusetts as he reached into his pocket for his lucky penny and warned polls are not always reliable.
“We think we can win, but that’s why we’re campaigning hard right up literally until the polls close.” Romney was also campaigning furiously to catch McCain, who won a vital boost going into Super Tuesday with a decisive victory in Florida and high-profile endorsements by California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and former Republican contender Rudolph Giuliani.
“The polls are extraordinary fluid,” Romney told reporters late on Sunday at a campaign stop in Chicago. “And it’s not just the polls. The minds of voters are really being made up in these last few hours.”
A new Rasmussen poll on Monday put the two in a straight fight in California on 38 per cent each, while nationally McCain held a slight edge with 33 per cent to Romney’s 30 per cent. Boosting McCain’s chances is sharp criticism from many on the party’s rightwing, who cannot forgive the maverick Arizona senator for opposing a ban on same sex-marriage, supporting immigration reform and his thinly veiled contempt for some leaders among the religious right.
“If you look at the people who are conservative leaders … they’re pointing out that Senator McCain would represent a pretty dramatic departure from conservative principles on a whole host of issues,” Romney said in Chicago.
“We cannot let our party take that left turn. If we become so much like Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama that on key issues we’re indistinguishable, we’re not going to win the White House.”
McCain made a number of overtures to the party’s right in a series of campaign stops in the conservative south on Saturday where he highlighted his pro-life voting record, support of conservative judges and tough stance on national security.
His message on the east coast, however, was primarily one of fiscal conservatism and an ability to work with Democrats in order to get things done. “As president of the United States, I will preserve my proud conservative Republican credentials but I will reach across the aisle,” he told a rally in Boston’s historic Faneuil Hall where he was flanked by Connecticut Senator Joe Liebermann, the Democratic choice for vice president in 2000.
Off the stage, McCain took shots at Romney’s record of tax hikes and liberal spending and said he was proud of his own conservative voting record. He also attacked Democratic contenders Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama for advocating a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq as a sign of “their fundamental lack of experience and judgment about national security issues.”
“The key that they don’t seem to get is American casualties and whether we succeed by letting this strategy continue to succeed or whether we want to surrender, or set a date for withdrawal, which would then send a message to the world that al-Qaeda defeated the United States of America.”
He also indicated he may advocate permanent US bases in Iraq, noting that the United States has a number of such “arrangements” with countries around the world.
“What Americans are frustrated, sad and angry about is the mishandling of this war which caused so much unnecessary sacrifice,” he said. “Now we are succeeding and the Democrats … want to pull the rug out and they want to declare surrender. And I’m not going to stand for that. I don’t care what the cost is. I know what’s right for America.”
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