Mere Rhetoric - Tomorrow's Polling Data Today
In case you had a momentary lapse and thought that bragging was beneath us, one more thing about recent polls:
A poll published in Ma'ariv on Thursday found that if Sharon were to form his own party and run against the Likud, his party would receive 34 mandates, compared to just 20 for Netanyahu's Likud. The poll revealed that if Sharon runs together with Labor and Shinui, according to the so-called "political big-bang," his party would receive 54 seats in the Knesset and Netanyahu's Likud only 23. According to the poll, even if Sharon does not form a party, a Netanyahu-led Likud would have a difficult time defeating Labor.
Two nights ago, we posted:
Scenario 1 - a Labor government: Prime Minister Sharon runs in the Likud primaries and gets dismantled by current back-bencher Benjamin Netanyahu, but chooses to stay in the party... Some Israeli rightists punish the Likud for disengagement and Netanyahu for not voicing his objections to the pullout earlier, but many of them have nowhere else to go, and the party machinery still gets him 20ish mandates... Labor gets more votes than Likud but has to be anchored by parties to the left since the secular nationalist option has evaporated with Shinui.
Scenario 2 - a non-Likud Sharon government: Sharon forms a centrist third party and takes 30% his die-hard Likud supporters with him. Maybe Peres joins him and maybe Peres doesn't join him... Netanyahu is now dragging along a list that's even further right than he is. Sharon's centrist party would do better than Likud.
Not that it takes a genius to figure out that Sharon would do better nationally since Sharon is popular and Netanyahu is wildly unpopular, but the point bears repeating - Israeli rightists who want to oust Sharon will either get him back in a more centrist form or will get worse.
A poll published in Ma'ariv on Thursday found that if Sharon were to form his own party and run against the Likud, his party would receive 34 mandates, compared to just 20 for Netanyahu's Likud. The poll revealed that if Sharon runs together with Labor and Shinui, according to the so-called "political big-bang," his party would receive 54 seats in the Knesset and Netanyahu's Likud only 23. According to the poll, even if Sharon does not form a party, a Netanyahu-led Likud would have a difficult time defeating Labor.
Two nights ago, we posted:
Scenario 1 - a Labor government: Prime Minister Sharon runs in the Likud primaries and gets dismantled by current back-bencher Benjamin Netanyahu, but chooses to stay in the party... Some Israeli rightists punish the Likud for disengagement and Netanyahu for not voicing his objections to the pullout earlier, but many of them have nowhere else to go, and the party machinery still gets him 20ish mandates... Labor gets more votes than Likud but has to be anchored by parties to the left since the secular nationalist option has evaporated with Shinui.
Scenario 2 - a non-Likud Sharon government: Sharon forms a centrist third party and takes 30% his die-hard Likud supporters with him. Maybe Peres joins him and maybe Peres doesn't join him... Netanyahu is now dragging along a list that's even further right than he is. Sharon's centrist party would do better than Likud.
Not that it takes a genius to figure out that Sharon would do better nationally since Sharon is popular and Netanyahu is wildly unpopular, but the point bears repeating - Israeli rightists who want to oust Sharon will either get him back in a more centrist form or will get worse.
