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Palin vs. Obama: It Could Happen and It Could Be a Close Election
The Huffington Post | August 4, 2010 | Robert Guttman, Johns Hopkins University

Posted on 08/05/2010 1:24:21 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet

As most of our thoughts are now turned towards this fall and the possibility of a larger than usual loss for the party in power -- the Democrats -- we should take a minute to look ahead to the presidential contest in 2012.

With unemployment likely over the 10% mark by election day this November and hot topics like the war in Afghanistan, the spiraling deficit and immigration to name a few, the Democrats will suffer larger than usual losses but they might not be as dire as analysts and pollsters are predicting. The House and Senate may stay in control of the Democrats because in the final analysis even in an anti-incumbent mood many voters revert back to casting their ballots for someone they know rather than taking a chance with a newcomer.

However, once the midterms are over and new faces emerge on the GOP side who will immediately be cast as potential presidential possibilities in 2012, one person seems to have taken the lead for that position as we head into the 2010 midterms. That person is the ever present former Governor of Alaska Sarah Palin.

While many Democrats and pundits and others may laugh and scorn the former 2008 Republican vice-presidential candidates for her views and abruptly leaving her job as governor of Alaska and many of her other behaviors that seem to many as out of the mainstream, she actually seems to be doing quite well in positioning herself for the 2012 GOP presidential nomination. She is very actively promoting, endorsing and giving money to candidates who look like likely winners this November. She is on FOX News as a commentator and the public knows her views and opinions on the key issues of the day.(continued)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-guttman/presidential-possibilitie_b_670019.html


TOPICS: Government; Politics; Society
KEYWORDS: 2012; bobjshillsforromney; democrats; obama; palin; sarahpalin
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

I mentioned this in another thread today, but I sort of boiled ‘12 down to this:

0 won 7 states in 08 that Bush won the previous two elections (NV, CO, IN, OH, NC, VA, FL). Winning all of these back in ‘12 would make it very close, almost 2000 kind of close, but it would be enough.

The question then is what kind of candidate, assuming all the other states not mentioned in the previous paragraph hold true to form, can win those seven states and ultimately the Presidency?


21 posted on 08/05/2010 1:58:58 PM PDT by GOP_Raider (A conservative in the television industry--yes, we do exist)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

Just like the Franken fiasco, it can’t be close. They’ll always find a way to cheat. Even when they’re caught, nothing is done about it.

Satan’s army is in place and every avenue of judicial fairness
or descent is just about gone i.e. Kagan.

This was a well planned attack on America...and the voters didn’t see it coming because they didn’t want to be called a racist. IMO


22 posted on 08/05/2010 2:09:24 PM PDT by TribalPrincess2U (demonicRATS... taxes, pain and slow death. Is this what you want?)
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To: Ingtar

I have long said that Dear Leader will resign for ‘Health Reasons.’

Even Katie Couric, in her insipid blog, wrote of how ‘aging the Office has been for Obama.’ And small, little things...like the 30k fundraiser (and he goes off and eats in another room) all are little ‘drips’ that all may not be ‘well’ with Duh Won.

He ‘opts’ to not run; he rests. He comes ‘back’ to public life...runs the UN (or something similar) and is ‘King of the World’ (which he thinks he is now anyways...but still has to show up in that roundish, WH office.)


23 posted on 08/05/2010 2:14:06 PM PDT by PennsylvaniaMom ( (((((((((((((((((((PALIN/BACHMANN 2012))))))))))))))))))))
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
From the article: Presidential possibilities in 2012 certainly look like Obama and Palin going against one another. Rather than smiling and jumping for joy the Obama team should take Palin seriously! She will be a tougher and more serious opponent than they think.

The author, Robert Guttman, gets it - but I suspect that liberals enjoy pretending to be oh-so intellectually superior to Sarah Palin (and the millions of Americans she represents) that they'll willfully ignore Guttman's warning and assume that continually mocking her and non-stop media adulation of Obama will effectively cancel out her appeal. They are mistaken.

This isn't 1970 and liberal mouthpiece Walter Cronkite doesn't decree 'that's the way it is', anymore. The New York Times and the various news magazines no longer decide elections. The dinosaur media is flailing and failing. Granted, they were able to get Obama past the usually apathetic voter in 2008 when things weren't really so bad (although the left pretended they were to give Obama something to run on -'hope and change') but the economic climate has soured and hit many Americans, hard, and they hold Obama responsible, not George W. Bush.

Obama's media hype almost guaranteed his fall when his insane socialist policies were implemented. First, the bailouts and trillion-dollar national debt. Then, the massive health care bill nobody wanted. He's weak on Afghanistan and a disaster on the Mexico-U.S. border chaos. The Gulf oil spill put the spotlight on his incompetence. Meanwhile, independent voters have just about given up on Obama. Even some Democrats are trying to distance themselves from Obama. Never a good sign for a president. His job approval numbers are flirting with the 30's, late-second-term Bush territory.

The media can't save Obama because their audience is shrinking and so, their influence is waning. Meanwhile, the 'alternative media' grows in both audience and influence. Fox News is rapidly replacing once-untouchable CBS as the news source of choice for many Americans - and their ratings prove it. Rush Limbaugh is in his 22nd year of broadcasting his conservative views - and his audience remains in the millions. Meanwhile, the TV broadcast network's news show ratings contract with every passing year. Once influential Newsweek magazine is sold for $1. and it's debts.

I have no idea if Sarah Palin really wants to be president (I suspect that she does) and I don't know if she could win a presidential election. I do know that the woman has a lot going for her and the criticisms are mostly superficial and petty or just Democrat attempts to demean her in the eyes of the public, their standard MO. She seems more solid on her recent Fox TV appearances but still engaging and sometimes, controversial...in a good way (challenging Obama).

When the left never stops bashing Palin and even liberal writers start admitting that she could challenge their messiah, Obama, in 2012, that indicates that Sarah Palin is a political force to be reckoned with. She is the only viable political conservative visible on the national scene and she is, as Robert Guttman's piece stated, gaining ground while other possible 2012 GOP contenders are invisible or near-unelectable (Gingrich).

If Sarah Palin chooses to run for the Republican presidential nomination in two years, she'll have my vote. I see no other viable conservative on the scene. Yes, she's been relentlessly attacked by the left but so was Ronald Reagan. He surmounted the 'dangerous, washed-up, second-rate doofus actor' smears the left tried to pin on him. He did it by simply being himself, and had to get past the then-dominate leftist media. Today, with Sarah Palin getting national attention on Facebook, Twitter, websites and Fox News TV, she can overcome the left's smear attempts. They no longer 'own' the information flow and with the country becoming increasingly turned off to Obama and the Democrats, Palin could be a real contender in 2012. Shhhh. Don't tell the Democrats.

24 posted on 08/05/2010 2:22:50 PM PDT by Jim Scott
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To: ex-Texan

AAh ha. You must be one of those intelletual giant elitists who call themselves libertarians. The Pauls have achieved nothing compared to Palin. But most importantly they have been absent in attacking Onada head on.

I already know what liberals really believe, and I don’t subscribe to it.

Hell, you libertarians can’t even run your own web site. You have to come on to a conservative web site and pretend your not only one of us but better than us.


25 posted on 08/05/2010 2:34:33 PM PDT by dools007
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
If the Huffington Post says it could be close Obambi is going down BIG TIME.
26 posted on 08/05/2010 2:39:39 PM PDT by McGruff (How's that Hopey Changey thingy workin for ya?)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

It’ll happen, and it won’t be a close election.

This is why they are rabidly insane - they know from their polls that Palin is America’s choice by a wide margin, regardless of who the opposition is.

Finally America will have an American president.


27 posted on 08/05/2010 2:43:27 PM PDT by editor-surveyor (Obamacare is America's kristallnacht !!)
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To: beaversmom

Ideologically, Paul Ryan would make an excellent Vice President for Palin, but nobody knows him, even in his home state, and he has less experience than Obama.

DeMint is looking to be Romney’s Veep.
.


28 posted on 08/05/2010 2:49:53 PM PDT by editor-surveyor (Obamacare is America's kristallnacht !!)
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To: Owl_Eagle

“So what if people don’t know Mitch Daniels?”

.
People know Daniels, and that is why they won’t vote for his GOP elitist @ss.
.


29 posted on 08/05/2010 2:51:42 PM PDT by editor-surveyor (Obamacare is America's kristallnacht !!)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
Guttman is ignoring Obama’s natural born status.

There are literally millions of citizens who are completely ticked about how poorly Obama was vetted. Does he seriously think that Obama will get away with this twice?

30 posted on 08/05/2010 2:56:11 PM PDT by wintertime (Good ideas win! Why? Because people are not stupid.)
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To: editor-surveyor

There is plenty of time to get to know the candidates that enter the race. The 2012 election is not this November.

We don’t have to pick them by name recognition.


31 posted on 08/05/2010 2:56:30 PM PDT by dforest
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To: indylindy

In reality, there isn’t “plenty of time.”

It normally takes about a decade of political presence, including 4-5 years of intense campaigning and fundraising to capture the oval. Palin is just barely on the crest of her opportunity; there is just enough time if , and only if she does not stumble.
.


32 posted on 08/05/2010 3:01:22 PM PDT by editor-surveyor (Obamacare is America's kristallnacht !!)
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To: ex-Texan
The left would love to face Palin, the only prominent politician that is as polarizing as our dear leader. She would have to get 100% of the GOP 2008 number plus an additional 10-12 million from the dims 2008 number. I don't see that many who voted for our dear leader doing a one-eighty in their support.

And, FR is not an accurate bell weather of US politics, if it were things would not be as they are, not even close.

33 posted on 08/05/2010 3:01:38 PM PDT by wtc911 ("How you gonna get down that hill?")
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
Funny, for the last 12 months I've seen Palin supporters scream and rant how the MSM picks our candidates for us (McCain ‘08/Romney ‘12), now that they're doing the same thing with Palin it's all hunkey-dorey.

The left would like nothing more than to face Palin in a ‘12 contest, she's the most exposed and may be the most easily beatable . They're tactics are always the same, pummel until they announce or look like they might be running, make nice until the convention then when they win the nomination go back to pummeling.

Conservatives never learn.

34 posted on 08/05/2010 3:03:46 PM PDT by Bob J (Will all my comments be censored?)
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To: Bob J

As usual you’re over-medicated while operating a computer.

Palin is the one and only candidate the media and the left fear in any way.
.


35 posted on 08/05/2010 3:05:45 PM PDT by editor-surveyor (Obamacare is America's kristallnacht !!)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Obama won’t make the ballot in some states w/o a birth cert. Gonna be hard to get reelected w/o those electoral college votes!


36 posted on 08/05/2010 3:06:13 PM PDT by databoss
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

I Might have concurred a couple days ago, prior to the Missouri vote. Even the Republicans have underestimated just how mad the electorate is in some states.


37 posted on 08/05/2010 3:09:31 PM PDT by radioone ("The bigger the government, the smaller the citizen.")
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To: Jim Scott

Take a look at the comments, the nutroots aren’t buying it! LOL


38 posted on 08/05/2010 3:12:40 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet (No. Try not. Do... or do not. There is no try. ~Master Yoda)
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To: editor-surveyor

It should be former General Tommy Franks. He would actually be perfect if there’s a war and Sarah needs advice. The both of them would make a perfectly rounded out team. Sarah has the public/executive experience and he has the military experience.


39 posted on 08/05/2010 3:17:11 PM PDT by Niuhuru (The Internet is the digital AIDS; adapting and successfully destroying the MSM host.)
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To: onyx; se_ohio_young_conservative

You forget one......


40 posted on 08/05/2010 3:20:29 PM PDT by deport
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