Can Any Republican Beat Obama in 2012? (They want Milt!)

Outside the Beltway ^ | August 5, 2011 | James Joyner

[2ndDivisionVet]

In my ridiculously early handicapping of the 2012 Electoral College, among my caveats was “Presuming that the Republicans nominate a plausible candidate (Romney, Perry, Huntsman, or Pawlenty would all qualify).” Let’s revisit that in light of some other pieces going around.

Public Policy Polling’s Tom Jensen uses state-by-state surveys to proclaim “if the Republicans nominate Mitt Romney it’s a toss up. And if they nominate anyone else it’s 2008 all over again.”

Obama’s holding his ground against everyone but Romney in Nevada because voters there find the whole GOP field even more unpalatable than him. Romney comes close to breaking even on favorability at 38/43 but the rest of the Republicans are quite unpopular- a -9 spread for Cain at 24/33, a -12 for Perry at 24/36, a -21 for Bachmann at 30/51, and a -28 for Palin at 32/60.

Voters disliking the Republican candidates really is a vital component of Obama’s horse race numbers holding up as well as they are even as his approval numbers struggle. It remains to be seen whether he can really get reelected by being the lesser of two evils or if the election will end up being solely a referendum on him regardless of who the GOP puts forward. And one thing’s for sure- if voters ever warm up to one of the Republican candidates Obama will really be in trouble, in Nevada and everywhere.

The problem with this analysis is that, with the exception of Palin and Bachmann, all of the Republicans mentioned have lower disapproval numbers than Obama. Moreover, with the possible exceptions of Palin and Bachmann, most of the non-Romney candidates simply aren’t well enough known at this point for opinion numbers to be particularly meaningful....

[caww]

No to Romney here as well. But I will vote with a write in if necessary.

[Pollster1]

“Milt”? I thought the Big Government RINO’s name was “Mitt”. Still, “Milt” rhymes with “wilt”, which is appropriate. Then again, “Mitt” rhymes as well, and even more appropriately so.

[catnipman]

Now that you mention it, a write it sounds like a very good idea.

[celtic gal]

I like that Poverty redistribution...Rush should start to use that as well as all conservative talk show hosts and even candidates..

Hay Republican Presidential Nominee wannabes....... are you listening to that great slogan from Steel Wolf?? Are you??
I am going to use that all the time rather than wealth redistribution...Thanks for that SW