Posted on 08/11/2013 7:50:08 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
One word, my friends: RINOgeddon.
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that Christie earns 21% support when Republican voters are asked whom they would vote for if the party’s primary in their state were held today. Florida Senator Marco Rubio runs a close second with 18% of the GOP vote, followed by former Florida Governor Jeb Bush at 16% and Kentucky Senator Rand Paul with 15% of the vote.
Congressman Paul Ryan, the unsuccessful Republican vice presidential candidate in 2012, picks up 13% of the Republican vote, with Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker dead last at six percent (6%). Just three percent (3%) prefer another candidate, and eight percent (8%) are undecided.
Good news for Christie-haters: He’s also leading the field — by double digits — when Republicans are asked who they’d least like to see win the nomination. (His new nemesis, Rand Paul, is a distant second.) This is why I keep thinking that, for all the slobber over his “electability,” he might be so widely and deeply disliked by a small but significant minority of righties that they end up staying home if he’s nominee and costing him the election. To be “electable” with a few percentage points’ worth of conservatives sitting out, he’d have to offset them by grabbing more centrist Democrats than expected from the Democratic nominee. How likely is that if Hillary’s the pick and Bill Clinton’s out there every day for her on the trail? Every candidate tacks toward the center after he’s nominated, but Christie would tack further than most — not just because he’s inclined to, but because he might have to in order to make up those lost conservative votes.
It’s time (already!) to stop thinking about national polls for 2016, though, and to start thinking in terms of Iowa and New Hampshire. They’re the springboards to national success, after all; if a top-flight candidate can’t play in either of them, for whatever strange reason, they won’t have any traction for South Carolina and Florida. Right, Marco Rubio?
A new Granite State Poll conducted for WMUR-TV shows Rubio, who was tied with Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) for the lead in an April poll by the same pollster at 15 percent, now garners the support of just 6 percent of New Hampshire GOP primary voters, placing fifth.
Rubio’s favorable rating has also taken a hit. While in April he was viewed favorably by 59 percent and unfavorably by 8 percent, his favorable-unfavorable split is now 47-14.
The poll’s new leader is New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, at 21 percent. He is followed by Paul at 16 percent, former Florida governor Jeb Bush at 10 percent, Rep. Paul Ryan (Wis.) at 8 percent and Rubio at 6 percent.
Rubio’s a special case in that he’s a Florida native and could, in theory, win there even if he loses the first three major primaries, but imagine how many “Rubio disappoints again” stories will be written before then. New Hampshire is going to be even tougher than usual next time too thanks to Christie’s and Paul’s likely candidacies: Each of them, in very different ways, seems better suited to NH’s maverick-y sensibility than Rubio does. (New Hampshire will, I think, end up as ground zero for the Christie/Paul debate on national security and civil liberties.) Iowa is Rubio’s best bet and Iowa famously has a lot of social conservatives, which is why you’re seeing him sponsor that Senate abortion bill and why he made such a stink about gay marriage during the immigration debate instead of the more important stuff like, say, amnesty.
His best bet at an early primary win, then, might be to go full social con and hope that (a) caucusgoers decide that Santorum’s a lost cause this time and (b) Rand Paul somehow flames out, which is difficult to imagine given that Ron’s supporters nearly carried him to victory there last time. In fact, as strange as this sounds, I’d argue that the ostensibly fringy Paul is the guy best positioned right now to sweep Iowa and New Hampshire. He’s got the Paulites in Iowa behind him and he’s been working to woo social conservatives; he also doesn’t have Rubio’s vulnerability on immigration in Steve King country. His foreign policy views and libertarian take on spending will make him competitive in New Hampshire too, especially if he gets some momentum from winning Iowa. If he wins one or, especially, both, Beltway Republicans will shift immediately into “stop Paul” panic mode and someone — Christie, Walker, maybe Rubio — will become the designated anti-Paul establishment favorite for South Carolina and Florida. Makes me wonder if, oddly enough, that’s not Rubio’s best bet at this point. Hope Rand looks strong early and then wait for the non-libertarian segments of the party to run fleeing to him in terror as a guy who might be able to unite the center and right in overcoming Paul.
One other fun fact from the Rasmussen poll: Among Democrats, Christie is the guy they’d most like to see win the GOP nomination — and Jeb Bush, by far, is who they’d least like to see win. Shouldn’t it be the opposite? If you’re a Dem, you’d love to run against a guy named Bush, especially if you’re carrying the dynastic liability of nominating someone named Clinton. Or do Democrats really think Jeb would be that formidable in the general?
What do you rate the odds of the GOP leadership defunding Obamacare?
Christie has name recognition, and he is big enough that everyone has seen him. Rubio is still trading on his pre amnesty popularity. The world, even the one Republicans live in, is slow on the political uptake.
Now is the time to start educating the lost and pitiful souls who don’t pay attention to bad men.
God help us...
They're not even conservative enough to rescue this free republic.
I have no clue as to who would want blubo Obozo suckup Christie
An election cant fix the nation.
If Reagan rose from the dead, he couldn’t fix it.
Turn the lights out the US is as done as the USSR.
It’s over.
Voting and posting will give us more of what we have.
Hillary will beat anyone of them like a rented mule.
What do you rate the odds of the GOP leadership defunding Obamacare?
You’re exactly right. We’re kidding ourselves if we think some conservative is going to step in and save us.
I would pay to see “None of the Above” added to the poll and I guarangee “NOTA” would pull more than 50%
Somebody post that loverly beach walk Krispy took with Zero, so we can all bookmark it.
Let the GOPe die...I'm done with them!
Oh, yes, Rush and Mark, please spare us the drivel about how important it is to defeat the Dems and be good little team players and vote GOP. We see how well that's worked out for us...haven't we?!?!
The only political power I have left is to either not vote, or vote third party. If the GOP is going to help Obama screw the country, they can do it without me!
It would not surprise me at all if the Republican primary voters nominate a third Bush. They are so predictable.
Palin, Cruz, Paul 2016. No one should ever be persuaded again that we need to have a (LOL) “winnable candidate”. Just give me a leader with integrity, winning will take care of itself.
If Christie is the nominee, noone in my household will vote for him.
Christie, Rubio or Jeb Bush (ugh!)? None of the above!
Well, there you’d be talking about just the House Leadership. Not the talking heads at the RNC, or the Cornyn Cabal in the senate. It all comes down to the House with that one, even though its really Mike Lee’s proposal.
What are the odds of defunding now? Unlikely, but I think Mike knew that going in. Remember, these House members are all up for election in 2014. They are going to have to go back to districts with either a yae or nae on defunding Obamacare, and will face primary challenges accordingly. There’s perhaps not a single more damaging vote that an incumbent Republican could take right now than that, which is why the way Mike has framed it has been so brilliant. House members are having to choose. There’s no ‘symbolism’ here. Its either defund or don’t. Boehner or district?
You fund it... you OWN it. It’s why Mitch McConnell is suffering in Kentucky, because he denounced it.
An election cant fix the nation.
If Reagan rose from the dead, he couldn’t fix it.
I fear you are correct. I can’t find any reasonable solution to our present direction because it is impossible to imagine our fellow citizens will share the pain they created with future generations.
The math is impossible and it gets worse by the month.
Rasmussen was officially, statistically, etc WORST pollster last 3 cycles. Rasmussen is absolute crap.
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