Posted on 11/30/2009 9:29:39 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
If Sarah Palin runs for president in 2012, can she win? Pundits have been buzzing about the possibility since the release of her book two weeks ago, and the itinerary and politics of her book tour suggest she hasn't ruled out a bid. Palin has said she "cannot predict what doors will be open in 2012," but can recent polling provide an answer?
Can Palin Win a General Election? Ultimately, the potential for any Republican in 2012 will depend on voters' future assessments of President Obama. But even if he is vulnerable, Palin will face some huge obstacles, as the polling released in the last few weeks demonstrates.
The biggest barriers involve perceptions of her readiness for higher office. On surveys conducted earlier this month, questions asked by three national polls found significant doubts:
• Only 26 percent of Americans say they think Palin "has the ability to be an effective president," according to the recent CBS News poll; 62 percent believe she does not.
• Only 28 percent say she is "qualified to be president," according to the survey conducted by CNN and the Opinion Research Corporation; 70 percent say she is not.
• Only 38 percent say Palin "is qualified to serve as president," according to the ABC News/Washington Post poll; 60 percent say she is not qualified.
Didn't Barack Obama face similar doubts about his readiness? The Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll tracked a similar question during the last election: "Do you think Barack Obama has the right experience to be president?" The number of registered voters answering in the affirmative started at just 22 percent in December 2006, rose to 35 percent in the summer of 2007 and grew to 51 percent of likely voters on their final survey in early November 2008. So Obama helped convince voters of his qualifications by running for president.
But let's remember that Obama started out as more of a blank slate, while Palin has created a deeper set of impressions. A third of registered voters in that 2006 Fox News survey did not know Obama well enough to answer the experience question, and the number saying Obama lacked the necessary experience never rose above 49 percent on the Fox News surveys. Compare that to the 60 to 70 percent now convinced that Palin is not qualified for the Oval Office.
At the same time, despite doubts about her readiness, majorities of Americans still find things to like about Palin: A CNN/ORC survey of adults conducted in October, for example, found nearly two-thirds (64 percent) willing to describe Palin as a "good role model for women" and a majority (55 percent) finding her "honest and trustworthy." Americans were more closely divided on whether Palin "shares your values" (49 percent say she does) or "generally agrees with you on the issues you care about" (48 percent).
Not surprisingly, Palin scores somewhere in between on favorable ratings and other summary measures. Most surveys find more Americans with an unfavorable impression of Palin than a favorable one, but the most important finding is one reported two weeks ago by the ABC News/Washington Post poll: A majority of Americans (53 percent) say they would "definitely not vote for her."
Can Palin Win the Republican Nomination? Palin faces far lower barriers among Republicans. The same ABC/Post poll finds that 70 percent of Republicans rate her favorably (including 42 percent who rate her very favorably), 61 percent say she is qualified to be president and only 24 percent say they would definitely not vote for her. On the CBS/New York Times survey, 44 percent of Republicans say they would like to see Palin run for president (48 percent would not).
Matthew Dowd, the chief strategist for George W. Bush's campaign in 2004, was right to conclude that Palin's "level of support" in these recent polls "makes her a viable primary candidate" in 2012. In what is likely to be a crowded field, Palin can win in the early state primaries with 35 to 40 percent of the vote. The process then barrels forward to primaries in which, as Politics Daily columnist Walter Shapiro points out, 43 percent of delegates in 2008 were selected on a "winner-take-all" basis.
Many believe that concerns about Palin's electability will lead Republican primary voters to go in a different direction, however. University of Michigan political scientist Brendan Nyhan, for example, notes the strong parallel between doubts about Palin's qualifications and those of former Vice President Dan Quayle. Quayle, he writes, "could never overcome the perception that he was not qualified to be president."
But what really did in Quayle was fundraising. He dropped out in early 1995, "facing a financial squeeze," according to the New York Times. Four years later, as the Wall Street Journal's Paul Gigot put it at the time, Quayle found that he faced rejection from "the people who write $1,000 checks, or $500 checks."
That was then. Should she run in 2012, Palin is positioned to emulate the model Barack Obama employed for fundraising and field organizing: Draw big crowds to rallies, mine those crowds for small donations (by selling tickets), e-mail addresses and phone numbers (via text messaging). That effort helped raise $129 million in 2007, allowing Obama to compete in the early primaries, and translated into a small donor/grassroots army that ultimately defeated Hillary Rodham Clinton in 2008.
Palin's grassroots base holds open the door for her in the 2012 Republican primaries. The lack of money need not slam it shut, as it did for Quayle, but how far she ultimately goes will depend on how successfully she reassures voters beyond that base that she is qualified to be president.
Sounds very good to me. Expect these kinds videos to start appearing on a TV near you..but not for a while yet. Way too early to start running ads for a 2012 campaign.
Let's concentrate on destroying the Dems in 2010 first. After safely burying Pelosi and her strong gang of thieves, then we will turn our full attention to crushing 0bama in 2012.
I agree, But her problem is that she will have to work with the idjits you describe , and the blue bloods are patronizing her on the one hand, and defaming her on the other. She will never be one of “them” and has no desire to be.
We both see that as a big positive. However it is her biggest obstacle to getting on the ticket inside of the Republican party, and I pray that she overcomes it.
She will need our help to do that.
Obama had more baggage than JUST that though. Plus...he now has FAILURES that coincide with what people said about him BEFORE he was elected. You have to realize, Obama hates this county and always has, wants to turn loose terrorists, is raising taxes to the hilt, ect.....NONE of which, is true with Sarah. There is much more to it, that the “experience” thing. Also, people should also know that, they can google where Obama was in the Senate 143 days and was LATE to nearly HALF of those hearings !!! How professional is that? It shows Obama apologizing time after time and the video clips are dated as to when he was late !!!! Obama had PROVEN signs of FAILURE from the get go, PROVEN hate of this country, from the get go, PROVEN bad affiliations, from the get go.....
There is more than just the “experience” thing with Obama....its WHO he is and WHAT he is that has people mad as hell !!! That is because NOONE would listen BEFORE they let him steal the election with ACORN ect and the other half of stupid people who actually VOTED for him.....
How many copies did Dan Quayle's book “Worth Fighting For” sell?
And how many people camped out all night just so they could get autographed copies of Dan Quayle's book?
“The lack of money need not slam it shut, as it did for Quayle,”
He needn't worry about Sarah Palin raising money.
He should just wait till Sarah Palin really starts going out to raise money for her campiagn, if she decides to run. He is going to be blown over by how much money Sarah Palin raises, and how fast she does it.
Mark Blumenthal is a Democratic pollster and the editor and publisher of Pollster.com
“Experience” is not the big problem with Obama. Who he is and what he is and what he believes in is the problem. I think voters are going to pay a lot more attention to a candidate’s beliefs and the proof that those beliefs are legit based on how the candidate has lived his life and the company he has kept - and keeps. No more of this hopey changey smooth talking stuff from someone who won’t even prove he is an American much less a natural born one.
Sarah is an open book and is everything BO is not. Her obvious leadership qualities, her record in office and her ability to communicate are very impressive - but they are secondary to the fact that she represents all that is good about America and people want that more than anything right now.
See my tagline, for instance...
Lets fill out the rest of the Palin Administration:
Sarah Palin President
Condi Rice Vice President
Jeb Bush Secretary of State
Rudy Guiliani Attorney General
Dick Cheney Secretary of Defense
And all of the rest of the Departments are going to be SCRAPPED because WE CAN’T AFFORD IT. (How hard of a concept is this to understand?)
I would like to see the federal budget at no more than $750 billion in Sarah’s FIRST YEAR.
After Sarah is sworn in, she signs her first executive order [No she’s not sealing all of her personal records] which ELIMINATES THE CORPORATE INCOME TAX.
And then her second executive order is to SCRAP NAFTA.
Wanna expand your base? Promise good blue-collar jobs: oil fields, coal mines, steel plants, gold mines, oil refineries, etc.
Raise protective tariffs to save American jobs from destruction because of the ‘China Price’.
Its time for America to go rogue!!
Yeah this Maurice Clemmons dude will prove to be to Huckabee what Willie Horton was to Dukkakis.
In addition to considerable appeal and strength as a potential Presidential candidate, Palin has substantial negatives. Most of all, a decisive slice of the electorate views her as a lightweight. Although Reaganesque in manner and philosophy, Palin does not have Reagan’s depth of knowledge, experience, and decades of advocacy for conservative ideas in public office and out. Yet Palin is a quick study with much potential.
Yes she can win...who else have they ever been talking about 3 years out? Who? Nobody except Sarah. She needs to keep doing what she’s doing.
“...the first things she should do if she chooses to run is start cutting some videos of her in the Wasilla Mayor and Governor’s office and explaining how she cut taxes and promoted growth and still funded things like education and infrastructure”
Excellent idea. That gets lost in all the hype. It is also spelled out very well and in great detail in “Going Rogue”. It’s a secret weapon id articulated like you suggest. Her detractors want to pretend her record never happened but it did.
As soon as I saw the source, that was it. LOL!!!! Its like saying Palins poll ratings are in the sewer, according to the reliable DNC Poll taken by members.
I think she has a shot at it, I think the real women of America (especially older mothers)like her. I’d like to see her go all the way, damn the polls, full speed ahead. I want to see Congress cleaned out in my lifetime.
I’m waiting to see if the Iowa Political exchange discounts a World President for 2012.
As far as the GOP Primaries go, I only see one viable competitor to Palin right now: Governor Tim Pawlenty of MN. He’s a nice guy but not very appealing to the masses. I’d take Sarah over him any day. Huck was “Willie Horton-ized” this past weekend; put a fork in him, he’s done. And Romney cannot get enough Conservative support (Conservatives vote in Primaries in droves) to win enough primaries. (Geesh, he couldn’t even beat McCain who had run out of money and staff in ‘08.)
So, it will take a new face to arise out of obscurity to challenge her for the GOP nod. Right now, I don’t know who that would be. But, wouldn’t it be great if the GOP was united behind Sarah before the Primaries even began and she could save all of her campaign money for the General Election?
The National Journal is a LeftWing Loony publication with a bot load of self-hating Jewish commentary! A bigger pack of liars is not to be found. This publication has no IDEA what motivated the electorate or who Americans will vote for....please don’t bother to post this or The Washington Weekly crap.
None of those polls can be trusted! Fox News poll can not be trusted! Opinion Dynamics is a liberal pollster, not sure why Fox continues to use them. They may appear to be somewhat OK, until push comes to shove, crunch time, yes ELECTION TIME. Their record proves how bad they are. The pollsters are all biased. George Gallup was a honest Christian man as well as a pioneer in polling. He is long gone. The polls are going to continue to say bad things for Sarah for the most part. Yes they release one poll where they asked registered voters, and the next one they will ask all adults, and publish that she has lost ground etc. Look for sampling at the bottom of the poll (when they provide it) They also can simply take the poll and then fill in phony numbers at the bottom. None of them can truly be trusted IMHO.
These media polls for the most part manufacture opinion rather than sample it, people hear the results and then take it as news.
I would love to see polling done away with.
Let’s see, been to the cocaine dry-out clinic TWICE, widely respected as a rapist, wife has 900 FBI files, friend of family found dead in Whitehouse, I could go on, but why ruin my day. WidelY considered to be a well qualified CIC. Get a felony record Sarah???
No one!
If there's a better God, Country, Family, All American candidate out there, then lets get it on!!
There isn't but we know they'll try everything in their hideous bag of tricks to tear this lady down. They of course misjudge Palin's tenacity and they'll fail.
Just drill, baby, drill!!
A Palin Presidency will re-energize America in more ways than one.
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