Posted on 06/11/2011 12:05:03 PM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
MAY 18, 2011 - Being a Southerner conveys certain advantages upon a Republican presidential candidate.
Since 1980, a Southerner has finished first or second in every Iowa Republican presidential caucus.
[snip]
The White House has been occupied by a Southerner — counting the Massachusetts-born and decidedly patrician George H.W. Bush, who resided in Texas at the time he ran for office — in 30 of the past 46 years. I’m not sure this is entirely a coincidence....
[snip]
If a candidate dominates the South — and it’s much easier for a Southern candidate to do that — he’ll have made a lot of headway into winning the votes and delegates that he’ll need to secure his party’s nomination.... a candidate like Mr. Perry, who would have advantages like fundraising and establishment support that would extend to all corners of the country, ...doing very well in the South and still well enough outside of it to win his party’s nomination.
For a Republican candidate, in fact, this advantage may be especially powerful because of a demographic quirk related to Iowa, the first and most important state in the nominating process. Some 60 percent of Iowa Republican voters are born-again Christians — about the same fraction as in many Southern states....
......He’d stand a good chance at doing well in Iowa, and if he did, he’d probably follow it up with a win in South Carolina, and possibly also Florida. And then he’d pick up plenty of delegates in the Southern states that voted on Super Tuesday and beyond — including of course Texas, which itself accounts for 140 delegates.
So don’t sell the Southern Republicans short yet — the advantages the primary system offers to candidates like Mr. Perry could be more than enough to make up for a late start.
(Excerpt) Read more at fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com ...
Does Mitt Romney's decision not to participate in the early straw polls help Rick Perry? If Perry does participate in the straw polls how would he do? If Perry doesn't participate, well.... Romney didn't either.
I’m finding it hard to get excited about Rick Perry when there are several better candidates.
I don’t know much about Perry but I am willing to listen.
Go Herman!
He mentions Herman Cain in the article.
The fact that southerners have had some degree of success has more to do with perceptions of southerners than it does with the mere fact of birth or choice of residence. Between Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, that perception being used as just another form of consultant image-manufacturing swag to slide another ringer into the Oval Office is at an end.
Southern conservatives as a group actually are genuine, authentic, down to earth, patriotic, say what they mean and mean what they say, religious and favor small government. Automatically assuming those traits of politicians angling for election has proved to be tenuous. Wonder why, lol? Consultants and advisors, so completely accustomed to and comfortable with candidates who have no substance, so style takes precedence.
OK, so let’s take Newt. What value he had, he blew out of the water in the Clinton era. Nowadays, he’s reduced to bean counting and remarrying in a vain search for another set of coattails that are not so incredulous as the southern evangelical ones he’s soiled.
Perry? Statist. Open borders. Trans-Texas Corridor, favored a Spanish company having eminent domain property seizure authority over native Texans. That crap don’t fly with southerners, I don’t care where the $#!&* was born or resides.
So, we’re forced to go right back to those qualities that attracted the electorate to southerners in the first place. Genuine, authentic, down to earth, patriotic, say what they mean and mean what they say, religious and favor small government.
Who fits that bill? Sarah Palin. The south is hers if she runs, imho.
Well, that could change.
Rick Perry knows how to campaign.
(Anybody but Palin)
“I’m finding it hard to get excited about Rick Perry when there are several better candidates.”
Let’s look at that.
Let’s assume Perry runs, and the other candidates are Romney, Bachman, Cain, Pawlenty, Palin, Santorum, Gingrich, and whoever I may be forgetting.
If conservatives are insisting on voting for candidates with no chance of winning the primary, much less the general election, we will have a repeat of 2008 — conservative votes get split and McCain walked away with the nomination.
In this case, conservative votes would split among some six or more candidates: Bachman, Cain, Pawlenty, Palin, Santorum, Gingrich, and Romney will walk away with the nomination, and then lose spectacularly to Obama. Great conservative accomplishment!
It’s high time that conservatives focus on beating Romney and beating Obama.
Perry can do that, but only if he gets the support he needs to beat Romney.
If we have to have a RINO, Perry is the best of the lot.
Actually Democrats very much want Palin to run, that alone should give you pause — this is a big con job.
Dem strategist, Donna Brazile:
Brazile: Yes, Palin for president
http://www.milforddailynews.com/opinion/x1009130574/Brazile-Yes-Palin-for-president
Howard Dean warns Democrats Sarah Palin could beat Obama in 2012
http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/164765-howard-dean-warns-palin-could-beat-obama-in-2012
“The guy calling in to the talk show said Perry was a RINO just like Romney.”
Please check all the facts — I think Dems are really afraid of Perry, because he really could beat Obama.
Perry was and is against Obamacare.
Perry Rejects “Obamacare,” but State Agency Pushes On
“Republican Gov. Rick Perry has made no secret of his disdain for federal health reform, or for one of its key tenets, a Travelocity-like state insurance marketplace in which consumers could choose from public and private health plans.
The threat of Perry’s veto pen even derailed legislation by one of his fellow Republican “anti-Obamacare” colleagues, who fears that if state lawmakers do not implement a health insurance exchange of their own, the federal government will do it for them - in his view an even worse fate.
But among Perry’s gubernatorial peers, his stance on the health insurance exchange appears to be losing popularity: Politico reported last week that Republican Govs. Haley Barbour of Mississippi, Mitch Daniels of Indiana and Scott Walker of Wisconsin - even as they continue to oppose the federal health care program overall - are taking steps to comply with that piece of the law.”
"Whoever you are forgetting" would be Ron Paul, who has officially announced. I think that he should be mentioned before Gingrich, at any rate.
What I think we (Americans) need is an antivenin to the poison that Obama has injected into our national bloodstream and that antivenin isn't Southern but Alaskan.
Southern Democrats were felt to be more moderate, so they were more likely to be nominated or elected than Northern Democrats.
The other part of the equation is the Bush family. In Massachusetts-born, Connecticut-educated Texan George H.W. Bush, the different parts of his heritage -- North and South, East and West -- cancelled out, leaving him sort of a neutral or generic American, or at least that was the hope. Something of that legacy carried over for his son, who was a truer Texan than the father.
But would a really Southern Republican have an inside track on the nomination or election? Would Hailey Barbour have had a good chance at winning? I don't think so. Maybe Fred Thompson would have, because he was Hollywood as well as Tennessee and the two cancelled out (and because Tennessee isn't Deep South).
Perry probably does stand a very good chance at winning the nomination. What could louse up his career at some point is that Texans (in the eyes of many non-Texans) don't know when to quit with the Texanism. The time comes when voters want Texanness. But Texans provide more of it than a lot of the rest of the country can bear.
On Friday Rush had a good Perry clip. Perry was taking global warming to the wood shed.
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