Could Perry take the fight to suburbia?

Politico ^ | September 19, 2011 | Jonathan Martin and Dan Hirschhorn

[Cincinatus' Wife]

.....The issues, in short, are who can get to 270 electoral votes and whether Perry is too bluntly conservative to be viable in large swaths of purple America.

Choice A: The Hippocratic oath strategy — first do no harm. Under this approach, the party would nominate the safe-but-not-sexy Mitt Romney to keep the election focused as much as possible on Obama and to have a better chance to appeal to swing voters and independents.

Choice B: Go big. Given the nation’s economic troubles and the vast majority who believe the country is headed in the wrong direction, pastels just won’t cut it. Bold, bursting differences between Obama and the GOP standard-bearer are a must. By this scenario, Perry, the tough-talking, job-creating machine, would be Ronald Reagan to Obama’s Jimmy Carter.

[snip]

But a New York Times poll out Friday should give Romney’s camp pause. Republican primary voters were equally divided — 48 percent versus 48 percent — when asked what would be more important: a nominee who is right on the issues or a nominee with the best chance of beating Obama.

The results indicate that for all the anxiety among party elites over nominating somebody who can defeat the president, many in the base don’t think they have to settle to win.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Rick Perry and the Wingnuts for Jesus

And! It's raining this morning in Texas.

[muawiyah]

The election is a done deal. Obama is possibly a one-termer ~ or he could leave earlier, making both Obama and Biden "less than one term Presidents".

It does not matter who the Republicans run ~ on the other hand it does matter that the Republicans run as big a campaign as possible for as long as possible ~ and that means LOTS AND LOTS of debates.

Make the Republican Debate a weekly TV show taking place all across the country at all sorts of venues, with every broadcaster involved.

[livius]

If they seriously think that Romney is “safely electable,” they’re out of their minds. I wouldn’t vote for him and I am sure there are many others in the GOP who wouldn’t; and as for “independents,” he is offering absolutely nothing that would attract them. He is as big-government and socialistic as Obama, just a different color, so they don’t even get the feel-good of voting for extra melanin.

If the GOP installs Romney as the candidate, the independents won’t even bother to get out of bed on election day. And neither will a lot of the GOP. I’ve worked for GOP candidates every time, even if I didn’t like them a lot, but I wouldn’t make a single phone call on behalf of Romney, and I don’t know anyone else who would, either. But then, maybe that’s why the Dems want him to be our candidate.

I think they’re hoping to throw away the presidential slot on Romney and hope that by getting a good VP candidate, they’ll attract voters. They tried that the last election, however, and it didn’t work. More people voted for McCain than would have voted for him without Palin, but the “VP vote” certainly would never be enough. Everybody knows you’re voting for the President and the VP is just going to sit back and keep his or her mouth shut for the next 4 years. Having a bad VP can hurt (because people are afraid of the possibilities), but having a good VP really doesn’t help that much.

[JayGalt]

I agree completely. For Romney I sit home. No more RINOs!

[Diogenesis]

“And The Most Irresponsible Journalist Award Goes to The Politico’s Jonathan Martin!
So tell me, how do you write a “news” story about an organization paying for a speaker when you don’t even know if the organization is paying for the speaker?
Ask “journalist” Jonathan Martin. He knows all about it.
You see, Jonny wrote a piss poor story the other day about how the Iowa Family Policy Center will be paying a large speaker fee if Sarah Palin comes to Iowa to keynote the IFPC’s fall funderaiser.
The only problem is that Jonny has no sources confirming that any exorbitant fee is being charged or paid.
Jonny also got some inside info from David Kochel, who was a top aide to former (and future) presidential candidate, Mitt Romney.
Hey Dave, didn’t I just read a story about how Mitt Romney tried to buy off the Iowa Christian Alliance?
I heard you helped facilitate that little scheme. And somehow you are shocked at the thought of a well-known political figure (who very likely isn’t running for president) getting paid a speaker’s fee for (gasp) a public speaking appearance? ..
and then we’ve got Tim Albrecht quoted. He was the Iowa spokesman for Romney’s 2008 caucus campaign.”
And it always seemed like, whenever the Romney people had rumors they wanted to start about other candidates,
Jonny was their go-to guy to get those rumors in writing in front of a national audience.

---

"Who's the Palin Leaker from the McCain Campaign?
National Review Online The publication of a Vanity Fair profile of Sarah Palin
appears to have opened old wounds in the McCain campaign.
... the source of the “Diva” leak was Nicolle Wallace’s husband."

---

Who benefits most from Sanford meltdown? Californian (that's right) Mitt Romney

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"Peeking Out From the McCain Wreckage: Mitt Romney"

"Someone's got to say it: IS MITT ROMNEY RESPONSIBLE FOR OBAMA'S VICTORY?"

"Vanity: Team Romney Sabotaged Palin and Continuing to Do So?"

"Romney Supporters Trashing Palin"

"Romney advisors sniping at Palin?"

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[xzins]

I will never vote for Romney for any reason. My default party is the Constitution Party.

[nascarnation]

That’s why I think the Dems secret strategy is to go heavy for Mitty in open primary states. A reverse Op Chaos.

The Dems are in a terrible spot, but if they can force a 3-way election, Baraq’s 40% support might well give him a Clintonian plurality win.

[xzins]

Romney supports abortion, gay marriage, gun control, government health care, higher taxes, and submission to liberalism.

He is identical to Kerry his Massachusetts buddy; he is in an Obama look-alike contest...a democrat.

It’s a fact.

I’ll not be a part of it, just so the republican country clubbers can hang a victory banner on their website.

[RockinRight]

Suburbanites by their nature tend to be easily scared...but I think Perry’s success in the ‘burbs would come from simply making them scared of Obama, by telling the truth, and contrasting it with Obama’s attempts to making them scared of Perry by lying about him.

[wmfights]

Romney supports abortion, gay marriage, gun control, government health care, higher taxes, and submission to liberalism.

IOW, obama lite. Why vote for him when you can have the real thing, obama.

It's early, but I'm seeing conservatives eat their own for the sake of ideological purity. Perry is the best conservative candidate we have. He has executive experience in the 2nd most populous state and has been solid on social issues. Executive experience will be the most important quality in a candidate that can win. We are suffering through the worst presidency with the most inexperienced lefty in our history. The country will want someone who can actually do something.

However, in order to bring down Perry our candidates are caught up in discussions about vaccines, immigration and denial that SS is a Ponzi scheme. We also have the Palinistas that believe if they tear down all the other candidates she will walk in and save the day. I hate to tell all my conservative FRiends this, but she will never draw the "moderates" to her and is unelectable.

I know it's heresy to say this, but if we are objective the evidence is there. Look at NV. Reid was a dead man walking and he won.

I'm hoping that Perry is able to weather the storm and responds with some good plans which assure the middle. If not it will probably be Romney and we lose no matter who wins the election.

[xzins]

I know it's heresy to say this, but if we are objective the evidence is there. Look at NV. Reid was a dead man walking and he won.

I agree. Angles lost and shouldn't have. We can cry about who should have supported her and didn't, but that's the point.

My sense is that with a little more sensitivity to the hispanic vote that Angles would have won. Instead she came up with that dumb line about building a fence being all about keeping terrorists out and then in the same breath saying that the 9/11 terrorists entered through Canada.

She shot herself in the foot with the scientology stuff, too.

Conservatives could have found a better candidate.