Posted on 01/19/2014 5:24:16 PM PST by SoConPubbie
With Chris Christie ostensibly knocked off his perch as the early frontrunner for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, the search is on to find an alternative that is acceptable to both conservative and moderate GOP primary voters. At least, that’s what the political press would have you to believe.
Appearing on CNN’s The Lead with Jake Tapper, USA Today political reporter Susan Page was asked for her take on one possible substitute for Christie that “will bridge the divide” that exists between conservative tea party voters and the GOP’s moderates. The most likely contender at this early stage of the 2016 election cycle who may fit that bill, Page says, is former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.
“If he runs, how formidable do you think he’d be?” Tapper asked.
“I think he’d be tremendously formidable,” Page replied, “because he’s one of those candidates – one of those rare candidates that is acceptable to the most conservative faction of the GOP, but also very well-liked by the establishment.”
“Do you think the tea party likes him?” Tapper asked.
“I think he is acceptable to the tea party forces in a way that Chris Christie will never be,” Page asserted. “He is, in almost a unique way, able to kind of bridge the divide that we see in the Republican Party today.”
This is interesting analysis and, if Bush has emerged as a potentially competitive 2016 GOP candidate, it would be fair to call it a political earthquake. So why aren’t more people talking about the Jeb juggernaut barreling toward 2016? Well, it could be that Page is providing CNN’s audience with a subjective assessment of Bush’s potential.
The race for the 2016 GOP nomination is fluid, and will only become more so as the fallout surrounding “bridge-gate” is fully absorbed by the party’s electorate. But there is plenty of data available to parse in order to evaluate whether Page’s assertion about Bush’s ability to emerge as the party’s nominee in three years has merit.
Of the last four polls measuring the state of the GOP race, Christie remains the top dog. Of those polls, all taken of registered voters from December 3 to January 14, Christie maintains a 3 to 5-point lead over his nearest competitor. Real Clear Politics pegs shows him with a 5.7 percent average lead over the field of potential GOP candidates.
But let’s dig a little deeper into the polls. Of the most recent surveys of the 2016 Republican field that provide a breakdown of subgroups, the most recent – a Public Policy Polling survey taken from December 12 to 15 – shows that Bush is the second least popular candidate among “very conservative” voters in a field of 9 possible candidates. The former Florida governor nets just 6 percent support. Only Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal ranks behind Bush with 2 percent support among “very conservative” voters.
But that field included the arch conservative former Arkansas governor and television host Mike Huckabee. If one removes Huckabee from the equation, Bush does gain some support among conservative voters – precisely 1 percent. In that scenario, he rockets from an anemic 6 to a slightly more healthy 7 percent support with “very conservative” voters.
While that survey did find Bush with a much higher favorability rating among “very conservative” Republicans than Christie (Bush’s 50 percent to Christie’s 34 percent), the poll showed rather definitively that Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX), Rand Paul (R-KY), Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), and even Christie are preferable to Bush among “very conservative” Republicans. This data is valuable because these voters are the least likely to be moved significantly by the “bridge-gate” scandal.
A Quinnipiac University survey taken from December 3 – 9 does not offer us insights into the “very conservative” mind, but it does break GOP voters down by gender. Quinnipiac offers us perhaps the most surprising findings.
In that poll, Bush enjoys the support of 11 percent of Republican and Republican-leaning men and 11 percent of Republican and Republican-leaning women for a grand total of 11 percent support. While Christie receives 17 percent support in that poll, the vast majority of his support comes from women at 21 percent compared to just 14 percent from men.
This should shock precisely because both candidates have made education reform, an issue that women respond to, the centerpiece of their political identity. For Bush, reforming the education system is comprehensive, holistic, and inclusive. It has won him accolades from the hosts of MSNBC’s Morning Joe and President Barack Obama. Christie, too, has reformed the education system in New Jersey in a far more confrontational fashion. His government took control of a variety of underperforming urban school districts and severely curtailed the power of New Jersey’s teachers unions, even in the face of aggressive protests. That’s precisely the kind of thing that should turn women off, even Republican women. It has not.
This indicates that both very conservative voters and moderate voters in the GOP do not regard Bush as an especially attractive candidate, at least not today. But these surveys were taken before any of the details involving the George Washington Bridge closures became national news. The only recent survey – an NBC News/Marist University poll taken from January 12 – 14 — shows Christie dropping slightly in the field of conservatives, though he still leads the pack. But that poll also shows Bush dropping from his December, 2013 plateau of 10 percent support among conservatives to just 8 percent support.
Anything can happen in three years, and even Page would likely concede that making definitive statements about the field of prospective candidates this far out is unwise, but surveying the available data is a far sight more informative when discussing the 2016 primaries than consulting your gut for its opinion and presenting its grumblings as fact.
[Photo via screen grab]
— –
Then that is what I will probably do, otherwise I will have no candidate... (again)
I agree.
"Kinder/Gentler"
"Compassionate Conservatism"
(Insert Jeb's tagline softening conservatism here)
Why can't Republicans stand and make the case for true conservatism?
GW called himself a “compassionate conservative”. He was solidly pro-life, so I voted for him both times.
I’d call him a moderate now after time to think about it.
Nonetheless, a lot of us conservatives voted for him, and almost went to war for him over hanging chads.
I ain’t voting for Jeb Bush. He supports Communist Core, open borders, and he let Terri Shiavo die.
"If we can't find more than two or three families to run for higher office, that's silly, because there are great governors and great people eligible to run," she said in the interview taped last fall and set to air Monday as part the cable channel's series on first ladies. "There are a lot of ways to serve and being president is not the only one, and I would hope that someone else would run."
"With a dollop of sugar, she said there was no doubt in her mind "that Jeb is the best-qualified person to run for president." But, she underlined, "I hope he won't."
"It is not the first time she has splashed cold water on the notion of a Bush presidential trilogy. In an interview on NBC's "Today" show, timed to coincide with the opening last spring of her son George W. Bush's presidential library, the former first lady said, "We've had enough of Bushes."
I don’t see how he had any choice in the matter. Hes just a governor not a dictator. Florida law don’t allow otherwise, nor would you or I think it should.
We are going to have to accept a lot of “deal-killers” if we are to accomplish anything.
Right now the Demos have setup an electorate that needs to be told one thing even as they need something completely different done.
We have a few major issues we can run on from Their war on the young:
http://washingtonexaminer.com/millennials-unhappy-with-obamas-war-on-the-young/article/2542394
to massive government dysfunction, all of which have a small government solution in implementation. But as you yourself no doubt know, we can’t get that message thou the Leftist media filters so we have to sell them one the left can at least acknolage even as we plan to do something very much more practical.
What we need is something of a Trogan horse, for the left to allow people to hear about.
“Why can’t Republicans stand and make the case for true conservatism?”
Because there aren’t enough real men in this country to support that.
Look what has happened to our boys over the last generation or so:
http://washingtonexaminer.com/on-masquelinity-and-the-war-on-poverty/article/2542416
We no longer have the male numbers to respect hard truths.
If the GOP runs Jeb...the DNC just runs commercials of “Bush Presidents”...and its over for the GOP
Bush supports Illegal Alien Amnesty, Open Borders, and wimped out on Terri Schindler Schiavo. The Dems would love to run against Jebbediah
PLEASE! NO FRICKING RINOS IN ‘16!
I don’t see how he had any choice in the matter. Hes just a governor not a dictator. Florida law don’t allow otherwise, nor would you or I think it should.
Not true.
As Governor of Florida, he could have ordered Schiavo removed from the hopsice, and sent in state police or national guard to do it. The judge in her case ordered her death...a judge cannot order a death or execution...only the governor can order an execution. He would been consistent with the law
Note that Rick Scott pulled the State Attorney in the George Zimmerman case, and put in one of his cronies, on the order of the Black Racists who wanted Zimmerman lynched..er tried. Yes Jeb Bush could have kept Terri Schiavo alive, and he is not going to be able to liberal his way out of it
“If you want a presidential candidate who is a social, fiscal, and defense conservative, I’m fairly convinced you will have to go outside the republican party.”
*******************************************************************
Damn, when did Ted Cruz and Sarah Palin leave the Republican Party? I was afraid that was going to happen.
Big fat no to both of them!
Stay out the Bushes!
Maybe you should ask the former Governor of Florida why he didn’t bring that particular subject up.
I suspect he and the dimwit around him never even thought of it that way. That being said I doubt that it would have made a difference. Terri Schiavo as i recall was brain dead.
What was done may have been wrong and a betrial on the part of her husband. I don’t strongly urge state intervention between families. The fact is Terry married that man so I can’t pretend to believe she didn’t trust his judgement.
Jeb? No thanks. We need the Tea Party to tell the GOP-e to get lost.
BTW, just what was the name of that fancy award that Jebber gave Mrs. Bill Clinton after she retired from being Obama’s Secretary of Statements?
If we’re gonna lose as many perdict, might as well lose with a Bush!
(Now, is he from Connecticut like his dad, or from D.C. like his granddad, or from Texas like his bro? These poor orphans couldn’t grow up together with mom and dad.)
LOL You still don't get it?
The law is whatever the guy with the power says it is, and we've been living under a dictatorship since the Lincoln Administration.
Bush is a pussy, we need street fighters to stop the communists.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.