Free Republic

Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin remains a top favorite of Republican voters, but she’s also the front-runner they least want to see get the GOP’s 2012 presidential nomination. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 81% of Likely GOP Primary Voters have a favorable opinion of Mitt Romney, former governor of Massachusetts and an unsuccessful candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008. Seventy-nine percent (79%) share a favorable opinion of Palin, the party’s 2008 vice presidential nominee, and 77% express positive feelings about another 2008 contender, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee. These findings include 44% with Very...

When Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin announced her resignation two weeks ago it was after a series of strange, petty bouts with her detractors. Many "frivolous ethics violations" had been alleged against her, she noted. David Letterman had told an ugly joke about her daughter. A blogger had posted something that was probably not true. Someone had photoshopped a radio talker's face onto a picture of her baby -- a "malicious desecration" of the image, in the words of Ms. Palin's spokeswoman. Team Palin got duly indignant at each of these. They took special, detailed offense. They issued statements magnifying their...

Sarah is now unelectable on a national stage. The “quitter” specter will hang around her neck like “swimmer” does to Ted Kennedy. You’ll be able to spot the realistic, clear thinking conservatives because they see and admit this early so we can put it behind us get on with identifying the candidates who can win in ‘12. BTW - This doesn’t rule out a tangential private career ala Newt or a run for a House or Senate seat (although I don’t know where at this point) but as a national candidate she is toast. That so many conservatives can’t see...

There may have been a time when Mitt Romney would have appealed to New Jersey voters, even potentially carrying the state against a Democrat in the presidential election. Not any more, says a group of academics who monitor New Jersey campaigns. While the pundits say Rudy Giuliani has a good chance to carry New Jersey – two independent polls have him leading all of the Democratic contenders -- they say that Romney can't win a state that has gone Democratic in the last four presidential elections. Romney was, by most accounts, a socially moderate governor of Massachusetts. He was pro-choice,...