Posted on 04/17/2010 11:37:12 AM PDT by Brices Crossroads
I will probably get hammered very hard for this on this board, but here is my thoughts on Palin: she is very popular with activists like us, but the other candidates have activists who support them too. Huckabee has a strong following amongst evangelical voters, Paul has a strong libertarian/kook following and Romney .... well, he has to pay for most of his support. Palin has more of this type of support, but it is not as organized right now.
However, to the generic Republican voter who is not engaged right now, she is not a serious presidential contender. This makes up probably about 30 to 40% of those who cast votes in caucuses and primaries. Their view of her is that she is somewhat inarticulate and “blonde” - based on the SNL characterizations and the now famous interview with Katie Couric. This is a huge obstacle to her getting the nomination and defeating Obama in 2012.
McCain polled well against other Repubs, evidenced by the fact that he was able to get the nomination. But as you say, without Sarah (and even with Sarah) he couldn't translate that into a win against the O.
Huck and Romney are going to poll well against O as generic Repubs because they have good name recognition (and Huck is a likeable TV presence). With the right chess moves they might be able to translate their name recognition into a nomination but they have a lot of negatives where rank and file Repubs are concerned.
The one thing they would have going for them, that McCain didn't have, is the fact that O is no longer an unknown. A lot of people will be desperate to get rid of him, and that would work to any Repub's favor, even Huck or Romney. My worry is that while just about anyone is better than O, (I can't think of anyone worse than O and certainly no one on the GOP side could possibly be as bad) I still say that Huck and Romney are both wired to be "bipartisan" and will not be the ones to roll back the Democrat agenda.
Palin is on my short list. The others on my short list (folks like DeMint, Ryan, Bachmann, a couple of others) don't have her name recognition or her crowd appeal and aren't going to poll nearly as well as she or Huck and Romney at this stage.
So beautiful :)
And you don't think she's capable of creating such an apparatus?
She probably has it in place already per her speaking schedule.
She is and I love that photo!!!
I guess we know which RINO is going to get DNC support, huh?
I got the same poll. I gave the same answer.
Facebook and the really fired up crowds are very important, and they by far favor Sarah Palin. No question about that.
“Listen, Joe. We have a difference of opinion. Polls this far out are worthless.”
I agree that polls today, are not the same as polls in 2012. I said so in my post. What I am saying though is, as at TODAY, Romney, Huckabee are ahead of Sarah Palin, and she needs to keep working hard to get more of the GOP and independent voters to her side, between now and 2012. She is is making a good start with these policy speeches she's been giving recently.
” Rudy Giuliani was way ahead in the polls in 2007 and he wound up with one delegate.”
Correct. That doesn't mean the same thing will happen in 2012.
“. I think genuihne empirical facts are more reliable, especially at this stage.”
Empirical evidence is very important yes. But then taken together, the current polls are equally important. They tell you exactly what the weaknesses of the various candidates are, as far as voters are concerned. What any politician can do, is work on their perceived shortcomings with the voters .
For example, 0bozo took this trip to Iraq, Afghanistan, Germany etc back in 2008, when polls showed him as being weak on foreign affairs. Right now, polls have Sarah Palin being precieved as not strong on foreign affairs. Now if I were her, early next year, right after the elections, I’d take a trip to Israel to show them strong support in their fight with 0bama, then visit Germany and meet German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, the most powerful woman in Europe, then take a trip to Iraq to see first hand what is going on there(all with TV cameras of course), etc etc.
Of course she is more than capable of all that.
Read my original post. I said as at now, Romney and Pawlenty are ahead of her in that department. They are already pretty well along in setting up their campaign organizations in the states.
“She probably has it in place already per her speaking schedule. “
Not as far as I know.
They're less than worthless. They're designed to be damaging.
Their value even leading up to an election is dubious. It's only 48-72 hrs. prior to an election that the pollsters attempt to zoom in on the truth, because that's how they are measured.
10 days prior to the 1980 election, the polls showed Carter with the momentum and even with a slight lead in some. Then came the famous debate, still the most watched debate in history with 105 million viewers.
Even after the debate, prevailing MSM "opinion" was that Carter was the winner. The polls were more mixed but generally showed Reagan with a plurality edge as to "who won" by less than 10 pts.
The anecdotal evidence was clear. Reagan won in a landslide. ABC Nightline conducted a controversial phone-in poll that got 725,000 responses showing Reagan had smashed Carter in the debate by a 2-1 margin. He went on to win 44 states a week later.
105 million Americans watched Ronald Reagan close the deal with the American people in just 90 minutes.
I’ll add that Sarah runs campaigns on a frugal budget (per Going Rogue and her old ads on youtube) - matter of fact she takes pride in the frugality. Second, I don’t doubt for one minute that she was aware that Ron Paul stacked the straw vote at CPAC. Why bother to stack at SLRC when RPaul has made the straw polls a joke? To Sarah, that would be a waste of money.
“the generic Republican voter who is not engaged right now”
That type of voter, and it is not 30-40% but a much smaller percentage, tends not to vote in caucuses or primaries. The activists do and if they have a conservative alternative, they coalesce around that alternative. The problem for conservatives is that there has not been a viable conservative candidate in 25 years...until now. That is one of hte reasons for the intensity of the support for Palin.
And Huck’s followers are not that committed to him. He got in early last time and was really the only solid prolifer in the bunch. That explains his support last time. Once his big government record and open jail pardon policy as governor is aired, his support (especially in the south, which he would have to win big)will evaporate like a puddle in the Mojave Desert.
Joe,
I think your points are well taken, especially on foreign policy. We are on the same page. I see it as a little rosier for her than you do.
Al,
Thanks for the walk down memory lane. You are exactly right, as usual. Carter was pulverized in the debate, with Amy and nuclear policy, and the “there you go again” line, not to mention, “Are you better off now than you were 4 years ago?”
The media was in denial and they trotted out a push poll to support their view. The American people set them straight on November 4, 1980. The look of dismay and disgust on Walter Cronkite’s face was unforgettable.
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