The Job Nobody Wants: GOP's Growing 2012 Dropout List (The Palin handwriting is on the wall)

Yahoo! News ^ | May 17, 2011 | Eleanor Rodham Clift

[E. Pluribus Unum]

Donald Trump is the latest Republican to bail out of the 2012 presidential race, joining Mike Huckabee and Haley Barbour. Doesn’t anybody want the GOP nomination? Eleanor Clift on why the contest can’t draw a crowd.

Running for president is not for the faint-hearted. The level of personal scrutiny is intense, the financial demands daunting, and the chance of winning iffy against a well-funded incumbent.

[hometoroost]

Three guys who couldn’t win the nomination dropped out and she’s ready to got straight to the second coronation already.

[Virginia Ridgerunner]

where are her people? her exploration committee? her money fund raisers?

She's said that any campaign would be unconventional. She's got a vast grassroots organization forming and "her people" are everywhere. They're us!

[E. Pluribus Unum]

They know she's inevitable.

They knew it the first time they saw her.

It's why they go insane ever time they think of her.

[Yaelle]

SEEKING EXECUTIVE WITH LEADERSHIP SKILLS
Must be willing to have entire life, personal and professional, exposed on national TV and in all print media. Must enjoy hearing details of same mocked nightly on entertainment shows.
Must be willing to submit to debates with opponents, moderated also by an opponent.
Prefer applicants who can get by on 4 or less hours of sleep a night, and who have attractive family members with no blemishes in looks or behavior.
Must enjoy giving speeches every day. Intensive travel required. Must be prepared to have everything you say be clipped and cut out of contest and repeated around the world.
Absolute prerequisite: MUST be able to stand being called a racist.

Benefits: Good personal security detail; free sampling of local delicacies; possibility of free room and board; unlikely to be forgotten for at least 20 years.

[rogue yam]

If that is the strategy then yes it is working.

If Sarah had already announced her intention to run then the whole story at this point would be what is Sarah doing, can Sarah win, how well does Sarah poll this week, who is the GOP not-Sarah candidate, etc.

With Sarah not in yet there is much more focus on Obama and on the other possible GOP candidates.

Having the focus off of Sarah helps Sarah (and I say that not as a criticism of her).

[re_tail20]

Palin knows not to get in too early or too late.

Bill Clinton entered the race in October of 1991, and he got elected.

So Sarah could enter the race in five months and still win.

[tcrlaf]

“They know she’s inevitable.”

A not-particularly politically aware aquaintance told me just the other day that Palin will NEVER be elected, because she is a “Dangerous Psycopath!”.

How does he know this? Because MSNBC, the New York Times, and the “View” told him so.

As much as I like, and agree with Sarah Palin, we are just not going to get through the propaganda that has destroyed her reputation.

Lets not kid ourselves, folks. The politics of personal destruction by the lamestream media has worked very well.

[beaversmom]

I want the most conservative, electable person out there. I don’t know who that is at this point, but that’s who I want. I will go on record now though and state I will vote for the person that is running against Obama in the general. Sorry, he’s a country destroying Communist bastard and any one of our people would be better.

[Donald Rumsfeld Fan]

Running for president is not for the faint-hearted. The level of personal scrutiny is intense

really....

[ckilmer]

if romney is palin’s main competition then palin is a lock on the republican nomination. romney is simply no competition at all.

[Emperor Palpatine]

Daniels is a RINO who’s worked for the worthless turds Bill Ruckelshaus and Dick Lugar. He’s also appointed a nazi-thinking judge who hates the Fourth Amendment to the state supreme court.

Cain, Palin, and Bachmann are the real deal.

[Gargantua]

I'm telling you, and have been for some time now:

Nobody wants to waste weeks or months of their lives and millions of dollars only to, in the end, watch Sarah Palin waltz away with the nomination and the White House. All the actual polls (not the push-polls or "weighted" polls that say otherwise) have shown for the last five (5) months that Sarah Palin is the odds-on favorite when you assume (correctly) that the GOP/Tea Party voter bloc represents at least 45% of the 2012 electorate.

Add in whatever will be the percentage of Blue Dogs, Independents and Reagan Democrats, and there remain not enough votes for O'Bungwad to win. Neither does any alternate GOP candidate stand a real chance for the nomination.

The only "variable" is whether or not Sarah decides to run. SHE HAS ALREADY DECIDED, it's just too early, in her estimation, to announce this yet.

Palin 2012, winning from the lead.

;^\

[jimjohn]

where are her people? Ans: everywhere patiently waiting.
her exploration committee? Ans Your local TEA party meeting
her money fund raisers? Ans: Sarah PAC is still raking it in. Did you get the latest fund-rasing letter?

And finally...

She is a rally leader but not showing anything about leading the parade. Ans: Really? Seriously? Where to begin...

1. Death Panels on Obamacare
2. Drill Baby Drill
3. Monetizing the Federal Debt
4. Leading the Charge to take back the House (where were those other candidates again?)
5. Cap & Trade
6. Among the first to endorse the Ryan Budget Plan
7. Building America up instead of tearing it down

I could go on, but let's put it this way: Everytime you hear one of the 'named' GOP candidates spout off about something you like, go check Sarah's Facebook page. I'm sure it'll be referenced in there somewhere.

[tennmountainman]

Newt will be the next to bite the dust.

[The Cajun]

Eleanor *Rodham* Clift, that old witch still flying around!
Thought they would have taken her broom away by now or at least threw water on her.

[joe fonebone]

Hell, I will run.....but nobody would want me, I am too big of a pr*ck....here is my platform.....disband the atf, department of education, roll homeland security into the fbi, enable profiling at airports and train stations, etc., screw pakistan, iran, and any other country that screws us, protect our citizens wherever in the world they are, with military force if necessary, eliminate all gun laws and restrictions including fully automatic firearms, put a stranglehold on the epa, drill baby drill, and refine baby refine....end all federal funding for abortion period, and prosecute rogue judges......any takers?

[kevkrom]

As much as I like, and agree with Sarah Palin, we are just not going to get through the propaganda that has destroyed her reputation. Lets not kid ourselves, folks. The politics of personal destruction by the lamestream media has worked very well.

First of all, if we allow ourselves to believe that, then we have just confirmed to the enemy that they have a foolproof weapon to use against us in perpetuity. No, Palin must stand or fall on her own merits, not some character assassination, not only for her own benefit, but for anyone who runs in the future.

Secondly, I am of the opinion that they've made the caricature of Palin so ridiculous that it will not suffer comparison to the real thing. To anyone paying attention, they will quickly observe that Sarah Palin is the the "Sarah Palin" that they have been led to believe.

Those who don't pay attention are unlikely to vote in any way other than what the media tells them anyway, so we need not concern ourselves with them. The best we can hope from that group is that they stay home.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

As much as I like, and agree with Sarah Palin, we are just not going to get through the propaganda that has destroyed her reputation.

If your criteria for a GOP candidate is someone the Left likes, you have already conceded defeat.

A real conservative will destroy Ubama.

A squishy, me-too RINO like Bush 41, Bob Dull, John McKeating or Mittens Romney will give us Ubama II.

The very fact that state-run media obsesses over her tells you who they fear.

You gotta ask yourself: "Why are they so afraid of her?"

The answer, of course, is because they know that she is anything but unelectable.

But go ahead and believe anything state-run media tells you, like a good little amoeba.

[kevkrom]

I’d vote for that platform. You, on the other hand... :)

[Dr. Sivana]

“This is the latest-starting early race I’ve ever seen,”says Glen Bolger, a Republican consultant.

Oh, it looks like Glen is finally old enough to drink, and he has a job as a Republican consultant!

Reagan announced in November, 1979.


Ancient history? Indeed.

All the more reason why it makes no sense to read 4 or 8 year old entrails to decipher today's contest.

For starters, the funding rules have changed. Federal matching is way out (both Carter and Reagan had a ceiling of $30 million to spend in '80. It almost seems quaint.) As soon as you start, a lot of cash spigots get turned off.

Unlike the old days, media is pervasive, but announcing restricts how you can go on. A lot has been made about Fox having most of the likely candidates under contract. If the Dems weren't the incumbents MS-NBC, CNN and the alphabets would probably have some of them under contract as well.

Reagan was more media savvy than most, but announcing simply meant no more GE Theatre reruns and no more radio commentary.

After Carter won largely by organizing early, every third tier candidate (Paul Tsongas, Tom Harkin, Lamar Alexander) tried to bottle that lightning. Unfortunately, while disco might have sounded new and fresh when it was Van McCoy doing the Hustle and George McRae telling us to "Rock Your Baby", by the time Elton John does his disco version of Johnny B. Goode, the trend is well on the wane, other forces have compensated.

A smart candidate doesn't need a candidate who is a historian ("Republicans elect legitimists whose turn it is, dammit"), he needs somebody who can describe the current battle theatre.