Posted on 05/15/2011 10:41:34 AM PDT by techno
A huge obstacle in Sarah Palin's pathway to the GOP nomination and ultimately to the presidency was removed last night with Mike Huckabee's announcement that he was not running in 2012.
I am a number's person and with that in mind I would like to review several sets of statistics and data which indicate to me that the GOP nomination if Palin's to win or lose and that she is indeed entrenched in the catbird seat now without even firing a shot.
Here is why:
1)Palin is the darling of the TP movement. In late January Rasmussen released a poll showing that Palin had a 68% VERY FAVORABLE rating with GOP TP members, and in case you don't know many Tea Partiers also self-identify as evangelical Christians which happen according to the 2008 exit polls comprise about 40% of the GOP primary electorate then. And Palin is also very strong in that community.
2)Lack of a viable stalking-horse on the right. Whatever you think of Bachmann and Cain, they are dark horses polling at most 5% of the national vote while Palin constantly polls in the first tier. With Huckabee's departure, I expect Palin's momentum to surge and whatever increase in support they had to fall by the wayside. Why? Because the base of the GOP will come to realize neither MB or Cain can win. They will eventually go with the winner and that is Sarah Palin, if you are a conservative.
3)72% of Republicans self-identify as conservative while only 27% self-identify as liberals and moderates. Simply put Romney does not play well to the conservative movement while Palin does. And as you can see there 2 and 1/2 times more conservatives than liberal/moderates in the GOP.
4)Rasmussen recently conducted a poll in which he found 2/3 of the GOP call themselves social conservatives and around 50% of independents do. Sarah Palin is extremely popular in this group. Once she declares the bulk of these folks will be in her tent.
5)Facebook did a survey of the 2010 elections and found that 74% of candidates with the greater Facebook membership won the House race and that went up to 82% in the Senate. Palin has close to 3m members on her Facebook while Mitt is only around 900,000.
6)Rasmussen found on March 29, 2011 that 9 out of 10 conservative voters are ANGRY; Sarah Palin is well qualified to play to that anger and stoke it even further. Can we say that about Mitt or T-Paw?
7)Rasmussen has clearly shown that a clear majority of the electorate want Obamacare repealed. Who of the all the candidates has issued an undeniable, undiluted clarion call for its repeal? Sarah Palin.
8)Gallup this week found Sarah Palin has the highest favorables among the GOP contenders based on matching up recognition and favorables/unfavorables at 71%. Huck was 2nd before he decided not to run.
9)Sarah Palin consistently wins online polls. These polls measure intensity. Sarah Palin has the most intensity of all the first-tier candidates (Ron Paul is not a first-tier candidate).
10)And finally Sarah Palin is in the catbird seat because of her book sales and the SRO crowds that always attend her events. Nobody among the GOP contenders comes close to matching Palin's personal and political appeal.
I know I could cite other statistics but I think you get the idea. Sarah Palin is formidable and as Mike Huckabee said a few months ago, "She may not be able to be stopped."
After the faux inaugeration, Obie's numbers still had not passed 1.3 million, and Sarah Palin's were approaching 1.5 million. Obie's acorns started massive campaigns to make him appear legitimate, and magically his Facebook numbers jumped to 10 million overnight.
The difference is that Sarah Palin is a real person. Nothing about Obie is real.
Sarah Palin's Facebook followers are now at 2,957,573 real people, and she has 518,418 followers on Twitter.
Prove me wrong.
Show me ONE POLL that has Palin even coming within 10 pts of Obama.
I’ll admit she’ll do better as an actual nominee than any poll says right now - any Republican will because there’s no official nominee...but do you really think she can convince 20% of the country to vote for her that right now says they absolutely won’t?
Head to head polls have no significance this far out.
The more important polls are the GOP primary polls of presidential contenders.
You have to get to the conference championship and win that game before you become eligible to compete in the Super Bowl.
If Free Republic had “Thumbs”, I’d give you a thumbs up for that one. Excellent post.
Your poll BS is just that, it's total BS. Polls don't mean a damn thing right now. Until there's a campaign and people actually have to confront what they see for a year, polls are meaningless. Until we are close to the primaries, polls are meaningless. Until there is a nominee, polls are meaningless.
Do you remember how John McCain was shown in poll after poll a year or so out and he was the only republican who could gain the independents? Well I do, and those polls were as full of crap as anything you're spewing right now.
They were meaningless........which means your argument (as many times as you make it) is ___________________.
I'm sure a smart boy like you can fill in that blank, yes?
One of the key reasons Sarah Palin is in the catbird seat now:
http://conservatives4palin.com/2011/05/palin-2012-game-on.html
No, and she won't have to. No one in the United States is ever going to be elected with over 80% of the vote.
Besides, it your logic can be followed, then Obama doesn't stand a chance against Palin since 44 to 46% of registered voters say they could not vote for Obama's re-election.
Besides, polling now is absolutely meaningless.
Yes, but there has to be an awareness of how that person will fare in the general.
I don’t want 4 more years of Obama. I also don’t want a RINO candidate.
That pretty much leaves Palin, Bachmann, Cain. Palin can’t win and we don’t even know if she’s running. Bachmann might run, but has name recognition issues and same for Cain.
I lean to Cain because he has made SERIOUS strides in getting his name out there and I believe he can continue to do so. He doesn’t have the pre-existing negatives that Palin does, either.
Overcoming being unknown is FAR easier than convincing people that have said they WON’T vote for you (not that they’re not sure but that they WON’T) to flip to your side in the kind of numbers Palin needs to. Her negatives are anywhere from 50% to 65%.
That’s not what I mean, I mean that she has to FLIP 20% from Obama over to her to win. Getting undecideds is one thing, but in head-to-head polls of Palin v Obama there aren’t enough undecideds to break 50% even if she got all of them. She’ll have to flip OBAMA voters.
When 44% to 46% say they won’t vote for Obama, that means he’s in trouble UNLESS he’s running against someone that more than 44 to 46% won’t vote for!
It’s not just a matter of how high Obama’s negatives are, but are they higher than the GOP candidates negatives.
For Palin, the answer is no.
” Sarah Palin can beat Obama like a threadbare rug. “
If you don’t have a job, paying $4 and up for gas, and your house is underwater, why would you vote for Obama again?
All Sarah has to say is “Are you better off than you were 4 years ago ?”
Michael Reagan said that his dad has come back and he is wearing a dress.
I like Cain too, but Palin is far from a lost cause.
It hasn’t been reported much, but all the republican primaries held in March will be on a proportional basis - no winner take all. I do believe this was meant to slow Palin down.
If the convention is brokered - Christie or Jeb Bush could be drafted.
Do the math:
I did not include these numbers in my analysis but:
41% of the electorate in 2010 self-identified as conservative, up from 34% in 2006 and 2008.
Among WHITE voters in 2010, only 37% voted for the Democrats and 60% for the GOP. They are the key to the election.
Here is the only way Obama can stop a Palin victory:
1)Depress the WHITE conservative vote (as was done in 2008 when millions of white conservatives did not show up to vote)or splinter the WHITE vote so it is divided by the GOP nominee and a 3rd party.
And how do achieve that if you are the Messiah. By working behind the scenes in a loose relationship with the GOP establishment to get a RINO nominated in 2012.
Why does Team Obama never mention Palin’s name? Because they fear her and don’t want to legitimize her even more.
They know she has the capability of leveraging the issues of Obamacare and the issues of the economy and fiscal and monetary matters to bring out a record turnout of white voters (modern record) which the Dems know spell their doom not only in the WH but also in both houses of Congress.
Again Rasmussen found that 90% of CONSERVATIVES are angry and many of those conservatives I would suspect are white conservatives.
That is a load of crap my friend.
I've said this before, and you ignore it because you can't answer it.
Fact: There is no candidate with an (R) behind their name that isn't going to have the same negatives by the time the MSM is done with them.
Fact: None of the other candidates with an (R) have had the pleasure of their "negatives" being splashed about yet, but if they win, oh will they ever be there, because the MSM/democrat complex will trumpet them to the heavens. None of us know how any of the candidates will handle that when it comes.
Fact: Palin has had that treatment already, and not only is she standing, she's in a pretty damn good position. If she runs, and wins, her campaign can erase the negatives quite easily when people actually ahve to confront who she is and what she stands for.
Fact: Reagan did not overcome his "negatives" until the final two weeks of his campaign.
Fact: You don't know a damn thing about polling, nor past polls and how they worked out in past elections.
Frankly your arguments don't hold water, your repetitive mantras are stale, negative, and never throw light on anything. They're meaningless (yep, I filled in the blank for you).
I guess that its a good thing that the election isn’t next week.
Listen, whatever these polls say today has to be taken with a DOSE, not a mere grain of salt. The landscape in the fall of this year will be NOTHING like it is today.
Personally, I think Obama is in a WOLRD of hurt, and it won’t get better for him. He is HATED, and with good reason, by a majority of likely voters, whatever his standing is with the mascot classes, who are over-polled whenever Gallup, ABC, CNN, or CBS is involved...
Nobody was going to beat Obama in 2008.
Stop using the Reagan Carter example. I’ve seen a poll from that era and yes, it appeared Carter was going to beat Reagan handily...except...
ALMOST 30% WERE UNDECIDED. That’s who Reagan won over, it is all he had to win over.
There aren’t 30% undecideds in polls with Palin. In fact, Obama is over 50% himself. She could get EVERY undecided and still lose.
Thanks for your very kind words! :^)
I know we have a year to go.
Isn’t this why we’re having these discussions now? To determine who we want as our nominee?
However, we like to trumpet on FR that “polls don’t matter”.
They were pretty damn accurate in 2008 and 2010 overall.
Hence my concern, even if it is a year out. Once we’re a month out and Palin’s still down 10 pts, we can worry, but then, it’ll be too late to nominate someone else.
How do you know?
ALMOST 30% WERE UNDECIDED.
That's false, a veritable lie, that's not what the polls said. There were not 30% undecided.
You really shouldn't misstate facts like that. It hurts your already limited arguments......
When I posted this is in the wee hours of the morning I perhaps should have titled this instead of being in the catbird seat, setting the cat among the pigeons.
I must say unlike many sites and thread, the folks here aren’t mostly brain-dead, mind-numbed robots who keep spouting the mantra “she’s not running.”
If anything this thread has done it has imho moved us off that stupid meme into more substantial areas.
"If the election for President were being held next Tuesday would you vote for Sarah Palin or Barack Obama?"
I wonder what the results would be? Could someone like Heritage or Hillsdale do it? No trick pony, no spin, just a simple question and pick your candidate.
And the winner would be, on this Sunday night? . .
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