Posted on 11/30/2008 2:59:10 PM PST by lewisglad
The Battle for the GOP Is On - Palin, Romney or JindalNovember 30th, 2008 By: Michael van der Galien | Tags: Leave a comment | Trackback The latest polls of Republican and all voters indicate that the conservative Republican base favors candidates voters in general do not think too highly of.
For instance, 24.4% Republican voters want Governor Sarah Palin to be the Republican candidate for president in 2012. Only 13.4% of all voters agree.
At the same time, Governor Mitt Romney ranks second among all voters, six points behind Palin, but leads among all voters (be it barely).
Among conservatives, both represent an entirely different faction: Palin is the Christian conservative while Romney is the darling of (elite and well educated) fiscal conservatives. These two battled it out earlier this year with fiscal conservatives favoring Romney, Christian conservatives supporting Governor Mike Huckabee, and the party ending up with Senator John McCain as the compromise candidate.
A compromise figure not able to make life truly difficult for now president-elect Barack Obama.
Most remarkable about the figures, however, is that there is a third candidate who does relatively better (meaning: smaller gap) among all voters than among Republicans: Governor Bobby Jindal. Jindal has quite a low profile nationally, yet he already ranks third in both categories. When all voters are included, the gap between him and Romney is only 1.2%, which is remarkable.
Huckabee fares less well; he is fourth with only 9.7% among Republicans and 8.0% among all voters.
This while Huckabee was the favorite of the Christian conservative base.
So what happened to Huckabee? Palin. Although Huckabee could count on the support of Christian conservatives during the primaries, they all flocked to Palin during the general election campaign. Palin became their candidate, their darling even. The defeat made her more not less popular among this group of conservative voters for they consider her a martyr.
The above means that the Republican Party could very well nominate a person who is deemed anti-intellectual, simple, naive and overly socially conservative in 2012 or that the war between the fiscal conservative and social conservative base will continue with at least one side staying home on election day, thereby ensuring Obama a second term.
That is, unless Palin can improve her image, studies hard and convince libertarian and fiscal conservatives that she is more than just a socon (unlikely). Or if Romney will succeed in courting Evangelicals and convincing them that either his Mormon faith should not be a problem to them (unlikely) or that his faith and their faith teach the same basic principles and values (less unlikely, but not altogether likely).
Of course there is a third option, an option I consider most likely and, especially, most in the interest of the Republican Party: that conservative voters will agree on a compromise candidate who endorses conservative views in most ways. In other words, a person who is a convinced social conservative (yet not overly so, for it would make it easy to destroy a candidate who is as socially conservative and as vocal about it as Palin and Huckabee are), who also has a track record of fiscal conservatism and who sympathizes with many libertarian policies.
At this moment, it seems to me that neither Huckabee nor Palin nor Romney fit the bill (although Romney would certainly be a better choice than the other two). Jindal, however, does.
For Jindal, 2008 and especially 2009 offer a tremendous opportunity to raise his profile nationally, to court conservatives of all stripes and to implement policies rooted in conservatism. He will have to use his time in Louisiana in order to show voters that conservative policies work and improve their daily lives. He he has already done so to a tremendous degree, but the most difficult times are ahead of him. The recession is likely to worsen in the coming months with Americans in all states suffering financially. Jindal will have to control the damage and improve his state at the same time.
If McCain had lost NH, he would never have won SC and Crist and Martinez would have stayed out and not endorsed (as they had previously promised) and we would likely had a completely different outcome in the GOP primary. What I do not understand in this country is how everyone has become a bunch of sheep, going with the candidate the media tells them is likely to win rather than actually researching and voting for the best candidates.
The ONLY good thing to come out of this election was Sarah Palin IMO.
Sanford?
Puhleeze....
I like Sarah, but she needs to beef up if she wants to win.
Politico: Palin a GOP star, but little liked by center
Includes comments from GOP people. Barf. They're trying to separate Sarah from her grassroots support now IMO. Never seen anything like this for any politician, certainly not since Reagan.
Figured I'd post it here and not a new thread since there's an ongoing discussion.
Me too.
Sarah!
Just use that title cause Murtha gave it to me...infact that will be the “signature” on all my Christmas cards to my Buckeye friends>!!!!
The MSM goons are scared to death of Sarah Palin.
They don’t give a hoot about the rest; they’re all mulk toast by comparison, they just know that they have to stop her.
Ridiculous her ratings in Alaska and in the republican party are astronomical, see post 102.
great, so we’ll win Alaska. What about the 49 other states?
My vote is NOT Palin.
I haven’t looked closely at Jindal, but he looks very promising, and capable of expressing complex thoughts coherently. That would be a refreshing change after the Bush years.
“Very true. But her numbers among NON-Republicans (ie the majority of the electorate) are far from stellar.”
A republican candidates numbers outside of the party four years before the election, are probably not conclusive.
Well Joe is a veteran, I don’t know what his specialty was.
Won’t be Romney.
I predict a Jindal/Palin ticket.
Wow. I didn't realize that. You make an excellent point. I still think that most Dems were more concerned with their own primary fight to care much about ours. But that might change in 2012 when they have a candidate locked in, and they might try to take revenge for "Operation Chaos".
Thank God there's time for these public servants to wise up to what's going on. The truth of the matter is that, regardless of decades of brainwashing by the MSM that the Oval Office and Congress call the shots under the Constitution, the state governments actually have more constitutional power to serve the people than the feds do. This is evidenced by the following constitutional statutes.
Article I, Section 8, Clause 18: To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution (emphasis added) in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.So Governors Palin and Jindal can rally the other governors to use their "presidential" powers to "veto" Obama's health care bill. This is because, since the federal Constitution says nothing about public health care, the 10th A. automatically reserves government power to regulate and lay taxes to finance government-assisted health care to the states, not to the federal government.10th Amendment: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution (emphasis added), nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
In fact, Thomas Jefferson reflected on state regulated health care when he discussed the Founder's division of federal and state powers.
"Our citizens have wisely formed themselves into one nation as to others and several States as among themselves. To the united nation belong our external and mutual relations; to each State, severally, the care of our persons (emphasis added), our property, our reputation and religious freedom." --Thomas Jefferson: To Rhode Island Assembly, 1801. ME 10:262 http://tinyurl.com/onx4jGiven Governor Palin's track record in successfully taking on the big guys, it's no wonder that God kept Sarah in Alaska, especially since the feds have no power to regulate or lay takes for things like public health care anyway. Governor Palin can best lead the states to restore constitutional limits on the federal government while devising a health care plan for Alaskans from Alaska, not DC, that is, if Alaskans actually want health care. Likewise for the other governors and their states.
And after Governor Palin cleans up DC in the next two or four years from Alaska, then she can run for President and take it easy in the Oval Office if she wins. That is, if we're not fighting wars somewhere.
The article is written by a moderate. Nothing against Michael, but the moderates had their way with the choice of the 2008 GOP presidential nominee. That really worked out well for Republicans, now didn’t it?
Sorry, Michael. Your guys have blown two elections in row. You’ve had your shot, and it resulted in two miserable failures. Now please get the hell out of the way.
- JP
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