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.
Care to elaborate?
This premature anointing of Jindal is no different than what the Dimocrats did with B. Hussein Obama;
we don’t know much about this boy, except that he refused to oppose the runaway Louisiana legislature when they voted themselves a 135% pay increase right after his swearing-in.
He doesn’t sound like much of a conservative to me, and I’d find it hard to support him; he’s no better than Mitt Romney of Massachusetts socialized medicine infamy...
Do a Nixon and find a rising star in foreign policy circles (Dick was lucky enough to have Nelson Rockefeller introduce him to Kissinger). Write many op-eds in the Wall Street Journal. Tour America giving speeches to chambers of commerce and trade organizations. Do the talk-show circuit aggressively. STUDY! STUDY! STUDY!
Uh oh. With that criteria we get no Ronald Reagan. He was never in combat. He spent World War II in Hollywood making training films.
Don’t know who wrote this but it’s pure garbage,
Palin in 2012 or 3rd party!
Why do you post some idiots personal rant here?
I discuss this issue of "swing voters" in my post #74 on this thread.
These swing voters are really just "low information" voters. I've met these people all over the place. They don't really follow politics. They are socially conservative. That's why they vote against things like gay marriage. See the rest of my post at #74 for more. But basically, these voters are very persuadable and have a very short attention span. Trust me, if the economy is still bad in four years, they won't care what the MSM tells them about Sarah Palin. They'll be mad at the Dems. After All, the MSM told us that Reagan was a crazy old stupid man who would nuke the planet. We elected him twice and the second time was the largest landslide in presidential history.
As for Palin, I have yet to see any proof that she isn't a conservative.
“LOL! How about one with military experience as an enlisted soldier in a combat specialty.”
He didn’t say combat, he said worked in a combat specialty, his requirements (enlisted) would still exclude Ronald Reagan, Congressman Duncan Hunter, and Congressman elect Duncan D. Hunter, because they were all officers.
Excellent point.
The fact is that they do fear her a great deal. They feared her before she was even named to McCain's ticket. Many of them said that she would be the worst possible candidate to run against.
Take a listen to this podcast of the PBS show "To the Point" from April 2008. They interviewed Palin, and afterwards, the Dems on the panel were blown away by her. One of the panelists, U.S. House Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC), was absolutely wowed by Palin and started throwing out lines like, "You better embrace this woman quick!", "That is a VERY attractive candidate!", "She's just what your party needs!", and "that was some McCain straight talk you just got from that girl!".
The stupid Democrats think that she's a joke. The smart ones are frightened by her. The stupid ones believe the lies they read about her. The smart ones write and broadcast those lies. It would be a shame if conservatives fall prey to these lies too. We've got a real winner here. We should allow her to be thrown under the straight talk express bus just because McCain ran a bad campaign in a bad year for Republicans.
All this talk about her not appealing to anyone but social conservatives is nonsense. Alaska is a fundamentally libertarian state. You don't get 90% approval ratings in Alaska by governing as a theocrat! (and you don't get them by writing blank checks either -- they like fiscal conservatism up there! They are serious about it, and they see Sarah Palin as a fiscal conservative for a reason. They know her fiscal record and it's quite impressive.) She has never sought to impose her social conservative or religious beliefs through government. She is clear about her own values, but she does not seek to impose them. She is famous for being a strict constructionist when it comes to the Alaska state constitution. She will not do anything that infringes on that constitution. She is no theocrat nutjob and all attempts to paint her as such are intellectually dishonest.
BTW, I'd be happy to argue this point on this thread or any other thread if anyone still questions this point. I'm really tired of seeing a good conservative get smeared unfairly.
Sanford laughed out loud on Hannity and Colmes when asked by Colmes if Palin should be included in Sanford’s list of Republican governors who were the future of the party. He had conspicuously left her out.
It was totally inappropriate and showed his true colors to millions (I understand he has gotten hundreds of thousands of emails to this effect). He is jealous and petty.
“we don’t know much about this boy”
Why would you call a governor and a two time congressman a boy? Especially one that won his second term with 88% of the votes.
Prior to his election as governor, he was a member of the United States House of Representatives from Louisiana’s 1st congressional district, to which he was elected in 2004 to succeed current U.S. Senator David Vitter. Jindal was re-elected to Congress in the 2006 election with 88 percent of the vote.
On October 20, 2007, Jindal was elected governor of Louisiana, winning a four-way race with 54% of the vote.
I support her unconditionally -- as Governor of Alaska. Need to know more about her and her national policy positions before I could say that I would support her for a presidential run. What we heard from her on the campaign trail was what McCain wanted her to say, largely. I still have serious reservations about the fact that she trumpeted McCain as a fine conservative.
Her convention speech was as fine as any I've ever seen. Hopefully, she will be interested in national politics in the future, but continue to hone her knowledge and leadership skills. When a network reporter can so easily have Palin with the 'deer in the headlights' look, I'm having a difficult time seeing her making decisions on nuclear war, but that can be overcome.
The DBM will be the biggest foe. They will do anything to bring her down. But we will always be there to counter them which gets easier for us almost daily.
Of course, once he throws his hat in the ring, they're going to try to crucify Bobby over his exorcism article in the New Oxford Review. They'll try to turn him into a religious nut too. Mark my words.
BTW, aside from Jindal, I think the party should look beyond the South. I like the fact that Palin is a western conservative with her libertarian bent.
Does anyone have an opinion on Rhode Island Governor Don Carcieri? According to Jim Geraghty at NRO, Carcieri is "pro-life Catholic, tough on illegal immigration and corruption in his home state. Good biography, as a former high school teacher, former director of Catholic Relief Services in Jamaica in the early 80s, and CEO of Cookson America, a manufacturing company." Why have we not heard of him?
Not to denigrate the Gipper's war service, but making films in Hollywood is hardly great preparation for commander in chief. Wearing the uniform is not what made him a great leader, it was his beliefs. No one should judge Palin or any other conservative on whether or not they wore the uniform.
And at any rate, the American electorate in general does not agree with your premise -- otherwise it wouldn't have elected Bill Clinton twice and most recently Obama. Neither of these men have worn the uniform.
The writer of this article has little grasp on conservatism. He should understand that anyone who is fiscally conservative, but socially liberal, or vice versa, is half liberal, and therefore incapable of making rational conservative decisions. He’s talking about the Bush and McCain “conservatives”, who are liberal. And Romney and Huckabee fall into this category. Palin and Jindle show promise. They seem to know right from wrong.
If conservatives, real conservatives, are anymore a factor, then Romney and Huckabee have no chance.
He certainly did... was downright rude in his attitude toward Sarah. I have the impression the good ole boys ganged up to freeze her out at the Gov’s meeting, which is why she went away with no positions on their committees, they were and are afraid of her... ALL have been rude in their comments about her...
You should be addressing that to familyop not me, by the way originally Reagan was in the cavalry and then was an officer in transportation during the early part of his WWII service, he then transferred to the movie dept. In all he had about nine years of reserve and active duty service.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.