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.
“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.”
What the hell is this about? It isn’t my premise go back and read the posts.
You were obviously not paying attention in New Hampshire when McCain pulled out a win after it looked like his campaign was over. It was the liberals (who already thought they had a candidate) who crossed over who determined who won in NH. After that the libs were doing their own “undeclared” version of Operation Chaos - trying to set up Republicans with someone who could not win. And they did.
They will mess up our primaries again.
A republican candidate - chosen by republicans
ABR
Anyone but Romney
How about some new faces?
The early states are not conservative. - I say no primaries until April
Operation chaos was in answer to the stuff they pulled in New Hampshire, etc. The Dems started it.
Only if the GOP lets them and they of course will. The current GOP benefits from having open primaries as their favoured candidates have the advantage.
wow...170 posts and not one Palin pic!
GipperGal...that link does not seem to be the show with Palin on it.
Except that Romney supports the $1 Trillion Wall Street bailout, which makes any proposed auto bailout look like chump change.
If she comes to the table for POTUS with the same knowledge base she came to the VP table with she won't be.
Well Reagan was sworn in as enlisted, what was Hunter’s MOS before he went to OCS?
About that stupid clothes crappola....that is ANOTHER insult levied on this woman by the GOP. “THEY” had to dress her up because she evidently didn’t fit their in their style book wearing her own clothes. I loved it when she went back to her own ‘consignment store clothes’ and started wearing jeans. You think that lady doesn’t have balls? Humph...she has more than any of those men you are now speaking of as a candidate. I thought she was MORE than gracious in the way she put a spark into a very dull speech that she had to give at every rally. I heard boocoodles of them and she always sounded fresh even when the message given to her to say was more stale than last week’s bread. She’s a trooper..through and through!!
Only conservatives need apply. That leaves Romney out. Jindal or Palin unless Barbour or someone else chimes in.
http://www.teamsarah.org is the place to be if you wish to see Governor Palin continue in Republican party leadership. 60,000 members strong and growing by leaps and bounds. Headed for 100,000 members on our interactive activist web site — before the inauguration. Old boys move over — the pitbull with lipstick is movin’ in!
prophetessanna
How do you really KNOW what her knowledge base is? What are you basing this on? She was running as a mate to a man running for President. She was espousing his vision of the Presidency. She uttered his words. When she had a chance to say her own words, she was shackeled by the campaign. We never had a picture of Sarah, the candidate for President. We didn’t get to hear her ideas. I was so impressed with her at the Republican Govenor’s Convention when she kept repeating over and over that she was a member of that team. She didn’t see herself as anything but a governor at that convention. We haven’t seen her in action as yet. We’ve only seen what John McCain allowed us to see.
I certainly wouldn't count out Sanford based on that one episode. He chuckled but then said she was "certainly in the mix". Counting him out because of that would be akin to dismissing Palin due to her interview with Couric, where she could have answered a question or two better.
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