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.
I should also let you know that the segment with Sarah is at 18:25 into the podcast. So just fast forward to 18:25 to hear her.
I guess that we still aren’t sure if Duncan Hunter carried a combat arms MOS while he was enlisted.
Why it should be a requirement that a candidate for president has served as enlisted in a combat arms MOS still baffles me.
Oh, OK, so Palin's supporters are obviously NOT elite or well-educated, or they'd be supporting Romney instead, right? *snort*
nice pic, GipperGal. Hadn’t seen that one before!
Are you going to fill me in on why you posted this to me?
My guess us that all those illegals will show him the same gratitude which they showed to John McCain for their views are so similar on the topic.
How did that work out, now?
“We’ll all very likely see the light within the next few years and reflect on the kind of defense diplomatic leadership we’ve chosen thus far.”
That was a none answer, you were pretty specific in your odd requirements.
I’m saying that impending world war time is no time to elect effeminates and women.
Nyet!
Why? I would really like to know, as I am not up to speed on Romney. What do I need to know?
Word up Gal.
Enough already with the Reagan comparisons.
I didn’t make any Reagan comparisons in that post. I simply stated the obvious. Reagan died in 2004.
Again, I apologize if I misread your post to suggest that you will only endorse a candidate if they have served in combat.
Excellent point! Obama's victory in winning the Hispanic vote might have had just as much to do with the fact that he flooded Spanish language tv with ads 24/7. McCain hardly responded with counter ads.
Uh I was agreeing with you.
Oops. Sorry. I’m getting used to taking flak lately that I mistook friend from foe.
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