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.
“Again, I apologize if I misread your post to suggest that you will only endorse a candidate if they have served in combat.”
Thanks, it was another poster that went down that road, I was trying to disagree with him.
What did you do? What was your position with the campaign?
This is just a tiny, minuscule sample of volumes worth of info, look for the rest and more current stuff on other threads when the topic comes up.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9IJUkYUbvI
I figured that out when I read your exchange more carefully. That other guy seems a tad eccentric. I think he might be the sort who is worried about fluoride in the water and the communists contaminating his precious bodily fluids.
When he was in liberal Mass, he was a liberal. When he ran for president, he shifted between being a moderate and a conservative.
Here is a partial list of some of Romney's convenient positions.
pro gun control
pro abortion
pro hillary care
pro gay agenda
pro campaign finance reform
anti PAC
anti Reagan
He tried to run to the left of Ted Kennedy for senate.
Tells me more about the man within than I ever wanted to know:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_w9pquznG4
It’s not the flip or the flop, it’s the abortion activism. Even campaigning for allowing underage girls to murder their unborn children with a judge’s permission, with or without parental consent. A man who can say the things he said during his campaign for governor is no conservative. No Republican. No Christian. Not even a man as far as I’m concerned. Just an evil being. Might as well be Ted Kennedy asking for our vote. No thanks. No sale.
-JR
Absolutely. Here we go again. Factionalism. None of the above will bring the party together. Look to the Reaganites.
This list is close, but not correct,
Mitt is old news and has to make way for a new generation. Besides, I still believe no Mormon can be elected POTUS.
Add Eric Cantor to Jindal and Pailin and you have the beginnings of the GOP future.
However, as governor of Massachusetts, Romney did take a principled stance against tax payer funding of Harvard's embryonic stem cell institute. It was a politically risky move and took a lot of courage. Harvard is very powerful in Massachusetts. It's one of the state's largest employers.
But Mitt's flip-flopping in this debate was terrible. I think he would have garnered more respect even from the ultra-liberals in MA if he took a principled position instead of a pandering one.
I posted this comment on another thread but it fits on this one too:
You know, I don’t understand this love affair with Sarah Palin as a potential GOP Prez candidate. She was willing to go on a ticket headed by John McCain. She says she is just like him, a maverick. I never liked McCain, why should I want as a Prez someone who says she has the same values as McCain? That she enjoys going up against members of her own Party, that she is eager to work with the other Party (the Dems), and that she doesn’t adhere to Party ideology but wants to work with everyone “to get the job done”. I don’t want a John McCain clone, not anyone who is even vaguely like him. I don’t want someone who is eager to stab his/her own Party in the back. Someone that frequently seeks out making deals with the other side (the Dems), especially since those deals always seem to end up favoring the Dems’ point of view. I don’t want someone who doesn’t have a strong set of conservative principles to fall back on.
The reason many of the Pub base like Palin is because they think she is an Evangelical and because of her stance on abortion. I’m not even sure what her stance is on gays. Sounded like she wanted to work with them too from some of her comments. In other words, too many of the base back her, once again, on a single issue over all others, her abortion stance. No wonder those Pubs who want other issues to have equal prominence when it comes to affairs of the Nation are wary of her. Plus Evangelicals seem to want to dominate the Pub base way too much. There are other religions in the Pub base, Catholics, Lutherans, Protestants in general, Jews, etc. But it appears Evangelicals only want someone like them in as Prez. A natural inclination I suppose, but not good for the Party as a whole.
All good candidates need consideration. I don’t want any one group to take over the base of our Party. I want fiscal and national security interests as well as foreign affairs to hold equal sway along with social issues. They are all important. I don’t want a Party that is seen by too many as a fundamentalist Party. Not a good image.
One thing worth noticing is that we have lots of his (and his wife’s) videos and he is always so sincere, and passionate in selling what ever point of view that he wants to hold at that moment, for that audience, with moving personal stories and pauses etc.
It becomes dizzying to see the same man taking opposite positions in different tapes and always bring his same oily sincerity to the presentation, it is that persona that causes the revulsion that so many people feel for him.
That's because there isn't any. :D
That’s a lot of words to say that you don’t like Christians.
She is, in fact, a proven fiscal conservative. And she is a social conservative; yet, she has governed as a libertarian on social issues in keeping with the sentiments of the people of her state. The idea that she doesn't appeal to a broad base is belied by her astronomical approval ratings. As I noted, Alaska is a very libertarian state. She could not have garnered 90% approval ratings if she governed as a theocrat. And she did not get those approval ratings by handing out blank checks either. They like fiscal conservatism up there and they recognized her as a genuine fiscal conservative because she has proven it over and over by dramatically cutting spending and halting the growth of government. Those are the facts.
There is tons of proof that she is. But every time people answer you, you turn around and get the Moderator to remove their posts. You’re a very little man, which is why I believe you feel threatened by a powerful woman.
You could not be more wrong. Republicanism is on it's last legs, but Conservatism is doing just fine. It may have a new vehicle in an election or two, It may rise up to water the tree of liberty to continue, but continue it will.
I noticed that with the creepy abortion story that he told in the debate video you posted. It feels so contrived and fake.
btt
“And she is a social conservative; yet, she has governed as a libertarian on social issues in keeping with the sentiments of the people of her state. The idea that she doesn’t appeal to a broad base is belied by her astronomical approval ratings. As I noted, Alaska is a very libertarian state. She could not have garnered 90% approval ratings if she governed as a theocrat. “
Well said.
“The ratings being reported in Alaska for Palin are “extraordinarily high,” said Jay Leve, editor of SurveyUSA. “Those kinds of numbers are unprecedented.””
and people still seems to not get that point yet.
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