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Posted on 12/18/2008 12:08:30 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
Former John McCain pollster Bill McInturff said Thursday that in a potential 2012 GOP primary, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin would have a leg up on her rivals because she is “well-suited” to campaign in Iowa.
McInturff pointed to the fact that despite a bruising presidential campaign, Palin’s favorability ratings among Republican voters is still extremely high. While Palin comes with some baggage among the general electorate, for Iowa, where former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee successfully drew a large number of social conservatives to his winning bid, she has strong prospects.
“She’s a candidate that would be well-suited to doing well in Iowa,” McInturff told reporters at a breakfast in Washington hosted by the Christian Science Monitor. He conceded that Palin creates “a sharply different reaction with swing voters and core primary voters” but said the latter “are not anywhere close to the center.”
If Palin is weighing a potential run, McInturff said that difference and the advantage it gives here is something she is keenly aware of. “She has a very strong political instinct,” he said. “She has a sharp and calculated instinct.”
Reflecting back on the presidential campaign, the pollster said that the McCain campaign had a brief window where they believed victory over President-elect Barack Obama was possible. But that hope was dashed when the campaign’s back was broken by the financial crisis.
“If we had to collapse America’s economy, I wish it had been on Dec. 15 instead of Sept. 15,” he said. Leading up to the financial crisis, he said, the campaign was prepared to launch an offensive to exploit the lingering uncertainties voters had about Obama, but that when the markets crashed, “You didn’t have a presidential campaign anymore, you just had the two campaigns reacting to this.”
“People had substantial and serious concerns about this guy,” McInturff said of Obama. “But if you give people a choice between a proven failure and an uncertain future, they will always choose the uncertain future,” he added, referring to the contrast between Obama and the damaged GOP brand.
The pollster also said the crisis changed McCain’s normal instincts as he tried to demonstrate a presidential level of leadership. For instance, he said, “If John McCain was just a U.S. senator, I cannot imagine him supporting the bailout. . . But you’re not going to be a senator, you are going to be president of the United States.”
Even after the financial crisis, McInturff said the Arizona senator was still within striking distance of Obama until former Secretary of State Colin Powell endorsed the Democrat. “We had three days where after the Powell endorsement the bottom just fell out,” he said.
Early into the afternoon on Election Day, McInturff said the McCain campaign knew that Obama’s victory was imminent as it read exit poll data. He said, though, that nobody was mourning the loss like they were “sappy volunteers.”
“Your job is to fight like hell, even if you’re getting beat with a baseball bat on the way out,” McInturff said.
I know many love her in the 2nd District in Iowa and throughout the state. I’ll work my butt off for her if she decides to run, especially if it means nuking Huckabee.
Off topic- but funny:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_i5nysvNw1A
Al Frankin plays a dirty politician on Third Rock from the Sun. LOL
Very good analysis. Palin will take Iowa by storm, eat in people’s houses (and help with the dishes), and charm the pants off of every red blooded American man in the state. Palin, 2012. Can’t come soon enough.
McCain’s dopey advisors, who had him supporting bailouts and making a big production about halting the campaign was the key to his loss, in my estimation. McCain should have sailed in and tried to stop the bailouts. Goodness knows, the people didn’t want them. If they passed anyway, he could still have claimed to be against and hammered the other guy with it. I was out in Spokane when that was playing out, and the 4 other Republicans at my worksite all opposed the bailout, and all were left scratching their heads at McCain’s reaction. It was a moment when McCain could have turned the tides.
“Reflecting back on the presidential campaign, the pollster said that the McCain campaign had a brief window where they believed victory over President-elect Barack Obama was possible. But that hope was dashed when the campaign’s back was broken by the financial crisis. “
Correction: it was broken by not taking a principled stand against the bailouts.
Dick Morris, on BOR last night, completely agreed with you.
The writing is on the wall for the Huckster. The Rush, Hannity, Levin, Ingraham axis adores Palin. Conservatives beyond the evangelical wing adore Palin.
Huck brings nothing to the table that Sarah doesn’t already have in spades. Sarah brings qualities to the table that Huck couldn’t dream of having.
I’m sure Huck likes to think it’s a contest, but it’s no contest at all.
“Very good analysis. Palin will take Iowa by storm, eat in people’s houses (and help with the dishes), and charm the pants off of every red blooded American man in the state. Palin, 2012. Can’t come soon enough.”
Please, somebody, bolster her security detail to ensure she makes it safely to 2012. Palin ‘12!
Then she goes to New Hampshire, where McCain always did very well. I would bet that for many of the reasons she would romp through Iowa, those same reasons would be a drag on her campaign in much of New Hampshire.
She'd do quite well in South Carolina, just to keep the thought going...
pretty good analysis. The financial crisis did alter the whole thing for McCain,and they completely failed at repositioning after that. Nothing coherent on an economic plan whatsoever. He could not even explain his health plan, even though it was superior.
But, but Huck has a TV show and plays his bass and sings.
P.S.- All former John McCain pollsters and advisors, please feel free to drop off the face of the earth, or join the Democrat Party. All the campaigning to the “center” is a bunch of horse squeeze that super liberals have to do to get elected.
A unified conversative movement is more than enough to win a landslide victory in this nation. One catch though, we can smell bullsh*t coming a mile away, and if you are milquetoast, a large percentage of us won’t come out and vote for you.
Even if he had gone to Washington to support the bailout fully it would have been better than the way he handled it by cancelling a TV appearance to "dash" back to DC, but then showing up on another TV show at the same time as his cancelled appearance. Dumb, dumb, dumb. Also the entire Congress could have used a big dose of Angry McCain for piling up the pork on the bailout. It was like he came to a fork in the road and ran into the sign in the middle.
I love Sarah and hope she is absorbing as much as possible about national and international issues. The left will still be out to play gotcha and she has to be prepared for this.
My faith in Sarah has to do with who she is and what she has done with it so far....I figured she’d learn the rest as she went along but too many people think if you didn’t go to the right schools and cozy up to the right people that you’re not qualified.
As far as I’m concerned - character counts and Sarah has tons!
The issue in NH and many other “open” primary states that we are going to have in 2012 is that Obama will be the nominee. That leaves all the leftist Che Guevara worshippers free to interject themselves in the R primary.
They will immediately detect who Reps don’t want as the nominee, and load the ballot box for them. I am guessing that William Weld or Olympia Snowe might run and claim that vote.
Her security is probably fine. The only potential danger would be from animal rights people, and they would signal their “comin’ atc’ ya” a mile away.
The state parties have to get smart and start closing primaries. We saw what open primaries got us this year.
LLS
(just thought I'd beat out the usual suspects)
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