Palin scores well with Iowa Republicans, barely trails Huckabee (ANALYSIS)

The Examiner ^ | 11/22/2009 | Kevin Hall

[bigred08]

A new poll shows 68 percent of Republicans in Iowa hold a favorable view of Sarah Palin. That is only two percent lower than 2008 Iowa Caucus winner Mike Huckabee. The Des Moines Register poll proves that Palin would be the decisive factor in the 2012 Caucus, if she runs.

[bigred08]

Bad news for the Huckster

[peyton randolph]

Huckster supporters are proof that you can fool some of the people all of the time. Flip side of the same coin as Bill Clinton.

[Sarah Barracuda]

Maybe that is why the Huckster told WHOREaldo tonight on his show that Sarah Palin is qualified to run for President, he probably saw those poll numbers. Perhaps next time Huck should not be kissing Obama’s ass so much, with comments like “People should stop bashing the President”

[babygene]

Why in hell would the GOP even consider a candidate that got beat by McCain last time?

[PizzaDriver]

If Sarah joins “Huck”, in supporting the Fair Tax, IOWA will be fun to watch!
Boortz may have to re-think “Sarah”.

[bray]

Wait until she finishes this tour, she is a force.

Pray for America and Gov Palin

[j-damn]

All preferences aside, why are we letting one of the most backwards states in the Union have an unfair influence on deciding who is POTUS? These same idiots gave us Obama, too.

[ccmay]

I would think the caucus format would STRONGLY favor Gov. Palin, then. Her percent support is roughly equivalent to Huck’s, but does anyone doubt that the depth of the commitment among her supporters is four or five times greater? They will turn up to vote for her at the caucuses and she will win in a landslide.

[skinkinthegrass]

...take away the FNC gig, I imagine his widespread
support would be dwindling and his support would drop-off

he has no really independent ideas / answers...
his (real) support is very soft...& he's a CINO/RINO

[jeltz25]

The caucus is great because you can know ahead of time how you’ll do, how many votes you have. Huckabee won with around 40,000 votes. So, anyone who’s running knows that’s the minimum and would know if they can get more than that, they’ll be in good shape. If you can 100% know that X amount of people will show up at the caucus, you know you’ll win.

Through rallies, organization, email lists, phone banks, etc... you can do a pretty good job of tallying up who will show up and vote. You would be able to know for example, that you have 50,000 people who will show up and vote, or 40,000 or whatever. You’ll be able to contact them personally and know. Shouldn’t be that hard to try and sign up say at least a few hundred people a day who will definitely vote for your candidate. By the time of the caucus, you’ll be home free.

Obama did a great job at that in 2007.

Huck is really the main issue for her. If she wins IA she’ll be the nominee. If she doesn’t, as Hillary discovered it will be much tougher. McCain didn’t win IA but he had NH to fall back on which he had already won. Obama, W, Kerry, Gore, Dole...all won IA and used the momentum to win.

If she does win IA you’ll see the same momentum Obama got after he won. The media will stoke the fire because they’ll know they’ll have their ratings bonanza and a year of an Obama-Palin campaign will make them more money than they ever dreamed of. Nothing else will even come close. You’ll have all the history of the first woman nominee and all of that like you had with the first black nominee. It’ll just start a snowball effect that will be too big to stop.

But, Huckabee is still very popluar in IA, and they both have a similar evanagelical/populist base. If the two split the vote, neither could end up winning and Mitt or whoever could squeeze through.

Her main goal in the next year+ should be to figure out how to deal with Huckabee, if he runs, which he probably will. No Huck run and she wins easily.

Maybe promise him the VP or some other big post, make assurances on policy or the platform, whatever. He’s her main rival.

[personalaccts]

“If” Sarah Palin campaigns and delivers the thousands upon thousands of people that showed up to see “her”(not McCrap) and those people vote for whoever she’s campaigning for she’ll be owed alot of favors.

[PhilDragoo]

WHO Des Moines touts itself the launch pad for Ronald Reagan.

It's morning host Jan Mickelson ambushed Romney; Romney handled it badly.

It's afternoon host Steve Deace hyped Huckabee big-time.

I posit each has a condescending view of Sarah Palin: Mickelson because he's an intellectual snob; Deace because he's a born-again porn addict.

Romney will remain a snake vis-a-vis Sarah Palin.

The strongest move would be to absorb the Huckabee voters rather than antagonize them.

Sarah Palin can probably accomplish that in some way.

I find Mike Huckabee off-putting as a rino squish hiding behind pulpit-thumping.

Grassley is being challenged by a harpy lawyer, and Latham has been challenged by a harpy unionist--yet Harkinistas push the lie that Sarah Palin is somehow unacceptable.

The general population will come around to the clarity that what is unacceptable is that they lost their job and may lose their house and it's due entirely to the America-hating golf-playing president-pretend.

[jeltz25]

Agreed. The Huckabee/Palin group will always be the plurality if not the majority. She has to figure out how to court them, but also to potentially add people who are currently for no one or even unregistered.

Any advice on how to absorb them?

Also, don’t count out a vast dem/liberal plot of having their people switch over to the GOP just to push Palin over, a Dem “Op Chaos”. They think she’ll be easy to beat so the ywant her as the nominee. If I were her I’d also work on trying to identify Clinton voters, who likely still don’t like Obama, and try and get them even if it’s just for the caucus. More people voted for Clinton in IA than for Huck and Romney combined, I believe. A few thousand dems trying to make mischief could have an impact.

[PhilDragoo]

She can probably win over Huckabee voters by being herself. She presents as sincerity itself.

Democrats who supported Hillary ought to re-emerge in strength, when the damage done by Obama has driven his poll numbers to forty.

If Democrats wish to support Sarah Palin as the weakest candidate, fine.

They should be careful what they wish for; they got Obama and he will be their undoing.

[newfreep]

This should help Sarah in IA...

[bmwcyle]

To all the Huck supporters out there:

He is a liberal RINO!!!!

[RichInOC]

Allahpundit at Hot Air released the following statement:

“Oh, my.”

[who knows what evil?]

The photo is from the Asheville Citizen-Times...this morning’s article is accompanied by the usual vile commentary from the moonbats infesting the Asheville area...Berkeley East.

[Gator113]

Palin is going to win it all, and she won’t even break a sweat.

[varon]

Maybe promise him the VP Secretary of Fried Chicken or some other big post, make assurances on policy or the platform, whatever.