RR: 46% of GOP Primary Voters Who Favor Palin Might Back Third-Party Option If She Isn’t Nominated

Rasmussen Reports ^ | January 30, 2011 | Rasmussen Reports

[parksstp]

Nearly half of the Republican Primary voters who support Sarah Palin say they are at least somewhat likely to vote for a third-party candidate if she does not win the GOP presidential nomination.

[crazydad]

Thank you from your fingers to the world. I agree. Sarah is good where she is. She keeps clowning on the Obumble people.

[9YearLurker]

That’s only because they know if it isn’t Palin it’ll be somebody like Mitt, who’d lose to Obama anyway.

[Bigtigermike]

If you can find a name of an actual party officer who has publicly disparaged Palin, or any other candidate, then by all means, let's hear it.

they have but has been by anonymous sources to the media......

[centurion316]

I hope that you enjoy another 4 years of Obama. I won’t.

[BuffaloJack]

I’ll vote 3rd party if the GOP nominates a RINO

[calex59]

George HW Bush was responsible for Perot. He and his minions ran a terrible campaign, and Bush 41 didn't take an interest in his own re-election until it was too late.

Not to mention the famous "read my lips" statement.

[afnamvet]

A day of reckoning could be upon the Republican Party.

I agree. The GOP must move quickly and decisively to prove they represent the will of the people. Time is very short. Lead or get the Hell out of the way.

[gunnyg]

could be best thing ever happened...

http://gunnyg.wordpress.com/2010/06/23/%E2%80%9Ci-agree-with-clyde-wilson-that-america-can%E2%80%99t-be-saved-or-returned-to-its-roots-until-the-republican-party-is-destroyed-%E2%80%9D/

[dragnet2]

As you follow the party of increasing liberalism and compromise....The last non-conservative president made American citizenship all but pointless....Here it comes again....Vote for the better evil....Another election cycle of two of this, will leave America dead on the floor.

Hope you enjoy it!

[Pox]

Putting Obama in for a second term is desirable if the candidate fielded for the GOP is another RINO.

Elect a RINO and you are only slowing our descent towards marxism, not halting or reversing it.

Elect a RINO and once again the vast majority of voters who are admittedly ignorant of politics in general will continue to choose leaders who lean left and will continue to push this country down the drain.

Elect a RINO and their is precious little difference between Obama and a RINO.

Elect a RINO and Americans continue to miss the point that it is primarily dems who are running this country into the ground, and RINO’s are simply following the same patterns and methods established by dems for “buying” their way into power by promising parasites the fruits of producers labors.

You have to start somewhere to replace the marxists (dems) and marxist-lites (RINO’s), and if the GOP cannot be saved from itself, it is time to replace them with a conservative based party. Yes, the dems will reap the benefits of the GOP being replaced by a conservative party for several election cycles, but you have got to start somewhere, and the sooner, the better.

The GOP most likely cannot be salvaged, and they will prove this one way or another over the next year and a half, IMO.

[Titus Quinctius Cincinnatus]

I’m responding because this is turning into a fight of Palin supporters vs non-Palin supporters and it’s all begun from a stupid poll that doesn’t make any sense.

Well, that's been going on much before this poll was posted...

Scott there has NOT polled 100% of GOP Primary voters to arrive at his 40-something percent conclusion. Therefor it is null, void and just plain stupid.

Well, no, that's not a good argument. The fact of the matter is, polling by reputable, professional, non-MSM polling houses - which Rasmussen is, btw - actually does a pretty good job of predicting the way things like elections will happen.

This is why all the FReepers who come on here and confidently predict that all the polls are wrong, and that the things they personally want to see happen - to use an example, O'Donnell winning the Delaware Senate race - will happen despite all the polling evidence to the contrary, invariably end up the day after the election gnashing their teeth and wailing about how stupid the voters in said locality must be.

Rasmussen doesn't need to poll 100% of GOP primary voters. Depending on his sample size, he's already going to be within 3-6% of the "real" number, within a 95% confidence level anywise.

One of the biggest misconceptions that people have about polling is that a poll CANNOT EVER be accurate or reliable if I PERSONALLY wasn't polled in it. Let's think about it a minute. There are, what, several tens of millions of GOP primary voters potentially out there. A poll samples anywhere from 500-1500 of them. The chances of you, personally, being polled is very tiny. But the statistical mathematics upon which polling is based works nevertheless. Even from such a tiny sample of the massive whole, you CAN ACTUALLY make reasonably accurate statements about the way something will go. You, personally, may not like this or agree with it, but it is true nevertheless.

Why even bother to continue discussing it, let alone turn it into a Palin supporter bash?

I don't really see a whole lot of "Palin supporter bash"ing. Indeed, it's the opposite. For the past few months, there has developed a small but very vocal cadre of Palin supporters who have taken to referring to ANYBODY who supports someone besides Palin as "RINOs," "sellouts," "establishment hacks" and the like. This is not only insulting to everyone else who supports, say, DeMint or Ryan or Cain or Bachmann or Barbour or whoever, but it is also simply and objectively a STUPID thing for them to be saying. Yet they say it, often and loudly, because of their presumption that they, and only they, are the good and the pure and the holy.

If they would simple stop being jerks to everyone else, I'd imagine a lot of the strife would simply go away.

Hmm, your response sounds as if you’ve got some bee in your bonnet about me. I can’t imagine why.

LOL, you should be so lucky. You asked me why I was a "tool" of a bogus, nonsensical (or whatever, your exact terminology on that point escapes me, but does not excite enough interest in me to go back and look it up) poll. Telling someone that they are a "tool" of something implies that they are incapable of thinking or acting for themselves, and that they're just a mindless drone. That, as you can probably (or should I say hopefully?) imagine, is a bit insulting, especially when it is being directed towards somebody who has probably thought on this very issue quite a bit more than you have, and who is in all likelihood better informed than you yourself are.

Is it very surprising that I would assume, from your unprovoked statement, that you're the type of person who just likes to go around trying to stir up trouble, since it can arguably we said that this is exactly what a statement like yours would normally tend to do?

[patriot preacher]

I would definitely vote third party if some 0bama clone like Romney got the nod, but I can accept a conservative other than Palin.

_________

Agreed — but a poll like this, especially this far out from the election, can be twisted and distorted in so many ways to the point that it’s almost meaningless. Of course I’d consider a 3rd party candidate. But I could vote for another Conservative on the Republican ticket, IF they nominated one... Don’t let the “polls” divide is unnecessarily. That’s ALL they are after.....

[centurion316]

Putting Obama in for a second term is desirable

Sorry, I'm not signing up for National suicide. If you're not in a concentration camp, let me know how that works out for you.

[Titus Quinctius Cincinnatus]

GHWB replied that he was the incumbent and thought he would win anyway -- until just before the election when his poll numbers were dreadful.

I'm talking about actually analysis of the numbers from the 1992 and 1996 elections, extrapolating things like turnout and the way "coming back home" votes would have gone, etc.

Bush's personal opinions, and even his energy on the campaign field, don't really matter for that.

[samantha]

You are so right on point. These D.O.B's kept their cowardly mouths shut while she took all the abuse because she was the only one willing and courageous enough to speak out. She did most of the work getting a lot of candidates elected in November.especially women,. Now that the Pubbies have the House,and are close in the Senate, they want to push her aside and take over. Dirty Cowardly, worthless,pansy, creeps.

One other really lousy thing is so many of the So called good pubbies do not want a Woman in the White House because they would not be able to “Tinkle and Talk” with a female. Sadly a lot of deals are made in the Men's
Restrooms. If Sarah were President,the Prominent Women Pubbies would have the advantage. Good for them!

[Uncle Miltie]

We may have a good slate of candidates from which to choose. Sarah is one. I like her, and could vote for her.

But I want a winner. If she can show me she’s the winner, she gets my vote.

If someone else shows me they are conservative and a winner, they get my vote.

Let’s vote conservative, and vote to WIN.

[deport]

Scott there has NOT polled 100% of GOP Primary voters to arrive at his 40-something percent conclusion.

---

If I read your statement above you evidently don't believe in statistical analysis and probabilities.

[rj45mis]

“absent Perot, it’s likely Bush gets reelected, although it would have been very close.”

and how close could it be if there weren’t a Perot on the ballot and Clinton gets 43% of the vote? That leaves 57% for someone to garner and I don’t think America’s faithful “Green Party” candidate would have benefited in any material way. How many Perot voters would have chosen Clintoon if Perot had not been on the ballot? Bush would likely have won with 53% of the vote albeit the media did everything they could to paint him in a negative light while touting Clintoon as the southern boy loved by the masses.

[3niner]

The third party nut cases gave us Bill Clinton when they voted for Ross The Nut Perot.

You've got it backwards. George H. W. Bush gave us Ross Perot and Bill Clinton when he said, "Read my lips, no new taxes!", and followed it with a tax increase.

[Pox]

Of course I won't be in a concentration camp, since if that is the direction the feds want to go, I'll be taking point in the effort to defend my country and myself from the federal government in any “armed” conflict if it comes to that.

Since I doubt even they are stupid enough to go that route, I stand by my values and convictions and I will refuse to vote for any RINO for any reason. Putting a RINO into office simply because they have an (R) next to their name is a good part of the reason why we are in the situation at this point in time, IMO.

If you will vote for and support a RINO simply because they are not Obama, you are part of the problem, IMO.