If E.T. wins, next time we just skip Iowa, eh?
"Blame the Jews..."
Posted on 12/18/2011 11:54:13 PM PST by Bokababe
It seems Texas Republican Congressman Ron Paul is now the leading Republican presidential candidate in Iowa, according to the latest Public Policy Polling survey released late Sunday.
The Texas Republican, who has for weeks witnessed a surge in support, is leading the Republican field with 23 percent support. Mr. Paul is followed by former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney at 20 percent, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich at 14 percent, former Pennsylvania U.S Senator Rick Santorum at 10 percent, Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann at 10 percent, Texas Governor Rick Perry at 10 percent and former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman at 4 percent.
(Excerpt) Read more at thestatecolumn.com ...
Romney’s divide and conquer strategy working?
If Paul’s support is the young and new, wonder how that holds up on Jan 3. If it does, and Paul takes Iowa, then that will be a poor reflection on Iowa.
Are people there really that stupid, ignorant, and gullible? What’s occurred there over the last couple of weeks other than millions is negative T.V. ads? What’s it say about an electorate that can be so easily swayed by negative ads?
Well at least not all the support shifted to Paul and Romney. Santorum got a few point uptick.
If E.T. wins, next time we just skip Iowa, eh?
"Blame the Jews..."
This is the second poll I’ve seen with Paul in the lead and Newt slipping close to the rest of the pack. If this trend is accurate, I suspect it wont hold after Paul’s debate disaster last week. The “anti-Romney” vote needs to consolidate quickly around a true conservative candidate. If Newt’s a bridge too far for conservatives, then I hope we settle on one of the two Ricks.
I posted this on Facebook to a friend who is a Paul supporter and of course posted these poll results as soon as they became available:
It looks like Democrats are playing games with the Iowa caucuses. Look at the poll internals:
40% of Ron Paul’s supporters in this poll identify themselves as Democrats.
73% of Ron Paul’s supporters in this poll describe themselves as Somewhat LIberal or Very Liberal.
Those numbers are both significantly higher for Paul than they are for any other candidate in the poll. Why would so many Democrats and liberals be supporting Ron Paul in a REPUBLICAN caucus? Maybe it’s because they want to see Barack Obama re-elected, and they know he’ll be running in Iowa without opposition this year, so they feel safe crossing over and supporting Ron Paul in the GOP caucus to skew the results and try to cause chaos in the GOP primary process.
The debates made a huge difference and for the better. Newt shot to the top but it was based ONLY on his debate performance and he knows it. His whole argument for the nomination is that he can out debate Obama, when he looks less than stellar or whithers under fire, the reason for voting for him drops. Add his baggage coming to the forefront and it rings even truer.
Perry bombed in the early debates but it forced him to adapt and overcome revealing a strength no one has had yet in this race.
Paul may be able to win Iowa but so what? The Caucus is his strength. He wont win any other state so it will be who took 2nd 3rd and 4th going into NH.
By the way,the final polls over the next two weeks will begin to show the real numbers and PPP has been a bad offender inmo. The polls have been pushing an outcome but when the outcome doesn't match reality these polls will have to become more accurate if they want to be believed in SC or Florida.
Rick Perry can beat Romney in every southern state. He can beat him in the mid west and the mountain states.
Perry is a gun toting, productive governor who connects with middle America.
Romney can take Perry in the North East and parts of the West but my guess is Perry takes Texas, Arizona and New Mexico as well as Washington State in the west. He takes every southern state.
Perry is actually the only guy who can trounce Romney nationally because he has a record. Let Perry and Romney debate. As far as I can tell the only one that rattles Mitt is Perry and the only one that rattles Newt is Mitt.
Oh and between Santorum, Bachmann and Perry, Perry is the guy with the record to beat Obama.
I must say though I kinda like a Rick Perry/Rick Santorum ticket more and more.
I believe a lot of Ron Paul’s support is cynical (follow the money). Young people “looking forward” to no jobs in the Obama depression, or working on degrees in areas where government money could fund a study, a program (their professors have sucked on this tit for decades) — instead of being “wasted” to support the “evil” military and “misguided” war on drugs — which also ties into what they’ve been taught in many institutions of higher education — so many useless degrees and “green” thinkers believing that Ron Paul is the Rx for what ails the country. So they’re leaving support for Barack “hope and change” Obama at the school house/no job market door and flocking to Ron Paul which has the sweetener of hurting those evil “rich” conservatives who are destroying the planet and are ready to “bomb” the world.
The problem for them is — they never will get the money; it always finds another home. With the debt and deficit ballooned out of sight, that money isn’t heading in their direction. The naturally productive ones will eventually “grow up” and realize the truth about living in a safe, free market society but many will hang fast to the hope (libertarians for sure) that once the “war on drugs” and the “evil military complex” have their wings clipped, some of those trillions of “wasted” dollars will certainly flow to them. It won’t and their lot will be worse. We have for too long been building “me-me-itis” generations, whose values and goals are nurtured and fanned by teachings of socialist professors spawned in the Sixties who have multiplied themselves with our youth.
So Ron Paul is their cup of tea. They’re only one step away from OWS (most likely have a foot in both camps already). If Ron Paul definitively said, “I will not run third Party,” much of his support would evaporate today. Which is precisely why he has not ruled it out.
“Idealistically that would be fine. But neither the two Ricks or Michele is going to be able to beat Romney nationally. In my view, Iowa may just take out the only guy in the ring that could beat Romney across the country and that’s Newt.”
Well, you may have a point with Bachmann & Santorum, but I think Perry can definitely compete nationally with Mitt. In fact, it could be argued that Perry has a better organization than Newt, who is still struggling to get on the ballot in some states, even though he was in the race about 3 months before Perry.
No, I think as long as Perry keeps up his stellar debate performances he’s had of late to go with his strong retail politicking ability, he can take out Romney nationally, no question about it.
I truly hate to break it to you, but the race is near enough to the margin of error.
Newt, Romney and Paul are all tied for first. It is a matter of turnout. Ron Paul brings younger and more liberal supporters. Romney brings older establishment types. Newt splits this, and brings a little from each group.
Perry, Santorum and Bachmann are also tied and one of them will get 4th place and play in New Hampshire, the other two will be done.
If Paul wins, expect him to raise another 4 million for NH and SC. If he does win, it will be because 10,000 Democrat “Occupiers” showed up. Iowa Caucuses have instant registration. So anyone can show up with an Iowa ID and vote. Even lifelong Democrats, as long as they do have proof they live in the precinct.
This threat is very very very real.
I think that you have it partly right, although not for the same reasons.
I think that a huge part of Ron Paul's support is generational. The generations younger than the Baby Boomers have woken up to the reality that their own futures are being horse-traded by cynical politicians and global corporations in the Halls of Congress, and if they don't stand up an reclaim their futures, they are going to be sold into debt slavery for the rest of their lives. It may surprise you but I think that young people really were listening to the Tea Party a few years ago when it was screaming that "Our kids' futures are being mortgaged to finance the Stimulus & the Bailouts". They see both Parties complicit in this and are motivated to stop it to save their lives.
These younger people and other voters have "followed the money" and found the guy that they think is the least corrupted and corruptible. They want someone who is going to overturn this DC corruption and give them their futures & their freedom back, someone who speaks plainly and believes what he says even if he occasionally says something stupid or stumbles. They love the guy because they trust that whatever he is, he's for real.
As much as everyone would like to call Ron Paul followers "a cult", in many ways, he's got the opposite of a cult because he DOESN'T make it about him. He explains the history and the economics of issues from the Federal Reserve to Iran, the Constitutionality of his position, etc and how they are going to lose their liberty and their Constitution if they don't fight for it. It's just that he's the only one saying it and who has stood up for it. If the Republicans had someone twenty years younger with the same message, who was willing to educate and support the same or similar positions -- a "Ron Paul" lite -- they'd vote for him, but we don't. Instead we have mostly political re-treads running -- Gingrich, Romney -- and even Rick Perry whose resemblance to GW is not unnoticed and has the same following. Newt may rock the world of the Baby Boomers, but to anyone younger, he just looks like an insider that helped create the mess we are in now.
By comparison, on issues of war, corporatism, civil liberties, and the DC boondoggle that is stealing money from taxpayers, Gingrich, Romney -- and even Obama -- look more alike than different to them when compared to Ron Paul.
I know that no one wants to hear it, but the fact is that for many voters -- and especially for younger voters -- they are far more afraid of losing our freedoms and going broke than they are afraid of Islamic terrorism and terrorists. Rightly or wrongly, right now, it's banks and DC who are destroying their homes and dreams of the future, not al Qaeda. That Republican McCain & Graham championed NDAA bill last week that brought WOT to our doorsteps and allowed indefinite detention of American citizens on American soil, did not change that picture of Republicans for them
You mention an OWS affiliation of connection -- young people, Democrats, etc. I was just looking at an article on the demographics of OWS yesterday and it surprised me. We've all got a picture in our heads of Obama-loving Democrats and "clueless college students" in our heads when it comes to OWS, but a study by Baruch College paints a different picture. One third are over 35, only 10% are full time students (wi 1/4 taking classes), most of them identify themselves as Independents & not Democrats. It was obvious that Democrats tried to win over OWS when they sent in Michael Moore and the Unions, but they didn't succeed. I will give you that most of OWS IS totally clueless and there are likely many Leftists, but they aren't that young (av age 33) or poor. They are just a bunch of pissed off people who have no idea how or why they got screwed, and have no idea how to fix it. That is NOT the core of Ron Paul's support, but because their understanding of how it all happened and what to do about it, is so muddled, it doesn't mean that they wouldn't be open to someone who explained it to them -- which Peter Schiff and some RP supporters tried to do.
The more that the media & the GOP establishment tries to insult, humiliate and marginalize Ron Paul and Ron Paul supporters, the more that Ron Paul winds up looking like a martyr -- the heroic, downtrodden little guy trying to do the right thing, fighting the DC machine-- "Mr. Deeds Goes to Washington". Deep-down, America still loves an honest underdog, trying to do the right thing. With so many who have lost their jobs and their homes, Ron Paul is successfully getting the message across that "Ron Paul is them" -- insulted, humiliated, marginalized and get screwed over by the System -- so they open their wallets and give their time, sure that THEY are the only ones who own Ron Paul, not the establishment, not the corporations. The more that the media tells Iowans that "If you vote for Ron Paul, Iowa won't matter anymore" as a nominee predictor, the more Iowans want to vote for him because they resent being told what to do. I don't blame them. I think that all this is the precise opposite of what anyone planned -- the media and the GOP elite has always been sure that they could intimidate people into supporting their choices, but it doesn't seem to be working out that way.
You can argue whether this faith in Ron Paul is warranted, but it is his appeal and it is why he is climbing in the polls and IMHO will likely continue to do so.
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