Romney ties Obama
For the moment, anyway.
What’s more:
Among all Americans, Obama and Romney are knotted at 47 percent each, and among registered voters, the former governor is numerically ahead, 49 percent to 46 percent.
Unlike Romney, the other official Republican candidates trail Obama. It’s early, of course; the campaign is barely out of the starting gate.
But the news from the poll was especially bad for Palin:
Almost two-thirds of all Americans say they “definitely would not” vote for Palin for president. She is predictably unpopular with Democrats and most independents, but the new survey underscores the hurdles she would face if she became a candidate: 42 percent of Republicans say they’ve ruled out supporting her candidacy…In head-to-head matchups with Obama, Palin trails by 17 percentage points, the worst of the six possible candidates tested.
Romney, on the other hand, does pretty well with independents—50 percent to Obama’s 43 percent.
Oh great. We’ll get to choose between two parishoners of the global warming cult.
I read where this poll included 25% Republicans. I don’t know if that is true or not, but, if it is, then it is greatly undercounting Republicans. This could be an attempt to further undercut Palin, right when she has been on a popular bus tour. In general, it’s about name recognition in these VERY early polls. Still, I look at them all.
A Washington Post-ABC News poll!
Wheeee.
If it comes down to a choice of Palin vs. Obama, I’ll be voting for Palin–no question–but I really wish she wouldn’t, simply because I don’t think she can win. I think the media’s hit job on her was too effective and the negative image of her is just too strongly entrenched for her to be a viable candidate. I guess we’ll see.
A lot of people wipe their ass with ABC News polls.
The main stream liberal media has to know Obama may very well lose in 2012. And they have to be terrified at what Palin with the bully pulpit of the Presidency would do to their industry dominance.
One example where polling was wrong is the famous Dewey Defeats Truman episode:
“Conventional wisdom, supported by polls, was almost unanimous that a Dewey presidency was “inevitable”, and that the New York governor would win the election handily.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dewey_Defeats_Truman
Palin was an exceptionally popular governor before John McCain asked her to be his running mate (I want to say her approval ratings were above 80%, but I’m not absolutely certain). She took on corruption within her own party to such an extent that the Alaskan Republican stalwarts like Frank Murkowski and Ted Stevens did not care for her. She also took on the oil companies, so any notion that she’s a “corporatist” is false.
I have a feeling all this is going to come out in the movie Steve Bannon is soon going to release about her. It will be interesting to see if any voters change their minds about her after the movie.
Curtis,
I think that in fairness, it’s useful to keep in mind that polling is nowhere near as refined (when done honestly and correctly) today, as it was done in 1948.
For example, they [whoever “they” were] did not account for late-breaking trends, they did not have the advantage of certain bellwether districts to watch, and they did not even think of exit polling the day of the election — not that they could have assembled and interpreted the findings by the time the “Dewey Defeats Truman” edition was published.
Nonetheless, I should click on the wikipedia link you’ve suggested . . .
True, true, and true, M J R. It’s not the mechanism I distrust. It’s the mechanizer. Given that admission, I don’t think anyone doubts that polls are a weapon employed by the Left and your parenthetical phrase “(when done honestly and correctly)” assumes utmost importance.
This is not good news for conservatives. I smell a bit of corrupt polling to produce a desired result.
Romney, Gingrich, Pawlenty, and Huckabee are all believers in anthropogenic global warming. (AGW)
It is the environmentalists who have been gradually shutting down resource extraction and manufacturing (two very important job sources) in this country. It all started in the 60s with Nixon passing the well meaning, but totally misguided, Endangered Species Act. (ESA) In the hands of the big environmental organizations the ESA and AGW have become their primary tools for wresting control of the economy from the producers and creating a centralized command and control system that, when carried to its extreme, will produce only hardship and poverty.
I have seen Rick Santorum on the first debate and then in two interviews. I used to dismiss him as primarily a one issue (abortion) candidate. However, what I have heard from him thus far has impressed me. He is fiscally and socially conservative and he has done his homework on foreign policy. He’s certainly a long shot, but it’s early and anything can happen. Keep an eye on Santorum.
I’m still watching and hoping we can find someone who is reliably conservative in most areas, but will not scare independents. Maybe such a candidate does not exist. I agree with Palin though. I hope the primary is hard fought and a really good candidate will rise to the top.
Romney is well known and probably considered economically competent by the average voter. As other Rep candidates develop positions that show their own competence with economic issues, the figures on our side may change. The most significant thing about this poll is how much ground Obama is losing. Keep attacking, Mitt–and Sarah, and Tim and Cain and Newt. Obama won’t know whom to focus on in his counter attacks. The worst thing we could do is anoint a messiah right now. It’s far better to expose The Won’s incoherence and wishy-washy promises and keep him off balance.
Perhaps naively I don’t worry too much about Republicans espousing belief in AGW.
AGW seems to be past its sell-by date now (well into Ricky Martin territory), so only the firebrand idealogues pose any serious threat. Wishy washy parishoners of the Church of AGW will fall away into apostasy quickly enough as AGW joins bell bottoms and love beads in cultural Valhalla.
OB, the economy killed AWG, putting liberals in a catch 22. They need a prosperous economy before much of anybody gives a damn about AGW. But they need a crappy economy to get people beholden to the nanny state.
Obviously they think the latter more important to date.
SteveH, I suspect that it’s both. The lousy economy upset their timetable to push through AGW-related measures, and now the cultural wave has passed. The whole fad has become shopworn, and therefore passe. Curiously, some politicians appear not to have grasped this.
With all due respect, please don’t fall for this Democratic propaganda. They are not reporting what people think: they are trying to influence what you think. Please don’t let them do it.
Frankly, I think all conservative commentary on polls like that should be confined to remarks like those in my first paragraph. Repeated loudly and often.
Four years ago, I offered to bet some senior European executives in my company that in ten years time, no one would admit to having believed in AGW. No takers.
I still want my $20 from Occam’s Beard on the Holder pool.
I don’t know if this has been linked before, but Ann Barnhardt flays Romney alive here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBXe3Kvg-qU&feature=player_embedded
I still want my $20 from Occam’s Beard on the Holder pool.
Hey, I offered! How can I pay up?
The problem now is not congress passing some law regulating carbon dioxide- rather the problem now is congress not passing a law keeping the EPA from using bureaucratic regs to regulate carbon on their own. If nothing happens in congress-the current default position is that the carbon regulators get their way—they still have the bureaucratic initiative-our side is still on defense here whether we realize it or not….
btw-regulating the EPA concerning carbon should be our sides battle cry
Oh, and here’s another li’l tidbit from Barnhardt’s website:
Anyone who would vote for Mitt Romney must have brain damage.
I love that woman. Beautiful and terrifying. You can’t beat that combination.
DBrooks says, “I read where this poll included 25% Republicans.”
The poll is all about shaping public opinion, its not about taking a snapshot of public opinion. Expect numerous other such polls in the days ahead. The MSM & the DNC want the republicans to nominate another McCain. So do the Roves of the RNC. *@%# them.
I’m going to be working for Cain in the Iowa caucus. I believe 2012 will be the year of the outsider. Cain can talk the talk (sans teleprompter) and walk the walk. Cain-Bolton is my ticket to victory.
Rickl says, “I love that woman. Beautiful and terrifying. You can’t beat that combination.”
She is beautiful, but I don’t see her as terrifying. I see her as a gritty and sexy 47 year old woman with a steady 1MOA aim. Right now I like her on the outside shooting MSM fish in the barrel. If Cain defeats BHO, which I think he can, I see Palin as Secretary of Energy. And then the future opens up to whatever she wishes to achieve.
I didn’t like what I saw of that Barnhardt video. Even if the charges are corrrect, the tone is awful. It will scare off a lot of voters, no matter who wins the primary. There are lots of people who might support conservative ideas in light of Obama’s failures, but not when Barnhardt is their spokesperson. She will confirm all the myths liberals have been spreading about conservatives–bible-thumping, intolerant rubes. I personally don’t want to vote against someone (except Obama). I want to vote for someone who can change the path we are on, someone competent, principled, and reasonable. There are better ways to oppose Romney that won’t damage the whole conservative image.
BTW, I think Pawlenty’s program is the right way to do it. He outlined his plan and explained why he would do certain things. Cain is also much better. They tap into the can do spirit that America needs to have reinforced right now. They also make it possible to keep primary opponents as part of the Republican team, which will be very important when it comes to governing.
Too many of our fellow countrymen have terrible and dysfunctional ideas for our nation. We need LEADERS that want to solve that problem more than they want to get elected. But it seems like the best we can get close to the nomination level are FOLLOWERS all to willing to accept and preside over the dysfunction as if it’s written in stone, because they see no other path to get elected.
The difference is a real leader sets out from the start to persuade and change minds. If he fails, he feels bad for not accomplishing that task and accepts his failure. He doesn’t feel bad for losing the chance to personally hold high office.
StevehH: Agree. Nothing short of revolution of worldview can save USA and Western civilization in general from rapid decline and fall. An inspirational, visionary, charismatic leader is absolutely necessary for such revolution. Everything else amounts to reordering of chairs on “Titanic” deck.
If such leader can not be elected POTUS in the 2012, he/she should not enter the campaign, but instead rise his/her chances for 2016. A lot of further pain and disillusionment is needed for revolutionary transformation of public attitudes.
“”A lot of further pain and disillusionment is needed for revolutionary transformation of public attitudes.””
Sergey
I’m afraid you are correct. Things will have to get worse before they can get better. But there is a difference between a rudderless worse and worse with purpose and future goals in mind. in the latter, you don’t have the intense level of psychological depression on top of the economic one.
People can handle steadily losing equity in their homes. They can’t handle steadily losing equity in their fellow man who refuses to help address problems staring them in the face.
SteveH –
“…They can’t handle steadily losing equity in their fellow man who refuses to help address problems staring them in the face.”
Wise words, my friend. I just finished reading Hippolyte Taine’s massive history of the French Revolution, and late in the third volume, he wrote the following:
“That which maintains a political society is the mutual respect of its members, especially the respect of the governed for its rulers and of the rulers for the governed, and, therefore, habits of mutual trust and confidence; on the part of the governed, a well-grounded certainty that the rulers will not attack private rights, and, on the part of the rulers, a well-founded certainty that the governed will not attack public powers…; each being convinced that, in case of conflict, the trial will be conducted according to forms, which law or custom provide; that pending the discussion, the strongest will not abuse his strength; and that, when the discussion is over, the successful party will not wholly sacrifice the loser… [I]t may be said that this is the soul of which the state is the body.
“Now, in the Jacobin state, this soul has perished; it has not died out through unforeseen accidents, but through a forced result of the system, through a practical effect of the speculative theory, which, converting each man into an absolute sovereign, sets every man warring against other men, and which, under the pretense of regenerating the human species, lets loose, authorizes and consecrates the worst instincts of human nature, all the lusts of license, tyranny and domination.
“In the name of the ideal people whom it declares sovereign, and which has no existence, the Jacobins have violently usurped all public powers, brutally abolished all private rights, regarding the actual living people as a beast of burden, and yet worse, as an automation, subjecting their human condition to the cruelest restraints in order to mechanically maintain in it the anti-normal, rigid posture, which, according to principles, they inflict upon it.”
(H. Taine, “The French Revolution,” Vol. 3, pgs. 1404-1405).
JJ I agree with you about Rick Santorum. I recall a well written op-ed by him describing why the Iranian nuclear threat must be severely dealt with, as well as heard his commentaries on various topics. Hopefully his debate victory in SC will get a few more interested. By 2012 maybe enough of the public will want a professional rather than a rock star as President for him to stand a chance.
I heard Romney made his money by buying up companies and firing their employees. That Romneycare and being to left for most Repubs may finish him.
Here’s a question of the day. Can anyone think of a worse potential President than Obama? I mean out of all 550 members of /Congress, governors, business and industry?
To hell with the Independents.
I hope Romney fails. We need and deserve better.
““In the name of the ideal people whom it declares sovereign, and which has no existence, the Jacobins have violently usurped all public powers, brutally abolished all private rights, regarding the actual living people as a beast of burden, and yet worse, as an automation, subjecting their human condition to the cruelest restraints in order to mechanically maintain in it the anti-normal, rigid posture, which, according to principles, they inflict upon it.””
Isn’t it exactly what EU authorities do nowdays to europeans, abeit without terror, with all these NGO, regulations and laws imposed on captive populations without their consent? This is the essense of socialism and modern liberalism. Obama is worse than any other politician we know because of his duplicity, ability to give a smiling face to totalitarian project of eliminating all freedoms in the name of social justice.
Instapundit links to a fascinating post by Walter Russel Mead on the new book Reckless Endangerment. Mead thinks it will provide lots of ammo for Republicans and the very favorable Amazon review quotes come from pretty solid MSM types.
http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2011/06/07/fanniegate-gamechanger-for-the-gop/
It will be interesting to see who can best exploit this.
Perhaps I missed something: why is Palin “predictably” unpopular among independents? Have independents no independence of thought?
Romney is the candidate who is most likely to continue Obama’s policies who isn’t actually Obama. That gets him 100% of the D vote, a large percentage of the (theoretically) I vote and R votes from admirers of David Brooks. A Pat Boone to Obama’s Little Richard.
tehag,
Your second question made me wonder whether independents aren’t people who are not quite comfortable with the whole left wing agenda but get most of the news from the MSM so they are never confronted by real conservative thought. If that’s the case, Sarah doesn’t stand a chance with them because she has been cast in the role of ignoramus.
I had guests this weekend who seem to fit this mold. They see value in the traditional role of women as homemakers (although they don’t confine them to this) and find greenie approaches to science and technology absurd (but are afraid conservative want to kill science because of Bush’s decision on stem cell research), but they remember the real racism of their families and don’t want to be in that camp. Their academic circle probably means they read the NYT and not VDH. They are rather independent in their thinking of things within their own experience, but they fall in with the Dems on other issues because they don’t want to be backwards and bigotted. I didn’t ask, but I bet they are independents.