Huckabee leads Rasmussen Poll of favored Republicans

[dolfan]

Story was reported on Drudge. Huck had 29%, Romney 24% and Palin 18%. The only viable opponent of Obama in that trio is Romney, IMO. I know everyone is all gigged up thinking enough people are mad enough at Obama and like Palin so much that she could win. It just ain't gonna happen. People are NOT mad enough, for one. Their anger has not caught on with enough people nor to a sufficient extent to make Palin or Huckabee a winning candidate over Obama and "the Matrix". Obama still has a 52% approval rating. Things will have to get so bad, it seems, that people won't be able to get themselves to the ballot box to vote before enough people will be mad enough about Obama to send him packing. I think he's going to have to eat a live baby on CNN to get enough people mad enough at him.

[forestwalker]

Have to remember that self-identifying Republicans are a pretty small group at this point. Republican primary voters are a bigger group (many now calling themselves independents are still registered Republicans) and the breakdown is likely somewhat different for the larger group. Still, though, God save us from a Romney candidacy.

[Pastor Gary]

...God save us from a Romney candidacy.

Because...? (Not a Romney supporter, just wondering.)

[forestwalker]

I disagree with Tim that he's the most electable. Romney represents everything in the GOP that has driven independents away from them. Only with an exclamation point.

[Pastor Gary]

I disagree with Tim that he's the most electable. Romney represents everything in the GOP that has driven independents away from them. Only with an exclamation point.

Okay. So do you believe there should be no party that represents the views of the most conservative of Americans? No such party exists now.

The Republican party was most successful in national elections when it leaned hard to the right and presented a clear alternative to the liberal positions of the Democrats. They attempted a more moderate, middle-of-the-road campaign with McCain and got blown out of the water.

My $.02 is that real hard-core conservatives often wear blinders. All this smoke and mirrors about Palin? She is UNELECTABLE outside of the far right voting block. Period. Romney would be a big fund-raising bonanza for the Dems, as the gay-activists will focus upon his Mormon-Church-Anti-Same-sex-marriage affiliation and pour millions into the coffers of the Dems and fill the streets with activists. Bad plan, Republicans.

[forestwalker]

Okay. So do you believe there should be no party that represents the views of the most conservative of Americans? No such party exists now.

Of course I wish there were a conservative party. No such party has existed in America, though, since the agrarians were defeated a century ago.

The Republican party was most successful in national elections when it leaned hard to the right and presented a clear alternative to the liberal positions of the Democrats. They attempted a more moderate, middle-of-the-road campaign with McCain and got blown out of the water.

McCain's campaign wasn't "middle-of-the-road". It was an abandonment of social conservative concerns and a strong embrace of neocon and economic libertarian views. Romney would represent a repeat of that. Like I said, though, with an exclamation point. The response of independents and disillusioned Republicans (a group a Romney candidacy would likely cause to grow) to that program would be the same as when McCain presented it. But also with an exclamation point.

My $.02 is that real hard-core conservatives often wear blinders. All this smoke and mirrors about Palin? She is UNELECTABLE outside of the far right voting block. Period. Romney would be a big fund-raising bonanza for the Dems, as the gay-activists will focus upon his Mormon-Church-Anti-Same-sex-marriage affiliation and pour millions into the coffers of the Dems and fill the streets with activists. Bad plan, Republicans.

Palin's not unelectable because she's hard-core conservative (she's not), but because, like Obama, she's high on style and low on substance, but not nearly as good as he is at pulling it off. In the American Idol contest that an election fight between the two of them would be she wouldn't stand a chance (barring mass disillusionment with Obama by 2012, of course).

But I don't have a problem with our backing a true social conservative who's wise and has good policy positions. The GOP is trying to make us the scapegoats right now for their recent failure. If we want to have any influence at all in the future we have to strongly resist such nonsense.

[MacUser]

Waaayyy to early for this. Counting people in or out etc.

The reality is that whomever it ends up... They have to rally the conservative base or Obama wins.

[one love]

Story was reported on Drudge. Huck had 29%, Romney 24% and Palin 18%. The only viable opponent of Obama in that trio is Romney, IMO. I know everyone is all gigged up thinking enough people are mad enough at Obama and like Palin so much that she could win. It just ain't gonna happen. People are NOT mad enough, for one. Their anger has not caught on with enough people nor to a sufficient extent to make Palin or Huckabee a winning candidate over Obama and "the Matrix". Obama still has a 52% approval rating. Things will have to get so bad, it seems, that people won't be able to get themselves to the ballot box to vote before enough people will be mad enough about Obama to send him packing. I think he's going to have to eat a live baby on CNN to get enough people mad enough at him.

I agree. I do not think Palin can win. I think Romney with huckabee as vice could win as long as they do not cancel their votes out again. They need to have a plan. If they go toe to toe niether of them will get the nomination and we will end up with another Mccain disaster!

[dolfan]

I don't think you can seriously call someone a neocon and an economic libertarian. They're fundamentally at odds with each other. Neoconservatism still relies on large government regulation of private life and property. It is, in reality, only a smaller scale of socialism than Obama represents.

Economic libertarianism would hardly have implemented the extensive social welfare spending as Bush 43 did. William Kristol is a "neocon" --- a word I hate to hear from liberals because they use it with the same contempt in their voice as you'd expect when someone refers to middle America as "flyover country" ---- but it is what it is. Kristol would be the voice of Republicanism today and I can't understand why Fox News is glued to him except that it really is promoting the same agenda.

George W. Bush governed from that neoconservative conviction with a drawl. It dovetailed so seamlessly with Obama's first economic policies that people debate whether the economic/fiscal problems we have today are Bush's fault or Obama's. Answer: Both.

That brings us back to the "so, what?" of it. Who's going to oppose Obama in 2012 with any hope of stopping him from doing whatever damage he might do in a second term (which, if he isn't stopped by the end of this year, 2012 will be like deciding who gets to be mayor of Hiroshima in 1947).? I say Romney is the best chance, as among himself, Palin, and Huckabee, to de-throne Obama. I don't agree that it is America's best hope for the future. No one has stepped up who represents that, and I doubt they will.

If ever there was a void of leadership to fill, it was last November. Republican voters were intoxicated with confusion, incumbency and the distraction of the Obama/Hillary battle. The biggest failure of Republicans in 2008 was not to field a candidate in the general election. McCain didn't run for office; he got what he wanted in August when he was nominated.

Huckabee is a neocon, too. You can't name one thing he's said that is a core conservative (and, I don't mean Bush conservatism, I mean Goldwater conservatism) value. As governor of Arkansas, Mike Huckabee increased taxes, increased government spending, increased regulation, supported an increase in Internet sales taxes, opposed repealing a sales tax on groceries, hiked taxes on gas and cigarettes and on nursing home private bedspace. He has criticized Republican tax cut policies as favoring the rich. Sound conservative? No. He's not. He's a wolf, plain and simple.

[RamboPreacher]

is D. Trump going to run?

[forestwalker]

I don't think you can seriously call someone a neocon and an economic libertarian. They're fundamentally at odds with each other.

All three legs of the coalition are fundamentally at odds with each other. That's why the GOP has been flying apart without the gravitational pull of anti-Communism (and why GWB's governance, as you note, was so disastrous). Conservative Christians have been deeply influenced by having been allied with the other two groups but more and more of us are awakening to how antithetical and hostile the other two really are to our concerns and values.

That brings us back to the "so, what?" of it. Who's going to oppose Obama in 2012 with any hope of stopping him from doing whatever damage he might do in a second term (which, if he isn't stopped by the end of this year, 2012 will be like deciding who gets to be mayor of Hiroshima in 1947).? I say Romney is the best chance, as among himself, Palin, and Huckabee, to de-throne Obama. I don't agree that it is America's best hope for the future. No one has stepped up who represents that, and I doubt they will.

To be honest, I think Obama (as well as any foreseeable 2012 candidate) is irrelevant to our current troubles. As you said, there's not much discontinuity between him and Bush. He's just being carried along by events and responding based on the same assumptions and commitments. Our economic system and governance are unsustainable as currently constituted and neither party is really questioning (or even can question) the fundamental basis of either.

But not to worry. Romney has the best chance of the three to get the nomination. But only Palin would do worse in the general election. Daniel Larison's post this morning nailed it.

[dolfan]

When a quarterback hands off to a tailback, who scores, the tailback is the one who gets the credit for a touchdown. When it is a pass to a receiver that scores, the receiver and the quarterback get credit.

Bush got the ball to Obama, who is running (perhaps not in the seam that Bush would've coached him to find, but he runs on the impetus of the big government that preceded him nonetheless) and scoring against our interests. Obama gets the "credit"; depending on how warm or cold you are to Bush, Bush shares in it as in a pass or is largely ignored in it as in a run.

The difference? We can't go back to Bush governance, either. He and Obama play for the same team. Bush even encouraged protestors (and, now that cooler weather is here, that energy is gone indoors and dormant for a bit, maybe forever who knows?) to be respectful to Obama.

The respectfulness that we may have for government is weakness of the will of the people to do away with it. If we respect Obama, if we temper ourselves in any way, it amounts to capitulation. There can be no civility without forcing the entire U.S. Government to surrender and walk away. We have a chance to accomplish that peacefully by next November. It will require unprecedented courage of the people to vote ONLY for candidates expressly and unequivocally dedicated to specific libertarian and limited government positions. Personally, I don't see any Republican move in that direction. But, people are going to have to vote against their Republican and Democrat incumbents AND for a Libertarian or other similarly minded candidate (U.S. Constitution Party, Taxpayer Party, etc.) in order to really reverse course. Otherwise, we're just quickening or slowing the tempo to the funeral dirge. IMO.

[rjjunior]

One thing I remind myself of is that politics isn't religion. In other words, if it were "religion," purity of policy is of utmost importance. But since it's not, we must muddle through the shades of grey. If there were a candidate that stood for everything I stood for, he/she would lose in the biggest landslide in history. May we keep this in mind as splinter protest-parties spring up two years from now. Just a random thought.

[Billy n NC]

Personally I think that one of the core reasons that Gov. Huckabee is on FOX is to develop a core of followers to put him out front for the 2012 election.

Nobody knew who he was during the last run.

Have you seen his show.

His guest are not only conservative people..

[MacUser]

This should be fun to watch whom gets vetted out.

I propose we do away with the archaic nomination system. Simply have a few months of campaigning and then each candidate speak directly to the American people on all media outlets. Then vote by text or phone like American Idol except to your state and they cast the popular vote (they show percentages etc)... Bingo instant vetting.


Seriously.. With all the white house "controlled" media coverage.. I'm sure we'll end up with the perfect candidate against BHO. The non extreme one that "they anoint" as electable.