Huckabee, Palin likely to fade as GOP looks for a winner
Mitt Romney and a potential late entrant, New Jersey's tough-guy Gov. Chris Christie, would have much better chances in an election that will be a referendum on Obama.
National media already are actively speculating about President Barack Obama's chances for 2012 reelection and his possible Republican opponent.
Three early points need to be made.
First, any national election with an incumbent president on the ballot is a referendum on the incumbency. Voters in 2012 will mainly be voting "yes" or "no" on Obama's four years in office.
Second, a Republican challenger most likely to be successful would be a moderate candidate, without damaging policy or political baggage, who would not distract voters from their yes-no vote on Obama.
Third, early polling data can be meaningles. Early frontrunners usually are well known, established names familiar to voters. On the Republican side, these have included Michigan Gov. George Romney and New York Gov. Nelson Rockefeller and, on the Democratic, Sens. Ed Muskie, Gary Hart, and Hillary Clinton and New York Gov. Mario Cuomo. Eventual nominees who began as long shots have included Sen. George McGovern, Georgia Gov. Jimmy Carter, Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton, and Obama himself in 2008. McGovern declared his candidacy early in 1971 but, entering 1972, commanded only 2 to 4 percent in polls as the favorite of Democratic voters. Carter was almost wholely unknown entering 1976.
The referendum on the incumbency always focuses on three things: the economy, national security, and the presence or absence of major scandal.
Those are the factors on which voters will give Obama a thumbs-up or thumbs-down. The first two factors, at least, are chancy. The economy gradually is improving. But unemployment is expected to still be at 8 percent during the campaign period of 2012.
It could be worse, depending in the depth and length of the oil shock flowing from Middle East instability. The overall burden of public debt will be larger, not smaller, a year from now.
Not only are there national-security uncertainties in the Middle East but continuing ones in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, and North Korea. It will be difficult for Obama to run next year on a peace-and-prosperity platform. He is far more likely to be running on an it-could-be-worse platform, arguing that he has done well in difficult circumstances.
Which prospective Republican candidates have the best credentials for general-election success?
Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, runnerup to Sen. John McCain for the 2008 GOP nomination, would appear to be No. 1. He has campaign money and name identification, ran well and honorably in 2008, and is especially strong on the financial-economic issues that will be paramount in 2012. He has an added advantage. He governed successfully in a heavily Democratic state and, thus, has a better feel for the overall electorate than a candidate coming from a bright-red Republican constituency.
Less well known than Romney, but with similar credentials, is former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty. Govs. Haley Barbour of Mississippi and Mitch Daniels of Indiana are experienced, savvy, and strong on substance. But Barbour is too identified as a Deep South regional candidate and Daniels as an able but uninspiring operator.
The other GOP hopefuls all have their followings but heavy baggage to carry. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin — both paid on-air personalities for Fox News — have name recogition and their own populist constituencies. But neither appeals to moderates and independents; both have experienced bouts of foot-in-mouth disease. To put it bluntly, neither passes a seriousness test. Reps. Ron Paul and Michelle Bachmann fall into the same category.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich already has joined the battle. He is bright and experienced and well known for his 1994 Contract With America, which helped Repubicans regain a House majority that year. But his personal life has been a mess, with well-publicized affairs, multiple marriages, and even a change of religion. He also is prone to foot-in-mouth episodes.
One possible late entrant in the race could be New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a straight-talking, articulate tough guy with appeal to Republicans, independents, and Democrats. I would rate him with Romney as the candidate with the greatest general-election potential.
One thing should be pointed out about the two parties' nominating processes.
Democrats operate mainly by a proportional representation system. To oversimplify, that means that candidates in Democratic presidential primaries are awarded delegates in the same proportion as the votes they receive — 51 percent, 20 percent, 15 percent, and so on. Republicans operate mainly by a winner-take-all system in which the candidate who carries a primary (even by a half-point margin) is awarded all that state's delegates.
Had the processes been reversed in 2008, Hillary Clinton, who carried the big Democratic primary states, would have been the Democratic nominee. Romney, who ran a strong second to McCain in several big-state primaries (but got no delegates there) and then carried Western primaries and caucuses, could have been nominated in a proportional-representation system. The two parties' systems will largely remain the same in 2012.
One other factor should be mentioned. Democratic presidential-nominating contests have traditionally been wide open, multi-candidate battles. A losing candidate in one cycle seldom gets a chance four years hence. Republicans, on the other hand, are far more respectful of hierarchy and tend to reward runners-up in one cycle with the nomination four years later. This would argue further for Romney's nomination in 2012.
What about a challenge to Obama within the Democratic Party? That would be unlikely — unless things turn sharply worse in Iraq, Afghanistan, or elsewhere where U.S. troops may be engaged. Obama has gotten default backing on those commitments because Republicans, by and large, have also supported them. Democrats, in general, are less committed to these interventions than their president but a peace candidate would emerge only if American casualties were mounting and the situations on the ground were seen to be deteriorating.
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Comments:
Posted Wed, Mar 9, 8:49 a.m. Inappropriate
“The Obama Misery Index and the Rise of Obamavilles” is the best blog post I’ve read in a long time. This is why President Obama will be a one-term president! http://t.co/hhFr73z
I can’t recommend this piece highly enough. This will be all the ammo Romney supporters will need when talking to other voters during the 2012 general election.
I read on another site a comment on how many surrogates for President Obama are praising Mitt for Romneycare in order to hurt him with his base. Mitt finally defended himself on Saturday when he said: “You may have noticed that the President and his people spend more time talking about me and Massachusetts healthcare than Entertainment Tonight spends talking about Charlie Sheen.”
Posted Wed, Mar 9, 9:16 a.m. Inappropriate
I can only hope that Mr Van Dyk is correct in assessing the chances of either Palin or Huckabee running for the presidency in 2012. It would be agony to have to listen to either of these "fox commentators" through the entire election cycle for 2012. It, of course, would be a disaster to have either of these folks actually win, as they would come unequiped to deal with the issues a presidency requires (I can see Russia from my house/the president was born in Kenya) and would bring their ultra conservative agenda to the White House and try to inflict it on all of us! Good bye hard won rights!
Posted Wed, Mar 9, 9:46 a.m. Inappropriate
The best thing Obama has going for him is the weakness of the alternatives. Objectively, Romney looks best in the abstract, but his smarmy opportunism offends the right-wing purists who are the critical foot soldiers of the primary campaign and don't find convincing his recent conversion to hard-core conservatism. Being the Democrats' favorite Republican might prove to be a blessing in the general election but is not a recipe for getting the nomination.
The scariest by far is Newt Gingrich, who is very bright, very clever and totally unscrupulous. Buffoons like Huckabee and Palin may be intellectually objectionable but they would not be a threat to the existence of the republic. They are merely incompetent. But I wonder if what is left of the American experiment in self-government could survive eight years of President Gingrich.
So the question of the hour may come down to this: Where is Harold Stassen now that we really need him?
Posted Wed, Mar 9, 10:07 a.m. Inappropriate
I keep saying don't write off the possibility of the Republican power brokers annointing Jeb Bush, the candidate who would best unite Republican factions and be able to raise an enormous amount of money. The editor of the conservative Weekly Standard and others recently have been urging Bush to run. Those of us who've seen Bush up close during his governorship in Florida know he's a hard-line conservative ideologue, more so than his brother. But he's very bright, he's a very crafty politician, he works hard, and the national media love him and think he's some kind of moderate. He's the elephant in the Republican room.
Posted Wed, Mar 9, 11:01 a.m. Inappropriate
I agree with Mr Meyer. The little bit of whisper I have heard says (as of right now, nearly 2 years before the election) the smart money is on Jeb Bush. I now lament the fact that we are already discussing an election 2 years away.
Posted Wed, Mar 9, 11:38 a.m. Inappropriate
I think Jeb Bush would be a terrific choice. He did a great job as governor of Florida. He actually has a track record of running things --- not like the guy in the White House now, who has never had an executive job and demonstrates a lack of competence every day
Posted Wed, Mar 9, 11:56 a.m. Inappropriate
If a Democratic Populist steps forward, and oil continues to sell for $150/barrel President Obama could find himself losing Iowa and then New Hampshire. He'd be forced to drop out. Progressives, ie the Democratic base are not happy with him.
Change is coming to the Empire and Huckabee, Jeb Bush, Palin are not the leaders we are going to need going forward.
Posted Wed, Mar 9, 5:01 p.m. Inappropriate
PJS, Jeb Bush definitely has a track record of running things, but lots of people would disagree with your statement about the job he did as Florida governor. I lived and worked as a journalist there all through his tenure. He was a highly polarizing figure who spent a lot of time on conservative ideological projects like school vouchers, government privatization, tax cuts, capping injury lawsuits, speeding up the death penalty, weakening the courts, and, most notoriously, trying to override court orders and reinstate a comatose woman's feeding tube. Even though he had a strong Republican legislative majority throughout, he left office with the education system remained badly underfunded and generally bad, and with a job base still heavily reliant on low-paid, low-skill jobs. So I'm not sure what you're referring to.
Posted Thu, Mar 10, 2:16 p.m. Inappropriate
Apparently some people want our next President to run things further into the ground. So any ex-governor who has experience doing that is a viable candidate.
Last I looked the USA was still one of the richest countries in the world. It's just that the riches are unequally distributed and some people don't want to pay their fair share to run things.
Posted Fri, Mar 11, 8:51 a.m. Inappropriate
"Conservative ideological projects like school vouchers, government privatization, tax cuts, capping injury lawsuits, speeding up the death penalty, weakening the courts?"
Try common sense ideas that work when tried, but which left wingers tend to oppose because they dislike the notion of competition, rewarding the most productive members of society (ie, those who pay the most taxes) or preventing ambulance chasing attorneys from hitting the lottery with a pliable jury.
Ask the people of Florida if Jeb Bush did a good job --- they re-elected him, and would have done so again had he run again. I'd love to see him run the USA --- he'd certainly do a better job than the inexperienced bumbler we have now.
Posted Sat, Mar 12, 1:24 p.m. Inappropriate
Obama can thank three things for his current status. Affirmative action; white guilt, and fawning media. He totally lacks competence, credibility, and leadership. His party will stick with him; independents have left him in droves; it is up to the Republicans to find and select the winning combination. I would add the governor of Ohio John Kasich and the Wisconsin congressman Paul Ryan into the mix and suggest that Pawlenty and Romney are the two with the best chance.
Posted Fri, Mar 18, 4:37 p.m. Inappropriate
^^ Which is why his approvals are in the 50-51% range (vs 32-35% for bush), and he outpolls everyone else in the last version I saw.
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