What’s amazing about this is that he is only beating Palin 54-46 (about the same numbers as the actuals in 2008) among adults. Poll likely voters, as Rasmussen does, and it’s almost certainly much closer.
27 thoughts on “A Scary Poll For The White House”
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I agree with Glenn’s reader that it’s bad when Thaddeus McCotter is at 43%. That pretty much tells you that “unknown” starts at 43% of the electorate, and only has to get 8 percentage points. I suspect if that was broken down by electoral college, it would be even tighter.
Too soon to get excited, a lot can change.
I think I’m in favor of Romney, now. I like Palin’s roots and uncompromising philosophy, and couldn’t care less about the intellectual chops she is supposed to not have, but there’s is an alarming feeling of August 1914 these days, where folks play chicken with locomotives.
Romney is without doubt a bit of a squish, but he’s solid on respect for the family and business, and he knows how to lead — he would not play the Professor Obama game of OK, you students come up with a solution and I’ll criticize it for you. He also knows how to cut deals calmly with the opposition, assuming it has any maturity. (This is one reason I don’t hold Romneycare against him; he read the tea leaves in Massachusetts, and he implemented what the people wanted in as sound a manner as he could. It’s an ideological cop-out, yes, but competent management and subfusc leadership in a democratic republic.)
I think we could use eight years of Eisenhower, of calm competence without constant clashing of brittle ideological warriors. I think it likely, particularly with a Tea Party Congress (yay!), we would see a serious rollback of the welfare state, but perhaps not one that is an abrupt fracture with the past, something more evolutionary, and that might serve to win over the undifferentiated middle that kind of likes the idea of old-age pensions and free medical care, but is also aware in some vague way that that stuff has to be paid for, and is open to the possibility that the socialist solution of taxing everything away and doling out to each according to his needs is not going to work.
Obama-Ron Paul 50-50=100% LOL!
Good points about Romney.
Romneycare is a negative for conservatives but maybe that wouldn’t matter. Conservatives would likely hold their nose and vote for him anyway. Being Mormon is another negative but maybe that wouldn’t matter because many on the left are unlikely to vote for him anyway.
As usual, you make perfect sense Carl but I think we need to fight. We have tolerated the idiots that would drive our country over the cliff long enough. Romney is a pragmatic politician. I hold that against him. The left knows only too well how to move pragmatists more and more to the left until center becomes extreme radical right.
Sarah Palin is moderate and sensible. I’m to the extreme right of her and I’m more libertarian than conservative (although I can’t accept certain libertarian positions.)
The attacks on her that continue to this day make it plain. Her steadfast no apology stance have earned her the spot IMHO. Bonus being the satisfaction of watching their heads blow up when she’s elected. Unlike Bush who didn’t give a good defense of himself. She will. Being a woman in this age of unreason is another advantage. Those spineless eunuch RINOs will either defend her and the presidency or lose elections.
This is no time to let the roaches go into hiding busily preparing for their next coup.
Here in Georgia I have the luxury, if Romney is nominated, of refusing to vote for him knowing full well he’ll still get my state’s electoral votes if the Democrats have renominated Obama or, frankly, anyone to the left of Zell Miller.
Carl, I envy your statesmanship but the Left is not going to be statesmanlike and it is time that we stop pretending otherwise. While I don’t entirely share Ken’s views, I think he has a point here that those of us who don’t want to surrender to the march of the left are going to have to fight to stop it. Perhaps this can be done without more than a show of political will, perhaps not, but at the very least that will must be chosen, and I don’t think that Romney has the stomach or the inclination to do so.
Romneycare is a good exemplar of what is wrong with the man, and the philosophy that surrounds him. He created a program that mandates participation, drives out private insurers, reinforces the states central role in a market that it shouldn’t be involved in in the first place, and has utterly failed in its execution. Worse, when confronted with this (and the strong rejection of the ideological underpinnings of it by the very people whose approval he is trying to obtain) Romney actually continues to defend it with only themost embarassing fig leaf to pretend otherwise. This is a gentler sort of doubling down, but it is doubling down nonetheless.
Romeny represents the old-school GOP establishment who regard the Tea Party as an embarassment and long for the days of peaceful accomodation with the Democratic left that has no interest in anything other than victory at any price. I think that he is a good man, but I am not discussing having him as a dinner guest, I am thinking of hiring him as a president, and that calls for a very different set of evaluation criteria. If 2007-2010 with Harry and Nancy taught us anything, it should teach us that we are not dealing with people willing to negotiate honestly and that the only way to confront them is aggressively and with determination of purpose. Romeny isn’t the guy for that, though I really wish he was. A competent manager for the welfare state just means that our national euthanasia will be carried out with a good grade of anestihetic (sp?) …I prefer to avoid that experience entirely.
I lived in Texas for 8 years…I could live with Perry…
With all of this said, however, I would vote for a diseased camel over Obama. Romeny wouldn’t be my first choice, not my second or even my third, but if it comes to it, he will have my vote and my support in the general election. Heck, I would vote for Ron Paul at this point…
Heh, Carl explained exactly why I like Obama and what I hoped his term would be like. Imagine the entire US Congress could be reduced to one person. If Romney was the Congress, and Obama was President, I’d be happy, and if Obama was the Congress and Romney was President, I’d still be happy. The two will badmouth each other this year and next (particularly if Romney wins the primaries) but if they each had only the other to deal with, both would provide nice middle-of-the-road governance.
Well, I’m still rooting for Huntsman, but Romney is second best!
Bob and Carl both endorse Romney? Tell me again what happens when anti-matter comes in contact with ordinary matter?
I would crawl on broken glass to vote for a mangy dog before I’d vote for Obama or skip next year’s presidential ballot. That said, I hope Romney isn’t the Republican nominee. If he is, I’ll hold my nose and vote from him just as I did for McCain.
Perhaps we should run generic republican. It seems to have the lead at the moment. Yeah, I meant the lady who hasn’t announced yet.
A debate between Obama and Palin would be fun to watch.
Romney is Generic Republican.
He’s mayonnaise without the flavor.
debate between Obama and Palin
He now has a record. She’d murderlize him. I would love to see that.
Romney is without doubt a bit of a squish, but he’s solid on respect for the family and business, and he knows how to lead …
Seems to me a lot of people were saying the same thing about Ahnuld before he was elected. Didn’t work out very well, did it?
Al of the Republican candidates, announced and unannounced, have flaws. But any of them would be better than the current resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
I wish Fred Thompson were 15 years younger.
Couple things –
Romney: Best case, Romney is the Republican Clinton, without the sex scandals, or Eisenhower without the heroism and grandfatherliness, or Reagan without the charm and ideology. Worst case, he’s a Republican in the Hoover/Bushes mold. Ideology is nice I guess, but I’ll take a spine over it any day. I’m not sure Romney has a spine. Carl, you say Romney has leadership skills, then in the next sentence that he passed RomneyCare because he saw which way the wind was blowing. Not sure those are compatible.
The Poll: I would have gone with the McConnell Plan over the Boehner Plan, for the sole reason of polls like this. If you’re serious about cuts, but the other guy holds the Senate and the Veto, you don’t go all in for cuts. You go all in for the veto. You essentially give up everything except the 2013 thing. You wait for the Dem’s to pass a blank check through the Senate, then you reconcile it down to expire c. October 2012, then you call the President’s bluff. He would have no leg to stand on. A no-substance, face-saving modification of the Reid plan that expires in 12-15 months is the play. That’s what tells me the Repubs either aren’t serious, or don’t trust themselves to do the right thing when/if they get into power.
Roga,
Since the McConnell plan would require a two-thirds vote in both houses to deny a debt limit increase, you have essentially handed control of the debate to one-third of each house, or in practical terms to the Democrats. Hence McConnell’s plan is simply give Obama what he wants, and hope that someone will notice (with the MSM, that is unlikely) or care. Boehner’s plan has many flaws, but it is lightyears better than McConnell’s thinly disguised cave-in.
Paul Ryan said it best…”We have gone from deciding what to spend to deciding what to cut”…that may not be perfect, but it is progress, and until we fumigate the WH and rid it of the current infestation, I fear that is the best we can do.
Heh, Carl explained exactly why I like Obama
Not exactly, Bobuno. I based my choice of Romney based on his actual record as governor and executive. You based your choice of Obama on his wonderful speeches and promises.
and what I hoped his term would be like.
Well there’s the problem right there. Hope is not a viable policy. Give empirical observation, measurement, and historical fact a try next time.
Seems to me a lot of people were saying the same thing about Ahnuld before he was elected.
Hardly. Schwarzenegger had the same absence of actual major public executive experience as…well, as Obama. I draw a strong distinction between what you can say about Romney based on what he’s actually done and what people speculated about Obama or The Governator based on what they said and the cut of their jibs.
Didn’t work out very well, did it?
Well…it could have been worse. He didn’t stand tall and rescue California, but it’s not clear to me any governor could’ve, or can. The state is in the grips of its Democratic legislative majority, which itself is in the grips of the national Democratic party and the public employee unions. And let’s not forget we didn’t know he was probably emasculated early on by his love child. His wife and her Democratic pals could very easily have held his marriage and his relationship to his young children over his head, and perhaps they did. I doubt we’ll ever know, but the Kennedys are not known for their ethical qualms about rough methods.
And, as I said, he was an unknown quantity anyway. We just knew he was better than Gray Davis. Almost anyone would have been better than Davis, a very smart and deeply corrupt politician.
Carl, you say Romney has leadership skills, then in the next sentence that he passed RomneyCare because he saw which way the wind was blowing. Not sure those are compatible.
Of course they are. You have forgotten that RomneyCare was a Massachusetts-wide program, and in Massachusetts the idea was broadly popular. It probably still is, since the collapse of the scheme is happening in slow motion. The fact that the idea was anathema in Texas had, and should have had, zero influence in Romney’s deliberations as governor of Massachusetts.
Furthermore, he actually has a point in his recent commentary on the thing, where he points out that single-payer government-run healthcare at the state level is a very different beast than on the national level, and is far less objectionable. There is no reason why Massachusetts has to have the exact same health-care model as Texas or California or North Dakota. Indeed, it is better than they do not. Recall the “50 laboratories of democracy?” The fact that Massachusetts has actually tried the thing out is very useful for the opponents of Obamacare, because they can point to an actual implementation of the major ideas on American soil, with American people, and its directly measureable (and not theoretical) flaws.
it is entirely reasonable for a person to be deeply opposed to national government-run healthcare, but be indifferent to whether the citizens of one particular state choose to saddle themselves with it — which does nothing to destroy the essential element of liberty in America. If you don’t like state-run healthcare, vote with your feet, move out of Massachusetts. The same opt-out option is not available if the horror is implemented on a national basis — and that is the biggest objection to it.
I agree, vide supra, that if Romney had much clearer and stronger conservative principles, like my girl Sarah, he would have chosen not to lead Massachusetts into single-payer health care. He would have damped the issue as much as he could. So I agree he isn’t as purely likeable as others.
But I also recognize that to be elected and to govern he must, as Obama has painfully demonstrated, be also capable of being liked, or at least not intensely disliked, by people who are on the other side of the fence as me — the people who think single-payer government-run health care is a fabulous idea.
I’m not that enthused about him. If some better combination comes along, he’ll have my vote in the general. (As a registered Democrat, my primary vote will be devoted to taking one away from Obummer, not that it will do a lick of good in California.)
I based my choice of Romney based on his actual record as governor and executive. You based your choice of Obama on his wonderful speeches and promises.
That’s not true at all. I live in Illinois & I voted for Obama in the Democratic primary for the US Senate because of his record in the Illinois Senate.
And back in 2008, I posted this:
REMOVETHISwww.transterrestrial.com/archives/2008/09/has_he_been_vet.html#comment-120717
You did? You voted for Obama for President based on what he did in the Illinois Senate? Goodness. I was giving you the benefit of the doubt, Bobdashwun.
I am curious, however. What did he do in the IL Senate that convinced you he’d be a moderate, post-partisan President? (Assuming arguendo that you’re not going to be like the man himself and redefine “moderate” as “seems reasonable to me.”)
Bob blew his cover… uh, wait… he never had any…
Carl, I was referring to my first of four votes for Obama, when I voted for Obama in the Democratic Primary for the US Senate in 2004. That first primary vote was notable because it was the only one of the four statewide votes in which it wasn’t completely clear who was going to win (in Illinois). His general election for the US Senate, the Illinois Democrat Primary for President, and the general election for President (in Illinois) were all foregone conclusions. It is worth considering why Barack Obama won the Democratic Primary in 2004. It certainly wasn’t just the Ryan implosion – he won over conservative downstate democrats.
I would ordinarily enjoy continuing, but I’ve got something stuck in my craw.
In my previous post, I made it quite clear which vote I was talking about. Your sarcastic criticism was unjustified. Maybe next time, skip the sarcasm, and read more carefully instead.
Ah nuts, I just realized I referred to Ryan, but of course, Ryan was the Republican who first faced Obama in 2004. He was so moderate in some ways that I had him filed away as a Democrat. So, the question is, why did Obama beat Hynes and Hull. Bonus points for explaining why Paul Simon was so popular among downstate conservatives, and what effect Sheila Simon’s endorsement had on the 2004 primary race.
Anyway, anything more I could add was said more eloquently in this piece from a few days ago:
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/07/get-over-it-this-is-who-obama-is/242600/
@f1b0nacc1 –
I realized last night I was wrong about the Boehner plan. It was essentially exactly what I was describing.
Between CCB & Boehner, the Reps have now given Obama each of what he wants: a debt ceiling past 2013, or no cuts. As long as Republicans stand firm, it’s now the Dem’s choice, one or the other. If they really believe what they’re selling, Boehner is the obvious choice. Essentially a continuing resolution until just after primary season, and by then their Keynesian perversion will have turned around the economy and they’ll keep at least one of the three parts, probably two. But I’m pretty sure it’s dawning on them that reality is not going to give them a pass. And if they go with CCB, then it’s actual cuts, and while the economy probably starts to turn around as a result, their constituencies finally feel the pain all us producers have been feeling the last 3 years. It’s lose-lose for Dems unless the Reps cave or can’t pass Boehner.
Debt limit or real cuts. As long as they keep the OR, Republicans win this. I think there’s a fair chance, with Dems fighting a two-front war. The best chance is in the Senate, where terms are long and gerrymandered enough that some safe Democrats might take a flyer on the debt limit expiring before 11/12.
Not sure this will work, and I the best option for Obama is to let the limit expire on 8/2. Then he holds all the cards on how to spend the money. There are some legal issues about who gets it first, but I don’t think that will phase a guy who let the NRLB walk all over the States, ran guns to Mexican Druglords, or sicced the EPA on Rick Perry. On the other hand, a Dem filibuster gets much less likely after 8/2. On the other other hand, the media won’t cover any of that. If the ‘pubs can pass Boehner, , they have a chance of weathering the storm at least for a bit. It really is chicken with locomotives.
Chicken with stellar masses. You really can see this admin. running this country into a black hole. We are in for some interesting times.
I’d kinda like to survive it.