Hot off the presses, Rasumussen has his newest potential presidential election poll available showing a dead tie between Romney and Obama at 45%. The same poll shows President Obama beating Sarah Palin 48%-42%. Personally, I think this says a lot about the state of the economy more then anything else. Say what you want about Romney, he does have a better track record when it comes to financial matters then just about any major candidate. If the economy continues to be troublesome and we have a period like we did in the late 70s during the Carter administration, I think Romney has an outstanding chance of gaining the nomination and giving Obama a run for his money.
This poll also confirms what others have said for the past few months about Sarah Palin, she has a cap of about 42-43% in a popular race against Obama. In otherwords, many pundits have said they just don’t see how Palin can get over that 43% ceiling given her particular favorable/unfavorables. She is an absolute rock star amongst the base of the party, but does she expand the metaphorical tent at all? I’ve always thought that she could because she might get some support from folks like my mother who are independent type voters that swing back and forth in presidential elections. However, whenever I see polls like this I do have to wonder about that. I know polls can be meaningless and I have been a harsh critic of them myself (although Rass did pretty good last year), but I fear this does not portend well for a Palin run in 2012 at least.
Another thing interesting about this poll is Rassumussen explores what might happen if Palin decided to run as a 3rd party independent candidate:
If Romney secured the GOP nomination and Palin chose to run as an independent candidate, Obama would win the resulting three-way race with 44% of the vote. Romney is the choice of 33% of the voters under that scenario, with Palin a distant third with 16% support. Three percent (3%) like some other candidate, and four percent (4%) are undecided.
16% support is actually astonishingly high in my opinion. As much as I love the thought of an independent candidate who could capture our imagination and throw the system for a loop, the reality is that this just means Obama gets another 4 years. I’d rather have a squishy RINO then Obama for 4 more years. Time will tell, but it’s going to be fun to see who emerges and how this all shakes out in a couple of years.
July 20th, 2009 at 10:53 pm
Great post, Bryan. Let’s hope that all of us and our families are on the street in 2012, just so the GOP can get back into power.
Now this is an interesting concept, because I can honestly say, I don’t think I heard much of this when BUSH was President. Why? Because no one had to WISH it. He screwed everything up just fine all by himself, without any best wishes from anyone.
July 20th, 2009 at 10:55 pm
MCCAIN, your mama is a Muslim. That’s the first of a dozen.
July 20th, 2009 at 11:01 pm
Far worse than THAT, Klo, she is Scottish. Feeling sufficiently shamed, I can only retort that she didn’t invent sissy names for kids who would parlay their oversensitive childhood experiences into illogical liberal thinking. But that’s enough about me since you are off topic.
July 20th, 2009 at 11:35 pm
what is up with that underwear thing?
does the female version come in a tanga?
July 20th, 2009 at 11:53 pm
You obviously haven’t seen the new Brigham Young lingerie line. Quite economic because it doubles as a raincoat.
July 21st, 2009 at 12:25 am
Hello has anyone been paying attention!!! I do not want nationalized health care as I am sure several of you out there do not want it either. Yet some of you will willingly vote for Romney when he essentially sign legislation and approved Mass. national or I should say state health care. Now Mass. is in a huge mess because Romney allowed it to happen under his 4 short years as Governor.
July 21st, 2009 at 12:46 am
you need not worry, romney will never win the south being a mormon …
but to be fair, it was not romney’s idea, and his vetoes were overridden
for some reason many people dislike him, but those who have met him tend to like him.
July 21st, 2009 at 5:01 am
I’m going to have to give you my top 5 reasons for why Gary Johnson should get the nomination in 2012.
5. He is a self made millionaire, because his construction company. Now both him and Romney are self made millionaires, but he was a handyman which can help him relate to blue collar America. Now he could run saying I know how a business works. And not just some big corporate company like Romney. He could run saying I built a multi million dollar company just with my hands.
4. He’s and anti-war republican so he could get both Dems and Independents. Yet he should focus on saying we’ll still have a strong military, but I don’t want to go to war.
3. He has a lot of charisma that Romney doesn’t have. Now I can’t explain it just go online and type in Gary Johnson and you’ll find a video of him supporting Ron Paul.
2. His record as governor is another reason why people would vote for him. Never once raised taxes on anything, cut spending, balanced the budget, and cut 1,000 jobs by the states. So he is more conservative than Romney.
1. He has the Ron Paul Libertarian republican vote which isn’t that much. Now I know that’s not good, but a lot of people have regret not voting for Paul in 08.
July 21st, 2009 at 6:25 am
President Barack Obama is the BEST president this country has seen in a LONG time. He ils doing everything that he possively can do to keep this country together. I simply don’t see why anyone would have the mind to critize him and his great administration. In fact, president Obama is the ONLY president who has been open, and honest about the rising health care problem. It is a REAL SERIOUS PROBLEM for the America, and he is trying to fix it. Let’s STOP all the small talk, and rally behind our president, and help MOVE this MOST URGENT health care REFORM forward. Oh, by the way, 2012 is ALL ABOUT OUR GREAT PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA. HE REALLY CARES ABOUT THE HEALTH OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. Mr. Romney will just have to wait until 2016. By that time our president Barack Obama will have used the 2012 presidental span to place this country firmly and securely on its feet.
July 21st, 2009 at 7:00 am
Yuck, Mildred, you just made me throw up in my mouth a little.
July 21st, 2009 at 10:55 am
The only thing I learned from Mildred is that Romney supporters are more literate than Obama supporters. Gets yous some college in ya, Obamabots.
July 21st, 2009 at 11:31 am
People really misunderstand the South ….
July 21st, 2009 at 12:18 pm
what is to misunderstand?
banjos, possums, grits and possum grits …
ok ok we are not really sure what grits are, but the rest we understand
(possums are giant rats right?)
July 21st, 2009 at 2:21 pm
Mildred:
Well first off I’m going to ask what are you smoking, because your kissing obama ass. Lets see what he’s done in his brief 6 7 months in DC. Well he said he wouldn’t hire any lobbyist and that’s the first thing he did, said he would consider drilling yet he puts more regulation on drilling, know new taxes on the middle class yet we get crap and trade, said he would balance the budget and were going to have a 2 trillion dollar deficit, said he would be more transparent failed at that, said he would veto earmarks and he signs a 410 billion dollar earmark bill not to mention the prokulus, said he’ll prevent climate change true yet he’s taxing us, and now he’s going to fail at healthcare. Also the magical tax cuts for the middle class are gone.
August 1st, 2009 at 10:18 pm
Romney has no chance of becoming the Republican candidate. He’s not conservative; he’s a flip-flopper and he’s mormon.
Jindal/Palin 2009.