Republican Presidential Candidates

Post by **Lidless** » Sat Oct 03, 2009 9:43 am

*can't wait to see if Palin will be the GOP candidate for 2012 or 2016*

Post by **Lurker** » Sat Oct 03, 2009 3:47 pm

*Hey, her book is going to top the bestseller list. A lot of pre-orders I heard, even Princess caught the bug.

*

I think it's Mike Huckabee who will be the GOP's contender in 2012 not Palin. I watch Huckabee's show on FOX all the time now. I blame my dad who got me hooked on it.

*My dad is a lifelong Conservative Party cardholder up here in Canuckian land.*

Post by **sauronsfinger** » Sat Oct 03, 2009 4:14 pm

Huckabee and Palin appeal to the same demographic and slice of the Republican party. If the worse happens (in their eyes) they will cancel each other out in many state primaries allowing someone like Romney to finish first. Remember that the Republicans normally have a winner take all rule in a primary rather than the Democratic party who favors proportional allocation of delegates based on the percentage of the vote. This means that the following could happen in many states in the Republican primary:

Romney 37%
Palin 29%
Huckabee 24%
Pawlenty 10%

Because Romney finishes first, he gets all those states convention delegates while the others get nothing. In the Democratic Party, the first three finishers would all get a chunk of delegates to the convention. I do not expect the GOP to change those rules.

If it is Palin or Huckabee without the other in the way, I would expect that it will come down to a two person race with one of them against Romney who should be the favorite of the party establishment.

Post by **anthriel** » Sat Oct 03, 2009 4:41 pm

You know, I was just going to post something in response to the Palin comments that had been made, and then ask that there be a new thread. You guys are WAY ahead of me.

SF wrote:Huckabee and Palin appeal to the same demographic and slice of the Republican party.

I disagree.

Huckabee is a much more mainstream candidate than Palin is, in my eyes. She really does only truly appeal to a slim slice of the Republican party.

Which has begged my question (in another thread) as to why she is so high profile? Why do the mainstream conservatives enjoy having her around, when her policy appeal is really quite narrow? Why do the liberals seem unable to leave her alone, and ignore her, which they should?

I found my answer today.

In this article, which is a CBS blog:

http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/10/02 ... 0238.shtml

So leave it to a comedian to solve a riddle that still flummoxes liberals. During his appearance on Bill O'Reilly's Fox television show Wednesday night, Saturday Night Live alum (and now radio talk show host,) Dennis Miller, summed it up with lapidary precision.

"I'm a Palin fan, because she irritates just the right people for me," he said.

Exactamundo.

Democrats may equate the name Palin with the sound of sharp nails clawing a chalkboard but so much the better, says Miller, a show business pro who understands a thing or two about shtick and the art of pushing peoples' buttons.

"I mean, she drives the right people crazy," he told O'Reilly. "Do I think she's going to outsmart you? No. But do I think that, in some way, she has an appeal with people that practiced politicians might never have? Yes, I do."

If you judge by the numbers, there's no debate he's right about that. Palin's upcoming memoir Rogue is ranked No. 1 both on the Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble bestseller lists - and this, still a full month and a half before the book is scheduled to go on sale.

THAT'S her appeal to the more mainstream conservatives. Not that she speaks for them, not really, but that she ticks off the right people. From a conservative point of view.

Post by **Primula Baggins** » Sat Oct 03, 2009 5:08 pm

That's a great insight from Dennis Miller!

Sat Oct 03, 2009 5:11 pm

A scary one, for what it says about our political system.

Post by **sauronsfinger** » Sat Oct 03, 2009 5:20 pm

Anthriel . you could be right about Huckabee being more mainstream but that is a decision that will have to be made collectively by the public. Perhaps that perception exists right now becuase of the much higher profile Palin has earned because of the VP nomination?

I do think that Huckabee is no moderate and is just as outside the mainstream as Palin is. There is no shortage of information on the net that attempts to show Huckabee as a fringe politician. Here are some examples that are not difficult to locate if you just google "Huckabee extremism".

http://www.perrspectives.com/blog/archives/000854.htm

http://crooksandliars.com/jon-perr/stil ... -extremism

Huckabee has his TV show which gets between one and two million viewers and any politician would not turn away that exposure. Palin, on the other hand, is probably the single most indentifiable face in the Republican party right now. If she wants the nomination in 2012, I would not bet against her barring an all out effort by an otherwise united party establishment to deny it to her.

The one big advantage Huckabee has is that he seems like a very likable person, friendly and open.

Post by **anthriel** » Sat Oct 03, 2009 6:29 pm

sauronsfinger wrote:Anthriel . you could be right about Huckabee being more mainstream but that is a decision that will have to be made collectively by the public. Perhaps that perception exists right now becuase of the much higher profile Palin has earned because of the VP nomination?

Well, perhaps I should have said he's more mainstream for a conservative Republican.

Palin's just... out there. Huckabee seems a bit more reasonable in his conservative viewpoints. But he's hardly a moderate, nor does he present himself that way.

The one big advantage Huckabee has is that he seems like a very likable person, friendly and open.

I think he is a likeable person. I'm not sure that is as politically advantageous as Palin's high profile, though. Being shocking is always better press.

Post by **halplm** » Sat Oct 03, 2009 6:37 pm

Interestingly enough, the republican leadership doesn't want Palin around either. They dislike her as much as the democrats do.

Essentially, that is why so many people like her, which is part of what Miller was saying. She not only angers the democrats, she angers the party establishment on the republican side!

Conservatives all over the country have been extremely dissatisfied and disillusioned with "their" party for a long time. They were ok with Bush's handling of foreign policy which is why the Iraq war debate took center stage whenever there was a contrasting of positions... but on almost everything else the party has been on a steady march to the left for the last decade. Frankly, ever since Gingrich stepped down as the party leader.

The clearest evidence of this could be seen in two issues during Bush's second term. The first being the opposition to Harriet Miers's nomination to the Supreme court, and the second being the attempt at "immigration reform" that Bush and McCain both really wanted. The party wouldn't have minded Miers, and they want to pass "immigration reform" as much as anyone else because they (falsely) believe this will gain them votes.

All of the opposition in these two cases was grassroots driven. It was the conservative people that were tired of just taking what they were given... the beginning of the tea party and town hall protesters and such.

The republican primaries for 2008 provides further evidence of the complete disconnect between conservatives and the GOP. The only serious candidate that could even remotely be seen as an "outsider" was Huckabee, and indeed he did have some early success. However, no one really knew him, and he never really stood a chance. All the other candidates... were the same... Washington polititians through and through... the same thing we've had forever. The fact that McCain was finally nominated was because he was able to ride that "maverick" image of his just a little bit further among a thoroughly unsatisfied group of voters. The only moment he had any real momentum was when he nominated Palin, who is finally a fresh face for conservatives. Unfortunately for him, the stark contrasts between himself and Palin only highlighted the reasons conservatives had to dislike him.

Anyway, that was the past, and we're moving to the future. Romney will never be President of the United States. The conservatives don't like him... I mean the man was elected governor of Massachusetts... hardly a bastion of conservative thought.

He looks good and speaks well, which is why he'll be a contender for the nomination in 2012... but if he's selected as the nominee (he'll likely be the party leadership's choice), we'll have Obama for four more years.

Huckabee appeals a great deal to the often overlooked (or looked down upon) social conservatives, and people will know him after 3 years on the air. His would be an energizing campaign if he got the nomination early on and it was him vs Obama for a long stretch.

And then there's Sarah Palin. I expect I will have much time to talk about her in the future, so I'm not going to say much here... as I've said too much in this post already... but for all the reasons I've outlined above... she would make a pretty good candidate... but she's on her own as it still seems no one in control of the GOP is going to make things easy for her.

Of course, there are other possibilities as well. Tim Pawlenty and Bobby Jindal can both sound pretty good to conservatives when they speak.

Post by **sauronsfinger** » Sat Oct 03, 2009 7:27 pm

Brad Knickerbocker of the Christian Science Monitor has a good column which discusses the situation facing republicans in 2012

http://features.csmonitor.com/politics/ ... -downside/

Knickerbocker quotes several GOP big names who are beginning to look at the right wing of their party and do not like what they see.

Post by **River** » Sat Oct 03, 2009 7:47 pm

halplm wrote: The first being the opposition to Harriet Miers's nomination to the Supreme court

Out of curiousity, how was this a move to the left? I saw her nomination purely as cronyism spiked with cynicism ("If they oppose the woman we'll play the gender card!"

) and as such I can see why people on both sides of the aisle were utterly infuriated with her nomination. But leftist? How?

Post by **halplm** » Sat Oct 03, 2009 8:04 pm

sorry, that was evidence of the dissatisfaction of the conservatives... not of the move to the left

I think I did some editing that made that more confusing than it should have been.

Post by **River** » Sat Oct 03, 2009 8:14 pm

Ah, okay, that makes much more sense.

Post by **Frelga** » Sat Oct 03, 2009 8:31 pm

Interesting post, hal.

I don't know if it's true that Palin irritates the "right" people. She certainly irritates me.

But she also irritated my parents and my in-laws, all four much more conservative than I and up till her nomination determined to vote for McCain.

It seems to me that the Dems talk about her because she presents just the right kind of boogie-woman. She appears, or at least can be painted to appear (Frelga said, doing her utmost to be fair), to be xenophobic, intolerant, ignorant and flaunting her ignorance, and generally not very capable - a perfect opponent to get not just liberals but moderates under the Democratic banner just for the sake of keeping her from getting into power. So they keep talking about her, just to remind their side of what the opposition could be like.

Post by **sauronsfinger** » Sat Oct 03, 2009 8:41 pm

Here is something to consider when we speculate about 2012. Barring any dramatic changes in the Democratic party direction and expected candidate, all the action and attention should be on the Republican party side. What will interested democrats do in those primaries? In some states like mine, there is no such thing as party registration and people can vote in any party primary they like. In other states where they have party registration, you can change given enough advance warning. So if Obama is a sure thing on the Dem side, how will all these Democrats impact the Republican selection? We are talking about potentially millions of votes that could seriously impact the Republican primaries.

Will they vote for the most moderate candidate of the field or will they attempt to select the Republican that is considered as the most beatable of the field?

Post by **Túrin Turambar** » Sat Oct 03, 2009 8:54 pm

I'll say what I said on b77 - it's too early to identify the field for 2012 now. Any number of Governors or Senators could rise in profile between now and then, particularly with the 2010 elections. Plenty of people in 2006 was talking about a Clinton v Guiliani election in 2008. Hardly anyone predicted McCain's comeback, Obama rose faster than most people had imagined, and Huckabee came out of nowhere. Remember how Howard Dean was certain to be the Democratic nominee in 2004?

Post by **narya** » Sat Oct 03, 2009 9:01 pm

Anthriel wrote:
THAT'S her appeal to the more mainstream conservatives. Not that she speaks for them, not really, but that she ticks off the right people. From a conservative point of view.

Just the kind of person we want leading the free world.

Post by **River** » Sat Oct 03, 2009 9:46 pm

If Palin runs, she's going to have her decision to up and quit her previously elected post thrown back in her face. I don't think she's going to be able to hold up against that.

However, she's good at making noise and getting people excited so, while she might not be a good nominee, she'd be a useful ally.

Anyway, as has been pointed out, predictions at this stage are worse than useless. Remember how Hillary Clinton was "inevitable" and the GOP was certain to put up some boring dude whose name almost no one can remember?

Post by **anthriel** » Sat Oct 03, 2009 10:08 pm

Frelga wrote:I don't know if it's true that Palin irritates the "right" people. She certainly irritates me. But she also irritated my parents and my in-laws, all four much more conservative than I and up till her nomination determined to vote for McCain.

She irritates me, too, Frelga. I was pretty sure why she irritated me (she really is quite on the edge for me), so I wasn't sure why her name kept getting brought up. By liberals and conservatives and David Letterman! Why is this woman still around? Has she not had her 15 minutes of fame?

It seems to me that the Dems talk about her because she presents just the right kind of boogie-woman. She appears, or at least can be painted to appear (Frelga said, doing her utmost to be fair), to be xenophobic, intolerant, ignorant and flaunting her ignorance, and generally not very capable - a perfect opponent to get not just liberals but moderates under the Democratic banner just for the sake of keeping her from getting into power. So they keep talking about her, just to remind their side of what the opposition could be like.

This is a good point. But sf said it best (I think it was sf), in another thread, and I'll have to paraphrase because I'm too lazy to look it up... something like she is the monster that her opposition is creating. To build on that idea: without the strong, emotional, immediate and vitriol-laced responses from the liberal side (her death squad comment was apparently made on a Facebook page, and look at the response it got), Palin would be rather less high-profile than she is now.

Okay, so I'm paraphrasing up a storm, here. Maybe I will have to go find that quote!

Edit: Okay, so I think *I* was one one who said she was being "invented". Oy. But I did write that in response to something sf wrote, which is why his name is pegged to that memory for me. Here's the link:

viewtopic.php?p=164333#164333

That was a good lesson for me in backing up your memory with actual quotes.

But I am a bit heartened that I am at least consistant... I'm saying the same things now that I was saying then (and then quoting myself... OY!!).

Post by **MithLuin** » Sat Oct 03, 2009 11:19 pm

I'm with Lord M; this is idle speculation at this point. Obama and Clinton started campaigning unusually early for the primaries, I guess anticipating a fierce fight. Usually, people don't start worrying about the presidential campaign less than a year into the term! My guess will be that there will be a lot of candidates we either haven't heard of or haven't really considered. I would be surprised if the ballot looks like a lot of repeats from the past election (not that I can vote in primaries, but anyway).

I mean, what happens over the next year or so will determine how popular the Democrats are and what the major issues will be. Right now, health care reform and the economy seem pretty obvious, but depending on how that goes.....

Later than this point in Bush Sr.'s term, it probably looked fairly likely that he could maintain public support and win re-election easily, encouraging 'likely' opposition candidates to postpone their bids for 4 years. But then things changed, so some obscure governor from Arkansas won the Democratic primaries.....