More Of These

Say what you will about Romney – personally, I caucused for him in 2008 (as the most conservative option available on the ballot at the time), and if he gets the nomination, I’ll bust my ass to see him in the White House; he’s not perfect, but he’s a lot better than what we have.

And the key part is, if you believe in polling (and I generally don’t, but Rasmussen has earned a bit of a dispensation, being generally more accurate than the others), a lot of other people think so too:

The latest national telephone survey finds that 45% of Likely U.S. Voters favor the former Massachusetts governor, while 39% prefer the president. Ten percent (10%) like some other candidate in the race, and six percent (6%) are undecided. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

A week ago, Romney trailed Obama 44% to 41%. The week before that, he held a slight 43% to 42% edge over the president. The two candidates have been essentially tied in regular surveys since January, but Romney remains the only GOP hopeful to lead Obama in more than one survey. Despite Romney’s current six-point lead, his latest level of support is in line with the 38% to 45% he has earned in matchups with the president this year. However, Obama’s 39% is a new low: Prior to this survey, his support has ranged from 40% to 46% in matchups with Romney.

And I thought this bit was interesting:

Romney earns an overwhelming 75% of the vote from those Tea Party members, while the president leads 49% to 37% among those who are not part of the grass roots movement.Obama has 65% support from the Political Class [Ha ha ha! – Ed.]. Romney leads 51% to 31% among Mainstream voters

So for all the media’s – and conservatives’, for that matter – focus on the Tea Party’s ideology, they are as pragmatic as they need to be, too.  And I like that “Mainstream Voter” figure;  it’s the key to the “Reagan Democrats”, I think.

According to Rasmussen, none of the other candidates is topping Obama at this point.  Not that a poll eleven months before the election is dispositive – but it’s not chicken feed, either.

After three years of a president that may well be worse than Jimmy Carter, having John Huntsman in the White House would be an improvement (although that’s waaaay too subtly incremental for me; I’m just saying).  Is Romney “the best” choice, especially for a conservative?  No – but if he’s the one we get, it’ll be a step in the right direction.

I mean, let’s be realistic; if he has a conservative House and (fingers crossed) a Republican Senate, I think a Romney administration will be more amenable than Bush, to say nothing of The One.

18 thoughts on “More Of These

  1. Rasmussen’s “Government class” are the 10% of poll respondents who trust political leaders more than the American people.
    The only partisan breakdown I’ve been able to find is about 60% of Dems trust the American people over political leaders, and 80% of Republicans trust the American people over political leaders.

  2. I think a lot of conservatives are coming to the same realization about Romney. It is nice to wish for a white knight to ride in to save the day, like Bill Kristol does, but the reality is there is no such candidate. Romney is the guy that fits the Buckley test: the most conservative that can win. Thanks to the Tea Party, the Republican Party is more conservative in 2011 than it was in 2008, and so is Romney. Hopefully we can, at the very least, use Romney as a technocratic tool to chip away at some of that Washington bureaucracy rather than blindly enable him to increase government the way we did for W.

    You give Jon Huntsman (don’t feel bad, even his campaign can’t spell his name right) short shrift, but his moderate speech belies the most conservative platform of all candidates, Cain included. His biggest mistake was hiring McCain’s former adviser John Weaver and getting off to a bad start with conservatives. You’re right, Tea Partiers (and conservatives) are pragmatic. We don’t need to love a candidate to vote for him (e.g. Romney in the 2008 primary, McCain in the general, etc.) but we need some sense that the candidate at least kind of likes us. Had it not been for his early insults, Huntsman’s moderate approach, combined with a conservative platform and Governor’s record may have worked, Cap’n Tax not withstanding.

  3. Everyone loses sight of where we are in the process. All of them have flaws, but it won’t matter because anyone of them (save Mr. Paul) would lead us out of the economic/cultural swamp Obama is harded for. I could live with Romney, Bachmann, even Gingrich – when the alternative is considered. We’re in the cannabalizing stage of the process and that’s a good thing. The more we vet now, the better it will be in the final push!

  4. Romney, may or may not be the most conservative Republican who can win. I believe he can win, he is likable to the middle however, he seems to have a spine made of jello. When push comes to shove the MSM and the Dems will roll him.

    If we elect a squish we will end up with Dem lite policies, judges, and the debt will continue to grow but just a little bit slower.

    I think Juan McCain would have been nearly as bad as our current WH occupier only he would have gotten more Republican support for National Health Care, the Auto bailouts and Cap and Trade. The big difference though is that Republicans would not have won back the house and the State House and State Senates that they did.

  5. He seems to be the only adult in the race. Several of the others I like as political commentators and respect their opinions and intellegence, but Romney seems to be the only serious candidate who doesn’t seem a bit silly at some time or another.

    The Mormon thing….real hard-core anti-Mormon bigots you would think would be Obama voters anyway. And those who oppose the Morman church for legitimete religous reasons….are they going to vote for the Athiest instead?

  6. Romney earns an overwhelming 75% of the vote from those Tea Party members

    Honestly this is surprising but very comforting. Means less chance of a brokered convention or a bloody primary battle.

  7. Ok anyone know of evangelical voters who won’t/wouldn’t turn out for Romney because he’s a Mormon? Could this (seriously) be a problem getting the base out on election day? (although I’ve heard that Mormons are very good at the whole organizing thing)

  8. Chuck wrote:
    And those who oppose the Morman church for legitimete religous reasons….are they going to vote for the Athiest instead?
    Obama, in an interview with Christianity today (Jan. 2008), said:

    I am a Christian, and I am a devout Christian. I believe in the redemptive death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. I believe that that faith gives me a path to be cleansed of sin and have eternal life. But most importantly, I believe in the example that Jesus set by feeding the hungry and healing the sick and always prioritizing the least of these over the powerful.

    http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2008/januaryweb-only/104-32.0.html?start=2
    Strangely enough, the Torqemadas of the press who insist that all GOP candidates must answer detailed questions about how their religious beliefs comport with, say, the theory of evolution, had no interest in asking Obama how he can believe in the resurrection of a dead man, miracles, and forgiveness of sins.
    In this interview, http://blog.christianitytoday.com/ctpolitics/2008/11/obamas_fascinat.html, Obama explains how important his spiritual life is to him, and how critically important Jeremiah Wright was in awakening Obama’s commitment to Christianity and his spiritual growth.

  9. “After three years of a president that may well be worse than Jimmy Carter…”

    MAY?…. MAY???

    On what basis is any hedging needed?

  10. no but he did throw our ally the Shah of Iran under the bus. Now they almost have nukes. Thanks you fucking peanut farmer.

  11. It’s worse than that, Ben. The perceived weakness of the US that Carter projected led the Soviets to attempt to add Afghanistan to their constellation of satellites. This led directly to the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden.
    I do not think that it is possible to exaggerate the ideologically-driven incompetence of Jimmy Carter. When we needed heat and gasoline, he told us to wear sweaters and drive Ford Fiestas. When we needed strength and resolution, he offered weakness and compromise. When we needed victory, he gave us defeat. When we needed leadership, he exiled himself to the damn Whitehouse Rosegarden.

  12. Ben, the 1980 election was my first election as a voter. I can still remember sitting in my tiny apartment off of East River Road in Fridley (321 79th Way, if memory serves), watching the election results come in on the night of November 4th on my 20 inch Magnavox console. I cheered when I saw that SOB Carter voted out of office.
    Most Minnesotans voted for Carter.
    Reagan represented something special, and something that Obama doesn’t get. Obama said that he believes that America is exceptional the way that other countries see themselves exceptional. They are all different in the same way.
    Reagan believed that America was exceptional because, alone among nations, it had the capability to rebuild and reform history. America shapes history, it doesn’t follow it.
    The primacy of America in the 20th century is a victory of imagination over reality. No wonder some people hate it.

  13. I voted for Carter twice. Then I voted for Reagan. I have not cast a vote for a Democrat since. In a way my political history mirrors Mitch’s. Started out very liberal, and then got a clue.

  14. I was in high school during the run up to the 1972 elections, holding mock ones for civics class. For some reason that I still can’t fathom, I liked Tricky Dick, so I had several of his campaign stickers, buttons, etc. I wish the hell I knew where they went – I saved ’em, but I suspect that while I was in the Air Force, someone, probably my dad, tossed them. He was a union construction worker and attempted to convince me that if Nixon got elected, he would lose his job. In about late 1973, I remember that he was working a boat load of OT. Being the smart ass that I am, I commented to him; “You have to be glad that Nixon got elected.” Then, I hauled ass out the door!

  15. Ok anyone know of evangelical voters who won’t/wouldn’t turn out for Romney because he’s a Mormon?
    No, do you? I suspect the only self-proclaimed “evangelicals” who will campaign against Romney for being a Mormon are the same sort as the self-proclaimed “life-long Republicans” who writer letters to the Star Tribune about how they have “reluctantly decided to vote for the DFL candidate.”

    Or they could be “evangelicals” for whom “social justice” is at the core of their beliefs and decide to latch on to anti-Mormonism as an argument that they think might appeal to socially conservative voters.

  16. You give Jon Huntsman (don’t feel bad, even his campaign can’t spell his name right) short shrift, but his moderate speech belies the most conservative platform of all candidates, Cain included. His biggest mistake was hiring McCain’s former adviser John Weaver and getting off to a bad start with conservatives. You’re right, Tea Partiers (and conservatives) are pragmatic. We don’t need to love a candidate to vote for him (e.g. Romney in the 2008 primary, McCain in the general, etc.) but we need some sense that the candidate at least kind of likes us. Had it not been for his early insults, Huntsman’s moderate approach, combined with a conservative platform and Governor’s record may have worked, Cap’n Tax not withstanding.
    That was my thought as well but I think Huntsman was unlikely to be the nominee to run against Barack Obama in 2012 after he served in Obama’s cabinet. New employers tend to be reluctant to hire an applicant who trashes their old boss and voters are probably going to be skeptical of voting for someone whose last job was working for the guy that he’s trying to replace.

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