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Based on recent polling, if Mitt Romney wins the Republican primary, President Obama should have a tough fight for election. If on the other hand Newt Gingrich manages to secure the nomination, Obama will have a radically easier time of getting re-elected. In a general election Gingrich is simply not electable according to both Gallup’s polling of swing states and most other major pollsters. From a Gallup poll of 12 key swing states:
No only does Gingrich do dramatically worse than Romney in a general election match up, but Gingrich even does significantly worse than Ron Paul or Rick Santorum.
The fact that Gingrich with his history and baggage would be a political liability to the Republican party shouldn’t be news, but apparently it is to parts of the Republican base. In South Carolina exit polls Gingrich overwhelming won among voters who said electability was their top priority.
Being able to unseat Obama is very important to Republican primary voters, and according to current polls, Romney stands the best chance of doing that. Clearly the Romney campaign failed to do a good job of communicating this basic fact to voters ahead of the South Carolina primary, and it hurt him.
It does appear though that the Romney campaign has very successfully won the electability argument in Florida, and that is probably at least partly responsible for him doing so well there. PPP’s latest poll of Florida found 49 percent of likely primary voters think Romney stands the best chance of beating Obama even though the poll found only 39 percent of voters plan to vote Romney.
44 Comments
In a close election with Romney, President Zero has the option of exposing what the Republicans did on 9/11. My guess is he would prefer to lose.
This poll seems to show that Obama is, at best, barely electable.
“Extremely” unelectable……….well that’s not good news for Callista. OTOH, I coulda told her that 6 months ago. AS they say, “This guy couldn’t get elected dogcatcher.”
Go, Newt go – you know they refused Jesus, too!
That’s finding the “silver lining”….Well done.
Obama, the guy who, like the pod people in Invasion of the Body Snatchers, can point to a person, any person including an american citizen, hiss the word ‘terrorist’ and have that person killed.
Please tell me how in fuck this murderer gets re-elected.
Incumbent under 50% in an election year — tied with an unappealing candidate at that — yikes. Add in 9% official unemployment, 18% if you count those off the books. Yikes again.
There are Greens, Justice, Socialists.
I’m starting to think the reason the Romney campaign and it’s supporters didn’t destroy Gingrich in S. Carolina with the electability argument is explained right in this article. Santorum is more electable than Gingrich. The real conservative threat to Romney is Santorum because he is more electable than Gingrich. So the first order of business was to destroy Santorum’s chances of being the conservative alternative to Romney. Ginrich’s win in S. Carolina did that, despite the Evangelical endorsement of Santorum.
Now that Santorum has been successfully marginalized, it’s safe to take out Gingrich. But not too fast, since they don’t want the media to decide Paul is a “real” candidate so they can keep reporting a horse race. So they’ll keep Gingrich in the race with a few unimportant wins. But no way will they let him win the big states, especially the winner take all ones.
The way Obama gets re-elected is simple. The alternative will also believe the president has the authority to point at anyone, whisper “terrorist,” and have them killed. So enough of the Democratic base will vote for him, saying he’s right on other issues that the Republican is wrong on, to give him a plurality after the “Americans Elect” centrist candidate syphons off enough moderate Republican votes from Romney. Meanwhile any real alternative from the Left will be ignored by the corporate media while they fawn all over “Americans Elect’s” stooge.
I would go deeper
the 1% need both of their guys running in 2012
Obama = Romney and Romney = Obama
Obama main job if elected in 2012, will be to control and fight off new Democrats who are seeking to attack the 1%
the 1% probably knows the House will go Dem, and these new Dems will not be friends of the 1%
So, Jon, are you suggesting that, in most all Thuglican likelihoodlums, the re-erection of Obama is a foreclosed gonlusion?
Rmoney and Dronebama …?
I don’t know that I would glorify this “situation” with the “honor of being called “news”.
A bunch of other terms come, very unhappily, to mind and not one of them makes this “situation” anything but depressing and exceedingly grim.
Of course, that is not “news”, either.
“News” we can use would be something along the lines of what human beings can actually DO about their common plight.
Ah, well …
Anyone know the latest schedule for departing hand-baskets?
No, not first-class, I mean coach …
So that we can all go together when we go …
G
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DW
I think you’re giving the Romney campaign WAAAY too much credit.
Santorum has been marginalized because Santorum IS marginalized. He’s just Tim Pawlenty/Rick Perry/Herman Cain without as much “smarts”.
And nobody is gonna keep Gingrich in the race or get him out of the race but………………………….Callista.
Irrespective of DW, Jon, I appplaud you. Inquiring minds want to know.
No offense intended DW. :-)
I guess that’s worse that Romney’s “merely unelectable”.
P.S. Can I get an aisle seat??????? POrt side, I got a bad knee.
That’s not right. Romney is “least objectionable” among the current clown car occupants. That’s all.
None taken, ncg, and I am pleased to announce, as you are putting you bid in early, that you may indeed have the seat of your choice.
Board early, and remove all metal plates fron the skull area, as we don’t wish to delay departures owing to disabled body imagining equiptlaments.
You do realize that these are one-way tickets, naturally?
No refunds.
;~DW
Let’s us know something about her judgement, huh?
When Romney’s blithering blandness seems more appealing than Newt’s innate repulsiveness, then you know we have really hit rockbottom. But, as some have observed, the fact that either of them only barely edges out the incumbent is mightily discouraging. This makes Obama the epitome of disappointment.
Sadly, tomorrow night, the GOP hatchet-fight will come to a close.
I’d hoped for total chaos, with Palin lurking around the edge like a buzzard, looking to pick up the scraps and piece together a run of some sort (Digby would love to have her to shriek about, to avoid talking about what a hosing Obama has given democrats and progressives… :o) ) but I think South Carolina had the heavyweight repubs shitting their pants, to the point that they got together and dog-piled on Gingrich. That, along with the fact that Florida’s peckerhead factor is just lower than S.C.’s, is about to put “paid” to Newtonius and his flat-earthers.
“…the House will go dem…”
Not. Gonna. Happen.
By July, if not before, the political landscape in amurka is going to look so different from what it does now, with Obama currently riding the reverse coattails of GOP crazies (or crazy-ers) and having a brief moment of success with;
“SEEEEE! We told you you’d have to vote for us!”
…that it’s going to look like a different planet. Romney can stop kissing so much conservative butt and start sounding “moderate”, and any bounce that Obama got from the goat-rodeo will disappear in an “At least he’s not this failed fuckup of a sitting preznint..” surge.
Put it like this: The tea partiers are a lot more likely to close ranks behind Willard than will be the progressives to get fired up about Obama, and support him, again.
Everytime O. opens his mouth to blather out some piece of faux “populism”, it nauseates me, thinking about what a charade it is, to have him doing this campaign-kabuki crap after three years of total sellout to the assholes.
This is the way I see it. The 1% wants Obama in the White House 2013-2017, but they also want to be sure that Romney is the back up from the G.O.P. just in case something weird happens and Obama doesn’t get re-elected.
Romney will be thanking Newt in a few mos. for making him the GOP’s centrist candidate. Obama has a real problem with Romney since he can’t exactly put himself up as a paragon of truthiness can he?
Soros just sees Romney as Obama’s flip side. Same Corporatist label.
‘blue, I don’t think he DOES get re-elected. He has lost too much of the independent vote, and the progressive democrats who were his Praetorian Guard, politically speaking, are deserting in droves.
Also, I don’t think that the economy can right itself enough for him to be able to point to a turn-around…not and have many of the voters believe it. And the republicans won’t let him pass any real reform legislation that might prime that pump enough to hurt their chances of taking both the White House and the Senate.
Barack Hussein Obama was also extremely unelectable until he was extremely electable.
I don’t think anyone was ever more extremely unelectable than Richard M. Nixon except for George W. Bush.
The only can’t-possibly-lose candidates in US history were George Washington and Hillary Clinton.
I’d add Thomas Dewey to that list.
Since Obama’s winning the presidency is so directly tied to Hillary’s “savvy” strategy of trying to wipe out her dreaded “librul” stain, and lick rightwing hiney all the way to the White House (which unspinnably cost her the nomination) you’d think that he would have seen clearly that crapping on your base is a tough road to political success…but we overestimated HIS political acumen, too…along with his personal morality and courage.
You brought up La Quitter @20, and it made me realize that no sitting politician ever had the high approval rating that she had a year into her term. How about that?
Corporal Peters stayed at camp when General Washington’s troops visited the local brothel. The madame asked how many men there were, and the CO asked his lieutenant, who answered: “We have thirty-six men without Peters”, and the madame said, “How about that?”
I can go along with that. All of the so-called “Republican Primary Candidates” are pretty loathsome, imo.
I’ve always felt that GingRICH was asked by the PTB to pretend to “run” to give the *appearance* of some kind of “choice.” GingRICH, the Grifter, of course get$ to make pot$ and stack$ and pile$ of buckeroo$$ for his efforts, plus his gargantuan ego gets a boost. I don’t think GingRICH ever really wanted to be POTUS, but he’s pretty good at pretending to run.
I’ve long felt that Romney was the pick of the moneyboyz cuz, as has been opined frequently… Romney = Obama. Doesn’t matter which one “wins.” Same result, either way.
Of course, this isn’t true. However the oligarchs want their pet boy to get the nomination so “polls” that predetermine that Gingrich is not-electable are released so the conserva-plebes will shift towards Romney.
Kabuki.
I have many wingnut as well as R-leaning independents in my extended family and none of them want or trust Romney. Anecdotal, I know, but still…
The funniest part of this, of course, is how there is no difference between Romney, Obama, or Gingrich once elected.
Gingrich is a clown. A fat baffoon. A meglomaniac.
We already have one ego maniac in the White House who doesn’t listen to anyone. We don’t need another.
Hillary, where are you??
Gingrich is finished, he just doesn’t know it yet. He is making more and more a fool of himself.
If he did get elected, it would be historic. The first time the First Lady has been the Other Woman.
At least with Romney you won’t have someone who rails against Wall Street and then takes their money and gives them a pass–such as BHO.
Romney will be more upfront about it.
Don’t forget that Nancy Reagan was the other woman back in the fifties.
Yeah, but she didn’t ask for an open marriage.
x2, Tanbark, x2!
That’s because you and the rest of this Ron Paul, Ralph Nader site are a a bunch of Morons. That silly goth chic that runs this site is clueless. This crappy site makes Drudge look like Disney world. If the on thing you believe in is Cynicism then why do you even bother getting out of bed. Oh and before you reply……………………/´¯/)
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……..(‘(…´…´…. ¯~/’…’)
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…………………………. TOO!!!
That’s because you and the rest of this Ron Paul, Ralph Nader site are a a bunch of Morons. That silly goth chic that runs this site is clueless. This crappy site makes Drudge look like Disney world. If the on thing you believe in is Cynicism then why do you even bother getting out of bed. Oh and before you reply…………../´¯/)
………………..,/¯../
………………./…./
…………./´¯/’…’/´¯¯`·¸
………./’/…/…./……./¨¯
……..(‘(…´…´…. ¯~/’…’)
……………………..’…../
……….”…………. _.·´
……………………..(
…………………………. TOO!!!
The fingertip is still off to the left. You will have to post it again.
Romney and Obama are essentially the same guy politically (either will say anything to get elected and both are Wall Street stooges), with two distinctions:
1. Romney calls himself a Republican and Obama calls himself a Democrat.
2. Obama needs to be defeated for all of his assaults on the constitution, due process and the rule of law. Of course, Romney supports all of those actions, which is why he should be defeated in 2016 if he manages to win this year.
Excellent. Keep coming back. Most of our trolls are pathetic.
The only can’t-possibly-lose candidates in US history were George Washington and Hillary Clinton.
The evidence suggests otherwise. She did lose.
Reagan’s first wife, Jane Wyman, filed for divorce in 1948. He didn’t even meet Nancy until 1949.
Go visit TBogg’s blog and see for yourself.
Gingrich even looks like an aged Dennis the Menace. That’s his purpose. Upsetting the cart is doing the lord’s work nodoubt. (Applause).
Maybe the disoriented GOP losing the WH race will snag enough House members, too, and keep the Senate blue after all.