Library Grape points to a poll from Fox (using what seems to be a reputable firm) showing Jeb Bush, Sarah Palin, and Newt Gingrich all trailing Obama by 20 points in a hypothetical match-up. I don’t know how much polls this far away from an election mean, but given the sky-high name recognition of these candidates (name recognition is a huge factor in early polls), it may mean something. Romney and Huckabee fare much better in the polls (with similar name recognition to all but Palin), trailing by about 7-8.
Jeb Bush is not dumb and I’m sure he knows it’s not in the cards for him in 2012. I’m not sure Palin and Gingrich know, though.
dmsilev
Re: Palin, apparently she recently hired a chief of staff for her political operations, so at a bare minimum, she’s at least thinking about running.
dms
General Stuck
Polls are good for spotting trends, if there are enough of them that are reputable in methodology to average. But it is too early for horse race polls on 2012. What I think the trends are in these polls, and others, is an electorate that is getting more comfortable with Obama and his general style for presidenting, and maybe some sunshine peaking through for the economy. There might be a hint of awareness that the GOP and their candidates are bugfuck crazy, but that could be wishful thinking on my part.
Elvis Elvisberg
I agree that these polls actually might mean something. I would love it if the GOP nominated Palin or Gingrich (I actually would be a little more leery of Jeb, who is able to sound quasi-sane).
Haven’t people taken a look at this, though, and found that like 90% of presidential election outcomes can be determined by whether people feel like the economy’s doing well? Were I Jeb, or Thune, or maybe even Huntsman, I’d be inclined to do what Bill Clinton did in 1992 and run even though the smart money & Mario Cuomo said “wait.” After all, who knows what’ll be going on in Nov. 2012.
Omnes Omnibus
@Elvis Elvisberg: The problem is, of course, getting through the fund raising and primary phases in order to be positioned to take advantage of any potential Obama weakness.
Chris
I’m curious at Romney’s success, and Huckabee’s too for that matter. Romney is the big business candidate, Huckabee is the religious right candidate, but I thought they were pretty distrusted by people outside of their faction (which allowed McCain to beat them last time). Strange that they’d poll ahead of the other three, who seem to be less aligned with one particular faction.
Southern Beale
Yes but Rasmussen shows Ron Paul is DEAD EVEN with Obama!!*
* actual comment I just read at a conservative site somewhere ….
kindness
Palin knows she can’t win. Keeping her name out there keeps the money flowing in. She nothing but a Wasilla hillbilly out there grifting.
gbear
You’ve also got Michele Bachmann trying to bling her way into the nomination:
The word ‘shameless’ doesn’t begin to describe Bachmann.
Chris
@Elvis Elvisberg:
Yeah, me too.
In the current climate, the people are distrustful of everyone and the Tea Party Movement is as well. In that context, a relative unknown, who isn’t strongly tied to any one faction in the GOP, doesn’t have much of a record, and runs on a generic conservative feel-good platform would seem to be the Republicans’ best bet.
Morbo
But Ron Paul won the CPAC straw poll (for the second straight year); why isn’t he getting any consideration? Oh right, the batshit.
Maude
@gbear:
It’s going to be a line up of crazies. Watch and enjoy. They’ll probably attack each other.
p.a.
as for the newt, I think this run is just a scam to somehow play election finance laws to get a little extra income and keep his name out there for his next few
writingsworks of fiction.cyntax
Let’s just talk about the things were sure Palin does know.
…
See, wasn’t that easy?
cmorenc
@Southern Beale:
The commenter had probably misinterpreted a poll which asked:
“Which candidate would you rather be the GOP nominee against Obama in 2012: Ron Paul or Ru Paul?”
eric
Here is the BIG difference, there is hardly anything that a GOP candidate can throw at Obama in 2012 that the public has not already heard. Obama’s ratings are surprisingly high all things considered. He just needs the economy to progress, even if not by leaps and bounds. the smart money stays away from 2012. That tells me Jeb is a no go. The others will all go downward, not upward against Obama…
Yelli
Palin, the former 1/2 term governor, is not a serious candidate and she knows it. She lives her life as a “professional candidate” so she can create interest saying sensational things and then just sits back and laughs as the dough rolls in…
at least her reality show got canceled…
JGabriel
DougJ:
They tell us who the pollsters think are viable candidates. Other than that, approximately not much.
Nate Silver had a post a few weeks ago showing that presidential approval ratings have very little predictive value until about 6-8 months before an election. I assume that applies to other presidential polls too.
.
DougJ®
@Elvis Elvisberg:
I think the Bush name is too toxic now and that he’d be better off waiting until the name becomes less toxic (which may happen eventually. I think Thune and Huntsman would be smart to run.
Ash Can
@gbear:
Here’s a tip, Sergio: Just because all the people at your boss’s functions are brain-dead, it doesn’t mean everyone in the entire fucking world is brain-dead. Put some effort into it.
A Commenter at Balloon Juice (formerlyThe Grand Panjandrum)
Don’t count Jeb out. I was absolutely convinced after the first Gore/Bush debate that W didn’t have the horses to pull the intellectual cart. In other words he was a mouth-breathing moron and the American people couldn’t possibly elect a former Andover cheerleader as President. Clearly I was wrong. Properly packaged by the next Karl Rover and Jeb could make a run. And be elected. Never overestimate the average voters ability to ignore facts.
gbear
@cmorenc: Oh! Ru Paul! No question. 100%
Elvis Elvisberg
@Omnes Omnibus:
Very true. The prospect of the primaries is why I said “maybe even Huntsman,” because in a post-reality, zero-policy GOP, he’s almost certainly disqualified because he willingly worked in the administration of the militant Marx!st/milquetoast apologetic liberal/radical Wright Christian Islamosoc!alist Kenyan tribesman.
But I really do think that the two-party system is so entrenched in our institutions, hearts, and minds, that as long as a party nominates someone who’s not transparently stupid and/or insane, by the time of the general they’ll be able to make a go of it. (I’m hoping for Palin to win the GOP nomination because she’s the exception, too stupid/insane to win the general). The media will bend over backwards to avoid making an insane Republican appear insane, people who remembered that they cared passionately about excessive state power on January 20, 2009, will volunteer time & money, and the big money will always be there for the taking for both parties, especially the GOP.
cmorenc
If Newt does run, I’d bet he doesn’t get within light-years of appearing on “This Week” to let Christine Amanpour interview him again. Yesterday morning, it was fun watching Newt squirm as she refused to let him get away with evasive answers to her straightforward questions about how the Egyptian situation should have been handled. She’s not the place to go to get softball interviews.
homerhk
I predicted some time ago (to various US friends of mine but no friend to Obama) that Obama would win re-election with a larger share of the vote than ini 2008 and with more electoral votes. There is simply no-one who might possibly face him from across the aisle that has appeared up until now who has made me change my mind. He is at about 50% approval rating, or thereabout, in circumstances where the US employment situation is horrendous, there are still two ongoing wars, US influence in the world is declining, a sizeable portion of the population either think Obama is a muslim, socialist imposter or a manchurian corporate whore President and there is a news channel that is doing anything it can to make sure he doesn’t win again. That’s pretty solid, in my book.
David
Didn’t the Wingnuts justify Palin’s quitting so that she could prepare for this very moment — to run in 2012? She has to declare or give up any pretense of being a serious politician. She can’t quit in 2009 to maybe run in 2016 and still expect political donations to continue.
If she declares early, gives a speech or two that makes the Republican base happy, the “moderate” Republicans will be so cowed that the nomination will be hers. I think she’ll run just to poke the Republicans who have dissed her (like Krauthammer, Barbara Bush, David Frum, etc.) in the eye.
Davis X. Machina
The GOP will nominate someone we’re not talking about, or not talking about much. All they need is a creditable figurehead, and credible can be manufactured.
I suspect a governor like Christie, but not as gross a figure as Christie, with good state-employee-bashing credentials. You don’t want to run a sitting senator when you might wind up one senator away from control of the Senate.
Southern Beale
Jeb Bush has already come out and said NO to 2012 so that is off the table, even if he didn’t carry that stench of fail that comes with the Bush name.
Southern Beale
@David:
Of course she can. In the cult of personality that is the conservative movement, actions don’t mean jack shit. Being pretty and saying the right things that push the right buttons are all that matter.
Christ you’d think she’d have been disqualified for preaching “family values” while her teenage daughter gets pregnant and has a baby out of wedlock. Imagine if that had happened to Obama when he was running for office.
trollhattan
Agree that polls today tell us little, other than who does and does not have name recognition. I’ll add that I keep seeing hucking Fuckabee on my teevee a lot lately, in some pretty odd places (ONN, for example). Dude’s media savvy and that counts for something. Can a book release and an appearance on TDS be far behind? (Recalling McCain was a frequent guest on TDS during the last campaign. That ended with “the tribute” of course.)
Suffern ACE
@A Commenter at Balloon Juice (formerlyThe Grand Panjandrum): If the economy stays bad and the wingnuts continue to portray it as having started in 2009, people might start to long for a Bush Restoration of sorts. You know, the good old days of the Bush presidency when the economy was good and America was strong.* That’s really all they have.
Chyron HR
@dmsilev:
Assumes facts not in evidence.
Elvis Elvisberg
@DougJ®:
Maybe true. I think that our collective attention span may be too short to make that the case, and that marketing “Jeb!” would get out from under what’s there, but I have no objective basis for that view.
Southern Beale
Speaking of Palin … woman who says Todd Palin sexted her also says that Sarah’s last pregnancy was a fake.
MikeJ
@Davis X. Machina: The union basher from Wisconsin?
Southern Beale
Jeb Bush says no to 2012:
gbear
@Elvis Elvisberg: Joe Miller ran his campaign in Alaska with TONS of outside money but a non-existent ground staff. His campaign office was a ghost town.
I’m wondering if this is going to be the model for republican candidates in 2012. Campaigns will be nothing but mailers and tightly controlled TV and radio spots. Candidates won’t even need volunteers once they get through the nomiation process.
Suffern ACE
I wonder how these polls would go if they inserted a candidate with any well known random name outside of politics. Say, adding Jeff Bagwell’s name to the mix or Patty Lupone. I don’t think people pay attention to politics enough to notice.
Nom de Plume
The whole point is that the candidates with lower name recognition are doing better. The candidate who does best of all is “Generic Republican Candidate”.
Morbo
@Southern Beale: Pretty sure that was the best medicine possible for Sully.
kdaug
I’m sensing Palin’s 15 minutes are up. The zeitgeist feels like it’s, mercifully, moved on.
But considering O’s polling with the economy this bad, you’d have to be fucking audacious to run against him.
My bet is that the money will put up a whiffle-ball throwaway candidate, maybe Palin, in ’12, and therefore can get rid of them for 2016.
But ’12 is O’s to lose.
Chyron HR
@Suffern ACE:
But they already tried putting Evita on the ticket in 2008.
homerhk
my previous comment is in moderation hell!: reposted:
I predicted some time ago (to various US friends of mine but no friend to Obama) that Obama would win re-election with a larger share of the vote than ini 2008 and with more electoral votes. There is simply no-one who might possibly face him from across the aisle that has appeared up until now who has made me change my mind. He is at about 50% approval rating, or thereabout, in circumstances where the US employment situation is horrendous, there are still two ongoing wars, US influence in the world is declining, a sizeable portion of the population either think Obama is a muslim, socialist imposter or a manchurian corporate sell-out President and there is a news channel that is doing anything it can to make sure he doesn’t win again. That’s pretty solid, in my book.
This link although way too early seems to support my gut feel
Southern Beale
@Morbo:
Where has Sully been, anyway? He out sick or something?
Ash Can
@David:
Except that her supporters are basically divorced from reality, and support her because she’s their tribal leader first, and their potential conduit to top-level governmental power only secondarily. They don’t think in terms of “This one’s not working out; let’s find someone else who can get elected.” They’ll make as many excuses for her as they need to, for as long as they need to do it. She’s set for life with them.
I’d be absolutely delighted if this were the case, but the combination of her lack of popularity and the other candidates’ willingness to fight for the nomination (cleanly and otherwise) makes this scenario next to impossible. You can be sure that none of the front-runners will go down without a fight, and also-rans such as Bachmann have the potential to make life miserable for the other candidates as well.
I’m looking forward to it, myself — the press has handled these jagoffs with kid gloves and been so afraid to say anything that could be construed as disparaging about them. When the primaries start in earnest, however, it’ll be the jagoffs themselves throwing punches at each other. Unless the corporate media just decide not to cover the proceedings at all, they’re inevitably going to have to report stuff that puts their celebrity pols in bad light. I’m already stocking up on popcorn.
gbear
@DougJ®:
I’d bet money that Jeb is actually thinking that the republican party is too toxic for him.
Walker
@Davis X. Machina:
This is a lesson Obama taught us all too well. He opened the door to a lot of crazies in filling his cabinet.
kdaug
@Southern Beale:
Back today.
Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen
Wingnut Word Salad is always on the menu.
MCA
@Davis X. Machina –
I think the name you’re looking for is Mitch Daniels. He’s credible, not hyper-partisan, and doesn’t have much use for the resentment politics that currently define his party. For that reason, I think he’s far too rational and adult to actually win a nomination in the current Republican landscape, but he’s a very well-regarded governor who would run on a “we know how to tighten belts” platform. If he hadn’t been Bush’s Budget Director, which would be a huge bludgeon with which to bash him repeatedly in a general election, he strikes me as a guy who could become a serious threat. He doesn’t have the name recognition of the other Republican hopefuls as of yet, but we’re still a long way out, and he’s definitely considering running now instead of waiting for 2016.
GregB
Yeah, what is the worse they can now say about President Obama? That he’s a double Hitler?
They blew their lunatic name calling too early this time.
Nellcote
I worry more about the astounding amount of money that’s going to be thrown into the race than particular gooper candidates. The Kock’s are already in for 88M.
rikryah
Palin hiring a Chief of Staff made me LMAO.
someone on another board described it as the following.
thank you Town:
It’s too little, too late. It’s like the girl who partied and laughed and was lazy freshman, sophomore, junior and the 1st half of senior year in high school. She sees all of her classmates getting accepted to college, joining the military, getting jobs and other post-high school plans. She’s getting left behind, but now she wants to buckle down in the last semester of high school to pull up her 1.0 GPA so she won’t be left behind.* Too little, too late.
The majority of the American public has seen how stupid, lazy and mean Sarah Palin is. The only people supporting her are dumb, stupid and lazy people just like her.
I thought this was just about perfect.
Mike in NC
Jeb might have a lock on the nomination in 2212, after that last name of his is no longer pegging out political Geiger counters like a pile of radioactive waste.
scarshapedstar
Oh yeah? Well then why isn’t he cashing in on all those royalties from Uncle Buck?
MikeJ
@MCA: And Iggy Pop has already done his theme song.
bobbo
Obama is passing 50% in most polls, which is weird considering how much the economy still sucks and how much it hurt the Dems in Congress. I have to think he is experiencing some kind of FDR effect, where people actually understand and remember that he inherited the worst economy in 70 years and is doing all he can . . . Seems he can only improve as the economy improves, however sucky it remains.
low-tech cyclist
Jeb Bush is not dumb and I’m sure he knows it’s not in the cards for him in 2012. I’m not sure Palin and Gingrich know, though.
Gingrich has made a career out of considering throwing his hat into the Presidential ring. He won’t actually DO it, because his base (which is the same base as McCain used to have – the DC press/pundit corps) would have to admit that nobody gives a shit about this guy out in the real world.
JMC in the ATL
I, too, would support RuPaul over Ron Paul. If for no other reason than to watch Obama debate Ru on her best Michelle-inspired outfit.
That, and “You better work!” is a better slogan than “I Got Mine, Fuck You!”.
Michael #2
The curious phrasing at the end struck me: “Jeb Bush is not dumb and I’m sure he knows it’s not in the cards for him in 2012. I’m not sure Palin and Gingrich know, though.”
Isn’t the relevant point just the opposite? That not only do they “not” know they’re unelectable, but they TOTALLY believe they not only *are* electable, but already have the vast majority of the nation’s political support, so that when they _don’t_ win, they’ll be able to throw their frothing conniptions.
Valdivia
Well Sulli is back and while I’m happy he is better after reading his fellating of Daniels as a real budget cutter and his calling Obama a coward I’m going to stay away. Hope someone destroys his vapid arguments.
Bubblegum Tate
@David:
Actually, I hadn’t heard any of them come right out and say it. Most wingnuts I’ve seen speak on the matter pretty much push the “she’s quitting so that the damn dirty liberals can’t keep filing ethics complaints against her” line.
catclub
@bobbo: This.
Obama has clearly received a fortune cookie message that says: “May all your enemies self destruct.”
joe from Lowell
@bobbo:
I don’t think anybody remembered that he inherited this economy that didn’t know that in May or November 2010.
Nate Silver has written a bit about the effect of the unemployment rate on a president’s support. The actual number matters quite a bit, but what matters a great deal more is the trend in the number – how long it’s been falling, and how fast. While the unemployment rate was much too high in 1936, it had also been falling for four solid years, at a pretty good clip.
Unemployment is too high today, too, and will certainly be too high in November of next year, but if the economy improves at the same rate it’s been improving for the past two months, Obama will cruise to reelection.
Tom Q
@joe from Lowell: Completely agree, Joe. Chris Matthews keeps blabbering about at what specfic number the unemployment rate has to be in Nov. ’12 for Obama to be re-elected. The correct answer is, any number lower than the immediate past, which shows the economy is moving the right direction. Lichtman’s Keys to the Presidency system actually only asks two questions about the economy — long term growth over the four years(which Obama, like Reagan, loses) and Is the economy currently in recession (or deemed to be, a la Bush ’92)? If the electorate says No to the second, Barack (given his other advantages) will sail to re-election.
otto
You know who won a lot of straw polls in 08? Kucinich. When he was included in the Thom Hartmann straw polls, Kucinich almost always won. And after that Edwards won them.
Activists like the more activist type. Of course they’re going to go with whomever is the most liberal or conservative.
Davis X. Machina
@JMC in the ATL: “Lipsync for your lives” is way, way better than the advice and consent of the Senate for executive branch appointments anyways.
JMC_in_the_ATL
Absolutely! “And, Senators? Don’t fuck it up!”
BruceFromOhio
Sorry if this is already upthread, but THEY DON’T FUCKING CARE. Grifters gotta grift, its genetic.
Gaia in a fracking side car, why anyone, anywhere, treats either as a political element is a mystery.
mclaren
It shouldn’t prove necessary to repeat this, but, folks…remember: at this point in the previous election cycle, polls showed Rudy Giuliani 20 points ahead of all contenders, including Hillary Clinton.
Polls taken nearly 2 years before an election have zero significance.
Marc McKenzie
@eric: One can only hope, Eric.
Obama isn’t perfect, but right now he’s the best we have. Granted, there are those who are wishing for a perfect, spotless lamb, but like Santa Claus and G. W. Bush’s brain, said president does not exist.
Besides, compared to the nutballs that will be running for the GOP, Obama looks and sounds (and, well, is) sane.
@mclaren: I’m well aware of this fact. However, I will say this about Obama: people have second-guessed the guy so many times it makes one’s head spin. And if there are those who call themselves liberal who feel that letting the Repubs back in power in all branches to mess things up so bad that the public will rise up and usher in a paradise…please put down the bong and back away.
If the eight years of GWB’s bull-pucky hasn’t convinced enough people that the GOP should not be let back into the White House for the next two or three generations, I don’t know what will work anymore.