( – promoted by Colorado Pols)
With Iowa voting tomorrow, I thought it would be fun to have a Pols straw Poll.
This poll is for Republicans or those who lean Republican.
If the Primary were being held today, who would you vote for?
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I tend to lean right (those that have read my postings might just say I’m nuts), but I’m not a registered Republican.
If I was, I sure as hell wouldn’t put Romney up as my nominee. He’s phony, he’s slick, he’s slimy, and he’s everything that’s wrong with politics. He’s a sure-fire loser in the general election.
Yet as of this posting, he leads in the poll here.
Moron Republicans. Nominate a wax-faced, lying, flip-flopping lightweight like Romney, and you deserve the lose this election.
If I were registered Republican – I would say our only hope of beating the Dems lies within a man like McCain or Rudy. They’re the only ones that can pull more conservative independents like me over. The rest are – well – losers. Can you say Bob Dole circa 1996?
Whoever the Republicans nominate, even Romney, will soundly defeat the Democratic nominee.
Glad you agree with me on that Robby. 🙂
Or did you make a New Year’s resolution to become conservative?
Well, your not for a reason, Right.
John McCain is not a Conservative.
Rudy was a good NYC mayor, but he is not a conservative.
How can they do that when they are not conservatives?
You accidentally hit it on the head. Bob Dole lost for many reasons, not the least of which was, Bob Dole did not motivate the base. Bob Dole was not a conservative.
Ronald Reagan ran on conservative principles, He won.
When Bush 41 ran on conservative principles, He Won. When he abandoned the conservatives and raised taxes, He Lost.
George W. Bush ran on conservative principles – He Won.
Conservatism is the only uniting principles of the Republican party. The next Republican Presidential candidate must run as a conservative.
The only ones who can do that are:
Fred Thompson
Mitt Romney
Duncan Hunter (extreme long shot)
If the republican presidential candidates shifted further right and got just a little more out of touch with people they will take it all. Good strategy.
They just have to stay true to their espoused conservative principles.
If you say Read my lips, people tend to believe you until they are disappointed, and then you will pay the consequences.
You would want that(staying true to the principles they run on) in a Democrat leader you elected wouldn’t you?
it all depends on what those principles are, and whether or not those principles are important to the people you govern. Last night was a referendum on those principles. How’d it go ?
We will know more after Super Tuesday.
…and then once in the White House became decidedly less so. Thinking of goverment spending and debt, abortion rights, not minding our own business overseas, nationbuilding, etc.
That’s what is so puzzling to us libs about you rabid cons: The performance is often so different from the promises and yet you keep voting for them.
Any of the Republican candidates that are truly at least 80% conservative by deed this year have no chance of winning.
and I can’t remember the name of a guy I’ve heard on Thom Hartmann and read about. He’s not a contender, which is my point. It’s hard to contribute or vote for a candidate you can’t remember!
Fred Thompson
Mitt Romney
Duncan Hunter (extreme long shot)
I see only one with a shot at the nomination, but once nominated I think Romney could beat Edwards, and very likely Clinton.
Obama turns it upside down with an 18-49 year old M & F demo that could mean a Democrat in the White House in 2008.
Not a real con in my opinion. Did some rather liberal things here and there, MA health care being one of them. And makes the other alleged MA flip-flopper of 04 seem mightly consistent.
If you’ll grant me that, my original observation of the unelectability of the “real” cons is still valid.
I will give you that Romney like Reagan did some things that could be viewed as more liberal than pure conservative. Romney’s fiscal policy was conservative, and his person social values are conservative. What Romney is (to me at least) is a realist. It makes him look like a flip/flopper to the casual observer.
Committing to support the will of the people or to support the law is a conservative position. There are actually some conservative values in the Pro Choice position. Feeling that the government should not interfere in what is a very personal matter is a conservative idea.
The way conservatives get from that to a “Ban Abortion” stance is balance. When you look closely at what abortion entails (especially late term or partial birth) you come down on the side of life.
I had a similar change of heart, and I am a conservative. (But if you go back far enough, I am also a former democrat). So was Ronald Reagan.
Now I am not saying that I or Romney are Reagan. I am just saying that both Romney and I are conservatives.
Abortion is a difficult issue. If it was simple, we would have one position that 80 or 90 % of the American people agree on. We don’t.
….I say “flippity flop!” 🙂
I will give you that Ron Paul does have some conservative positions. He also has some populist and protectionist positions.(IMHO)
How long have we heard the GOP spout about not going on foreign adventures? Even with Gulf War I it was short and defined. Then Bush II comes along and all of a sudden the definition of “conservative foreign policy” changes to suit the current leader.
Conservatives have not changed that much. We still believe those things. The difference was 9-11, and dictatorships that threatens to develop WMD.
I AM against foreign entanglements in civil wars where there is no American national interest. But if the Bongo Congo goes nuclear, I have a whole different perspective.
(Please spare me the “there were no WMD” comeback, the key word in the above was threatens.)
1,2,3,4,5,6
Who else can make you sick?
Naaaahhhhhhh.
🙂
can someone please explain to me how ron paul gets anyone to support him? i just don’t get it at all….
I am NOT a Ron Paul supporter, but I will give it a shot.
Sure
Debt and Taxes
Protectionist Populism
Remember, Ross Perot got almost 20% of the vote with this same giant sucking sound.
Eminent Domain
It all sounds good to a certain number of people that don’t look at the total picture.
Paul’s anti-war stand caught the eye of lots of disillusioned people, and his sparring with the more interventionist candidates only helped him in their eyes.
Further, the internet has had a disproportionate amount of libertarians since its beginnings, and these people formed a competent nucleus for decentralized action.
Dr. Paul is more credibly “pro-life” than Mitt Romney, isn’t he?
Nor any less so.
I know a lot of very dedicated people for whom abortion is a make or break issue.
90% of them are favorable to Romney, and over half are Romney supporters.
I like Romney pretty well too, but was curious about his flip flop on abortion and how they viewed it.
More than one said he hadn’t flip/flopped, only changed from a wrong soft view when running for Governor of Massachusetts, to a principled view while actually being the Governor and facing the issues.
I was told he is less likely to change his position back now than someone who never changed. Because if he did, that would be a true flip/flop, and his credibility would be toast.
Romney is labeled and identified for his Mormon faith, that is strongly pro life.
I was attracted to Romney for his experience in business. Not every presidential candidate has had to make a payroll, or knows how to work with government regulations and still make a profit, how to solve problems and lead people. Romney has been a success at these things long before his government service.
Dr. Paul, the obstetrician, and Romney, the flip-flopper, are equals.
Romney has a chance at the nomination.
Dr. Paul has a narrow but dedicated following of Libertarian leaning Republicans.
Blimp or no Blimp, Ron Paul has as much chance of winning the Republican nomination as Bill Richardson has of winning the Democrat nomination.
but I was sticking to the initial subject of the thread — Ron Paul being the more credible “pro-life” candidate — which you deviated from in your response.
Whether a candidate is electable and whether a candidate stands for “true” conservative principles are two different questions. Being a conservative does not guarantee that a candidate will appeal to voters and be elected.
Getting elected is what it’s all about. If you lose, you get to watch what your opponents enact and who they appoint. You can complain mightily from the sidelines, but do nothing. If you’re just an observer, it doesn’t really matter what your political principles are.
Like it or not, actually getting elected is about marketing to one’s base AND pulling from your opponent’s base.
In December I attended a presentation by folks at National Media, Inc., which is headed by Alex Castellanos. They are the media group that advises national politicians.
They have a pretty compelling model of national values and how those values translate into five major clusters of voters:
1. Those seeking equality of outcome (liberals), focused on discrimination, equality of income, poverty (about 8% of the population)
2. Those focused on equality of opportunity (focused on health care, education, environment) (about 34%)
3. Those focused on economic issues, taxes, jobs, the economy. (about 24%)
4. Those focused on law & order, immigration and national security (about 21%)
5. Those focused on faith-based issues, family, marriage, etc. (about 13%)
Traditionally, the left appeals to most of the folks in clusters 1 & 2. The right to the majority of people in clusters 4 and 5. Being more conservative does not make people in cluster 1 or 2 suddenly become somebody else and vote for you. Nor does being liberal mean that people in cluster 5 will change their spots and adopt your principles. Emphasizing a single issue — think Tancredo’s beat the immigration drum even louder — does not make people outside the cluster that cares about that issue change and endorse you.
To win an election, a candidate must appeal to at least three of these clusters.
Candidates that appeal to only one cluster usually poll in the single digits. Tancredo appealed only to cluster #4 and so polled in the single digits and LOST. Huckabee appeals to two separate clusters — #5 and #2. Giuliani appeals to 2, 3 & 4. McCain to 4 and 2. The more clusters a candidate appeals to, the more likely he is to be successful.
They applied this model to elections over the last 30 years. Recall Clinton’s “It’s the economy, stupid.” It was a winning strategy to appeal to cluster #3 when clusters #1 and #2 were already in Clinton’s base. Likewise, Bush’s “Thousand Points of Light” and “Compassionate Conservative” were strategies to appeal to cluster #2 when most of clusters 3, 4 and 5 were already in Bush’s base. Nader’s campaign pulled people in clusters 1 and 2 away from Gore.
Here’s a link to their book — I recommend chapter 2 to any political junkie interested in seeing how political marketeers think.
http://www.cei.org/pages/field…
Interesting points. I think Romney, McCain, and Giuliani all cover multiple’ s of the 5 listed above.
My take is Romney covers the ones that you can actually peel moderates and independents to you from the Dem candidate.
Giuliani and McCain will never win by trying to out liberal the professional liberals.
Try this link …
http://www.cei.org/pages/field…
Marketing to your opponent’s base (e.g., a conservative marketing to cluster #2) only works if you have a firm grip on your “natural” base (e.g., a conservative has a firm grip on clusters 4 and 5). Giuliani and McCain do not do well with cluster #5 and compete against each other in cluster #4.
Iowa has a larger proportion of voters in cluster 5 than is true nationally (some claim 40% vs 13%). IMHO, that’s why winning in Iowa does not translate into winning the nomination or actually winning the election.
Disappointing Haners, disappointing…
🙂
How could have I forgot Alan Keyes?!