Paul Ryan Tops the 2012 Tea Party Presidential Poll
And Romney? He ranks 22nd in the Tea Party poll, winning only 45 percent of his head-to-head matchups.
The failure of anyone (except Pawlenty) on Will’s list to generate any noteworthy enthusiasm among prospective Tea Party voters supports John Podhoretz’s assertion that, “If Will is right, then the right is in critical condition heading into 2012.” Perhaps surprisingly, Brooks and Douthat both seem to agree. Brooks says that (without Daniels) it is an “extremely weak” field. And Douthat ominously writes, “Just because the Republicans seem to need a better candidate than Mitt Romney doesn’t mean they’ll get one.”
But Podhoretz seems more optimistic, writing:
So what does this tell us?It tells us that the person who can win has either not reached the point of deciding to run or that he is biding his time until later. It could be Chris Christie. It could be Paul Ryan. It could be Marco Rubio. It could be Bobby Jindal. One hears that the 2016 GOP race will feature all these guys in a superstar battle. If that one could, so could this one. And there’s plenty of time. Plenty.
Douthat echoes this sentiment, writing that “it’s quite likely that the eventual Republican nominee will enter the lists very, very late.”
So let’s look back to the top of the Tea Party list. Paul Ryan is winning nearly four out of every five of his head-to-head matchups. No Republican is more respected on Capitol Hill, has done more to combat ObamaCare, or has presented as many bold, sensible, and innovative ideas for getting our nation back on a path toward liberty, prosperity, and fiscal solvency.
Ryan is articulate and likeable. He is accustomed to advancing conservative principles while winning elections in a swing district in the Milwaukee area that went to Obama. And his age — he would be the same age (42) in early 2012 that John F. Kennedy was in early 1960, with exactly the same number of years of experience on Capitol Hill that JFK had — would be far more of an asset than a detractor in a head-to-head matchup with Obama. When was the last time that a Republican lost because he was too young and vibrant?
Christie, the runner-up on the list, is a former prosecutor and (like Ryan) a man who Obama doesn’t want to have to face on the campaign trail or the debate stage. Christie, of course, has made a name for himself with his principled, plain-spoken, no-nonsense manner of taking on public-sector unions. He has won election in a Democratic state and would be very difficult for Obama to beat.
Both men care greatly about their country and are watching the GOP field take shape. Both are aware of the unusually high stakes this time around. Both enjoy clear Tea Party and establishment support and can unite the Republican Party and lead it to victory.
As the 2012 Tea Party Presidential Poll shows, momentum is building behind these candidates. If that momentum keeps building — day by day, block by block, citizen by citizen — Barack Obama will likely become a one-term president.
Mr. Anderson,Paul Ryan said he is not running,why can’t you accept his statements and move on? I fully expect that you will soon be pushing Former Utah Governor Huntsman on us. Please begin posting at Frum Forum,you will be a hit there.
The 2012 campaign reminds me of 1992, a weak incumbent president, out of touch with many Americans, and “leaders” of the other party are not sure this is their year. Well, maybe it isn’t. If you don’t think you can beat Obama in 2012 stay home, disband your exploration committees, stop traveling to Iowa, stop testing the waters and check your gut. Obama is beatable in 2012, he knows it, but not by the “next in line” nominee. To win in 2012, you have to take the mantle.
Daniels, Ryan, Christie, Cain, West, with Romney, Palin, Perry, Liz Cheney, Rubio, and Jindal jabbing from the sidelines. Some combination of these can defeat Obama/Biden, and the debates, assuming Obama agrees to many, would be must see TV. I like any ticket combo of the first three, I am less familiar with West and Cain at this point. Any of the people mentioned, my mind is open to seeing what you can do for your country and I’m willing to work hard for you in the midwest (except IL). Your country needs you.
Are these polling data really the same as votes? They are often built on single-issue positions that the people support or on personalities able to bring those issues to the fore. In the end, won’t the successful candidate be the one who can get the support of the other potentials and ensure the voters that their favorite will be part of the team and his/her ideas part of the platform?
I wish pundits would do more to widen the persective of voters. For instance, how many people have considered who would replace Ryan on the appropriations committee? Would that person be as qualified as Ryan to write spending bills and shepherd them through the House? Wouldn’t the electorate in general be more impressed with Christie if he were given time to show that his policies have worked in NJ? I personally don’t want the next superstar, with or without styrofoam columns. I want someone who can integrate and prioritize the issues raised by the favorites and whose background suggests he can also handle some of the unknown unknowns that every president faces. I want someone who can cream Obama in debates on spending, energy, the economy, and foreign policy. I really don’t care how he polls against Mike Huckabee a year and a half before the next election. And I don’t like identifying anyone as a loser this early in the game.
The Tea Party will love Mitch Daniels if he decides to jump in!
Jack, Did a quick check on MITCH DANIELS and liked him when I saw he was arrested for drug possession when in college… until I saw that that experience influenced him being IN FAVOR OF THE “WAR ON DRUGS.” As a libertarian supporter of the TPM (Tea Party Movement), I considered myself good representation of a tea party voter… until I saw the results from the poll. Ryan and Christie? I’m enthusiastically on board! Bachmann, DeMint, and Palin?!?!? No thank you! With this trio’s desire to bring their personal religious beliefs to any office they hold they really aren’t good representatives of the tea party principles of limited government, fiscal responsibility, and personal and financial freedom. It looks like either the Religious Right doesn’t understand the movement, or they knowingly want to usurp it to get into office. Either way, I don’t like it! Personal morality and religion is fine, just don’t use political office to legislate it.
Dear Dr. Bones,
It appears that the Tee Putty don’t know much ’bout politics ¿Are you shocked and astounded, sir?
Unfazed is the present coarse and illiterate keyboard, who consider virgin ignorance exactly the condition the Putterin’ an’ Sandtrappin’ Class best like their raw material. His Holeyness, Ronpaul Ryan I, Supreme Hire-arch to the Divine Homeland, is about as silly a heart- or hormone- throb as Wally Wombschool an’ Cindy from Wasilla could find on all of G*re’s green earth, yet only ‘about’: a flat-out celebrity from Foxcuckooland the Less would, I think, have been (slightly) even more so. The late Neocomrade Governess of AK-49 (#08) has thoroughly qualified herself in the potatoe-couch branch of neoëntrepreneurism, I’d say, and perhaps the same applies to #12 (“_¿Quién_?”), but, apart from the two silly jokers tossed in at the caboose end an’ Moustache Minor — Party Neocomrade Amb. J. X. Bolton — to make sure the neocomrade poll patients are not actually intoxicated, the rest of them are everyday hack pols hackin’ away in the path of Party an’ AEIdeology.
I am not quite sure, but it looks as if this handy list of “Thirty Notable Neobozoes of 1432/2011/5771″ — which I find more interesting as a whole than as any tribute to the Smirk of Janesville in particular — was precompiled by whight-wing operatives, lowly hired hands of the Puttymasters, not nominated by the Plain People of Ire-land [0] themselves under direct inspiration from Mlle. de la Main Invisible. Had the PPI been left to their own laughable devices, Party Neocomrade Dr. R. H. Limbaugh an’ Don Glenito de Beck y Coughling would certainly have made the grade, likely the Top Ten.
Sam the Scab an’ Terry the Toady (thus to petname the aforementioned Party operatives) have fallen between two stools, I fear, producin’ a roster that makes not much sense as either plausible POTUS material or as genuine idols of the Putty Folk. It would be interesting to learn what order the neobozoes were listed in before any of the softies had ‘voted’: that might give the struggling neocomradologist a clue about the secret-sector preferences of such Secret Sectorians as matter. [1]
(( EXCURSUS. Presumably their freelordships have not yet degenerated to the point of seriously fancyin’ Party Neocomrade Fedguv Representative P. L. Ryan (AOP-WI.01) on the throne of Andrew Jackson. Like every other ‘conservative’ ‘intellectual’ known to man, the Smirk of Janesville has no more actually ever met a payrill or run a railroad than Dr. Marx or Mr. Engels or you or I. Their freelordships can — ¡they have! — engaged Smirk equivalents by dozens, even by hundreds, for their Tanks of Thought. To the limited extent the big freelords attend to the ideonoises which Smirk & Co. emit, they are likely to think they agree. But they do not want a POTUS who shares their speculative (hah!) views, they want one who reliably hands over the boodle in practice. [2]
(( Party Neocomrade S. K. Walker of Upper Chîzestán did not so much as make the list, which is presumably a clue to the date of its concoction. Though hardly ideal by the traditional standards that a reactionary expert on human events like Barone Michael would apply, Citizen Scott would (or ought to be) be far more acceptable to TopPercenterdom than the Smirk of Janesville. ¡No bicycle-parkin’ challengee is Master Scott!: He did not complete a[n A. B.] degree, later explaining that once he had a good job, family took precedence over getting a degree.
(( And ¿what, I ask you, Dr. Bones, are Scottie’s Daddy Warbucks, an’ his Uncle Scrooge, an’ his _Tio Ruperto_, an’ his Cousin Koch, an’ . . . an’ . . . , if not Family?
(( Q. E. D. ))
¡Happy days!
–JHM [99]
___
[0] http://j.mp/fjPfxe
[1] This thing is worth little to us, Bones, so please feel complete freedumb to go ahead with your plan to bug the UnionThug League Club and the Burnin’ Bohemian whenever you think you can do so undetected. Plus ¿maybe call up the well-jowled Freelord Governor of Neojersey and pretend to be Scrooge McDuck in person with lots of campaign bucks that will go straight to Ronpaulryan I on the basis of this tomfoolery if His Excellency does not bark up real quick?
[2] Apart from those of them at Rio Limbaugh/Port Ste. Lucie, for whose sake alone I now rehearse it, it goes without saying (and/or without sayin’) that this aspect of the Tee Putty Gambit should NEVER be needlessly obtruded upon the attention of the putty themselves. Furthermore, ’tis very doubtful that that need EVER in fact arises.
But Mammon knows best.
[99] To parochialize for a moment, if I may: no matter what may have happened way back in the year of religionism 1187/1773/5533, my poor old MA does not get much respect from the Tee Putty of 1432/2011/5771: Party Neocomrade Governor W. M. Romney — who is, perhaps, the TopPercenters’ an’ Wall Street Jingoes’ obvious druther — came in twenty-second.
¡Even more shockin’ is that Senator Fratboy could do no better than twenty-seventh!
Rather a pity that it doesn’t actually mean anything, ¿no?
May I recommend lowering the dosage?
huh?
two words, comrade:
Strunk & White
Didn’t your grandmother warn you about idle hands?
Somebody’s been partying with Charlie Sheen. I can’t say who it is, but his initials are JHM……..
Don’t know, but when Paul loses the nomination, it will be because he’s an obvious idiot.
Paul Ryan is a good man and he is going to have a fantastic future. That he is a conservative from Wisconsin is even more amazing. But, for president, I’m not sure it is his time yet. Obama also is young and had no executive experience and we have all seen how well that turned out. If Newt Gingrich flames out (as it seems he already has), then I guess I’d be leaning towards a governor of a state. At least they’ve had to run a bureaucracy and had to get things done legislatively to push through some sort of agenda. I suppose the governors are the logical choice for that. Nothing can really prepare you for the presidency, but at least in terms of governmental experience, a governor is the closest thing we have.
The problem with Obama isn’t his inexperience, it’s his ideology and the fact that he is a thug and a racist.
I hate to even hear the topic come up. Just mentioning it implies that if little lenin just gets a bit more practice, everything will be ok. Well, imho, if the menace was more experienced, things would be evern worse than they are now.
I sent Paul Ryan an email the other night begging him to run, he is the best of the GOP. He is a natural and he can win.
I have the feeling that if the Republicans nominate another RINO many conservatives will not vote. They are tired of voting for the lesser of two evils after 2 Bushes, McCain, and Dole.
Let’s hope not. It was the stay-at-home Repubs that handed our country over to Obama and the Democrats in 2008. To me, they are the true RINOs.
Then the obvious answer is NOT to nominate another RINO. I will hold my nose and vote for Romney if he is the only choice opposed to Obama, but I will not lift a finger for him other than that. I worked long and hard to help defeat three incumbent House Dems in 2010, but I believed in the candidates I worked for. Like many, if not most Tea Party activists, I don’t believe in Romney. A “conservative” from Mass. is just another Olympia Snowe.
It is vital to note that the ‘old guard’ GOP gang are almost non-existent or very low on this list. Romney, Huckabee, Guiliano, Gingrich.
I think it’s too early yet for the GOP to field a candidate. Obama is imploding on his own and must be allowed the space to do that – with no-one around for him to divert the attention to.
After all the pundits have had their say the people will speak and to the pundits shock and dismay it will be SARAH!
To the shock and dismay of pundits, and to the utter delight of liberals.
RUN, SARAH, RUN!!!
I may be wrong here, and many of you may disagree, but from what I see at the moment, the average Tea Party member is not as interested in social issues as most of the “usual suspects” are. Note that I didn’t say they aren’t interested, just that the social issues are not the driving forces behind the Tea Party movement. So, Cain, Barbour, Hunstman, Romney, Huckabee, and Santorum all have some difficulties there. Oh, sorry, I left off Jindal; he should be on this list, too. If we are going to keep to “Tea Party Principles” then we need folks who are totally in favor of smaller Federal government, a balanced budget, paying down the debt, and keeping taxes where they are or lower. These are the serious issues.
As a Tea Party activist, I think you have a pretty good grasp of it. Granted, we do have our share of folks to whom social issues are of equal importance, but the majority recognizes that we have to save the country from economic collapse first, then we can worry about the other stuff.
I don’t know a lot about Ryan, but based on what I do know, I think I could vote for him.
When Paul Ryan says he will attempt to cut federal spending by one-third from the 2008 level in year one of his presidency, promote the withdrawal of the United States from the United Nations, secure the nation’s borders and open up all the faucets on underground and undersea oil development, I will probably be able to support him. Do you think he will do that? If not, what differentiates him all the other RINOS?
What is it that the Tea Party Movements want the next President to do that will truly make a difference in the lives of Americans if not the several things listed above? Talk, smile and tell more lies as the charade goes on?
Paul Ryan would do no such drastic things. Unlike all the other circling vultures dreaming of The Office, Ryan has put in months working out a serious program for addressing and reining in our national squandering. It’s his Roadmap, and anyone who wants to be taken seriously, fantasizing about what he might do, had better take a respectful look at that roadmap first.
Let’s be realistic here. All of those things would be great to see accomplished in 2013, but unless we elect Superman, it just ain’t gonna happen in one year. I know Obama’s a dufus, but he couldn’t even get Gitmo closed in a year with an executive order and huge majorities in Congress. I don’t think even Reagan could accomplish your list in one year. It’s a fine list of priorities, mind you, but things just don’t move that quickly in DC.
ryan is excellent right where he is
a conservative fiscal/budget hawk/wonk that can produce the numbers that consistently contradict the statist economic tarot readings
our momentum is on the state/local level at the moment and we should focus there and the longer we can hold off from naming a candidate allows more time for obama and his ilk to show their true intentions/incompetence
the lausd has just shot down the parents appeal to charterize a failing school— the bread and butter of the dem party are getting a first hand demonstration of what the statitsts agenda is
the dems are in full meltdown and it is our job to get out of the way
no need to throw them a lifeline, i mean a presidential opponent(straw man), to diffuse their demise
You have my vote for the best comment on this thread yet!
For a long time, I’ve been saying that Pawlenty will probably be the candidate. It isn’t because he is my personal choice as best candidate (I would go for Rubio or DeMint), but rather that he a) will run and b) doesn’t have a fatal flaw (as do Romney, Gingrich, Huckabee, Palin, and many others.
This poll is the first hard evidence I’ve seen supporting that contention. The only candidate ahead of Pawlenty who is likely to run is Bachman and she has a fatal flaw…she will be turned into another Palin by the msm. btw, I love her and Sarah, but it’s indisputable that both of their negatives will be driven through the roof, and neither makes much of an effort to counteract that factor. It isn’t likely that either Sarah or Michelle is electable. Either would get in the low 40′s and lose by a wide margin.
So far, TP has done ok. His backstory is good. He was a good governor in a tough state for a Republican. He is conservative. He isn’t electric, but this may not be the time for a super-charged candidate. He speaks very well, and in a non-inflammatory way. He certainly wouldn’t be a lock to win the nomination or the election, but people should begin to think about him (and Daniels, who is similar in many ways, but hasn’t been as smart as Pawlenty in what he has chosen to say at this stage).
ok, I’m ready to be flamed now
I agree completely. Let me try to explain…hmmm..
I think the Democrats are in trouble. They have Obama, who does not exist or operate in the real but in the imaginary world. All he can do is talk about ‘hope and change’ or ‘winning the future’. These are amorphous abstract ‘cloud terms’ with no connections to the real hard world of stones and sticks and facts. Obama won in 2008 because the electorate were tired of the real world and wanted dreams of the future. BUT, BUT, they still expected these dreams to have some possibility of moving from the imagined to the real. Obama can’t make this transition.
The policies the Democrats developed – outside of the ‘touch’ of Obama, because his imaginary world can’t deal with policies and programs – are pure statist socialism.
The public doesn’t want them. The evidence for this is in the rise of the Tea Parties and the November elections. AND also, the rise of the States who are moving, strongly, to reject Obama’s socialism, his Obama care, his massive spending agenda, his indifference to the borders and so on.
The funding for the Democrats comes from the public service unions. But the states are turning against them. Will the Democratic Party insist that Obama align with the Unions…against the taxpayer? If Obama aligns with the taxpayer – he loses the unions which fund the Democratic Party! What a dilemma!
The Democrats can’t campaign on their policies because the electorate doesn’t want them. Can they get away with a second campaign on amorphous emotional metaphors of an imaginary future?
I think what the GOP should do is present themselves as Common Sense realists; as down-to-earth, practical, even unimaginative people who are focused on the realities of the deficit, the economy, jobs, etc.
Pawlenty is perfect. The GOP should NOT, absolutely NOT try to set up an emotional, charismatic, ‘future-oriented’ candidate to oppose Obama. The electorate should not be asked to choose between two HopeNChange candidates but between one who lives in an Imaginary World of deficits and dreams…and one who lives in the Real World of practical solutions and a hard look at reality.
So- Pawlenty. And have him flanked by such people as Paul Ryan, Marco Rubio, Eric Cantor, Jindal, ..etc..Have him choose on of them as his VP. But keep them all around him..as hard-nosed, practical, common sense people who can address the problems. Leave Obama and the Democrats to their clouds, marijuana smoke and dreams.
Right on all counts. Now I don’t need to write the same post myself. I really don’t get the people who seem not to like Pawlenty, his only flaw is lack of personality, and that is way overstated IMHO (hey, I’m pretty excited about him). Which is a comparatively minor problem anyway, as ETAB points out. And at least he’s aware of and trying to fix his problems, rather than just keep spitting in the wind like Romney, Daniels, Palin, Bachmann, and just about every other candidate.sorr
He will run strong in Iowa and New Hampshire, thanks in part to the inability of other candidates to compete in both (very different) states, and I am very impressed with his roster of strategists in those states. They smell a winner. In my opinion, he’s about got it locked up even at this early stage, which proves he has a savvy, strategic mind.
In the general, Obama will have trouble rousing his base, either to support him or to vote against Pawlenty. The media will have difficulty convincing the public to hate Tea-Paw, because as you say, he does speak well, and in a non-inflammatory way (much like Ryan, actually). Meanwhile, Republicans and independents will prove to be highly motivated, because of anti-Obama feeling, but also because once the primary is over, they will be happy to see a strong conservative nominee, whatever their earlier doubts about his fire or personality or whatever else they imagine is missing. Some people can find fault with any candidate.
Pawlenty will run well in the Midwest and upper Midwest, and NH, and would be virtually unbeatable paired with Ryan or Rubio. Other VP possibilities simply would not add as much to the ticket, especially since its not as though they can’t perform surrogate duties, as ETAB suggested.
I did like Daniels, but why vote for him when he’s shown he’s not as savvy a politician, with his foot-in-mouth disease, stubborn refusal to back off his social truce, and indecisiveness lately in both presidential and state politics. Plus, he doesn’t look nearly as good, and comes from a state that’s probably a sure thing.
I like Tea-Paw, he very conservative, very electable, and not a celebrity candidate (I just don’t like the media whores on governance or electability grounds, sorry).
I had TPaw as guv for 8. Socially right of center but not fiscally:
Two publicly funded stadia, one light rail boondoggle-operation 80% subsidized, government sponsored gaming advocate, Ethanol whore, falling bridges, freezing windmill flogger,…
With Walker answers like Daniels, TPaw, or Christie are now out-of-date.
You’ve got a good point, but I think it illustrates another point that is more important.
All of the candidates have to be viewed in context. Walker (who I like a lot) was facing either state bankruptcy or massive layoffs; he also had 18 months of Tea Party activists making it clear that the public is ready for some fiscal discipline; he also has a republican legistlature. Pawlenty’s state wasn’t bankrupt, and he had mostly democrat legislatures, as does Christie. Christie may have an even bigger union problem. You can’t just pick out Walker’s success and compare it one-for-one with either Pawlenty or Christie.
I’m not a big Romney fan, but the same applies to him. He was governor in an extremely liberal state. For his context, fiscally at least, he was conservative. He also makes his case for Romneycare, which although I don’t accept it, has at least some merit. And I’m not trying to push him either, just saying, again, that context does matter when we consider these candidates.
A different example is Palin. Surely she could have taken on the unions in Alaska. Should she be rejected because she did not, whereas Walker did? Well, it wasn’t a hot-button issue in her state, so I would argue that Walker and she shouldn’t be directly compared on that issue.
All 20 or so of the candidates who might jump in. or whom people would like to run, will be infinitely better than little lenin. The thing to do is to champion one’s favorites but recognize that any one of them will be a god-send compared to the stealth hard-core marxist who is trying to tear the country apart.
Oh i just love it how we conservatives keep allowing liberals like David Brooks and others choose who THEY think is the best candidate to beat Obama. when are you going to wake up people. Romney and Daniels are probably the weakest out of the bunch. they’re setting this all up via the media just like they did with John MCCAIN in 2008. WAKE UP! and you all in the tea party and conservatives better WAKE UP to the fact that Chris Christie is a big bag of of hot wind and a total RINO fraud. GO DO YOUR RESEARCH ON HIM before you deify that man. The left would LOVE for Christie to run b/c they know who he is and his stances on cap and trade, he never cut public pensions in NJ eventhough they’re broke from it, he appointed a judge who has ties to a radical Islamist imam. Christie is October Surprise city and he’s radioactive. STAY IN NJ FAT MAN!
The GOP has a fair number of elected officials who are good on some aspect of conservative governance. It also has a couple of elected officials who are quick on their feet and good before the cameras. What we don’t have is a candidate who’s:
– Strong on national defense and international relations,
– Strong on economic policy,
– Strong on social policy,
– Quick on his feet and good in front of the cameras,
– Willing to run in 2012,
– And alive.
I mean, wouldn’t any of us be happy to have Ronald Reagan take up the banner? (Or maybe Thomas Jefferson?) But we’re going to have to make do with a field no member of which is completely satisfactory.
I continue to think Sarah Palin is the best available choice. She needs firming up on national defense and international relations, but there’s time for that. Nor do I expect any preferable candidate to emerge between now and the Republican National Convention. Palin’s negatives, which are mostly fabrications from the Old Media, can be combated once she’s fully in the race, if the GOP will get wholeheartedly behind her. And I don’t think any of the other much-discussed potential candidates can mortar up his own flaws and cracks in the time available.
It’s time to stop wishing for a savior out of legend, and work with what we have.
If Palin runs she should pick Bachmann as her running mate. The campaign slogan; Dumb and Dumber.
And you, I take it, are a liberal Democrat.
I hope the discussion continues a long time, and we offer up to the MSM various potential candidates to character-assassinate. THEN, late in the game, we pick somebody different.
It’s too early to let the media slice & dice our candidate, or start our internal wars on them.
And, as mentioned above, stay out of the way while the Dems and this administration keep pursuing disaster. We don’t HAVE to always play by their rules – to h3ll with them!
The first eight in the list are winners; the remaining potential candidates are ho-hum, boring, toe-the- line Republicans, easily beaten by the Dems.
For several good reasons, Romney would lose against Obama. He’s another reach-across-the-aisle politician, as John McCain used to be and really is.
Doesn’t anyone remember Palin picking up the half dead McCain campaign, putting it on her back and running with it? Then she picked up the half dead GOP and put that on her back helped carry it – not any third party – through the 2010 election cycle. The GOP which was having trouble getting someone elected dog catcher won a victory of historic depth and breath. Who else was delivering one body punch after another to the Obama juggernaut? Time after time she said she’s is for a highly competitive primary season where the best man wins. As that LA Times article said recently “she may be the best man for the job.”
This conservative would support any of the names in the list above from one to nine, and Mr. Santorum down toward the tail end. But none of the others. George Will and David Brooks both had some sense once in their lives, likely when they were little boys. But their opinions don’t add up to squat today. Brooks is a phony conservative and Will is studiously conservatively-correct. You have to discount them both.
Meaningless. 1. Five of the top seven — Ryan, Christie, DeMint, West and Jindal — are emphatically not running. 2. It’s too early. Reagan wasn’t the early favorite in 1979.
The qualities that make a great candidate and good president are only seen and in some cases defined through a campaign. We don’t know what larger leadership qualities Ryan has. He’s actually proven himself more of a technocrat and establishmentarian than a reformer with the rhetorical powers to match in a time when the latter label and talents will ultimately prove far more important.
Of all these people only Palin has shown the fortitude and constancy in support of conservative principles over the past two years. She has proved to be the leading critic of Obama.
I like Ryan, but his inability to come up with a paltry $100b in cuts has totally destroyed his strong point, fiscal. He is not well known as a strong supporter of conservative social issues. He has shown that he cannot be trusted to make fiscally sane cuts when factually given the opportunity to do so. I have no freaking clue about his national defense issues, but i think it was him who said that our military budget has grown too large too fast and should be reigned in, so I think he is at least squishy here as well.
Not looking promising for him to gain my vote (social), my money (fiscal) or my time putting my boots on the ground (defense/offense).
…the importance of the Tea Party doesn’t yet seem to have fully take root in the calculations of commentators.
I believe that the MSM’s all-too-successful ‘framing’ of the Tea Party as racist, xenophobic rubes has entered the too-well-upholstered brains of the commentators. Another contribution to the commentators dimmitude is the absence of an Official Tea Party Headquarters with glossy stationery and press releases and controversies and stuff.
Note that the commentators live in the belly of the MSM. Their intake on the Tea Party is largely lies and damned lies, but not statistics. They’ll come around slowly – it took them ages to take Chris Christie seriously.
Actually, the NYT’s recent hatchet jobs on Governor Christie are evidence that MSM are starting their negative campaign against him a year ahead of time, to prepare the battleground. They know their pet causes will face major changes they don’t believe in, should Christie or Ryan or some other heretic actually win in 2012.
Maybe they need to start pairing some of these names, including GOP favorites who might not pass the Tea Party muster, and see which possible ticket comes out most strongly as a winning combination likely to beat ODufus and Hoof-in-Mouth.
We also need to try for civility. The last thing I want to see is a protracted battle wherein the various contenders rip each other to shreds during primary season, and then expect the electorate to forget all the negatives that have come out once the nomination is secure. Trust me, voters remember that candidate so-and-so made some mistake that his primary opponent exposed, and if serious enough, that voter will vote for the other party’s candidate.
This is not to say that the candidates should not be properly vetted, but that’s the media’s job. Candidates should save the cutthroat tactics for the opposition party.
It’s really very simple. Whomever the ass media most lambasts is the candidate they most fear and therefore the best candidate. Unless we want to admit that the media has the power to pick our candidate for us. McCain was lukewarm and “safe. ” Didnt work out so well. Might be time to go for broke…before we totally are.
Ryan polls 79%. Gingrich polls over 60% and would do as well or better with the old guard in a similar poll. Gingrich = south + experience + intelligence + fundraising and network + originality and unbeatable debate prowess. Ryan = new blood + deep conservatism + intelligence and fire + midwest. A Gingrich/Ryan ticket would be a winner. Pawlenty, Daniels, Jindal et al are good men but all yawners. Romney is a stuffed suit and would lose.
The poll mentioned in this article is worthless. It’s like an NBA All-Star poll were people can vote hundreds of times for their favorite. Multiple voting is not allowed in an actual election, Chicago excepted.
NOBODY on that list have ever indicated they are the ones to fix this nations problems!
Would anybody demand a ‘bean-pusher’ to do their open heart surgery?
The ONLY candidate(s) who can fix America is a narrowly defined constitutionalist….a practitioner of constitutional surgery…PERIOD!
Yes, the top folks are not running. Yes, there is multiple voting. All kinds of flaws here. HOWEVER, what do the top 5 all have in common? They are fighters. They take stands. Palin also fits there. She is only at #8 because of the thorough hatchet-job on her by the Media. Tea-partiers want someone to show some leadership, some fight. They want someone who can deliver a smackdown in some way on the government lovers.
Ryan looked real good at that Healthcare summit meeting. He’s a wonk and not shy. Christie is a RINO, but he smacks them down, doesn’t he? “Let me help you pack!” DeMint enunciates conservative principles. Bachmann calls them out. West is a real leader. Palin has been carrying the load for 2 years or more. How much does this country owe her for her efforts? It cannot be measured.
I do not want another establishment shrinking violet who tiptoes around the Dems and their Media minions. Now is not the time for talk. It is time to fight! Fight or stay home!
The winning ticket in the polls seems to be Palin/West. Palin comes up short as #2, but aces as #1. Vice-versa for West. Perfect #2.
Palin has the national organization. No one else even comes close. No one raises funds like her either. No one packs the house like her. She will have very long coattails. If she enters, she will walk away with it, because no Repub dares attack her. They would lose all TP support. West with his military background shores up her foreign policy inexperience. It also does not hurt that she is a woman and he is black. It would simply be a formidable ticket. Do not believe for a second the Mouthpiece Media trope that she is “unelectable”.
There are several candidates that I would support, but the thing is this: we have to ALL get behind one candidate and stick with it. If we allow the libs. to divide us it will be a disaster. So Tea Party and regular old Repubs, or moderates or whatever, we must defeat Obama and then work through the damage he has done. Give him another 4 years and we won’t have a country to save.
Ryan – Rubio 2012
DeMint – Watts 2012. Dare to dream..
I will vote for the conservative candidate. But. As an engineer I cannot express my dismay at seeing the US dismantle its industrial base and I really haven’t heard yet from the candidate who will do anything about it.
Where is the legal reform? Where is the return of property rights that allows a company to build nasty stinky power plants even if green peace doesn’t want them too?
Call me medieval but we aint gonna survive on software alone, or selling our houses to each other to get money to buy real things someone makes in a factory in China. And no, my goal is not to have my fellow men living like a factory worker in Asia does either.
Another few trillion in GDP would work wonders for our debt problems.
This is an interesting question. You claim that wealth cannot be created without an industrial base. It’s something I wonder about as well. I like the idea you pose that selling houses to each other won’t do it. I would extend that to include selling restaurant food, or fixing air conditioners. If all that we, as a country, do is provide services to each other, won’t we rather quickly descend into universal poverty?
But I’m not so sure that industry is the only answer. The underlying question is what creates wealth. The answer, I think is that wealth is created when somebody makes something that is more desirable to others than what preceded the creation. For example, if you invent an engine that is 5% more efficient than prior engines, it seems to me that wealth has been created. Likewise, if you make a movie that everybody wants to see, I would argue that it is similar and that wealth has been created.
So, it seems to me that, theoretically at least, the US can continue to prosper without an industrial base. We could continue to invent industrial improvements, management methodologies, medical improvements, entertainment content, software (as you say) improvements, and on and on. It seems endless to me.
If I’m right about it, the key is the ability to innovate, not necessarilly the ability to manufacture something more cheaply. That’s a factor that advanced countries automatically lose as they become wealthier and wage requirements increase.
And now to the main point. Socialism squelches innovation. So it inevitably creates poverty, even if it is implemented in a benevolent madnner.
This is pretty theoretical, and I’m not prepared to defend every concept to the nth degree, but I’d be interested in hearing other’s thoughts about it.
proreason…innovation & manufacuring are the two components to economic wealth…on a national scale. A service and consumer credit economy’s are a sub-economy that can only feed on the successes of inovation and manufacturing. A housing economy is an unsustainable hybrid and largely a consumer and consumer credit economy.
You have to make ‘stuff’ to sustain a national economy and its many sub economies.
This “poll” is rigged. Ryan does not have near this amount of support. Kristol and his neocons are running a propaganda operation for Paul Ryan because they know that his speeches are basically a lie and he is in fact a RINO who is in favor of far more government controls than the average conservative. Just look at Ryan’s appalling voting record under Bush. The head of the Ayn Rand Institute denounced him the other day on Glenn Beck for not living up to all his grandiose talk, i.e., his paltry 20B in budget cuts.
Paul Ryan’s people are also out and about shamelessly peddling propaganda all over the internet. They have certain patterns. Usually under female names, but sometimes apparent newbies, they will post enthusiastic support for Ryan with only generic discriptions. Next time you see a pro-Ryan comment, observe the lack of specifics on his merits. They never get into specifics because they cannot. He is dirtbag RINO. They are trying to drum up enthusiasm for him which they assume will be contagious because they see conservatives as mindless followers. Do not bother to ask me how I know all this, because I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain. You have been warned.
To Paul Ryan’s camp: You cannot win. We are everywhere, and we will stop you. Have some integrity and honor for once and stop trying to secure power for someone who stabs the free market in the back. He doesn’t deserve power, and you know it.
Ryan, Christie, West and Cain would easily blow away Obama on a debate. Because name recognition with these great Americans can be an issue if they don’t start campaigning quickly, a combination of any of the aforementioned with Romney can win Obama-Biden.
Gingrich looks old and tired. Palin and Bachmann will be victimized again by the ultra-liberal establishment so their message to America will get lost in the vicious attacks and lies.
Obama can be slick, sarcastic, intimidating and can lie and distort with the best of them, but the truth and historical records of his and his administration’s ideologically-based, out-of-touch-with-America and anti-growth, debt-ridden, weak-on-terrorist, America apologist policies, plus Obamacare, will do him in.
Whomever is the GOP presidential contender needs to capitalize on Obama’s many, many, many failings. No one thought it could be possible, but now it’s official: Obama is worse than Carter.
the only way that obama will win (since the economy and the 2nd great depression will continue into 2012), will be if the republican ruling elite rigs the race with one of their establishment candidates over our tea party supported ones and/or send out rove or a ford/bushie to hamstring our reganite candidates ala buck, odonnel and angle. most of the top on the contract’s list are very familiar would win if they run to form. you see, tea party types don’t rely on political games. they’ll win on raw american ability, moral rectitude, tea party individual contributions and internet support and can-do attitude. pawlenty was an unknown to me. i’m glad to see that my fellow tea partyers hold him in some esteem. i’ll take a closer look at him.
if a romney, or daniels or some such wins. you can forget it. i’ll close my checkbook and stay at home. better the enemy you know then a rino backstabber.
I will vote for ANY Republican nominated against Obummer. It can’t get worse that it’s been for the last two years. So no matter who we nominate, I’ll have my canidate, even if I didn’t pick them in the primary(and will send some of my money my Pub sector union doesn’t steal to that canidate) It’s Mr/Ms GOP for me.
Polls: Stupid human tricks.
WSJ reasonalble surmise that 53% of those voting in Republican primaries will be TEAs with NYT idiocy that 30-40% of TEAs are Indies or Disaffected Dimmis.
Having swallowed this inequality we then are expected to believe Ryan and Christie, who have either no executive experience or no positive results, and are unknown to 40% of electorate, are top contenders.
Your dribblecup runneth over.
I am waiting for someone that sends a thrill up my leg…..
But he keeps saying he is not running……How sad……
SAM ADAMS IS MORE THAN JUST A GREAT YANKEE BEER!
TAX HATER SAMUEL ADAMS, ON A ROLL AND ARMED TO THE TEETH, AUGUST, 1776……
“You darkeners of counsel, who would make the property, lives and religion of millions depend on the evasive interpretations of musty parchments; who would send us to antiquated charters of uncertain and contradictory meaning, to prove that the present generation are not bound to be victims to cruel and unforgiving despotism, tell us whether our pious and generous ancestors bequeathed to us the miserable privilege of having the rewards of our honesty, industry, the fruits of those fields which they purchased and bled for, wrested from us at the will of men over whom we have no check.
“Contemplate the mangled bodies of your countrymen, and then say, What should be the reward of such sacrifices? Bid us and our posterity bow the knee, and supplicate the friendship, and plough, and sow, and reap, to glut the avarice of the men who have let loose on us the dogs of war to riot in our blood and hunt us from the face of the earth? If you love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom – go from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or your arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.
“Courage, then, my countrymen, our contest is not only whether we ourselves shall be free, but whether there shall be left to mankind an asylum on earth for civil and religious liberty. Dismissing, therefore, the justice of our cause, as incontestable, the only question is, What is best for us to pursue in our present circumstances?”
“It does not take a majority to prevail….but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men.”
“Among the natural rights of the colonists are these: first a right to life, secondly to liberty, and thirdly to property; together with the right to defend them in the best manner they can.”
“The Constitution shall never be construed… to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms.”
MUSSOLINI ENDORSES THE ECONOMIC AND ENERGY POLICIES OF BARAK HUSHPUPPY OHBUMMER — “We were the first to assert that the more complicated the forms assumed by civilization, the more restricted the freedom of the individual must become.”
— Benito Mussolini, fascist dictator of Italy
OHBUMMER BLOWS HIS COVER —
http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=tCAffMSWSzY#t=28
—–Original Message—–
From: “John Locke” [osamaspajamas@excite.com]
Date: 02/23/2011 02:07 AM
To: megan_gibson@timemagazine.com
Subject: THE CLENCHED FIST OF FASCIST UNION THUGS — “EVERY MOVEMENT NEEDS A SYMBOL: ENTER THE WISCONSIN FIST OF SOLIDARITY” [TIME MAGAZINE]
What a load of crxp. The American labor movement hijacked the “Solidarity” slogan from the Polish revolution of Lech Walesa — while pretending to give a rat’s axx about the Polish people suffering under the sort of socialist dictatorship long favored by the Democrat party and other gangsters of the political left.
And the clenched fist in your dumb-ass Time article is precisely reminiscent of the red-fisted posters of the juvenile hoodlum factions and gangs hanging around Harvard Square in the Sixties — the Maoists, the PFLPrs, the Venceremos! and Uhuru! quacks.
The privately-employed taxpayers of America should have something contemptuous to show the bloodsxcking, tax-eating union thugs of Wisconsin — and everywhere else — perhaps the clenched fist sporting the all-American single-digit salute, done up in red, white, and blue stripes.
The Republican party is not out to smash and destroy the unions in America, however.
And that, sweetie, is a frkn shame.
The most interesting name towards the top concerning support from the base and potential national viability this election cycle is Jim DeMint.
I am not a Tea Party person and I hope they vett candidates well before they support them. They made some really bad choices in the last election. A number of people on their list have said they are not running.
I am not a Tea Party person and I hope they investigate candidates well before they support them. They made some really bad choices in the last election. I don’t want to be stuck with ‘the witch of Delaware’ I was not happy with Angle either and I think election results told the tale.
This is not an election that can be misjudged or entered by people who will sacrifice winning for his/her values. Getting rid of obama and the Dems is critical. The candidate must be someone who can debate with the golden-tongued empty suit and must be above reproach. Anyone with skeletons in the closet should opt out.
Re: the Tea Party…I think they should make their standards known, AGAIN & AGAIN & AGAIN. Many, including myself, think they are far to the right on social issues. I cannot support that and refuse to be identified with such a movement.
Socialized Medicine and Presidential Intrigue
As Republicans in the House struggle to scuttle, scrap, de-fund the national health care plan that 59% of Americans didn’t want in the first place, Democrats aren’t exactly sitting still and waiting for the ax to fall.
One Democrat, Rep. John Conyers (MI), Mr. Black Reparations, has obviously been deep in thought over Obamacare, so deep that he must have been barely conscious when he let slip what Democrats have been denying ever since the Obamanation was conceived. Usually more circumspect, the doddering Democrat Conyers must have been overcome by all the attention at the National Press Club when he conceded that, in fact, Obamacare was socialized medicine.
Conyers admitted that “Obamacare is just a ‘platform,’ or a step, toward an eventual government takeover of health care.” Asked if he ultimately envisioned a single-payer health care system, another term avoided like the plague and denied repeatedly by congressional Dems during the great debate of 2009, he said, “Of course. Universal health care–well, every industrial country on the planet already has a universal system of health care.”
What Conyers failed to mention was that the primary model for Obamacare, and it’s not Massachusetts’ Romneycare–although that’s bad enough–was Britain’s NHS which is going broke and systems in the other industrialized nations are in a similar pickle.
Nevertheless, kudos to Rep. Conyers even if his fleeting moment of honesty was a fluke. See his moment here: http://tiny.cc/5a1u0
No fluke is President Transparency’s latest attack of opaqueness.
Our vacationing, partying, golfing, basketball-playing, NCAA-tournament handicapping president is playing it very close to the executive vest when it comes to clandestine health care–don’t dare call it Obamacare to him!–meetings. . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=3895)
read the truth about Paul Ryan
the truth about Paul Ryan http://www.wtffinance.com/2011/02/paul-ryan-another-%E2%80%9Cconservative%E2%80%9D-hypocrite/
Hypocrites and liars can talk but voting records don’t lie. Share this link with all your facebook and twitter friends to expose this hypocrite that just wants to further his political career.
People need to learn the truth about Paul Ryan. Take a look at his voting record:
http://www.wtffinance.com/2011/02/paul-ryan-another-%E2%80%9Cconservative%E2%80%9D-hypocrite/
Paul Ryan is a hypocrite. Hypocrites and liars can talk but voting records don’t lie. Share this article on facebook and twitter to expose the truth about this politician that is just there to further his political career at the expense of Americans.
What about Ron Paul? As far as the internet is concerned he wins all the polls. I guess you guys are just afraid of the most humble political leader, Wimps!