A new Gallup Poll of potential Republican Presidential candidates in 2012 shows Mitt Romney with a slight lead:
PRINCETON, NJ — About one in four Republicans and Republican-leaning independents make Mitt Romney their top choice for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination, giving him a slight edge over Sarah Palin and Mike Huckabee. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is the choice of 14% of Republicans, with much smaller numbers choosing current Govs. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota and Haley Barbour of Mississippi.
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While Palin trails Romney in the current candidate preference test, she leads both him and Huckabee in terms of their respective favorable ratings among Republicans. Currently, 72% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents have a favorable opinion of Palin, compared with 56% for Romney and 59% for Huckabee. But her lead on this measure largely reflects the fact that she is better known than the two former governors, given the substantially lower “no opinion” figures for her. Republicans rate each candidate more positively than negatively by better than 3-to-1 ratios.
However, Huckabee’s numbers among all Americans look better by comparison. Although each GOP contender receives a similar favorable rating from the American public — 43% for Palin, 37% for Romney, and 42% for Huckabee — Huckabee’s negatives are lower. As a result, his +19 net favorable score is much better than Romney’s +8 and Palin’s -2.
Palin’s favorable rating is little changed from last November, immediately after the 2008 election. At that time, 48% viewed her favorably and 47% unfavorably. This suggests no widespread deterioration in her image after her surprising decision to resign her post as governor with more than a year left in her term.
Still, her image has suffered somewhat among Republicans during this time. In November, 81% of Republicans viewed her favorably and 14% unfavorably, compared with the current ratings of 72% favorable and 21% unfavorable after her announced resignation.
Palin’s negatives are still a problem for her, and that seems unlikely to change anytime soon.
The best thing that Mitt could do to bolster his image is to have one or more of his healthy sons serve in the Reserves, or at least join the Civil Air Patrol, or perhaps the local Rescue Squad.
A huge criticism tossed his way during the last primary was, why hadn’t ANY of his boys served in any capacity to help their country or local community. This situation makes it too easy to have Mitt and his boys painted as elitist rich guys who are all too eager to let the po-folks carry the load.
While it is true that with an all volunteer force, the Romney boys are not required to serve, but one would think that with five healthy men, at least one of the Romney offspring would be in some sort of uniformed service.
Last election I worked hard to get Romney the ballot signatures needed to get on the Virginia ballot, only to see his team formed from a bunch of outside consultants. The only local folks were a handful of people assembled by Bill Bolling’s COS.
Next time, Mitt would be better served by employing as many Virginians who he can find, to run his Virginia campaign.
Although Mitt Romney is the best candidate the Republicans have, Americans still would be stupid to trust the Republicans with our national leadership, ever again. The Bush Administration showed us just how quick that the Republican operatives would toss the Constitution out the window, and simply ignore laws that they deemed to be inconvenient.
We need a new party to replace the Republicans. We need a party that will be a Champion of the Constitution, that will rebuild our national infrastructure and strategic manufacturing base, a party that will restore our civil liberties.
Romney implemented universal health care in Massachusetts. It’s crap, as predicted. They are about to start deciding who will NOT be covered because they can’t afford it.