(February 11, 2008 - Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images North America)
If you’re of the sort that likes hypothetical polling, this one should be right up your alley. Public Policy Polling just released the results of a recent study that shows Mike Huckabee leading President Obama by a narrow margin if the 2012 Predential election was held today. The study cites Huckabee’s appeal with “independent” voters as the likely key to his hypothetical success. In fairness, the poll consisted of “registered voters” rather than “likely voters.” Some quibble over which of those is the more accurate indicator. As to my preference, it should be noted that I hate polls like this regardless of the method they use to formulate their results. In a world of cell phones, I generally don’t trust anyone sitting around answering a home phone to answer these types of questions, but I digress.
So why am I sharing it with you? Because I’m on the verge of a coronary stressing over the lack of legitimate candidates emerging as we move toward 2012. If I really have to choose between Mike Huckabee and Sarah Palin I may have to cut off my hand after I leave the voting booth. Voting for John McCain made me want to shoot myself, and I’d like to live to see 2013. I guess I should be encouraged that the list of “front-runners” is comprised of candidates I’d never vote for if given an alternative that wasn’t a absolute move to the Left. If there was really a legitimate candidate out there they’d surely be destroyed between now and 2012, so I will hope said candidate is laying low and staying out of the fray for now. Call me an optimist, but I can’t believe that this is the full slate of Republican candidates…
As to Huckabee’s lead, I shouldn’t be all that surprised. He has been leading in Fox News / Opinion Dynamics polling as well, but I really hoped that was directly related to the fan base over there. The truth is I like Mike Huckabee. I really do, but when I say that I like him I really mean I like him as… a Fox News personality – not as a political candidate let alone a Presidential candidate, but I do genuinely like him. I think he mixes his religion with his politics a bit more than I can stomach and I think he’s a bit of a character – bordering on a caricature, but he comes down on the right side of most issues. That being said, the only reaction he gets from me is a chuckle. He is an interesting personality, but that’s pretty much the beginning and the end of it. If I can’t take him serious as a fellow member of his Party, I am terrified to see what the rest of the country would think of him in a general election – favorable polling or not.
If we’re being totally honest here, I hope he does throw his hat in the ring for the GOP nomination. Other than providing a bit of entertainment, his presence will guarantee that the conversation moves to the Right. I should also add that I hope his participation is rather brief as the last thing this Party needs is a primary race that turns into a Religious Right versus Ideological Right showdown. If the lessons of the Bush administration and the election of 2008 have taught us anything it should be that a Party divided over religious loyalties will only produce a “moderate” like McCain or a overly religious candidate with little to no national appeal. Fighting for the blessings and endorsements from the religious community will only destroy the eventual winner’s chance of having any national appeal in the general election. Call me a hater if you like but religion makes good politicians not good politics.
For those of you who may be new around here, I will add – so I don’t scare you away – that I think it would be wonderful if a conservative candidate can genuinely gain the support of the religious community without having to play to and/or beg for it, but if he/she has to campaign at and stump from every church revival in the deep South, our days may be truly numbered.
Anyways, here’s the poll results. Some of you will be happy to see that Palin projects favorably as well. Others may be encouraged to see that Mitt Romney is still in the mix. For any of you looking for a “wild card” Republican, the poll charts the potential success of David Patraeus as well.
Mike Huckabee has a 45-44 advantage over Obama, aided largely by a 44-38 lead with independents. There continues to be no evidence of any negative fallout for Huckabee after murders of police officers committed by an ex-Arkansas inmate whose sentence he had commuted. His 35/29 favorability breakdown is actually slightly better than it was in November before that incident.
Mitt Romney does the next best, trailing Obama 44-42. His favorability is 36/32, and he’s the most popular Republican among independents (41/32). Romney actually matches Huckabee with GOP voters this month and gets over 50%, ending a trend in his numbers that had seemed to spell difficulty for snagging a Republican nomination.
Sarah Palin trails Obama 49-41 largely because she loses 14% of the Republican vote to him, making her the only one of the GOP candidates we tested who Obama could get double digit crossover support against. At the same time Palin continues to be the most well liked potential GOP candidate within her party- at 71% favorability. Her problem appears to be that the Republicans who don’t care for her will go so far as to vote for Obama instead of her.
Finally our blog readers voted for David Petraeus as our wild card Republican this month and his numbers come out as a mixed bag. He has the largest deficit against Obama, trailing 44-34. But at +13 his net favorability is better than the President or any of the other Republicans we tested. The problem for him is that the numbers break down 25/12- 63% of voters in the country don’t know enough about him to have formed an opinion. Who knows if Petraeus would actually have any interest in going into politics, but if he did he would be introducing himself to many voters for the first time.
Is it a big deal that Barack Obama trails Mike Huckabee by a single point in January 2010? Not really- we’re mostly doing this poll every month so that we can have the tracking data over time. But it does reflect the reality that Obama has work to do in winning back over some of the folks who voted for him in 2008.
Full Results Here…
I add this just for a bit of perspective here…
Scratcher over at Makes My Brain Itch had this to add to the conversation regarding our next Republican nominee.
Funny thing is, I like Sarah Palin. But I like Sarah Palin the way TChristopher likes Huckabee. While I’m not a Huckabee fan, that statement pretty well sums up my feelings on Palin at this point. And I don’t see her as a contender for 2012.
So… where does that leave us? With whoever the Republican Party tries to pawn off on us. Palin is not a viable option. I don’t think Huckabee is, either. Who’s left?
I’ll not vote for Mitt Romney. I simply refuse. And if the Republicans are stupid enough to nominate Gingrich (as he keeps hinting) I swear by all that is holy I will vote for Barack Obama.
We don’t want him voting for the Lefty so we had better give him and the rest of the American electorate for that matter some options other than this B List junior varsity slate of candidates…
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What? You dont like it when your politicians are religious? Are you sure you’re in the right party? Don’t they call you a troll?
Ha. The truth is I have been called a “troll” – among other things. There are narrow minded individuals in our Party as well. The simply choose to read and hear what they want to and they move on typically dropping labels and insults on their way out. As to your point, I do not have a problem with religious politicians – actually I think they are the very best kind. That being said, I do not like religion infused with politics. I happen to believe that religion shapes the man not the policy. That’s where I stand and will not apologize for it.
T – “Cut off your hand to vote for Palin”? You have to know your killing your audience here. How many times do I have to tell you just leave her out of your arguments. Were all with you until you toss in the Palin shot. Then you lose us.
Why would I abandon what I stand for to play to an audience? If people don’t like what they get around here then they can go somewhere else. I don’t intentionally go out of my way to throw her into stories. If she is part of a bigger picture then she will be discussed. If I agree with her or her position I will tell my readers that, but when I find myself in disagreement with her, I will certainly not hold back. I wouldn’t hold back on anyone else, so why would I do so with her?