Most of the time when I look at the polls to see how the various Republican presidential candidates are doing, I am trying to get a handle on which one seems to have the best statistical chance to beat Obama. That continues to be Mitt Romney, which really isn’t surprising.
Today I decided to look at the polls to determine which candidate has the least chance of beating Obama.
And the biggest loser against Obama is Newt Gingrich.
Here are the latest figures from Real Politics (showing the poll averages for each candidate in a hypothetical race against Obama in the General Election).
Romney vs. Obama (Romney +0.5)
Perry vs. Obama (Obama +5.1)
Paul vs. Obama (Obama +5.8)
Huntsman vs. Obama (Obama +9.0)
Cain vs. Obama (Obama +9.3)
Santorum vs. Obama (Obama +11)
Palin vs. Obama (Obama +12.8)
Bachmann vs. Obama (Obama +14.6)
Gingrich vs. Obama (Obama +15.2)
It does not surprise me that Obama soundly beats the candidates who are considered on the fringe by most people. Of the four whom he beats by double-digit margins, Santorum, Palin, and Bachmann are not what I would consider serious candidates at this point (Sarah Palin is out of a race she was never in anyway), but Gingrich apparently is. He has now pulled into fourth place.
A couple of days ago I wrote a post titled “Please! Anyone but Newt!” but that was just my own editorial opinion. I didn’t realize how deeply the general public distrusts this man.
If Newt gets the nomination (which he very well might, in a similar manner to the way McCain did), I think the GOP will have cooked its own goose.
I hope I am not watching an impending train wreck, and I’d rather not be saying “I told you so” in thirteen months.
Comments
10 responses to “And the loser?”
U.S. Drug Policy Would Be Imposed Globally By New House Bill
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/06/us-drug-policy-war-congress_n_998993.html
And whose brilliant idea is that? House Republicans the drug cartel’s best friends.
I saw that earlier and even though it wasn’t surprising, it made me sick.
I’d ask “who do they think they are?” except the answer is obvious. They think they are our rulers.
More about the guy behind the latest outrage”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamar_S._Smith
http://biggovernment.com/publius/2011/10/07/obama-admin-launches-medical-marijuana-crackdown/
From a comment at the biggovernment.com site:
Maybe I’m imagining things, but I think the explanation is glaringly obvious. 0bama wants civil unrest. He wants riots. By stumping for robo-calls to cell phones of people in default on their student loans, and shutting down marijuana vendors, he’s grinding his thumb nail into two bare nerves of the OWS loiters.
The man may be a failure as a president and as a senator, but he apparently caught the eye of some big Chicago lefties as a community organizer, so it’s fair to say he was probably passable at that. What do community organizers primarily do? They get people riled up.
What comes next? Emergency powers and martial law. The separation of powers is too constraining for him.
Bingo.
It is clear that both sides love the war on drugs. It is a linchpin in the maintenance of illegitimate power in the United States, and the SWAT Teams which enforce it provide an ever-present practical reminder to all citizens that the government has the power to invade your home and kill you.
Whether that power is legitimate is secondary. Think about this: any government which routinely deploys deadly military force to conduct routine searches for evidence of unapproved medicines is easily capable of delegating to itself “emergency powers and martial law.”
Almost child’s play. Without the militarization of police (under the WOD pretext), there might be difficulties.
So it would be silly for me to say “They can’t institute emergency powers and martial law because it would be unconstitutional.” What they already do in the absence of “emergency” is worse.
(I guess I forgot to mention that there’s money in it too!)
They can’t institute emergency powers and martial law because it would be unconstitutional.
In my more depressed moments I see that as a goal.
What I hope for in such a scenario is that most of the military and most law enforcement types won’t go along with shooting at American citizens when they try it and Teh Peepul resist.
Gov’t: “If that crowd doesn’t disperse, open fire”
Nat Guard, “Go fuck yourself.”
That seems to me to be one of the parts of the 2nd amendment, that when Teh Peepul resist, the people who are ordered to fire upon them won’t.
Sure a semi-auto or bolt action rifle isn’t going to be all that much good against mortars, tanks and planes, but…
Consider that your average soldier is much more conservative than your average citizen, will the National Guard fire upon their own relatives in furtherance of statist ignoring of the Constitution?
Even if they’re in different parts of the country, they’ll have to fire upon people who will look a lot like their own relatives.
Eh, well see how true Jefferson’s comment about the tree of liberty is.
I hope you’re right. I remember that during Hurricane Katrina, General Russel Honore refused to order his men to forcibly move civilians.
Anyway, you reminded me that I made a grammatical error when I said, “They can’t institute emergency powers and martial law because it would be unconstitutional.”
They certainly can. What I should have said was this:
They may not institute emergency powers and martial law because it would be unconstitutional.
That seems to me to be one of the parts of the 2nd amendment, that when Teh Peepul resist, the people who are ordered to fire upon them won’t.
Kent State.
[…] last time I looked at the rankings, Sarah Palin was included, but she has now dropped out. Perry has dropped way down […]