Myself, I like Pawlenty's honesty approach and hope he sticks to it. It's simple and it's frankly what we all want (or at least think we want ...reminds me of that Jack Nicholson quote about "you can't handle the truth")
Obama won with a simple and effective plan of "Change" and the Republicans can hammer him on lack of any real change other than change for the worse?
Honesty might be a refreshing change?

Ricky, I think you have to distinguish between the Bush tax cuts as a whole, and those that apply to families making more than $250,000 per year. The majority of Americans support ending those cuts for the wealthy. But the Bush tax cuts include reductions for all taxpayers which are still very popular.

Neal Anderth wrote:After listening to Netanyahu's speech before Congress today, I'd say he could easily be the Republican front-runner if he could run.

Just on this aside, I don't think Israel is one of the 57 states to which O'bama refers.

Did anyone else catch Nancy Pelosi's Freudian slip. She said something like

“It is clear from the response to your speech that our colleagues on both sides of the aisle, from both sides of the Capitol, believe that you advanced the cause of speech, I mean peace,”

GMTom wrote:Myself, I like Pawlenty's honesty approach and hope he sticks to it. It's simple and it's frankly what we all want (or at least think we want ...reminds me of that Jack Nicholson quote about "you can't handle the truth")
Obama won with a simple and effective plan of "Change" and the Republicans can hammer him on lack of any real change other than change for the worse?
Honesty might be a refreshing change?

I agree. Right now Pawlenty seems like the strongest candidate.

Not sure if this has been posted, but here are the results from an Iowa poll.

Among candidates in the poll:

1. The highest approval ratings are
a. Huckabee 68%
b. Palin 58%
c. Romney 55%
d. Paul 55%
e. Gingrich 47%

2. The lowest un-favorability scores are
a. Pawlenty 9%
b. Santorum 11%
c. Paul 17%
d. Huckabee 19%
e. Romney 25%

The candidates with the largest difference between the two
a. Huckabee +49%
b. Paul +38%
c. Pawlenty +32%
d. Romney +30%
e. Palin +29%

It looks to me like it's going to be a race between Ron Paul and Tim Pawlenty. Pawlenty has 50% undecided, but the lowest unfavorability score. That could change, but I doubt it. Ron Paul has 28% undecided. I don't expect those numbers to increase much, unless there are no other libertarian-ish candidates. Santorum has 61% undecided, but his target audience already knows who he is. I doubt his numbers will increase much.

But Pawlenty needs to realize that Palin, Romney, and Cain are going to eat into his market share--much more than they would with Ron Paul.

So here's my prediction for the Iowa caucus (assuming they all run):

1. Ron Paul
2. Tim Pawlenty
3. Mitt Romney
4. Sarah Palin



Of course, as usual, pollsters like to inject their own bs into the poll.

“Iowa still loves Mike Huckabee,” said Dean Debnam, President of Public Policy
Polling. “If he doesn’t get into the race Mitt Romney will be the nominal front runner in
the state- one person Iowa Republicans definitely aren’t too interested in right now is
Donald Trump.”

So Romney has the same + as Ron Paul, almost double the -, but he's the next frontrunner?

GMTom wrote:Myself, I like Pawlenty's honesty approach and hope he sticks to it. It's simple and it's frankly what we all want (or at least think we want ...reminds me of that Jack Nicholson quote about "you can't handle the truth")
Obama won with a simple and effective plan of "Change" and the Republicans can hammer him on lack of any real change other than change for the worse?
Honesty might be a refreshing change?

Honesty that he's a flip-flopping jackass? That's good how, exactly? And you do realize, that a zebra can't change its stripes. Once a flip-flopping jackass, always a flip-flopping jackass.

I hope mccotter gets in on this, he'll liven it up a bit

Guapo wrote:So Romney has the same + as Ron Paul, almost double the -, but he's the next frontrunner?

I guess it somewhat depends on what factors contribute to unfavorable responses. The guys with the lowest unfavorables could simply also be the guys with the lowest name recognition. It would be interesting to see similar numbers from both parties' fields of candidates from this point in the last presidential cycle.

Guapo wrote:So here's my prediction for the Iowa caucus (assuming they all run):
1. Ron Paul
2. Tim Pawlenty
3. Mitt Romney
4. Sarah Palin
Of course, as usual, pollsters like to inject their own bs into the poll.

Ron Paul won't break 10% in the Iowa caucuses.

Seriously, what you need to look at are questions 17 thru 21 where they asked if the election included theses candidates who would you vote for. Of the 5 different questions, Paul only garnered more then 10% in two of them. Further in neither of the questions where he got more then 10% was he the leading candidate.

As for why Romney is the front runner with similar favorable/unfavorables to Paul is that in Q17-21 Romney beats him. Even in the two questions were Paul polls more then 10% Romney still beats him by between 10-12%

Heck Tate wrote:It would be interesting to see similar numbers from both parties' fields of candidates from this point in the last presidential cycle.

For the Republicans from the Ames straw poll in August 2007

Mitt Romney - 31.6%
Mike Huckabee - 18.1%
Sam Brownback - 15.3%
Tom Tancredo -13.7%
Ron Paul - 9.1%
Tommy Thompson - 7.3%
Fred Thompson - 1.4%
Rudy Guiliani - 1.3%
Duncan Hunter - 1.2%
John McCain - 0.7%
John Cox - 0.3%


The final Caucus tally ended up
Huckabee - 34.36%
Romney - 25.19%
Fred Thompson - 13.39%
John McCain - 13.03%
Ron Paul - 9.93%
Rudy Guiliani - 3.44%
Duncan Hunter - 0.42%
Alan Keyes - 0.21%
John Cox - 0.01%

Archduke Russell John wrote:

Ron Paul won't break 10% in the Iowa caucuses.

Seriously, what you need to look at are questions 17 thru 21 where they asked if the election included theses candidates who would you vote for. Of the 5 different questions, Paul only garnered more then 10% in two of them. Further in neither of the questions where he got more then 10% was he the leading candidate.

As for why Romney is the front runner with similar favorable/unfavorables to Paul is that in Q17-21 Romney beats him. Even in the two questions were Paul polls more then 10% Romney still beats him by between 10-12%

Everyone has low percentages, except for Huckabee--and he's gone. In reality, only 19 and 21 are accurate scenarios, and Ron Paul is tied for second in 19, and in third in 21. Looks to me like Ron is doing just fine.

So Romney is close to Ron. Fine. The point is, there's really not much between them. If you look at 17-21 alone, you'd get the idea that Trump was strong in Iowa. But with such a strong disapproval rating, he would have very little chance of winning, if he was still in the race.

My point is that the disapproval rating is much stronger than the commentary gives credence to. The scenarios only show that voters are extremely fickle, and there is little to be gleaned from them. They are useless without the perspective polls. Ron Paul has one of the lowest disapproval ratings...and this can only get better.

Here's why: Nobody wants to spar with Ron. If you noticed in the first debate, people were much more cautious than in 07. The questions weren't "gotcha" attempts. They will, however, start slinging mud at each other. The mainstream candidates will have to differentiate themselves, and the only way these flip-flopping mudskippers can do that is to sling mud. That's going to hurt them in Iowa.

Guapo wrote:Everyone has low percentages, except for Huckabee--and he's gone. In reality, only 19 and 21 are accurate scenarios, and Ron Paul is tied for second in 19, and in third in 21. Looks to me like Ron is doing just fine.

You are correct. However, there are some candidates missing from those questions. Huntsman, Cain, Johnson, and Santorum are not included in any of those questions. So you are making the assumption that Paul will pick up all of the undecideds and a majority of the Huckabee supports without losing any of his own supports to the candidates not named. I think that is a stretch. After all let's look at the 2007/2008. He was polling in the low 9%'s in 2007. Five months later, when a number of candidates had dropped out and the undecideds made up their minds, he picked up less then 1 point.

This seems to indicate that he will not do much better then the approx. 10% he is pulling in your referenced poll.

Here is a good column from Jay Cost about the formidability of the main GOP Presidential candidates.

Archduke Russell John wrote:

Guapo wrote:Everyone has low percentages, except for Huckabee--and he's gone. In reality, only 19 and 21 are accurate scenarios, and Ron Paul is tied for second in 19, and in third in 21. Looks to me like Ron is doing just fine.

You are correct. However, there are some candidates missing from those questions. Huntsman, Cain, Johnson, and Santorum are not included in any of those questions. So you are making the assumption that Paul will pick up all of the undecideds and a majority of the Huckabee supports without losing any of his own supports to the candidates not named. I think that is a stretch. After all let's look at the 2007/2008. He was polling in the low 9%'s in 2007. Five months later, when a number of candidates had dropped out and the undecideds made up their minds, he picked up less then 1 point.

This seems to indicate that he will not do much better then the approx. 10% he is pulling in your referenced poll.

Russ, Ron is polling at 15-16% in the questions that are relevant to the current situation (19/21). He doesn't need to pick up all the undecideds, or even most of them. 30% wins you Iowa. 20% gets you 2nd or 3rd. Your arithmetic is way off.

Also, I'm not guaranteeing that Ron will win Iowa, though I think he could. I'm saying that he's going to be in one of the top 3, and that he will beat Huntsman. He might lose to Romney, but I don't think Romney will do as well as the prognosticators say because of Romneycare. Did you notice the question about that? That question was specifically designed for Romney.

I'd like to see an updated poll post-debate. I can't find one, so this is all we have to go on.

You'd assume that his much greater level of name recognition this time round would see Ron Paul in good stead, although I guess that may be offset by not having so many fanatical fans helping his organisation.