Tag: 2012 Presidential election

Well, there goes my vote…

I haven’t updated my sidebar poll to reflect this, but last night Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana announced he would sit out the 2012 Presidential race. In a letter to supporters (and reposted at the Indianapolis Star website) Pence announced:

In the choice between seeking national office and serving Indiana in some capacity, we choose Indiana. We will not seek the Republican nomination for president in 2012.

The “we” he is apparently referring to is his wife and family, but the decision by Pence will certainly dampen the spirits of at least a few people who were backing him on various Facebook groups and other conservative activists.

But in the long run, the decision makes sense. In our nation’s history, only three men have ran as a major candidate for President as a sitting member in the House, and just one succeeded (President James A. Garfield in 1880.) The last was Rep. John Anderson of Illinois in 1980, and he drew single-digit support as a breakaway Republican in President Reagan’s win. (By the way, Anderson ran as a centrist so you can see how well squishy moderates do against conservatives.) Aside from Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich, who had both ran for President on previous occasions, neither of the other 2008 candidates who ran as House members (Duncan Hunter and Tom Tancredo) lasted long in the process.

On the other hand, running from a Governor’s seat has launched the national political career of four of our last six Presidents – Barack Obama and George H.W. Bush are exceptions. Since Pence is only 51, he has plenty of time to learn to govern on an executive level and could benefit from his predecessor (and current Indiana governor) Mitch Daniels.

So it’s not a complete surprise that Pence sits this one out, although I’m disappointed that my vote in the poll (yes, I’m the lone Pence vote at the moment) is thrown away. But the field for the 2012 Republican nomination needs to begin to form and who’s taking a pass is just as important as who decides to jump in.

Isn’t it a bit early for this?

Well, regardless of the fact the survivor of the process won’t know the final result for another 21 1/2 months, the polls have begun for the GOP nomination in 2012, with the winner most likely taking on President Obama that November.

Today Rasmussen released a poll which showed Mitt Romney has the early lead for the GOP nomination, with 24 percent replying they prefer Mitt at this nascent stage. Sarah Palin netted 19% while Mike Huckabee picked up 17 percent. The top contender who didn’t run in 2008, Newt Gingrich, had 11 percent while national newcomer Tim Pawlenty finished under the “undecided” (10%) with a 6% score. Ron Paul and Mitch Daniels rounded out the field.

One weakness in the Rasmussen Poll is that they somewhat arbitrarily picked the seven contenders, yet they point out that the leaders at this stage rarely end up with the nomination. As I recall, at this time four years ago we were supposed to have a rematch of the abortive 2000 New York Senate race between Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani. Hillary was the last person standing between Barack Obama and the 2008 Democratic nomination, but Rudy was an early casualty in the GOP race.

This is notable about the methodology, though:

The survey of 1,000 Likely GOP Primary Voters was conducted on January 18, 2011 by Rasmussen Reports. Likely GOP Primary Voters include both Republicans and unaffiliated voters likely to vote in a GOP Primary.

In other words, they rely on an open primary of sorts. More tellingly:

Romney, Palin and Huckabee are essentially in a three-way tie among voters who describe themselves as very conservative. Those who characterize themselves as somewhat conservative and moderate/liberal have a clear preference for Romney.

Yet Palin has the lead among TEA Partiers, and there’s no real way of knowing just how much influence they’ll have over the GOP nominating process in states with both open and closed primaries.

New Hampshire is a state with an open primary, and a straw poll was conducted there over the weekend – 273 Granite State Republicans scattered their votes among a total of 20 candidates. It’s not particularly surprising that Mitt Romney won, but 35 percent isn’t all that overwhelming considering he comes from a neighboring state and is a name well-known to “establishment” Republicans. Ron Paul was a distant second with 11 percent.

However, if you look at the candidates who could be considered the “darlings” of the TEA Party (Paul, Palin, Michele Bachmann, Jim DeMint, Herman Cain, Mike Pence, and Gary Johnson) you get just as much support as Romney drew – they add up to 37 percent. Once the TEA Party can coalesce around one or two candiates, the race will be joined. 

It’s pretty amazing to think that only one of those mentioned (Herman Cain) has even taken the step to form an exploratory committee – the rest are still considering if and when to jump in. But surely over the next few months the final field will emerge, and it will be fun to see how the race shakes out.

The first one in

It’s no surprise that a number of Republican presidential prospects have been coy about whether they want to get into the 2012 race. Leading the field are a number of 2008 retreads like Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, and the large media presence of Sarah Palin, with former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty and Indiana governor Mitch Daniels playing the newcomers in the mix. Nor can we forget other names like former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, current Senator John Thune, current House member Mike Pence, or former Senator Rick Santorum. There are even some trying to draft New Jersey’s Chris Christie into the fray.

But the first GOP candidate – or at least the first one who’s at least remotely on the radar screen – announced yesterday he’s forming his exploratory committee. (Unless you’ve heard of Fred Karger? Neither have I, as his biggest claims to fame are being a longtime political consultant and the first openly gay candidate in recent memory.)

Herman Cain, who’s best known as a radio host but has had business experience as CEO of Godfather Pizza, decided to throw his hat into the ring and lead off the process. He’s a TEA Party favorite who could score points as a black Republican candidate. And as he notes on his website:

The American Dream is under attack. In fact, a recent survey found 67% of the American People believe America is headed in the wrong direction. Sadly, this comes as no surprise to those of us who have watched an out-of-control federal government that spends recklessly, taxes too much and oversteps its Constitutional limits far too often.

Obviously that helps to establish Cain’s conservative bonafides. But does he stand a chance in a high-powered field littered with those who have years of political experience, many of whom were veterans of previous national campaigns?

Time will tell. But in the meantime, he could be the domino which starts the other major contenders either jumping into the race officially or taking a pass.

And it means I’ll have to start studying up on how the challengers feel about the issues as they race to unseat President Obama. Looks like over the summer I’ll have to resurrect my “who will I support?” series from 2007, with the same topics but perhaps in a little different priority order.

Has the time come for a real maverick?

A few election cycles ago Republicans ended up nominating a real, honest-to-goodness old warhorse for their presidential candidate, putting him up against a scandal-plagued incumbent Democrat. With the off-year elections two years before bringing a resounding GOP victory, Republican regulars shrugged off the 23-year age gap between the two nominees and presumed that the contrast between the incumbent’s lacking character and their nominee’s homespun charm could still score them an upset victory.

But thanks to a lackluster campaign and just enough of a third-party effort to deny the incumbent a majority of the vote, Republican stalwart Bob Dole lost the 1996 election to Bill Clinton. It was an era which placed the term “triangulation” into the political lexicon and Clinton executed that strategy masterfully in winning a second term.

In fact, recent history suggests Washington insiders don’t do well as Republican candidates. George W. Bush won because he cut his political teeth in Texas, far from the nation’s capital. Similarly, Ronald Reagan governed California before winning the White House on his second try and America expected more of the same when they elected a Beltway insider to succeed him in Vice-President George H.W. Bush. Conversely, Dole and John McCain were longtime Republican fixtures in Washington, perhaps alienating them from the party grassroots.

To that end, a number of names being bandied about for the GOP nod in 2012 come from the ranks of state governors. While Bobby Jindal of Louisiana declared last week he was not in the running, there’s still several current or former state chief executives in the mix – Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota, Texas’s Rick Perry, 2008 candidates Mike Huckabee of Arkansas and Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, and of course former second banana Sarah Palin of Alaska.

Yet there is a Beltway insider who has enough appeal among the conservatives who attend events like CPAC or last week’s Southern Republican Leadership Conference to beat most of the above-mentioned names in their straw polls – he won the CPAC vote handily and just missed winning the SRLC balloting by one vote. If nominated, he would be 26 years older than the current incumbent Democratic president.

Somehow Ron Paul has escaped the wrath of being perceived as a Washington insider despite serving three stints in Congress totaling 20 years. Obviously he didn’t do particularly well in a crowded primary field in 2008 as far as gathering votes goes, but he proved a potent fundraiser and has become a darling among the portion of the Republican Party which preaches fiscal conservatism and limited government through his Campaign for Liberty organization. More importantly, he has an appeal among young conservatives which belies his age.

And with economic issues in the forefront this time around, one Achilles heel of Paul’s 2008 bid – his strident opposition to the war in Iraq – is off the table. His domestic policies generally follow a line which straddles conservatism and libertarianism, making him a definite friend of the TEA Party set.

It’s doubtful that many of the Presidential players for the 2012 cycle are going to make their intentions known before the 2010 election because of November’s potential for upending the Democrats’ stranglehold on our legislative branch. This wait-and-see approach serves to gauge the strength of TEA Party politics and the general anti-incumbent mood.

But don’t be surprised if the gentleman from Texas doesn’t toss his hat back into the presidential ring next year and is more successful this time around. Unlike Bob Dole, it’s not likely this elderly Washington insider will be uninspiring on the campaign trail.

Michael Swartz, an architect and writer who lives in rural Maryland, is a Liberty Features Syndicated writer. This happened to be posted on April 12.