# Early Republican Straw Poll: Who do you want to run against Obama? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 13, 2009, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/early-republican-straw-poll-who-do-you-want-to-run-against-obama/513609 "2009-10-13T01:32:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2009, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/early-republican-straw-poll-who-do-you-want-to-run-against-obama/513609/41 "2009-10-15T19:11:02Z")
Oh, I totally agree, but without wanting to hijack the thread I’ll just point out that even the suspicion would be enough to ensure he doesn’t get the all-important endorsements from the Christian Right. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2009, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/early-republican-straw-poll-who-do-you-want-to-run-against-obama/513609/42 "2009-10-15T19:36:03Z")
> [@Simplicio](#): > > There was a thread about it a long time ago, and at the time, the evidence that he’s gay seems to be pretty non-existent. So is the evidence that Obama wasn’t born in America. This is the Republican base we’re talking about. ---
**Author:** ![Honesty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/f04885/32.png) [@Honesty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Honesty)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2009, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/early-republican-straw-poll-who-do-you-want-to-run-against-obama/513609/43 "2009-10-15T22:04:00Z")
Republicans are going to need an intellectual titan for 2012, not a war hero. I think Krauthammer is probably the only intelligent Republican and would do well in the debates with Obama. Unfortunately, his neutral facial expression would likely turn off voters and frighten small children. He would have to learn how to smile and only god knows how that looks. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2009, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/early-republican-straw-poll-who-do-you-want-to-run-against-obama/513609/44 "2009-10-15T22:28:37Z")
Charles Krauthammer? Has he ever held office before? ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2009, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/early-republican-straw-poll-who-do-you-want-to-run-against-obama/513609/45 "2009-10-15T22:43:20Z")
> [@Honesty](#): > > Republicans are going to need an intellectual titan for 2012, not a war hero. I think Krauthammer is probably the only intelligent Republican and would do well in the debates with Obama. Unfortunately, his neutral facial expression would likely turn off voters and frighten small children. He would have to learn how to smile and only god knows how that looks. He’s a pro-choice, pro-gas tax athiest. I think his facial expressions would be the least of his problems in a GOP primary. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2009, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/early-republican-straw-poll-who-do-you-want-to-run-against-obama/513609/46 "2009-10-16T01:39:46Z")
> [@Honesty](#): > > Republicans are going to need an intellectual titan for 2012, not a war hero. David Petreaus actually is a very learned and intelligent man and far more intelligent then most politicians. In fact he even has a PH D in International Relations! If he is elected he’ll be only one of two Presidents in American History to have a Ph D! He’s everything the Republicans need: a war hero, a learned intellectual, a cautious man, and a Washington outsider. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David\_Petreaus](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Petreaus) > [@](#): > > Army career > [edit] Education and academia > > Petraeus graduated from West Point in 1974. He earned the General George C. Marshall Award as the top graduate of the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College Class of 1983 at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. He subsequently earned a M.P.A. in 1985 and a Ph.D. in international relations in 1987 from Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, then served as an Assistant Professor of International Relations at the U.S. Military Academy from 1985 to 1987. His doctoral dissertation, “The American Military and the Lessons of Vietnam: A Study of Military Influence and the Use of Force in the Post-Vietnam Era,” dealt with the influence of the Vietnam War on military thinking regarding the use of force.[28] He also completed a military fellowship at Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service in 1994–1995, although he was called away early to serve in Haiti as the Chief of Operations for the UN force there in early 1995. > > From late 2005 through February 2007,[29] Petraeus served as Commanding General of Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and the U.S. Army Combined Arms Center (CAC) located there. As commander of CAC, Petraeus was responsible for oversight of the Command and General Staff College and seventeen other schools, centers, and training programs as well as for developing the Army’s doctrinal manuals, training the Army’s officers, and supervising the Army’s center for the collection and dissemination of lessons learned. During his time at CAC, Petraeus and Marine Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis jointly oversaw the publication of Field Manual 3-24, Counterinsurgency, the body of which was written by an extraordinarily diverse group of military officers, academics, human rights advocates, and journalists who had been assembled by Petraeus and Mattis.[30][31] Additionally, at both Fort Leavenworth and throughout the military’s schools and training programs, Petraeus integrated the study of counterinsurgency into lesson plans and training exercises. In recognition of the fact that soldiers in Iraq often performed duties far different than those they trained for, Petraeus also stressed the importance of teaching soldiers how to think as well as how to fight and the need to foster flexibility and adaptability in leaders,[32][33] he has been called “the world’s leading expert in counter-insurgency warfare”.[34] Later, having refined his ideas on counterinsurgency based on the implementation of the new COIN doctrine in Iraq, he published both in Iraq as well as in the Sep/Oct 2008 edition of Military Review his “Commander’s Counterinsurgency Guidance” to help guide leaders and units in the Multi-National Force-Iraq.[35] ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2009, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/early-republican-straw-poll-who-do-you-want-to-run-against-obama/513609/47 "2009-10-16T01:45:32Z")
Fred Thompson. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2009, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/early-republican-straw-poll-who-do-you-want-to-run-against-obama/513609/48 "2009-10-16T04:01:21Z")
I’m not sure the man who helped give us the S&L crisis is going to be a viable candidate in the current economic climate, **Humpy**. Oh, and… [QUOTE=Curtis LeMay] > **[David Petraeus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Petreaus)** > > David Howell Petraeus (/pɪˈtreɪ.əs/; born 7 November 1952) is a retired United States Army general who served as the fourth director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) from September 2011 until his resignation in November 2012. Prior to his assuming the directorship of the CIA, Petraeus served 37 years in the United States Army. His last assignments in the Army were as commander of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and commander, U.S. Forces – Afghanistan (USFOR-A) fr Pe... [/QUOTE] [QUOTE=Wikipedia] Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. Please search for David Petreaus in Wikipedia to check for alternative titles or spellings. [/QUOTE] :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2009, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/early-republican-straw-poll-who-do-you-want-to-run-against-obama/513609/49 "2009-10-16T04:43:12Z")
Just a typo. It’s [Petraeus](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Petraeus), not Petreaus. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2009, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/early-republican-straw-poll-who-do-you-want-to-run-against-obama/513609/50 "2009-10-16T04:49:52Z")
D’oh! :smack: My apologies. I am pro-Obama and voted in the poll before reading the OP, which one should probably never do, and so did not quite realize this was only for Republicans/anti-Obama Dopers. And I voted for Sarah Palin, because I know Obama can run roughshod over her. I suspect that’s why she’s getting a lot of votes, too; it’s Dopers wanting to see her go down in flames. ---
**Author:** ![pharris](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f1d935/32.png) [@pharris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pharris)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2009, 5:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/early-republican-straw-poll-who-do-you-want-to-run-against-obama/513609/51 "2009-10-16T05:18:44Z")
Hillary Clinton ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2009, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/early-republican-straw-poll-who-do-you-want-to-run-against-obama/513609/52 "2009-10-16T13:41:09Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > Just a typo. It’s [Petraeus](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Petraeus), not Petreaus. I know he exists. I just found it curious that a web address that was presumably copied and pasted had a typo in it. ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2009, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/early-republican-straw-poll-who-do-you-want-to-run-against-obama/513609/53 "2009-10-16T15:13:46Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > Basically anyone who wants to see Obama defeated. I didn’t really mean you have to be _rabidly_ anti-Obama. All Republican responses are welcome. Those are slightly confused criteria. I’m a Republican supporter of Obama. Do you want me to vote in this poll or not? I’ll certainly be voting in the Republican primary. My answer would be too soon to know, since I don’t think about presidential candidates this early. Opinions about the candidates listed: Mitt Romney: I used to live in Massachusetts. I’ve hated him ever since he carpet-bagged in, with his slimy used-car-salesman vibe. His boot-licking of the religious right finalized my opinion. Sarah Palin: Some of her politics I might agree with, but she does not convey them in a way I can comprehend. And I don’t think she’s actually capable of being president. Tim Pawlenty, Charlie Crist, Bobby Jindal, David Petraeus: No opinion; I don’t know anything about them. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Lance\_Murdoch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/47e85d/32.png) [@Captain\_Lance\_Murdoch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Lance_Murdoch)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2009, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/early-republican-straw-poll-who-do-you-want-to-run-against-obama/513609/54 "2009-10-16T21:43:33Z")
I didn’t vote because I want Obama to win, but I want Pawlenty to get the nomination really bad because I bet on him at 10-1 odds and I’ll pocket over a thou if he gets it. I really like his chances as the other potential candidtates are hopelessly damaged. Pawlenty has it all. He’s a tax-despising, Chirstian conservative, young, white, man who knows who to throw mud with the best of them. He will appeal to the religious right and to the country club set. No one is going to beat this guy. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/early-republican-straw-poll-who-do-you-want-to-run-against-obama/513609.md?page=2)