Some people can stay in the limelight for years without doing anything of note. Newt Gingrich comes to mind. But Newt has the advantage of a D.C. pundit corps that adores him for no apparent reason. Palin doesn’t have that advantage.
Her fan club wants and expects her to run in 2012. If she doesn’t, she’ll lose her luster in their eyes.
I don’t think she’ll do terribly in the primaries. If Sharron Angle can win a GOP primary in Nevada, then so can Sarah Palin. And she should do reasonably well in Iowa and SC, though if I were running her campaign, I’d have her skip NH, just as Huckabee should have done in 2008.
What’s really going to matter for her is how many candidates there are with a chance to pick up a nontrivial chunk of the Religious Right/Tea Party vote. If it’s just her and the Huckster, she could win Iowa, Nevada, and SC in the early going, and be in good shape going into Super Tuesday, though I expect she’d ultimately lose to whichever of the empty suits survives the winnowing-out on the establishment side.
That’s a serious slam on Jesse Jackson, who was of far more substance than Palin will ever be. By the mid-1990s he had turned into a caricature of his old self, but in the 1980s he had a better grasp on the issues than most Senators do now. He wasn’t aiming to run a campaign that would just appeal to blacks, either in 1984 or 1988, although due to the color of his skin that’s who most of his supporters were. He was limited by the times and his color, much more than what sort of issues and campaigns he ran.
I was thinking of saying (that’s unfair to Jackson) in my post, but I think from a pure electoral-prospects calculus ignoring the value of the issues the 2 represent, there’s a lot of similarity - both have the capability to mobilize an important part of the party’s base, and one that scares the piss out of the members of the other party; neither of them is likely to beat the establishment candidate, whoever that turns out to be.
I think presidential politics is headed to a place like supreme court nominees already are, where long tenure and experience hurt as much as they help. Especially with the information/communication explosion, it’s much easier to find a record of candidate X saying something or making some poor decision 10 years ago, or dredging up some disgruntled staffer to make accusations.
Conversely, the speed of information means it also doesn’t take long for someone to become well-known. At this point, marketing a national politician has a lot of resemblances to marketing a pop star – at least when we’re talking about marketing to the kind of plugged-in voters who pay attention to primaries – and they can explode onto the national scene at the same speed.
This may be true but it doesn’t really apply to Daniels because because his low name recognition doesn’t come from a lack of experience. He has a long track record which could bite him in both the primaries and the general: for example his record as Bush’s budget director.
Besides Daniels is operating in a similar space to Romney , i.e. relatively moderate establishment candidate. It will be hard to displace Romney from his formidable position within that space. As I argued in the other thread, Romney’s biggest challenge will probably come from the more conservative, outsider wing and from someone who can draw Tea Party support without being completely wacko. IMO Pawlenty is in the best position to do this.
Pawlenty’s problem is he faces two formidable rivals in Huckabee and Palin who occupy that space. I am pretty sure Palin won’t win and am skeptical that Huckabee can but they may still hang around for some time splitting the activist vote. In that case I think Romney will win easily. Pawlenty’s best shot is to do well enough in the early primaries to persuade Palin and/or Huckabee to withdraw and endorse him. Of course if one or both don’t enter the race in the first place his job will be a lot easier.
True. Especially for primary voters, he’s really going to have to explain his role in Bush’s spending; the best play is “I didn’t like it myself; I was just following orders” (which might even be true).
And see, I just can’t see Romney overcoming Health Care. That’s still likely going to be one of the top 3 issues in 2012, and there’s no way his views or history is going to square with what GOP primary voters want. I agree with you that Daniels and Romney are fighting the “moderate establishment candidate” role – I just can’t see Romney winning that fight.
And I agree with you that there’s going to be a challenge from the conservative, outsider wing, and I suppose Pawlenty is as good a choice as any; but I also think there will be more noise from the libertarian wing. Granted, I’m wish-fulfilling here, but if Ron Paul opts not to run and puts his support behind Gary Johnson, I can see Johnson finishing third in New Hampshire and getting ink. If that happens, it will just make the establishment guys all that much more appealing.
He shouldn’t have said it, but I’d be hard pressed to show its effect on his political fortunes. He made that remark in January 1984, just to help with the timeline in case you’re interested in making the case yourself.
I agree that healthcare is Romney’s biggest challenge but while it may stop him from winning the nomination I don’t think it will stop him from being the establishment candidate. In fact I am not sure there will even be much of a fight between him and Daniels; everything I have read suggests that he is already a big front-runner in terms of insider support which suggests those insiders don’t consider healthcare a fatal hurdle. I think Daniels has a chance only if there is a major stumble on Romney’s part.
I would compare Romneycare with Iraq in the 2004 and 2008 Democratic primaries. This was an issue that the Democratic base cared about passionately and in both cases the front-runners were on the opposite side. In 2004 Kerry managed to overcome that and win the nomination and even in 2008 it didn’t stop Clinton from being a front-runner for a long time though eventually it probably cost her the nomination.
Similarly I don’t think Romneycare will stop Romney from becoming the front-runner and establishment candidate though it could stop him from winning the nomination if ,say, Pawlenty manages to unite the activist wing.
Here’s an interesting observation … one I’m not sure we’ve seen before (or at least recently) - virtually every one of the potentials called out in RTFirefly’s quote have one thing in common: the word former.
Note that it wasn’t in the quote, but Palin (as we all know) is a former Governor in addition to former VP candidate.
Only Donald Trump, Ron Paul and Gov Barbour don’t fall into the “former” group - and combined they’re less than 10% of the vote in that poll.
We haven’t seen this before - in 2008 you had current-Senators Obama, Clinton, Biden and McCain, not to mention then-current Governor Palin.
In 2004 it was then-President Bush vs. then (and still) Senator Kerry. 2000 had VP Gore vs Gov Bush.
You have to go back to 1996 to find a major candidate who wasn’t sitting in another government office (Dole) at the time, but even that example had Sen Dole retiring from his senate seat about 6 months before the election - meaning he was still a Senator through all the primaries.
(FTR - 1992 was Gov Clinton vs President Bush, 1988 had VP Bush vs Gov Dukakis, 1984 was really the last time - Pres Reagan vs. former VP Mondale - and that was almost 30 years ago)
It kind of makes you think when the top 6 or so Republican contenders are “former” this or that - does the country want to elect someone who’s “sat out” (so to speak) the last X years?
I have no idea what it means, but it’s interesting. It appears the right is drawing from that professional pundit class of players rather than from working pols.
Maybe its time to start talking about Scott Walker. I think he has risen to hero status on the right in the last few weeks.
About Pawlenty, it seems a lot of folks have him pegged as a candidate for the religious right. This is not the case. He can appeal to that group, but mostly he is in the fiscal conservative camp with Romney except that he has been a relentless foe of heath care. Many Minnesotans would not even be aware of Pawlenty’s evangelical faith as he never played it up in his 8 years as governor. The thing that makes him so strong in my opinion is that he can go into the corporate boardroom, a tea party convention or a religious revival meeting and be perfectly at home in any of them.