The Republican Nomination For President: The Race For The Race For The White House

@spendius,

I think it's understandable too, but his precipitous fall in the standings from when he entered the race was due to his poor debate performances. He absolutely needed, at least, a gaffe free debate last night. Instead he got his worst performance.

Whether or not its fair is immaterial.

Anyone else on the stage would have been forgiven a momentary brain freeze. He was the only one who had a brain freeze.

Based on his morning show performances he seems to responding to what had to be humiliating, with grace. I would have gone home, climbed into bed, drawn the covers over my head and not come out of my bedroom for a week,

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@sozobe,

sozobe wrote:

Meanwhile, Perry's "oops" is a big deal, yep.

Do you (Finn) think that Gingrich can emerge from the wreckage?

Not really.

At some point his arrogance is going to be fully unleashed (it almost was last night) and he will repel voters. He also has a lot of baggage, some of which he justly deserves and some which the liberal press manufactured for him back when he was Speaker.

It's a shame because he is clearly a very intelligent individual who brings a historian's perspective to policy issues which is not something often seen.

If he makes it out with the nomination, I think he would have a very tough time beating Obama...even after crushing him in debates

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@engineer,

The problem is that most of the GOP already has no confidence that the man can handle himself in a debate. He needed to be repairing that image, not making it worse; such slips won't look good vs. Obama and the GOP can't afford to put up a candidate that can't win debates against Obama.

Which is why Romney is looking more and more like their guy every day. It really was a bad moment for Perry, the GOP blogs all flipped out over it.

Cycloptichorn

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@Finn dAbuzz,

Thanks for your take. I agree, fwiw. (Re: his chances, anyway.)

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Cyclo, do you read conservative blogs for the comic relief, or as a sort of "know your enemy" exercise?

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@Setanta,

Setanta wrote:

Cyclo, do you read conservative blogs for the comic relief, or as a sort of "know your enemy" exercise?

Both. It's fun to watch them freak out over different stuff than my side freaks out, delicious to look at day-after morose posts after a bad election, and painful when they are gloating over a win.

You often see things floated on their blogs a day or two before they hit the national media, so it's nice for staying on top of right-wing news too.

Cycloptichorn

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Now this, this is hilarious.

http://www.funnyordie.com/lists/e0cb0351f6/presidential-candidates-explained-through-dungeons-and-dragons-character-sheets

Cycloptichorn

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I've seen the "gaffe" now. It has a certain charm about it from the aristocratic point of view.

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Re: the generic/ specific thing, evidently even the generic Republican isn't beating Obama anymore, in this Gallup poll anyway:

http://sas-origin.onstreammedia.com/origin/gallupinc/GallupSpaces/Production/Cms/POLL/0skzamxslueegz7ugzcfag.gif

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@sozobe,

The only poll that has consistently shown the 'generic republican' winning by a lot is - and hold your surprise here - Rasmussen. Who 'floods the zone' with about 5x as many of these polls as any other group. So, when you see aggregate trends based on polling, they heavily skew the results.

Cycloptichorn

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@Cycloptichorn,

That was pretty hilarious, especially to anyone familiar with D&D attributes . . .

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I hear Perry's going on Letterman to read the "Top 10".

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@sozobe,

Wasent Bush considered a regular guy by many voters, who know nothing about the game of politics?

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@RABEL222,

I just saw video of Bachmann being interrupted by protesters at a speech she was giving in SC. I am not sure what their beef is but/because they were using the chant thing that is used in OWS.
Bachmann stood calmly at the lectern until being escorted off stage by security.
The video is on Politico.

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@sozobe,

sozobe wrote:

The article that appeared in confused the issue a bit, you're right. I'll separate things out.

1.) Often the generic candidate (by party) will do better than the specific candidate.

2.) I cited the sentence in the article indicating that even Obama, when he was a candidate, did worse than a generic Democrat.

3.) What wasn't addressed is that when Obama was doing less well than a generic Democrat, in polls he was also beating McCain. See here for example:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/us/general_election_mccain_vs_obama-225.html

My main point is that actual candidate match-ups in polls matter more than generic vs. specific.

My secondary point (closely related but slightly different) is that even if a generic Republican is beating Obama, it's significant that Obama is beating individual candidates in polls. It won't be a generic Republican on the ballot next year.

I don't think we're in much disagreement.

Head to head polling is ultimately better, but at this stage and with this many candidates still in the running for the GOP nomination, I don't think are worth a whole lot. We'll have a more accurate picture once the Republicans select their nomination.

Having said that, I wouldn't dismiss the result of the Obama v Generic Republican polling (and I seriously doubt Obama's campaign is doing that). Even if it indicated the GR was 20 percentage points higher than Obama it would still be too early to make a sure predictionm but a GR lead over Obama indicates there is an inclination for change among the electorate.

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@Finn dAbuzz,

People may want change but that doesn't necessarily mean they want to commit suicide.

The type of change is far more relevant than just measuring they want change.

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@parados,

You may be correct but things are beginning to look suicidal from my observations!
It seems that people are not willing to back down!

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@parados,

parados wrote:

People may want change but that doesn't necessarily mean they want to commit suicide.

The type of change is far more relevant than just measuring they want change.

Well I'm sure that when Obama's campaign staff catches wind of this on-line discussion they'll feel much better that you and a few others think there's nothing to worry about.

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@Finn dAbuzz,

My only point was that a generic choice is not the same thing as a clear choice.

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@parados,

And that point is obviously correct.

One of my points is that the current comparisons between Obama and any of the GOP candidates do not present choices that are as clear as the one between Obama and the actual Nominee will be.

Another point is that while the comparison to the generic is not gong to provide a basis for a reliable prediction, it is an indicator to which a smart campaign will pay attention, and not blithely dimiss.

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The Republican Nomination For President: The Race For The Race For The White House

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