(Untitled)

[eyelessgame]

TPM gives latest R polls.

The poll has Huckabee at 19%, Romney at 18%, Gingrich 15%, Palin 12%, Trump 10%, Pa*l 8%. Pawlenty, Daniels, and Santorum each got 3%, Barbour got 1%.

I stand by my assertion that none of these - save maybe Pawlenty or Daniels - can possibly become the Republican nominee, unless they somehow become unopposed. If they

Comments

[erich_schneider]

How does Palin answer ads that demand she speak in complete sentences?

She hires good handlers and only appears in friendly venues. I'd bet she'd be willing to skip debates if the rules didn't favor her. I mean, she practically didn't attend the VP debate in 2008, in the sense that she chose to answer questions that she asked herself rather than the ones the moderator asked her.

Palin does the whole "sexed-up version of just plain folks" thing very well and a lot of people respond to it.

As for Huckabee, he can invoke Jesus more often.

[ross_teneyck]

How does Palin answer ads that demand she speak in complete sentences?

GWB has proven that this is not necessarily a bar to being elected President.

Now, I agree that I don't think Palin is likely to become the nominee; she has a strong bloc of ardent supporters, but I don't think there are enough of them to carry the nomination by themselves, and I think the rest of the Republican party is dubious about her electability.

If she were going to make a serious run for it, I think her best bet would be to try to position herself as the spiritual heir of Ronald Reagan. His name still carries enormous totemic weight in the collective Republican mind, and with skillful handling I think Palin could make a plausible play for that mantle.

[eyelessgame]

Agreed - much of my core assumption here is that the Republicans are going to pick a nominee that is (a) not obviously unelectable and (b) not carrying a flaw that others can use to demonstrate lack of fidelity to the conservative movement.

And I see all of the above failing one or the other - Huckabee and Romney fail (b), all the others fail (a).

As for failing to complete sentences - that's a valid point. And certainly Palin has the whole Chauncey Gardener paradigm going for her that's worked more often than not for Republican candidates for the last thirty years. But I think she's blown it by failing to get media on her side. They actually point out her obvious idiocy.

We'll see. I could be wrong about any of them. But I foresee a lot of resistance to any of those top six getting majority support even as the field winnows down.