Wait?
He hasn’t waited, you say, he’s declared and raising more money than anyone else. He’s simply playing the role of presumptive nominee, which explains his seemingly low-key public strategy. Let other lesser contenders gain TV face time for now, the primaries are a long way off.
But as reported by Byron York, that strategy has seen his popularity relative to other actual and potential candidates falter:
A new Gallup poll finds Mitt Romney still at the top of the Republican presidential field, but with opponents closing in. And in a sign of the still-unsettled nature of the GOP race, Romney’s three closest pursuers aren’t in the race.
When Gallup included the names of potential candidates in surveying Republican and Republican-leaning voters, the results show Romney leading, with 17 percent of those polled; Texas Gov. Rick Perry in second, with 15 percent; Sarah Palin, with 12 percent, Rudy Giuliani, with 11 percent; Michele Bachmann, 11 percent; Ron Paul, eight percent; Herman Cain and Newt Gingrich, with three percent each; and Tim Pawlenty, Jon Huntsman, and Rick Santorum, with two percent each. At the moment at least, Perry, Palin, and Giuliani are not in the race.
Among Republicans who describe themselves as conservative, Romney is tied with Perry, at 18 percent. Among Republicans who describe themselves as moderate or liberal, Romney actually trails Giuliani, 14 percent to 16 percent, and is tied with Palin.
Has Romney’s absence from the public consciousness created a vacuum just waiting to be filled, or was there always going to be a vacuum so long as Romney was in the lead?
What says you?
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Comments
I sez… Romney is indeed a vacuum waiting to be filled. The RINOs let us down with Bush and worse again with McCain. Mitt is more of the same.
I genuinely like the guy, but he was yesterday’s Plan ‘B’. Hardly Plan ‘A’ for 2012.
Neither one. The polls are still meaningless and don’t forget, the momentary silence includes the Tea Party, too. There are too many good people even without Palin, Perry, and Giuliani. Romney is yesterday but may prevail, so let’s get started and pick one. Enough of this sit-on-your hands, hide-your-cards crap. Punch-pullers need not apply. If republicans can’t win this one, they can’t win ever. The structure of our government is abused every day and is under tremendous stress. If republicans can’t win this one, they can’t win anything. If they win and don’t clean up government the Grand Experiment is over.
IMHO, the problem with analyzing how undeclared candidates match up to such a weak field when the “front runner” is polling so low is that everyone makes assumptions about one candidate gathering all of the support if others drop out.
Giuliani is even worse than Gingrich for all of the same reasons. He is weird! Google Giuliani in a dress/Trump/youtube. Perry is a DREAM ACT governor! Tea Party favorite? Sure, in Tijuana.
Right now, the best candidate is Generic Republican, a space the Rovian progressives and their dirty money are trying to fill with yet another liberal Democrat.
Pass cut, cap and balance and things will get better faster but not for the establishment Republicans.
You tout you are a TEA Party supporter. Then why do you sound like a rabid progressive?
Perry is a DREAM act supporter? Really? Then why did you not mention that he can only sign legislation, not enact it (which is done by the Texas Congress) or some of the facts attached to that bill which were: a resident for at least three years in Texas, a graduate of a Texas highschool AND having applied for U.S. citizenship? Or the fact that the SCOTUS had already ruled that in-state tuition should be provided to illegals?
So I can only assume that you would rather see those young students turn to a life of crime, perhaps joining such organization as MS-13, running guns into Mexico for the Obama administration, instead of going to a college where they can learn skills that will sustain them the rest of their lives. Personally, I will take productive future citizens over destructive illegals.
Give up the pretense, Phil. You are as big a TEA Partier as Harry Reid.
An ideal candidate will probably not emerge; we may be forced to choose the best available from a group that is mediocre. I can think of a few names I would prefer to those running, but if they’re not running, we can’t choose them. Romney is near (at?) the bottom of my list; he is a Republican Clinton, i.e., no principles, will say anything he thinks will sound good and impress his current audience.
Cut, cap, and balance has passed where the Republicans are in control; there is little more they can do to advance it further until they control the Senate and the White House. That’s where efforts and strategy should be focused.
Romney is laying low because every time he chimes in on an issue, it’s wishy-washy flip-flop nonsensical talking point jibberish.
At a time when everyone, including professional athletes are engaged in the “America at a crossroads-the Debt Ceiling” debate, where is the GOP FRONTRUNNER? America’s leader in waiting?
Face it, if you want to hear what the position of the GOP/republican/conservative is on critical issues, you’re pretty much limited to reading Sarah Palin’s Facebook entries.
Shoot, I was just going to mention that it is still way too soon for a full blown GOP primary campaign, one Romney thinks he is above having to participate, so I really don’t care..
But-I got carried away.
Oops.
It goes without saying that Romney is a talented man in some regards, but I, for one, have a hard time thinking he is the kind of guy that I would follow into battle. I think he is a political opportunist who is constantly trying to be too cute by half, so to say, and he appears to me to be “all about the deal.” We can do better than Romney and I think more and more Republicans are beginning to think the same. When it comes to the question posited, is Romney making a mistake by laying low, I believe that power abhors a vacuum and I am happy about Romney’s apparent strategy and I am enjoying the serious debates raging in our party at this time. I believe that the Republican Party is a healthy, dynamic party and offers the country the best chance at this point in time to ‘right’ the ship of state.
It’s early, for crying out loud!
The fiscal matter hasn’t played out to a resolution.
Others’ campaigns — Gingrich, Huntsman, and to some extent Pawlenty — are imploding.
Palin hasn’t publicly revealed her decision on whether to run yet.
Perry keeps winking and flirting, but hasn’t asked us out.
Though he swears he’s not running, Christie went to Iowa to . . . well, I don’t exactly know why he went to Iowa.
Even Jeb Bush says never say never.
All is yet up in the air, so intentionally reaching out to make one’s self the story at this point would seem a bit ill-timed.
Romney brings the most broadly-based experience to the table, so he can afford to wait longer than some others.
And what did Romney bring to Massachussets? Per person common debt is $14,936.00. Debt to GDP is 25.56%. Unemployment is at 260,000 out of a population of 6,582,000.
And what about Romneycare which was the basis for Obamacare?
I really don’t think Christie will get in. He is having waaaay too much fun sticking it in the eye of the left in his state. As to Jeb Bush, he knows he doesn’t have a chance in hades. Maybe in 2016, but not this time.
Fox aired a trivia question on state flags today, I grew up in MA and tried to convince a co-worker that MA wasn’t the correct answer to the question. “The state flag of Taxachusetts is a Customs Officer with drawn sword taking the purse of a Citizen, against a background of colonists fleeing with all of their possessions. After all, if it wasn’t for the high taxes there the rest of the continent would never have been settled.” She thought I was serious for a minute (ok, she’s blond).
This interests me. What is your source for this?
Now that incurred federal governmental debt is a central focus of national attention, I think that one of the most powerful arguments local candidates can make this fall (and national candidates can at least try to make next spring) is that accumulated governmental governmental debt on a combination of national, state and local levels, has contributed mightily to the uncertainty in the markets and the lingering evidence of a recessionary economy, and that local officials should bear the brunt of their irresponsible contribution to the problem.
For example, in my very small city of Lambertville, NJ (less than 3,800 residents), the Mayor and City Council, who are all Democrats, actually increased the debt load of the City five-fold over the 7 year from 2002 to 2009 — from less than 4.5 million to over 22 million. And they did so during a period of time when there was a Democrat governor who was very generous with “emergency” and “special” appropriations for the small city.
Romney vacuum = waiting for Palin!
Reagan announced his candidacy on November 13, 1979.
Perspective…
Thank-you.
Where Obama is a Big Government Socialist, Romney is a Big Government Technocrat. They both believe the Government is the answer to everything. The only difference is that Romney believes it only works if you have a highly competent Administrator (himself, of course) running things while Obama is so devout a follower of Marx that he’s convinced socialism will just naturally work, creating utopia, as soon as the necessary laws are passed. So, Obama sees his job as being the salesman, the front man, making the case to get those laws passed – and then he goes play golf.
2012 is going to be an Anti-Obama year, and Romney is NOT the Anti-Obama.
2012 is also going to be about repealing Obamacare, and given Romney STILL standing up for the catastrophic failure of RomneyCare in Massachussetts, Romney can’t be the nominee based on this alone.
There’s only 1 reason why he’s the current frontrunner: he’s the only leftover from last time around that’s announced his candidacy (Ron Paul doesn’t count, and never did). Its name recognition and nothing else.
1995….”Where’s Waldo?”
2011….”Where’s Mittens?”
http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/07/the_federalist_fromtexas.html
Like Reagan Governor Perry will probably wait until November to declare. Anita Perry says “Lets run” so I think he will.
Mitt Romney isn’t waiting for anything, not even the primaries. He has campaigned and is campaigning in Iowa (yes, Iowa), New Hampshire, South Carolina, Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, California, New York, Virginia, Florida, Nevada, Utah, and other states. His work in those areas has not only paid off (he’s leading/tied with the field and the president in virtually all of those states), but is also drawing attention to issues that all the other candidates, including the president, seem to have forgotten. While Bachmann and Santorum rush to sign every pledge they can and the president gets embroiled ever deep in the debt battle, Romney is talking about jobs everywhere he goes. And voters are rewarding him for it by keeping him in the top tier, both nationally and in the key battleground states. He’s not going to “buy” this election (the Democrats will see to that); he’s going to earn it, because he’s doing what everyone else should be.
And can we all please, PLEASE stop pretending that Sarah Palin is going to run? Or Rudy Giuliani? As for Rick Perry, he may join the race, and he may pose a serious threat to Romney’s nomination if he does; but not to Obama’s presidency.