Other recent articles under: Election 2012 as of Apr 16, 2010
Topic: Election 2012
Obama 42%, Paul 41%. Is America Finally Waking Up?
A new Rasmussen poll raises the question as to whether Ron Paul might become a major candidate for the Republican nomination in 2012. by Walt Thiessen
(libertarian)
Friday, April 16, 2010
Rasmussen Reports released a new poll yesterday that hypothetically pits Congressman Ron Paul of Texas against President Barack Obama in a 2012 presidential race. The results of the national survey of 1,000 likely voters show that the two are currently running neck-and-neck, with a sampling error of plus or minus 3%. Does this mean that America is finally waking up to appreciating and embracing Paul's message of liberty?
The answer is: maybe.
What the poll actually makes more clear is the fact that America is disgusted with what Rasmussen calls the "Political Class". In reference to another poll released last January by Rasmussen, the research firm reports that 81% of voters either lean toward or solid occupy what Rasmussen calls the "Mainstream", and this population, cutting across party lines, provides the support Ron Paul enjoys in the latest poll.
In the earlier poll, Rasmussen focused on three survey questions to identify how many Americans fall into and support his two categories: Political Class or Mainstream. The questions Rasmussen asked are as follows:
Generally speaking, when it comes to important national issues, whose judgment do you trust more - the American people or America's political leaders?
Some people believe that the federal government has become a special interest group that looks out primarily for its own interests. Has the federal government become a special interest group?
Do government and big business often work together in ways that hurt consumers and investors?
Based on these three questions and respondents answers to them, Rasmussen discovered that 65% of the population now hold solidly Mainstream views, while only 4% hold solidly Political Class views. Another 16% lean Mainstream, and 8% lean Political Class. Include the "leaners" in the two categories, and 81% are Mainstream while 12% favor the Political Class. The remaining 7% are undecided.
Yesterday's poll shows that 58% of Mainstream voters favor Paul, while 95% of the Political Class vote for Obama. This establishes Paul, and the positions and values for which he stands, as a decidedly Mainstream candidate, while Obama has lost his Mainstream credentials in the eyes of voters and is now perceived as a member of the Political Class.
Scott Rasmussen of Rasmussen Reports said, "The American people don't want to be governed from the left, the right or the center. The American people want to govern themselves. The American attachment to self-governance runs deep. It is one of our nation's cherished core values and an important part of our cultural DNA."
This self-governance core has reemerged to a significant degree as trust in our political institutions has dramatically eroded, which probably explains why Dr. Paul did so well in yesterday's survey results. As the economy continues to flounder and we head toward a new round of financial crisis and bailouts in 2011, his numbers should continue to improve.
The survey was a heads-up comparison between Paul and Obama. It didn't include any other candidates, although 11% of survey respondents did volunteer that they would support another candidate beside those two. So we shouldn't assume that this survey anoints Paul as the Republican front-runner for 2012. To the contrary, Paul instead should be viewed by this poll as a lightning rod that attracts the Mainstream values Rasmussen describes. This establishes Paul, and the positions and values for which he stands, as a decidedly Mainstream candidate, while Obama has lost his Mainstream credentials in the eyes of voters and is now perceived as a member of the Political Class.
Could Paul emerge as a leading Republican candidate in 2012? The answer is yes. The poll shows that 39% have favorable or somewhat favorable views of "Dr. No" (as he is sometimes called), while 30% have unfavorable or somewhat unfavorable views of him. 32% are unsure or undecided. 30% unfavorables is actually a good number for a potential presidential candidate. When unfavorables reach the 40% mark, it begins to raise questions about electability, and when it reaches the 50% mark it makes the candidate almost unelectable. This is the biggest problem that Hillary Clinton experienced in 2008 and was the foremost reason that Barack Obama was able to catch her and ultimately beat her out for the Democratic nomination. Her unfavorables within her own party topped 50% by the time the primaries rolled around. But unfavorables around 30% still places a candidate very much in the "electable" range.
Compare these numbers to Sarah Palin's favorables and unfavorables. In a recent CBS poll, 38% of the electorate now hold unfavorable opinions of Palin, while only 24% have a favorable opinion of her.
The Rasmussen poll also suggests how out-of-touch a large percentage of Republican party members are with Mainstream America. While 58% of Mainstreamers favor Paul, only 66% of Republican voters similarly favor him, while 27% of Republican voters see him as a divisive force within the party. Those 27% may or may not lean toward the Political Class, but they are definitely out-of-step with Independents and Democrats of the Mainstream who support Paul. In short, these anti-Paul Republicans, who are likely also big government Republicans, are decided out of step with America today.
A lot has been made so far about the Palin factor, and it seems likely at this point that the 27-33% of Republicans who don't back Paul will be strongly pushing her candidacy as 2012 looms. This suggests that the Republican nomination could come down to differences between those two. With Palin representing the neo-conservative wing and Paul representing the libertarian wing of the party, it sets the stage for a classic confrontation.
Of course, Dr. Paul hasn't even shown signs of considering a re-run for the presidency in 2012, and President Obama is a long way from announcing his own candidacy for re-election. So while it's too early to say that Paul is now a serious contender for the Republican nomination, it is becoming clear that he is emerging as a recognized voice for Mainstream Americans, who will likely make a significant impact on the 2010 midterm elections this Fall and again in the 2012 election cycle.
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I kind of agree with your conclusions, however, it looks like you are trying to find 'excuses' for Ron Paul doing well. "others weren't included in the poll but 11% 'volunteered' they would vote for another candidate'. It sounds as if, despite no place for it in the poll, they wrote in 'someone else'. Volunteering it, not being asked.
How about: they were given the choice of Obama, Ron Paul, 'other candidate' or 'don't know'. 42% chose Obama, 41% chose Ron Paul, 11% chose 'other candidate' and 6% chose 'I don't know'.
Posted By: Walt Thiessen
Date: 2010-04-16 11:51:07
I'm not finding excuses for Ron Paul. To the contrary, that's why I emphasized the fact that the survey was done the way it was. It's why I concluded that the survey does not make Ron Paul a frontrunner for the Republican nomination.
I didn't decide to limit the survey to Paul and Obama. Rasmussen Reports made that decision. If you don't like their decision, complain to them. Note, however, that it's not unusual for survey companies to do head-to-head surveys that exclude other candidates. Note also that Ron Paul himself was the victim of such exclusions more often than not in 2008. Now, his turn has come. I, for one, see that as long-overdue justice.
Couldn't agree more. It made my stomach turn to witness the obscene amount of shannigans that went on during that election season. Now, it's shear pleasure to see those very same antagonists squirm in their seats and gnash their teeth, as their malevolence is squashed with facts, logic, and a strong innate desire for freedom.
Posted By: Joseph Zrnchik
Date: 2010-04-17 05:31:46
Find Out The Truth About Ron Paul at The Ron Paul Library at http://www.ronpaullibrary.org/
Here is why Ron Paul will end up being victorious and the police state of Republocats that used to be America will lose: Ron Paul educates. When Americans know the truth, they will be set free from the domination of the political ruling class and corporate media that frames and skews political debate.
After 9/11 it took about one day for the political ruling class to confiscate American liberty. However, two years after the confiscation of many trillions of dollars of wealth by the Wall Street elite, all the Keynesian central bankers (planners) did was print out more money to be stolen again by Wall Street without placing any restriction on the banksters to prevent them from stealing the retirement funds of the middle class all over again. This failure has allowed bankers to continue to inflate/debase the currency, concentrate wealth, and to destroy wealth through the distortion of our economy by the creation of economic bubbles. How many more times can the middle class afford bail out the wealthy who profit from a bubble economy and then get bailed out when economic reality sets in and “irrational exuberance” wears off?
Obama wrote a book about \"The Audacity of Hope\" while Ron Paul has written a library about Austrian Economics, interest and credit, money supply, fractional reserve banking, market economy, Federal Reserve secrecy and the harm from creating money for private banks out of thin air, liberty, monetary policy, the federal budget, health care, taxes, the draft, defending the Constitution, free trade, and the role of government. While Dr. Paul was learning science and becoming a medical doctor, Obama was learning how to be a skilled liar, opps, I mean lawyer, at Harvard.
Our press has now become a monster arm for government/defense/corporate interests and newspapers refuse to touch issues like police abuse, murder, or even perjury, misconduct by prosecutors, or acknowledge that are courts provide no justice but seek to maintain and promote corrupt powers of the state at the expense of justice. The media has shut out Paul\'s destruction of Fox News when Fox asked about if Paul was electable during the presidential debates.
Our economy and infrastructure is crumbling along with any hope for the middle class. The Republicans have set up the middle class for theft by corporations through health care, and the Democrat’s alternative is to use government to steal the same wealth through government-mandated insurance. Either way, it is the middle class that becomes poorer when our system socializes losses and privatizes profits for the benefit of the kleptocracy and plutocrats. The more government intervenes in any market, regardless of it being housing or medicine, the more it distorts, corrupts, and destroys free trade.
Another issue Americans are increasingly waking up to is not whether America should support Israel, but whether America should continue to support an apartheid fascist state that slaughters unarmed civilians and engages in ethnic cleansing, has a nuclear program outside of the IAEA and U.N. inspectors, carries out global assassination and espionage programs throughout the world and against the U.S., sells our military technology to China, and then engages in military activities that get American military personnel killed who are fighting what increasingly appears to be long-term and heavily leveraged quagmires in Muslim lands that results in genocide and harms U.S. long-term interests. That does not even include the slaughter of American by Israel from their attack on the U.S.S. Liberty.
If someone would have told me years ago that America would have become engaged in Trotskyite foreign policy with the likes of people such as Wolfowitz, Perl, Feith, Bolton, and Rumsfeld, and would embrace a centrally planned monetary system whereby money is only created through debt, and debt is backed only by more pyramided debt, that our masters would destroy habeas corpus, engage in torture, use preemptive war, make nuclear first strike our policy, and destroy our liberty while carrying on a massive spy program instituted against the American people, I would have thought you insane.
Things that can’t go on forever usually don’t. This includes America borrowing to fund its out-of-control federal government. Would Americans have ever thought their economy would be service based with the means of production being exported to our economic, political, and military rivals? Would Americans have ever thought we would be so locked in debt and spending that we would have borrow money from China to the point that we are coming close to destroying our own monetary unit? Would Americans have ever believed the Democratic and Republican parties would be bringing us to the point of economic ruin through unsustainable government growth and spending whereby we need to borrow tens of billions of dollars just to finance the interest on our national debt? Ron Paul mentions the absurdity of borrowing from our enemies to “support democracy” in Iraq while at the same time supporting a coup and then a military dictator right next door in Pakistan.
America’s two political parties should lose the right to exist. American government has completely lost any remaining shreds of legitimacy and exists only through the legitimacy conferred upon raw power. Americans, through their sowing of ignorance and apathy, are finally reaping the reward of having blindly trusted government.
Our domestic police state is close to criminalizing dissent. Police falsely arrest, falsely charge, and then commit perjury, all of which is overlooked by judges and prosecutors. Our desire for justice is having the life choked out of it by sovietized federal judges and prosecutors. Perjury by police has become the dirty little secret of prosecutors and judges that is turning into the 600 pound gorilla in the room. Americans no longer trust our government, and rightly so. Police murder is excused routinely and the cover-ups are blasphemous to liberty and a constitutional republic. What we are seeing now by police has become exactly what we would expect from the Stasi, KGB, NKVD, or SAVAK. A year in prison for protest or for invoking the Constitution causes people to lose houses, jobs, and families to the glee of FEDGOV and STATEGOV minions who support crimianl government, torture, and murder. Police beat people almost to death and for the hapless individual’s harm suffered, he is compensated by government with more false charges of Resisting Arrest, Battery on Law Enforcement, Disorderly Conduct, Interfering With Law Enforcement, and Resisting Law Enforcement.
Youtube, is becoming clogged with video of police murder and brutality. Our justice system is a seeping puss wound reminiscent of a third-world junta. Our federal court system has become a replay of Soviet show trials. Government officials, the likes of people such as Hillary Clinton, are blinded by the log of hubris to their own hypocrisy that is exposed as a giant skid mark on the underwear of U.S. government for all the world to see. America has become a hypocrite in its dealing with its own citizens and the world at large.
Police lie on search warrants, arrest reports, and in court. Prosecutors back up lying police, and judges cover-up for all. Police now “Protect and Serve” only the state and have little time for upholding the Constitution or justice. Police perjury is merely described as “good police work” by these officious tax feeders. No matter how atrocious the behavior of police, police can ALWAYS count on the false testimony of their fellow komrades.
Every American should become familiar with the unjustified execution by a police death squad of U.S. Marine Derek Hale http://www.lewrockwell.com/grigg/grigg-w10.html . They should also revisit, via Google Video, “Waco: New Revelations” and “Waco: Rules of Engagement” Then they will realize the true horror of the crime and understand that Iraqis and Afghans suffer three Wacos everyday whereby the murder of innocents and children occurs as often as do the meals in a day.
Wikileaks shows raw footage of how a few cameramen comprising a news crew, and good Samaritan rescuer with children but no weapons, are morphed by pilots into a platoon of 20 AK and RPG armed insurgents and slaughtered to the glee of radio traffic by soldiers who mock and rationalize the slaughter of small children right on the audio feed. The government is caught in a lie saying this was due to enemy fire nearby. However, government reports put the fire as 20 miles away and hours earlier. These soldiers fit the bill exactly for the next generation of police officers who will parlay their combat experience into law enforcement careers. Whenever they decide to kill someone unjustly, they will morph simple police situations into situations where they feign fear for their lives while bullying, brutalizing, and murdering citizens. In fact, all types of abuses, from federal to military, have already worked their way down to the state, county, and local levels of law enforcement and government.
But here you have it, folks, the convergence of morons from both the Democratic and Republican parties into the fascist police state whereby America has become New Rome. Is Ron Paul the only one left with any sense?
Posted By: Jahfre Fire Eater
Date: 2010-04-17 07:15:01
Hi Walt,
I'll spare my usual diatribe on why I find these poles worst than useless and just begin with my typical summary...If the poll was taken over likely participants in the candidate selection process, party primary and caucus participants, then it might be slightly interesting but even then this kind of data is just as easily used to fuel destructive behavior as constructive behavior. It implies trends that just aren't true among the folks who actually participate in the process. I'm sure there are Ron Paul fans out there ready to vote for Ron Paul in every poll they see. I have and still do consider every RP advocate who does not particpate in his party's candidate selection process as a "poison fan" who can only undermine Dr. Paul's message and influence.
