Mike Allen today called Blunt’s endorsement a “Richter-rattler” on the establishment scale. I’m wondering why Allen isn’t also hitting the religious chord, too, especially looking to evangelicals in the Mid-west.
This Richter-rattler reflects an emerging effort by establishment Republicans to coalesce around Mitt Romney in the face of the Rick Perry insurgency.
This leads to the latest Gallup numbers, which finds Perry scoring among primary voters, but coming up short in the general election snapshot. It’s exactly what I’ve been writing about.
Republicans Want a Winner, and Romney Does Better Against Obama
Perry seems to have momentum, but that could be slowed in the coming weeks if Republicans start to perceive that Romney is more electable in the general election. The new poll finds the slight majority of Republicans, 53%, prefer to see their party nominate the person who has the best chance of beating Obama, even if that person does not agree with them on almost all of the issues they care about. Forty-three percent would prefer a candidate who does agree with them on almost all of the issues, even if that person does not have the best chance of winning in November 2012.
Romney currently edges out President Barack Obama by 49% to 47% in national registered-voter preferences for the November election, while Perry trails Obama by 45% to 50%. However, neither Romney nor Obama is ahead by a statistically significant margin.
If the Democratic base stays enthused after Candidate Obama’s latest pitch, Perry would be an even bigger liability.
I don’t know how many of you caught Mr. Perry’s press conference on Israel, but it was amateur hour from the start. He had to read his talking points and did so in a halting manner, because they obviously weren’t from him. It just won’t cut it up against Pres. Obama.
I think the Republican tea party base trust Perry more then they do Romney. The higher ups want Romney…however, silly Perry may sound to us the hard core righties love his take no prisoners attitude.
Republicans have to decide if they want to WIN.
Republicans really, really want to beat Obama, which is another way of saying, they want to win, but I think 2012, from the Rights’ perspective, might be more about making Obama a one termer than anything else. Romney certainly seems more likely to get that done than Perry.
I did see Perry’s presser on Israel, and it was embarrassing, or should have been. I’m sort of surprised they tried it, but I guess they didn’t want to miss the moment. Perry knows how to play his version of the “tough guy” role, and can deliver sound bites with some degree of authority, about the things he’s accustomed to talking about — he can rant on the “fence” and “science” of global-warming-as-defined-by-petroleum-industry-marketing and the death penalty, etc. He can even admit he made a mistake (regarding the vaccine), something W. could never do about anything. But he’s obviously completely out of his league on foreign policy in general. Of course, so was W. But among many other reasons, my guess is that W. is still much too fresh in everyone’s nightmares to want a repeat, or worse.
like obama is mr. foreign policy expert.
Obama’s weakness and lack of leadership has unleashed a host of new problems and threats…the world has spiraled out of control since Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize from the idiots in Sweden. American leadership is critical in the world…and we have a rank amateur who has no experience in anything except being everyone’s favorite messiah in 2008.
I want Perry for the repugnantklan/teabaggers hands down. He truly captures the utterly divorced from reality, delusional, totally Amoral hypocrisy of the gibbering masses of the repug/bagger base at this point in hystory.
rick perry is clueless. and nayoe who thinks biden, hillary or even obama would really “harm” israel has got to be out of it.
Obama already has harmed Israel and the U.S. security interests….compounding the disaster of Bush. But Obama has now alienated enough Jews with his Israel policy that several crucial states like Florida and Pennsylvania may go Republican. I will absolutely vote Republican if Romney is the nominee. How do you like that “Arab Spring?” If that is an “April Spring” then you’ll buy any type of propaganda. Name one Obama foreign policy success?Turkey, a so called ally, threatening Cyprus? Egypt renewing the flow of gas to Jordan but not to Israel? The porous Sinai?
Another speech, another opportunity for love. Words are all this guy ever offered…to believe otherwise is to be deluded. He’s playing the Democrats for real dummies. Which they are…at least the leadership.