Been meaning to write about this new CNN poll since it came out yesterday, and the news that Scott Walker has dropped out of the race adds another wrinkle.
Where do things stand? Who has a chance? Here’s your armchair pundit analysis for the day:
Trump still leads, of course, but his lead has narrowed, at least according to this poll, of registered voters who identify as Republican or as independents who “lean Republican”, with a margin of error of 4.5%. He’s got 24% , compared to 32% less than 2 weeks ago. Has he peaked? Have voters figured out that a presidential candidate whose answer to everything is “I’ll succeed because I’m a smart businessman and I’ll hire good people” is not a good choice? One hopes so. It’s simply hard to imagine that he’ll get more supporters than he currently has.
Fiorina is second! Second! – with 15% compared to her prior 3%. Now, as debates go, I think she did great, in getting the attention and interest of voters, even if I’m not personally gushing over her. There are some things I really like about her: her message that she reformed a company that was trapped in bureaucracy, and understands the nature of the federal government; her pitch that crony capitalism benefits the conglomerates who write their own regulations at the expense of small businesses; the fact that her experience in the business world has connected her to world leaders and has given her an understanding of world affairs to a greater degree than “I’ve read briefings.” Plus, she studied medieval history!
But bowing to reality, she has two major strikes against her: first, that she has in fact not held political office before, and, second, that many voters will be persuaded by the “ran HP into the ground” line, and have little patience for reading about the details.
Carson is unelectable. Let’s face it. He has a lot of support from people inspired by his story, and unhappy with “politicians” generally speaking, but will it lead to votes? I don’t think there’s enough likelihood of that to feel obliged to discuss him.
Other unelectables: Pataki, Jindal (sorry, Bobby, used to be a fan!, Graham, Gilmore (yeah, I had to look him up, too; and you can’t even check the poll numbers for “never heard of” because he didn’t even make it onto CNN’s list of names for this question), Santorum, Kasich (he’s got the resume, but he comes off as an *** — or a ****, your choice — in the debates), Rand Paul (yes, many people care passionately about civil liberties, but it’s not going to get you to a majority), and Huckabee (still promoting replacing the income tax with a National Sales Tax).
I haven’t discarded Chris Christie, even though he’s also polling poorly. I know that he can’t get Republican support because too many are convinced that he cost Romney the election in the Sandy aftermath, but dangit, he’s the only one raising entitlement reform, an issue near and dear to my heart.
Which leaves us with: Bush, Rubio, and Cruz.
And, well, you pretty much have to drop Cruz, too. His strategy of motivating the base rather than broadening his support may have been a “lesson from Romney” — that is, insofar as a certain number of conservatives either stayed home on election day or weren’t willing to provide support with their money or their time (phone banks, GOTV efforts, etc.), and this could have potentially swung some states for Romney. Besides which: a flat tax? It’s a great soundbite, but unserious.
Bush: I refuse to consider Bush, from the simple fact that he’s, well, Bush. I won’t even get into his policies.
And that leaves Rubio.
Not a big fan of Rubio, actually. For what I can tell, he’s well-spoken, and he has put out some proposals which, while I’m not a big fan of them, count as reasonable efforts, and more than some of his competitors. But he’s even younger than Obama was at this stage in his campaign, with nearly as thin a resume (at least Rubio will have served a full term in the Senate in 2016, and was Speaker in the State House for a two-year stretch, rather than just a State Senator as was Obama. So perhaps he can balance that out with Fiorina as VP, for her high-level experience, even if in business rather than government.
But who else is there?
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