According to a recent Gallup poll of over 1,000 Republican voters, here are the preferences of the people regarding who their candidate should be in 2012:
29% Rick Perry
17% Mitt Romney
13% Ron Paul
10% Michele Bachmann
Others received votes, but who cares? They all got 4% or less.
Some observations: Perry has a commanding lead, which is all the more impressive since he arguably has already received more negative major media scrutiny than President Obama faced in all of 2007-2008.
What’s tough for Romney is that he has been the front runner all along, but he has been quite easily displaced by Perry. The major media has been calling Romney’s hold on the top spot weak all along. I guess they were right. What is tougher for Romney is the impression by Republicans that he isn’t really a conservative. Mainstream media commentators are always urging Republican politicians to be more moderate, but moderate Republicans tend to lose (Bob Dole, Gerald Ford). Sometimes they get elected because people think they are conservative (George Bush, George W. Bush), but when their true colors are revealed (major tax increase, major spending increase), they become quite unpopular. They do too much for Republicans to stomach, but not enough for Democrats to love.
Ron Paul is buried in third place, which makes sense. He’s smart, and his ideas are intriguing, but the closer you look at some of them, the more impractical they seem.
Michele Bachmann? Yep, she’s in trouble. She’s buried in fourth place, and the media really seems to be against her.
If Perry holds on to his commanding lead, it might be a double-edged sword for Republicans. Party unity is good, but on the other hand, the sooner that Obama knows who his opponent is, the sooner it is that the President can craft his campaign against the Texas governor.
Finally, it might be ridiculous to try and figure out who’s going to win five months before even one primary has been held.
W