From: jose dopazo [mailto:thejerseymaniac@yahoo.com]
Sent: Thursday, July 15, 2010 4:55 PM
To: Jensen, Tom
Subject: POLL
| another clown asleep at the wheel. the only electable candidate who the people stand with is ron paul. stop giving us all these bullshit neo con choices we are awake but apparently your still asleep. i guess this is what passes as journalism in america these days. as a life long republican i will not vote for any of these candidates if its not ron paul get it thru your fucking heads....next time do a real poll. traitors to the constitution. |
Speaking to the 'substance' of this argument I think PPP has been exceptionally fair to Ron Paul. We include him in all of our Republican primary polling both nationally and at the state level and we've polled him in national head to heads against Obama twice. But until he starts polling more competitively in those GOP primary surveys his level of support does not merit testing him against Obama every month. We've thrown Paul more of a bone than most polling companies.
As a Paul supporter I agree you've been more than fair and am appreciative.
ReplyDeleteI just think it's in everyone's interest to include him. "Paul trounces Obama" is an interesting headline and polls a phenomenon in the electorate that Public Policy Polling has discovered and recent research has pointed to, namely that the "libertarian vote" is a harbinger of the independent vote and overall election trends.
Take a look at this study and see if you see the same thing or if it's just libertarian wishful thinking: http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=11152
Remember before you showed Obama down to the GOP you showed Ron Paul up amongst independents against him more than anyone else. That's the main argument of the linked study and may be a very useful frame of reference for Public Policy Polling.
On a personal note, while some of Ron Paul's ideas are totally batsh*t crazy, his principles are attractive to me in a lot of ways and I'm not sure why he doesn't see more broad-based support from near-Libertarians or Tea Partiers.
ReplyDeleteDismantle the IRS? Extreme, absolutely, but contains huge fundamental nuggets. Our tax code is a crime against common sense; it is highly perverted that our aim of letting people keep as much money as possible has generated the largest living document in history, the US tax code.
Dr. No? Sometimes, but when I read his objections I have a hard time disagreeing with him; he seems extreme because he's the only one doing it right, in my eyes. Then again, it is a rare person to whom you can give power and all they do is tell you why they aren't allowed to exercise it in this case or that.
"we are awake..." - I love this phenomenon in opinion. It's like there's this sense in someone holding an opinion that they *know* something that others do not, as if an opinion can cause you to join some elite club of intelligencia, and they mail you your monacle and a big pile of money to sleep on at night. Cognitive bias at its best.
Okay, this emailer is a jerk. But why do you limit your head-to-head presidential polling to a bunch of GOP retreads? How about including Bobby Jindal, for example? The Bloomberg survey that just came out indicates that Jindal is the only GOPer with net positive approval--so he would probably be the most formidable against Obama in a head-to-head.
ReplyDeleteBloomberg: "The only bright spot for Republican candidates is for Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, who gets a 32 percent favorable rating and an 18 percent unfavorable grade. Better-known party leaders such as former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich both have negative ratings that outweigh the positive views."
Ron Paul runs better in the general than in a primary at this point, but when his son is U.S. Senator next year the entire dynamic will change.
ReplyDeleteRon Paul started this tea party revolution in 07. I think that you would be wise to track him. He may not win the nomination, but he may end up the king maker and on the ticket.
As for favorables, every poll that I see has Huckabee leading in favorables. I do not know what poll shows only Jindal having favorable ratings. Huck has around a ten point net and Romney is about even. You can name call them if you like, but both would be credible Presidents.
ReplyDeleteObviously, PPP includes Romney, Huckabee, Palin and, as of late, Gingrich on a monthy basis because they are, at this early stage, the top tier candidates. You may not like them; you may have a favorite. That is your perogative. But suggesting that we drop, say, Huckabee or Romney, who do the best against Obama, and expecially Huckabee, who is the only candidate this month with net favorable positives and consistently does the best against Obama for a year and a half simply amounts to blind loyalty.
ReplyDeleteYou may love Ron Paul, or Thune, or Jindal -- take your pick -- the they do not even register a blip across the board of likely voters. PPP would get very few hits if they polled second and third tier candidates on a consistent basis.
Ron paul can throw some ideas and make some supporters active but if you really think a person who is so old can become a president, it is insane. The minute Ron Paul enters the race he will be branded as looney by main stream media. Ron paul will be concouraged like McCain by main stream media and then dumped at the altar. I would like to consider candidates like Paul Ryan and Bobby Jindal for president. After one term in South Carolina, we can start talking about Nikki Haley. They are future of the Republican party.
ReplyDelete"On a personal note, while some of Ron Paul's ideas are totally batsh*t crazy"
ReplyDeletePlease list these; I will defend them.
I believe that Ron Paul could win the general election against Obama. The problem is at this time he cannot win the Republican primaries. Republican leadership is still out of touch with common sense. But that wall has started to crumble.
ReplyDeleteAlmost all Republicans agree on smaller government and less taxes. The split comes from foreign policy. Take a look at the Michael Steele controversy about Afghanistan. Ron Paul's Constitutional message is slowly taking over mainstream political thought.
After the 2010 midterms this foreign policy split will become much more pronounced. Because of the economic realities, a devalued dollar, and all the borrowing we just simply cannot afford a foreign policy that requires us to maintain 700+ bases in 130 countries. That choice has already been made whether we realize it or not.
The only choice we have at this point is this. Do we continue along this same path and bankrupt America? Or do we start now to pull out of countries on our timetable with our plan. We can either manage the downsizing or let it manage us.
I heard a poll today that only asks Obama supporters who will not vote for Obama next time who their preference is for President. Romney wins with this group.
Duh. Romney is the most liberal Republican. Of course he would win this group. The media continually tries to manipulate the public with these type of polls.
With more education on the issues,I believe that Ron Paul will rise in the general polls next year when people realize that he has been right all along.
I for one would rather have an old guy who is consistent and has principles than a young guy who doesn't know what he's doing and has no experience.
"I believe that Ron Paul could win the general election against Obama."
ReplyDeleteAre you interested in any real estate in the Gulf?
This is just as bad as Chris Matthews pointing to one person at a tea party rally and accusing the whole lot of being racist.
ReplyDeleteOne person at a Tea Party rally doesn't make them racist? How about the leader of the Tea Party Express, long accepted by Tea Partiers as a representative, writing an extended and viciously racist letter purporting to be from slaves passing on emancipation? Or the most high-profile representative of the Tea Party movement, one flailing-candidate-Rand-Paul, declaring on camera that he opposed the provision of the Civil Rights Act that prohibited merchants from treating some Americans as second-class citizens based on race? Or the Obama-as-witch-doctor signs that Tea Partiers so publicly found hilarious and inoffensive?
ReplyDeleteThe group of hard-core Republican ideologues calling themselves the Tea Party are not all racists, that is certainly true. But it is very telling how such a large percentage of their membership is.
Anonymous:
ReplyDelete"Almost all Republicans agree on smaller government and less taxes. The split comes from foreign policy. Take a look at the Michael Steele controversy about Afghanistan."
There is no real split in the Republican Party over foreign policy. The overwhelming majority of the Republican Party supports a reciprocitous foreign policy (the kind libertarians always label as "neoconservative").
Steele's foreign policy views happen to be far from the Republican mainstream, which is why so many Republicans are now calling for him to resign.
The bottom line is that Ron Paul cannot hope to win the Republican Presidential nomination in 2012 if he keeps polling the way he has been.
ReplyDeleteYou cannot win the nomination when you're in single digits in most states, especially not with so many states being winner-take-all.
What you'll get is the same thing Paul got in 2008--a lot of hype but only a handful of delegates to show for it.
If Ron Paul understands this, he may not even run for the GOP nomination in 2012.
I don't think Ron Paul really cares what the polls say. He, Kucinich, and the like don't run because they think they can win. They run to make a Quixotic point that inevitably fails because they get little time in debates and get laughed at by the serious candidates. Paul managed to raise more money than most fringe ideological candidates, but he didn't do any better when it came time to vote because he didn't have a serious ground organization and didn't have high name recognition among anyone but the fiercest of political junkies. That said, it doesn't look like he will run again. I guess if he doesn't we'll have to suffer more Gary Johnson tripe from our blog commenters.
ReplyDeleteWe need less neo-left or neo-right and more middle of the road, supported by the Constitution! Ron Paul in 2012... or sooner!
ReplyDeleteWe will get it right this time! RON PAUL 2012!
ReplyDeleteNRH, Before that letter, I hadn't heard of that guy. So, I don't know where you heard that he was "accepted as the leader of the tea party."
ReplyDeleteYou're making a straw man argument, like appointing Sarah Palin the "leader of the Republican Party" so you can use her to slam all Republicans.
Rand Paul supported the other 90% of the Civil Rights Act, would have boycotted any business that discriminated based on race, and went on Wolf Blitzer's show the next day to say he would have voted for it.
There's nothing racist about Rand Paul, and you discredit your argument by using him as an example.
You're making my point by talking about that sign. How long ago was that sign used? More than a year ago. You and MSNBC use the same three examples every time, because that's how few examples there are.
Rand Paul said he would have opposed the critical section of the Civil Rights Act barring businesses from racism. Without that section, blacks would remain economic second-class citizens throughout much of the old Confederacy today. Paul's belated attempt to spin his position to something more palatable is still taking a cowardly stance: "Oh, I support the right of people who can't get served to go somewhere else!"
ReplyDeleteAs for Mark Williams, he's the head of the Tea Party Express, has routinely appeared on Fox, CNN, and other news outlets as a Tea Party representative, as he heads one of the largest Tea Party organizations in the country, and up until he went from mildly racist to overtly racist, nobody on the right had a negative thing to say about him. For that matter, Sarah Palin was the Republican vice-presidential nominee and continues to have weight in Republican primaries. She isn't the leader of the Republican Party, but she is a leader of the Republican Party, undeniably. A wild-eyed right-wing leader of party extremists, but still a Republican leader.
Dick Armey would love to call himself the leader of the "tea party movement."
ReplyDeleteAnyway, you were trying to use Rand Paul as an example of racism in the tea party. That's not the case. Rand Paul was trying to make the principled, constitutional position, like Barry Goldwater did when he voted against the Civil Rights Act.
I love Ron Paul and this email doesn't speak for Ron Paul or any of his supporters. He was out of line and we are all very appreciative of your polling of him in your polls. Thank you.
ReplyDelete