Visual Source: Newseum
Politics edition.
Gallup:
Gallup Daily tracking finds no major shake-up in the GOP presidential candidates' ratings among Republicans nationwide in the two weeks surrounding a New Hampshire debate that featured seven of the candidates. Mitt Romney, Sarah Palin, and Michele Bachmann continue to enjoy the best overall positioning by virtue of having higher name recognition and Positive Intensity Scores than their potential rivals. By comparison, Jon Huntsman, who formally announced his candidacy Tuesday, is recognized by 34% of Republicans and enters the race with the third-lowest Positive Intensity Score of any candidate measured.
Reminds me of last month's
Tom Jensen tweet:
We polled 481 Republicans in Iowa. 1 picked Jon Huntsman. Not 1%. 1 respondent.
Some of the Beltway people love him, but why do we think he has a chance, again? For example:
National Journal:
The transformation of Jon Huntsman from improbable presidential hopeful to a formidable contender for the Republican nomination in under eight weeks is something of a marketing miracle.
Before President Obama’s former ambassador to China returned to Washington on April 29, the prospect of the socially moderate Mormon parachuting into the race, stumping among Republican primary voters, and waging an aggressive campaign against his former boss seemed far-fetched.
Hello? Formidable? See Gallup above: absent some movement in the polls, it's still far-fetched.
Uh-oh. Dana Milbank agrees with me.
I wish Huntsman luck in this noble pursuit, but the high road almost always leads to political oblivion. For Huntsman to maintain his course all the way to the Republican presidential nomination would turn politics on its head. More likely, he will join other decent men — Richard Lugar, Orrin Hatch — whose presidential campaigns were quickly forgotten.
Early signs suggest Huntsman will do no better.
Jeff Greenfield on the uselessness of the GOP Iowa caucus altogether:
In fact, if you can make the case for any prior Republican caucus result mattering very much — you just might be a member of the Iowa Convention and Visitors Bureau.
After all, the only reason Iowa has a caucus is that it’s the only way it gets to go first. And because it goes first, every hotel chain, restaurant owner, car-rental agency, caterer and Gore-Tex distributor in that admirable state celebrates leap year with theological zeal.
“This isn’t a caucus,” Joe Biden said four years ago, as he made his way across the state. “It’s an industry.”
Bloomberg:
Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou won a vote of confidence, bolstering his new government’s chances of pushing through austerity measures to secure further international financial aid for the country.
NY Times:
President Obama will talk about troop numbers in Afghanistan when he makes a prime-time speech from the White House on Wednesday night. But behind his words will be an acute awareness of what $1.3 trillion in spending on two wars in the past decade has meant at home: a ballooning budget deficit and a soaring national debt at a time when the economy is still struggling to get back on its feet.