Visual source: Newseum
Gallup:
There is no clear front-runner in the race for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination. Palin, who has given no indication of whether she will run for the nomination, has very high name identification, is near the top of Republicans' nomination preferences, and has a higher Positive Intensity Score than any other well-known candidate. Palin thus must be considered one of the GOP leaders at this point. Romney and Gingrich are also well-known. Of the two, Romney is slightly better positioned at this point due to his higher ranking in Gallup's trial heats.
None of these three, however, comes close to generating the positive intensity of Huckabee. Palin's Positive Intensity Score, at 16, is slightly higher than Romney's or Gingrich's, but is nine points lower than Huckabee's final May 2-15 score of 25.
Still, if anyone thinks Newt will win, watch this video (h/t
Ari Melber):
The clip was first posted by the Des Moines Register, which reported that Candidate Gingrich was "visibly stunned" by the confrontation, and is lighting up the web. It captures the core of Gingrich's vulnerability—a dated celebrity who is out of touch with his party today—and rests on a policy debate that actually matters (whether to gut Medicare for fiscal savings). The conservative blog Hot Air noted the "merriment with which" people were sharing the video online, suggesting Gingrich "is now officially RINO-in-chief for online conservatives for as long as he’s in the race." Gingrich's hasty YouTube rebuttal is no match for the unscripted chiding he got at the Dubuque Holiday Inn.
WaPo:
Newt Gingrich’s first outing as a 2012 presidential candidate has confirmed and even deepened Republicans’ doubts that the former House speaker has the discipline it will take to be a credible contender.
Salon:
Sometime after he was told to drop out "before you make a bigger fool of yourself" and before we learned that he and his wife had racked up hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt at Tiffany's, Newt Gingrich convened a conference call Tuesday afternoon in an effort to put a good face on what has been an epically disastrous presidential campaign rollout.
And any pundit (I'm looking at Mark Halperin especially) who took Newt as a serious heavyweight, just turn in your pundit badge and go home before you embarrass yourself any further. Halperin, you may recall, tried to make the argument in 2008 that having eight homes was
good for John McCain (and, yeah, we still say it whenever good news for Obama comes out.) Halperin's argument on Hardball Monday night that Newt is a candidate to reckon with is another classic blown call and another example of pundits never having to be accountable. Come to think of it, until this week, Newt was a pundit...
The Fix on Paul Ryan passing on the Senate:
One argument is that running for the Senate presented a clear risk without genuine benefit for Ryan.
An open seat race in a presidential year in Wisconsin is a toss-up proposition — at best — for any Republican. (The last Republican to win a Wisconsin Senate race in a presidential year was Bob Kasten way back in 1980.)
That’s especially true in this election where Gov. Scott Walker’s (R) fight with labor unions over collective bargaining has turned the state into a national battleground where Democrats will go all-out to win.
“I can’t help but wonder how he would do with Obama at the top of the ticket and coming on the heels of the Walker thing,” said one senior Republican House operative.
The Caucus/NY Times:
A new survey by the Pew Research Center suggests that President Obama’s scheduled speech on the Middle East this week will be greeted by skeptical audiences in several predominately Muslim countries.
The poll, conducted in Turkey, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Indonesia and the Palestinian territories from late March to April (before the killing of Osama bin Laden), finds negative views of the United States and a lack of confidence in Mr. Obama persisting from last year, and in some cases even worsening. The survey, released Tuesday, is part of the Global Attitudes Project.
WSJ:
A key negotiator in the bipartisan Senate effort to craft a deficit-reduction package told reporters Tuesday he thought the effort would fail to reach a deal, potentially upending months of negotiations on Capitol Hill.
“I’m not sure we’re going to continue to talk,” said Sen. Tom Coburn (R., Okla.), one of the so-called “Gang of Six” senators working on the deal. “We can’t bridge the gap between what actually needs to happen and what people will allow to happen.”
He added: “I am discouraged.”
If it meant giving away the store to Republicans, I'm thrilled it didn't happen.
Mark Blumenthal:
When the Department of Defense released its Don't Ask Don't Tell survey of service members and their spouses in December of last year, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) sharply questioned the study's response rate and methodology. But this weekend, the American Association for Public Opinion Research honored the DADT survey with its annual Policy Impact Award.
McCain's an ass, even if he does know what torture is. But that just makes
Rick Santorum a bigger ass:
Rick Santorum said Tuesday that Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who was tortured as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, "doesn't understand how enhanced interrogation works."
Speaking on Hugh Hewitt’s radio show, Santorum, the presidential hopeful and former Pennsylvania senator, says McCain is misguided in his stance against the enhanced interrogation techniques sanctioned during the Bush administration but discontinued by Obama's White House, which has labeled them torture.
Santorum helps the GOP field remain unserious and weak just by being in it.
Added from Politico:
Top Republicans are increasingly convinced that President Barack Obama will be easily reelected if stronger GOP contenders do not emerge, and some are virtually begging Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels to add some excitement to the slow-starting nomination race.
It’s a sign of the GOP’s straits that the party is depending on the bland, wonkish Daniels for an adrenaline boost.
Republicans see what we see.
