Suggestions Needed: Who Should Replace Mike Huckabee on the Candidate Emergence Tracker?

Now that Mike Huckabee is out of the race for the 2012 Republican nomination, there is an open slot on the FHQ 2012 GOP Candidate Emergence Tracker. I'm leaning toward Mitch Daniels, but the comments section is open to your suggestions.

Have at it.

[Yes, sadly there are only five items that Google allows to be embedded.]

Recent Posts:

Louisiana House Committee Favorably Reports Bill to Move Presidential Primary to March

Missing the Point: A Follow Up on the Bill to Move the North Carolina Primary to March

Amendments to Connecticut Presidential Primary Bill Would Move It Back to April

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The Links (3/11/11): Staffing Up

The week that was in the invisible primary in the 2012 race for the Republican nomination was one of signing staff for nascent presidential runs.

Haley Barbour brought in Jim Dyke as a communications adviser and James Richardson as an online communications aide to Haley's PAC. Dyke has South Carolina ties and John DiStaso at the Manchester Union-Leader links Richardson to New Hampshire, though he's made the rounds online, with the College Republican National Committee and with the RNC in 2008 and the NRSC in 2010.

Tim Pawlenty meanwhile has either signed Eric Woolson or at the very least gained his support if Pawlenty runs. Regardless of the distinction, this is big simply because Woolson worked with Mike Huckabee in 2008.

Rick Santorum continues to add PAC staff in New Hampshire.

And even though this isn't technically staff, Mitt Romney continues to work Florida for important campaign donors and endorsements. The move could pay dividends in the state during the primary and general election phases of the campaign.

Recent Posts:

Oregon Democrats and Republicans on Opposite Ends of Primary Debate

An Update on Utah: Locked in on Feb. 7?

Oklahoma Senate Passes Second Bill to Move Presidential Primary to March

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The Links 3/8/11

Charlie Cook asks "next in line" or "no one's in line" for the GOP nomination.

Chris Cillizza has his own take on the "frontrunner-less" GOP field.

Whether a frontrunner emerges may determine whether Alabama is irrelevant in next year's primaries.

Ohio's still concerned about how redistricting might affect the March primary next year.

But that's not new.

Huckabee briefly passed Palin in Google searches last week. I don't know what it says about the metric that Kenya/Portman triggered more searches than Gingrich's "bobbled" announcement last Thursday. Huckabee's jump was the first past Palin since Bobby Jindal in the lead up to and aftermath of his State of the Union response in 2009.

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2012 Presidential Primary Movement: The Week in Review (Feb. 28-March 6)

Bill to Tie Presidential Primary to Parties' Use Passes Washington State House

Louisiana Republican Sees Need to Move Presidential Primary Back

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Tim Pawlenty: Book Sales, Low; Google Searches, Up ...Briefly

But hey, Chris Christie is surprisingly and consistently heavily searched (compared to some of the other top tier Republicans*). Maybe there is something (else) to being asked on a regular basis whether you're running for president.

Former Minnesota governor, Tim Pawlenty, is off to a slow start selling books, but his rounds on the pre-presidential campaign memoir circuit have people searching for him at a higher rate on Google.

...for a little bit anyway.

*No, Sarah Palin is not included. Her search volume always dwarfs all the other candidates'.

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On Republican "Sticks" and Democratic "Carrots"

I'm going to run the risk of heaping it on George Will, but something he said in his Sunday column begged for a response.

Any Republican delegate-selection event held before the first day of April shall be penalized: The result cannot be, as many Republicans prefer, a winner-take-all allocation of delegates. March events "shall provide for the allocation of delegates on a proportional basis." This means only that someof the delegates must be allocated proportional to the total vote.

Because Democrats are severe democrats, they have no winner-take-all events, so they do not have this stick with which to discipline disobedient states. Instead, they brandish -- they are, after all, liberals -- a carrot: States will be offered bonus delegates for moving their nominating events deeper into the nominating season, and for clustering their contests with those of neighboring states.

First, I question the level of punishment the Republican shift to proportional delegate allocation rules -- no matter how formulated -- will affect states opting to hold presidential delegate selection events before April. By FHQ's count, there are 32 states whose governments -- or state parties in the case of caucus states -- will have to move from their current positions to avoid "punishment". Our guess is that a sizable portion of those 32 states will take their "punishment" and attempt to influence the process. After all, that is the commodity states trade in during the presidential nomination process: influence. Will mentions that the national parties desire "lengthening the nomination process to reduce the likelihood that a cascade of early victories will settle the nomination contests before they have performed their proper testing-and-winnowing function". Well, national parties want that insofar as the process ends like the 2008 process did for the Democratic Party. But that will not always be the case. There has been a fair amount of talk about the Tea Party/Establishment GOP split within the Republican Party. Will proportional allocation only accentuate that division?* Some states may take their punishment in an effort help a non-establishment candidate, if one has emerged to take the mantle, stay in the delegate race for the nomination. [FHQ will have more on this issue of non-establishment goals in a post tomorrow.]

States, in the end, are self interested. They want influence over the identity of the presidential nominee. And that is a goal that is, depending on the angle, at odds with what the national parties want. In other words, the national parties end up with what they don't want: a nominee who is initially unelectable or becomes unelectable because of a divisive nomination decision. I just don't see how the states are penalized by the change to proportional delegate allocation.

One other point on the above excerpt: Will deftly employs some revisionist history in discussing the Democrats' "carrots". He fails to mention that the bonus delegate regime began across the aisle with the Republicans at their 1996 national convention in San Diego. It was there that the GOP put in place a bonus delegate system for the 2000 Republican nomination.

Will also fails to recognize the "sticks" the Democratic Party utilized in 2008 and has carried over to the 2012 cycle. Sure, states under the Democratic rules, as is the case under the Republican rules, lose half their allotment of delegates, but they also call for candidates who campaign in violating states -- those that go too early -- to lose their delegates from that state at the national convention (Rule 20.C.1.b from the 2008 and 2012 Democratic Delegate Selection Rules). In theory at least, that rule would have had more bite in 2012 if the Democrats had not flip-flopped and then flipped again twice on how to deal with Florida and Michigan. That muddled implementation of the rules may end up hurting both parties in 2012, but the Republicans more since theirs will be the only contested nomination. What I mean is that states will be more likely to test the Republican rules because of the Democrats' actions in 2008. The Republican Party still has the half delegation penalty plus the new proportionality requirement as penalties to rule-breaking states. FHQ is still skeptical as to whether that will be an effective rule in curbing state frontloading.

If a short history of presidential primaries is going to be constructed, it would at least be helpful to include a full and accurate account of the most recent events that will more greatly affect the next nomination cycle.

*Of course, that assumes that the Tea Party faction is a lasting one that faces no backlash following the 2010 midterms or before the 2012 nomination race kicks off in earnest.

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A short history of presidential primaries meets reality.

There must have been a lull of sorts reached in this midterm election cycle yesterday because it had Washington Post opinion columnist, George Will, gazing off into the future, but not without a tip of the cap to the past ["A short history of presidential primaries."]. The truth is that FHQ just didn't care too much for Will's history lesson. Well, actually the history part wasn't all that bad. The story of the intent of the Founders in creating the Electoral College is one I always like telling my Intro to American Government classes. However, the esteemed conservative columnist is guilty of not only omitting some important information from the recent past of presidential primaries but also of making a fairly large assumption in regard to the 2012 nomination process.

Let me address the latter first. I will be among the first in line (and was) to commend the parties for their ad hoc coordination of the two sets of rules governing presidential nominations for the 2012 cycle. [The intra-party groups -- the GOP Temporary Delegate Selection Committee and the Democratic Change Commission -- were not ad hoc, but the inter-party efforts were.] FHQ said soon after the 2008 cycle was complete that the parties working together was a necessary, if not sufficient, way of reigning in the frontloading that has "plagued" the process essentially since it was reformed during the 1968 nomination process. But the national parties merely changing their rules for presidential selection is but one piece to this puzzle. There is a whole process that will begin playing out as soon as the midterm elections are over in November. Once the newly elected state legislatures begin sessions in early 2011 by filing -- or not filing -- bills to change the election laws of states across the country, we'll begin to understand whether this will be a harmonious process or not. While the GOP may have their "sticks" and the Democrats their "carrots", eighteen states must still alter their election laws to shift their primaries to later dates and thus back into compliance with the national parties' presidential selection rules.

FHQ will not say that this is impossible.* We will, however, point out that those eighteen states represent eighteen opportunities for shirking. That shirking, in turn, poses a threat to an unraveling of the whole process. And yes, Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina will sit on the sidelines and wait as other states act -- or don't act. Those "Entitled Four" will bide their time and shift the dates on which their contests occur accordingly; earlier than everyone else.

Will really need look no further than Florida and Michigan in 2008 for examples of this. Actually, it is fundamentally irresponsible for him to have omitted the two violators from the last cycle from his column. The Florida and Michigan examples hold the key to the 2012 process. States will either follow the rules as most have throughout the post-McGovern-Fraser reform era or they will treat Florida and Michigan in 2008 as a sea change; a states' rights sea change. States' rights is a loaded term in American political history, but in this case, it is appropriate if only because the states will have the option to flex their muscles, if they so choose, against the national parties' sanctions. As I have argued, the states have the incentive to balk at the rules simply because the penalties are not strong enough.

I guess we'll start finding out in January when the newly elected state legislatures convene in state capitals across the nation.

*It should be noted that Arkansas as well as Illinois and Montana Republicans have moved their contests for 2012 back already.

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Pence for President Gets and Assist from the Value Voters Straw Poll

Indiana congressmen, Mike Pence, just topped the fifth Value Voters Summit straw poll (723 voters) for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination. [No, the group isn't expressly aligned with the Republican Party, so it was for the whole thing and not just the GOP nomination. However, there weren't a whole lot of Democrats in attendance.] Here's how the ledger looked when members of the group had cast their votes:

• Mike Pence (24%)
• Mike Huckabee (22%)
• Mitt Romney (13%)
• Newt Gingrich (10%)
• Sarah Palin (7%)
• Rick Santorum (5%)
• Jim DeMint (5%)
• Bobby Jindal (2%)
• Mitch Daniels (2%)
• Chris Christie (2%)
• John Thune (2%)
• Bob McDonnell (1%)
• Marco Rubio (1%)
• Paul Ryan (1%)
• Haley Barbour (1%)
• Ron Paul (1%)
• Jan Brewer (less than 1%)

Pence is the real surprise here. If you were going to pick a Hoosier to have a good shot at the Republican nomination, you might have opted for Mitch Daniels instead of Pence. Yet, there Pence is, having doubled his share of the vote from last year's straw poll, on top. Sure Sarah Palin is on the low end in terms of share of the vote, but she was not in attendance. Neither was Tim Pawlenty, who pulled his name off the ballot because he wasn't going to be there. The Minnesota governor was in a similar position to Pence a year ago and there is no telling how he would have fared this year. Finally, Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney essentially maintained similar shares of the straw poll vote as they did in 2009.

Does this result prompt Pence to jump in? Well, it is a little early still, but it might give him something to think about. Once the calendar turns to 2011, we will start seeing Republicans line up to throw their hat in the ring for the nomination. That's the next step.

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Will the Tea Party Pull Extend to the 2012 GOP Nomination?

The back and forth this morning concerning the long-term impact of Christine O'Donnell's primary victory in Delaware last night has been interesting to say the least. First of all, I don't think we know the long-term effect of her victory or those of other Tea Party-backed candidates during the 2010 primary season. Talk coming out of the 2008 election was that the Republican Party had a choice in the face of such a sweeping defeat: 1) shift to the right in an effort to purify the party or 2) take the pragmatic route and just win, baby. Last night's results were a microcosm of that battle. A moderate, electable, yet not terribly popular candidate (Mike Castle) lost to a more ideologically, if not extreme, candidate (O'Donnell). But will this rightward shift in some primary races in 2010 extend to the battle for the Republican presidential nomination race in 2012?

First Read answers with the question with an absolute: "One thing is certainly clear, however: This temporary evolution within the Republican Party will end up pushing the 2012 GOP presidential field more to the right."

Joe Scarborough finds a surge and decline type of pattern in past midterm to GOP nomination elections. In other words, a rightward, corrective shift in the midterms will yield a more establishmentarian two years down the road in a presidential nomination race.

Hmmm. Which one is right? In FHQ's mind, neither. Scarborough cites the 1966 Republican Revolution followed by the nomination and subsequent election of Richard Nixon and the 1994 Contract with America wave and the 1996 nomination of Bob Dole as examples. Well, 1966/68 is not particularly applicable since it occurred prior to the McGovern-Fraser reforms that reshaped how presidential nominees were (and are) chosen. Primary and caucus results were not binding on the nomination decision made later at the convention. To say, then, that an establishment candidate was chosen is a no-brainer. Of course an establishment candidate was chosen. The establishment chose them; in this case, Richard Nixon. That leave us with the 1994/96 example. Even if we could count 1966/68, we're talking about just two data points and that just isn't often going to yield anything conclusive. It is all we have, but it isn't necessarily a representative sample. In fact, the odds are that those two examples are not representative at all.

But let's focus on 1994/96, but let's take a micro view of the context of those two elections instead of the macro brush Scarborough is painting this with. If we follow the surge and decline theory that 1992 and Clinton's victory brought with it a series of Democratic victories that otherwise wouldn't have been in Congress, then 1994 was a huge, rightward correction to that shift. But was 1996 and the Republican nomination of Bob Dole that year an example of a correction to that "overreach"?

Possibly, but how could that be measured? One way to look at that race is by looking at the field of candidates. Gingrich was the face of 1994 and there really was not a Gingrich-type candidate who entered the race for the 1996 Republican presidential nomination. Pat Buchanan made some waves with some early primary victories and could stake some claim to the mantle of rightward shift representative, but to FHQ's recollection he was not a direct extension of Gingrich and the Contract Republicans he brought with him in 1994. The story of that race was that Dole outlasted both Buchanan and the self-funded effort Steve Forbes made. It had little to do with a battle for the soul of the Republican Party. There was no purist versus establishment battle in 1996, and if there was the establishment won a pyrrhic victory. Dole was so cash-strapped from winning the nomination race that he had no way to counter Clinton's efforts to define the Kansas senator and former majority leader over the summer.

But was Dole an establishment counter to a purist overreach in 1994? I don't know that that is the conclusion to be reached. Given a limited field of candidates against a president on the rise after the 1995 government shutdown, Republican primary voters opted for their best chance to win. That just happened to be the next guy in line.

All told, 1994/96 is 1994/96 and 2010/12 will likely hold some similarities, but also some differences. First Read takes things too far in terms of the likelihood of a shift to the right in the Republican nomination race. It should be said before I go any further that a lot of this talk hinges on the assumption that the 2012 environment will (closely?) resemble what we are witnessing in 2010. That obviously isn't necessarily the case. Much can change in two years. It wasn't all that long ago that some were speculating on the potential impact the Sonia Sotomayor nomination would have on Democratic chances in Texas (in the electoral college) in 2012. However, if we follow that assumption and 2010 manifests itself in the form of presidential candidates (Palin or Jim DeMint, for example) in 2012, then perhaps there is something to the theory of a rightward shift in the 2012 Republican nomination race. The impact is likely to be similar to 1994/96, but for different reasons.

The end result -- a weakened nominee -- will be the same, but how Republicans get there will be slightly different. In that scenario, the fight would be between the grassroots and the establishment. Let's say that both factions quickly narrow their options down to one each. Let's say Palin and Romney for illustrative purposes. At that point, the reaction in some Republican circles will be that a competitive, two-person race is a good thing for the party in the same that Clinton and Obama yielded an energized base of Democrats in 2008. There is one major flaw in that premise though: While Clinton/Obama felt like a fight for the soul of the Democratic Party at times, the truth was that the two potential nominees were not all that fundamentally different. They weren't candidates from two different factions of the party so much as they were candidates who fared well with particular constituencies within the Democratic primary electorate. A Romney versus Palin or establishment versus grassroots battle for the 2012 Republican nomination is a different animal. That is a fight that potentially tips the balance of the race from beneficial due to competitiveness to detrimental because of divisiveness.

In the end, will 2012 represent a correction or a continued shift to the right? The answer is somewhere in the middle of those two absolutes and much of it depends on the environment in 2010 extending to 2012.

UPDATE: Of course now the establishment is jumping behind O'Donnell.

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Gallup on 2012: Obama in a Deadlock with Generic Republican

Oh, and there was an open-ended GOP primary question too. [Here's the Gallup release.]

2012 General Election

Obama: 44%

Republican: 42%

Other: 3%

Not Sure: 11%

Sample: 1025 adults (nationwide)

Margin of Error: +/- 4%

Conducted: Feb 1-3, 2010

Notes: Obama garners nearly 90% support from Democrats and the Republican gets 86% from Republicans in the survey. Among independents, though, the GOP holds a 45%-31% advantage over the president.

2012 GOP Primary Race

Romney: 14%

Palin: 11%

McCain: 7%

(Scott) Brown: 4%

Huckabee: 3%

Gingrich: 3%

Paul: 2%

Pawlenty: 1%

(Bob) McDonnell: 1%

Fred Thompson: 1%

Jindal: 1%

Other: 10%

None/No Opinion: 42%

Sample: 495 Republicans or Republican-leaning independents (nationwide)

Margin of Error: +/-5%

Conducted: Feb 1-3, 2010

Notes: That's a lot of survey respondents who have no opinion or chose no one. Despite that lack of a clear "face of the party," the generic GOP candidate still fares rather well against the president. Yes, generics usually do pretty well, but still, it isn't a bad place to be if you happen to be on the right.

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Palin for President

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MA Senate Special: Open Thread

Public Policy Polling: December 2009 Presidential Trial Heats In Depth

You can find the archive of all the 2012 trial heat polls here.

In a month when President Obama slipped into the 40s against each Republican polled against him in a hypothetical 2012 general election match up (via Public Policy Polling [pdf]), things obviously were not looking that good across the board. In an overall sense, we quickly get a feel for that tightening simply by looking at the trendlines for each of the prospective Republican presidential aspirants (There's now even a trendline for Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty -- see below and in the left sidebar).

[Click to Enlarge]

Obama: 46%
Huckabee: 45%
Undecided: 9%

[Click to Enlarge]

Obama: 50%
Palin: 44%
Undecided: 6%

[Click to Enlarge]

Obama: 48%
Pawlenty: 35%
Undecided: 17%

[Click to Enlarge]

Obama: 47%
Romney: 42%
Undecided: 12%

Margin of Error: +/- 2.8%
Sample: 1253 registered voters (nationwide)
Conducted: December 4-7, 2009

There isn't really much to the poll other than to say that overall, things are much closer than they were, say, at the beginning of PPP's process of looking at the the 2012 back in March (Palin) and April (Gingrich, Huckabee, Romney added). And that largely tracks with the president's approval numbers throughout the year. FHQ would be remiss, though, if we didn't at least bring up a few nuggets from the internals of the poll.

On the 2008 presidential vote:

• Huckabee does the best of any of the Republican candidates at pulling together the most McCain voters (85%) and minimizing the number of repeat Obama voters (89%). The former Arkansas governor was the only Republican to keep Obama's support among his former voters below 90%.

On ideology:

• President Obama is still approaching 90% approval among liberals and is right at two-thirds approval among moderates. Not surprisingly, the president is taking the biggest hit among self-described conservatives (only 15% approve).
• Sarah Palin is the most favorable candidate to conservatives, but both she and Mike Huckabee garner 79% support from the group against the president.
  

On age:

• Obama consistently loses the 65+ set and essentially breaks even (to slightly loses) the 46-65 demographic to all the Republicans polled. However, the president is well above 50% with everyone under 45.

On race:

• Palin is the most favorable Republican among Hispanic respondents, but only reaches 37% favorability. The president continues to hold over 90% support among registered African American voters and about two-thirds of Hispanic voters against all four Republicans.

On gender:

• Men still prefer Republicans and women Obama, but this is noteworthy because it is the first time Sarah Palin has led the president among men (48-45) in a PPP survey.
  

On region:

• The quirk is gone (...in December at least). Obama didn't sweep the South as he has on several other occasions in these PPP polls. Instead, the president was swept in the region where the Republican Party found its base in the 2008 presidential election. More troubling to Obama from an electoral standpoint is that the president was swept by all four Republicans in the midwest. The president was able to make inroads in the peripheral South in 2008 and can potentially afford to jettison states like Virginia and North Carolina in 2012. But if Michigan and Indiana and Ohio begin to creep into the mix in terms of competitiveness, things could get interesting in the fall of 2012. Much of that will depend on the state of the economy, though.
  

What will January and a new year bring? Stay tuned.


Recent Posts:
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PPP: 2012 Presidential Trial Heats (Dec. '09): Huckabee within 1 Point of Obama

Democrats and Republicans Unified on a March Primary Start? All Signs Point Toward Yes

PPP: 2012 Presidential Trial Heats (Dec. '09): Huckabee within 1 Point of Obama

Public Policy Polling [pdf] today released their monthly look at the 2012 presidential playing field. Here's a quick look a the toplines (I'll be back later with a full analysis and updated figures.*):

Obama: 46%
Huckabee: 45%
Undecided: 9%

Obama: 50%
Palin: 44%
Undecided: 6%

Obama: 48%
Pawlenty: 35%
Undecided: 17%

Obama: 47%
Romney: 42%
Undecided: 12%


Margin of Error: +/- 2.8%
Sample: 1253 registered voters (nationwide)
Conducted: December 4-7, 2009

Quick notes:
1) Palin is ahead of Obama among men (a first).
2) Obama didn't sweep the South this month. Every GOP candidate was ahead of the president in the region most loyal to the GOP and the midwest isn't looking too good either.
3) Huckabee was the only Republican to break even in terms of favorability/unfavorability. The other three Republicans had higher unfavorables.
4) Palin still has yet to bring Obama under the 50% mark in these PPP polls.

*Two polls now for Pawlenty (v. Obama) means we have a new trendline to add to the sidebar.


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Coakley, Brown Win Parties' Nods in MA Senate Specials

Huckabee's Favorability in the Post-Commutation Environment

Who Gains the Most if Huckabee's Out for 2012?

Bill Pascoe says, in Iowa, Rick Santorum or Unknown Republican X have the most to gain. [This post is great if only for the explanation of the differences in caucus rules between the parties in Iowa.]

Nate Silver is of the opinion that the latter may also find some benefit (...in the nomination race).

Who is Unknown Republican X? FHQ's money is on John Thune. But is he more 2016 material than 2012?

Thoughts?

Hat tip to Paul Gurian for the link.


Recent Posts:
The Links (12/1/09)

Washington Post Poll: 2012 GOP Primary Race

Rasmussen 2012 Trial Heats (Nov. '09): Another Tie for Romney Against Obama

Public Policy Polling: November 2009 Presidential Trial Heats In Depth

NOTE: Please note that you can now track past updates of these trial heat polls by clicking here or on the "2012 trial heat polls" tag at the bottom of the post.

For the ninth straight month Public Policy Polling released a series of 2012 presidential trial heat polls matching President Obama up against four prospective Republican candidates. And despite the fact that Obama slipped below 50% for the first time in a few polls this past week (see Gallup, Quinnipiac, PPP), the president wasn't in any significantly different position relative to the Republicans than he was a month ago; just under 50% against all but Sarah Palin and still ahead across the board. Yet, this month while Mike Huckabee remained the closest to the president, he was not alone in that distinction. Mitt Romney climbed to within five points of the president as well, climbing above the 40% mark for the first time in any PPP poll this year.

[Click to Enlarge]

Obama: 49%
Huckabee: 44%
Undecided: 7%

That said, Huckabee does better consolidating the conservative and Republican bases. Romney, however, nearly evenly divides the independent support with the president. And that really demonstrates the current tension within the GOP; the battle we've been talking about here at FHQ since Obama claimed victory a year ago. Will Republicans nominate someone in 2012 from a far more conservative background than, say, John McCain, or will efforts be made to make the party's nominee more inviting to independent voters? That continues to be the question as 2009 draws to a close.

[Click to Enlarge]

Obama: 51%
Palin: 43%
Undecided: 5%

What's more, this poll from PPP is not without its quirks. [No poll ever is, really.] First, the same bizarre regional disparity that popped up in the polling firm's July poll again reared its head this month. Obama inexplicably swept the South (except for a tie with Ron Paul) again while losing out completely in the midwest. I can foresee the midwest potentially being a problem for Obama in 2012, but there's absolutely no way that the South is vulnerable to Obama inroads; not even if Steve Schmidt's catastrophe occurs. Palin, indeed, proves to be trailing by the largest margin (a distinction shared with Ron Paul), but still loses the South while winning the midwest against the president.

[Click to Enlarge]

Obama: 46%
Paul: 38%
Undecided: 16%

If that wasn't enough, Paul actually pulls Obama's support to its lowest level in any of PPP's surveys this year. But is that Ron Paul's impact or is the Texas congressman merely serving, as I asked earlier today, as a proxy for a generic Republican in a hypothetical race against Obama? There are enough undecideds in that match up to raise that question. Independents are not necessarily on board with Paul, but Democrats are least with Obama against Paul than against any other Republican in the survey. As Christian Heinze at GOP12 asked, "Is an Anybody But Obama theme starting to take hold?" Intriguing as that question is, FHQ is almost more interested in a slightly different question: Is an Anybody but Huckabee/Palin/Romney theme starting. Certainly, neither question is being answered very adequately at this point, not in the direct context of the 2012 race anyway. Newt Gingrich, Jeb Bush and especially Tim Pawlenty did not see anywhere near the numbers Paul has in this particular poll. And I say "especially" in Pawlenty's case because he doesn't carry the baggage that Gingrich and Bush carry and is unknown enough to potentially fill the void of generic Republican in a ballot question. But Pawlenty from last month lags well behind Paul's numbers here.

[Click to Enlarge]

Obama: 48%
Romney: 43%
Undecided: 9%

All in all, it was another interesting round of numbers from the good folks over in Raleigh. Ron Paul may have earned a spot in next month's poll simply due to his showing here. We'll see.
__________________________
NOTE: And just as a bonus, here's the updated Obama/Gingrich trendline. And no, it isn't so much an update as a reminder that Gingrich has not been polled against Obama since August.

[Click to Enlarge]

Recent Posts:
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Update on GOP Temporary Delegate Selection Committee Meeting

Ex Post Facto: Why Do New Jersey and Virginia Have Those Off-Off Year Elections Anyway?

PPP: 2012 Presidential Trial Heats: Huckabee's Still on Top but He's Got Company

Public Policy Polling [pdf] today released their monthly look at the 2012 presidential playing field. Here's a quick look a the toplines (I'll be back later with a full analysis and updated figures.):

Obama: 49%
Huckabee: 44%
Undecided: 7%

Obama: 51%
Palin: 43%
Undecided: 5%

Obama: 46%
Paul: 38%
Undecided: 16%

Obama: 48%
Romney: 43%
Undecided: 9%

Margin of Error: +/- 3%
Sample: 1066 registered voters (nationwide)
Conducted: November 13-15, 2009

FHQ's biggest question? Is Ron Paul a proxy for a generic Republican candidate? Obama fares worst against the Texas congressman. And remember, this is among registered voters and not likely voters.


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Update on GOP Temporary Delegate Selection Committee Meeting

Ex Post Facto: Why Do New Jersey and Virginia Have Those Off-Off Year Elections Anyway?

GOP Temporary Delegate Selection Committee Meeting Today

Update on GOP Temporary Delegate Selection Committee Meeting

[UPDATE: Here's a rundown from CNN of the day that was at the Temporary Delegate Selection Committee meeting. There are some interesting tidbits there. FHQ will have a broader comment on the piece later on.]

As has been the case with other Temporary Delegate Selection Committee meetings, news from within the event (yesterday's meeting in Washington) took a bit of time to surface. Just as a refresher, the TDSC is the 15 member group that is charged with examining the rules under which the 2012 Republican presidential nomination will be governed. The group has met before, but very little has come out in terms of what they have been considering. Sure, there's been talk of regional primaries and perhaps even an instant runoff system, but the information that has come out of these handful of meetings has paled in comparison to the cornucopial plethora of news that has emerged from the two Democratic Change Commission meetings. Now granted, it always helps when there are people on the inside who are willing to share (Suzi LeVine and Frank Leone to a name a couple.) publicly.

But did anything groundbreaking come out of the meeting yesterday? It depends on what you mean by groundbreaking. Nothing was released that in any way fundamentally reshaped the way in which Republican presidential nominees are selected. But that won't come until the group settles in on a decision to do so (...if then). What we do have are a couple of inside accounts. The first comes from TDSC member and former Michigan Republican Party chair, Saul Anuzis. The meeting was a late-day affair, so his tweets of the events didn't start appearing until 5pm. Here are a few of Anuzis' observations (via Twitter):

1. RNC 2012 Rules underway Huckabee, Giuliani managers have testified. SOS from WA now testifying.

2. RNC 2012 hearing options on timing, rotational options, primary vs caucus systems.

3. RNC 2012 has strong contingency from NH, IA and SC:)

4. RNC 2012 update, this will be the last public hearing with lots of ideas coming forward. Detailed proposals coming at December mtg.

5. RT @dcseth: @sanuzis Any talk of closed primaries? // no...that is up to states.

Let's put the pieces together:

The group heard from Chip Saltsman (Huckabee's former campaign manager) and, I'd guess, Michael DuHaime (from the Giuliani campaign in 2008). I can verify the former (Anuzis and Saltsman shared a call and response on Twitter following the meeting.), but the latter is, as I said, a guess. DuHaime is a part of the Christ Christie gubernatorial transition team in New Jersey (not that that has anything to do with this). [Ah, here's confirmation that DuHaime spoke before the TDSC.]

Also speaking before the committee was Washington Secretary of State Sam Reed. FHQ has discussed Reed in the past. Earlier in the year, he was urging RNC chair, Michael Steele, to fill out the Temporary Delegate Selection Committee with other secretaries of state. [There are none.] For his part, Reed toed the company line: He pushed for the National Association of Secretaries of State's rotating regional primary plan. But he also added that voters would prefer a later start to the process and that "There is a growing call for a process that is logical, orderly and fair."

Anuzis' second tweet seems to have been borne out of some of Reed's comments or at least a discussion stemming from it. [We've heard about the rotating regional primaries before, so I asked him about the timing aspect in relation to what the Democrats are planning on. I'm still waiting to hear back.]

Are you surprised that Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina had large contingents in attendance? No, I wasn't either. The last two points were more worthwhile anyway. Firstly, the next TDSC meeting will be in December when they will hear "detailed proposals." Again, the RNC isn't slated to vote on anything coming out of these meetings until next summer. Still, the GOP will have something on the table by the end of the year, the point at which the Democratic Change Commission will make their recommendations to the DNC.

Finally, we also see that the neither the TDSC nor RNC are on the offensive to enact closed primaries (see recent FHQ discussion here). I briefly thought about a mass Republican switch to caucuses when I saw the "primaries vs. caucus systems" comment above, since caucuses are, on the whole, closed to independents and Democrats (from the Republican perspective). But Anuzis shoots that idea and the idea of the RNC forcing states to close their primaries (They can't.) down.

Now, what did we learn from all this? There won't be anymore closed primaries than there already are unless the state governments make a change or state parties opt out in favor of a party-funded caucus. [Yeah, you knew that already.] We also learned that there is another Temporary Delegate Selection Committee meeting next month.


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Either the Republican Party is quieter about their efforts at tinkering with their presidential nomination rules for 2012 or FHQ just doesn't have the right connections. We do have one that is consistently good, however. According to former Michigan Republican Party chair and TDSC member, Saul Anuzis, the group is meeting today in Washington. The group last met at the end of September. Very little information has emerged from any of the meetings thus far. Iowa and New Hampshire are safe in their first-in-the-nation status and there has been at least some discussion of regional primaries, and separately, a potential instant runoff system.

FHQ will update as news of the meeting surfaces. In the meantime, both Anuzi's Twitter account and blog are good places to check if you're impatient (...like FHQ).


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A Follow Up on Palin and Winner-Take-All Presidential Primaries

One caveat FHQ intended to include in yesterday's glimpse at the Palin Winner-Take-All hypothesis, but neglected to include was the fact that half of the winner-take-all states are not true winner-take-all states. [I think I may have just set the record for number of times using winner-take-all in one sentence.] Thankfully, I have a loyal group of readers/commenters (in this case MysteryPolitico) who are willing to point out these things. This is the power of the blogging platform.

Anyway, this is a significant factor in the scenario that Walter Shapiro constructed yesterday. If only 10 of the 21 winner-take-all contests are true, statewide winner-take-all primaries, then Sarah Palin's task of winning the 2012 Republican nomination in that fashion becomes all the more difficult. In most of the eleven states that are not true winner-take-all states, the delegate allocation is done at both the congressional district level and statewide level as opposed to simply taking the statewide vote. It would require, in other words, winning some contests within contests to pull off a sweep of a state that allocates delegates in this manner.

It can happen, but it is tough to pull off in a fragmented nomination race like the 2008 GOP contest. McCain, for instance, was able to win 36% of the vote in Florida and 55% of the vote in Maryland and come out with a sweep of both states' delegates.

2008 Republican Presidential Primaries (Winner-Take-All by District & Statewide)
State	Statewide Winner (2008)	% vote	% delegates
Florida	McCain	36	100
Maryland	McCain	55	100
Ohio	McCain	60	97
California	McCain	42	90
Wisconsin	McCain	55	85
Oklahoma	McCain	37	78
South Carolina	McCain	33	75
Georgia	Huckabee	34	71
Michigan	Romney	39	67
Alabama*	Huckabee	41	54
Indiana**	McCain	78	47
*Alabama is winner-take-all at the district level and proportional with the at-large delegates at the statewide level. **Indiana allocated approximately half (27 delegates) its delegates under winner-take-all rules by congressional district in its May primary. The remaining delegates were left uncommitted until a June convention where the other half (27 delegates) were allocated in addition to three unpledged, party leaders serving as delegates. Source: The Green Papers

If the 2012 nomination race winds up being as fragmented as 2008, then Palin faces a steeper climb than was even indicated yesterday. [Editorial note: FHQ is of the opinion that the race will not be as divided in terms of choice. It is incumbent upon the GOP to come to a quick decision on the party's 2012 presidential nominee or so the conventional wisdom holds. The Obama campaign might dispute that, arguing that the prolonged contest helped them in 2008 from an organizational standpoint. Perhaps, but 2012 election will feature an incumbent president with an organizational base already intact. It is much more similar to 2004 than 2008. Would John Kerry have benefited any from an extended primary battle with John Edwards? Would the additional organization have helped the Massachusetts senator against Bush in the fall? FHQ would wager that the answer would have been no.]

Let's look at this in a different way. The eleven states above accounted for 30.9% of the 2008 Republican delegates (777 delegates). Remember, those are the states that are not the true winner-take-all states. The true winner-take-all comprise a paltry 17.8% of the total number of Republican delegates in 2008 (447 delegates). Even if Palin were to sweep those 10 true winner-take-all contests, she would still be faced with likely having to clear 35% in some districts and statewide in those other winner-take-all states. And this doesn't even take into account the proportionally allocated states.

Again, if 65% of the Republican primary electorate is against Palin, her path through the Republican rules to the nomination becomes substantially more difficult, winner-take-all rules or not.


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[Please see a follow up to this post based on some of the comments below here.]

Walter Shapiro picked an opportune time to point out the fact that Sarah Palin could potentially exploit the Republican Party's presidential nomination rules to win the party's nomination in 2012. As I said a few weeks ago in a response to a post at A Plain Blog About Politics (Palin's Future), those approximately 20 states that have winner-take-all delegate allocation rules could prove to be a real boon to Palin's potential chances.

But there are two major caveats that apply:

1. Are these winner-take-all primaries also closed primaries?
2. When are these primaries actually scheduled?

On the first point, I think it is fair to say that, given recent polling Palin would do far better in any contest, winner-take-all or otherwise, if it is a contest closed to all but registered Republicans. She just isn't viewed as qualified among independents and Democrats. Now, yes, I'll grant you the fact that some Democrats may choose the "Operation Chaos" route and vote for the Republican with the lowest odds of beating President Obama, but I'm going to set that aside for now.

Secondly, timing plays a role here as well. Are all these winner-take-all primaries at the beginning of the process, at the end or fairly evenly distributed across the primary calendar? The earlier the better for Palin. If the winner-take-all contests bring up the rear, she likely would be winnowed before the race comes to those states. Since the parties are both re-examining how their presidential nominating calendars will look in 2012, there is a fair amount of uncertainty in this. However, based on current state laws across country, the calendar would look something like this if the parties decided to simply maintain the status quo. [The Democrats have already seemingly set into motion a plan to end all February primaries in all but the exempt states -- Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina.] If that calendar is the model, fifteen of the twenty states (plus Washington DC) with winner-take-all contests were on or before Super Tuesday. Again, early -- in this hypothesis at least -- is better for Palin than late.

2012 Primaries by Delegate Allocation Method and Timing
State	Primary Date	Closed	Open*
South Carolina	????		47**
Florida	1/31/12	114**
Alabama	2/7/12		48
California	2/7/12	173
Connecticut	2/7/12	30
Delaware	2/7/12	18
Georgia	2/7/12		72*
Missouri	2/7/12		58
New Jersey	2/7/12		52*
New York	2/7/12	101
Oklahoma	2/7/12	41
Utah	2/7/12		36*
District of Columbia	2/14/12	19
Maryland	2/14/12	37
Virginia	2/14/12		63
Wisconsin	2/21/12		40
Arizona	2/28/12	53
Michigan	2/28/12		60**
Ohio	3/6/12		88*
Vermont	3/6/12		17
Indiana	5/8/12		57
Total	48.64% of total 2008 delegates	586 delegates	638 delegates
*Included with open primaries here are primaries that allow only independents and not, in this case, Democrats to vote. **Assumes no 50% delegate reduction penalty for having gone earlier than that party-designated period for holding contests. Source: The Green Papers

Sure, technically, if Palin were to win all of the winner-take-all states, that would almost put her over the top (approximately 49% of the total number of delegates). But if she won all those, it is a safe bet that the former vice presidential nominee would receive an additional 2% of the total delegates in the proportional and loophole primary states to take the nomination. Again though, that is not how the presidential nomination process works. It is very much dependent upon timing and momentum.

...and the rules!

If you look at those closed primary states above, we're really talking about a more moderate, comparatively speaking, group of states. They are all primary states that McCain won in 2008. But in the context of that race, it was the first closed primary state (Florida) that mattered the most, and not that McCain was a more moderate candidate that appealed to moderate Republicans in closed primary states. It set the tone for the following week, Super Tuesday. And with the exception of Utah, the Arizona senator swept the winner-take-all states and stretched his delegate lead out to a nearly insurmountable margin.

Is there a scenario where Palin wins the Republican nomination? Yeah sure. If she can win Iowa and South Carolina -- eliminating Huckabee (assuming he runs) in the process -- she can attempt to turn whoever is left (especially if it is Mitt Romney and/or Tim Pawlenty) into Dede Scozzafava and the race into an ideological battle that she might be able to win. Of course, if Christian groups are attacking her abortion record, it may be difficult to see that scenario become reality.

The bottom line is that Palin would have to catch on in a major way to be able to take advantage of the winner-take-all rules. And honestly that would take quite the populist revolt against the Republican Party and its rules; something that has never happened. [And no, I don't count McCain as an exception to that rule.] As Jonathan Bernstein rightfully points out, if only 35% (as Shapiro indicates) of primary voters support Palin in the Republican primaries, it means that 65% are against her. Again, that would be an epic failure of the Republican rules that are set up to guard against that very thing: an insurgent candidate.


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Is the Idaho GOP Still After a Closed Primary?

From Ballot Access News:

Idaho is an open primary state and has never had registration by party. On primary day, any Idaho voter is free to choose any party’s primary ballot. Last year, the Idaho Republican Party filed a federal lawsuit, to force the state to give it a closed primary. But on September 4, 2009, U.S. District Court Judge B. Lynn Winmill ruled that the lawsuit requires a trial to determine whether it is true that voters hostile to the Republican Party have been voting in its primary. The Republican Party then said it would soon reveal its plans on how to proceed.

However, the party has not met the informal deadlines for revealing its plans for the trial. The Judge has set a status conference for November 30 to get an updated version of the party’s plans.

This sets off a series of questions. Usually, the courts yield to the parties on free association grounds, but it really is interesting to see how much this differs from state to state. In Idaho, the state Republican Party is demanding that the state government -- also dominated by Republican elected officials -- close the state's primaries. As the party argues, open primaries, like the ones held in Idaho for nearly four decades, potentially allow voters from outside the party to influence Republican nominations which by extension negatively impacts the party's freedom of association.

Why not, indeed?

What's interesting is that the same argument has been made in courts regarding open primaries. This movement in the courts -- at least on this particular question -- began with the 1986 Tashjian case before the Supreme Court. At issue in that instance was the fact that the Republican Party of Connecticut wanted to open up its primaries -- not close them as in the Idaho case -- but was prevented from doing so because of a Connecticut law, on the books since the 1950s, that kept primaries closed.

What did the Court decide?

Well, the Court sided with the Connecticut GOP: the law violated the party's rights to free association; specifically the party's right to invite -- in this case independents -- to vote in its nominating contests.

But this is a moving target, isn't it? Some states like Idaho or California have gone in quite the opposite direction. Faced with open primaries, parties in both the Gem state and the Golden state claimed that their free association rights were being threatened by partisans (and non-partisans, for that matter) of the other party. That the parties were unable to determine who would participate in its nominations was something Antonin Scalia, in the 7-2 opinion of the Court in the California Democratic Party v. Jones case, found to be "both severe and unnecessary."

That brings up an interesting distinction -- and there are several, actually -- between the California case and the one in Idaho. In California, all the major parties sued to have the blanket primary law invalidated. In Idaho, however, it is just the dominant Republican state party that is attempting to tear down the open primary system. The Democratic Party in Idaho could almost be considered a minor party in the state. And they could care less about the law simply because no or very few Republicans are crossing over to vote in the Democratic primaries. To top it off, the Democrats have often eschewed the primary as a means allocating presidential delegates; instead opting for a closed caucus on the state party's dime.

This, however, raises the biggest problem for the Idaho Republican Party in this case: the burden of proof is one the Republican Party. Their argument is that independents and Democrats could have undue influence (read: a moderating influence) on Republican nominations in the state. Proponents of the current open primaries law have simply said, "Prove it." In other words, how have nominations been negatively impacted by the inclusion of Democrats and independents in the process?

That's where this Idaho case is currently. It's stuck with the Idaho Republican Party trying to determine the extent to which Democrats and independents have made Republican nominees any less Republican/conservative. If Idaho Republicans want a closed primary or a closed nomination process, they are either going to have to do what the Democrats have done at the presidential level (Though, truth be told, Democrats in Idaho use a caucus as a means of keeping out Republicans and limiting, through a caucus, who participates and decides how delegates are allocated. See Meinke, et al. (2006) for more.) or just deal with it.

For now, though, it doesn't look like this particular case is going anywhere.

Read more about the Idaho case here and here.


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[UPDATE: Ah, here are the Rasmussen numbers on Pawlenty in 2012.]

If the Minnesota governor follows these numbers (or if they stay the same as 2012 approaches), the answer to that will perhaps be no.

PPP's tweeting about them, Pollster is reporting them, but Rasmussen isn't sharing them. Apparently, somewhere behind the pay wall, Rasmussen is showing in its latest survey of Minnesota that Governor Tim Pawlenty would only have the votes of 42% of Minnesotans if he were to run for president and win the Republican nomination in 2012. 46% would not vote for him. No, that's not necessarily a vote for Obama because the president's name was not used in the question, but it does provide a sense of just how blue Minnesota is.

Here's the question:

Suppose Governor Tim Pawlenty runs for President in 2012 and wins the Republican nomination. If Pawlenty was the Republican Presidential candidate, would you vote for him?
Yes 42%
No 46%

This isn't a true trial heat, but it would have been interesting to have seen how the answers to the two questions (the one above and a head-to-head with Obama) would have differed. My hunch is that the difference would have been similar to the difference between polling an incumbent (for any office) against both an actual named opponent or a generic, unnamed one. Look, for instance, at Sen. Burr's numbers in the latest Public Policy Polling survey of the 2010 race for Senate in North Carolina. Burr performs better against named opposition than against Generic Democrat X and I would assume that Pawlenty's numbers above would decrease if we were talking about a ballot question pitting the Minnesota governor against President Obama.

That said, these numbers aren't all that bad. Sure, Tim Pawlenty has the name recognition in his home state that he lacks elsewhere, but in a state where Obama is still garnering higher approval than disapproval numbers -- though that margin has shrunk -- I wouldn't rank this as an awful showing for the governor.

What we're really missing here is a time trend. Rasmussen keeps asking different questions about Pawlenty in regards to the 2012 presidential race in these Minnesota polls. In March, we got this:

Should Tim Pawlenty run for President in 2012?

22% Yes
61% No
17% Not sure

And in May, Rasmussen asked something slightly different:

How likely is it that Governor Pawlenty will run for President?

17% Very likely
42% Somewhat likely
24% Not very likely
5% Not at all likely
11% Not sure

Fine, how likely is it that Governor Pawlenty will win the Republican Presidential nomination in 2012?

7% Very likely
30% Somewhat likely
39% Not very likely
16% Not at all likely
8% Not sure

No, those aren't flattering numbers for someone in their own state, but this is exactly the reason Pawlenty is making the moves he is in relation to 2012 (starting a PAC, traveling the nation, raising money, etc.). Put simply, he is at a disadvantage relative to the other prospective Republican candidates (Huckabee, Palin and Romney).


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