Friday, March 4, 2011

The Economist: ranks the 2012er field

BY THE absurdly elongated standards of American politics, next year’s presidential election is not that far away. It is less than a year until the first primaries and caucuses. By this time four years ago eight Republicans and ten Democrats had already thrown their hats in the ring; so far this year no serious candidate has done so, though Newt Gingrich, a former House speaker, has supposedly been on the point of declaring for some days. No presidential election, in fact, has got off to such a slow start since 1992—when, as now, there was an incumbent president and no obvious front-runner ready to take him on. There is no shortage of Republicans who consider themselves presidential timber, of course. But their slowness to register officially as candidates is an indication of the peculiar dynamics of the race.
The following is what they consider a 'very rough' ranking of the GOP field:


The full story and analysis can be found HERE.

12 comments:

hamaca said...

A lot of those pros/cons are very funny!

John said...

Agree with hamaca :) I think they sum it up quite well.

OhioJOE said...

This is the biggest bunch of non-sense I have seen all week. So, it is a con to be either a Mormon (Mr. Romney and Mr. Huntsman) or an Evangelical, (Mr. Huckabee.) Oh and haha, Mrs. Palin scares everybody? I thought we were told she is not feared. What is the real story?

Noelle said...

Link to the "full story and analysis" didn't work.

BOSMAN said...

Thanks Noelle,

It works now!

Anonymous said...

She scares me.

Anonymous said...

Those cons are mostly lame, with an occasional truism thrown in. And I agree with OJ.

Noelle said...

Thanks Bos,
Regarding the pros and cons, while I tend to agree with the generalized list of pros, I don't agree with many of the cons. T-Paw's charisma is not much of an issue to me, but his lack of name recognition, and the fact that his message is unknown are his biggest problems at this time, in my opinion. I don't know what the "she scares everyone" is based on, but I think Sarah Palin's biggest problem, in my opinion, is that she is politically immature. It is reflected in her constant sniping with the press and her tendency to use inflammatory language which continues to turn away those who don't already support her. (If she's going to win she needs to build her coalition, not expand the chasm.) Mike Huckabee, where to start. I don't care if he's evangelical, but I think he's petty, vindictive, hypocritical, dishonest, and shows poor judgment. Newt Gingrich's biggest problem is his history of affairs. Regardless of his message that will stay in the forefront.

As a Romney supporter, I don't find Mitt "wooden" at all. I find his competence, his history of success and his demeanor to be inspiring. As a Mormon I don't really have a problem with him being a Mormon either. The "flip-flop" label I think is silly. The only policy issue he has "flipped" on is abortion, but since he flipped the direction I like, and the fact that others have done the same, I don't have a problem with that either. His greatest weakness, in my opinion, is the attacks (many of which I feel are unjust) he continues to get because of his MA health care reform.

Anonymous said...

(very rough) = lazy. If they are going to bother with it, why not do it reasonably right?

-Martha

Dave said...

The pros and cons should have been done in a serious way. As it is, they were too cute by half and not worthy of being introduced into the dialogue.

The list itself, however, is pretty good and reflects the reality of the race.

phil said...

I agree with the rankings. However the pros and cons are for the most part BS.

Revolution 2012 said...

The rankings seem fine.