Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Pat Caddell wants to negatively Influence the outcome of the Republican Primaries through a little smoke and mirrors

Fox News contributor Pat Caddell co-wrote and article urging Democrats and INDEPENDENTS to write-in Hillary Clinton in the presidential primaries. GUESS WHERE he wants all this to begin? NEW HAMPSHIRE!

In an article  co-wrote with Doug Shoen he writes,
We argued in a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed piece that President Barack Obama should stand down and let Secretary of State Hillary Clinton run as the Democratic presidential nominee in 2012.

We are now calling on Democratic voters nationally — particularly in New Hampshire — to organize a write-in campaign for Clinton. This is something that New Hampshire voters have a long history of doing.

We advocate this Draft Hillary movement not because of the desire to make political mischief — but to put the country on the right course.

[...]
New Hampshire is one state where grass-roots politics predominates. As presidential historian Theodore White wrote in 1965, New Hampshire’s primary allows candidates “to appeal directly to people” and “over the heads of the politicians.”

This primary — traditionally well before other primaries — allows independents to cast ballots for either Democrats or Republicans, unlike most other “closed primaries,” in which only registered Democrats and Republicans can vote on their respective parties’ ballots. It’s justly famous for write-in candidates, who often had substantial success. (emphasis mine)
Read the rest of the article HERE.

In my opinion, this bit of smoke and mirrors, appears to be nothing more than an attempt by Caddell and Shoen in trying to influence the outcome of the New Hampshire Republican primary. By getting independents to vote on the Democratic ballot rather than Republican, they decrease the amount of independents who would have voted Republican.  This hurts Mitt Romney the most, who at this point is running away with the independent vote in 99.9% of the polls there. Looks to me as if Caddell and company are hoping to siphon enough independent votes away from the Republican primary in hopes of some other weaker ABR candidate squeaking by under the radar.

I wouldn't have written this post if I hadn't seen Caddell Monday on the Neil Cavuto Show giving the same spiel to millions of Cavuto's viewers. Mr. Caddell needs to keep his dumb ideas to himself.

If INDEPENDENT voters REALLY want to send a protest vote, VOTE REPUBLICAN, choose a candidate closest to your views, and pull the lever.

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11 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is typical of Fox news to try something underhanded like this.

Kim said...

This doesn't surprise me. Caddell takes every opportunity to belittle Romney. I've seen him do it more than once on Hannity's panel.

It's obvious his goal is for Republicans to choose their weakest candidate against Obama.

Terrye said...

Yeah right...

People complain about open vs closed primaries and stunts like this all the time, but in truth anyone could change their party registration. In fact, since Obama is not facing a primary challenge Democrats could change their registration just to vote in the primary for the Republicans..and then vote for Obama.

In Indiana, we do not register..but you can only vote in one primary {obviously}. And this is a conservative state overall. Our Governor and legislature are Republican. I think the Democrats stole enough votes to help Obama sneak past with half a percent in 2008...that and the idiot libertarian took enough votes on the right to mess things up.

Teemu said...

I don't think it would hurt Romney that much in primary. In PPP poll when he overall got 35%, among Republicans he got 41%, even birthers aren't nutty enough to go for Gingrich (37% for Romney, 24% for Gingrich). He got 28% among independents and only 10% among Democrats, who would most likely participate in write-in, so I don't think it would hurt him.

marK said...

Personally, I find this more amusing than disturbing.

Last cycle, Rush Limbaugh urged his listeners to vote for Hillary in the Democratic primaries of their states to help sow discard. I dare say Rush has far more zealous fans than Caddell ever will, but it was all for naught. Obama won easily anyway.

So let fools spin their plots and schemes. These things usually end up having little or no effect.

Ben said...

Teemu,

"so I don't think it would hurt him (Romney)."

Why would you want to find out? A symbolic vote for hillary Clinton is a wasted vote and certainly not a protest vote but a vote for the status quo.

Caddell is wrong asking Independents to do this.

Teemu said...

Yeah considering that the Gallup polls the Obama approval curve for Dems is pretty close to Kennedy's approval curve throughout his whole term, and that Clinton just barely achieved Obama level approval (80%) among Dems at this point of his term, it is obvious that even if there was some protest votes, it don't really count considering the overall Dem approval.

Obama wont be voted out in Dem primaries, and if he had some healthy humility, he wouldn't have ran for president at that phase of his career anyway, so unlikely that he would just decide not to run for re-election.

Elizabetty said...

OK, lets start showing recent pictures of Hillary to the voters in New Hampshire! She looks completely exhausted, in no way able to handle being POTUS or even running a campaign.

Anonymous said...

To me it is quite obvious that we will have 4 more years of Obama. When you have news organizations like FOX,MSM and Republican pundits ripping on all of the GOP candidates and implying that they are all weak candidates then you have pretty much set the stage for a third party run by some billionaire like Trump,Bloomberg or a Soros sponsored tool.

They will justify this move due to the narrative set forth by the MSM that the GOP is weak. These billionaires could care less about an Obama victory because they will become more powerful because they are the ones with all of the money and control.

The media and the conservative radio hosts would love an Obama victory because their ratings will continue to soar.

Anonymous said...

He looks like a hairy fish.

CRUZ COUNTRY said...

The Hillary write-in vote could actually HELP Romney in New Hampshire, since Dems & Indies who were planning on sabotaging the GOP primary by voting for Gingrich, Paul or some other weak GOP candidate whom Obama would crush, may now vote for Hillary instead.