Archive for January, 2012
The Unelectable Presidential Candidate??
By Dr. Harold Pease
The day before the Iowa primary the Des Moines Register reported that 41% of Iowans still remained undecided with respect to their choice for president which strongly indicates that no one has yet “touched” a majority of the Republican Party—far from it! Nor did Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum together, each with 25% of the vote, capture even a simple majority. Third place went to Ron Paul with 22%, who was short only 4,000 votes from taking first place. So, it appears the Republicans are not enthused by anyone. This aside, let us look at the race from another perspective, what I call the negative index. Who was the most negatively targeted presidential candidate, but still had good numbers, perhaps the “real” winner?
To the question, “Who is least likely to win the Republican Party nomination and defeat President Barack Obama? The answer was, and is, always Congressman Ron Paul. “Ron Paul is OK but he is not electable.” Who said so! Virtually every radio or television commentator or pundit from MSNBC to Fox News has so said. The chorus includes virtually every columnist and major newspaper in the country as well. Probably no presidential candidate in our history has had more organized opposition. Whether you like Ron Paul or not the fact remains that despite the intensity of this opposition, over one in five Iowans voted for him. Moreover, a vast majority of the funding from Super PACs was targeted against Paul and Newt Gingrich. Newt tumbled to fourth place and Paul to third but one wonders what might have happened if Romney or Santorum had received similar negative—even hostile—coverage.
