What Paul's campaign stands to learn from the Polls

I don’t think it necessary for me to dwell on Gingrich’s near meteoric rise or on Cain’s meteoric plummet – or Perry’s or Bachman’s for that matter. There are plenty of folks out there already doing a terrific job on those subjects, although I wonder if anything could spell out the situation more clearly than this
From that graph, it is clear that the Republican establishment is doing everything in its power to avoid nominating what until a few months ago was the safe bet for the Republican establishment. So, we get a Republican primary race that samples as many candidates as Baskin Robbins samples seasonal flavours, although it remains to be seen whether or not the establishment gets fed up and just settles on the vanilla option of Romney.
I’m not going to speculate one whether or not Gingrich is simply the newest recipient of this sort of sentiment – well, not a lot – because even though the most recent polls, especially the Dec 4th
NBC News/Marist Poll from Iowa, certainly has him in this flavor of the month position, at some point someone will have to establish themselves as a front runner, and Gingrich may be peaking at the perfect time. Nevertheless, I think this focus on the frontrunner may be missing the point. I think there is a deeper, more interesting story here beyond Newt’s resurgence, or Cain/Perry/Bachman’s collapse, Romney’s apparent glass ceiling, and I think that this has major implications for Paul’s campaign – which as many of us know has also seen fairly impressive growth.
The telling difference here is the motivations behind each nominee’s potential support. Importantly, the poll breaks down the “most important quality” informing an individual’s decision to support a certain individual: the candidate shares your values, is closest to you on the issues, can beat President Obama in 2010, or has the experience to govern. Now, while it’s true that Gingrich has seen his support rise across all four of these options, the greatest amount of his support - 38% in fact – stems from individuals who feel that he has the best chance to beat President Obama. In comparison, when we account for Paul’s rise, only seven percent of his voters support him because they feel he can win – up from only five percent. (Incidentally, Cain’s largest collapse came in this category as well – down from 26% to 8% - all of which seems to suggest that for a large number of Republican voters, values and politics come second to political factionalism)

So, it would appear that Politics, especially on the national level, is well and truly are a partisan event. That is a trite statement obviously. People simply want their side to win – although in this case it begs the question as to whether or not there is any substantial or qualitative difference between Obama’s policies and Gingrich’s? That is to say, I am hardly worried about the possibility of Gingrich or Romney getting elected over Obama. Not because I think such a thing is impossibility. Certainly voter dissatisfaction could quite rightly ensure that Obama is not elected. The real reason I am not worried is that I fail to see any quantitative difference in the outcomes. Gingrich has shown himself to be a man who acts primarily on the basis of political expediency. Romney has quite rightly been identified as being a liberal moderate. In either case, both men could replace Obama without all that much shock to the status quo – this position is informed more on my own disenchantment with Obama than any real love of the GOP.

Regardless, all of this is of course based on an assumption that Newt is electable, while Paul simply does not have the staying power. I am, for the most part, am fairly comfortable with this assessment – or, I was, until I looked at two more polls from both early primary state – New Hampshire and Iowa. A large number of registered voters, Democrats, Republicans, and Independents, were polled about how they would vote for the President given a toss up between the current GOP candidates and Obama. Low and behold, the only republican candidate to contend with Obama is Paul. They stand at a dead heat at 42% a piece. Gingrich stands a cool ten percentage points behind Obama, 47% to 37% - and this when Obama can barely be sure of a two percentage point lead nationally against a generic Republican candidate

Granted, that is a national poll and I am comparing it to state ones, but still. The point remains. It seems like the biggest threat to Paul’s campaign is not his message, or his values, or even the way he conveys it – although I have issues with all of them. No, the biggest threat to Paul’s campaign is the belief in the Republican party that he simply isn’t electable, and here is the kicker, even though there is some significant evident to contradict that.
Paul's’s ability to draw even with Obama can’t be accounted for because of vigorously staunch Republican support, and more than it can be accounted for by somehow luring Democrats away from Obama – although there is some slight evidence that this is the case. No, Paul’s true impact can be seen in his appeal the Independent Iowan’s (is that the write way to say it? Sorry, Canadian). Forty two percent of polled independents supported Paul, while 35 percent backed Obama. When running against Gingrich, Obama remains fairly close at 39% of independents, while Gingrich garners thirty five percent – also, for the record, Newt got 8 percent of registered Democrats, while Paul had 15 percent. This is BIG news for the Paul campaign, and his electability, especially given the fact that there is a general distaste from both Political parties, Independent’s might just be the turning power – they usually are.


However, perhaps the strangest aspect of all of this – given Paul’s age – is the demographic breakdown of those polled. Forty nine percent of those polled under the age of 45 support Paul, while only thirty five percent support Obama. (Against Gingrich, these trends are reversed: Obama has 44% of individuals, while Gingrich gets thirty nine percent). Given the role that the youth vote played in Obama’s election in 2008, the fact that Paul can somehow motivate this age group against Obama has major implications for his campaign. When the numbers are broken down even farther, Paul actually has a majority of fifty one percent against Obama’s 37 percent between the 18 – 29 age group, roughly the age group which Obama quite clearly owned by more than two-to-one margin against McCain . Early reports are inconclusive as to whether or not Paul is the most sexually appealing geriatric in America. What this all seems to suggest is that Paul is not only electable – when an electorate really gets exposed to him – he may actually be the biggest threat to Obama, given his ability to motivate the young AND independents.
Granted, the demographic breakdown in Iowa and NH are massively out of wake with those of America as a whole. Still, it gives the campaign some hope, and I think an important lesson. That if Paul actually wants to make a concerted campaign, then what he needs is more than simply a consistent articulation of his policies – something he has done quite well - what he needs is somehow demonstrate the Republican establishment that he can win. Without that, he simply won’t get the support because That, seems as though it is the most important element. Not policy. Not values. But the appearance of a winner, and this may be where Paul is entirely hamstrung. While he has been elected consistently to congress, he also has two failed presidential campaigns under his belt. We all know that America does not and cannot love a loser. Because really, when all is said and done, that is what’s important, isn’t it?

Thanks all. First post. Hope it was informative.

How can Obama be polling so high? Don't get me wrong, he seems like a nice guy with a nice charming attitude that got in way over his head. Did I personally think he was going to "change" anything? No, I didn't. A lot of people get on him about not changing things enough. Those people are completely clueless to how government actually works. This should be their wake up call that the president isn't going to take your crappy life with all of your bad decisions and make it a fairy tale ending.

So I have to ask again, how is Obama polling so high? Are most of the registered voters complete morons?

I have never been able to comprehend why people label someone who has been elected to Congress for 30 years "unelectable."

We need to look at every candidate and see that RP would abolish the TSA and Audit the Fed. This is a serious issue and it is not a joke. Every man in this country if he has a wife or even his own children can be subjected to strip search and cavity searches. This rule is not mandated in any way it applies to all who use public airports including congressmen, policemen, military personnel, and their entire families. Just look at the choices you have there is no better option unless of course you are happy with the way that works. And there will likely be highway and grocery store installments of the TSA in the near future so imagine this if you can. You and your family go to the grocery store and one of the TSA agents finds a member of your family attractive in some way. Legally the agent could fully grope and insert his fingers into bodily cavities. Does this not bother anyone else.

Even if there are campaign issues he is over all the best candidate. Do any other candidates even care about the TSA doing this to people. Not that I have heard. Whether your ranking is high or low you need to understand that this it applies to YOU and YOUR FAMILY. Just the fact that he would abolish them is enough for him to gain my support.

RP Abolishing the fed youtu.be...

TSA Searches Children.www.youtube.com...

TSA fingers Mrs.America www.youtube.com...

reply to post by randomtangentsrme


It has come down to voting for another oligarch's, zionist, shill, sock puppet, or voting for an America first, no flip flop, statesman.

When one thinks about the oath "Defend the Constitution from all enemies foreign and domestic," the choice is easy. It's either Ron Paul or bust.

I think what the poll tell RP supporters, those that want real change, that they shouldn't rest all there hopes for something that is a year away, when the world is changing now.

Its not Ron Paul's campaign that has to learn from the polls, in fact, they're doing a great job despite the number of attempts to undermine their operation and message.

Understand this, the campaigns of each candidate have the most information right now, who do you guys think are doing the most accurate polls with no reason to discriminate or skew the survey testing and results?

Despite some recent polls of likely Republican caucus goers, Ron is #1 overall in Iowa right now (including reps, indies, and dems), he has over 20,000 hard pledges for the Iowa caucus next January third, in 2008 about 120,000 people voted in the Iowa caucus. Mike Huckabee won in 2008 with 40,000 votes at 34% of the pie. 20k hard pledges is great and that doesn't even include the people that haven't been contacted yet from Ron's personal polling and phone-from-home program, not only that, but it doesn't even include the people who like him and haven't decided yet, Herman Cain's base, or even the people who are completely undecided. Factor in the obvious scandals that will pop up on Gringrich in the next month, well something interesting will happen.

analyze it anyway you want. The election process is a fraud. I don't know a single person that will not vote for Ron Paul. I don't know anybody that will even mention Newt or any other candidate. I think these polls trick everyone into thinking that RP's supporters are really this few. His number of supporters in America is way more than they are leading us on to believe. The fact that people around the world know RP and are rooting for him should tell us something. He's being set up so they can skrew him.