2012

Ben Smith, Nick Gillespie, and Byron York are writing up Gallup’s report that Vice President Joe Biden’s favorable ratings have fallen below the 50 percent mark. Gillespie and York both point out that “Biden is less popular at this point in his term than Dick Cheney was in his.”
Now, not disputing that Biden’s [...]

“He’s a Republican gladiator, not a conservative,” said American Conservative Union chairman David Keene.

The former Congressional Budget Organization head and McCain campaign economic adviser shows up on the host committee for Tim Pawlenty’s “Pretzels and Pints” fundraiser, happening this Thursday in a bar near Washington’s Union Station.

The third annual “Value Voters Summit,” a conference sponsored by the Family Research Council and other leading Christian conservative groups, kicks off tomorrow in Washington. Organizers have just released the names that will appear on a 2012 presidential straw poll:
Newt Gingrich
Mike Huckabee
Bobby Jindal
Sarah Palin
Ron Paul
Tim Pawlenty
Mike Pence
Mitt Romney
Rick Santorum

Ron Faucheaux’s Clarus Research Group has a poll out testing two main things: independent voters’ take on President Obama and the relative strength of possible 2012 Republican candidates. On the first measure, 77 percent of independents say that the president is “eventually going to have to raise taxes,” 69 percent say he’s doing “too much [...]

Even as the president’s approval rating slips, Republicans looking to beat him in 2012 — one of their frontrunners, one-time governor of Alaska Sarah Palin, might be unelectable. A new Marist Poll gives President Obama a 56-33 lead over Palin among registered voters, with the president taking 20 percent of Republican voters and easily winning [...]

The Minnesota Independent’s Andy Birkey points to a recent interview Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) gave to the conservative Website WorldNetDaily, in which Bachmann said she will only make a bid for president if God calls on her to run.
“If I felt that’s what the Lord was calling me to do, I would do it,” she [...]

Yes, already. Cityview, a Des Moines alt-weekly,  talks to Hawkeye State Republicans about the prospects for 2012 GOP candidates. Former Mitt Romney state communications director Tim Albrecht says of frontrunner Sarah Palin that “the second she touches [...]

The former and all-but-certain future GOP presidential candidate is coming out next March with a book tentatively titled “No Apology: The Case for American Greatness.” Motoko Rich reports that it will give us Romney’s “views on how to create a stronger economy, military and families, and his vision on jobs, education, health care, energy and [...]

The Iowa Independent’s Lynda Waddington attended a GOP picnic in eastern Iowa on Friday, where Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.) — frequently mentioned as a potential 2012 presidential candidate — addressed the audience before heading to a campaign event for Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa).
Declaring that resistance from Republicans and conservatives in the coming months would determine [...]