2012

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 [...]

Via Greg Sargent, the Rasmussen Reports poll on 2012 Republican candidates finds most Republican voters trusting Gov. Sarah Palin (R-Alaska) on national security and former Gov. Mitt Romney (R-Mass.) on the economy. Another item from the poll: the possible candidates that have been getting a lot of friendly coverage are less popular than media punching [...]

With leading contenders for the 2012 GOP presidential nomination dropping like flies, an increasing amount of buzz has surrounded Haley Barbour, the cigar-chomping former Republican National Committee chairman and current governor of Mississippi. Speculation only crescendoed when Barbour visited Iowa and New Hampshire and met with top Republican strategists.
I caught up with the governor following [...]

A new Rasmussen Reports poll of Republicans finds a 40 percent plurality believing that Gov. Sarah Palin’s (R-Alaska) resignation “hurts her chances of winning the party’s presidential nomination in 2012,” with only 24 percent saying it helps her. It’s a sort of meta way to ask about this; these voters after all, will decide who [...]

In five minutes, Gov. Sarah Palin (R-Alaska.) announced she would skip the 2010 gubernatorial race, resign her own office at the end of July (her term is up December 2010), and, according to the pundit class, effectively take herself out of the 2012 election.
On Fox News, Bill Kristol said that “the more he thought about [...]