What do Americans know about the Republican candidates?
Probably not all that much, according to this WaPo/Pew poll. Large percentages of respondents answered “no opinion/other” when questioned as to whether they had a positive or negative opinion of Cain, Perry, and Romney.
That makes a lot of sense to me, since I can’t quite imagine that most people are closely following the race or the debates at this point.
However, a great many respondents knew at least one salient thing about each of the three men. Cain? “Businessman.” Perry? “Texas.” And Romney? “Mormon.” And a significant number of people (15%) mentioned “idiot” or “idiotic” to describe Perry, as well as “flip-flopper” for Romney (13%), whereas Cain’s highest negative descriptor (12%) was “not experienced.”
What’s interesting is that all of the candidates are people with both life and professional experience. Even Ron Paul who is both an M.D. and a long term congressman. Despite the awful debate formats (tough to do with that many people) they all come across as capable people. Anyone would do a decent job as President.
People don’t know much because
1. It’s way to early
2. The press is working hard to tarnish them all early.
If people already “know” Romney is a “flip-flopper” and Perry is “idiotic” and Cain is “inexperienced,” then they are already absorbing the media’s characterizations, as DirtyJobsGuy states. Sad that the MSM has that kind of power. I try to take comfort in the fact that twenty years ago Bill Clinton was one of the “Seven Dwarfs.”
Kill the narrative.
I wonder what the highest negative descriptor of Obama would be.
This survey tells me most voters do not know much about either Romney or Perry; neither Romney nor Perry have effectively communicated a reason to vote for them. When voters major impression of you is either “Texan”, or “Mormon”, then you have not communicated who you would be as a POTUS. It is true that many/most voters are not paying attention. Still, one would think that both Romney and Perry would have found ways to more successfully communicate who they are as candidates. Although, Romney’s strategy seems to be: I am slick, I am electable, I am not one of those extremists – like all the other Repub candidates. To some extent, Romney wants to follow the Obama strategy, i.e. does not want to be known.
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I must say: if Romney becomes the nominee, I will be sick. This is not the moment for slickness; not the moment for a candidate who lacks overt conservative principles and values. This is the moment for the right to present a compelling case, to a wider array of Americans, of the value of free enterprise and of limited government. This is the moment for the right to press (w/open minded Americans) our advantage (superior governing philosophy) … against leftist principles which have failed; and, as a result of that failure, this is the time to press our advantage against leftists in media/politics who are in disarray. Mitt Romney is to much George McClellan, not enough U.S. Grant.
Romney’s only winning arguments: 1. Choose slickness! 2. Other Repub candidates are unelectable. 3. Other Repub candidates are extremists!
I disagree with all three Romney arguments. To me, they are the type of cynical arguments which are typically made by the left; which are about acquiring power for its own sake. I am interested in persuading more Americans towards the classical liberalism which we typically call conservatism.
My preferences, in order, are Perry (bad at debating, bad at being slick, good at governing), Santorum (love him), Gingrich, Cain, and Bachmann. Only then: Romney. The thought of Romney sickens me. Romney amounts to turning the big ship in the wrong direction, i.e., east instead of north. I am unimpressed that the ship has been going south, and that Romney would turn it east. To head the ship east … is to fail to head the ship in the proper direction: north.
Torturing the metaphor:
my point is: if the ship is heading north, then progress may be slow, yet it will be progress in the correct direction.
Heading the ship east … is a waste of effort and of life.
re, for instance, 15% of respondents reacting to Perry as “idiot”: this pales next to the 50%-60%ish who react to Perry as Texas, and to Romney as Mormon. Perry, for instance, has lost 15% of the electorate, yet has not yet defined himself to the larger electorate who still think of him and think “Texas.” The survey results tell me that neither Perry nor Romney have yet defined themselves to the larger electorate.
@kolnai
the highest negative descriptor of Obama would be “incompetent”. neo will love that descriptor, as it plays into her ongoing meme re “ignorant vs knave”. If “knave” had not fallen out of common language usage in America, then it might overtake “incompetent”. Unfortunately, absent familiarism with “knave” as a one word descrip, no other one word descrip quite does the job in characterizing Barack. “Fraud” is maybe the next best word, yet is not nearly as precise and appropriate as “knave”. The American education system, which produced Barack, has, also (via lack of excellence), prevented most Americans from now being familiar with the perfect one word description of Barack.
saturation of propaganda terms and their use and such has now been determined by survey… which is the point… as the points are invalid, and so the only reason to do this and measure is to see which ideas/memes (in french), are dominating… and either oppose or increase..
kind of like a weather report for mass mentality
it would be somethig else if all that was on the table was empirical. it would be what we assume it is… but since the info is not valid, nor the positions, its just a survey to determine which ideas resonate…
who cares about validity…
without us holding them to it, its a losing position…
just as without referees, beating up the other team with sticks becomes a valid play… (in anything from chinese checkers to ping pong – to poltics… )
The responses to Perry show that the media have already done their dirty work. The guy has been a farmer, an Air Force pilot, and a very successful governor of a major state. He’s clearly not an idiot.
If Romney gets the nomination get ready for lots of in depth reports on Mormon theology. We will also learn about all the people his investment company screwed over.
just imagine how much better the despots of last century could have been with only the tools and knowledge we have now…
then realize, the despots are not gone, and still exist, and DO have this stuff and more…
their victims mostly just sit around making up stuff, entertaining themselves with their cleverness, and generally not willing to not be victims (unless its easy, handed to them, they believe it, and its fun… otherwise, its better to be the victim!)…
DO note how many below are used by pc thinking and other socialist games!!!!
with a survey helping to work the idea of Epistemological Weighting Hypothesis
if you look at each, you can define a way that the left is using it… but if i do it, it will be way too long and thats just not fun… each is addressed by some play they make…
MOST of them when used become ways of getting people to do what they would not do if they were not so influenced…
so the religious cults give you a flower… they work reciprocity effect… i gave you something, now donate, or listen to me… you avoid it by not taking the free gift…
if you know them all and your keen on them, you can easily see when someone is employing one of them. though the employ of one is not necessarily a sign of rampant despotism…
but if you notice that they are used over and over till there is a custom behind them and so on… then you are noticing politically correct thinking, party mind, etc..
learn the game, is the only way to stop the game..
just as an inoculation is something you do before the bad thing, to avoid the bad thing.
the idea you can wait, and learn it later… is the same as deciding to get the flu shot after you have the flu several times and he season is over!!!
oh… and these all come from social science invented by marx… so under the guise of studying people, we learn the different facets of controllign them by applying these things to effect the material action.
who cares what the disposable interchangeable part thinks? do you care what the taxi driver thinks as long as you get home save without altercation? then what makes you think that feminists care what women actually think as long as they ahve power to impose and change the future by removing them… (eugenics favoring them, who they self anoint as the future itself – read about the eugencics movement and all that!!!!)
many of the ideas above are gamed..
ie… dialoguing to consensus would have each person addressed by the leader who then tells them they are the only person who doesnt agree…
Spiral of Silence Theory says they will then either change their mind or they will be silent and pretend to agree..
now.. honor, and honesty would ASSUME that the person saying that was truthful… so the response would be based in truth…
but dialoguing says to use these things to control.. you lie and tell them that after you use the first meeting to see where they all stand… ie. you end the first meeting congratulating them, and that you will have another..
then you use social things above to manipualte them to do things they dont want to.
the classical subject to study for this is sexology in school.. (look up its progressive history!!).
how did they get girls who valued themselves so highly that they agreed with feminisms pumping and primping them up… to then become debased sex toys for the masses who can bed them spending their youth training on poles and paying for college by prostitution?
sure dont sound like what the ad copy said…
does it?
Out of the smears the media has already engrained into the public about the top 3 candidates, “not experienced” for Cain is probably the least toxic, with “Mormon” (aka “religious, with weird and stupid religion”) and “idiot” (see how that one worked out for Palin) being very destructive.
It’s early in the cycle. Unfortunately for our form of governance, less than 30% of the population understand the issues and/or will take the time to learn what the candidates are proposing or stand for. When the time comes – about a month before the election – they will start looking at the candidates. By then the MSM will have tried to define the issues and the candidates with an eye to Obama winning.
We are interested in the Republican primaries because we understand how bad Obama is for the country and we want the best possible person to be the President. I’m beginning to believe this long series of Republican primary debates is not good. The media are doing their best to foment a dog fight for the nomination and pick up memes to use against the ultimate candidate. The only candidate who is rising above this and trying to foil the media narrative so far is Gingrich.
Unfortunately, all the debates are set – 12 more – yikes! The NRC needs to strategerize with the candidates and remind them they gain nothing by attacking each other or responding to “When did you stop beating your wife?” type questions. Keep bringing it back to the economy and health care stressing the failure of the Obama administration to improve things. The Clinton meme, “It’s the economy stupid!” applies to this election too.
Wake me in February, when it’s close to time for me to vote.
I don’t like Romney as I don’t believe he’s a conservative. (he’s barely Republican, in fact)
But I heard that Romney worked for Goldman Sachs for years, and if true, is the whole “occupy” charade simply a setup for undermining the GOP candidacy, once Romney is nominated? (and again, I wouldn’t vote for Romney for DOG CATCHER except as a replacement for the current communist regime)
I just think we’re being setup like last time (McCain) for a “moderate” RINO instead of someonoe who’ll restore first principals.
This may be the harshest thing I’ve ever said about these crop of Republicans.
I like them all much better than Obama.
They are REALLY not so smart for participating in debates hosted by MSNBC, Anderson Cooper, etc.
They are REALLY not so smart to attack each other the way they have been doing.
Can the American public be given an opportunity to just hear each candidate for 60 minutes each?