Jay Cost, after demonstrating that ‘enthusiasm’ is most useful in the primaries, but perhaps not so much in the general:
…it is not necessarily a problem for Republicans if they are not tremendously enthused about their nominee next year. Conservative dislike of Obama will take care of any enthusiasm gap in the general election. What they need to find is a candidate who shares their values, who can appeal to the middle of the electorate, who will as president implement as much of the party’s agenda as possible, and who can retain the support of the independents during his term. That candidate might turn out to be dull. But he’d still be a keeper. And very possibly a winner.
I have to agree (and I’m coming pretty close to formally endorsing Tim Pawlenty, which should surprise nobody), and it’s partially because of this old graph:
There’s ‘bad,’ and then there’s ‘worse.’ I suspect that the Republican base has had a crash course in the differences between the two, over the last four years*…
Moe Lane
*Democratic activists absolutely hate it when you remind people that their party began seriously mucking things up when they took Congress in 2007. Pass it on!
Just give us someone who is conservative, sober and competent. Is that too much to ask? (gulp)
I’m personally a Cainiac. However I have no issue with Tim Pawlenty. I will not lose sleep if he wins.
Of course, if we’re not wild about the candidate *because* we think he’ll be a drag in the general…
I love Google Ads, putting up a pay per click ad for the DGA on Moe’s sidebar. Makes me want to click, and click, and click.
My other favorite graph came from the Obama Administration themselves, with the one line for what unemployment would be if they didn’t pass the stimulus, and the shallower line if they did. People took that and have plotted actual data on top of that graph; we really need an up-to-date version of that for the 2012 election.
I just have the fear that Pawlenty is a GWB clone, and not in the way that the Democrats will try to portray him as one – but instead is a big-government “moderate” who won’t at all be opposed to drastically increasing the size of government.
However, having said that, a GWB clone would be a huge improvement over what we have, I just hope we can do (a lot) better.