Community | May 07, 2011 | 37 comments

CNN Poll: Ron Paul Stands Best Chance Against Obama

source: http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2011/05/05/cnn-poll-still-no-front-runner-in-the-battle...

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Radical_Centrist
“Ron Paul cannot get elected” President, declared Donald Trump at this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference. Trump, who has never run for office, let alone won an election, may want to reconsider his parroting of this common refrain: A new CNN poll finds that, of all the Republicans being discussed as potential presidential candidates, the longtime Texas congressman has the greatest chance of beating Barack Obama, while The Donald comes in dead last.

In a hypothetical match-up between Paul and Obama, Obama beats Paul by only seven percentage points (52 to 45 percent). Meanwhile, Obama bests former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee by eight points, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney by 11 points, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich by 17 points, former Alaska Governor and vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin by 19 points, and Trump by a whopping 22 points. (The poll, by the way, was taken April 29 – May 1 and completed before Obama’s announcement of Osama bin Laden’s death. It has a margin of error of plus or minus three percentage points.)

CNN, which buried this most interesting facet of the poll’s results halfway into its story, itself given the bland headline “CNN Poll: Still no front-runner in the battle for the GOP nomination,” still hastened to add that such hypothetical match-ups are meaningless. CNN Polling Director Keating Holland remarked, “It should be obvious to any political observer that hypothetical general election match-ups at this stage of the game have relatively little predictive value.”

Holland did, however, point out: “GOP primary match-ups are another matter — since the modern era of presidential primaries began in 1972, there have been six times when the GOP nomination was up for grabs. In five of those six election cycles, the eventual GOP winner was leading the polls taken in April of the previous year. That may mean little in 2011 since no Republican hopeful has a commanding lead, but it also means that the history books won’t let us completely dismiss these polls.”

That the results of the Republican primary match-ups are more comforting to the Beltway consensus may also explain Holland’s willingness to accept those results while dismissing the Paul-Obama match-up out of hand. Sixteen percent of Republicans and independents who lean Republican prefer Huckabee for the GOP nomination, 14 percent support Trump, 13 percent back Romney, 11 percent go for Palin, 10 percent like Gingrich, and another 10 percent pull for Paul. With only six points separating the first choice from the last, Holland did say “it’s way too soon to start talking about frontrunners,” so the yawner of a headline is accurate if unlikely to induce many mouse-clicks to see the details.

This is not the first time Paul has performed well against Obama in opinion polls. A 2010 Rasmussen poll found that Paul and Obama were virtually tied in a hypothetical election, Obama at 42 percent and Paul at 41 percent. Such repeated results should put paid to the notion that Paul, who has won 11 House races, is unelectable, particularly against the increasingly unpopular Obama.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2011/05/05/cnn-poll-still-no-front-runner-i...
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37 comments // CNN Poll: Ron Paul Stands Best Chance Against Obama

  • Milieu
  • Radical_Centrist
  • Malikskyy
    • -1
      Malikskyy  

    • If the republican debate had been an episode of Star Trek, Captain Kirk would have demanded, “Beam me up, Scotty. There’s apparently no life on this planet."

    • 1 year ago
  • Thethingis
    • +1
      Thethingis  

    • Sounds like Ron Paul thinks the people can govern themselves. Lazy politician, lets prove him wrong and vote for someone else.

    • 1 year ago
  • WagonMaster
    • -2
      WagonMaster  

    • That's, of course, if one thinks a Charlatan would be a better president than, say, a Shrike. This poll is a clear case of choosing the lesser fool.

    • 1 year ago
  • Prijedor
  • Milieu
    • -5
      Milieu  

    • Here's Idiot Child's positions listed. You tell me which of these are the plans on a "man" who can spit and walk at the same time.

      Ron Paul's Political Positions
      Paul's positions:

      - Opposes public education, advocating the abolition of the Department of
      Education, which would imperil the education of millions of poor and minority children.

      - Unequivocally opposes a woman's right to control her reproductive capacity. Believes in the criminalization of medical procedures used to this end. This is a fundamentally anti-woman position.

      - Opposes stem-cell research, an emerging science that can potentially save millions of people suffering and death from painful and often fatal diseases.

      - Opposes gay marriage. In fact, supports law that states that marriage can only be between a man and woman.

      - Opposes same-sex adoption, depriving children the opportunity to have supportive parents who love them.

      - Supports state criminalization of private sexual conduct between consenting adults. That's right. He condemned the US Supreme Court for overturning Texas' Homoxexual Control Act. Paul is clearly anti-gay and lesbian.

      - Does not believe in an inherent right to privacy in the Constitution and said so on in the House of Representatives during his condemnation of the US Supreme Court protecting homosexuals from Texas' medieval Homosexual persecution laws.

      - Opposes the separation of church and state. Paul believes in compelling non-Christians to accept the "fact" that the United States is a "Christian nation." He said so in the House of Representatives.

      - Opposes critical social programs poor people desperately need for survival. He wants to radically shrink the size of government, harming the interests and welfare of the millions of families the capitalist economy fails.

      - Supports the planned destruction of Social Security. By allowing young workers to opt out of the system, Paul's plan will bankrupt Social Security. It is a right-wing Republican strategy called "starve the beast." (Interesting way to describe a program that keeps the elderly from starving.)

      - Not only opposes universal health care, but opposes all government health care programs, jeapordizing the health of millions of poor and near-poor families, as well as the elderly.

      - Opposes regulating capitalism, which includes those corporations that pollute, maintain dangerous and disease-causing working conditions, and produce unsafe products. Paul would take from workers the only institution powerful enough to protect their safety and welfare: the federal government.

      - Wants to turn the US postal service over to private business. This is line with his general desire to privatize our government, i.e., turn our government over to the corporations. Corporations have too much control over our government as it is. Paul wants to go straight off into fascism (rule by corporation).

      - Opposes net neutrality. That's right, he opposes protecting the internet as a free and democratic system. He wants to turn it over completely to corporate control.

    • 1 year ago
  • BCDel89
    • +1
      BCDel89  
    • Milieu:

      For Christ's sake... all i had to do was read the first one you put down and i had to stop reading... When are people gonna learn that socialist programs like education and healthcare don't have to be run by the governement in order to exist... Ron Paul doesn't hate education he just wants the government to get their dirty hands out of it, if public education were privatized they would be forced to compete like every other buisiness...

    • 1 year ago
  • Radical_Centrist
  • Milieu
    • -3
      Milieu  
    • BCDel89:

      A)And Private Education would price the majority of the people out of that "Market." Private Education can and does pick and choose who they will service. And all the research shows that Private Charter Schools do no better than public schools and often they do worse.

      Back to School for the Billionaires
      They hoped their cash could transform failing classrooms. They were wrong. NEWSWEEK investigates what their money bought.

      http://www.newsweek.com/2011/05/01/back-to-school-for-the-billionaires.html

      B) It is obvious he is afraid of women to have control of their own bodies, much like the little boy that he and all other Right-to-Lifers are. He is against Freedom? Very dodgy, and hypocritical.

      C) Against stem cell research? Again proves he has no basic understanding of science, much less evolved adult understanding. Opposed to another Feedom.

      D) Opposes same sex marriage? Again he is obviously against personal Freedom. So, label of "Libertarian" has gone down is flames.

      No need to go on. He is nothing more than a mouthpiece of the extreme ReichWing in different wrapping paper.

    • 1 year ago
  • Paratus
    • +1
      Paratus  
    • BCDel89:

      "if public education were privatized they would be forced to compete like every other buisiness..."
      This sounds like a good idea to me.
      Ron Paul vs Barry Obama in 2012. Interesting.

    • 1 year ago
  • Radical_Centrist
    • +1
      Radical_Centrist  
    • Milieu:

      Why do you equate doing away with the Department of
      Education with doing away with Public Education? Dr. Paul went to Public Schools, all of his Children went to public schools. You can do away with the DOE and still have Public Education.

    • 1 year ago
  • Radical_Centrist
  • tlbuffin
  • letsliveinpeace
  • cool0ne
  • letsliveinpeace
  • galacticdubspazz
  • neocongo
  • neocongo
    • -2
      neocongo  

    • William Jennings Bryan ran for president 4 times and lost 4 times. Paul looks to be in a strong position to beat that record.

    • 1 year ago
  • Milieu
  • Foot_Soldier_Of_Hope
  • Radical_Centrist
  • mrtraffic
    • -1
      mrtraffic  

    • Yeah, a guy that wants Multi-national Corporations to pay their taxes and stop spending tax dollars to send jobs overseas...that'll happen

    • 1 year ago
  • Buddha2112
    • +1
      Buddha2112  
    • mrtraffic:

      It's worth a shot. Even if he did get elected, he wouldn't be in office very long, he'd go the route of JFK, which I don't really think he'd mind and it would rally the country to stop this bullshit (hopefully). At least his poll numbers are scaring the neo-cons, and more people are waking up to the reality that we need to resuscitate our Constitution, rather than burying it like the typical two-partiers are doing.

      I really think it's more important that he's running and spreading new (old) ideas. Whether he gets elected or not, the damage to our corrupt system is starting to take a solid shape.

    • 1 year ago
  • dinm76
  • Radical_Centrist
  • bambuu
  • Radical_Centrist
  • Buddha2112
  • Radical_Centrist
  • ThatCrazyLibertarian
  • dinm76
    • +2
      dinm76  
    • ThatCrazyLibertarian:

      I agree completely. 2012 is the time for a true progressive liberal to run. Even if Obama wins the nomination, (which he probably will) the challenge with help draw him to the left.
      And you never know, it might move the media to take a progressive liberal more serious then ever before.
      And even if Obama loses to a republican because of the challenger the lesson will be....you had better listen to your liberal base or you are going to lose.
      That's the lesson Obama needs to learn.
      Go ahead Obama tell us to fuck-off again and see what happens.

    • 1 year ago
  • GENERALNATTY
  • letsliveinpeace
  • letsliveinpeace
  • GENERALNATTY
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