GOP screws itself over and Obama owns GOP in poll.

[The Romulan Republic]

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/20 ... andidates/

Poll: Primaries taking toll on GOP presidential candidates

Posted by
CNN Political Unit
(CNN) – One day before the four Republican White House hopefuls battle for delegates in the ten states holding Super Tuesday primaries and caucuses, a new survey indicates that the fight for the GOP presidential nomination is hurting the party's image.

According to an NBC/Wall Street Journal national poll, four in ten adults say the primary process has left them with a less favorable impression of the GOP, with just over one in ten saying the primaries and caucuses have given them a more favorable view of the party.

CNN LIVE:Go to CNN.com, and CNN Mobile for the CNN Election Roundtable, a live video chat hosted by Wolf Blitzer and the CNN political team, on Tuesday at 12 p.m. ET. Tune in this week for live coverage of the primaries on Super Tuesday on CNNPolitics.com, on the CNN apps and on the CNN mobile web site. Follow CNN Politics on Facebook and on Twitter at #cnnelections.

– Follow the Ticker on Twitter: @PoliticalTicker

The survey, released Monday, also indicates that nearly 70% of people questioned used a negative comment when asked to use a word or phrase to describe the race for the nomination. That included six in ten independent voters and more than half of Republicans questioned.

Among the words or phrases used to describe the GOP: "Unenthusiastic," "discouraged," "lesser of two evils," "painful," "disappointed," "poor choices," "concerned," "underwhelmed," "uninspiring" and "depressed."

The poll indicates that the negative campaigning over the past couple of months has hurt the favorable ratings of the GOP candidates, including frontrunner Mitt Romney. According to the survey, the former Massachusetts governor has a favorable rating of 28%, with 39% seeing him in an unfavorable light. Among crucial independent voters, Romney's favorable rating is 22%, with 38% seeing him in a negative way. Romney's image right now is worse than any other recent candidate who went on to win his party's presidential nomination, according to NBC/WSJ polling.

But they survey does indicate that Romney is way ahead of his rivals for the nomination, with 38% of Republicans saying they supporting him for the nomination, his highest mark in NBC surveys. Former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania is at 32%, with former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Rep. Ron Paul of Texas each at 13%.

In hypothetical general election matchups, President Barack Obama has 50% to 44% advantage over Romney, and tops Romney by seven points among independent voters, and by 18 points among women. According to the survey, Obama leads Paul 50% to 42%, and beats Santorum 53% to 39% and leads Gingrich 54% to 37%.

The NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll was conducted between February 29 and March 2, with 800 adults nationwide, including 400 likely Republican primary voters, questioned by telephone. The survey's overall sampling error is plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

– CNN Political Editor Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report.

The way this is going, we're looking at an ass kicking for the GOP. Though its still too early to tell, of course.

Got to love Obama's 17 percent lead over Gingrich though, and his 14 percent lead over Santorum. Suck it, assholes.

[Sea Skimmer]

Well, an ass kicking it might be but don’t expect the Republicans to get under 45% of the popular vote even if they somehow end up with Santorum. The fact is the not Obama factor is strong, and in any election most voters support one party or the other out of hand. Much will be forgotten by the time its election day after several months of purely GOP vs. Obama and all the looser Republicans endorsing the winner. Also I have to say, polling 800 people seems like an even smaller then normal sample size for a poll like this aside from the fact that being by MSNBC, its not exactly an unbaised polling source. I don't doubt the trend, but I'm sure wary of attempts to be very detailed.

[Simon_Jester]

Then again, McCain won 45.7% of the vote in 2008 and was handily beaten in the electoral college. Any lead bigger than about 1-2% in the popular vote seems to translate into a win on Election Day, unless you go back to elections so long ago that I question whether they're relevant to modern conditions.

The yellow-dog voters in each party are heavily concentrated in certain states and... seem to cancel each other out, is how I'd put it.

[bobalot]

They also have a problem with finance.

Romney has already burned 200 million dollars on his nomination quest over the last 6 years. Obama is sitting back and raising a gigantic warchest while the Republicans continue their nomination contest (that is only increasing voter disapproval of their candidates).

[Mr Bean]

The money burned does not matter since the money is mostly on hold until their is a nomination. Some-one like the Koch brothers can literally donate 400 million dollars and still have money left over from what they made in one year. And the Koch brothers are not the only Republican billionaires. In tax cuts alone a Romney plan would save the average billionaire an extra million on their taxes each year. If they just donated what Romeny is planing to cut taxes for one year he'd have north of a billion dollars to donate instantly.

And I'd call that sound investing, if I'm a billionaire and someone is promising to cut my taxes by millions each year I'd be happy to invest the money that would be cut (the first year) in the form of a political investment, the best kind of investment.

[TheHammer]

The money burned does not matter since the money is mostly on hold until their is a nomination. Some-one like the Koch brothers can literally donate 400 million dollars and still have money left over from what they made in one year. And the Koch brothers are not the only Republican billionaires. In tax cuts alone a Romney plan would save the average billionaire an extra million on their taxes each year. If they just donated what Romeny is planing to cut taxes for one year he'd have north of a billion dollars to donate instantly.

And I'd call that sound investing, if I'm a billionaire and someone is promising to cut my taxes by millions each year I'd be happy to invest the money that would be cut (the first year) in the form of a political investment, the best kind of investment.

Running on a platform of "More tax cuts for the Rich" is likely to be a big detriment to his campaign, particularly with the Republican party line about cutting the deficit. The vast majority of "non-rich" are certainly not sympathetic to such tax cuts, and I don't see how political contributions from Billionaires would be enough to offset it.

Really what its going to come down to is how is the economy doing, and do we believe that any Republican has an answer to make things better. I happen to think that the reason they don't offer up anything concrete is because they've got nothing better. That's why they haven't really been running on the economy, rather they run on stupid social issues (contraception, gay marriage etc) that appeal to the base but have the opposite effect to just about everyone else. Unless they can step up and offer something better than "tax cuts for the rich, and deregulate" as an economic plan then they aren't going to convince many people outside of their base to vote for them. And I'm totally fine with that

[Mr Bean]

Running on a platform of "More tax cuts for the Rich" is likely to be a big detriment to his campaign, particularly with the Republican party line about cutting the deficit. The vast majority of "non-rich" are certainly not sympathetic to such tax cuts, and I don't see how political contributions from Billionaires would be enough to offset it.

He's not running on a platform of "more tax cuts for the rich" he's running on a platform of "tax reform" which is generic and sounds good. But if you run his numbers that results in millions in savings for the Rich. And every time you point that out your reinforcing the fact he intends to cut taxes. Which is what people will remember.

[TheHammer]

Running on a platform of "More tax cuts for the Rich" is likely to be a big detriment to his campaign, particularly with the Republican party line about cutting the deficit. The vast majority of "non-rich" are certainly not sympathetic to such tax cuts, and I don't see how political contributions from Billionaires would be enough to offset it.

He's not running on a platform of "more tax cuts for the rich" he's running on a platform of "tax reform" which is generic and sounds good. But if you run his numbers that results in millions in savings for the Rich. And every time you point that out your reinforcing the fact he intends to cut taxes. Which is what people will remember.

He's already been quoted saying his "tax reform" includes cuts for the Rich. And that is exactly how it will be painted by the Democrats. That the Rich Republican wants to cut taxes for his Rich friends, and to do so by cutting government services to the rest of the population.

[CarsonPalmer]

He's not running on a platform of "more tax cuts for the rich" he's running on a platform of "tax reform" which is generic and sounds good. But if you run his numbers that results in millions in savings for the Rich. And every time you point that out your reinforcing the fact he intends to cut taxes. Which is what people will remember.

That works for somebody like George Bush who is seen as a regular guy (as ridiculous as that may have been). Romney, however, has to fight that rich guy image (even though Bush was just as rich) and so "taking care of his yacht club buddies" is going to stick to him more than it did to Bush.

[Skywalker_T-65]

What I find hilarious about this whole situation is that people are so loyal to their parties that they will still vote for these morons. Like Newt 'I want a Moon Base!' Gingrich, or Mitt 'don't tax my rich buddies' Romney. Then again, the same can be said for Dems who refuse to even look at the GOP candidates (on the rare occasion when they put someone up worth voting for). I just want to see a Libertarian candidate personally. Though Obama works far better than the GOP morons.

[Simon_Jester]

Almost any GOP candidate who has a prayer of winning the party's nomination holds positions that many Democrats will find unacceptable. Or can be expected to implement such positions, if they win the election- because they'll certainly be willing to pass legislation authored by other Republicans somewhat to the right of their own position.

The reverse is also true, though possibly not to the same extent because the Democrats don't police their own ranks and threaten waverers with primary challenges as effectively as the Republicans do.

On the other hand, the practical differences between most of the candidates on offer in a primary aren't really that large. In 2008 there was a lot of drama about the Clinton vs. Obama primary race, but ultimately I'm not seeing a lot of evidence that a Hillary Clinton administration would have been that different from an Obama administration. The two candidates had very similar voting records and legacies, with only a few exceptions like Hillary having gone on record in support of the Iraq War in the early years, where Obama had not.

This time, most of the Republicans (except Ron Paul) really are in favor of most of the same things- even if they don't come out and say it now, most Republicans would be reasonably happy under any of the candidates on offer, with a few exceptions (the Log Cabin Republicans under Santorum).

Paul is the outlier, but everyone thinks he's a maniac, so it doesn't really matter.