Tim Pawlenty Most Likely Gov To Become President?
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in 2012 Election, Republicans
NPR’s Ken Rudin ranks the 21 Republican governors (Mark Sanford is still on the list) and their chances…
I’ve decided, in a completely unscientific, data-free exercise, to rate the GOP governors in terms of their likelihood of ever reaching the White House (not necessarily in 2012, but sometime in the future).I readily concede that my list will not universally be agreed on. You may completely dismiss it. I confess I don’t share the optimism about the national future of Alaska’s Sarah Palin as many Republicans do. And note that I have Nevada’s Jim Gibbons last on the list — even below Arnold Schwarzenegger, who is constitutionally ineligible.
And here are his top 10…
- Tim Pawlenty (MN)
- Jon Huntsman (UT)
- Haley Barbour (MS)
- Bobby Jindal (LA)
- Charlie Crist (FL)
- Mitch Daniels (IN)
- Sarah Palin (AK)
- Rick Perry (TX)
- Mark Sanford (SC)
- Jodi Rell (CT)
Personally, I think Sanford needs to be dropped down to the bottom. He won’t make a comeback. No way, no how.
My top picks are Huntsman, Pawlenty and Jindal…although Jindal better step up his game. Let’s remember that Obama knocked it out of the park at the 2004 Democratic convention with his speech, and Jindal has been seriously underperforming. However, I could see him making his first run in 2016 and then possibly making a real run for it in 2020.
Question for the comments: What are your picks?
(h/t: Political Wire)
This entry was posted on Friday, June 26th, 2009 and is filed under 2012 Election, Republicans. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
June 28th, 2009 at 10:03 am
Get real.
Sarah Palin is THE super star. Barring some unforseen circumstance, she’ll get the GOP nod.
Clearly Dems, like the NPR guy don’t want Palin, so they downplay her.
June 29th, 2009 at 12:28 am
I think Dems DO want Palin nominated, as she is very popular with Republicans, and ONLY Republicans. She probably hurt McCain with independents, especially with her performance in interviews and the VP debate.
June 29th, 2009 at 9:12 am
There’s probably a market in this somewhere. So y’all can place your bets.
Personally I think Palin is an embarassingly lightweight figure who not only can’t think well on her feet, but occasionally has trouble connecting the dots when delivering the usual canned content.
So, she is bound to look substantially different if she is unveiled as the figurehead of a serious 2012 GOP effort at the White house. Vocal coach, different mannerisms, practiced schticks to use as verbal delay while she picks the right answer from the memory library.
She needs some re-branding. Fortunately, her beauty contest background should serve her well. What she needs to do is translate the notions of poise and grace from the physical to the rhetorical and to political body language.
I agree that dems think they want her. The 2008 iteration would get her clock cleaned. I’m curious to see what we get with Palin’s makeover, which if not subtle, will get shredded by the media.What the makeover needs to transmit is that she has learned from her time in the spotlight and is now ready: poised, polished, patient, clear. Not shrill, not showing anger, not sounding confused or lost. And not sounding quite as small-town parochial as she has.
June 29th, 2009 at 10:08 am
Another lesson we should learn from this last political cycle is the effect of the outgoing administration. If Obama’s fiscal and foreign adventure chickens come home to roost too early (right now they’re aimed at keeping the popped bubble artificially inflated until after the 2012 race. As for Afghanistan….exactly what is the plan again?), the Dems are going to have a categorically more difficult time with any GOP candidate, substantive change or no.