With the Republican Presidential race in high gear now, with the entrance later today of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, two days after the entrance of South Carolina Senator Tim Scott, the question arises?
Is there anyone in the Republican Party who has the potential to draw support and acclaim as occurred with former Utah Governor and Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman Jr. in 2012, or former Ohio Governor John Kasich in 2016?
Neither Huntsman nor Kasich went very far in the race, but both gained respect and applause as reasonably decent candidates.
But are there any such individuals now?
Theoretically, there might be with Senator Tim Scott; or possibly former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson; or possibly New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu; or possibly former Texas Congressman Will Hurd; or finally, former Wyoming Congresswoman Liz Cheney.
But it does seem like a long haul to compare any of them to Huntsman or Kasich, realistically!
CNN has some new polling regarding the Democratic primary. Biden is at 60%, RFK Jr. is at 20% (several other polls are showing him at 20% as well, so it doesn’t seem to be an outlier), and author Marianne Williamson is at 8%. Another 8% say they would support an unnamed “someone else.”
https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/25/politics/cnn-poll-democrats-2024/index.html
I just hope this isn’t going to be a repeat of 2016, with people doing protest votes for third parties.
Princess Leia, the vote for RFK Jr is by morons who think it is RFK! 🙁
Recall that there have been many people who have gone to Dallas waiting for JFK and or JFK Jr to appear! 🙁
RFK Jr is an embarrassment and disgrace to his father’s image, and I am sure RFK would deplore his crazy behavior on vaccines and his belief in conspiracy theories! 🙁
And Marianne Williamson is a kook, as she proved in 2020! 🙁
Erin Burnett had a discussion on her show about the CNN poll.
Here’s the transcript: https://transcripts.cnn.com/show/ebo/date/2023-05-25/segment/01
RFK Jr. is getting support from people who self identify as independents and they tend to be moderate or conservative and they tend to be anti-establishment.
Well, those anti-establishment independents are the ones who didn’t like Trump, yet they didn’t like Hillary either, and they decided to vote for third parties in 2016. That’s what I’m fearing will happen in the general election.
So like Bush/Gore/Nader with Nader taking away votes from Gore?
Yes. That’s the exact scenario I’m fearful of happening.