Could Palin turn Huckabee into frontrunner?

[Likely Voter]

I'm one of those people who doesn't think that Palin is going to run. Everything she has done since quitting as gov has been focused on being a pundit and not a politician. Running means losing out on money without much chance of winning. Plus splitting the conservative vote with Gingrich and Huck could lead to Romney nomination, and he is not her kind of Republican.

So could she instead play kingmaker and put her weight and fundraising ability behind Huckabee, early on? She showed how she is willing to make primary bets in the 2010 season.

It seems to me that Huckabee with Palin at his side could be unstoppable. And with her guy being the nominee, she emerges as a bigger power in the party.

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

Endorsing Huck would be



for him.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I'm one of those people who doesn't think that Palin is going to run. Everything she has done since quitting as gov has been focused on being a pundit and not a politician. Running means losing out on money without much chance of winning. Plus splitting the conservative vote with Gingrich and Huck could lead to Romney nomination, and he is not her kind of Republican.

So could she instead play kingmaker and put her weight and fundraising ability behind Huckabee, early on? She showed how she is willing to make primary bets in the 2010 season.

It seems to me that Huckabee with Palin at his side could be unstoppable. And with her guy being the nominee, she emerges as a bigger power in the party.

Which is why Santorum and DeMint are secretly most wanted in the race by Mitt Romney.


Plus, I don't know that Palin would endorse Huckabee. Who did she endorse in the 2008 primaries? Romney won Alaska's caucus in 2008 and would likely dominate there again considering how much she has collapsed their.

[Likely Voter]

I just saw this  538 blog today, in article analyzing all the 2012 contenders

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[Bull Moose Base]

If Palin runs and is competitive it's fine for her career.  We don't know that Huckabee would run if Palin skipped the race.  I doubt she'd be motivated one iota by trying to stop Romney.  Huckabee has taken some swipes at Palin and she seems like she holds grudges.  And while Nate Silver is usually shrewd, there's a false dichotomy between Evangelical Christians and the Tea Party.  Much of the teabaggers seem to have little agenda besides the culture war.

[MyRescueKittehRocks]

I'm a Tea Partier and Palin is not my first or second choice. Those would be Dr. Ron Paul and Gov. Mitchell Elias Daniels. Huck is my third and Palin is fourth

[Pheurton Skeurto]

She'll force Bachmann to run, she'll endorse Bachmann and campaign for her, when she doesn't get the nomination, she'll back the repub, therefore causing Obama to win a second term.

[Keystone Phil]

Huckabee is already the frontrunner.

[Pheurton Skeurto]

Huckabee is already the frontrunner.

He's sharing that title with Romney.

[Keystone Phil]

Huckabee is already the frontrunner.

He's sharing that title with Romney.

No, he's not.

[Pheurton Skeurto]

Huckabee is already the frontrunner.

He's sharing that title with Romney.

No, he's not.

Pretty sure Romney's winning a lot of PPP polls and If I'm not mistaken, he won the most recent CPAC Straw Poll in NH.

[Keystone Phil]

Huckabee is already the frontrunner.

He's sharing that title with Romney.

No, he's not.

Pretty sure Romney's winning a lot of PPP polls and If I'm not mistaken, he won the most recent CPAC Straw Poll in NH.

Straw polls are meaningless and Huckabee is leading in more PPP state and national polls. Huckabee is the frontrunner.

[Pheurton Skeurto]

Huckabee is already the frontrunner.

He's sharing that title with Romney.

No, he's not.

Pretty sure Romney's winning a lot of PPP polls and If I'm not mistaken, he won the most recent CPAC Straw Poll in NH.

Straw polls are meaningless and Huckabee is leading in more PPP state and national polls. Huckabee is the frontrunner.

Well, we'll see how it plays out. I'm not a Romney supporter, but he's doing surprisngly well in polls for a guy that is an evident flip-flopper.

[pbrower2a]

One assumes under this scenario that Sarah Palin recognizes that she can't win the Presidency (look at polls from some states that Obama lost in 2008 as Obama-Palin matchups: Palin loses Arizona, Georgia, South Carolina, and South Dakota, and is in a virtual tie in Texas)  and is doing  very badly in postulated matchups in states that Obama won). She has a strong base of voters in the GOP primary, but even she might recognize that she isn't going to convince more than about 35% of the electorate to vote for her and drop out.

Throwing her support to one of the GOP leaders or near-leaders could be enough to decide who wins the nomination, especially if just before Super Tuesday. But such an endorsement comes with her. The Democrats can then use everything that she says on the stump against that nominee.

Note also that she might be perfectly satisfied as a power-broker -- but that doesn't mean that she would be effective as such. She will likely stump for Senate and Congressional  candidates -- but again, anything that she says will be used against that candidate. That didn't work out especially well in 2010 in a good year for Republicans. 

[Whacker77]

If Huckabee's running, he's going about it in a weird way.  He's raising very little money and most insiders say he doesn't want to give up his lucrative Fox contract.  In fact, they may be close to announcing a new deal.

I think Huck's been sending signals he doesn't want to run for a while.  A month or so ago he said he wouldn't run if Jeb Bush decided to run.  I think he was trying to coax Jeb off the sideline, but it didn't work.  Right now, I think he's trying to figure out the best way to stop Palin.  He knows if he announces now he's not running, she becomes a huge favorite.

The real player in the whole thing is Palin.  I've been saying for a while she's the favorite, regardless of any poll.  Now, I'm not so sure she's running.  Maybe even she's beginning to realize she has no shot of winning a general election.  She has no staff and Iowa's governor says she's sending mixed messages.

[Whacker77]

If Palin runs and is competitive it's fine for her career.  We don't know that Huckabee would run if Palin skipped the race.  I doubt she'd be motivated one iota by trying to stop Romney.  Huckabee has taken some swipes at Palin and she seems like she holds grudges.  And while Nate Silver is usually shrewd, there's a false dichotomy between Evangelical Christians and the Tea Party.  Much of the teabaggers seem to have little agenda besides the culture war.

Do you feel better about yourself by calling people associated with the Tea Party "teabaggers".  Were's the civility your party leader has requested from all of us?

[Bull Moose Base]

The political term teabagging was self-descriptive and coined by the teabaggers themselves.  That they complain about it now is no more coherent than an anti-tax protest against a stimulus plan that basically gave them all tax cuts.  My point is their movement quickly became the go-to spot for anyone who wanted to protest Obama for anything, such as people who believed he was a Muslim (a plurality of the Republican Party in the last poll to measure it) infringing on a Christian country.  These people largely approve of Huckabee just fine despite his sometimes non-conservative record on spending, and, if Palin should skip the race, he'll have little trouble winning over many or most of her supporters, Rush Limbaugh and Grover Norquist notwithstanding.  I don't see any incentive on his part to make a decision before August.  And even though it's their own term, who are the teabaggers of all groups to complain about name-calling really?  They should start by cleaning up their own posters.

[Tender Branson]

Huckabee is already the frontrunner.

Romney leads in 2 early states: NH and NV and is not dead in SC and FL.

That hardly makes Huckabee the front-runner.

Romney is also more electable than Huck in Obama states like MN and MI.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

If Palin runs and is competitive it's fine for her career.  We don't know that Huckabee would run if Palin skipped the race.  I doubt she'd be motivated one iota by trying to stop Romney.  Huckabee has taken some swipes at Palin and she seems like she holds grudges.  And while Nate Silver is usually shrewd, there's a false dichotomy between Evangelical Christians and the Tea Party.  Much of the teabaggers seem to have little agenda besides the culture war.

Do you feel better about yourself by calling people associated with the Tea Party "teabaggers".  Were's the civility your party leader has requested from all of us?

Thank you! The Hypocracy regarding the Tucson shooting is so annoying.

Romney can easily get a lead in Iowa, and is solid Nevada, and New Hampshire. SC and FL he will contest, the outcome is not yet known to me.

[DrScholl]

There is no front runner for the nomination, none of them are pulling enough support to be labeled as such.

[Keystone Phil]

Huckabee is already the frontrunner.

Romney leads in 2 early states: NH and NV and is not dead in SC and FL.

That hardly makes Huckabee the front-runner.

And Huckabee leads in Iowa, South Carolina and other early states as well as states later in the contest plus national polls.

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That's nice but totally irrelevant to the question.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

There is no front runner this time in the traditional sense of what it means to be a front runner. There are quasi-front runners which is about as good as one could expect from the last people standing in 2008.


Huckabee has as much claim to the frontrunner label as Romney does. They each can claim second place in 2008 (one in popular votes, the other in delegates and only because Romney got out sooner which could be a plus in a primary). They each lead in some of the early states. And they trade leads nationally depending on the poll. It is ridiculous to say Huckabee is already the front runner. It would be just as ridiculous for a Romney apologist to say "Romney is already the frontrunner".

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Huckabee is already the frontrunner.

Romney leads in 2 early states: NH and NV and is not dead in SC and FL.

That hardly makes Huckabee the front-runner.

And Huckabee leads in Iowa, South Carolina and other early states as well as states later in the contest plus national polls.

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That's nice but totally irrelevant to the question.

Actually only ABC and PPP have Huck up. ABC by 1 and PPP by 10. Rasmussen, NBC, Gallup, McClatch, and Clarus all have Romney up by 1 to 5 points.

And Romney still leads narrowly on the RCP average: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/president/us/republican_presidential_nomination-1452.html

And what happens if the next PPP poll gives Huck less then a 10 point lead or doesn't have him in the lead at all. Romney then leads by several points.

[Mr. Morden]

Huckabee has been doing better in PPP's polls than he has in other polls, and because PPP releases like a million polls a week, that tends to influence our perceptions.  I'd say Huckabee and Romney are probably very close to being tied nationally.

It doesn't really matter which one is ahead, because national polls don't matter.  Romney starts out as the frontrunner in NH and, if he runs, Huckabee starts out at as the frontrunner in Iowa.  They both have weaknesses that could lead to them losing either of those states though, so what really matters is one's assessment of whether or not that'll happen, and what would happen next.

[Keystone Phil]

And what happens if the next PPP poll gives Huck less then a 10 point lead or doesn't have him in the lead at all. Romney then leads by several points.

That's a big what if.

It doesn't really matter which one is ahead, because national polls don't matter.

Well, in the grand scheme of things, no, they don't matter but when determining a national frontrunner at this point in the game, they matter.