Romney Would Beat Pawlenty In A GOP Primary In Minnesota
The favorite son advantage doesn’t seem to be worth much to Republicans at the moment:
A majority of Minnesota voters don’t want to see their governor in the Oval Office, according to a new poll.
A Minnesota Public Radio/Humphrey Institute poll released Wednesday showed that 53 percent of those surveyed would probably not vote for Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty for president even if he won the 2012 presidential primary.
Further, they picked former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney as their preferred Republican nominee by 45-32 percent.
The poll showed that state voters are disappointed with Pawlenty’s out-of-state campaigning. Fifty-four percent of the 750 likely voters surveyed disapprove of his national political activity.
The poll had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 5.3 percentage points.
As I noted yesterday, Romney also beats Palin in a poll of her home state.
It’s a long time between now and 2012, but it does seem that Romney is the torchbearer and the GOP likes its torchbearers. The problem Romney faces is that he has to campaign and he is a dreadful campaigner. Or at least I thought he was in 2008. I started off liking the guy and ended up uncorking the champaigne bottle when he conceded. It wasn’t so much the positions that he took but the insincere manner in which he took them. It’s possible that when voters are re-presented with him, they’ll remember that. And they’ll remember Romneycare. Will that be enough to derail him? No idea. The GOP does like its torchbearers, after all. Definitely not good news for Pawlenty.
I started off liking the guy
I like the guy(s), too, not all of them equally, only the ones who’ve taken positions I agree with. There’ve been a number of those.
With the distinct exception of Sarah Palin, I suspect that just about anyone could beat Pawlenty in his home state about now…