The media would love to be able to tell voters who is or is not the "inevitable" GOP nominee for President, then folks start remembering how Hillary Clinton was once declared, quite loudly in the media I might add, to be the "inevitable Democratic candidate" for 2008, and we all know how that turned that.Polling showed Mitt Romney was in the lead before Rick Perry declared he was running. Rick Perry then took the lead in the polls until the furor of his declaration died down and couple weak debate performances. Now, Herman Cain is in the lead.
Considering that Pew Research, in the beginning of October, found that only 54 percent of Americans were able to name at least one of the GOP candidates unprompted and none of the candidates received more than 28 percent name recognition (Perry) until it comes down to Republicans or lean-Republicans, and then Perry and Romney tied with only 36 percent, there is no way polls can be reliably predictive of who is or is not inevitably going to be the GOP candidate.
Now that Christie and Palin have officially been taken off the "maybe" roster, future polling might start to help us find upward or downward trends.
The word might is used above because until the the 60 percent plus of Republicans or lean-Republicans that can only name one or two GOP candidates, start recognizing all of their candidacies, there is no way to predict who they will back in the end.
Perry and Romney receive the most mentions among Republicans and independents who lean Republican (36% each). Michele Bachmann is mentioned by 18%, Herman Cain by 15% and Ron Paul and Newt Gingrich by 10% each. Smaller numbers name the remaining candidates.
With nearly 8-in-10 likely American voters believing the country is on the wrong track under the Obama administration, and Obama's disapproval numbers continuing to rise, the eventual GOP nominee stands a better than good chance of unseating Obama.
Not surprisingly, perhaps, 91% of Republicans believe the country is on the wrong track.
Ominously, though, fully 80% of independents, so crucial to any president's election, are now convinced the country is on the wrong track.
And a substantial majority of Democrats, those expected to be the most loyal to the Chicagoan, are also now thinking wrong track by 59%.
Perhaps the media should focus more on Obama's failed policies than trying to influence the outcome of the Republicans nomination process.
It is important for people to remember that the media does not choose the Republican candidate, GOP supporters and voters do.
This is a lesson the main stream media did not learn while they were pushing the Hillary Clinton is inevitable meme.
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