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The GOP's presidential candidate is even more open after Barbour's departure
The GOP's presidential candidate is even more open after Barbour's departure
Since Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour bowed out of the 2012 Republican primary race earlier this week, the GOP’s scramble to find a competitor against President Barack Obama has become that much more heated—and that much more wide-open. Familiar GOP names like Sarah Palin, Mike Huckabee, Donald Trump and Ron Paul may return to battle in 2012, but new names like Indiana governor Mitch Daniels and United States’ ambassador to China, Jon Huntsman, may become more familiar as fall of 2012 looms.
Political strategists were surprised when the GOP’s frontrunner, Barbour, bowed out this week. The media has speculated that Barbour may not have been up to the arduous task of ten years in the country’s highest office (total time in office, plus the additional campaign years). It is reported that his wife wasn’t too excited about the possibility of inhabiting the White House, either.
Most damning, however, seems to be putting a Mississippian, with a history of making racially insensitive remarks, up against the nation’s first black president. Commenting in The Weekly Standard, Barbour said that he didn’t remember the south’s Citizens Councils, racist organizations that controlled the south before the Civil Rights movement, as being “that bad” earlier this year. Barbour's supporters, and possibly even Barbour himself, weren't sure that he could have overcome comments like these in an election where race is such a sensitively trod-upon issue.
Topping most national polls after Barbour’s dropout, Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee may be planning another run. Despite many Republicans’ condemnation, businessman Donald Trump is also beginning to share top slots with Huckabee in many of these same polls. Trump is making headlines for his birtherism theory. President Obama even re-released his birth certificate earlier this week.
Alaska governor Sarah Palin has been busy since her astronomic rise to fame in 2008. With a reality show behind her, she’s certainly media savvy; Julianne Moore is now portraying her in an HBO movie. Recently, Palin has been busy mocking Katie Couric for stepping down at the CBS Evening News. Couric and Palin don’t have an amicable history; in an interview with Couric in 2008, Palin was not able to think of the names of any newspapers in response to Couric’s question about how she stayed connected to the world. No word yet on if Palin will become a presidential hopeful in 2012.
Ron Paul, too, may be back. The 2008 Republican presidential hopeful famous for his Internet-fueled “money bombs,” gaining him up to a million dollars in a single day in his 2008 campaigns has began putting together an exploratory team in Iowa, as well as hosted a book signing/pseudo-campaigning event in Nevada on April 28th. He has already raised $700,000 for the 2012 cycle and has strong grassroots support at Ron Paul: Liberty for America website.
Dubbed the “anti-charisma” candidate, Daniels may be poised to also be the anti-Barack Obama, whose charismatic “hope” campaign helped him win in 2008. In addition, Daniels could claim some of the Republican voting base that would have gone to Barbour had he run. It may even be possible that Barbour could become Daniels’ campaign manager.
Huntsmen is planning for three commencement speeches at universities that could prove to be politically strategic should he enter the race for the GOP spot.
Other potential GOP candidates include Florida senator Marco Rubio and Representative Paul Ryan.
Sources and further reading:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sns-cnn-palin-mocks-couric,0,2716264.story