How would you ding Thune?

[Bull Moose Base]

if you're a primary opponent and come Fall 2011 he's moving his Iowa polls upward?

[Lunar]

Connect him to DC & C-Street scandals.

[Obnoxiously Slutty Girly Girl]

Publicize his party-line neocon George W. Bush-clone record.

[tmthforu94]

Publicize his party-line neocon George W. Bush-clone record.

Connect him to DC & C-Street scandals.

The thing is, many people like his very conservative views, that is, in the Republican Party. And while you can gain a little ground connecting him to D.C., you would need to find a specific scandal to go against him.

Honestly, his best quality going into the primaries is that he doesn't have any major scandals against him, and just about every other candidate does. Personally, I'd probably say he's too partisan, but that would only work in the General, not so much the Primaries.

[Obnoxiously Slutty Girly Girl]

Publicize his party-line neocon George W. Bush-clone record.

Connect him to DC & C-Street scandals.

The thing is, many people like his very conservative views, that is, in the Republican Party. And while you can gain a little ground connecting him to D.C., you would need to find a specific scandal to go against him.

Honestly, his best quality going into the primaries is that he doesn't have any major scandals against him, and just about every other candidate does. Personally, I'd probably say he's too partisan, but that would only work in the General, not so much the Primaries.

Except Thune's views aren't really conservative. He is a big government neocon just like his hero Dubya.

[Lunar]

Honestly, his best quality going into the primaries is that he doesn't have any major scandals against him, and just about every other candidate does. .

Every other candidate has had major scandals?  That just doesn't sound accurate.

Frankly, every other candidate isn't from Washington.  If it's an anti-Washington election cycle, Thune is going to be the only guy who hangs out in D.C. for his day job. 

And really, that's NOT his best qualities.  Thune has many great qualities.  Connection to money, a solidly conservative voting record and a moderate demeanor, and something like a decade of running ads in Western Iowa, where all of the Republican primary voters live, I don't think "lack of major scandals" is a huge plus on any candidate's resume.  

[tmthforu94]

Honestly, his best quality going into the primaries is that he doesn't have any major scandals against him, and just about every other candidate does. .

Every other candidate has had major scandals?  That just doesn't sound accurate.

Frankly, every other candidate isn't from Washington.  If it's an anti-Washington election cycle, Thune is going to be the only guy who hangs out in D.C. for his day job. 

And really, that's NOT his best qualities.  Thune has many great qualities.  Connection to money, a solidly conservative voting record and a moderate demeanor, and something like a decade of running ads in Western Iowa, where all of the Republican primary voters live, I don't think "lack of major scandals" is a huge plus on any candidate's resume. 

Scandal might not have been the best word. More like, defect.
Pawlenty lacks charisma
Romney has "RomneyCare" and is accused of flip-flopping
Huckabee appears weak on crime and strangly too conservative
Palin, well, is Palin

[Lunar]

Um, you're comparing Thune to the front runners.  That's not fair, considering that they're prominent figures in the media spotlight.   Thune is less of a candidate than Daniels and Santorum [although the latter has a bigger flaw obvioustown].  What's Daniels giant flaw?

Many say that Thune lacks the same charisma.  You can read about Tune's weaknesses and strengths here:

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/eye-on-2012/assessing-john-thunes-2012-cha.html#more

And Thune is the only candidate who is a Congessman, which could have its strong flaws.  Thune has no real big weaknesses now because he's not in the spotlight.  When he comes out, he'll have his flaws get more attention.  Come on.  Being a relatively unflawed candidate isn't the biggest thing in the world.  Many thought McCain had his huge flaws too (his support for immigration reform, etc.).

Once the campaign begins, we'll see more.  Fred Thompson sounded like a lot better of a candidate on paper too. 

[tmthforu94]

Of course, though I think Thune will quickly become a frontrunner once he gets out there, which will happen within a month of launching his Presidential bid. I actually will be expecting him to be traveling the country now, campaigning for others, since he won't have reelection problems.

Thune makes up for his charisma with the fact that he's honestly an attractive guy. That's huge on first impressions.

You are correct, stuff could surface once he becomes big. Sarah Palin appeared like the perfect candidate, but then the shell was cracked ever so slightly, and well, you know... But I don't expect Thune to be that type of candidate, though I could be wrong.

[Lunar]

Why would anyone start raising questions about Thune now though?  Neither the Democrats nor his Republican opponents want to raise his profile.

No candidate is flawless, it's just that second-tier candidates seem a lot more flawless than the frontrunners by the nature of their status.  Daniels also seems pretty flawless [outside of, again, the possibility of him not willing to commit to the 100/hr/week intense schedule, which Thune himself may not be willing to do].  

Don't bet the house on Thune entering the 2012 race.  He's going to start making moves in the next couple months if he's actually serious about it.

[Bo]

I would attack him as unelectable.

[TheGreatOne]

Yep, unelectable is very effective as long as he doesn't gain too much steam in the primary.  I remember alot of people in Democratic South Carolina Party decided to vote for Hillary Clinton instead of Obama because they thought she was more electable.  Obama would have won by way more votes if this sentiment hadn't been pushed by the Clinton campaign.  I think Republicans want to win more than they want a good canidate. 

[Bull Moose Base]

Why would anyone start raising questions about Thune now though?  Neither the Democrats nor his Republican opponents want to raise his profile.

No candidate is flawless, it's just that second-tier candidates seem a lot more flawless than the frontrunners by the nature of their status.  Daniels also seems pretty flawless [outside of, again, the possibility of him not willing to commit to the 100/hr/week intense schedule, which Thune himself may not be willing to do].  

Don't bet the house on Thune entering the 2012 race.  He's going to start making moves in the next couple months if he's actually serious about it.

The New Yorker recently profiled Daniels's absurdly low ball estimate of the cost of the Iraq War as Bush's budget director during the selling of the war to the public.   But I'm not convinced it's just that the top tier's flaws have a brighter spotlight.  If ObamaCare was similar to a Daniels health act or Pawlenty had pardoned a criminal who ended up committing multiple murders, I think their flaws would seem no less damaging because they're second tier.  I think it's just coincidence that it's the top tier candidates intersecting with news more likely to derail their candidacies.  Put another way, the things that could end up derailing them did not originally attract coverage because they were connected to these candidates, though they quickly became part of the story.  Nothing so glaring jumped out at me about Thune if he became enough of a threat that Romney or whoever had to land a punch on him in a primary.  Not sure how sticky the DC thing would be.  A governor seems a stronger position to be in now but not decisively so.

[Mr. Morden]

A year ago, folks like Crist, Ensign, Huntsman, and Sanford were in the conversation as potential "second tier candidates".  The people who are currently in the mix as "second tier candidates" are just those for whom nothing has so far managed to derail their chances (obviously, Huntsman is a slightly different category from the others, as he more or less dropped out of the running by choice in accepting the job as amb. to China).

Huckabee and Romney have been dinged by things that, while not nearly as obviously career ending as Sanford's problems, probably would have already caused people to take them out of 2012 conversation if they didn't already have high national name recognition.  I mean, I'm just thinking about a parallel universe in which it was Pawlenty who had been the lone governor in the country to sign a health care reform plan with an individual mandate.  Wouldn't people already be writing his political obituary?

[Sewer]

Publicize his party-line neocon George W. Bush-clone record.

Connect him to C-Street.

Why? All that do is help him in a primary.

[Bull Moose Base]

A year ago, folks like Crist, Ensign, Huntsman, and Sanford were in the conversation as potential "second tier candidates".  The people who are currently in the mix as "second tier candidates" are just those for whom nothing has so far managed to derail their chances (obviously, Huntsman is a slightly different category from the others, as he more or less dropped out of the running by choice in accepting the job as amb. to China).

Huckabee and Romney have been dinged by things that, while not nearly as obviously career ending as Sanford's problems, probably would have already caused people to take them out of 2012 conversation if they didn't already have high national name recognition.  I mean, I'm just thinking about a parallel universe in which it was Pawlenty who had been the lone governor in the country to sign a health care reform plan with an individual mandate.  Wouldn't people already be writing his political obituary?

I think so.  Along similar lines, why should Ensign and Sanford be knocked out but Gingrich who had the same issue not?  For that matter, why should Ensign and Sanford be out one year after McCain was the nominee and Giuliani was a frontrunner.

[Mr. Morden]

Affairs in the very recent past tend to be treated differently from affairs from many years ago.  Also, Sanford's affair involved extenuating circumstances that led to the state legislature trying to impeach him.  It seems quite a bit different from McCain's case.

But still, the point stands.  The rules regarding what takes one out of contention for the WH are different depending on whether you've already established yourself on the national scene or not.

[President Mitt]

Nobody has commented on the title yet? I'm surprised.

[Conservative frontier]

ding eh? a little in there.. and a little moan there, then finish it off with a sucker.

[Хahar 🤔]

In the rear.

[pbrower2a]

Show him irrelevant to most of America. John Thune is from a very rural state that can solve most of its problems on the cheap and get away with it, and I doubt that he understands urban problems as city-dwellers and suburbanites do.

John Thune will do well in very rural parts of America -- those parts of America in which public services are inexpensive and effective because teachers and cops have few viable alternatives to their careers, and where infrastructure is cheap to build and not easily pushed to its limits. Contrast California, where teachers can usually make more money by becoming bartenders or commissioned salespeople, greater Chicago, where cops must be paid salaries high enough that they don't have to take bribes to live well, or New Jersey, where adding more lanes to a highway implies huge costs of real estate acquisition and realignment of utilities.  How often does  Sioux Falls or Rapid City have a traffic jam? It would be far lest costly to build an Interstate spur from I-90 to Pierre than to re-engineer an expressway interchange in Minneapolis.

If he were able to swing Minnesota, he would win the election of 2012. But can he? I think that he would do nothing to win "back" suburban voters with promises of tax cuts at the cost of the deterioration of public services upon which suburbanites depend.

He is from a small state in a region of wide-open spaces and few electoral votes. The last President from a small state in electoral votes to win the Presidency was Bill Clinton -- but Arkansas has but six electoral votes, it is part of a swath of states that seem to vote alike (Louisiana, Tennessee, Kentucky, West Virginia, and to a lesser extent Georgia and Missouri... 39 to 65 electoral votes). The Dakotas to Oklahoma have only 24 electoral votes, only one of which (NE-02) is shaky for Republicans.  Minnesota and Iowa, states that border South Dakota, are politically more like Massachusetts than like South Dakota. 

So far, South Dakota is doing better than most of the rest of the country in economics -- but think of how well the "Massachusetts miracle" did for President electoral failure Mike Dukakis.

[Stranger in a strange land]

Publicize his party-line neocon George W. Bush-clone record.

Connect him to C-Street.

Why? All that do is help him in a primary.

Dubya is, incredibly, still popular with the Republican base. The things mentioned here would be liabilities in a general election.

[Lunar]

Show him irrelevant to most of America. John Thune is from a very rural state that can solve most of its problems on the cheap and get away with it, and I doubt that he understands urban problems as city-dwellers and suburbanites do.

I'm sure understanding urban problems is a top line of attack in the GOP presidential primaries in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada.  

C'mon.  I've read through focus group reports and internal polling for GOP primaries in states far more urban than these states, with far more rural candidates, and nowhere does anyone think about making the GOP candidate seem too rural.  Perhaps it could be an avante-card attack, but you say these things so casually.  As if like this could be a serious line of attack when it's not.  Like zero percent chance.  Like, Sarah Palin would have a better chance at winning 40 states against Obama than "he doesn't understand city issues" being an effective attack against Thune in early GOP primaries.  

Thune has been running ads now in Western Iowa, where most of the GOP primary voters live, for like twelve years now, that's a pretty good base to start off the election with.

Your posts are like crazy theoretical to support predetermined conclusions dude.  It'd be like in 2008, making some argument about how people from the upper south don't win GOP primaries in Iowa, and how someone like Huckabee could never relate to the Iowan primary electorate...it's just throwing pasta against the wall, where just as much could be thrown supporting the completely opposite conclusion, and whatever can be justified with a coherent sentence structure is considered almost prophetic. 

[Lunar]

If he were able to swing Minnesota, he would win the election of 2012. But can he?

that's like so irrelevant

[Lunar]

So far, South Dakota is doing better than most of the rest of the country in economics -- but think of how well the "Massachusetts miracle" did for President electoral failure Mike Dukakis.

This too.  We're talking about the GOP primary.  McGovern won his Democratic primary, which is insanely more urban and city-based than the GOP primaries. 

Being a general election failure is only meaningful insofar as voters who vote strategically [an interesting phenomenon, and one worth considering, but probably not the dominant variable in any sort of election] and the money connections.  But, in considering general elections prospects, I'm pretty sure people consider his positions, his stature, his campaign, his staff, and so on, before they count the number of electoral votes his state has and other such meaningless variables.