Donald Trump Positive Rating Higher Than That Of Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty

WASHINGTON -- The predominant theme of the Republican presidential primary has been, so far, that there is no primary at all. Only a few individuals have formally declared their candidacies. They aren't considered to be serious contenders. This past week, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich unveiled a website announcing an exploratory phase to consider a presidential run. He was widely ridiculed for tepid toe dipping.

So what gives? Depending on whom you ask you get various explanations. On Sunday morning, Fox News correspondent Juan Williams suggested that each prospective candidate was fearful of the type of political machinery that President Obama would assemble for his reelection campaign. The thesis was met with howls, but former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee has said much the same, in explaining why he hasn’t announced yet.

The landscape, at least currently, isn’t favorably disposed toward the Republican field and no one seems eager or poised to emerge from the larger pack. Underscoring the latter point, a Democratic source passed over this screen grab from Sunday’s edition of "State of the Union" on CNN, highlighting a little noticed nugget from the latest NBC/Wall Street Journal poll.

Among major Republican figures polled, real estate magnate and reality TV show king Donald Trump had the highest “positive” rating at 26 percent. Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney had a 25 percent positive rating. Former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty had a 10 percent positive rating. House Speaker John Boehner (not a prospective presidential candidate) had a 20 percent positive rating.

To be sure, the field of those polled wasn't limited strictly to Republicans (who will decide their own presidential candidate) and many of the respondents were more familiar with Trump’s name than with, certainly, Pawlenty’s. As such, the former has a much higher negative rating (29 percent) than the latter (nine percent). But that only goes to underscore the limited star power of the current GOP field and how great a deficit the eventual GOP nominee will suffer when going up against Obama.

Comments

[ginsbergllc]

01:52 AM on 04/26/2011

Dear Mr. Trump:

I Trump runs for President as it will ensure the re-election of our President. Enough with this false slanderous rascist issue of the Presidents birthplace.

As a Jewish supporter of Israel, I would be among the first to be concerned if there were any truth in either these concerns or Obama's ability to do his job as he should.

They are typical Republican fashioned lies, which they espouse prior to an election in an attempt to unfairly win it, and after an election, in an attempt to paralyze a legitimately elected President and his administration. You are doing exactly the same disgusting thing done to Senator Kerry who risked his life defending this country only to be slandered in the "Swift Boat" issue.

Not only are these allegations false, but even if they were true, he is the most promising, well intentioned, most intelligent, most honest President that has held office in the 1/2 century I have lived (I was to young to remember Kennedy.)

[pdhen]

05:59 AM on 04/04/2011

We have got to stop getting characters in politics and get character in politics.

[Sandi Lopez]

08:28 PM on 03/24/2011

La Donald is a brilliant individual - it's surely interesting to think of him taking a stab at running. But please, Donald, no more statements thusly, "If we needed $600,000,000 I would be able to cover it out of my own money..." Not presidential!

[Boopsie2008]

12:25 AM on 04/13/2011

Plus, it's hardly a believable statement coming from somebody who has had so many business bankruptcies and, during one of his cash crunches, once ducked the $28,000 bill (if I'm remembering the amount correctly) for a newly delivered custom-built limousine by finding it to be two inches two longer than specified and refusing to take it.

[luilun]

09:45 AM on 03/17/2011

To Obama voters who don't get it. I'll explain in simpleton fasion since i know most of you are eaisly fooled by the Obama and written Axelrod message through Teleprompter. You have a cut you go to the Urgent care, Rather than field dressing a nurse comes out with a butcher knife she digs that knife into your wound and turns and grinds the knife until you collapsed from pain. Well Obama comes in 2009 and is destroying our ecnomy much worse than what it was and soon we as a nation will collapse under this empty suit fool.

[Sandi Lopez]

09:49 PM on 03/24/2011

Would really appreciate these kinds of statements including examples of why you think O has runied our economy. TY

[SNOOTYFOXX]

01:03 AM on 04/01/2011

Me,too. Facts, folks, true facts and not just hateful, stupid rhetoric.

[carbonpenguin]

01:48 PM on 04/05/2011

Would really appreciate it if these statements were spell-checked... the irony of explaining in "simpleton fasion" is pretty overwhelming :P. Also "eaisly?" "ecnomy?" Seriously, if you want people to respect your opinions, LEARN TO SPELL!!!

[Boopsie2008]

12:26 AM on 04/13/2011

luilun, I'm sure all your fans agree with you.

[atila]

03:55 PM on 03/10/2011

Now every republican candidate are looking for a spot in Dancing with the Stars,Survivor,Keeping up with the Kardashians or at least in Jersey Shore...

[Boopsie2008]

12:27 AM on 04/13/2011

And, darn it all, now they can't be on Celebrity Apprentice because it would give publicity to a competitor.

[Tarheel45]

08:14 PM on 03/08/2011

"A Democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a Democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship."

This was written by an 18th century historian named Alexander Tytler. Never more true than it is today with Obama. We are not heading down the road to fiscal irresponsibility.......we have already arrived. Unless we dramatically reduce the size of the federal government, reduce the pork barrel spending and put someone in office who knows that we cannot spend our way out of debt we are doomed. It is only a matter of time until our democracy collapses.........

[ztck5356]

08:28 PM on 03/08/2011

...and where was your indignation about the "fiscal irresponsibility" during the Bush spending spree on 2 wars, and his tax cuts for the wealthy which put Obama in the place he is in now with trying to salvage a wrecked economy?

Oh, pleeze, I forget, this all started the day a black man moved in the WH! Who are you trying to fool with your selective amnesia?

[Tarheel45]

09:04 PM on 03/08/2011

Sorry if you misunderstood. Obama was not the beginning of our problems. Things have been going downhill since Reagan. I am a registered Democrat and I have been for almost 30 years. I am just saying that things are going downhill much faster on Obama's watch. Government spending has tripled in less than two years. Our huge government trying to be all things to all people is our problem. We need less Federal government and more individual responsibility. Obama had NO experience, he is just a puppet. Obama is a great speaker and he does a wonderful job of making people forget what he said two years ago.....for that matter, what he said two weeks ago.

I don't care what color the president is.......why do people like you believe that just because I don't agree with what Obama says or does that I am racist. There are many black men who I would vote for if they ran for president (possibly Herman Cain)........just not Obama. It really offends me that you are quick to play the race card and basically change the topic from responsibility to racism.

[rblaquinta]

10:02 AM on 03/08/2011

THE TROLLS ARE OUT TODAY....TRUMP FOR PRESIDENT...BETTER THEN PALIN RUNNING...LOL

[pshively7]

09:25 AM on 03/08/2011

OBAMA THINKS HE IS SO HIGH AND MIGHTEST BUT ALL HE IS DOING IS DESTROYING US.STOP ALL THIS MESS FROM COMING FROM CHINA AND OTHER PLACES.

[Dmpolis]

09:24 AM on 03/08/2011

This is just what we need another billionaire having control of spending. I don't like his ideology as he is a big" family values" guy...no really. We need serious men and women to get serious about America and Americans. America is not a reality show for dummies. At the rate we are going the best thing to invest in an RV. You may not be able to afford the gas to go anywhere but it will be a roof over your head and if you get a little gas that is better yet..I can't remember when I have had more disgust for how the GOP is behaving. They were up in arms and saying Obama was trying to resistribute wealth.... well yeah when 2% has it all I think some of it would be nice for the rest of us. A job would be nice for starters. Let Americans work and they will take care of themsleves.

[Stephen Stafford]

09:11 AM on 03/08/2011

Trump has never served a day in elected office, so he has no hacked off constituents to contend with. Of course there are people who will want to elect a President who never held any elected office, or had to be accountable to anyone, including creditors, wives, or mistresses, in his life.

[chaplinlives]

01:46 AM on 03/08/2011

Hey Trump, you're fired!

[Tarheel45]

08:45 PM on 03/07/2011

I have been a registered Democrat for almost 30 years....but, I didn't vote for Obama and given the choice between Obama and Trump, I would vote for Trump. It seems that a lot of you are basing your opinions on Trump's past....and maybe that is fair. The biggest reason that I would vote for him is because he is the "ONLY" person, politician or news anchor who has mentioned repealing NAFTA and reinstating an import tax on China. The repealing of NAFTA would immediately bring hundreds of thousands of jobs back to the USA. Clinton said that "our people" didn't want those jobs.....well, he didn't ask the thousands around my home town who are now unemployed. Those jobs provided relatively good jobs with insurance and benefits that are now being paid by our government. Put those people back to work and they are no longer surviving off of the government......they would be paying taxes and buying the American made products as we should be doing. That would in turn create more jobs to make the products that these people would be wanting to purchase........That is what I call Trickle "UP" economics. We can't all have $250,000.00 a year jobs!

[ruburnt]

11:07 PM on 03/07/2011

I agree......

[Paul Andrews]

11:45 PM on 03/07/2011

@Taehee45 I agree with you F&F for you. I have had more than enough of OBAMA

[kkrugerud]

06:59 PM on 03/07/2011

Like Perot, Trump fails to say anything in how he plans to run and hopefully improve the nation - just a bunch of rhetoric. More ominous, we all know folks like Perot and Trump wish to be the President, but the question still stands: Why. Having a billionaire businessman run the country like a CEO of a business, where we the people will be the insignificant employee, screams oligarchy or plutocracy to me. Scary!!!

[Paul Andrews]

11:47 PM on 03/07/2011

@kkrugerud I dont see how TRUMP can be any worse than OBAMA

[Dmpolis]

09:46 AM on 03/08/2011

You have to be kidding. The Koch brothers are doing a lot for the US aren't they?" A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor and bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government". Thomas Jefferson

[piperflyer]

01:02 AM on 03/08/2011

At least we know Trump's past.

[Gene Picor]

05:36 PM on 03/07/2011

I worry that elections in this country can be bought by the highest bidder and widest media coverage.

[ruburnt]

11:10 PM on 03/07/2011

Well, one things for sure....the main stream sure helped Obama get elected...practically falling all over themselves.....sickening!

[Paul Andrews]

11:49 PM on 03/07/2011

@ruburnt Yes the media wanted a BLACK president, it was like the media wanted show the world that we arent prejudiced and we got a very bad president out of the deal

[Spaceman Eddie]

05:13 PM on 03/07/2011

That's just special. I met him years ago as a fledgling USFL owner. Asked him what he learned at Wharton (Univ. of Penn's prestigious economics school). He told me that "If you owe the bank $10,000, you're in trouble. If you owe them $10 million, they're in trouble." The Art of the Deal was born.

This guy has never made a contract, personal or professional, he didn't default on. He's the King of Deficit Spending. How to become a billionaire, Donald-style? Borrow $5 billion, then pay back 20 cents on the dollar. Ask anyone who's done biz with him, from the USFL days to the present.

Look to the Apprentice for his Cabinet selections. He's a likable guy, but the Donald is the creation of his own fantasies and Madison Avenue, and a total assclown.