GOP 2012 field: None of the above?

by Mark Silva

Think about the field of potential Republican candidates for president in 2012 - pollsters have been asking people lately what they think of the field.

The survey at hand does not include Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker from Georgia who has told C-SPAN's Washington Journal that he is going to give this question some more thought in February.

"We are going to reach out to all of our friends around the country,'' Gingrich says. "And we'll decide, if there's a requirement as citizens that we run, I suspect we probably will. And if there's not a requirement, if other people have filled the vacuum, I suspect we won't."

Which suggests that Gingrich may well defer to Tim Pawlenty, the governor of Minnesota, who says he is thinking of running for president, or Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts who invested a lot of his own money in a campaign last year and gives every indication of positioning himself for another run, or Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas who ran and his own show on FOX News now, or Sarah Palin, the former governor of Alaska who drew a $1.25 million advance for memoirs that will be published in November, with a rollout by Oprah Winfrey on the eve of publication.

So what do 1,038 Americans surveyed think about the field - a sample sufficient to give CNN and Opinion Research Corp. a high degree of confidence in results that could be as much as 3 percent wrong one way or the other? (The survey was conducted Oct. 16-18.)

More people have an unfavorable opinion of Palin - 51 percent - than those who hold a positive view of the GOP's 2008 nominee for vice president - 42 percent.

Only 3 percent say they have never heard of her, however, which is pretty good for someone who was unknown nationally 15 months ago. On the other hand, in early September of 2008, coming out of the Republican National Convention on Sen. John McCain's presidential ticket, 57 percent had a good impression of Palin, 27 percent negative. So she clearly has suffered from many months of exposure on the national scene.

Nearly two thirds of those surveyed say Palin is "not a typical politician'' -- a handy attribute for a campaign these days -- and say she is "a good role model for women.'' A majority say she cares about the needs of people like them - 56 percent - and say she is honest and trustworthy - 55 percent.

But here's a hitch: Just 29 percent say the former half-term governor who quit midway is qualified to be president.

Romney, it appears, has held up fairly well with the wear.

He has a higher favorable rating - 36 percent - than unfavorable - 26 percent. And that's better than where he stood in early February of 2008, when he was in the hunt for the GOP's nomination. He had a 38 percent favorable rating then, but his unfavorable rating was just as high, 38 percent.

After all he's been through on the national scene, still nearly one in five of those surveyed say they have never heard of him, and another one in five say they have no opinion of him - which is a lot to work with.

Huckabee's show must be helping him, or maybe it's his sense of humor - as a Baptist preacher, he had said he never worried about the long odds of his campaign, because he had majored in miracles, not math. He holds a favorable view among 43 percent of those surveyed. And a 26 percent negative image. Nearly one-third of all those surveyed still don't know who he is or have no opinion.

Pawlenty, on the other hand, has nowhere to go but up. Most people have never heard of him - 46 percent - or hold no opinion of the two-term governor who is stepping aside at the end of his term - 26 percent. And his favorable and unfavorable ratings among those who have heard of him are about even - 15-13.

All of that adds up to a lot of potential to build upon, though an early horse-race test of Republicans (read on) shows just how much work he has to do.

Among the Republicans surveyed - and there's a 4.5 percent margin of error on this smaller sample (462 people) - Huckabee is still enjoying the aura of his Iowa caucus victory in 2008. He leads the field, with 32 percent voicing support for his potential candidacy in 2012 and 25 percent supporting Palin, 21 Romney, and just 5 Pawlenty.

One in 10 say they'd prefer someone else - not exactly the mandate that Gingrich might be looking for.

All of these numbers add up to one fact: 2012 is a long way off. And "none of the above'' may be in the best shape of all.