Breaking Down the Presidential Candidates

Sarah Palin

BACKGROUND: Palin was virtually unknown until 2006, when she become the first woman governor in Alaska history. In 2008, Republican Presidential candidate John McCain chose Palin as his running mate. Although they lost, she became one of the big players in supporting Republicans in the 2010 midterms, in which Republicans received the House majority. She also capitalized on her new celebrity status, publishing a book and becoming the star of “Sarah Palin’s Alaska,” although it was later canceled.

CAMPAIGN: Since her rise in 2008, Palin has emerged as a leading voice of the extreme right. If she is going to win primaries and advance as the final Republican candidate, she will need to win over more moderate conservatives; as of now, her relatively small group of followers, even if they are super-dedicated, won’t have enough pull to get her past big names like Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee. Finally, Palin will have to quickly move past allegations that her Republican 2010 campaign resulted in the Arizona shootings.

Mike Huckabee

BACKGROUND: Huckabee was previously governor of Arkansas until 2007. In 2008, he and Mitt Romney became two of the finalists to become the Republican candidate for president. Huckabee ended up winning close to 21 percent of the primary vote, mostly in the South. Huckabee is generally known as a religious conservative. He is both pro-life and has strong views on immigration: he has previously insisted that immigrants should have to return home before applying for citizenship.

CAMPAIGN: The New York Times has listed 12 candidates that will possibly be tossing their hat into the Republican primaries. Of them, Huckabee and Romney stand out as the two candidates that moderates will probably favor most because of their experience. Huckabee, who is a Fox reporter, has come under fire for criticizing Natalie Portman’s pregnancy out of wedlock, and also for a recent comment about Obama’s birthplace. However, he and Romney still are the strongest candidates, possibly because there are no others who played a true part in the 2008 elections.

Barack Obama

BACKGROUND: President Obama has declared that he will be running for re-election in 2012. In his current presidential term, Obama started with a strong following: he won close to 68 percent of the electoral vote in 2008. His approval rating was initially 69 percent, according to a Gallup poll, but has since fallen to as low as 41 percent. Disagreements over his massive health care reform, as well as a relatively stagnant unemployment rate, have left former supporters criticizing the actual scale of his reform.

CAMPAIGN: Although Obama is currently in office, his campaign is already under way. His campaign manager Jim Messina has adopted the motto “Respect. Empower. Include. Win.” In the 2008 run, registering new voters was crucial for Democrats: according to the Democratic National Committee, 69 percent of new registered voters were Democrats in 2008. As the economy didn’t recover as well as many citizens had expected, Obama will have to work to win the electorate in several of the states that only narrowly sided with him in 2008.

Mitt Romney

BACKGROUND: After the recession, Republicans looked for a candidate who could run the country like a business. Although Donald Trump may serve as the extreme of this, Romney, who went to Harvard Business School and led a private equity investment firm, is possibly  the candidate with the most financial experience. He and Huckabee were the two finalists behind McCain in the 2008 election. Romney won close to 22 percent of the vote in the 2008 presidential primaries.

CAMPAIGN: Romney’s second campaign heated up with the publication of No Apology: The Case for American Greatness. This April, he has declared that he has formed an “exploratory committee,” which is a general go-ahead to assume he will run for president. Romney is widely regarded as a front-runner to be the Republican candidate in the 2012 election, even over the other leader, Huckabee. Romney’s Mormon background may alienate his voters, but he is adamant that it will be a non-factor. Although he isn’t the speaker Obama is, he provides crucial business savvy.