The most recent Washington Post poll included a section that asked respondents to identify the word that popped into their heads when a candidates name is mentioned. The results are, shall we say, interesting.
- For Herman Cain, the top five responses were “9-9-9” at 42 mentions; “Business/Businessman” at 30 mentions; “interesting” at 23 mentions; “Good” at 22 mentions; and, “Pizza” at 19 mentions. The first negative word association for Cain is “Inexperience/Inexperienced” at 12 mentions.
- For Rick Perry, the top five responses were “Texas” at 55 mentions; “No” at 15 mentions; “Idiot/Idiotic” at 15 mentions; “Governor/Governor of Texas” at 12 mentions; and, “conservative” at 12 mentions. Just below the top 5 is “Dislike” at 10 mentions
- For Mitt Romney, the top five responses were “Mormon” at 60 mentions, “Health Care/RomneyCare” at 17 mentions; “Flip Flop/flip flopper” at 13 mentions; “Good man” at 13 mentions; and, “No/No Way” at 12 mentions.
In some sense, you can see the core of Perry’s problem here, and Romney’s. Many of the words that voters associate with them are negative, while most of those associated with Cain are positive. As long as that’s the case, they’re both going to have a tough sell with voters.
H/T: Taegan Goddard
