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From the Dagbloggers
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Gingrich's Steep Ascent Shows Tea Time Has Arrived
by Articleman 1/23/2012 - 1:07 am
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I told you so. Back in November, I posited that the primary lens through which one should view this Republican primary cycle was not as a contest among positive options, but as a contest among Romney and whoever was the most compelling alternative to Romney. (You know, the AntiRomney.) After Romney convincingly won his home state, I argued again in this space that if Gingrich remained in the teens nationally (which he did at all times), he would win South Carolina. And now with Gingrich's resurgence through two debates and a decisive triumph in South Carolina, he is well poised to win Florida, and with it, assume the mantle of the front runner in the GOP race. All of which shows that the Tea Party has taken control of the Republican Party, and also, that Barack Obama is likely to be re-elected nine months or so hence. Why? Three reasons:
First off, Romney's best argument that he would win was that it was inevitable that he would win, and that's done with. Having now flip-flopped from winning Iowa to losing it (good one, Stephen Colbert), and winning only his home state before a Southern pummeling, Romney's near-universal support among the GOP establishment is revealed as a liability. Erick Erickson, who makes more sense on this than establishment pundits, points out chippily that the base of the GOP is at war with the GOP establishment. This fundamentally conservative party doesn't much like Romneycare, nor his past pro-choice stances, nor do some of the evangelicals to whom Rick Perry was dogwhistling like his particular religiosity. Jeb Bush is calling on him to release his tax returns. He is robotic and out-of-touch, a sort of handsome George H.W. Bush without the seeming kindliness. Why would it be inevitable, either positionally, or aesthetically, that this man would win his party's nomination?
History shows that the GOP is changing from front-runner driven inevitability toward something else. Before John McCain, for a half-century, Republicans had frontrunners sitting at over 40% by the June of the year before their nomination, and had picked each such frontrunner. As they say, Republicans fall in line, not in love. But that's the old GOP. This one has grassroots energy. It has rebels. It is not easily led. And Mitt Romney was resisted for being the front-runner, at least for being one with his many weird attributes. And every time he floated toward the top, the GOP base surged instinctively toward any imaginable alternative, cycling through Rick Perry and even Herman Cain before settling upon Romney. These Republicans do not want to be forced into line, do not want to be told who to love. McCain was the last gasp of next-in-line-ism, and the level of energy he generated pre-Palin showed that institutional next-ism, and electability (much of what Romney is) was not what the new GOP is about (as if the 2010 House elections didn't underscore that reality).
Romney's enormous advantages prove that he is highly non-inevitable. Romney deployed millions to inundate Iowa with nasty commercials attacking his principal rival, Gingrich (and still didn't win!). We are now told by Romney's handlers that they will attack Gingrich on his House ethics background. Does anyone seriously think Mitt Romney can *outattack* Newt Gingrich? This makes literally no sense. Look at South Carolina and how vacillating Romney came off on his taxes. All the money and momentum could not help him. And why? He lacked manful gravitas. Romney is a George H.W. Bush, and the Tea Party wants something more muscular and assertive. Romney is as inevitable as male pregnancy, a national carbon tax, and a Canadian team ever winning the Stanley Cup again.
Second, the theme of this election remains the strong streak in the Republican Party (roughly consistent with the footprint of the Tea Party in the GOP) that would rather be right than win elections. It is not that the folks voting for Gingrich are consciously trying to destroy Republican electoral prospects. You see exit polls suggesting that Gingrich voters emphasized their subjective belief in his electability. (What are they going to say? I intentionally waited in line at a polling place to cast a vote in my party's primary, so as to injure that party?) But anyone who can read polls knows that Gingrich does worse than does Romney against Obama in trial heats, particularly among independent voters.
Their real concern, properly understood, is rectitude, not electabilty. These voters see in Gingrich an intellectual who will bandy about arresting federal judges (states' rights, anyone?) and hurl the phrase "food stamps" at the first black President (to tumultuous applause from some members in the gallery). He is for them doing Right, speaking truth to power, to an oppressively big and deficit-laden federal government led by a man with whom they feel little in common. Gingrich is now calling plays from the Nixon playbook, pivoting from attacks on his character to haranguing (persuasively to the GOP base) about the elites, for they are his opponents both inside and outside his party. He is now channeling Nixon's Southern strategy, campaigning against Them. There are enough GOPers who fear or loathe Them to hand him Florida. The polls last year as the Republican rank and file mulled their options suggested that the voters would rather be right than win. Quinnipiac data in my piece said as much. Supporting Herman Cain at all said as much. Following Newt's angry stem-winding down the path of repudiating Romneyism says as much. And they will, next week, creating what Steve Schmidt has already said will be the ultimate GOP Establishment freakout. His saying it seems to be to bring that event one step closer to fruition.
Third, Florida is key, and it will give Newt a clear path to the nomination. The first Florida poll is out, and where Romney was emptily up 20 during the few weeks he seemed inevitable, Gingrich is now up 34.4-25.6. With Santorum falling further back, the AntiRomney vote is coalescing behind Newt. If Romney can't win Florida with everything going for him thus far, the case against him is that much stronger. Analysis I saw Sunday in the New York Times pointed out that if one projected Florida based on the percentages of votes Gingrich and Romney obtained in particular demographics in South Carolina, Gingrich would win Florida, though by 8 and not 13. This result makes abundant sense to me, given the increasing nationalization of our elections that Nate Silver has written so well about (meaning, the increasingly cross-correlated results across different districts). Florida is enough like South Carolina that if the national trend is Gingrich even with Romney (and it is), Gingrich will win Florida, all things being equal.
The corrosion this will effect on Romney's establishment-driven candidacy will be substantial. I will leave to another day the post about how Romney is increasingly the 2008 Hillary Clinton campaign in a narrative of establishment against insurgent. It fits increasingly well, right down to the New Hampshire win leading to a 20 point national lead erased by a slingshot from a big win in South Carolina, to the establishment consensus behind that leader, down to the romantic concept of political insurgency that Gingrich is selling as much as Obama was four years ago. People like to get excited. When you look at voting patterns, Romney does better with those who are less engaged, less Republican, and less ideological. People who care less are his base. If we're in a tossup, I'll predict that the folks who care more will defeat the guys lounging about any day.
Yes, folks, Mitt Romney is going down, to percentages of support that may possibly fall below his marginal tax rate (if only we knew it to make the comparison). We have been force-fed the narrative of his inevitability, like so much Soylent Green. But Mitt's millions could not buy him Iowa, or a lead in delegates to date. This has not surprised me, because I thought flip-flopping liberal patricians from Massachusetts made bad Presidential candidates. As did Governors of Massachusetts. But what do I know? I'm just the guy who has consistently predicted since his November surge began that Newton Leroy Gingrich, the AntiRomney, would win his party's nomination, showcase the victory of the Tea Party over the old GOP establishment, and hand the Presidency back to Barack Obama. The data give me no reason to change course thus far.
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In the News
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SPIN METER: Rivals airbrush anti-Romney words
By Nancy Benac, Associated Press, May 16, 2012
After the nastiness of the Republican primary race, former candidates have collective amnesia about Romney disses
Note to self: you think you're so smart about this kinda stuff, but you yourself fell for it once again.....so much for all the prognostication about one of our political parties disintegrating from all the primary campaign animosity.
Read the article at http://www.salon.com/2012/05/16/spin_meter_rivals_airbrush_anti_romney_words/ -
Assessing the Representativeness of Public Opinion Surveys
Pew Resarch Center for the People and the Press, May 15, 2012
For decades survey research has provided trusted data about political attitudes and voting behavior, the economy, health, education, demography and many other topics. But political and media surveys are facing significant challenges as a consequence of societal and technological changes.
It has become increasingly difficult to contact potential respondents and to persuade them to participate. The percentage of households in a sample that are successfully interviewed – the response rate – has fallen dramatically. At Pew Research, the response rate of a typical telephone survey was 36% in 1997 and is just 9% today. The general decline in response rates is evident across nearly all types of surveys, in the United States and abroad. At the same time, greater effort and expense are required to achieve even the diminished response rates of today. These challenges have led many to question whether surveys are still providing accurate and unbiased information [....]
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Ride of Silence
On May 16, 2012 at 7:00 PM, the Ride of Silence will begin in North America and roll across the globe. Cyclists will take to the roads in a silent procession to honor cyclists who have been killed or injured while cycling on public roadways. Although cyclists have a legal right to share the road with motorists, the motoring public often isn't aware of these rights, and sometimes not aware of the cyclists themselves.
...
The Ride of Silence is a free ride that asks its cyclists to ride no faster than 12 mph, wear helmets, follow the rules of the road and remain silent during the ride. There are no sponsors and no registration fees. The ride, which is held during National Bike Month, aims to raise the awareness of motorists, police and city officials that cyclists have a legal right to the public roadways. The ride is also a chance to show respect for and honor the lives of those who have been killed or injured.
Read the article at http://www.rideofsilence.org/main.php -
Sugar makes you stupid: Study shows high-fructose diet...
A new UCLA rat study is the first to show how a diet steadily high in fructose slows the brain, hampering memory and learning — and how omega-3 fatty acids can counteract the disruption. The peer-reviewed Journal of Physiology publishes the findings in its May 15 edition.
"Our findings illustrate that what you eat affects how you think," said Fernando Gomez-Pinilla, a professor of neurosurgery at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and a professor of integrative biology and physiology in the UCLA College of Letters and Science. "Eating a high-fructose diet over the long term alters your brain's ability to learn and remember information. But adding omega-3 fatty acids to your meals can help minimize the damage."
While earlier research has revealed how fructose harms the body through its role in diabetes, obesity and fatty liver, this study is the first to uncover how the sweetener influences the brain.
The UCLA team zeroed in on high-fructose corn syrup, an inexpensive liquid six times sweeter than cane sugar, that is commonly added to processed foods, including soft drinks, condiments, applesauce and baby food. The average American consumes more than 40 pounds of high-fructose corn syrup per year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
"We're not talking about naturally occurring fructose in fruits, which also contain important antioxidants," explained Gomez-Pinilla, who is also a member of UCLA's Brain Research Institute and Brain Injury Research Center. "We're concerned about high-fructose corn syrup that is added to manufactured food products as a sweetener and preservative."[Better write this down]
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Insider tells why Anonymous ‘might well be the most...
Christopher Doyon, a.k.a. Commander X, sits atop a hillside in an undisclosed location in Canada, watching a reporter and photographer make their way along a narrow path to join him, away from the prying eyes of law enforcement.
It’s been a few weeks of encrypted emails back and forth, working out the security protocol to follow for interviewing Doyon, one of the brains behind Anonymous, now a fugitive from the FBI.
Doyon, who readily admits taking part in some of the highest-profile hacktivist attacks on websites last year — from Tunisia to Orlando, Sony to PayPal — was arrested in September for a comparatively minor assault on the county website of Santa Cruz, Calif., where he was living, in retaliation for the town forcibly removing a homeless encampment on the courthouse steps.
The “virtual sit-in” lasted half an hour. For that, Doyon is facing 15 years in jail.
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Now wait just a minute. I admitted to prematurely counting out Gingrich, and I stand by my admission of error. But while while Gingrich's recent success has validated your original predictions, this race has not followed the script you laid out. Back in December, you were crowing about Gingrich's runaway poll numbers, nationally and in SC and FL, while suggesting that the trend would continue.
By contrast, I predicted that Gingrich's popularity was as hollow as his predecessors' and would soon come crashing down. I was right. He dropped dramatically in the polls, first in IA, then in SC, FL, and the rest of the nation. And as his campaign appeared to collapse, you hardly made a peep.
What I failed to predict was Gingrich's sudden resurgence just before the SC primary. It completely caught me off guard and most of the rest of the country as well. (For the record, I did not hear you predicting it a week ago either.)
Now I acknowledge that Gingrich's success bolsters your original analysis, and if he wins the nomination, I will not hesitate to congratulate you for your farsightedness, but I will give it more gladly if you temper your gloating with some expression of humility.
I said when he was ahead in December he would win SC and FL. I said after he lost NH decisively that if he stayed even in the teens, with Romney in the thirties, he would win SC. That's why I'm entitled, and why your comment is unfair. If you didn't hear me predicting it, you are living up to your boast of not reading everything commented in the site. Anyhow, I don't recall anyone else around here saying that. Nor anyone in the MSM either, not to draw a harder line under it.
I would also point out that on the radio in *October*, I called Gingrich's rise as the next AntiRomney before it happened altogether. I was sticking with the record of what I wrote on the site, which is less fulsome.
My predictions about Gingrich are not some sort of argument I perceive myself to be having with you, it's just what I think. But sure, now that you remind me of it, I thought your thing about Gingrich being like Cain was obviously wrong. Gingrich hit a $5MM land mine of negative ads. And now he's past it. Because he's more substantial, and performs better as a candidate, than does Romney. Neither Cain nor Perry have the bearing, intellect, or presentation of self, to weather such a thing.
I had been considering writing a column eating crow on the Gingrich prediction, which I decided I would do when I concluded I was wrong. It was going to be called the Dr. Houseman column, because in Dirty Dancing, he says to Patrick Swayze, when I'm wrong, I say I'm wrong. I discussed this with a reader who kept telling me I was wrong. But I never reached the moment when I concluded I was. If I turn out to be, it hasn't happened yet, hence my never writing that column. Til I do, you can rely on what I've written here as my views.
I don't think you wavered and the non-peeping charge does not hold water. I do remember an exchange with you in which you said, "If Romney wins S.C., it's over". I do not regard that statement as a waiver.
However your statement concerned me enough that I phoned Ms. Rose in Japan and asked her to create some social conservative backlash, which---and I am unanimous in my thinking here, and despite Mr. Dick Day's false pronouncement that "Essayists have changed nothing"---obviously achieved its objective.
Brilliant piece, A-man.
Sorry, I'll retract my comment and blame it on the wine. It was a stupid quibble and ungracious. Gingrich is indeed coming on strong, as you long predicted even when everyone dismissed him. Whether he ultimately wins or loses, you got SC right.
Nonetheless, I still maintain that Newt's support is hollow, which is why his popularity has been so fickle. To be a more substantial candidate than Herman Cain is not exactly a glowing achievement. There will be more negative ads and negative media coverage now that Newt is the new-new-anti-Romney, and the race will by determined by how well he rides the storm--and how well Romney rides out his own.
Or to put it another way, the battle will be decided not by the relative strength of the pro-Romney and the pro-Gingrich factions but by that of the anti-Romney and anti-Gingrich blocs.
I think your charge that A-Man stopped peeping is entirely unfair.
He remains a peeper to this day.
You guys are my peeps, Oxy. I'll send you some marshmallow peeps in the likeness of Gingrich in gratitude.
Did you know that marshmallow peeps expand and then explode if you put them in the microwave?
Yes.
Taken control of the party? I dunno, A-man, this is a persuasive piece, but the establishment is just so powerful. It's more like the Tea Party has succeeded in stealing one of the establishment's slippers, and the establishment is being forced to run around the yard in foolish disarray until it gets the slipper back.
I have to admit I'm pretty surprised that the establishment couldn't sell R-money to SC, but we'll need to see how it goes in Florida. I'm not as convinced as you are, but I don't have much (okay, nothing really) to back it up except a feeling that those f***ers will figure out a way to get what they want.
I guess my long view is that whatever happens with the Romney candidacy, at the end of the day, the establishment is the establishment. Most of my political theory comes from musicals (an excellent source, and quite entertaining!) and there's a line in Evita: conservatives are kings of compromise. All of this GOP maneuvering is just a process of putting enough money and enough interest in certain issues to get the votes they need so they can do whatever the hell they want. It's not like they actually care about this stuff.
They may lose their man Romney and have to suffer through cringe-inducing Newt, and if they end up with another Obama presidency, well, they'll suffer through that, too--although it will be unpleasant, tedious and it will cost more.
But here's the thing--what if the jig is really up? What if there simply are not enough easily-persuaded, single-issue voters to supply the vast numbers of votes (the Soylent Green of the ballot box) required to keep the MoneyMonarchy in place? What if, finally, the Romneyville, Cayman Capitalism that we've all had to pretend is the bedrock of America for the past 30 years, is on trial and is being found wanting?
If this is what is actually happening, and hey, it's possible, then this is the beginning of an amazing time. We should be keeping our ears open, because if that whooshing noise stops, the moment of silence that replaces it may mean that the pendulum has finished its swing and our time to really, really do something has come.
A-man rhymes with Cayman. I could be the Manchurian blogger.
You did put up that clever R-money pun. And now the reference to China...outsourcing...the Caymans....
Aw shucks Mitt, you had us all going there for awhile.
We Americans all love R-money, don't we?
John Heilemann: "Five Consequences of Gingrich’s South Carolina Win"
The link just takes one to a reply box for this blog.
Oops and thanks for speaking up on my error, as I posted it because I think most here might appreciate at least a couple of the points he makes. Here it is, he posted it on Sunday's "Daily Intel" @ New York Magazine:
http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2012/01/heilemann-five-new-gop-primary-fact...
Nice companion article to Articleman's.
I especially like the last bit
Also he links to the exit poll numbers which shows Newt cleaning Mitt's clock in just about every category.
The real significant one, and backs up Articleman's point:
Very Conservative: Newt 48, Mitt 19
Somewhat Conservative Newt 41 Mitt 30
Liberal/Moderate Newt 31 Mitt 34
As Heilemann points out Florida is a closed contest, so it will be more conservative than past contest.
If you extrapolate further left, Mitt will win all of the Communist vote in any GOP primary. This is.
EXCELLENT
Newt.
for...
NEWT!!!
Thanks for the reference, Artsy.
I think Heilemann's point about Romney's "turn in the barrel" is a good one. IMO, once you've been "shellacked", as Obama put it after the 2010 loss, you have to show some kind of behavioral change that acknowledges that reality---call it contrition or something akin---which is the way that normal people behave. I agree with Heilemann that most likely Romney won't do that but will instead sharpen his attacks on Gingrich. IMO, Romney's group still believes in his inevitability and are counting on Gingrich to blow up.
I think Romney's idea of eliminating capital gains taxes for those making less than $200K, but not eliminating it for those above, as I believe Gingrich is proposing, is something he could better use to his advantage.
First, some interesting things from the poll. Mitt got 0.0 in the 18-29 group. Which means he is going to have to bus in some more BYU students to Orlando. The only age group that the two are even is the 65+. And I don't think Mitt's tax info is going to help those on SS and Medicare.
It is interesting that Newt did incredibly well with Blacks, while also beating Mitt with Whites. (also interesting Ron Paul was the overwhelming victor with Hispanics.)
Second, I posted on another thread this info:
Iowa Unemployment Rate: 5.7%
New Hampshire Unemployment Rate: 5.2%
South Caroline Unemployment Rate: 9.9%
Florida Unemployment Rate: 10%
Many of the folks who identify with the Tea Party, I believe, are those who have been touched by the economic downturn. By that I mean if they aren't unemployed (or under-employed), they know someone close to them - family and friends, ex co-workers who were laid off. A populist tea party message is going to be received differently in places like Iowa and NH, then in places like SC and FL.
These people, rather than have a epiphany and join the Left, double down on their conservatism, and get mad at the establishment GOP for abandoning the true principles.
Enter the "Reagan conservative" Newt, flaws and all. In fact, I think once people start to fall in behind someone like Newt, his flaws become an asset. The more attacks from Mitt's GOP, the more it will be seen as the Establishment trying to stop the one who will return the Reagan years. His attack on the media is as much about de-clawing the PAC's attacks as it is about the media asking him questions about his past.
Lastly, I have to admit I abandoned Newt after NH, and embraced the inevitability of Mitt for the most part - I thought it was still a possibility he could win SC, but it appeared Mitt was going to get it in the end and probably eek out a victory in SC. Before that I felt Newt would take SC and roll into Florida for a victory. But never did I think he could so convincingly in SC. I have to go back to the unemployment numbers. I think Mitt comes across as one of those who will just cut taxes and not much else. While the tea party folks don't want big government, they want them to do something - hence Newt bringing up getting things down not only during Reagan years, but also the Clinton years during his victory speech.
[Since you bring up the P-word ("populism"), I want to finally add my two cents to the discussions of Newt v. Romney - I tried posting a version of this comment in Oxy Mora's thread last night, but kept accidentally deleting it.]
I just want to point out that there is nothing, and I mean nothing, economically or financially "populist" about Newt Gingrich, his platform, or his appeal. The reason Newt surged was because he kicked Juan Williams and then John King (and, by extension, all of the "liberal media") in the teeth, and for good measure laid a racist bitch slap on on Barack Obama (i.e., the "Food Stamp President"), all of which received a great deal of national news coverage. If his attacks on Romney had any effect, they were in painting Romney as an out-of-touch elitist, not that he was a vulture capitalist destroying American jobs.* I mean, Jesus H. Christ, this is a "populist" who would change the tax code so that Romney paid zero taxes on his income from his tenure at Bain, instead of the current punitive rate of fifteen percent!
If Gingrich can be considered a populist at all, it's as an avatar of the cultural resentment against uppity blacks pushing for handouts and pointy headed liberal politicians and media elites who know what's good for you better than you yourself do. If Gingrich has a clear antecedent in recent political history, it's not Huey Long; it's George Wallace.
And can we please, please, stop fooling ourselves into thinking that there is anything remotely populist, from an economic perspective, about the rise of the Tea Party or the anger of conservative Republicans? These people did not organize against the "bailouts" until a couple of months after Obama was in the White House, and the astroturfers from Americans for Prosperity conned them into thinking the bailouts were part and parcel of Obama's Big Government Socialist agenda, along with universal health care, the stimulus, and deficit spending. The TP's were fine with all of these things when George Bush was president and Republicans were winning elections.
Economic populists do not exist in the Republican Party, full stop. Stop giving them credit for a self-awareness or a sense of compassion they do not possess.
*If you don't believe me, just look here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/behind-the-numbers/post/south-carolina-primary-exit-polls-five-key-factors/2012/01/03/gIQA3qVjEQ_blog.html
Key graf:
"Romney faced an onslaught of attacks in South Carolina for his work buying and restructuring companies while working at Bain Capital. The state has a 9.9 percent unemployment rate and fully 50 percent of 2008 primary voters lacked a college degree; a key target of ads highlighting Romney as a man who endangered jobs of ordinary people.
.Still, there’s little evidence that such attacks have taken root. More than twice as many likely voters said the attacks were unfair than fair to Romney in an NBC News/Marist poll released this week. And more than six in 10 in the poll said investment firms like Bain help the U.S. economy; about a quarter say they hurt it. Nationally, Republicans have soured somewhat on Romney’s work restructuring companies, but it remains a net positive in the latest Post-ABC poll."
Thanks, Ethanator, as usual you make a great deal of sense.
I think Gingrich is a complete fraud and agree that, in the context of Mitt's weakness Newt's attack on the media was central to his win, not to mention his awful dog whistling on race.
I don't have any idea of the self consciousness of the Republican base or anyone else. I can only make a best guess. My view is that the base contains populist anger against the bailouts. I also think anger toward the Fed indicates economic populism. A recent Gallup poll showed 50% of Republicans think big corporations have too much power. I look at these as evidence of populism in the economics vein. For what's it worth, because I spend a great deal of time with folks in the Republican base, my universal experience is that I can always get them to hollerin if I bring up the Fed, Wall St. or the Big Corporations. That's anecdotal but colors my views.
I'm not sure the NBC poll proves the point of a lack of economic populism in the Republican base. The question contained the phrase "work in buying and restructuring companies" which is an apple pie equivalent and one which I myself could agree to most days. It also contained the phrase "an onslaught of attacks", didn't say "by Gingrich", and in the context of this election could just as easily have been interpreted as attacks on a Republican candidate by the media---which we have just learned is a no, no.
In any case, since I lack an editor, I appreciate your comments, which are uniquely incisive.
Shit. was looking at your quote above. The beginning of the long question does say "by his opponents". Still, interpretation is open to question.
Many thanks for keeping this out of my post.
I'm guessing you don't have anything of substance to respond with, then?
You can quit guessing, I am not Mitt Romney. Was working on it and just posted.
I actually began my reply in your posts's thread with a disclaimer about how much I generylly appreciate your contributions here.
I think my frustration with the "there are populists in the Republican Party that we my abe able to persuade" is that the flashes of economic populism that we see from them are exclusively rhetorical. They never translate into support for policies that are actually, you know economically populist. I'm guessing that if you dig deeper with your friends and acquaintances, that the minute you touch on policy in any specific sense, they will find problems with any solutions you or I might propose. Wouldn't want to kill all that job-creating freedom, after all.
Part of that is "begging the question", however, by assuming what form the populism has to take: government policies. (I'm assuming your use of the word "policies" referenced government ones. If not, then ignore that first sentence.)
My father, however, would argue that the appropriate "policies" are private ones, run by church organizations and the like. He genuinely cares about helping the poor (and actively contributes to charities that do good work with the poor, both financially and with his own labor/time), but thinks that the government shouldn't be taxing us in order to do so. Obviously, I'm more in agreement with you than him, but to suggest he doesn't really care about helping the poor (which is not exactly what you said, so forgive me if I'm misrepresenting you) because he doesn't support any government programs is not an accurate analysis.
Hey VA my dad and your dad sound similar, I love my father, but he is wrong just as your father is when it comes to believing that private interests serve the poor better than an organized government program, but together private and government based services are exactly what we need, not just one or the other.
We have solid evidence that only relying on private interests leaves too many people without anything, no help, no nothing. We didn't create social security and Medicare because the elderly were living adequately or receiving adequate health care after they'd retired.
Private interests don't have the vast resources that a functional federal government has of course, and these are the things I like to point out to my father to remind him what government is for and how it works for regular people. My father donates and does all the same thing your dad does, and yet it isn't enough to eliminate homelessness, long term joblessness, access to health care nothing. We need to point these things out to those who disagree, because the evidence is on our side.
Jan 6th our daughter was hit by a car which had run a red light while she was in a crosswalk, her first two days in the hospital which does not include her surgery or subsequent two days is $24,840.18. That is going to go up significantly with the surgery and her next two days in the hospital. She works, she goes to school, but if she weren't still on our insurance, she would be crushed financially for the rest of her life. The hospital, physicians and physical therapy, who knows what the total will be in the end, but it could be upwards of $75,000.
So your dad like my dad is dead wrong when it comes to government regulations and services, they are a necessary part of our lives, which help our society function it can't be done without both private and public services. I like to remind my dad of these things.
So sorry to hear about your daughter. I have a cousin who was also hit by an errant car (and drunk driver), and who is now permanently brain damaged. He's made some recovery, but he will never again be able to be self-sufficient, and had to move back in with his parents. Luckily, they caught the guy who hit him, and he's a lawyer who did pay the hospital bills, at least. Unfortunately, my aunt and uncle are unwilling to sue the guy for the extra costs of living their son now experiences.
Thanks for that. I agree, it seems an ineffectual kind of "populism".
The other part of my post was along the thought of "paranoid populism"--which came to me as catch-all concept which includes all those elements which the corporations, like News Corp., foment. I was wondering historically if the "paranoia" is different from what might have been experienced in the past---and that what makes it different is globalization, technology and what now in those far away companies and institutions must seem so much more abstract than it might have been, say in the earlier part of the 20th century.
Maybe the pure gap between lack of education and the ballooning of the other factors is making some folks more susceptible to fear mongering than they might have been in the past.
I thought about adding this and I guess I should of:
There is a difference between being an actual populist as is commonly understood and tapping into what a conservative base feels is populist - and this is talking about the conservatives below the median household income and those just above it. Populism to them is: they see themselves as the "real" Americans and they want (need) someone who will give them a voice. Their policies - smaller government et al - are basic conservative platform. Ronald Reagan was the same way.
Maybe it is better to call it Nascar Populism.
Look at the exit poll numbers. The only income group Newt didn't wipe out was those making 200K plus.
Under 30K - 37%
30K to 50K - 42%
50K - 100K - 41%
he even got the 100K - 200K - 40%
So the point is that Newt says he speaking for the little guy - the ones that the elites in DC and NY hate or have forgotten. Both the Dems and Repubs who have bloated the debt and let government get bigger and bigger.
If Congress has an approval rating of around 10% - the that means a lot of conservatives and moderates in the lower income brackets are not happy and are looking for the one who run things they want it runned. - in that sense it the will of the majority in their opinion and thus the "popular" wishes of the People.
As an exercise in "populism" detection, look at Gingrich vs. Paul and Gingrich vs. Romney. If we eliminate voters that didn't vote for either candidate, we get the following trends for Gingrich vs. Paul:
Under 30K: 67%
30-50K: 72%
50-100K: 76%
100-200K: 78%
Over 200K: 84%
I.e., against Paul, Gingrich does better with the wealthier candidates in a strictly increasing manner (at least as far as how the voters were categorized).
Now, do the same for Gingrich vs. Romney:
Under 30K: 56%
30-50K: 66%
50-100K: 62%
100-200K: 57%
Over 200K: 41%
Due to the under 30K crowd, this is not strictly decreasing, but it's pretty close.
Against Paul, while his support increase as one goes up the ladder of income, he still dominates him with the lower incomes. 67% and 72% is pretty good in my opinion.
I am wouldn't say that Newt is wholly reliant on the lower income echelon, but he tapping into better than Romney. The question is whether this will increase over time. If he gets 70% of the under 30K (discounting the absentee voters) it will say Newt is on roll. In places like Michigan - it serves Newt well.
I just think that the way to finally defeat this populism as a marketing tool (as opposed to actual populism) is to point out how anti-populist the platform of these hucksters and demagogues like Ginrich are. As has been noted, Romney's policy platform is actually more favorable to the working and middle classes than Gingrich's (even if that's like saying it's the smallest shinola sandwich on the menu).
I don't think the 27%-er's can ever be dissuaded from their support of candidates running on hatred of the black and brown hordes ruining their once-great (and, much whiter) country. But there are a lot of voters in that 27% - to 51% range, and a party that has to rely exclusively on committed true believers that make up a little more than a quarter of electorate can hold any kind of crazy, reactionary ideas they want, because they are not going to have any political power to speak of. That's why this attempt on the part of so many liberals to put the Teabaggers in a context other liberals can understand drives me a little crazy. These peoples' number one animating political principle if to thwart the efforts of liberals to make any racial, economic, or social progress, except progress that does not inure solely to the benefit of the Tea Partiers and those perceived to be in their tribe, possible in this country. Any solution that you support will be deemed unaccepable by virtue of you supporting it.
So, while they may be unhappy with things right now, they are willing to vote for policies that make these problems even worse just to stick it in a liberal's eye. Any attempts to justify their opinions or make common cause with their solutions is counterproductive. The only solution is to marginalize them through any means available.
I see what you mean. Making common cause seems futile given the stick in the eye mentality. You have to ask if Obama had done better with housing and foreclosures, for example, would it have made any damned difference.
On your point about Romney's plan being more favorable. I simply can't imagine he is so inept as not to have taken this tack before. And I think it could now be a part of his "turnaround" message. On the other hand they probably figured, a la Norquist, it's a bad subject.
That's the way I see it too. The Tea Partiers I know are animated above all else by a hatred of "liberals" - however they might happen to understand that term this week. "Liberal" is a cultural designation for them, but the hatred of liberals rests on top of a subterranean pile of more sordid hates.
I wasn't speaking to the validity of their type of populism. In the end, it is your opinion that their platform is anti-populist. And as liberal etc., the challenge is to get them to see that. But I think that this can only be successful if one first acknowledges their brand of populism is as much an opinion as yours.
From Wiki:
There is nothing in this that speaks to actual political platforms or policies. If "average guy" sees smaller government and a balanced budget right now as the path to a better lift for him and his neighbors, appealing to that is as populist as speaking to those who want mortgage bailouts. The particular social and political changes may be liberal or they may be conservative.
If one denies the "average guy" the ability to claim the populist agenda, but allow another "average guy" to do so because it is aligned with your socio-political ideology, I don't think we are going to make progress with them. We have to speak to them through their framework / paradigm first.
I knew I could count on you to deconstruct notions of populism. I had originally typed up my main comment in response to Oxy's use of "financial populism," which I objected to on grounds that should be obvious by now.
And while I think it's a useful line of argument to point out that the actual policies of these alleged "men of the people" are the policies most responsible for the economic trends working against ordinary people's economic interests, I agree with the suggestion that the label "populist" has become stretched beyond any useful definition. It was just shorthand in the discussion here for something that favors or disfavors the middle and working classes.
Now I don't know what to call these jerks.
For example, it was just reported that a Democratic campaign manager in Arkansas came home to find a Siamese cat, his child's pet, brutally killed and the word "liberal" painted on it. I think I'll take a walk and clear my head.
So, let me try to get this straight.
To be a economic populist you have to have some concrete ideas of what you're for, not just some knee jerk reaction to the "Fed", and moreover, you need to occasionally vote for something that would actually address your interests.
One would hope. Of course, this one also hoped that the financial collapse of 2008 would show the Republican rank-and-file that putting government in the service of unfettered greed led to lots of unintended consequences that didn't discriminate by party affiliation. Instead, it led to them getting apoplectic about things like a moderate president, bending over backwards to seem as non-threatening to their interests as possible, having the unmitigated gall to make it easier for them to get and maintain health insurance.
I am baffled by people who think there is nothing populist about Gingrich's appeal or especially the Tea Party. Compare the numbers for the Tea tax day protest with the high water mark of Occupy. Tea wins the turnout contest easily. Populism is not a synonym for good or just. Mass movements are not all left or right. And antiestablishment appeals to notions of the person in the street's ideals or prejudices are populist, whether one likes them or not. The GOP base is at war with the establishment GOP. The insurgency, roughly speaking, is populist in nature, whatever its convictions are .
This discussion reprises that of the other day in which one user bafflingly (to me) asserted that the SEIU was not an interest group. Of course it is, that is all it is, and it is pretty effective at that. It's just one that user likes.
I guess one person's PPA is another's "Obamacare" and so forth.
I'm not saying that anyone here thinks this, but I think there are those on the Left who get wrapped in the rhetoric of "Power to the People" (which tends to simplistically divide those at the bottom, the masses, as the side of good, and those at the top as the side as bad) that populism becomes inherently progressive, if not revolutionary so. One might say there is natural resistance to acknowledge it isn't inherently progressive because to do so would mean one would have to acknowledge the People might just be as much the problem as those at the top. And this makes the uprising of the People a much more messy affair.
Case in point, the most popularly driven change in public policy in contemporary America is the antitax revolution of Proposition 13. It is populist, and has remade state and local government as a more limited and conservative thing. Populism does not equal progressive, nor a hankering for justice.
Well, I don't think I ever said Gingrich's appeal wasn't populist, just that he wasn't running on a platform of economic populism. In fact, I compared him to George Wallace, who came to define the term "southern populism." And I don't think the people supporting him are supporting him because he wants to eliminate the capital gains tax.
If you're using "populist" interchangeably with "demagogue" on all sets of issues, then yes, Gingrich is a populist. But the fact remains there is nothing populist about the economic policies promoted by either the Tea Party (to the extent a policy beyond "if Obama does it, it's bad" can be discerned) or Newt Gingrich.
I'm still sticking with my original prediction: a quantum superposition of Gingrich and Romney winning the Republican nomination with a soupçon of Santorum added to the quantum foam, so to speak.
In all seriousness, I still think it's more likely that Romney will win than Gingrich, but only slightly, and the very small possibility that Santorum will win is just big enough to make it more likely that an anti-Romney (i.e., Gingrich, Santorum, or Paul) will win than that Romney will win. I'd probably go with the odds of winning at 47% Romney, 45% Gingrich, 7% Santorum, and 1% Paul.
I thought you picked Captain Janeway. But if you're going 100% in your predicting, how likely do you find Ramona's? It has some traction for me above 1%.
Captain Janeway would never be a Republican! You are dead to me. Dead.
As for Ramona's prediction, you raise a valid point that it does feel like it would be higher than 1%, and definitely higher than Paul winning. I'll go with:
Romney: 47%, Gingrich: 45%, Santorum: 4%, Brokered: 3%, Paul: 1%
Like all real quantum states, however, there is a certain level of decoherence, and ultimately the wave function will collapse.
Maybe Gingrich is a wormhole.
I predict that it will be neither of the above.
The Republican establishment hates both of those men and they really can't afford to give the Tea Party so much leverage they actually dominate a presidential election. Not if they seriously want to win. (Which may be the other side of it: They know they can't beat Obama, so what the hell? Go for it, bring in the big bucks, keep the fringe happy, and then Good Night Nelly until 2016.)
Last time Charlie Crist's late endorsement tipped Florida from Mitt to McCain. I found interesting that Jeb Bush called for Mitt to release his tax returns. It will be good for Newt if Jeb sits this endorsement round out.
It seems that whatever wing of the Republican Party wins the nomination and loses the election, the other wing has the upper hand in 2016.
Thus, if Gingrich is the actual nominee and loses, the Tea folks lose some credence and the stage is set for Jeb Bush's protege, Rubio, to run in 2016.
But overall, my instinct is similar to yours, neither of the above.
The rightward ratchet hasn't stopped since it began with Nixon. GHWB might be classed as a backstep, but look how fiercely rightward his challenger and heirs have been.
Do you think that, contrary to some published reports, there is strong support from strident tea party members, as well as establishment Repub leaders, for Santorum to stay in the race to withhold even larger margins from Newt?
It seems to me that if Santorum withdrew, it really could be the last hurrah for Myth.
Paul is in it the bitter (and no doubt it will be for many) end, announcing he will concentrate on caucus states to help secure numerous delegate numbers so he will have more impact for deal brokering at Convention.
It's hard to separate all these factions out. My take on Santorums followers is that there is a certain group, with a religious bent, who simply can't stomach Newt's ethics and marital history. And of course they don't like Romney either. Then, there is always 2016 for Santorum, but not for Newt or Paul.
I keep thinking that with Newt's continued actions, requiring intense emotionally charged delivery, he's in danger of imploding/exploding physically at same time. He's not young and doesn't appear to be in top physical shape.
I think Howard Kurtz makes a point that carries on this theme by you [emphasis mine]
Kurtz writes:
This is a big part of how Conservatives remember Reagan (whether true or not). Everything gets boiled down to the phrase "tear down this wall." Which of the candidates is most likely to repeat that to Iran or big government bureaucrats?
At the moment it seems like they are turning to Newt. And once they do, they will forgive him Freddie Mac and the marriage thing and whatever flaws he has. Mitt and Pac's attacks will do some damage, but those that don't back away from Mitt will only support him stronger from the elite attacks.
You can't offload muscularity to your superPAC. Mitt has a glass jaw. McCain just gutted him in the 2008 debate at the Reagan library. Mitt made a plausible claim, and McCain just yelled in full angry face over a stunned, unresponsive Mitt, "Stop lying about my record.". Mitt lacks that gear, which works if you lack any plausible alternative who does. The problem is, Newt is back to plausible and cannot be eradicated with superPAC drones.
Not sure - McCain is a grouchy nut. Mitt at worst seems unconvincing (disclaimer: I've never seen Mitt speak).
I'm not sure being a curmudgeon and screaming gets lasting political value.
Not taking the bait seems to get longer media traction. If Mitt hadn't slipped out the "I like firing people", his would have been the must bullet point-less campaign you've ever seen. And in this case, I think Warhol's wrong - any publicity in this election cycle seems to be bad publicity, or so Herm Cain tells me.
Which makes Mitt even a better foil for Newt because, imo, Republicans are equating "pugilistic" with "electable".
Sometimes I think one has to interact constantly with folks who just hate Obama, as I am forced to do on a daily basis, including some of my own employees, to understand the mindset.
We'll see how the new Nasty Romney plays. I think crappily. It's like Al Gore in the second debate. Good luck with that, Mitt.
Also, given how rolling samples work, looks like Newt returns to the lead tomorrow *nationally* in the Gallup tracker. Newt seems to have an 8 point lead in two polls so far. Romney probably has a small lead in early voting. But he's got seven days to grab momentum back, or he'll lose by 5 or more.
I remember that moment WELL.
Mitt kept making eminently reasonable points, but McCain didn't care. He was like a bloodied fighter, barely standing, who just kept hitting Mitt over and over again.
He didn't care about "debating," even in Republican terms. He was just punching, and it didn't matter if the punches were beside the point. The point was to keep hitting.
Mitt's got better things to do than engage in that nonsense. That may be why he won't win when up against someone with even less integrity than McCain.
Newt is a sociopath, which means he's without conscience, without remorse, without any guiding "principle" other than eating his opponent alive.
My fear--call me crazy--is that Newt will win...and then Newt will beat Obama.
I know his unfavorables are sky-high. He turns off 3/4 of the country. But you see, once Newt has the nomination, a chemical reaction will occur within his brain and body that no one expects right now.
Yes, it could be an entirely destructive one; but then again, it could be the opposite. You see, once Newt wins the pennant, his flight path to 1600 (not to mix metaphors too badly), to his rightful perch, to the manor to which he was born in a previous life, will be clear except for one eensy-beensy obstacle.
It is at THAT moment that he will become EXTREMELY dangerous in ways we can hardly imagine now. You will be looking a Middle-Aged Mutant Ninja Georgian whose fury and finesse hell hath not known the likes of.
And when he wins, my only consolation will be that I can blame it on you, A-Man. I hope we can count on your and Destor's Super Hero powers when they are needed...
Right now I'd handicap Obama/Newt as a 50-47 for Obama, with about 320-220 EVs, assuming Newt picks Rubio (he will) and Paul doesn't run.
So Gingrich is the Tea Party now? I thought Paul was the Tea Party.
Damn that Tea Party. They're so flighty. I just can't keep track of who is or is not the Tea Party these days.
I thought Gingrich was just a recycled party leader from the olden days. He does have a big mouth though. Is that enough to make someone Tea Party?
Plus, isn't Gingrich just a favorite semi-son in South Carolina, from neighboring Georgia, just like Romney was a favorite semi-son in New Hampshire, from neighboring Massachusetts?
Speaking as someone who grew up in Georgia (and I do apologize for Newt, Cain, et al.), I think the distance from Georgia to South Carolina is significantly bigger than from Massachusetts to New Hampshire, in terms of geographic size (obviously), media saturation, and culturally.
Hardly. For years New Hampshire was a low-tax Republican stronghold right next to the arch-Democratic Commonwealth of Taxachusetts. Although NH is now more purple than red, they still frequently call people from south of the border "Massholes" and maintain a very different political culture. New Hampshire and Massachusetts seem far more culturally and politically different than Georgia and South Carolina.
OK, I'll plead ignorance to the cultural vagaries of New England, but the one thing I kept hearing about MA's influence on NH was that of broadcast overlap. That's not as true with Georgia/South Carolina, and of course Gingrich was a representative (for Georgia's 6th district, which I'm glad to say wasn't the one I grew up in, although it wasn't far away), not a governor (or even senator). The only exposure South Carolinians would've gotten to him was as Speaker of the House, which is no different than the exposure any other broadcasting market would've given him (other than in the Atlanta Metro area).
Cain and Gingrich have had the highest favorability among voters aligned with the Tea Party. They have also both led Romney in national polling.
The only thing I would quibble with is that in your argument you seem to look for short term political calculations on Newt's part, as if he has a grand strategy to win the tea partiers in order to win the nomination and then on to the presidency. I don't see any there there, I think it would be folly to try.
But I do see evidence, especially if you listen to Herr Professor Doktor Gingrich's theorizing, that he thinks he is the grandfather of the Tea Party, bound and determined to use a presidential run at this time to make sure the Grand Old Party continues the process he started in 1994. (Or blow the whole thing up, if that is your preferred description.) He sees himself as not just representing them, but as being their progenitor. And, also seems to me, he doesn't give much of a damn about tempering things to be electable in the general election, he won't be doing that, he cares more about his name in the history books as to keeping the the GOP on a "revolutionary" path.
It's the "you've got to blow up the village to save it" thing. He sees the same "blow up the village" rhetoric on the far left and in some of the OWS, and that's just another reason for him to think this is another important transformative moment in the history of the country where he can make a historic urine mark. He'll borrow from those areas when it fits his ideological druthers, and not in an attempt to get votes.
Therefore, we probably won't see much sense in his short term political calculations. He's not going to be poll driven, nor listen much to any advisors (and he has now been confirmed in his belief that he doesn't have to listen to them, believes can be fired and easily replaced, as long as he's got Callista,) nor care much what a lot of moderate independent or swing voters think. It seems that it's all about the future form of the GOP for him. The establishment party guys aren't imagining things, they know exactly wassup with that. The same as some left ideologues are arguing it's better to lose than hold your nose to vote for Obama and DINO's again, Newt thinks it's better for conservatives to vote for him and have the party lose the presidency for now, in order to keep it on the right path.
You refer to Nixon in your essay; the interesting thing is Nixon was actually like the opposite of Newt (quoting Jeffrey Frank Jan 23 New Yorker) and used strategy to that end:
I guess what I am saying short version is that we are not going to see a lot to analyze as far as short term political tactics in Newt's campaign. He's set on being an insurgent. If that ends up with him becoming president, that's fine and dandy, but not a necessary goal. He probably doesn't even care if he pisses off some tea party types, if he thinks their thinking is going in the wrong direction.
Can't wait to see that national historic urine mark statue of Gingrich.
There's ample historic inspiration for the commissioned sculptor
I think one might make a plausible case for this, just as one could denying such an assertion. His Contract for American and subsequent take over in Congress was the beginning in a way of the far right believing they could be ideologically pure and win elections.
Wiki (of course)[emphasis mine]
Newt didn't come up with the Contract just by himself, but he was the face of it and its biggest promoter as Speaker of the House.
They didn't temper things back in 1994 and won elections. It wasn't until Clinton did the wholeTriangulation Thang that the Contract fell into the dustbin of history.
Maybe one can see Newt's campaign through the prism of him seeking those glory days when he was king of the world (in his mind), leading the GOP to victory and purifying the GOP. Imagine his place in history if he was able to repeat that, with the difference being that he was in the White House and not the House of Representatives.
I know it sounds like flippant snark, but I truly believe that all you need to know about Newt is that he's a sociopath.
Once you see him through that lense, everything makes sense--his strengths and his weaknesses and, in particular, his ability to pivot away from his weaknesses, to come back from the dead, what?, three times already? Maybe four?
He was dead before the race began. He was dead soon thereafter when he went to Greece. He was dead in IA (after surging ahead). And he was dead in NH going into SC, originally. Newton Lazarus Gingrich.
I've never met the man, so I have little to go on in order to diagnose Newt. But I would say rather than a sociopath, I would say he has Narcissistic Personality Disorder. From the Mayo Clinic [he seems to exhibit all of the symptoms]:
On the other hand Newt does seem to have a bit of the Antisocial Personality Disorder (which is what they call the sociopaths these days):
1968 and later, Nixon had a genius for campaigning against a mythic enemy that was what the South or the middle class hates, fears, or didn't understand. In that he is Newt's progenitor and role model. Nixon pivoted the GOP from the Ike and Rockefeller (leaders in the earlier time from which you pull that quote) into a day of appealing to fears, anxieties, and divisions concerning hippies, civil rights, and government. Newt is there where Nixon helped move the party, kind of like a Dorian Gray painting of what Reagan really was.
Mho, more credit than is usually given on all that should go to Pat Buchanan and his 'Silent Majority' meme. He's become a caricature to us now because of his teevee appearances, but really, there's a guy who truly does deserve his name in history books as one of the first generals in the "culture wars," one with considerable talent. I was one of those hippies at the time, and I remember that I couldn't believe how well "the silent majority" theme worked at turning the tide against us for quite a bit longer when we had just begun to win more sympathy on Vietnam from a bigger public. It gave people confidence that they were doing the right thing by continuing to give the benefit of doubt to their leaders, that they had solidarity in that in "the silent majority." The speech.
That's the Nixon I'm talking about. And Buchanan's 1992 campaign was an important thread in hard-right insurgency that connects 1974 to 2010 quite nicely.
Hunter Thompson noted that Buchanan was one of the few right wing fanatics he could have intelligent conversations with. Some references in Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 and/or Great Shark Hunt, I forget which.
This is a great post, A-Man. Thank you.
I'd add one more wrinkle. Newt's ascendance, however long it lasts, is linked to the ascendancy of one faction of the Republican establishment: the House membership. And that's the faction that is most ideological, least realistic, and least comfortable with the rest of the party leadership. But it's also the wing that's energizing the base.
Gingrich, after all, is the candidate most likely to be in tune with Eric Cantor.
The House Republicans, unlike the Senate Republicans or the Republican governors, don't worry about swing states, or about state-wide elections in general. They don't have to carry whole states, just their own districts, which tend to be deep-red. So Gingrich is their kind of guy. And they're the leading wing of the party in government right now.
The House is a hotbed of hard-conservative populism, and it is unsurprising that the leader of the 1994 House takeover is more closely aligned with the constituency of Tea that was a significant component of the 2010 House takeover. The Tea Party is the leading influence in the GOP, and Gingrich comes closest to being able to ride its wave.
And how about that Fred Thompson endorsement? If Newt is the Anti2008Obama insurgent, does that make Fred Thompson the AntiCaroline Kennedy?
A terse to the point comment at Crooks and Liars:
The old money fascist oligarch's are about to be deposed by their own band of evil nitwits, brownshirt's, racists' and bible thumper's.
You rich prick's created this political Frankenstein - which has allowed you to rape the middle class, now you, are on the menu.
Because these nuts and lunatics are just as unpredictable - and unpleasant - as the Newtster.
Verily, the truth cannot be spoken without the sacrificial apostrophes.
Just a piece of anecdotal evidence from a Republican family member still living in Georgia, when I asked who his favorite candidate was:
A couple of personal notes: (1) This is a family member I love, so be gentle in any responses. (2) This family member also happens to have a Master's degree in an engineering related field, so they're not an idiot (although they obviously don't pay that much attention to politics, either).
I visited my dittohead mother a few weeks ago. At first, she and my brother seemed to want to see Newt out-debate Obama, but later she seemed resigned to Romney being the nominee. I'm guessing that's all changed.
Breaking news: Sheldon Adelson is standing by his man, even though he was warned he was betraying his own class by doing so:
This superPAC thing is like Alien Versus Predator. Or maybe the Clone Wars in Star Wars II. Kind of grandiose, aesthetically empty, and just plain confusing. If Gingrich is well-funded, one of Romney's supposed major advantages goes buh-bye.
Right now, for the Florida primary, Intrade has Romney at 91% to 8% for Gingrich. Romney 91% to 5% for Nevada, and at 85% favorite to get the nomination.
Before the Iowa caucuses, I predicted that Mitt Romney would be the Republican nominee if he were to win them. I'm sticking with that prediction.
A-Man, I'd revisit your Newt prediction and NOT because Mitt is doing such a good job, either. The Newster is imploding fast. He's going to lose as badly in FL as he won in SC, if not worser.
Maybe you need to tweak your algorithm.
Romney will win Florida by 8-10. But Newt went up a point today in Gallup, and Mitt went down. The interesting thing is the degree to which Mitt winning Florida changes the national numbers again. They seem to follow immediate past performance closely. Newt's +8 nationally seems good.
I tell ya, it must be giving the hyper-prepared Romney fits that this Rolling Ball of Gelantinous Id keeps throwing the future of his candidacy into question.
You can almost see him developing an eye twitch like Herbert Lom by the time Kentucky rolls around and the Pillsbury Doughboy is getting wild cheers at their 494th debate for proposing that we melt the polar ice cap and move our capital to "defensible" North Pole and leave the despoiled "lower 50" to the indigenous populations of Arcadia to rejuvenate in preparation for our "eventual" return.
Newt's contribution to the election is peeling the bark off of Willard Mitt Romney. To wit: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/romneys-negative-ratings-soaring-among-independents/2012/01/27/gIQAeVB1VQ_blog.html