The world will end tonight, but just before that, consider:
- Both Romney and Newt are getting trounced by Obama in the latest Rasmussen survey.
- Romney has an electability problem. Why do you hate capitalism?
- You mean there’s actually good news for Newt even if he loses Florida?
- Final PPP poll finds Romney up high single digits and no surge. If true, I take back everything bad I ever said about PPP.
- Romney Ramps Up Attack Ads Against Gingrich to Unprecedented Levels. But he seems like such a nice guy.
- Mother Jones worried Tea Party may save Scott Walker. It’s a good thing the Republican establishment hates the smelly dumb know-nothings.
- Jeffrey Goldberg thinks he knows racial dog whistles, and he’s hearing lots of them. He even hears Allen West using them.
- Absotutely freakin right on about what’s wrong: “Those of us who believed that a primary fight would toughen Mr. Romney up have little to show for it. Far from sharpening his proposals to reach out to a GOP electorate hungry for a candidate with a bold conservative agenda, Mr. Romney has limited his new toughness to increasingly negative attacks on Mr. Gingrich’s character. It’s beginning to make what we all assumed was a weakness look much more like arrogance.”
- I can’t wait to see the movie:
- More
- Thomas Sowell (h/t HotAir): “Gingrich is by no means above criticism. He has been criticized in this column before over the years, including during the current primary season, and he will probably be criticized here again. But the poisonous practice of irresponsible smears is an issue that is bigger than Gingrich, Romney, or any other candidate of either party.”
- Dumb move by Gingrich staff, even if Romney has been running deliberately misleading ads around the clock: Gingrich denies knowledge of ‘kosher’ robocall. After tonight, they need to refocus. JoshuaPundit calls it beyond indecent.
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Marx, Engles, Lenin, Trotsky, and Stalin were white guys. Castro and Chavez are Hispanic. Mao, the Kims, and Ho Chi Min were Asian.
Is it racist to be disappointed that our black president turned out to be a Marxist too?
It’s probably time to focus on Operation CounterWeight, especially since Romney and the establishment GOP have already launched Operation Counter-CounterWeight. Just ask Allen West.
CBO: Unemployment to remain above 8% in 2012 and 2013; will be around 7% by end of 2015; to drop to 5.25% by end of 2022.
“Had that portion of the decline in the labor force participation rate since 2007 that is attributable to neither the aging of the baby boomers nor the downturn in the business cycle (on the basis of the experience in previous downturns) not occurred, the unemployment rate in the fourth quarter of 2011 would have been about 1¼ percentage points higher than the actual rate of 8.7 percent”
translation: CBO just admitted that the BLS numbers are bogus and real unemployment is 10%.
Unemployment to remain above 8% in 2012 and 2013; will be around 7% by end of 2015; to drop to 5.25% by end of 2022.
You sure this didn’t come from The Onion?
Heh, I actually read the Mother Jones piece. Shockingly, its a better piece of journalism than you would find in the NY Times.
“Tea party influence will be felt for years to come …”
Sounds like this guy is less in denial than most supposedly objective outlets, or our own Republican establishment.
“Because all of the tea party forces have not been able to unite on a GOP candidate for president, they’re going to redouble on things like the Wisconsin crusade”
The word on operation Counterweight is out!
“Grassroots tea partiers everywhere will be be following and contributing to the Walker campaign.”
That’s right, we are not astroturf, and you know it.
I’d prefer if they did underestimate us … while the smart ones are not in denial, I still take heart. Fear and respect are good too …
Iowahawk needs to stop trying to glamorize these people
Re: “trounced”, Rasmussen specifics:
Obama 47%, Romney 42%
Obama 50%, Gingrich 37%
How does the fact that 2 to 1 Americans fear Obama re-election factor into Rasmussen’s computations?
http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/washington-whispers/2012/01/09/poll-americans-2-1-fear-obamas-reelection
Mother Jones worried Tea Party may save Scott Walker. It’s a good think the Republican establishment hates the smelly dumb know-nothings.
Not to be a broken record, but IMO voter perceptions of the Wisconsin economy will determine Walker’s fate. Walker’s organization and the Tea Party will play an important role.
Romney’s electabability problem is that though Romney may not be Obama but he may be scary:
http://ricochet.com/main-feed/The-Conversation-With-a-Florida-Tea-Partier-That-Should-Scare-Every-Republican
I do agreee with the the Florida Tea Partier’s comment that we need more Rubios unfortunately once elected many of these “Romney is a Conservative” Rubios abandon those Tea Partiers who brought them to the dance for the chance of becoming the next-in-line kings and queens of the Party.
I said last week that Marco Rubio was going a great job of marginalizing himself in the eyes of the Tea Party.
They are getting trounced because there is no unified opposition. We need the primaries to go to the end (and Romney needs to stop lying about Gingrich and argue the issues). Voters need to stop rewarding candidates for going negative. If Romney is crowned nominee now, he will lose. So would Gingrich.
Gingrich, Santorum and Paul need to pull enough delegates to force this to the floor of the convention. I assume George Soros is stirring up trouble, but those doubts are very real on the right. If we want to beat Obama, we need Gingrich supporters, Santorum supporters, and (most, not all) Paul supporters on board. And we need a platform they can support. And we need a candidate they can support. I do not think that candidate is Mitt Romney, but if he wants a shot at winning he better make his case for it. Otherwise all the GOP elites supporting him are not going to help him in the general election.
http://evilbloggerlady.blogspot.com/2012/01/george-soros-not-much-difference.html
Whoa up there, both Romney and Gingrich are being “trounced” by Obama in the latest Rasmussen? Not if the word, trounced, has any meaning. Romney is five points behind Obama (47/42), which is within the margin ofberror, and Newt is 13 points behind (50/37).
These results are consistent with what we have seen in most polls over the past year. Romney runs competitively with Obama, sometimes running slightly behind him, sometimes edging him. Meanwhile, Gingrich (and the various other contenders) have lagged much further behind Obama (with occasional exceptions in some polls).
It is precisely this pattern of results from which the conclusion should be that Romney has the besf chance to beat Obama. To be sure, in this poll, Obama does somewhat better than in a string of late 2011 polls. This may be in part because Obama has been running a furious de facto campaign throughout January. And it likely is in part due to Romney’s losing some favorability in the heated GOP primaries.
But he is still very competitive with Obama, while Newt is getting trounced.
Newt Gingrich quotes over the years:
I ignore quotes excised out of a greater body, because they don’t capture the context, too often for the express purpose of implying the opposite context.
For example:
“If we lock up all the violent criminals and we have enough prisons built, and that doesn’t work, then I’m prepared to look at gun control.”
For all I know, this was followed up by: “But we all know that’s never going to happen, so…”
For example:
“When I hear a Clinton speech, I’m normally applauding and saying, ‘Boy, I agree with that’”
May have been followed up by “But when you see what he does opposed to the wonderful things he says, well…”
half the quotes I agree with to some degree if given context (as Henry pointed out) while others are pretty much just truth.
Carter was a stand up guy in his personal (you know, “citizen”) life. Doesn’t mean he wasn’t a failure of a President though.
Bush1 was a political force saying what people wanted with the full-backing of the Establishment. Unfortunately, he followed the Establishments ideas in his actions though, and it made him a failed President
Clinton always said exactly what the people wanted to hear, no matter what it was. Hence the nickname “Slick Willy”
And I am 100% behind locking up all Criminals and watching the crime and violence levels drop to almost nothing in the Country. Imagine that, people knowing they will be locked up with the key thrown away if they do something wrong; who would ever commit a crime knowing people will actually do something about it… In the extreme unlikelihood it still doesn’t disappear then maybe there is something to all this “guns create violence” nonsense – but we all know it will.
Newt’s Notion
“Gingrich plans to fight on anyway, relying on the party rule that delegates to the convention have to be assigned proportionally. These rules are very complicated and frequently vary by state, but the general rule is that candidates have to get above a certain threshold to be assigned delegates (something like 20%). Gingrich will certainly manage that in Florida, so he’ll add some delegates to his column. And so on.
States with later primaries do not have to proportionally assign delegates (from what I understand) but some of those states may favor Gingrich. Paul and Santorum may also acquire some delegates along the way; Paul has also promised to fight all the way to the end.
The game Gingrich is playing: he wants to get to the convention with enough delegates between himself and Paul (and possibly Santorum) so that Romney can’t win on the first ballot. Then he thinks he will be the next choice.”
http://www.dailystaghunt.com/politics/2012/1/30/newts-notion.html#entry14789341
Correct me if I’m wrong , but I thought Florida was a “winner take all” state, which is why Santorum and Paul are campaigning elsewhere.
It is, but he is talking about Post-Fla states above.
http://www.thegreenpapers.com/P12/
Exactly. I think Romney being 5 points back of Obama and Obama being under 50% is a very good sign of our chances. This is at a time when Romney is getting mostly negative publicity among the general electorate and Obama is getting a pass. I know Obama is going to try to spend $1×10^10 to get himself reelected, but we seem to forget that while things like the economy have a lot to do with reelection, Obama has a lot of weak points. And if this nomination process has taught us anything it is that Romney isn’t afraid to go negative and try almost anything is a vicious attack ad. That may be something desirable in this election cycle.
The guy must be unemployed.
Romney started moving in the “appeal to the Conservative core” with his post NH victory speech.
But, for most of the factions within the Republican Party, Romney will never have particular appeal.
He’s a Mormon, not an Evangelical.
He’s was pro-choice, like Reagan, not consistently pro-life, like Santorum.
He’s not a son of the South.
He’s an urban Cosmopolitan, not someone from populist roots.
He governed a liberal state and made compromises (although, given the culture of the State and massive Democratic Majorities in the legislature, did pretty well)… so he’s not pure. Especially in light of Romneycare, notwithstanding serious and significant differences between the powers that Romneycare gave to MA vs. Obamacare to the Federal gov’t (see, e.g. HHS Catholic contraception mandate).
The problem is that there’s no one better than Romney running. Santorum lacks gravitas or much of a resume, gets extra whiney, and was trounced by Bob Casey in a purple state for going to hard to the right in the Senate.
Gingrich is a self-aggrandizing erratic panderer who’s specialist is cynical lying and then complaining that the other guy is doing it more.
Romney is not a particularly great communicator, and is moderate by temperment. But I have no doubt that his message of a lower taxation, lower regulation, smaller and more efficient government combined with the need for an overwhelmingly powerful military will and a respect for people of faith, eventually get most everyone on board on the Republican side.
But to expect that to happen now, when each faction has candidates that are closer to their groups and interests, I think is somewhat silly. No one could do that – not Jeb Bush, not Paul “voted for TARP” Ryan, not Mitch “social issues truce” Daniels, not Chris “NorthEast Rhino liberal Judge appointer” Christie, not any of them. Well, maybe Bob McDonnel. But he ain’t running, either.
How come you place talking point identifiers sort of like middle names with everyone except Romney? You know, like:
Mitt “Romneycare” Romney
Mitt “pro-abortion” Romney
Mitt “nothing to get angry about” Romney
Mitt “gun control” Romney
…and so on?
Why, it’s almost like you’re from the Romney campaign or GOP establishment.
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