Odds and ends number 44
Now this is starting to get confusing, since two of my long-running post series are up to the same number. But the way my inbox is presently filling up, I suspect “Odds and ends” will be well ahead of “Weekend of local rock” before too long.
As is always the case, this is the potpourri of items I find interesting, but not worthy enough of a full-blown post. Today I may even simply link to the items without much further comment because I have quite a bit to get to.
For example, Baltimore County Republican Examiner Ann Miller recently penned a post with timeless advice on how conservatives should treat media encounters. While it’s sad that media sometimes seems more interested in presenting a politically correct agenda than getting the truth, these are the rules we’re saddled with for now. It’s worth reading.
Another item worth reading that’s too long for me to excerpt is “A Day in the Life of O’Malley’s Maryland,” written by Senator J.B. Jennings. We can always talk about what tax and fee (but I repeat myself, for “a fee is a tax” according to MOM) increases do in the abstract, but the Jennings piece looks at how all these add up over the course of an average day.
Romney wins Maine – another blow for Ron Paul
Let me guess – he was cheated out of that one, too. Sure enough…
Although there is one small county (Washington County, population 33,000 or so out of a state of about 1.3 million) which did not conduct its caucus yesterday due to snow, the Maine Republican Party announced last evening that Mitt Romney was the winner of their primary. He collected 39% of the vote, Ron Paul was second with 36%, Rick Santorum third with 18%, and Newt Gingrich 6% for last. The results broken down by county and caucus site are here, and they show both Romney and Paul battled it out in a number of small precincts. Eight counties were carried by Mitt Romney, six by Ron Paul.
Yet the Paul campaign is claiming foul once again. This is from campaign manager John Tate:
Tonight you saw dueling examples of how much the establishment is scared of Ron Paul and his message of liberty.
Ron Paul will win the most delegates out of Maine tonight.
In fact, he will probably even win the “beauty contest” Straw Poll the media has already called for Mitt Romney – even before all the votes have been tallied.
“HOW CAN THAT BE?” you might be asking yourself.
Simple. The national political establishment and their pals in the national media will do ANYTHING to silence our message of liberty.
(snip blatant fundraising appeal)
You see, in Maine today, you and I saw a perfect example of just how much the establishment fears Ron Paul.
In Washington County – where Ron Paul was incredibly strong – the caucus was delayed until next week just so the votes wouldn’t be reported by the national media today.
Of course, their excuse for the delay was “snow.”
That’s right. A prediction of 3-4 inches – that turned into nothing more than a dusting – was enough for a local GOP official to postpone the caucuses just so the results wouldn’t be reported tonight.
Michael, this is MAINE we’re talking about.
The GIRL SCOUTS had an event today in Washington County that wasn’t cancelled!
And just the votes of Washington County would have been enough to put us over the top.
This is an outrage. Perhaps you heard about it on the mainstream news tonight?
Probably not. In fact, if you were watching one major network, they cut off their telecast of Ron Paul’s speech right when he began mentioning this fact.
The truth is, there is no length to which the GOP establishment won’t go. There is nothing the mainstream media won’t do.
But they can’t stifle our message. And with your help, they will have to listen to it all the way to the GOP nominating convention in August.
Ron Paul told me this weekend — he is in it to stay and to WIN.
And we are bringing delegates with us to the fight. Lots of them.
In fact, while the national media continues to focus on Straw Polls, we’re racking up delegate after delegate . . .
. . . the folks who will ultimately decide who goes to Tampa, Florida to select our Republican nominee for President. (All emphasis in original.)
Now I will concede that the people who run the Washington County GOP may be related to those who close the public schools around here if seven flakes of snow fall out of an overabundance of caution, but if you read this carefully here is the CAMPAIGN accusing a local county GOP and the national media of fraudulent behavior just to hold back the “true” winner. It’s not just the “supporters” as several of those who commented claimed here. (Be sure to read the postscript and link, which purportedly showed Maine was willing to cheat.)
Yet, once again, the Paul campaign is claiming they will emerge with the most delegates out of Maine despite finishing second. (And it will be second, unless there are more than 200 caucus participants in Washington County and other sites which haven’t participated yet and all of them vote for Ron Paul.) We will see on that one, but we are being set up for a contentious convention in September August.
There’s no question that a political consultant’s key job is to spin the results of an election to make his or her candidate look the best he or she can, but when they believe that everything is a conspiracy stacked against them, that’s a problem. I wouldn’t mind a brokered convention myself and Paul may have enough delegates along with the other two in the race to force this. But he’s not going to win, nor is he winning the hearts and minds of thoughtful conservatives by his campaign and supporters claiming foul every time Ron Paul loses.
A tourist’s view of CPAC (from an insider)
As most conservatives (and a few who aren’t) know, this weekend marks the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC for short) in Washington, D.C. For those of us who can’t be there, blogger Robert Stacy McCain (The Other McCain) gives us a brief flavor of the hubbub:
I’ll grant that my political convention experience is limited to those involving the Young Republicans or Republican Party, and only on a state level at that. Something like CPAC could quite well overwhelm the senses, sort of like a local TEA Party rally (even one with chicken-suited protesters) was in no way a match for the 9/12 rally I attended a couple years ago. Definitely a difference in scale there.
It’s also a reminder that political necessity has allowed a cottage industry of sorts to spring up. With well over 100 sponsors, co-sponsors, and exhibitors there’s no shortage of marketing being perpetrated at the confab.
But on the other hand it’s obvious CPAC would be quite the place for networking, and certainly many of those bloggers who are more well-known than I thus far are represented there on ‘blogger’s row’. (Who knows, maybe I can work my way into CPAC ’13 with a little tip jar rattling, or better yet more advertising revenue. And you can help by spreading the word!) McCain’s video reminds us that there are a large number of like-minded people working on our behalf, too. It’s a comfort to know this.
Message to Ron Paul: prove fraud or drop out
Yes, you read the headline right. With the Santorum sweep on Tuesday night we have the following results from the states which have voted in primaries or caucuses:
- Rick Santorum has won Iowa, Missouri, Minnesota, and Colorado.
- Mitt Romney has taken New Hampshire, Florida, and Nevada.
- Newt Gingrich won in South Carolina.
- Ron Paul has finished second twice (New Hampshire, Minnesota), third three times (Iowa, Nevada, Missouri) and fourth three times (South Carolina, Florida, Colorado). The third place in Missouri could have been a fourth if Newt Gingrich qualified for the ballot.
But Ron Paul supporters continue to believe the notion that there’s fraud in the two caucus states where delegates to the national convention were at stake (Iowa and Nevada.) In particular, this Examiner post by Mark Wachtler lays out what happened in one Clark County, Nevada precinct, and Wes Messamore at The Humble Libertarian piles on. Their logic is relatively simple: since Paul did well in that particular, somewhat large precinct, he must have done just as well across the rest of Clark County and since that area makes up most of the state’s electorate Ron Paul was swindled.
It even goes back to the Iowa caucus – and beyond. The fact that Iowa’s GOP state chair Matt Strawn resigned in the wake of the caucus imbroglio is considered proof positive that Ron Paul was hosed there somehow, too – after all, Paul was dissed at last summer’s Iowa Straw Poll by Strawn. That’s how Paul supporters sometimes operate.
More beyond the jump.
The sprint to the finish
Standing as we are eight weeks out from the primary, if you were to consider the primary campaign calendar analogous to the general election calendar, we are at Labor Day. In the fall campaign, Labor Day is considered the point where people begin to pay attention to the election and start to make their final decision.
Because this is a Presidential election year, Republicans and Democrats in most of Maryland will only have a few choices to make when primary voting arrives in late March. (Some will also have local races to consider.) In seven out of eight districts for both parties voters will have a choice for Congress, while all Maryland voters who participate in the primary will select their party’s standardbearer for the U.S. Senate seat. Only Republicans will have a choice for President as no one stepped forth to challenge Barack Obama on the primary ballot. There is also only one Republican running in the First Congressional District – incumbent Andy Harris – while Dutch Ruppersberger enjoys a similar free ride in his Second District Democratic primary. Convention delegates are also at stake for both parties in each Congressional district.
Now that the stage is set, it’s very likely that only two or three GOP presidential candidates will be left standing by the time the race reaches Maryland on April 3. The good news is that Maryland and the District of Columbia may be pretty much the only game in town that day. Wisconsin voters will be much more mindful of the effort to recall Governor Scott Walker and, depending on whether the Texas legislative districts go to court or not, their scheduled April 3 primary is likely to be pushed back.
Cain: Gingrich is able
This truly wasn’t a shock; back in December when Herman Cain exited the race I came right out and said I wouldn’t be surprised if he endorsed Newt Gingrich. They’re very familiar to one another as both hail from Georgia and you may recall they had a one-on-one debate with each other last fall. (Gingrich also had a similar debate with Jon Huntsman, which neither did anything for Huntsman nor got him to endorse Newt, as Jon Huntsman now backs Mitt Romney.) Cain’s consolation prize is now a position chairing Newt’s tax reform efforts.
However, the timing of this perhaps shows Cain’s lack of political savvy – or, to play devil’s advocate, means he marches to his own drummer and eschews standards which would place him within the political norm. Your choice. The latter seems especially true when you consider Cain had already made his “unconventional endorsement” of “the people.”
Honestly, as a former Cain supporter, I think Herman’s post-campaign decisions have been quite disappointing. His TEA Party response to the State of the Union address was all right, but it seemed to me he pulled his punches somewhat; of course one could also argue that had he endorsed Newt earlier he would not have received the slot. As I said up top, it wasn’t unexpected that he endorsed Gingrich but doing so at this time, when Newt’s campaign is otherwise imploding in Florida, smacks of desperation on the part of both – but moreso Gingrich, who’s trying to corral onetime Cain supporters into his camp.
Too bad that, for many, the horse has already left that barn – Newt isn’t going to get much of a bounce from an endorsement eight weeks after the candidate’s withdrawal. Obviously it wasn’t needed for Newt to win South Carolina, so to do so now indeed seems like flailing from a candidate who vows to “go all the way to the convention.” That movie has played before, and usually that sort of declaration comes just before the closing credits roll on the campaign.
Unfortunately, the GOP voters and caucus participants who have come before me have seen to eliminate most of my top selections from the race. It will leave me a choice – as too often seems to be the case in Presidential politics – of:
- voting my conscience (even if he dropped out before the primary), or
- voting for my third- or fourth-favorite choice who’s still there, or
- voting against the guy I don’t want to win with his strongest remaining opponent.
A combination of the second and third options was the approach I took in 2008, basically voting against John McCain rather than for Mike Huckabee. Huckabee was pretty much my fourth option after Duncan Hunter, Fred Thompson, and Rudy Giuliani withdrew. (As I recall, Florida was Giuliani’s Waterloo, too.) In 2012 I’ve already lost Herman Cain, Michele Bachmann, and Rick Perry (although Perry is on the ballot here.)
But we’ll see if Cain’s backing for Gingrich is too little, too late. If it ends up I vote for Newt Gingrich, it won’t be because Herman Cain endorsed him. Instead, see bullet point #3 above and you’ll find my reason.
Revolution stalled
For the second Republican presidential campaign in a row, Ron Paul is an enigma.
Here’s a guy who rakes in a whole lot of cash, only to finish in the middle of the pack or worse in most of the primaries and caucuses he participates in. The last time out, he turned his back on the GOP nominee, choosing to endorse a number of minor party participants. There’s no guarantee he won’t do the same this time, leaving establishment Republicans to fret that Paul may consider a third-party run.
Should Paul eventually decide to do so, he’ll have a significant and passionate base to begin from for a general election, where independents and disaffected Democrats would be allowed to participate. A large percentage of those who follow him say it’s either Paul or nothing – “There’s no one worth voting for,” said one young South Carolina supporter. Paul’s cult of personality is not unlike that of another 2008 candidate who’s running again this time around – for re-election.
Odds and ends number 41
Not that I necessarily keep track of these things, but this is my first look in 2012 at those items which are worth a paragraph or three, but not a full post. It helps me clean out my e-mail inbox.
I couldn’t figure out how to embed this “Made in America” video, but I found it interesting when I watched it. I’m generally in favor of free trade and against strict protectionism, but if the difference is as small as they claim then buying American is worth it. Perhaps the claim of using 5% more American products would create 220,000 jobs is a bit dubious, but I’m sure it wouldn’t hurt.
Our nation needs to take steps in regaining its onetime prominence as a leading manufacturer. But it’s interesting to note several of the companies prominently mentioned have at least one plant in a right-to-work state. I can’t ascertain whether these are all non-union shops, but chances are fairly good – given that only about 1/10 of the private-sector workforce is unionized – that these good, honest American jobs don’t come with the union label.
Not that Maryland is making any quick moves to join the ranks of Virginia and other right-to-work states – this year, HB91 hasn’t progressed beyond first reading. But the group New Day Maryland pointed out to me a couple other bills of interest in the General Assembly this term to keep an eye on, and I thought I’d pass along the word.
House Bill 23, the Dedicated State Funds Protection Act, would prohibit the fund-raiding Governor O’Malley is almost as well known for as his constant zeal to raise taxes. And House Bill 43 would allow appropriations bills to be subjected to the same referendum process as those bills not dealing with appropriations. (The last remaining legal straw opponents of the in-state tuition for illegal aliens referendum are grasping for is that the bill is an appropriations bill, although it’s not.)
Both these bills have a hearing scheduled for 2 p.m. on January 31. I presume written testimony is acceptable, too.
Another one bites the dust
Just two days before the South Carolina primary, Rick Perry decided at last to drop out. You may recall he was considering withdrawing after the Iowa caucuses, but instead decided to concentrate on placing well in South Carolina. Turns out he wasn’t doing well there either, so Perry decided to throw in the towel and endorse Newt Gingrich.
That’s the topline story. So what can I dredge up from between the lines?
First of all, Perry is the first notable dropout to endorse Newt. Others who were in the race either endorsed Mitt Romney (most recently Jon Huntsman but also Tim Pawlenty and Thad McCotter) or have remained silent as to who they would back. It was thought that Herman Cain would throw his support behind Newt but he made no official statement to that effect, and Michele Bachmann has likewise been mum with her choice.
This also changes the equation of the race, as it’s now down to four main contenders. In political terms among that rapidly shrinking group, Perry’s departure leaves only Mitt Romney with any sort of executive experience as a former governor and Ron Paul as the last remaining current officeholder – Newt left the House in 1998, Rick Santorum was defeated for re-election to the Senate in 2006, and Romney chose not to run again in 2006. And presumably the anti-Romney vote is now split just three ways, with conventional wisdom predicting the new weakest link to be Rick Santorum.
But let’s talk about some other factors at play here.
Report: Huntsman to drop out, endorse Romney
According to an AP story by Philip Elliott and Kasie Hunt, Jon Huntsman is preparing to drop out of the GOP presidential sweepstakes and endorse Mitt Romney. Ironically, the same newspaper whose edition of the story I used (The State, based in the Columbia, SC area) spent its Sunday edition endorsing Huntsman in the South Carolina primary to be held next Saturday.
But the die for Huntsman was probably cast in New Hampshire, where he finished a distant third in a state where he was counting on competing with Mitt Romney for moderate Republican, independent, and disaffected Democratic votes. Finishing 22 points behind Romney and not expecting much of a showing in a much more conservative state (South Carolina) where Gov. Nikki Haley already placed herself squarely in the Romney camp, it was probably felt that Huntsman had no path to victory against his former boss, Barack Obama. So the two convention delegates Huntsman won can go ahead and support another candidate rather than be among the loneliest duo at the national Republican convention.
Yet while a number of conservative pundits believed Huntsman was a conservative actually attempting to broaden his appeal as a moderate, in reality Jon had two major problems I found: he supported the DREAM Act and believed in anthropogenic climate change. Neither of them are particularly conservative, and they overshadowed many of his good points with an electorate which has cried for a more conservative candidate than Mitt Romney.
Still, Romney will be Huntsman’s choice going forward, based on perceived electability – no surprise there. However, all that may do is bump Romney’s ceiling from 25 percent of the GOP electorate to 26 percent. Unfortunately, there’s not much Romney could gain from a Huntsman endorsement; meanwhile, Michele Bachmann and Herman Cain, who both exited the race with a broader base of support, haven’t stated publicly which competitor they will endorse. Those two endorsements could help sway the race to more of an extent than Huntsman’s commitment and it’s fairly likely they’ll be backing one of Romney’s opponents.
So we have the first qualifier on Maryland’s ballot to drop out of the running. Now the question is how many other “ghost” candidates will be on the docket we see April 3rd.
Maryland’s role
I was doing a quick bit of research just to see something I was interested in.
Most of you know that Maryland’s presidential primary is April 3rd. It’s key because we are among the states participating in the first set of “winner-take-all” contests – the other primaries before us are supposed to allocate delegates proportionately.
I like the system because it doesn’t automatically mean the winner of the first two or three primaries will be the nominee, since that person can’t get a large lead on the field. But after March that all changes.
Presumably Mitt Romney would be the winner here in Maryland, but that’s not set in stone. It’s also important to note that we share our date with two other states and the District of Columbia – one of them being Texas, where it would be a shock to see anyone but Rick Perry win. The other state in the mix is Wisconsin, and at the moment they’re not really focused on presidential politics because there’s a nasty recall campaign ongoing.
Also worthy of note is the fact that in the previous two weeks there are only two primary elections, one in Illinois and one in Louisiana – and neither occur the Tuesday before ours. The upshot is that we may actually have some campaigning about these parts, and that could in turn help the Republican Party here in the state.
A little food for thought.
A heart-to-heart talk with the electorate
Back when we began this process a year or so ago, here’s how I would have preferred to see the political landscape after the 2012 election, in order of best-case scenario to worst-case:
- A strong conservative President (in my case, the initial choice was Herman Cain) is elected and has enough coattails to increase the GOP advantage in the House and win 13 additional seats in the Senate (a 60-seat majority.)
- Same as #1, but with a simple GOP Senate majority.
- The Republicans take the House and Senate, but with a more moderate GOP standardbearer like Mitt Romney.
- A moderate Republican like Romney wins the presidency, but doesn’t pull enough Senate seats to place it in Republican control.
- The status quo from 2010-12 remains: House is Republican, Democrats keep the Senate, and Barack Obama is re-elected.
- Somehow the Democrats regain the House, keep the Senate, and Barack Obama is re-elected – a repeat of the situation from 2008-10.
Well, unless we have a candidate who comes from a brokered convention or someone like Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry, or Rick Santorum pleasantly surprises me – or Ron Paul allows someone sane like John Bolton to enact our foreign policy – it looks like I’m down to my third-choice scenario at best.
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