Tag: 2012 Presidential election

Johnson the turncoat?

This isn’t a completely unexpected development, as it echoes the path Ron Paul once took.

But according to this story I found on Politico, Gary Johnson isn’t ruling out a third-party run, probably as a Libertarian. Obviously he’s frustrated that he hasn’t been involved in many GOP debates and can’t make any headway in the polls because of that.

And in all honesty, he’s probably just as good a fit as a Libertarian as he is a Republican. In fact, there have previously been GOP candidates who have jumped into a third party when their path to the nomination was blocked – Alan Keyes in 2008 and Pat Buchanan in 2000 are two recent examples.

The question, of course, is what sort of impact Gary would have on the general election should he receive the Libertarian nomination. Normally the Libertarian gets a percent or two of the national vote, and if Johnson stays within the polling range he’s exhibited in seeking the GOP nod he’ll probably get in that range nationally. But the question is who he’d get the votes from?

If the Republicans nominate Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich it’s possible Johnson may draw support from disgruntled Republicans who don’t like the party’s nominee, which could hurt their Presidential bids. But nominating a candidate like Herman Cain or perhaps Rick Perry won’t help Johnson much because conservatives will stay with the GOP. Instead, Johnson may appeal to some independents who aren’t enamored with Barack Obama but like Johnson’s reformist mantra without the social conservatism the GOP tends to favor.

There’s little doubt that Gary Johnson doesn’t have a path to victory within the Republican Party, so the question is whether he would actually play a true maverick and attempt to bring his message to the voters in a different fashion. With the advent of the new media, he may pull off the role of spoiler.

When do the candidates drop out?

We’re just 45 days out from the Iowa caucuses (believe it or not) but there are still ten serious candidates seeking the GOP nomination.

I bring this up because, in the 2008 cycle, we had already lost a few people when they realized the money wasn’t going to be there or they had no path to victory. This is going to be true among probably six or so of the 2012 contenders, but they soldier on regardless.

Perhaps this is because the person who was counted out a month ago may make a meteoric rise in the polls based on a campaign plank, a great debate performance, or just the fact they were viewed as the hot new item in public perception. Thus far, this phenomenon has benefited several candidates: Herman Cain (twice), Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, and now Newt Gingrich. Even Tim Pawlenty had his turn, although once his down cycle arrived (at the peak of fellow Minnesotan Michele Bachmann’s cycle at the Iowa Straw Poll) he decided to exit the race. Way back when, before the race had really jelled together, Jon Huntsman had a turn at the wheel too. But by the time he actually announced that support was gone.

On the other hand, one has to wonder if the turns will ever come for guys like Gary Johnson, Buddy Roemer, or Rick Santorum. They continue to suffer from abysmally low poll numbers, and the question is now getting to be whether they’ll have the money or manpower to get their message out before it’s too late.

And you’ll notice I didn’t mention Mitt Romney or Ron Paul. It’s because both seem to have a narrow strata of support which ranges in the low twenties for Romney and right around ten percent for Paul. They don’t seem to deviate much from those plateaus, which begs the question of whether the field is too crowded for them right now. Presumably they can tread water until some of the bottom-feeders finally exit the scene.

I’m going to do a poll for a few days and see what you think will be the result of the coming shakeout. I think it’s interesting to speculate who just doesn’t have the horses to continue on.

Joe the Congressman?

Having lived in the Congressional district in question for a long time, I think this is quite funny.

First of all, the Republicans who are running Ohio’s redistricting process played quite the nasty trick by lumping two longtime liberals in Congress into the same Congressional district – Ohio’s Ninth District, which used to be primarily a Toledo-based district represented by Marcy Kaptur since 1983, now snakes along the Lake Erie shoreline toward Cleveland and has since the 2000 redistricting. But the newest Republican lines have now expanded the district far enough eastward to take in the residence of one Dennis Kucinich.

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Newt’s third way

For several years I’ve received Newt Gingrich’s weekly letter from Human Events, and it’s usually a pretty decent read from a pretty smart guy. But now that he’s in the running for President and moved up onto the list of leading contenders, one needs to scrutinize his words more carefully and some of what I don’t like about Newt came out in his latest edition.

The Washington establishment’s reaction to the runaway spending is a policy of austerity and pain.

Democrats would cause austerity and pain on the individual by raising taxes, thereby shrinking family and business purchasing power.

Republicans would cause austerity and pain to government by cutting spending and thereby shrinking the services and income transfers government provides.

Clearly, shrinking government is preferable to overtaxing the American people but we must remember that there is a third alternative to pain. It is the path of innovation and growth.

So the question is whether Newt is really serious about cutting spending – after all, he is running for the Republican nomination, isn’t he? Newt would rather target his cuts around the edges, like this:

The key to today’s budget problems is to recognize that there is a world that works (largely but not entirely in the private sector) and there is a world that fails (bureaucracies in both the public and private sectors). With even a little creativity, we should be able to maximize the world that works and eliminate the world that fails.

For instance, if we applied modern private-sector management systems to government they would save up to $500 billion a year. That is three times the goal of the Super Committee.

Newt points to a website called Strong America Now, which claims that a quarter of all federal spending is wasted and advocates the Lean Six Sigma model in order to shrink spending down to size. (I’d say that number is quite low, but then again it all depends on your definition of waste.) While it’s a good idea to point this sort of thing out time and again, the trouble is that we’re working within the same parameter – if the system is irreparably broken, nothing can save it. Moreover, this working within the system will likely suffer the fate of most government estimates – the actual amount saved will likely fall short of expectations. And certainly the cuts will be just fine and no one will dispute the need for them until someone’s ox is gored, and there are a lot of sacred cows running around Washington.

My contention is that we need to shrink the services and income transfers government provides in order to bring the federal government to heel, so if Newt doesn’t want to do that I can’t get behind him very well. (I will admit in this case, though, that Newt is right about the idea of block-granting Medicaid to the states.) Being an advocate of a smaller, less powerful federal government I believe the idea of austerity there would bring some pain, but it would only be along the lines of a “you might feel this stick” pain when you’re giving blood or getting a flu shot. In the long term, the patient is much better.

To be perfectly frank, I would have less of an issue paying higher taxes in the state if I had the assurance that the federal government would shrink accordingly. The problem we have now is that all three levels of government seem to want to take more and more, and none of them will look into their proverbial mirror and ask themselves if what they are providing can’t be done better at a lower level or through the private sector. Placing a private sector model on government may be some improvement, but in terms of political philosophy it’s no different than lipstick on a pig. Unfortunately, my fear is that any money “saved” by the ideas espoused by Strong America Now would just be transferred to some other department, agency, or bureau in an ever-expanding statist paradise.

Perhaps I can borrow a phrase Newt made famous to describe the approach we should take. In my view, it’s time for government to “wither on the vine” but I just don’t think Newt is the guy to make it happen.

A secondary election day

I always thought it was the Tuesday after the first Monday, but today was quite the election day on three different fronts.

One election I participated in was a straw poll held at the MDGOP Fall Convention over the weekend, with the results tabulated and announced today. (My analysis comes after the jump.)

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Herman Cain should be the new Bill Clinton. Right?

Haven’t we seen this movie before?

I have to admit, though, it’s sort of fun to watch it blow up in the faces of liberals who gloated for a decade about how all the allegations about Bill Clinton and the cover-ups of his sordid affairs weren’t as important as how he ran the country – to them, it was all a sideshow from Republicans who were angry they couldn’t beat him at the ballot box. (Never mind there was perjury enough for Clinton to be disbarred.)

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Required reading?

There’s any number of things I could be commenting on this evening, but tonight I’m going to talk about…books.

A story caught my eye yesterday and reminded me of something I read a few days ago about a man in a similar predicament. It seems that taxpayers have ponied up over $70,000 to buy copies of President Obama’s books, translated to a number of languages for usage in various embassies around the world. While the Washington Times story by Jim McElhatton wryly notes that the State Department didn’t spend any money buying books by George W. Bush or Bill Clinton, I’m just waiting for the first crank to tell me that the former wasn’t smart enough to write a book. (Yet no one is doubting he wrote Decision Points like some question Obama’s handiwork. They just marvel at Bush’s compilation skills.)

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Cain surges in polls: is he the anti-Romney?

According to a new Rasmussen Poll, Herman Cain and Mitt Romney are now virtually tied on the top of the Republican presidential heap as both garnered 29% in the sampling. And the new number three is Newt Gingrich, who gets 10 percent while former frontrunner Rick Perry has slipped all the way back to fourth, at nine percent.

It’s interesting to note the history of how this race has gone. Mitt Romney has always seemed to have his 20 to 30 percent support and that number doesn’t seem to waver regardless of who’s in the race; it’s enough to keep him on top or a close second in most polls.

But the role of portraying that “other” contender seems to change on a cycle of about a month or two.

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Dropouts 4 Romney

This is something I found interesting.

Having followed the Republican presidential nominating process for 2012 for some time, it’s telling to me that three candidates who have either bowed out or said they were never in the race have endorsed Mitt Romney. The latter category was filled yesterday by New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, with both Tim Pawlenty and Thad McCotter also choosing Romney after exiting the race.

Of course, that’s not to say that many other politicians haven’t endorsed Mitt Romney – heck, Maryland has its own list of Republicans who back him. I just don’t happen to be one of them.

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Odds and ends number 34

Believe it or not, I have been besieged with another plethora of items which deserve perhaps an paragraph or three of comment on my part. So let me get crackin’ on them.

Since I’ve had the opportunity to speak with him in person, I would suggest that those of you who are political activists consider attending David Craig’s campaign school. It will make a stop here on the Lower Eastern Shore at the Comfort Inn in Cambridge this Saturday (October 1st) from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. It’s absolutely free and includes lunch too. You can sign up for the event here.

You know, I’d be curious to know if any liberals show up because it’s a freebie. But if it’s conducted like the “Bloggers and Burgers” confab you should leave the Craig campaign school neither hungry nor uninformed.

Speaking of liberals and freebies, there’s 116 people in Salisbury who really must suffer from terminal ignorance. I got this in my e-mail the other day, simply because September 30 is coming:

Here’s something you don’t have in common with 116 other supporters of this movement who tell us they live in Salisbury, MD.

That many of your neighbors have decided to own a piece of this campaign by making a donation of whatever they could afford. For some, that meant just $5. For others, it meant $100 or more. But each had their own personal reason for giving.

Our records show that you aren’t one of the 116 people where you’re from who have stepped up for 2012. Now’s your chance to change that.

Since the e-mail came from Jim Messina of the Obama 2012 campaign, don’t hold your breath waiting for my gift. I might give a little to Herman Cain, though.

It makes me curious, though – how many of my readers have donated to a Presidential campaign? I haven’t done so yet this cycle, but I did donate to Rep. Duncan Hunter’s ill-fated bid last time. He was my first.

Continue reading “Odds and ends number 34”

The Cain comeback

I’d like to think my endorsement had a little bit to do with this, but…I doubt it.

Still, it’s interesting that Herman Cain was considered the “winner” of the Florida debate the other night then came back today and crushed the rest of the field at the “Presidency 5” straw poll in Orlando.

It’s intriguing because the conventional wisdom (at least expressed by one of my cohorts at Pajamas Media) figured Mitt Romney would regain momentum after Rick Perry’s dreadful debate performance. Well, guess again – he came in third with 14 percent. Cain nearly had more votes than his next three pursuers (Perry, Romney, and Santorum) combined. One caveat: Cain was one of only three contenders to speak before the gathering along with Newt Gingrich (who finished seventh with 9 percent) and Rick Santorum (who was fourth with 11 percent.)

But this result brings up another interesting question – where are all the Ron Paul people? If there’s one thing Paul usually excels at, it’s winning a straw poll – here’s a recent example. I’m sure their defense will be that this was an “establishment” event, but so was the California straw poll I cited.

Herman seemed astonished by the win, thanking the Florida voters and noting, “(t)his is a sign of our growing momentum and my candidacy that cannot be ignored. I will continue to share my message of ‘common sense solutions’ across this country and look forward to spending more time in Florida, a critical state for both the nomination and the general election.”

These developments could be the impetus to get Cain moving in the polls again. Back in late June he was second among all the announced candidates at the time with support in the low double-digits and trailing Mitt Romney by about 15 points. However, with the entry of several new candidates into the race and a serious misstep, Cain lost ground and now sits sixth in the RealClearPolitics polling average with 5.6 percent.

But a bump back to 10 percent would place him back into third and within striking distance of the top two as the fall season approaches. Newt Gingrich has seen his support plateau at around 8 or 9 percent as has Ron Paul, while onetime contender Michele Bachmann has plummeted in the polls (including the Florida balloting, where she barely received 1 percent) since making a splash with her entry into the race.

In any event, the race may soon get a little tighter and that bodes well for alternative candidates to reconsider entering at this late date. There’s always the Sarah Palin prospect, but rumblings are out there that New Jersey Governor Chris Christie is abandoning his threat to commit suicide to convince people he will not run and might indeed jump in.

More choices are good, although it would be more likely I’d consider Palin than Christie. But right now is Herman Cain’s moment, and his opportunity to jump-start his Presidential bid. Let’s hope he takes advantage.

The endorsement

Well, here’s the moment you’ve all been waiting for: who do I support for President? (Hint: it ain’t Barack Obama.)

If you’ve been playing along with my “Dossier” series and kept track of the points, this is what you’d find:

  1. Herman Cain – 74 points
  2. Roy Moore – 73 points
  3. Michele Bachmann – 71 points
  4. Ron Paul – 68 points
  5. Rick Perry – 59 points
  6. Rick Santorum – 57 points
  7. Thad McCotter – 51 points
  8. Gary Johnson – 50 points
  9. Newt Gingrich – 48 points
  10. Mitt Romney – 40 points
  11. Buddy Roemer – 39 points
  12. Jon Huntsman – 25 points
  13. Fred Karger – (-11) points

It seems pretty cut and dried, right? Well, not quite.

One thing I noticed as I was having a bit of fun with the numbers (figuring out that my “perfect” candidate in this go-round would have only 94 points of 100) is that Herman Cain came out on top through consistent scoring, not necessarily high marks across the board. So I did a second run using factored placements in each category – the top finisher got 1, second was 2, and so forth. Anyone who was tied for a spot got the lowest number of points.

It changed the standings at the top quite a bit:

  1. Roy Moore (2nd in points)
  2. Ron Paul (4th)
  3. Herman Cain (1st)
  4. Michele Bachmann (3rd)
  5. Rick Perry (5th)
  6. Rick Santorum (6th)
  7. Gary Johnson (8th)
  8. Thad McCotter (7th)
  9. Newt Gingrich (9th)
  10. Jon Huntsman (12th)
  11. Mitt Romney (10th)
  12. Buddy Roemer (11th)
  13. Fred Karger (13th)

In essence, my top four were turned around. The only reason Ron Paul didn’t finish first in points, though, was his isolationist stance. He actually scored well enough on the most important categories to make up for it and that’s why he moved up the scale. Roy Moore was helped along by having good marks across the board, but none of the key factors except for taxation and the role of government leaped out. And Bachmann and Cain were dragged down by a lack of specifics in some areas.

So the next step was placing them head-to-head against each other.

Once you do that it’s clear Michele Bachmann doesn’t do as well, while the other three are essentially a draw when compared that way. So I guess I have to revert to my original findings and also think about electability. I just can’t see Ron Paul being the nominee, nor can I trust him in the key aspect of foreign affairs. To me there’s a difference between entangling alliances and our very security. Declared or not, I believe we are in a state of war and we weren’t the ones who caused it.

And while I really like Judge Moore, the fact that he hasn’t advanced beyond the exploratory stage five months after forming the committee tells me he probably doesn’t have the support base to make a serious run.

Thus, after weeks of thought and study, I stand as a member of the Wicomico County Republican Central Committee – and while I don’t speak for the committee as a whole – I heartily endorse Herman Cain to be the next President of the United States.

If you would prefer to explore other candidates, my strong recommendations for the position are Michele Bachmann, Roy Moore, and Ron Paul. Each is a good candidate, but as noted above I have one or more reservations about their qualifications and eventual prospect for success – however, you may see it differently.

And by the way, I am going to do a dual Dossier on the two major declared Democratic candidates. That should be a riot.