Rick Santorum – Page 4

Santorum seeks local supporters

And another offshoot of the conservative movement is born. Former GOP Senator and presidential candidate Rick Santorum is making an attempt to localize his Patriot Voices endeavor:

Michael,

It’s been an exciting 9 months! Since Patriot Voices started last June, we’ve already accomplished so much. We stopped a United Nations treaty that would jeopardize our parental rights. We pushed for passage of the No Budget No Pay bill, which ensures that Congress won’t get paid unless they pass a budget. And Patriot Voices PAC helped elect several strong conservatives to key House and Senate races in last year’s election.

And now, it’s time to get connected at the local level to ensure we can accomplish even more. We are starting local chapters across the country to connect local members with our state and national leadership. The role of local chapters will be to help Patriot Voices advance the first principles of conservatism in local communities across the country. We encourage our local chapter coordinators to recruit members who believe in what we’re doing and who will be ready to activate, engage and support endorsed candidates, projects and activities.

If you are interested in starting a local Patriot Voices chapter, we have an exciting way to kick it off!

We’d like you to host an “Our Sacred Honor” house party. “Our Sacred Honor” is a DVD that I narrated, which explores the meaning of our founding documents, the intentions of those who drafted these documents and the relationship between the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. I was fortunate enough to help tell this story through visits to many of our nation’s historic places that marked our country’s beginning.

(snip)

We look forward to working with you to make Patriot Voices a tremendous grassroots force across this country so we can impact the issues that will affect our country’s future in the years to come.

I actually found this quite intriguing, but a little worrisome at the same time. Perhaps the idea of the TEA Party as a leaderless institution has its merits, but to some it may seem like too many people are trying to cultivate the same ground here.

While he wasn’t my first choice by any stretch of the imagination, I ended up supporting Rick Santorum in the Maryland primary election because he was the best remaining candidate – overall, the voters in a number of rural Midwestern and Southern states agreed because he swept through those 2012 primaries like a prairie fire. And certainly there is a lot to like about their stances on issues – maybe I don’t fall in foursquare with Patriot Voices on everything, but they definitely fall within my 80 percent rule.

One thing I’ve noticed about the local conservative movement, though, is that it is very localized: we tend to focus on Maryland issues. Granted, many of them are extensions of fights which occur at the national level (Agenda 21 and Second Amendment issues immediately come to mind) but there are issues we don’t consider because we tie ourselves up at the state level.

I think that if you made a Venn diagram with one circle comprised of those who would be the target audience of Patriot Voices and the other being those who are active in the local TEA Party movement, they would intersect but perhaps not as much as one thinks. My thought is that, based on the social issue aspect of Patriot Voices which is not as pronounced in the TEA Party movement with its more libertarian streak, there may be room for both locally as separate groups who can work as allies on specific issues and try not to step on one another’s toes on the rest. Moreover, the national perspective of Patriot Voices may lend itself to greater opportunities for the overall pro-liberty movement at-large to work across state lines and bring together leaders from across Delmarva who may not otherwise be able to compare notes.

It will be interesting to see who steps up and becomes the leader locally – I can think of a couple candidates who may be good for the task and who read here regularly. We’ll see what they do. And I wouldn’t mind watching the movie, either.

A fork we stick in Rick

So it ends, not with a bang but more of a whimper.

The news that Rick Santorum has opted to suspend his campaign just two weeks before a multistate primary where opponent Mitt Romney would be expected to do well in all the states – except possibly Santorum’s home state of Pennsylvania – coupled with the withdrawal in all but name by Newt Gingrich over the weekend (“he had more things to hit with than I did”), means that Mitt Romney will be the GOP nominee come September. Sure, Ron Paul is still in the race but he hasn’t won a primary yet.

Obviously that’s frustrating news to Santorum backers (like The Other McCain) as well as residents of the five states (including Delaware) who were expectantly awaiting their turn in the national spotlight, but it also brings up a couple interesting questions.

Who will be the second banana on the ticket? We saw a rejuvenated Republican Party for a brief time in 2008 when Sarah Palin was selected, so one would hope Romney assuages conservatives with a strong pick.
Will the electorate in the remaining states which have not conducted primary elections embrace Mitt as the nominee?

I don’t know what the rules are for ballot withdrawal in the remaining states, but it’s quite likely that the last four standing (Romney, Paul, Gingrich, and Santorum) are on the ballot in 17 of the 19 remaining states (Nebraska and Montana are caucus states.) And we can look back at Virginia for a case study in just how much anti-Romney sentiment was out there – in a contest limited to Mitt Romney and Ron Paul, Romney couldn’t even carry 60 percent of the vote. Had it been Santorum or Gingrich on the ballot straight up against Romney, Rick or Newt may have carried the state.

It would be quite surprising now if Romney didn’t get a clear majority of the votes, but the depth of anti-Romney sentiment may be most expressed in states where Santorum or Gingrich were thought to be strongest (most likely Texas, Kentucky, Arkansas, Indiana, and South Dakota among remaining primary states.) But this ceding of the Presidential field could also have a detrimental effect on conservatives in downticket races as well – one example being the U.S. Senate primary in Indiana where moderate Senator Richard Lugar faces a primary opponent in Richard Mourdock.

But all the talk of a possible brokered convention and a white knight coming in to save the GOP will now be replaced by emotions from anger at the establishment to outright despair from the Right that Romney can’t win and we’re doomed to another four long years of Barack Obama. Yet if every conservative in the country came out and voted, we would win because Democratic turnout tends to lag behind Republican regardless of whatever tricks the Democrats try to pull. It’s simple math – around 40 percent of the country self-identifies as conservative while only 20 percent or so self-identify as liberal. Even if the squishy middle splits evenly, we win.

And it’s not like the incumbent has much of a record to run on, unless you define record deficits, record number of adults out of the work force, and record high gas prices as records to brag about. Obama has those.

So here we are: Obama vs. Romney. It wasn’t my personal choice (since I voted for Santorum after all my other good choices split the scene) but that’s the way it’s going to be.

And now for something (almost) completely different:

I have it on very good authority that someone familiar to local voters is going to jump into the First District Congressional race. That’s all I’m going to say for now, but watch this space for more details.

Where I went wrong (and right)

Okay, the results have come in and I got some sleep and a day at my outside job to consider them, so let’s go back to my prediction post and see how I did.

I was actually correct in the order of presentation on the top four Presidential candidates statewide, but Mitt Romney exceeded even the pollsters’ expectations when he won just under half the vote. I suppose that inevitability factor may have affected the results because it appears our turnout in 2012 will end up about 20 percent less than it was in 2008, when the race was effectively over by the time we voted. Because few people like to admit they’re backing a loser, I wouldn’t be surprised if a number of voters changed from Gingrich to Romney at the end while other Newt backers stayed home. It also proves Ron Paul has support a mile deep but an inch wide since both well underperformed what I thought they might. I actually missed Santorum by less than a point, although it surprised me that Rick only won two counties (Garrett and Somerset.) I would have thought Rick would carry 4 to 6 of the more rural counties, including Wicomico. But once Romney outperformed it was over.

And you may wonder why I had Fred Karger at 2 percent. I thought he would do better because, as a gay Republican candidate in a state which was bound to be a Romney state anyway, voting for him may serve as a message about the gay marriage referendum likely to appear in November. Instead, he got only less than 1/10 of my predicted total and finished dead last. I also managed to garble up the exact order of the also-rans, but with such a small sample who knew?

That same statewide trend seemed to affect my Wicomico result too because Romney outperformed and Gingrich/Paul suffered for it.

And while I didn’t predict it, I find it quite fascinating that 12 percent of the Democratic primary voters selected “none of the above” rather than Barack Obama. However, that statewide average varies wildly from under 3% in Prince George’s County, about 5% in Baltimore City, and just over 7% in Montgomery County to fully 1/3 of Democrats in Allegany County and a staggering 34.7% in Cecil County. In the last comparable election with a Democratic incumbent (1996) President Clinton only received 84% of the vote (onetime perennial candidate Lyndon LaRouche got 4%) but no county came close to getting 1/3 or more of the ballots against the President.

I didn’t miss the “barnburner” aspect of the Senate race by much as it wasn’t called until nearly midnight. But Dan Bongino carried 34% of the vote and won by 6 points over Richard Douglas. (I called it for two points, but I underestimated the impact of the little eight.) I think Joseph Alexander gets the advantage of being first of the ballot, and that accounts for his second straight third-place finish. The rest? Well, the order wasn’t all that correct but they were mostly only off by a percent or two and I got last place right. And to prove it was a close race, both Bongino and Douglas carried 12 counties apiece.

What mystifies me the most isn’t that Rich Douglas carried Wicomico rather easily, but how much support the other eight received – they collectively picked up almost 100 more votes than Douglas did! I would love to know the mindset of the people who voted for most of these minor candidates. I can see a case for Robert Broadus based on the Protect Marriage Maryland group, but what did the others really do to promote their campaigns? At least I know Douglas had radio spots and reasonably good online coverage.

But I did peg Ben Cardin to within 4 points statewide.

On some of the Congressional races: despite the fact I screwed up the percentages, at least I correctly called the Sixth District winners as Roscoe Bartlett and John Delaney. Both did far better than I expected, and I think part of the reason was that both their key challengers’ campaigns imploded in the last week or two. A week ago we may have had something closer to the numbers I predicted. Think Rob Garagiola and David Brinkley may commiserate anytime soon?

The ‘relative ease’ I suspected for Nancy Jacobs was even easier than I thought. I guess Larry Smith didn’t have nearly the campaign as I believed because he came up short on my prediction about as much as Nancy Jacobs was over – I wasn’t all that far off on Rick Impallaria.

While there is a slim chance I may have the First District Democratic race correct, I was surprised that Eastern Shore voters didn’t get all parochial and support the one Eastern Shore candidate, John LaFerla, over two from across the Bay. He only won Worcester, Kent, and Queen Anne’s counties, and I would chalk most of that up to Wayne Gilchrest’s endorsement. Kim Letke was about 6 points better than I thought and LaFerla was six points worse because he way underperformed on the Eastern Shore. I suspect no small part of that underperformance by LaFerla was his extreme pro-choice stance, as getting the NARAL endorsement doesn’t play well among local Democrats. There is a 136 vote margin out of about 23,500 cast.

Out of the rest, the only one I got wrong was the Eighth District, and I think that was a case of better name recognition than I expected for Ken Timmerman and less of a vote split among the three candidates from Montgomery County.

As for the Democratic incumbents, I could have wrote “over 85%” and still been right, with the minor exception of Steny Hoyer getting 84.8%.

So this is how the races for November will line up. Sometime this evening I will update my sidebar to reflect this:

U.S. Senate: Dan Bongino (R) vs. Ben Cardin (D – incumbent)
District 1: Andy Harris (R – incumbent) vs. Wendy Rosen (D – pending absentees and possible recount)
District 2: Nancy Jacobs (R) vs. Dutch Ruppersberger (D – incumbent)
District 3: Eric Knowles (R) vs. John Sarbanes (D – incumbent)
District 4: Faith Loudon (R) vs. Donna Edwards (D – incumbent)
District 5: Tony O’Donnell (R) vs. Steny Hoyer (D – incumbent)
District 6: Roscoe Bartlett (R – incumbent) vs. John Delaney (D)
District 7: Frank Mirabile (R) vs. Elijah Cummings (D – incumbent)
District 8: Ken Timmerman (R) vs. Chris Van Hollen (D – incumbent)

So out of 19 contested races I predicted 15 correctly, and I stuck my neck out on percentages a few times as well. I missed Romney by 8 points statewide and 9 points here in Wicomico County. I think the “inevitable” mantle made the difference.

But with Dan Bongino I was only 2 points off statewide. Probably my worst guess, though, was being 19 points off with him in Wicomico County. It’s worth noting that the Douglas late-game media strategy seemed to pay off on the Eastern Shore since he carried six of the nine counties and would have carried the nine-county Shore if he hadn’t been blown out in Cecil County by 1,250 votes. Bongino carried five counties with over 40 percent of the vote (Cecil was one along with Anne Arundel, Frederick, Queen Anne’s, and Montgomery) while Douglas could only claim two such counties (Dorchester and Talbot.)

I saw this possibly ending up as a rerun of the 2010 race where Eric Wargotz had more money while Jim Rutledge had more grassroots (read: TEA Party) support. Obviously media reaches a LOT more people quickly than grassroots efforts do in a statewide race, and the money to buy media is a key element of a successful campaign. That’s where Eric Wargotz succeeded, because Jim Rutledge didn’t raise a lot of money and Eric had a sizable bank account to tap into.

But as it turned out the Douglas bankroll wasn’t all that large, and an abbreviated campaign with a spring primary didn’t give Rich quite enough time to build a support base of his own. Those three or four extra months Dan worked on his campaign (at a time, remember, when better-known prospective opponents like Wargotz and Delegate Pat McDonough were considering the race) turned Bongino from an also-ran into a nominee. By succeeding enough to nationalize the campaign Dan made himself into a formidable opponent to Ben Cardin. Had this been a September primary, though, the result may have been different.

Now we have just under seven months until the general election, a chance for the campaigns to take a quick breather and begin to plot the strategy for November victory. For Democrats, it will be a hope that Obama can fool people into believing he’s an effective President and having long enough coattails. On the other hand, Republicans need to point out the Obama record while spelling out their own solutions – that’s where we’ve been lacking in some respects. We need to give people a reason to vote FOR us rather than AGAINST the other SOB.

So start working on those platforms, ladies and gentlemen. If we are to win, we need to not be a pastel Democrat-lite but present bold colors to Maryland and the nation.

Primary crystal ball predictions

Just for the heck of it, I’m going to do my set of predictions on some key races locally and around the state. In the past we did this among ourselves at the Central Committee meetings but we didn’t discuss it last night. So tell me what you think, and if I turn out to be wrong – well, don’t laugh too much. Most of this is a (somewhat) educated guess.

I’m going to begin with the Presidential race, on a statewide level. There have already been several polls on this, so there’s a little bit of cheating involved; then again, the polls actually pretty much mirrored my gut instinct all along.

In Maryland, I see the race like this:

Mitt Romney – 41%
Rick Santorum – 28%
Newt Gingrich – 16%
Ron Paul – 11%
Fred Karger – 2%
Rick Perry – <1%
Buddy Roemer – <1%
Jon Huntsman – <1%

The polls seem to have Romney winning bigger (Rasmussen has it 45-28) but I think Mitt’s people will tend to figure he’s got it in the bag and turnout will be better in certain areas where Gingrich and Paul may run a little stronger.

How about Wicomico County? This is more of a crapshoot but I think the top 4 results will be a little different:

Rick Santorum – 35%
Mitt Romney – 33%
Newt Gingrich – 18%
Ron Paul – 13%

The voters here tend to be more conservative than the state at large.

The other statewide race is for U.S. Senate. Now I’m really going to go out on a limb here, because there aren’t any polls I’m aware of (aside from the sure fact campaigns have internal polling I’m not privy to) but my gut is telling me we may have a barnburner on our hands:

Dan Bongino – 36%
Richard Douglas – 34%
Robert Broadus – 8%
Corrogan Vaughn – 5%
Joseph Alexander – 4%
David Jones – 4%
William Capps – 3%
Rick Hoover – 3%
John Kimble – 2%
Brian Vaeth – 1%

In Wicomico County, I suspect the top three will be Bongino (42%), Douglas (36%), and Broadus (8%). None of the others will be over 3 percent. Incumbent Ben Cardin will be the opponent, with the over-under line for me being 70% of the statewide vote.

And how about the Sixth District race? It’s the most talked-about Congressional primary since the 2008 First District primary, with the added benefit of mud flying on both sides.

On the Republican side, I think Roscoe Bartlett will hold on to his seat with 33% of the vote, with David Brinkley gathering 29%, Joseph Krysztforski 14%, Robin Ficker 10%, and Kathy Afzali 7%. The other three will split the remaining 7%.

What saves Bartlett’s bacon is the fact that there are so many in the race that people may just throw up their hands and go with the name they know. If there were just four or five in the race I think Brinkley has a shot, although the last-minute release of 9-1-1 tapes featuring his ex-wife may knock a point or two away from Brinkley and provide Roscoe’s margin of victory. It’s the voters on the extreme western end of the district who are likely most swayed by that because they don’t really know David that well.

On the Democratic side, I’m sensing a bit of an upset. We figured that this seat was drawn for Rob Garagiola, but I suspect the charges laid against him by John Delaney have done enough damage that Delaney will squeak out a close win, something on the order of 31-30. Milad Pooran will likely run a respectable third with 21%, while Ron Little grabs 10% and Charles Bailey the last 8%.

The Second District GOP race is also interesting, but I think Nancy Jacobs will win it with relative ease, probably with 40% or so of the vote. Larry Smith comes in around 28%, Rick Impallaria with 19%, and the other two with single digits apiece.

Meanwhile, I think John LaFerla will be the First District Democratic nominee against Andy Harris and he’ll end up just short of a majority – 49% district-wide against Wendy Rosen’s 43%. Kim Letke will get the last 8%. What puts LaFerla over the top in the primary is the endorsement of Wayne Gilchrest. What keeps him from winning in November is being endorsed by NARAL and Planned Parenthood.

GOP winners in other districts will be Eric Knowles (3rd), Faith Loudon (4th), Tony O’Donnell (5th), Frank Mirabile (7th), and Dave Wallace (8th). Wallace gets the nod because the other three candidates will likely split the Montgomery County vote just enough for him to win over Ken Timmerman. Of course, there will not be any upsets among the incumbent Democrats – all of them will get over 75% in their respective primaries.

So what do you think? Am I all wet or do I have a good chance of being correct – and why? As opposed to yesterday, I’m going to leave this up all day until results come in.

The key nine days

Well, as Mitt Romney says on his website, “it’s your turn, Maryland.” But will the turn be expressed in simple media buys or are we going to be graced with the presence of the four major candidates? That’s the question which doesn’t seem to have an answer, but unfortunately the signs presently point to a heavier emphasis on Wisconsin (which also votes April 3 and has a slightly larger delegate package) than on Maryland and Washington, D.C.

Most would consider Mitt Romney the favorite in this state, which is relatively similar in makeup to a number of other Northeast states where he’s done well. Mitt was the first to visit this state last week by holding a townhall meeting in Arbutus, but he’s also cultivated a long list of endorsements from state elected officials and party insiders in the months leading up to the primary. Add in the fact he has plenty of money to saturate the state’s two key media markets (one of which he also used leading up to the Virginia primary) and he may not even feel the need to visit the state again.

Newt Gingrich hasn’t been a stranger to Maryland, being the keynote speaker at the state party’s Red White and Blue Dinner twice in the last three years (the other speaker was Mitt Romney in 2010.) But while he has a Delaware appearance on his upcoming schedule tomorrow evening at Hockessin (near Wilmington), there are no Maryland events on his docket yet. However, Newt does not have a Wisconsin event slated for himself until Thursday evening, meaning he could spend the midweek in the Free State.

Moreover, Gingrich has an incentive to campaign in this area, as First District Congressman Andy Harris is one of his state co-chairs. The Baltimore Sun is reporting that Gingrich will be in Annapolis Tuesday, which fits with the Delaware event.

Ron Paul has already slated a Maryland event, appearing at a rally at the University of Maryland on Wednesday evening. But he has slowed down his appearances since keeping up a frenetic pace in caucus states earlier this month, sticking mainly to rallies at large colleges (such as the University of Maryland) in other states.

So far Rick Santorum has a limited number of events on his calendar, all in Wisconsin. It’s likely he would be in the Badger State until at least Tuesday, when he has two rallies there. In theory he could be in Maryland tomorrow but that’s very short notice. Given that his rallies seem to be somewhat lengthy affairs, there would likely need to be some advance notice so if he’s indeed coming to Maryland it’s likely Rick would make a final push here closer to the end of the week.

And while early voting has commenced, the vast majority of votes will still be cast on Election Day April 3. So if presidential candidates want to do some retail politicking here in Maryland, their opportunity to do so is waning quickly.

The Maryland campaign begins

Now that Mitt Romney has won the Illinois primary – it was called for him barely a half-hour after the polls closed – one of the next “big” states on the docket is Maryland. (Louisiana comes first, on Saturday.) But Romney is the first major candidate to make a late push in the state, scheduling an event in Arbutus (3:30 at the American Legion Post 109, to be exact) later today. Something tells me Bob Ehrlich is going to show up at this event in his hometown.

One other piece of news worth mentioning is that Romney got another late endorsement from Harford County Executive (and 2014 candidate for something) David Craig, who said in part:

America is yearning for leadership. We are yearning for someone who can improve our course, who can inspire ingenuity, and who can get our economy churning. That man is Mitt Romney.

As Governor, Mitt Romney inherited large deficits that he turned into record surpluses, through focusing on the economy by signing job-creating incentives into law and by slashing the red tape that hinders small business growth.

In 1999, the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics had been bogged down in a bid-rigging scandal, sponsors were fleeing, and the budget was bleeding red ink. When Mitt Romney came on board, he revamped the organization’s leadership, trimmed the budget, and restored public confidence.

He is a leader with executive experience and a proven track record of fixing what is broken, and America is broken.

I would tend to disagree with parts of that statement, but all the endorsement proves is that Craig is like a number of other politicians who seem to be banking on Romney being the “electable” Republican.

But the reason I really wanted to bring this up was to do some lobbying.

If a Republican candidate is to win in November, he is going to have to gather some crossover Democrats and conservative independents who respond to his message. And what better place is there to test drive such a message than an area where Democrats have the voter registration advantage but Republicans hold the offices? Yes, I think Salisbury would be an ideal stop for a Presidential candidate.

Most of the campaigns are spending time in Louisiana this week, which makes sense. But the only candidate who is planning on spending significant time in Maryland next week insofar as I can tell is minor candidate Fred Karger, and my gut feeling is he’d come nowhere near the Eastern Shore because, to put it charitably, he’s not exactly conservative.

I realize that presidential campaign schedules are made on the fly, but I’m sure we would be happy to welcome Rick Santorum, Ron Paul, Newt Gingrich, or even Mitt Romney around these parts. Special added bonus: Delaware votes April 24.

So there is your offer. Take advantage of our hospitality while you can.

Paul: Caucus fraud ‘possible’

I took a lot of flak for talking about Ron Paul a few weeks back, and I can’t see how he has a path to the nomination. But I was chastised for the fraud allegations his supporters put out with the tacit acceptance of the campaign.

So I was quite interested to see this Stephen Dinan story from the Washington Times on Monday, and the money quote I’m repeating here:

“Sometimes we get thousands of people like this, and we’ll take them to the polling booth, and we won’t win the caucuses,” he said. “A lot of our supporters are very suspicious about it.”

He said he doesn’t have proof of actual fraud, but said it’s a possible explanation.

“It’s that kind of stuff that makes you suspicious, because quite frankly, I don’t think the other candidates are getting crowds like this,” he said.

I suspect the crowds are partially because the candidate has a certain buzz about him, but after seeing and hearing him they may not be convinced he’s worth voting or caucusing for. Needless to say, the online polls and rallies only prove that Paul’s followers may be rabid but not convincing.

However, the problem they present for the other candidates in the race is their attitude: “Paul or none at all.” I beg to differ because staying home is a vote for Obama and that’s the last thing we need.

Yet I wondered why the caucus strategy was ever thought to be a valid one when, even if Paul won every delegate available from the caucuses he wouldn’t even be halfway to the number needed for nomination. Getting 10 to 15 percent of the primary vote isn’t going to work in the four-person race it’s become, particularly once the winner-take-all races begin with Maryland and Wisconsin on April 3rd. (Apparently Texas, which was also slated for April 3, won’t have their primary until late May due to questions about their redistricting winding through their courts.)

So there’s very little chance Paul will win the nomination, but having three essentially conservative candidates split the right-wing vote against the party’s moderate minority means we could have another John McCain or Bob Dole wipeout on our hands. Needless to say, our country can’t afford that.

Sometimes we have to step back and, to use a sports analogy, take what the defense gives us. I’d rather work with a Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, or Newt Gingrich in the White House than another moment of Barack Obama. If Ron Paul can’t win in the places where he’s supposedly strong and can only resort to wondering if he’s being cheated somehow, that’s no path to victory.

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.

Continue reading “Message to Ron Paul: prove fraud or drop out”

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.

Continue reading “Another one bites the dust”

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.

Continue reading “A heart-to-heart talk with the electorate”

Bachmann’s turn is over (but Perry’s isn’t after all)

Well, it was fun while it lasted. The monoblogue kiss of death has claimed another victim, Michele Bachmann.

After gamely trying to convince herself and others the fight wasn’t over last night, apparently she slept on it and “decided to stand aside” this morning. This was the statement on her website:

I will be forever grateful to Iowa and its people for launching us on this path with our victory in the Iowa Straw Poll. While I will not be continuing in this race, my faith in the Lord God Almighty, this country, in our republic, has been strengthened. As I have traveled around Iowa, and the country, I have seen the very best in America, our people. And I will always believe in the greatness of them and the greatness of our God.

And, of course, I am deeply grateful to our entire campaign team, here in Iowa, in South Carolina and everywhere. I have no regrets. We never compromised our principles and we can leave this race knowing that we ran it with integrity and that we made an important contribution.

Thank you, God Bless you.

At this time, she hasn’t made an endorsement but presumably her decision was hastened in part by the necessity to begin her campaign to retain her Congressional seat – a campaign which has already drawn her GOP opposition and perhaps may place her in another Congressional district, as the DFL (their version of the Democratic Party) redistricting plan does. She also remains as the titular head of the TEA Party Caucus.

So the old adage that there are only three tickets out of Iowa may yet prove almost true, as the list of contenders gets whittled down to six: Newt Gingrich (4th in Iowa), Jon Huntsman (7th, but did not campaign there), Ron Paul (3rd in Iowa), Mitt Romney, and Rick Santorum. (The latter two essentially tied for first.) Fifth-place finisher Rick Perry was going to “reassess” his campaign, but perhaps Bachmann’s decision allowed him to stay in the hunt.

This hasn’t been much of a campaign for conservatives. Many would have liked to see Sarah Palin run, while others pined for a TEA Party favorite like Congressman Mike Pence of Indiana. Other names tossed around were Senator Marco Rubio and Congressman Allen West of Florida, and Governor Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, all reliably conservative.

But many conservatives coalesced around the lesser-known Herman Cain until a series of unfounded allegations of marital misconduct and sexual harassment knocked him out of the race. Others have been in the Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann camps early on and stayed during the frequent ups and downs.

Now we have fewer but certainly not better choices: Mitt Romney will forever have the albatross of ushering in the precursor to Obamacare in Massachusetts and has the perception of being the “establishment” choice in an era of anti-establishmentism. (Come on, he’s been endorsed by John McCain – how much more of a milquetoast, reach across the aisle pander can one get?) Likewise, Newt Gingrich is the consummate Beltway insider who never really left Washington once he left the House.

Rick Santorum is the darling of the social conservative group – and that’s an integral part of our cause. But Rick won’t be the fiscal conservative we need and hasn’t always shown fealty to the cause of limited government – one can ask Pat Toomey about that. (Yet for everything Santorum has said he seems to have a manner of parsing his words later. I call it saying what he thinks will get him elected.)

Jon Huntsman started out turning his back to the TEA Party movement and his idea that anthropogenic climate change is real is a disqualifier. And then there’s Ron Paul. If being President didn’t involve a lick of foreign affairs he would be my guy, but the Constitution is not a suicide pact.

And while Perry is back in, will this post-Iowa misstep work the same as John McCain’s late suspension of 2008 campaign efforts in order to address the economic crisis? After that he never recovered in the polls.

That’s all folks. That’s what we now have to choose from, unless there’s somehow a brokered convention and some white knight rides in to save us from ourselves. Certainly any of the above would be an improvement over the current occupant of the Oval Office, but I somehow get the gnawing feeling that we’re leaving a huge missed opportunity here.

But Rome wasn’t built in a day, either, and to undo nearly 100 years of damage to the Republic will take more than four. The trick is just getting started on the task.

Is Perry done?

I was just listening to Rick Perry’s concession speech, and he announced he was returning to Texas to “reassess” his campaign. Well, I think his reassessment is going to find him leaving the field because he finished fifth with 10 percent – I was under the impression he was going to South Carolina to campaign.

But like Tim Pawlenty before him, he may have decided that if he can’t spend scads of money and win Iowa, he’s not going to win anywhere – despite the fact that, unlike Pawlenty, Rick did manage to finish ahead of Michele Bachmann.

Yet Bachmann is planning on staying in despite the paltry 5% or so she received. Well, she could conceivably get a chunk of those Perry votes but I sort of doubt it given the Gardasil controversy.

So let’s say Perry is out. I suspect that his voters would most likely go to Newt Gingrich and here’s why: they’re both plain-spoken Southerners who have a relatively pragmatic approach to the issues. Mitt Romney won’t benefit because he’s pretty much plateaued at his 25% support ceiling and Rick Santorum is more of a social conservative – again, it goes back to the Gardasil question. I think Ron Paul has also hit his ceiling of support as well, particularly when it’s revealed that independents and renegade Democrats bolstered his Iowa totals. Once we get to closed primary states that advantage won’t be there.

There you have it: a simple Iowa caucus postmortem. I’m sort of sorry to see Perry go since he was the top of my second tier of candidates.

Update: Maybe Bachmann will be out. Bummer.