A Tale of Two Electorates (Part IV)

Here Niall Stanage of The Hill tells us about two different data sets reporting on the ethnic makeup of the 2008 electorate.  The first and most often quoted is a set from 18,000 interviews by media polling organizations at the exit door of the polls presumably on election day.  The second is a set from 60,000 interviews by the Census Bureau, presumably weeks or months later.  About the first, note that election day voters were about 40% of the total in New Mexico in 2008, while regarding the second, voters memories are notoriously faulty.

Here are the two ethnic breakdowns compared:

A Tale of Two Electorates (Part III)

My son Matt got wound up on the national vs. state poll question reading Dan McLaughlin, who writes the Baseball Crank blog.  If you are a baseball fan, a fan of Michael Lewis's Moneyball, or you've ever heard of the baseball uber-statistical methods known as Sabermetrics, you'll like this almost as much as Matt does.

It was number four with a bullet -- as Variety used to say -- on today's late edition of RCP.

A Two of Two Electorates (Part II)

The picture is becoming clearer.

Here is Jay Cost -- once an election analyst with RCP, now with The Weekly Standard -- pointing out what should have been obvious weeks ago: that the two different kinds of poll results for Romney v. Obama, whether in individual states for incorporation into an electoral vote model, or nationally for estimating the popular vote, are the result of sampling different populations.

[Oops!] A Tale of Two Electorates

Out of lack of familiarity with Rasmussen's site -- I've not been following it -- I picked up Pennsylvania's numbers instead of Ohio's and concluded that Ohio wasn't leaning Romney.

Rasmussen's national and state numbers are much more consistent than the RealClearPolitics national and swing state averages are, just as they should be, having been drawn from the same data sets and analyzed by the same techniques.

More to follow.

A Tale of Two Electorates

The national horse race polls show Romney up an average of a point or so, while the state polls show Obama winning the key swing states.

The question from my elder son Matt this weekend was "How can both be right?"  He argued at length that there simply weren't enough votes to push toward Romney without changing the result in any of the larger states.

Some Encouragement

With this election's final act only a week from tomorrow, individual state polls and electoral analyses seem stuck.  Romney's surge in the popular vote doesn't seem to be reflected in the swing states that will determine the winner in the electoral college.  That could be because the pollsters doing those state polls aren't all that competent -- many are not national polling organizations with reputations to protect -- because they are tweaking the results to push their agenda, or because those polled are just not willing to give up their personal decision.

Gallup's First Likely Voter Poll Out

Here is Gallup's first likely-voter result.

Gallup's likely voter screen is basically the same one they have used forever.

In this poll, the Romney margin on the if-the-election-were-held-today question is 5 percentage points higher among those who pass the likely voter test than among the registered voters who don't.

The Choice We Face

I have written to you that this election is the most important since Lincoln's in 1860.  If we allow this President to continue in office for another four years we may never recover the foundation of our prosperity: our economic liberty.

Obama Will Not Easily Recover from his Denver Debacle

Mitt Romney's performance in the first face-to-face meeting with Obama was surprisingly good.  His strength in defending his proposed economic policies from sound-bite attacks was the least of it.  His assertive attitude at the podium -- fairly stated as "I have as much right to stand here as you do, Mr. President." -- was not the biggest part of it, either.  The fact that he almost never looked down to refer to notes, but rather looked pleasantly at the President as he spoke was not the key, though the contrast with Obama's near constant smirk while staring at his notes was remarkable.

The Fruits of Anti-Colonialist Strategy

Dinesh D'Souza's point in his now-famous analysis of Obama's motivation on foreign and domestic policy alike is clear in the present Middle East policy crisis.

Our President knows exactly what he wants to do about the loss of respect for the U. S. in the Middle East: first, apologize for American values; then insult any American who dares speak up to point it out.

Polling in Individual Swing States Infrequent

Many of you look at the RealClearPolitics electoral map with some regularity, so you probably know it presently shows Romney trailing Obama in electoral votes by 191 to 221 with 126 electoral votes in swing states that are close enough not to call right now.  You are to be congratulated for not paying too much attention to the horse-race polls, of which the RCP summary and average is here.

The End of Democratic Socialism

Seldom does a political observer nail a problem in such clear language as this:

Whither the Campaign Now?

The WSJ's Kimberly Strassel hit the nail on the head in her column this morning.  With his selection of Paul Ryan as running mate, Mitt Romney has an opportunity to change the debate about the future of "entitlements."

The Demagogues... er... Democrats will screech that the devil Romney/Ryan ticket will steal your Medicare savings and give them to their rich fat-cat Wall Street friends.

The Romney/Ryan campaign will be judged by the electorate on how well it hammers home the twin messages that Obama seeks to remain on the track that leads over the cliff in ten years, and that maintaining Medicare and other middle class entitlements at the current planned levels can only be paid for by job-killing middle class taxes.

On the Obama plan, we all will have less.  The elderly will have their health care rationed as more physicians refuse to take the prescribed payments.  With higher taxes, the middle-aged and young will have less incentive to produce the necessary goods and services to trade to the health care sector to meet the needs of our aging society.

As usual, central planning assures its own failure, and fails to plan for it!

Does Romney's Selection of Ryan Clarify the Electoral Issues?

I often enjoy Walter Russell Mead.  His thoughtful blog has been very much worth reading over the last two years or so.  He has defined the progressists' goal as a "blue social model" in which the government supplies all the things it thinks we need.

Here, Mead points out how Romney's selection of Ryan crystallizes the argument between those progressivists and the conservatives who argue that economic freedom produces the most for everyone, even the poorest among us.

Mead hopes that the debate will be better for the country after Romney's pick of Ryan.  So do I, but I fear that the Obama camp will cry havoc and loose the dogs of war.  Rather than arguing rationally, I believe they will continue to engage in nothing but demagoguery and slander.

Romney Makes a Great Decision, Chooses Paul Ryan for VP

It's amazing how one great decision can so strongly effect your opinion of a man.

In announcing Paul Ryan as his choice for Vice President yesterday, Mitt Romney showed judgement and courage, as the decision focuses his campaign on the big issues raised by Obama's progressivism and its failure.

Ted Cruz Interview Video

If you didn't see Ted Cruz's interview on Fox News Sunday, you missed one of the best ever.

Here it is.  It is10 minutes of thrills for a conservative political junkie.  Watch it!

Cruz Wins Texas Senate Runoff -- Part II

Here is an in-depth analysis of Ted Cruz's victory yesterday by a lefty who should probably remain in the shallow end of the writer's pool with his water wings firmly attached.

The headline claims that with Cruz's selection by the Republicans and probable election in the Fall general election, the Senate will become a lot more conservative.  Yet our intrepid author says Cruz's positions were hardly different from Dewhurst's.

Kilgore's point comes through his prose but dimly: Cruz's victory hammers home the Lugar message that the conservative wing of the party is not prepared to compromise with the Spendican wing.  No one should be wondering where the tea party is, now.

Maybe that's why FreedomWorks' President Matt Kibbe's new book is titled Hostile Takeover.

Cruz Wins Texas Senate Runoff

Up the Establishment!

Tea Party v. Establishment in Texas Today

Texas Solicitor General Ted Cruz, 41, is the candidate for the Republican nomination for US Senate of the Club for Growth, FreedomWorks, and the tea party.  Lt. Governor David Dewhurst, a Texas oilman with deep pockets, is his establishment supported opponent.    This is Texas, so the Republican primary winner will in all probability win the seat.  Here is the complete story.

In May Dewhurst beat Cruz 45% to 35% in a 4-way contest but fell short of the 50% he needed to avoid a runoff. 

Yesterday, a poll taken over the weekend was released that showed Cruz leading Dewhurst by 10 points.

The runoff is today.  You'll want to pay attention tonight.

Registered vs. Likely Voter Polls; The Undecided

Here is Jay Cost, election analyst formerly for RealClearPolitics.com and now for The Weekly Standard, showing that there is a 2.5% oversampling of Democrats in the registered voter polls.

Since party self-identification predicts presidential preference at about the 90% level, that implies a 2.3% excess preference for Obama in registered voter polls today.

Trashing the Dream -- Part V

Here is another excellent analysis of Obama's you-didn't-build-it speech.  Vince Carroll of the Denver Post asks why, if he doesn't hate entrepreneurs, does he keep acting like he does?

Who Invented the Internet? [Trashing the Dream -- Part IV]

Who invented the Internet? 

It wasn't the government.  It was a company whose name starts with an "X."

Gordon Crovitz explains it all for you here.

The Road to Freedom... and Prosperity

Arthur C. Brooks is President of the American Enterprise Institute, and author of The Road to Freedom: How to Win the Fight for Free Enterprise, the incredibly important theme of which you can learn about in the short video here.

After you watch it, do what my brother recommended when he sent it to me.  Send it to everybody you know.  To quote brother Bob, "No.  Really.  Do it."

Trashing the Dream -- Part III

Thanks to my brother for this video from Bill Whittle.

Obama knows "you didn't build that," because he didn't build most of his own personal successes.

Trashing the Dream -- Part II

Here is Charles Krauthammer doing what I did yesterday: interpreting President Obama's "you didn't build that" statement in the most favorable way, giving him the benefit of the doubt for his clumsy construction, and then showing how it trashes the American dream.

And here is Thomas Sowell, showing how Obama's statement lays bare the rotten principles underlying progressivism.

Obama Hates the Dream

Here is John Kass of the Chicago Tribune on President Obama's recent bashing of entrepreneurs.  It begins with a beautiful, gritty story of Kass's father's long days in his grocery store, and ends as a brilliant response to Obama and his progressivist ideology.

I was inclined from the beginning to give Obama the benefit of the doubt when he said

Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you've got a business, you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen,

I was pretty sure his "You didn't build that," meant the "American system," or the "roads and bridges," not the "business."  Though it exhibits a fundamental misunderstanding of the sources of both our economic and physical infrastructure, it was mostly a clumsy construction.

Roberts Does Sandy Day

It's difficult to imagine a sillier Supreme Court decision than John Roberts' opinion that the individual mandate is not a tax, so that the anti-injunction act is not invoked, but fits nicely into Article I Section 8 as part of the Congress's power to tax.

The power to tax what?  A decision NOT to buy something?  After all, that's clearly a penalty, and the Court's entire history on the subject of penalties denies that.

There are only two opinions in US history that rival this decision for lack of judgement, and the first is actually two decisions: Sandy Day's two announced on the same day on affirmative action in the Michigan Law School and Michigan undergraduate admissions programs.  One, she said -- swinging her blonde head to her right shoulder -- was UNconstitutional, and the other -- bouncing her golden locks off her left shoulder -- was NOT.

The only other decision that rivals John Roberts' Folly was Roger Tanney's decision known as Dred Scott. 

You probably remember the difficulties that caused.

What Wave?

I watch the Albuquerque Isotopes play minor league baseball through the summer months.  I must say, I really hate The Wave, that self-absorbed non-baseball fan activity where people stand and wave in synchrony with the others in their section, one section after another, simulating an ocean wave.  "It's baseball," I yell, "Watch it!"  I keep trying to get those in my section to do The Breakwater by rising early to face the wave with their hands on their hips, reflecting it back into the section from which it came.

Charlie Cook analyzes the possibility of a wave election this fall here.  It's thick with psephologist jargon -- parliamentary voting, nationalized election, etc. -- but it's well worth your study.  He has two main points.  Here is his first:

Using The Cook Political Report's Partisan Voter Index as a measuring stick, our preliminary analysis indicates that the number of strongly Democratic districts­those with a score of D+5 or greater at the presidential level­decreased from 144 before redistricting to 136 afterward. The number of strongly Republican districts­those with a score of R+5 or greater­ increased from 175 to 183. When one party starts out with 47 more very strong districts than the other, the numbers suggest that the fix is in for any election featuring a fairly neutral environment. Republicans would need to mess up pretty badly to lose their House majority in the near future.

In other words, the Dems won't get the House back in 2013.  Not even close.  He goes on to his second point:

If the 24 toss-up races split evenly between the parties, Democrats would score a net gain of just a single seat.

So Cook, one of the most respected seat-by-seat Congressional prognosticators says, "No Dem Wave."

And, as Ron Popeil used to say, "But wait.  There's more!"  Cook's second point indirectly addresses Obama's chances.  That's the meaning of "parliamentary voting," of course.  And "nationalized" elections.  And "Tip O'Neill's 'all politics is local' adage [has] left the building."

Cook says

Minimal partisan change doesn't preclude significant change in the House's makeup, however. In 2008, 85 members won "crossover" districts that voted for one party for the House and the other way at the presidential level. Unsurprisingly, these members show the greatest proclivity to think independently and have the most incentive to compromise. But in 2010, this number was cut in half to 40. In 2012, it could be cut in half yet again to fewer than 20.

That's parliamentary voting, where districts vote for congressional representatives in parallel with their presidential vote.  But wait.  Let's do the arithmetic.  The Republicans now hold 242 seats.  Dems pick up a single seat.  And the President wins 20 or fewer of those....  Hmmm.  So he wins 221 districts.  Max.  That's winning more than half the vote in 3 or 4 more than half the congressional districts in the nation.  And after redistricting, all of those congressional districts are almost exactly the same size, so we're talking about no better than a narrow victory in the popular vote here.

So, if Obama is to win, he can't pile up district victories in just a few blue states, which he almost certainly will do.  Recall that though Al Gore won the popular vote in the 2000 election, he won only 21 states in the narrowest electoral college loss in recent history.  His problem was that most of the states he won had large population.

Cook closes with this on the House:

If you're waiting for a retreat of tea party politics in the House Republican Conference and a resurgence of Blue Dog Democrats in the next Congress, you are likely going to be disappointed.

Who's thinking like that, other than Nancy Pelosi?

The Lessons of Walker's Victory in Wisconsin

As you could not fail to know by now, last night the votes were counted in Wisconsin, and Scott Walker became the first Governor to stave off defeat in a recall election.  At present, it appears that one of the four Republican Senators was recalled and replaced, so that the recall efforts were successful only in that Republicans marginally lost control of the Senate.

There are three lessons in this victory.

1.  Today, the power of public sector employee unions is overrated (see the LLNYP's liberal mouthpiece Russ Douthat here and the Jay Cost article he cites here), depending as it does on voter sympathy that is greatly reduced in times of no growth, especially if the unions are part of the cause of slow growth, as in California, New York, and the other blue disasters of the upper Midwest.  In such a case, the vaunted union ground game is overmatched against that of the fiscally motivated tea party and its allies, e.g., FreedomWorks and superPACs of the moment.

2.  Conservatives must not fear to act against public sector unions.  They will survive if they cast their legislative actions as fair to the taxpayer and the unions' opposition as greedy.  Remember: in the public sector case this battle is always the unions against the taxpayers. 

3.  It is essential that fiscally conservative actions be taken with even the slimmest of majorities, even if the legislative majority may be lost.  Even the slightest accommodation with the left in order to stay in power neuters the power.  Power must be exercised when won or it's not power.  Action will hearten the ground troops and the Reagan Democrat/Independents, some of whom are forced union members -- removing the automatic deduction of union dues reduced union membership by 60% in Wisconsin reducing the union's access to funds to spend on elections.  It will also dishearten union partisans.

Finally, it must be noted that the RealClearPolitics.com metapoll -- an assembly of all horse-race polls on the recall into a single poll -- was remarkably accurate.  Below are the final RCP averages and those averages adjusted by either of two standard assumptions regarding the undecided -- that they either won't vote or that those who do will split exactly like the decided -- compared to the final tally.

                        RCPAvg         UndiesOut      Final
Walker                 51.5                 53.48        53.2
Barrett                 44.8                 46.52        46.3
Undies                   3.7
Margin                                           6.96          6.9

The final results were within 0.3%, and Walker's margin of victory was predicted within less than 0.1%.  This was true even though the polls it averaged were far lass accurate individually, and included many autodialer robopolls.  Big samples may matter more than the margin of error would lead you to believe.

From Bad to Worse for Obama

Independents have been trending away from Obama for quite a while.  Even the Reagan Democrats -- blue-collar whites -- jumped ship in 2010.  I have seen a number of pieces arguing that Obama's campaign has written them off completely.

Here is a piece I missed when it first came out in early April detailing a survey of swing state independent voters by the organization known as Third Way, a coalition of New Democrats.  Who knew that independents far prefer prosperity to equality of result?  Who'd a thunk it?

A Referendum on Obama

One of my correspondents wrote

OK… it's time for Romney to start really defining who and what he is, and how different he would be in the White House. People still don't know much about him…

I don't agree.  The standard dictum on re-election races is that they are first and foremost referenda on the sitting president, not a choice between the two candidates.  Only when people decide the President doesn't deserve another term do they begin to consider the opponent, and then only to decide if he is acceptable.

Three New Swing State Polls Show Obama in Trouble

This morning RealClearPolitics.com reports three new swing state polls that show Obama and Romney tied or within two percentage points of tied among registered voters.  The polls show the two dead even in Iowa, Obama up one point in Colorado, and two in Nevada.

These three states are critical to Obama's re-election if Ohio and Florida go against him, and likely-voter polls there would probably show him down two to four percentage points in them.

Making Obama as Predictable as Reagan

Ronald Reagan was extraordinarily consistent to his principles.  One always knew what he would do before he announced his decisions.

In contrast, it has not always been easy to understand what Barack Obama would do in the foreign policy arena.  How to square US actions in Libya with those in Syria?  And in Morocco, and Egypt?

Obama v. Romney Among Likely & Registered Voters

The RealClearPolitics.com Obama v. Romney horse-race-question average stands at +1.6% for Obama this morning.

The methodology for the average should be, and probably is, to determine the number of those polled who favor each candidate by taking the percentage of the number sampled, and summing that over all the polls.  Those results are then divided by the total number sampled.  Nothing wrong with that approach.

David Brooks Explains Why Progressivism Must Fail

I'm sure David Brooks' editors at the local New York liberal paper* view him as the tame house conservative -- think Pomeranian or  tabby cat.  To keep his job, he seldom expresses an opinion with which a movement conservative could agree strongly.

Cornhuskers and Buckskin and Warpaint -- Oh My!

Lost in the glare of adoration for The Awesome One's appearance on The View is that Nebraska farmer and rancher Deb Fischer snuck through an opening between the establishment candidate Jon Bruning and the Club for Growth's choice Don Stenberg to win the Husker Republican Senate nomination last night.

Romney's Paths to Electoral College Victory

Many pundits have weighed in on the width of Romney's path to victory in the electoral college since the Republican became the presumptive nominee.

Progressivism Must Be Defeated!

Arthur C. Brooks of the American Enterprise Institute writes today in the WSJ that economic liberty is not just the most efficient way to manage an economy -- far better than five, or five hundred forty-five, or fifty-five thousand five hundred forty-five wise guys in rooms in Washington, DC -- because it allows everyone the opportunity for the greatest individual economic satisfaction of all: earned success.

A Referendum, Not a Choice (Part II)

Here is Sean Trende's typically in-depth, by-the-numbers analysis of what it means for an election to be a referendum on the incumbent, and whether this presidential election will be such an election.

His conclusion is in his title.

Perhaps this is a good time to remind you of why, though I test solidly Libertarian in every quiz on  political identification I have ever taken, I am so consistently Republican in my political choices and actions.

A Referendum, Not a Choice

Here is Jay Cost arguing conclusively that this fall's presidential election will be a referendum on Barack Obama, not an election of choice between him and Mitt Romney.  Why?  Because Republicans won't let him off the hook.

By trying to cast it as a choice, Obama is taking the only possible road to re-election.  How can Independents possibly like his record? .

Of course, if Jay's argument is correct, it means Obama will lose.

Are you One, Too? Part II

Almost a year ago, I sent out to friends a Pew Research quiz to help them find themselves in the political order of battle.

Now thanks to Paul Gessing of the Rio Grande Foundation, here is a quicker ten-question quiz with the same purpose.

Here is Paul's original piece on the subject, too.  Paul is doing great work.  He keeps shaking up the New Mexico political establishment with great ideas for more freedom.  Please consider becoming a supporter of the RGF.

Me?  I'm 5 + 5!

But you already knew that.

Understanding the Unemployment Rate

We found out yesterday that the nation's unemployment rate slipped downward firom 8.3% to 8.2% last month.   You probably think you know what that means, but do you really?

Newest Gallup Swing State Poll

Here is the newest Gallup/USAToday swing state poll for which I've been waiting.  It shows a huge swing to Obama from the mid-February poll, mostly among women.  Obama leads both potential Republican challengers, Romney by 9 points, 51-42, and Santorum by 11, 52-41, in the 12 states with the deciding 156 electoral votes.

This result is highly disturbing, but at this point volatility rather than stability is probably to be expected.

A New Gold Standard?

Here Louis Woodhill, economic writer par excellence and member of the Club for Growth Leadership Council, counters Fed Chairman Ben (The Bernank) Bernanke's recent defense of printable money with a very simple argument.  If, as The Bernank believes and his academic work supports, the Fed caused the Great Depression, why isn't the Fed's monetary tinkering responsible for the crippling Great Recession and the succeeding Runt Recovery?  He's almost certainly right that seven or, in our present case for some reason unknown to me, five economic wizards in charge of the money supply from a Washington conference room must bear a substantial part of the responsibility.

Etch-a-Sketch Indeed

If this Etch-a-Sketch episode turns out to be a Sherman bowtie in the rails down the track in front of the Romney Inevitability Express, I'll be thrilled.  The problem is every bit as bad as described by Paul Gigot -- in a rare signed editorial -- and the establishmentarian Peggy Noonan -- who manages to give good advice to all the candidates.

In fact, it's far, far worse.  Romney simply has no core political beliefs.  If one caricatured him as W. C. Fields' drunk, saying, "A man's gotta believe in something; I believe I'll have another run at the Presidency," no one would be sure it wasn't a direct quote.

From the Tab Bar

No, not the sugar-free Coca Cola substitute, just links open in my browser's tabs from the last few weeks, still all timely presented here in semi-reverse chronological order, with brief comments.  Enjoy!

Here is this morning's post-Illinois delegate count for the Republican primary.  Inevitable Romney has only 10% more than half the first-ballot-bound delegates awarded so far.  Really!  560 vs 453 for all others.  No wonder his supporters are railing at the others to withdraw.  In a related story, here is an analysis from the local New York liberal paper on the possibility of a contested Republican convention wresting away the Inevitable's rightful prize.

The Mainstream Gasps, "Obama's NOT Popular?"

"How," says the mainstream media mouthpiece, "can it be?  How can Obama's numbers have tanked?  Aren't the economy's numbers up, just like Reagan's end-of-first-term economy's numbers were...?

"Oh, me, oh, my," he says, "That tingling in my leg can't just be my sciatica starting to act up again, can it?

"It can't be true.  He's got to be The One, he must be, he has to be."

But wake up and smell the coffee, oh tingly-legged one.  He's not awesome, and you are just his empty-headed, YouTube-cartoon blonde admirer.

Andrew Breitbart: A Great Loss for Our Cause (Part II)

Don't miss Bill Whittle talking about his friend Andrew on Afterburner -- again a tip from my brother Robert.

Breitbart believed that liberals and Democrats weren't his enemy, says Whittle.  Guess who was?

Andrew Breitbart: A Great Loss for Our Cause

Jonah Goldberg was devastated on hearing of Andrew Breitbart's death.

Matt Welch was filled with memories at the loss of his friend.

For those of you who don't remember Breitbart's contributions to the development of the political internet and the outing of political hypocrisy, here is Slate's in-depth bio from a couple years back, not all complimentary.

Thaddeus McCotter's eulogy in the well of the House of Representatives -- thanks to my brother -- says almost all there is to say, but I want to add a personal note.

What Sort of Despotism (Part II)

Here is a great piece by Michael Barone, author of The Almanac of American Politics, and poll analyst par excellence.

Why do I think it's so great? Because Barone echoes my piece What Sort of Despotism -- written 20 months ago and still featured on my blog page Near the Heart of the Argument -- in his choice of quotes from Alexis de Tocqueville to describe the administrative tyranny in which we, by democratic means, have enshrouded ourselves.

The Loo for Lew, in Lieu of his Lulu

On two different Sunday talk shows Jack Lew said that the Democrats in the Senate couldn't be blamed for failing to pass a budget for over 1000 days since everybody knows that it takes 60 votes to get anything done in the Senate.

That 60 votes are needed to end debate and call the question in the Senate is common knowledge -- something a Steve Martin Saturday Night Live skit once characterized as "not what you know, but what you think you know" -- but it's wrong.

The Commissar in Chief

In 1982 the British band After the Fire released Der Kommissar, its English-language version of 1981's European smash hit by the Austrian band Falco.

Don't turn around. Uh, Oh!
The Commissar's in town. Uh, Oh!

Now, the Obama administration is determined to restore to Commissars their horrible power over individuals and private groups.

None of The Above?

On of my correspondents writes

I call your attention to Erick Erickson's op ed published [Tuesday] in Red State and picked up by RealClearPolitics...  Being a liberal pinko commie, and yet desirous of actual thinking with respect to politics, I find Eric's article to be particularly damning with respect to the current slate of candidates.  His position is not radically different than Joe Scarboro's Morning Joe position on the current list of GOP Candidates - yet despite Joe being my morning wakeup coffee companion, I can't help but feel his show is a carefully calibrated liberal fantasy of what conservatives think (recall my aforementioned pinko liberal leanings).  Thus, I'm craving a nuanced, real, trusted conservative response to Eric's article.  I know you're busy, but, of course, good Scotch is available for suitable debating of the issues raised by this email, and the article in question!

Since that Scotch -- make mine Lagavulin, please -- will have to remain a virtual experience until we are a thousand miles closer to each other, I'll take my encouragement from the fact that my friend describes his liberal-pinko-commie inclination as just that: a leaning.  I have always detected that certain faculty within him that craves rational political thought and that I believe is incompatible with the emotional tilt to his claimed politics.  Early in our friendship, I described him incorrectly as a genetic liberal, but over the years as I have come to know him better and to know more about his family, I have come to understand that he is indeed a lapsed genetic conservative longing to return to his roots.

But enough about him and his opinions.  Let's talk about me and mine.

The Damage Romney Did in Florida

It's difficult for me to say this, but there is little I can find with which to disagree in this piece by the shrieking wacko progressivist E.J. Dionne.

The political consultants -- yeah, yeah, I know, but if I'm citing Dionne, I can cite them, too -- say that negative ads cut twice.  For every two votes you take from your target, you lose one your own. 

The Race is On

Those of you who have attained a certain age, and who spent a significant part of your formative years in a small town or rural setting may remember when Top 40 radio really played the top 40 records in the country.  I heard Rock and Roll, Rhythm and Blues, Country and Western, Big Band Swing, all of it, on KBIM in Roswell.  In the NMSU SUB Snack Bar there was always a cowboy -- yep, the whole nine yards, hat, skinny Levis, belt buckle, and boots, though maybe studying agronomy or agricultural engineering -- walkin' up to the juke box and droppin' in a quarter for three plays.  One of them was sure to be George Jones pickin' and singin' The Race is On.  It was later covered by The Grateful Dead, though it's just not the same.

Over the last ten days, the Romney machine -- including the Super PACs flying low on Wall Street money -- carpet-bombed Newt Gingrich back into second place.  Yesterday -- to hear the establishment punditry and the Romney endorsers tell it -- Mitt creamed! Shellacked! DEVASTATED! Newt by FOURTEEN! percentage points and took ALL FIFTY! delegates from Florida.  Shazam! Kaboom!

The Unelectables

Here is RealClearPolitics.com's Sean Trende's analysis answering the widespread opinion that the contenders for the Republican Presidential Nomination are unelectable.

Says he, "So's your Ol 'Bama!" 

The Wreck of the Romney Inevitable (Part IV)

Just a couple of quick notes.

The last debate seems to have hurt Newt in Florida.  Two polls shown here taken since Monday, January 23, show Mitt leading him by about 6%.  The total number of people polled in those polls is about 900 people, so the margin of error on that number is about 3%.  Perhaps most interesting is the change from the 1/22 poll by Insider Advantage to the same company's 1/25 poll (scroll down a bit in the page).  Gingrich's support dipped only 2%, but Romney's jumped by 14%.   Since Santorum's support fell by 3% and Paul's by 4%, Romney's biggest pickup, 5%, came from the perennial candidates Aldee Udders and Ida Noe.

Insurgent vs. Establishment

Just as it was in 2010, it's Insurgents vs. The Establishment again in 2012.  So says the WSJ's usually ho-hum Gerald Seib.  He's right about that. 

Though Newt has lived in Washington DC for 33 years, has cozied up to the Clintons, sat on the love seat with Nancy Pelosi, advocated ethanol subsidies, the individual mandate, and home ownership for everyone, he is now the darling of  the Tea Party Insurgents.  How can that be?

There are many answers to that.

The Wreck of the Romney Inevitable (Part III)

Here is RealClearPolitics election analyst Sean Trende's takeaways on Romney's devastation in South Carolina.  Basically, they are

1.  No good news for Romney anywhere.
2.  This is much worse than W's 2000 loss to McCain in NH.
3.  Analysts claiming Romey's inevitability are kidding themselves.

Enjoy.  I did.  He estimates the chances that Romney won't be the nominee at 35%.

Oh.  Yeah.  The Romney lead in Florida has evaporated.  Newt leads him by 8 and 9% in the two polls taken since the South Carolina election.

The Wreck of the Romney Inevitable (Part II)

Here are the WSJ editors on Gingrich v. Romney, yet again.

As far as I know, they aren't reading my blog, but they echo my points of yesterday, saying

The more serious flaw exposed by the tax debate is Mr. Romney's inability, or unwillingness, to make a larger and persuasive case for free-market economic growth and lower tax rates.

And they advise the "Republican establishment, such as it is," to chill out, and wait to see whether Gingrich can himself chill a bit,and what the Republican electorate decides.

Good advice.

The Wreck of The Romney Inevitable

Mitt Romney's cruise to the nomination ran afoul of reality yesterday.  His inability to capture the anger of the Republican electorate contrasted sharply with Newt Gingrich's pithy sound-bite irascibility in two South Carolina debates.

The MV Romney Inevitable, steered into treacherous waters by its election consultant captains trying to please its establishment cooks and their bottle washer admirers on the beach, breached its hull on South Carolina's rocky reef of conservative voters and foundered.  It's highly visible hull, leaking cash and supporters, will continue to foul the prospects for the Republican party for months to come.

Consultants Fighting the Last Election

You can read lots of opinions on last night's Hawkuses Caucuses result where Rick Santorum effectively tied Mitt Romney.  Ron Paul was not too far behind them, with all three way out in front of Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry, and Michelle Bachmann -- she who has now suspended her campaign.  Of course, Santorum, Romney, and Paul will each get six first-ballot-committed Iowa delegates at the Tampa Convention.  Gingrich will get four, Perry will get three, and Bachmann, who finished just below 5%, will get none at all.

Even more remarkable than the closeness of Romney's total to Santorum's, Romney finished within six votes of his 2008 total.  Virtually the same total then was a big loss, this time it's a victory.