Feb 05 2012
Nevada Primary First Step On Path To Obama 2nd Term
The cheering by the GOP establishment over Romney’s win in the Nevada primary is scary delusional. As I predicted last week, a Romney ascendancy to the GOP presidential candidate slot is going to take the air out of the Obama opposition and lead to an Obama 2nd term. As tests for my theory I established some markers.
I predicted Obama’s 8-9% deficit in his ratings would disappear. They have (Obama now 46-46 at Gallup).
I predicted the Dems would lead in the Congressional Ballot polls after being behind for a year: They have (Dems now up 3 at RCP).
And I predicted a Romney candidacy would turn off voters. And it has:
Mitt Romney’s easy victory in Nevada’s Republican presidential caucuses might, in the long run, be less important than the fact that a surprising number of Republicans who could have participated Saturday chose to stay home.
Republicans’ disappointing turnout foreshadows difficulty energizing GOP voters in Nevada, a key swing state in November’s general election.
Romney and the GOP establishment have been attacking the 2010 insurgent voters, who rightfully want to shrink everyone’s power in DC and put it back in the hands of the people. This has made the angry 2010 voter the enemy of the GOP – a strange way to win elections.
I can summarize this as f0llows: Obamacare versus Romneycare – where is a voter to find “none of the above!”?
AJ
To be sure the turn-out in FL was lower, and in Nevada downright dismal. And, Obama’s numbers have been drifting up and down. However, can you be so sure that it is because of Romney’s failure to ‘excite’ republicans?
Or could it just be because this primary has turned into such a bitter, uncomfortable battlefield between two men, both with their shares of flaws and strengths, causing people to just not want to participate as a player in deciding who wins and who loses?
I fear AJ may be right. On the other hand, Nevada was long considered a Romney lock.
Ed Morrissey – has a perfect analysis of what is really going on —
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/02/05/getting-nasty-in-nevada/
excerpts:
“” The surprises, and the fireworks, came from Newt Gingrich, who called a press conference rather than give a speech, which I watched this morning. It turned into a surprisingly angry, bitter affair, with Gingrich blaming Romney for spreading rumors that he was going to drop out after Nevada, when in fact the speculation started in the press when Gingrich called the unusual press conference. He attempted a little bit of press-baiting, but mostly took every opportunity to vent his loathing at Romney and his campaign, calling him the George Soros choice, pro-abortion, and so on. If people thought that the lack of graciousness after Gingrich’s loss in Florida was a careless mistake, this press conference dispelled that notion and made Gingrich’s speech in Florida look courtly by comparison……..
………….Victor Davis Hanson writes today that Gingrich’s speech was about the only way the candidate could possibly have made a bad night even worse:
But whether he knows it or not, Gingrich is becoming a caricature of petulance: no concession in Nevada, no call to Romney, no awareness that his inability to raise money at levels of a political rival or to match a competing campaign organization is not necessarily unfair. That’s politics, and Gingrich knows it. I don’t understand why he thinks now losing to Romney in 2012 is solely due to Romney’s innate deviousness in a way McCain beating Romney in 2008 was not — given that Romney was about the same in both 2008 and 2012. Gingrich seems oblivious to the fact that McCain’s style and history gave him advantages over Romney’s money and hardball in ways Gingrich’s own proven liabilities apparently do not.
Gingrich should carefully play a tape of his post–Nevada caucus performance, and then he would quickly grasp that it was little more than a litany of excuses, whining, and accusations — characterized by stream-of-conscious confessionals and rambling repetitions. And, I think, will hurt him more than anything yet in the campaign……..
………….Clearly, this race has become personal for Gingrich. That may be good for the candidate, but is it good for the Republican Party? Is it good for conservatives? CNN’s Candy Crowley interviewed Family Research Council president Tony Perkins and FreedomWorks founder Dick Armey today, and both agreed that Gingrich’s personal attacks don’t help anyone — and as Armey said, they don’t even help Gingrich “”””
And yet, the Palin-Perry-Cain disappointed “consevatives” have their heads buried in the sand that Gingrich is the ONLY HOPE to beat Obama !! A candidate in debt and with no organization who is determined to scorch the GOP earth !! He can’t forgive himself for the mistakes he made from day one in this campaign ….so he blames Romney …like Obama still blames Bush !!
So AJ, say again ……who is to blame ??
It is true that in counties/states where Romney wins the turnout is low. However, I’m not sure it would transfer to the general election. A lot can happen. Romney could pick a VP that excites. He could adopt the popular polices that various candidates have gained support on. He could do a better job at messaging conservative principles. The list goes on and on. I’ve noticed something else. I don’t think most of the popular conservative and tea party supported politicians have endorsed anyone (West, Lee, DeMint, Bachmann, Rubio, Ryan, etc.). You may have a sense about their peference; but, they haven’t formally endorsed. I think they stand ready to play the part of party healers to unite everyone against Obama. Primaries always make us feel this way. I’d hold off judgement until the general campaign begins and we get a sense of supporter turnout, grassroots support activity, etc.
The GOP is a rotting carcass at this point, and the vultures are feisting on it, while the leftist wolves are planning their final assault on this country and its people.
I predicted to myself a while back that Romney would win the GOP nomination and then lose to Obama.
Maybe this Romney campaign is in part an experiment to see if the GOP can win without its base? Surely the GOP has gotten word that a lot of people are tired of holding their noses to vote for the GOP’s crappy candidates and have decided that Romney would be the last straw.
Obama’s approval ratings: AJ, I think you’re missing the most important factor, which outweighs all others combined. You’re better at understanding correlation than most; run a chart of Obama’s approval ratings for the last 3 years compared to the DJ Industrial Average and you will see there is almost a perfect correlation. It’s interesting to discuss exactly why this is, but the mathematical correlation is almost perfect. This relationship has applied to virtually every President for the last century, so this is very well recognized. (quite a few academic papers have been written on it)
For those who don’t watch it closely, the DJIA now is now at the highest level it’s been at since Obama was elected, so it’s to be expected that his approval ratings would rise with it. This, btw, is the motivation for faking the employment numbers – as long as the stock market investors buy into it, then Obama gets the results he wanted. (although I think it’s primarily the Fed’s free-money policy which is providing the fuel to send prices higher)
This is a good news/bad news observation, and the bad news is obvious: if the stock market continues to go up and the economy at least looks like it’s recovering between now and November, then Obama is going to win re-election no matter who runs against him. On the other hand, given what’s happening in Europe and the rest of the world, this scenario looks unlikely, and as soon as the markets start to fall Obama becomes vulnerable again.
Remember that McCain, with all his flaws, was comfortably ahead in all of the polls until the GOP got discredited by the market collapse in September-October of 2008.
It also looks like one of the main reasons for the lower turnout is the chaotic and poorly organized nature of the caucus system itself – here it is Sunday afternoon and Clark County *still* hasn’t reported it’s results. That’s pure incompetence on the part of everyone who had a hand in “organizing” that contest.
Recall how badly done the Iowa caucuses were – first Romney won, then maybe Santorum, and then nobody knows because 8 precincts worth of Iowa votes got lost and no one knows what happened. Pure idiocy – the caucus system should go the way of the smoke filled room, it just doesn’t work.
We’ll start to get a good idea of where this race is going on Tuesday, when Colorado, Minnesota and Maine report results. If either Gingrich or Santorum want to get back into the race, they have got to win at least one of those 3. Interestingly, at least one poll shows a significant number of anti-Romney voters abandoning Gingrich and moving to Santorum – maybe it’s finally Rick’s turn to get a chance to show he’s a contender.
“Santorum now leads among Tea Party voters in both Colorado and Minnesota, and he beats Gingrich among “very conservative” voters in Minnesota by 16 points, 41/25. Santorum not only leads the first choice question in MN, he also wins the second-choice question by a wider margin of five points over Gingrich and six over Romney, 25/20/19, with Ron Paul at 9%. He has by far the best favorability rating in the poll, with 72/18 giving him a +54, compared to a +7 for Paul, +8 for Gingrich, and +11 for Romney, the onlty other candidate to get to 50% favorable in MN. Santorum’s votes here are second-most firm at 25%, behind Romney’s at 29%.”
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/02/05/ppp-polls-santorum-up-2-in-mn-romney-14-up-in-colorado/
It will be interesting to watch this develop. I suspect Newt’s temper has the better of him…which opens the path for Santorum to become the Not Romney. Note that Santorum has not been burning bridges behind him – I think he knows that a defeat with a good showing puts him high on the Vice-Presidential short list. The Republicans would LOVE to win Pennsylvania.
WGIRL
I read that Victor Davis Hanson piece last night. It amazed me that he was able to write it so fast! However, I agree with his observations of Newt’s petulance, and how he is hurting his own chances. The funny thing is that Newt fans, who watched the same news conference, thought he did great! Now, is that one’s different perspective at work here, or simply denial on one or the other’s part?
Frog1
Regarding West, Lee, DeMint, Bachmann, Rubio, Ryan, etc. lack of candidate endorsements, you could be right that they are aware of the great weight of contituency trust they would carry with such an endorsement. Therefore, they are waiting until the eventual nominee emerges from the primary rubble, hopefully bringing the party together, mending the fissures created by this heated contest, by collectively assuring people that our nominee is ok.
WWS
Good call on the rrelationship between Obama’s approval rating and the stock market/economy. People are so fickle and commonly assess an election through their own pocketbook evaluation. If they are doing ok, then the prez is ok. If not, let’s do a change up.
in other, more topical news, I’ve decided to root for the Giants today only because a win by the Giants will annoy Jerry Jones immensely. Recall that the Giants knocked the cryboys out of the playoffs and cost Jerry a lot of money in lost overpriced soda and peanut sales.
George Will, that old curmudgeon, let slip how much he despises NFL football today, saying that it embodies the worst aspects of modern American life – violence punctuated by endless committee meetings.
Hey, I like football, but that’s funny!
From AJ Strata: “I can summarize this as f0llows: Obamacare versus Romneycare – where is a voter to find “none of the above!”?”
It boggles that Santorum ans a lot of people who should be focussed on ABO keep up the Romneycare canard. The thought is something like: “If we nominate Romney we lose our advantage on the Obamacare issue.” Rationale: “There’s no difference between the two and Romney’s advisors helped advise Obama’s advisors.”
Folks, have you ever heard of the 10th ammendment to the US Constitution? Let me share it with you.
“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
Obama care in general, the personal mandate specifically, is unconstitutional. Argue all you like about the merits – but the Constitution whci so many of you claim to believe in gives the states the power to do things which we may think are unwise. To counter the equality arguement all anyone has to do is become conversant with the tenth ammendment.
Don’t forget the idea of the individual mandate came from the heritage Foundation, a conservative institution, and for years was backed by Newt Gingrich.
Massachusetts people (read the 10th, “the people) are very liberal and elect a state legislature that is very liberal. I give Romney credit for using a conservative idea (it was at the time) to take on the libs in his state legislature and try to implement reform.
We can look on it in hindsight and claim it was bad, or it didn’t work, or its bad policy, but it is constitutional. Obamacare is not.
Anyway, Obamacare is heading to the Supreme Court and if they rule its individual mandate is constitutional then we have a lot bigger problems in this country than Obama vs. Romney/Gingrich/Santorum/Paul.
Layman1
That last paragraph of your post is just lost on people backing Newt.
Generally speaking, I’ve found people leaning towards Romney are just that — leaning, not jumping in and splashing around saying what a great conservative he is. They tend to see him for what he is, not embellishing his flaws any more than they are pinning the red-white-blue to his resume. He is simply a successful business/family man who is much more savvy to turning this country around than Obama, and has continuously pledged to repeal Obamacare.
Newt’s people, though, tend to relate to his time in the 90’s with rose-colored glasses, inferring he is the greatest conservative ever. However, very little is said about what he did after his resignation and his backing of big-government practices and ideas. His private life? Oh, he has been forgiven.
More importantly, (something not done @ Strata-Sphere), there is a total repudiation of people who don’t back Newt, calling them names etc. Ann Coulter has been demonized, as has Drudge, collectively calling them, and everyone else not on the Newt team, ‘elites’ and “establishment’ republicans.
This I find troubling and bothersome for the future of this party.
Layman1
BTW, the ‘last paragraph’ referred to was in your 1st post.
just in – Ed Morrissey endorses Santorum.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/02/05/my-choice-rick-santorum/
I’ve followed Ed since he was running the old Captain’s Quarters blog, and I’ve always found him a very reasonable and consistent conservative voice. (he’s currently one of the main editors at Hot Air)
Layman1, it may be semantics, but:
“but the Constitution whci so many of you claim to believe in gives the states the power to do things which we may think are unwise. ”
It doesn’t give them the power, it allows the states to have the power.
I don’t like any aspect of either romneycare or obamacare. I do think Mass had the ‘right’ to pass it for their state, I just think it was unfortunate that it was a Republican that thought it up and stuck the people with it. Even tho Romney says he will grant waivers for all states immediately, those waivers (according to the law itself) are only good for one year and does nothing to slow overall implementation. But at least it would be a place to start, kinda like urinating on a forest fire.
For those that think Newt’s speech last night hurt him. It didn’t with me, I didn’t see it.
Ann Coulter: I have been a fan for years, bought and read all her books. Will never watch her again nor read anything she has to say. She has completely dumped the conservatives and I think she is spitting in the face of the people she hopes will buy her books. This is kinda like the Dixie Chicks, slapping those that had been your fans.
Ann Coulter reminds me of Peggy Noonan.
I’m leaning towards Santorum, too. Although, I do not think he can get the nomination. And he could beat Obama.
Coulter is nothing like Noonan, who is a clever but fairly predictable old-time east coast establishment republican. I don’t always agree with Noonan (alhough recall that she was one of Reagan’s speechwriters) but I don’t doubt that she believes the things she says.
Coulter is a far more fascinating, intelligent, and devious figure. My impressions of her haven’t changed over the years and were formed at the time I met her personally during the 2004 campaign, when she was touring in the area. Know that my impressions of her personally have nothing at all to do with her politics or whatever positions she may hold at any time. A lot of the things she’s said I’ve agreed with – but I strive not to let that have an impact on how I read her personally.
Most people are what they seem to be on the surface, but the ones I’ve met that aren’t… stand out, especially when they’re as smart as Coulter is.
She was one of the top graduates of the highly rated University of Michigan School of Law, but she only worked briefly as a lawyer. My read on her was of someone who has a passionate, burning desire for fame, fortune, and attention and who had dedicated herself to endless self promotion to achieve those goals. Working at a regular job is far too tedious and doesn’t do much to achieve the goals of people who are this desperately ego driven, but as I said she is incredibly smart, and she came up with a way. “Ann Coulter” the writer and agitator is a character that she created to achieve these goals, and that’s what she’s been doing for years. Like most really good lawyers, she’s a master at pretending to believe in the causes she’s getting paid to fight for. What does she really believe? All I could see was absolute devotion to herself, and nothing else. It’s always surprised me that more people don’t see that, but conservatives haven’t wanted to look closely at someone who says what they want to hear and liberals only react with mindless hatred – and so she can play her character in public over and over with no danger of exposure. If she actually “believes” in anything, she believes in whatever brings the royalties and speaking fees in and little else.
So why has she come out in favor of Romney so strongly? (and again, let me say that this has nothing to do with whether I agree or disagree with any of her views – that is immaterial) I think she looked at the landscape and calculated that Romney is most likely to get the nomination. Having calculated that, she decided that the first personalities on his bandwagon would get the most notoriety and thus the most TV invitations, thus the most profit, not to mention possible campaign benny’s from a candidate who might be grateful to a vociferous supporter. And she also knows, like any really good self-promoter, that the more people who hate her, the more money she can make from stoking the fires and playing both ends against the middle. That’s how the publicity game is played; just ask Vince McMahon how he made his millions.
It’s a business decision, and she’s playing the odds. That’s all she’s ever done. The “Ann Coulter” you see on TV is just an act for the paying crowds, and that’s all she’s ever been. But you gotta give her credit for pulling it off so convincingly and for so long. And as long as she keeps showing up on talk shows and campaign events, she keeps winning her bet.
Not sure if it is worth commenting, as I note so many Romney supporters in the thread. I consider myself a not-Romney person. He is a liberal, progressive. I’ll vote for whomever the nominee is, but I certainly an understanding of those who stay home. The GOP has caused this with their deliberate support of a Romney candidacy, they helped knock out almost all others. As soon as Santorum becomes a threat to Romney, he’ll be gone too. For me, we may “have to” once again, vote for someone we dislike, but I’m not going to let it be under false pretenses, and have anyone try to pretend a person is something he isn’t.
http://www.unifiedpatriots.com/2012/02/05/mitt-romney-the-democrat-in-the-republican-trojan-horse/lady-penguin