Willard--America's Whitest Candidate

Have been off,juggling computers in the middle of a move and trying to avoid the GOP debates. Andrew Sullivan actually held on longer than I did, when he stop live-blogging in the middle of the Huckabee Forum because Willard made him ill.

++By the way, Andrew Sullivan has an excellent cover story on Newsweek aimed at moderates and independents in defense of President Obama.

++Willard's win in New Hampshire started the push to the inevitability theme in the media and the drumbeat by the GOP establishment to wrap this thing up early. Willard needs time to re-invent himself for the general election because I can't believe he is going to run on what he has already said.

++Willard continues his campaign as the Average American. Today, he said that his $374,000 speaker's fees were "not very much". He did fess up that he only paid a 15% tax rate, about half that of the average taxpayer. At 9am at a factory in South Carolina, he asked workers whether they got up this early. "Oh, I guess it's a work day."

++But to show he knows where the voters of South Carolina stand, he brought in his newest supporter--the author of Arizona's anti-immigration law. But this didn't appeal to the old Confederacy as much as Newt's statement that "blacks should receive paychecks not food stamps." This brought him a standing ovation at yesterday's debate.

++The GOP line-up continued their attacks on Obama for crimes mostly imagined. Rick Perry produced the winning line when he said that Turkey should be expelled from NATO because they had a "terrorist government". This provoked a diplomatic protest from the Turkish government. Turkey has been doing alot of the behind the scenes work for the United States on the Syrian situation.

++Rick Santorum said that women can't be President of the United States because it is against God's Will. Earlier last week, Santorum won the support of over 150 evangelical pastors. The primary opposition to Romney was that "Mormonism is as close to Christianity as Islam." Actually, a pretty true statement.

++The GOP candidates have hammered Romney about releasing his tax returns. The Obama White Housed chimed in on this saying that Romney's father was the model of transparency, having released his. I strongly believe the smoking gun is not the low tax rate but the millions of dollars stashed overseas in both Willard and his wife's Ann's name. The last candidate for President with an overseas money problem was Hillary Clinton because Bill had millions in Dubai, which he was forced to transfer to the United States mid-way in the campaign.

++I thought Newt's attack ads on Bain Capital ,"When Mitt came to town" were a perfect example of Swiftboating--very inaccurate but compelling. The net effect of these ads was to provoke conservatives and other Republicans to publically defend Romney in this. This benefits the Democrats because Vulture Capitalism doesn't have many supporters, especially not running for President.

++Frank Luntz warned Republicans not to use "capitalism" because it polled negatively. Rather use terms like free enterprise. But the Bain episode has provoked a spasm of GOP defending the most noxious practices of capitalism. Newt actually had this right--there are things you can do that are legal but they may not be moral. Newt drew the distinction between entrepeneurial capitalism and exploitative capitalism. It would have been nice to have a longer discussion on this issue. But,When in doubt, make sure you blame Obama for attacking capitalism--especially time this when he is hosting businesses who are now "insourcing" jobs to the United States.

++Willard continued his strange attacks on Obama saying that he is against ambition. Right, that will go over. And that Obama is trying to make us into a European social democracy. This is actually considered an advancement from birtherism, Obama as having an anti-colonial mentality, and Obama as a closet Muslim. Now he's sort of in Western civilization.

++I neglected to post after the New Hampshire primary that Willard seemed to be wearing a watch worth four times the cost of my car. With typical down home appeal, Willard said that people were envious of his success. Winning with only 37% in your own home state wasn't the biggest victory. Over 50% of New Hampshire voters said that Willard did play fair in the campaign. And he won the wealthier Republicans but had a hard time with the working and middle class. Part of his campaign strategy was to solicit voters who subsribed to Cuisine magazine and had a taste in gourmet foods.

++So over the last few days,several polls had the race between Romney and Obama basically a tie--because our media likes the sports event metaphor. But today PPP released its first national poll of 2012. President Obama is back at his best standing against Romney since May
just after the killing of bin Laden. It stands at 49-44. But among moderates, there is astonishing good news . Obama has a 68-27 lead, leads by 20 in those under 45 years of age, and has a whopping 66-30 lead among Hispanics. Given Romney's anti-immigration stance as re-iterated last night, that lead should increase.

++As evidence for the Hispanic vote, a poll in the Miami area has Obama with a 62-29 lead.

++The infighting among Republicans has begun to wear on the party faithful. The enthusiasm gap has narrowed. Republicans have lost 10 points in a month and Democrats have gained 6,while the GOP still has a slight edge.

++Meanwhile, as everyone stares at South Carolina, over 1 million citizens in Wisconsin have signed recall petitions against Governor Walker, the Lt. Governor and 4 GOP senators. The Democrats only need 1 of the Senators to take control. This is the result of a determined group of citizens responding to Walker's ham-fisted tactics to bust unions, end collective bargaining and to subdue the educational system.

++We say farewell to Jon Huntsman, who packed it in after winning the endorsement of one of South Carolina's leading newspapers. Huntsman's third place finish in New Hampshire just wasn't enough. He simply was too reasonable for today's Republican party.