In Another Country

Remember Pablano? Here's the Drunken Irishman

2012-02-09T19:46:00.000-08:00

Nate Silver aka Pablano made his mark as a political analyst by blogging his numbers for the Daily Kos. After a distinguished career as a baseball statistician,he now has his www.fivethirtyeight.com blog at the New York Times. Now the democratic underground has the Drunken Irishman's article Path to 270. The piece is worth a read at www.democraticunderground.com. Let's see whether he will pick up the mantle.

The Irishman averages every poll, even some taken last year, and awards a state. He doesn't do toss-ups unless there really is tie. In his first outing this year, he awards Indiana to Romney based on the conventional wisdom that the state will revert to its basic Republican status. The assumption still is that Romney is the nominee.

The good news is that Swing States have abundant polling already so it makes his methodology plausible right now.

Here are his results:

Arizona--Romney

Colorado--Obama

Florida--Romney by .10%

Iowa--Obama

Michigan--Obama

Minnesota--Obama

Missouri--Romney by 1.5%

Nevada--Obama

New Hampshire--Romney by 1.5%

New Mexico--Obama

Ohio--Obama

Virginia--Obama

Wisconsin--Obama

Pennsylvania--Obama

North Carolina--tied

The final tally would be 299 electoral votes for Obama, 224 for Romney and 15 undecided.

But,I have a hunch that Florida and Arizona would not go for Romney. They would add 40 votes to Obama's total. And North Carolina is going to be razor-thin.

The Republicans are back at muttering about a replacement for Romney. We know already it is late in the day. But Nate Silver entertained a brokered convention before as a hypothetical and the GOP establishment thought Willard would have wrapped this up by now. The fact he hasn't has raised the anxiety level of the party through the roof.

I am sure there are Republicans who have done the same type of exercise as the Drunken Irishman and come to the conclusion that Republican pollster Scott Rasmussen did that if nothing catastrophic happens for the next couple of months, Obama will wins re-election.

Remember nothing is real until May.

Way To Go Willard!

2012-02-08T05:23:00.000-08:00

And so it was that the Donald didn't give Romney the momentum he needed. Romney did not win a single county in either Missouri or Minnesota. In the end, Romney lost two states, which he won in 2008. He eagerly stayed in Denver, hoping for a victory there, the place where he won handily last time before bowing out of the contest and endorsing John McCain. But alas, his press bus had an accident and David Gergen quipped,"Romney's bus ran into the ditch." And he lost Colorado.

So Romney has won his home state, New Hampshire, Nevada, where Mormons tipped the scale in the caucuses, and with a lot of money and attack ads Florida. The early knockout strategy for Romney is in tatters.

To make matters worse, Quinnipiac released a poll this morning that shows for the first time Obama has pulled out in front of Romney in Virginia.

It will be interesting to watch Arizona, where the anti-immigrant sentiment is high and Mormons are plentiful.

The one takeaway of last night is that Romney is not even close to making the final sale.

Santorum Declared Winner in Two so far

2012-02-07T19:44:00.000-08:00

Willard is polling worse than he did in 2008 and the turnout is low. It's not he's losing, he is being thumped. Even in areas around St. Louis where he was expected to be strong, Santorum beat him. In Minnesota, he'll be lucky to finish third and a weak one at that. Even in Colorado, he is doing worse.

So tonight's quote goes to Howard Fineman:

"Romney is like a giant hairball. They just can't get rid of him."

Frothy Mix Sweeps--It's Santorum's Night

2012-02-07T19:04:00.000-08:00

Intrade put Obama's chances of winning re-election today at 60%, while Willard was at 33%. Tonight revealed Romney's weakness--he hasn't won in the Midwest, where the GOP needs a strong showing.

Romney and his surrogates tried to downplay this night but held out hope for Colorado, which at this hour doesn't look good for him. While non-binding the Missouri primary showed up Willard's weakness. Without Newt in the race, Romney lost handily to a man who slept with dead babies. Not only that but as Mr. Invitable, how do you lose to a man without an organization or money? In fact, Romney's attacks the last two days on Santorum as not conservative enough badly back-fired. Santorum has recently modeled himself a working man hero, unlike Willard. And this seemed to pay off.

The interesting story is that Ron Paul's strategy of playing caucus states has been working for him, as he looks to net second in Minnesota. Tim Pawlenty tried to down play Minnesota, his home state, saying that caucus goers always gravitate to the most conservative.

The big surprise so far is the lackluster performance of Romney in the early returns in Colorado. Colorado seemed to be a state where Romney would do well. But as the night unfolds, he doesn't seem to b doing well anywhere. In Missouri, he lost in total votes to Barack Obama, who was running uncontested. Minnesota--he'll be lucky to finish third.

While tonight's contests seem unimportant, they do demonstrate that Willard has not made the sale. And it furthers the argument that anywhere he campaigns, he loses popularity, not gains it. It will be interesting to see how Willard fares when the race goes back South. Santorum is off to Texas tomorrow to gin up some money.

Remember Missouri was a decent state for Romney last time but his vote count looks much less today.

Willard In The Doldrums

2012-02-07T17:00:00.000-08:00

Willard seems to be in a rut. Tonight, the memo reads he may not do well against Santorum in Minnesota, Missouri and perhaps even Colorado, where he is favored.

Out of the last 7 polls on an Obama-Romney contest, Obama wins five of them with an average of 6 its and only two are tied. Mitt's average ratings ow are 28.9% favorable and 46.6% unfavorable. And worse, compared to Obama with an average of 49.1% favorable to Romney averaged at 41.9%. Things are not looking up for the inevitable nominee and Mr.Electable.

This is the time for Steve Benen to weigh in but he defected from the Washingtonmonthly and is now a MSNBC contributor. This is a big loss for those of us who depended on Benen to keep monitoring all of Willard's lies and various "untruths". It is too much for sole bloggers to keep track of the various incarnations of Willard.

Today was a special day. Romney blasted the Prop 8 ruling since his "cult" bankrolled it, perhaps with his own money. He attacked Obama on his decision that health insurance companies should cover contraceptives. And he hailed the Komen foundation for withholding funding for Planned Parenthood. Since he has already backed a Personhood Amendment, Romney is not a moderate anymore but a social conservative.

But Today's bit to out-Frothy Mix Santorum reveals Romney's perpetual tin ear. 99% of American women have or are using contraceptives. 98% of Catholic women have practiced sex with contraceptives. 55% of all Americans support health insurance companies supporting contraceptives with no co-pays. The Obama Administration already follows the "conscience clauses" like the states. According to the Public Religion Research Institute 58% of Catholics support the new program, while 37% oppose. Only among evangelicals do you have 38% supporting and 56% opposed. Romney's attempt to embrace the Catholic Bishops denouncing Obama's war against religion is doubly hypocritical since Romney's own plan in Massachusetts paid for contraceptives and his whole faith was founded on nativist sentiments against Catholics.

I fear that if the economy recovers satisfactorily that we will be caught in a cultural war instead and that the whole Republican agenda will be wedge issues, which have no relevance to the future of the country. In 21st century America, there really is no room for a political debate over contraceptives.

Proposition 8 Ruled Unconstitutional

2012-02-07T16:45:00.000-08:00

The 9th Circuit Court ruled by a margin of 2-1 that Prop 8 was unconstitutional and was a form of unlawful discrimination. They also mentioned that Vaughn Walker who originally ruled it was unconstitutional was right to do so even if he could have benefited from the decision since he was gay and opponents accused him of bias and special interest.

What the ruling did do was put obstacles in the way of other states with referenda to roll back already existing same-sex marriage laws. It will be doubly difficult for states to take these rights away.

But the ruling was narrow and very specific to California. It made a point to avoid the broader question of whether same-sex marriage is a constitutional right. It did affirm that the issue of marriage was significant as different from same sex unions.

The court ruling drew a lot of support. I wonder what took them so long. It seemed to take forever. But Republican presidential candidates all denounced the decision and Prop 8 defenders vowed to take the case to the Supreme Court. Quite frankly it is hard to envision how today's court ruling will be the basis for a broader ruling on same-sex marriage as a constitutional right. It is more likely that the decision would simply be affirmed.

The more interesting case would be over the Defense of Marriage Act, which also has been ruled unconstitutional and seems now to be a broader platform to rule on same sex marriage on a national basis.

The More You Know Him, Is --well--Not to Like him Much

2012-02-06T17:08:00.000-08:00

The Romney campaign is crying about the ABC/Washington post poll, which shows Obama with a 51-45 lead over Willard and independents now backing Obama 48-47, when Willard had a 12 point lead in January. 50% of Americans believe President Obama deserves re-election, which is higher than Bill Clinton at the same period of his re-election bid and the same as George W. Bush, one month out from his re-election in 2004. President Obama now has an approval rating of 50%.

What must gall the Romney camp is that 52% of Americans say the more you know about Willard, the less you like him. That's double the number who say they like him better now they know him.

Even Republican pollster Rasmussen now has Obama at a 50% approval rating and beating Romney by 49-42 in the general election.

Well,Romney did manage to squeak out a 50% victory in Nevada, but he did worse than in 2008 in terms of total votes. In fact, 27.2% lower. The turnout was almost 25.6% lower. In the end, Romney won 3% of the Republicans in the whole state.

It seems the Romney campaign have wrapped the candidate in Saran Wrap since he has not answered a question from a voter since January 13. With the new Secret Service detail, observers are debating whether the removal of Romney from people is a plus or a negative. But as we have seen so far the more he campaigns in a state the less popular he becomes.

Romney is sticking to his guns that Obama made the recession worse. He is now using U-6 unemployment figures, which are always higher t prove his point. But Ezra Klein of the Washington Post points out that even those figures are reducing in the same proportion as the regular figures. Let's not forget January's figures showed the private sector grew at 254,000 jobs and George W. Bush's last January was a loss of 818,000 jobs. But as Rush Limbaugh says, that was caused by the election of Barack Obama.

The former Republican mayor of Caramel, California didn't win the hearts and minds of Republicans with his Super Bowl ad for Chrysler. "It's half-time in America" wasn't as good as Eminem's Detroit ad last year. But it got Karl Rove steamed. You thought Clint Eastwood after delivering a pep talk to America was going to endorse President Obama. Rove cried this was "Chicago-style politics" orchestrated by the Obama campaign and then he bitterly complained that the President bought the car industry's allegiance with government loans.

Remember "Bin Laden's dead and General Motors is alive." The Eastwood ad should run every time Romney airs an ad in the Michigan primary.

Why are the Republicans constantly throwing tantrums? Ezra Klein tries to explain in today's Washington Post that President Obama is the most polarizing moderate ever. Klein indicates that Obama is the most moderate Democratic President in the post-WWII period but draws fire all the time. The reason is that Republicans have gone farther right than the Democrats have ever gone Left in our modern history. For this reason, Republicans on ideological grounds oppose President Obama, even though Gallup shows that vast majorities of Americans support his policy initiatives.

Frank Schaeffer in his personal blog wrote that President Obama will be vindicated. Frank was a Republican and co-founder of the religious Right and warns about the people now controlling the Republican Party. Frank has been tossed off progressive blogs for defending the President against Republicans and reasoning why he has not pushed progressive ideas as the liberal/ Left wanted. It's worth a read.

These are early days. Romney feels that he must do in Frothy Mix Santorum to nail down the nomination. Luckily. we will have a brief period of quiet on the primary front until Super Tuesday.

Romney Wins Nevada--Sort Of

2012-02-05T11:28:00.000-08:00

Mitt Romney won Nevada with less than 50%. Republican turnout was lower than 2008 and only 35,000 voted or approximately 10% of the GOP in the state. Only Romney and Ron Paul advertised in the state, since Newt is gearing up for Super Tuesday.

The Nevada victory solidified the notion that Romney is the front-runner but it didn't do much more than that.

The lack of enthusiasm should alarm Republicans. Voter participation in the primaries and caucuses so far have been lower than in 2008 around the board. To give you some idea of what this means, Romney's vaunted victory in New Hampshire , his new home state, should be measured by the recent New Hampshire poll, which shows Barack Obama beating Romney there by double digits in a general election.

Beltway pundits are writing that Romney is picking up the Tea Party support and conservatives after Nevada. Well,that's true if conservatives are Mormons. 26% of the Nevada voters were Mormon and Romney won 91% of them. Keep in mind, there are only 7% Mormons in the whole state.

The demographics of the primaries and caucuses should be dispiriting. In 2008, 88% of the primary voters were white, this year it has topped 90%. In Nevada last time 8% of GOP voters were Latino and now with a Latino Governor it was 5%. For all the mention of Israel and the Jewish vote, it was identical to last time--2%. For the youth (17-29 age group), last time it was 11% and this year it was 8%.

So far, Romney has not won a thoroughly Republican state. Gingrich won South Carolina and Florida has been trending Democrat in general elections. Even New Hampshire is purple.

The President's Day

2012-02-03T19:11:00.000-08:00

Let's give Barack Obama today. The jobs report came out and it revised both November and December upwards and showed that January produced 257,000 new private sector jobs, while losing 14,000 public sector jobs. The real good news is that projections that public sector losses have bottomed out look to be true.

So now we have a standard unemployment rate of 8.3%, which might mean that we could see unemployment around November at slightly under the 7.8% Obama came in with. Nate the Great Silver does an analysis at www.fivethirtyeight.com where he projects Obama's re-election chances with various job creation rates. Silver believes Obama's approval rating is not quite into the re-election territory but could get there soon. He says based on his regression analysis that if the economy generates about 151,000 jobs per month until November, then Obama has a great chance at re-election.

The other good news was that veteran unemployment has fallen dramatically from horrible highs.

The DOW and Nasdaq are now at the highs of the pre-financial levels. Nasdaq closed to day at a 11-year high.

Oh, another item. It appears Orly Taitz lost another one--the case in Georgia, where Obama has been subpoenaed and refused to go. The judge today flat out told her that her case had no basis in fact or merit. This case had generated enormous news among right-wing bloggers, saying this would finally prove President Obama wasn't eligible for the presidency. No dice.

If you can figure out the Susan Komen Foundation mess, you are better than I am. One can not think of such a perfect storm of a PR disaster as their announcement they were cutting off funding to Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood netted a few million in just 24 hours. Mayor Bloomberg pledged $250,000 and then Lance Armstrong came in with a matching grant. Presidents of state Koman Foundation branches abandoned ship. Then Komen went further by saying they would not longer fund stem cell research on breast cancer. All of this motivated by extreme anti-abortion members of the organization and their policy chief. By this afternoon, after considerable damage has been done, they claim to have reversed their decision. Planned Parenthood up a few million and Komen seriously damaged. For what?

Another bit of good news for President Obama--The Koch Brothers held their billionaire retreat and they pledged $60 million of their own money and combined with their friends a total of $100 million to defeat President Obama. Maybe it was President Obama's ads about secretive oil billionaires attacking him that prompted this little snit fit.

Apparently Willard looks like he will win Nevada, since he gets about 95% of the Mormon vote. Willard is looking just terrific after receiving the Donald's somewhat botched endorsement. He was almost speechless on the jobs report. Congressional Republicans are taking the tack that this is good news for Americans but more should be done. However, their biggest jobs program initiative, according to Speaker Boehner, is the Keystone XL Pipeline. I guess you can hoodwink some people some of the time.

And a look back--The last January of George W's Presidency saw jobs losses of 810,000. Heckuva Job, Brownie.

The Winner Tonight--Nate Silver and Barack Obama

2012-01-31T19:51:00.000-08:00

Nate Silver called Romney's vote to the percentage.

Barack Obama spent the day at the Washington D.C. Car Show, where he tried out the new models from Detroit and reminded the press that GM is the number 1 automaker in the entire world after facing bankruptcy. He pointedly referred to the Republicans opposition to bailing out the auto industry.

Also, the MSM is oohing and aahing at Romney's $24 million pull last quarter. Karl Rove did better with $51 million. And Barack Obama pulls in a measly $68 million. His small donors are coming in at a faster rate and in greater numbers than in 2008.

While Willard lied again in his victory speech about how Barack Obama is to blame for the economy and he would shove "capitalism" down Obama's throat, let's not lose sight of the terrible fact for the Republicans tonight that the turnout was 15% less than in 2008. That is a terrible sign for the enthusiasm gap.

Meanwhile PPP and Rasmussen (Democratic and Republican Mutt and Jeff) both have Obama beating Romney in a nationwide poll and the gap as of now is widening.

Fox News differs from the Washington Post analysis. The Post claimed Romney won over the tea party. Fox claimed that Romney won with the seniors and the Cuban-Americans and that conservatives went overwhelmingly with Newt and Santorum. You decide who is fair and balanced.

One observation--Frank Luntz warned the GOP not to overtly campaign this year on "capitalism" because it has negative connotations. Instead emphasize "free enterprise." Romney broke that bond tonight with his triumphant whoop about capitalism.

Another observation--if you are a Democratic operative, you would notice that Gingrich tightened the Florida race with his anti-Bain, anti-vulture capitalism ads. That was his high point and then conservatives made him back away. It was clear that the average voter liked the more populist Gingrich. In the general election, the Obama campaign should exploit this.

And another observation--the lower turnout might be a direct result of the negative ads run by Romney. How much of this is a laboratory for the general election when Romney will run negative ads galore at Obama? The GOP already know that it should be a close election. Already they have gamed it out with voter suppression measures in over two dozen state, which are aimed at the young, minorities and women. In short, how much of the Romney campaign is already aimed at a controlled electorate. If Obama can't mobilize his own base because of legal obstacles, then a campaign of negative ads would further depress the turnout, favoring Romney. Not a sermon, just a thought.

And the final thought for January. Newt's spokesman Russ Tyler said tonight that the problem with African-Americans is that they had no role models. I know this is the dog whistle for Newt's campaign. But what about Barack Obama, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Martin Luther King, Jr., Bayard Rustin, Muhammed Ali, Magic Johnson, Jimi Hendrix, Al Green, Jimmie Baldwin, Ralph Ellison, Langston Hughes, Walter Mosley,Kareem Abdul-Jabbar,Eric Holder, Colin Powell, the Tuskegee Airmen,Charles Mingus,Stevie Wonder,Thelonious Monk,for starters?

Amid a Dreary Campaign--The Gift That Will Keep on Giving--Richard Nixon

2012-01-31T18:22:00.000-08:00

Don Fulsom was a longtime White House reporter and the UPI Washington Bureau chief. He covered LBJ, Nixon, Ford, Reagan and Clinton. His Latest is "Nixon's Darkest Secrets: The Inside Story of America's Most Troubled President".

James Ellroy, our master of noir, has captured the seamier side of JFK in his novels. This book is like the non-fiction continuation of that saga, where mob allegiances switch sides to Richard Nixon.

My Nixon library, which is vast, extends over decades but I no longer buy every Nixon book that comes out. I general feel that they just go over the same turf again and again and nothing new is learned. This book brings back the Nixon we all know and love with all the gritty and sordid details. But there are some mysteries that are also solved--at least to my satisfaction.

Remember the strange plot to burn down Brookings Institute. It sounded like Nixon in a drunken rage against a liberal opponent. But Fulsom uncovers the strange logic of the plot. Richard Nixon knew hat LBJ had wired tapped his plane and had uncovered Nixon's deliberate sabotage of the Vietnam Peace Talks under LBJ. Nixon was terrified that when his rule was being challenged that the fact he committed treason would surface and doom him. He believed that Brookings had documents on his interference with the Peace Talks through Anna Chennault and her contacts with Van Thieu. A fake D.C. fire department would be dispatched to Brookings to put out the fire and under cover the Nixon operatives would rescue the papers. Didn't happen and we don't know whether Brookings had them.

Folsom got the most PR for this book with the revelations that Nixon and Bebe Rebozo had boy crushes on each other dating back to the days when Bebe picked up Nixon's gambling debts in Havana. But the fuller account of the relationship shows that while their homosexual tendencies were probably repressed Bebe was everywhere with Nixon and even accompanied him over sensitive overseas trips. Rebozo was the one man money laundering machine taking in Howard Hughes contributions and the mobs payoffs to Nixon. Fulsom does a good job of documenting how it was Bebe who oversaw the contractors on the Pacific White House, which became a scandal during Watergate.

Using documents only recently declassified, Fulsom points out something no one has ever discovered about the Watergate burglars--they were all assassins for the CIA. In fact, during the Church Hearings, Frank Sturges gave a closed door hearing on how to kill someone and not leave traces. He bragged about his days as an assassin. Likewise, E.Howard Hunt, the friend of William F. Buckley and the sauce CIA agent and novelist, was also an assassin.

Remember Nixon telling Dean about the hush money for Hunt, "Yeah, we can get a million. A Million cash. That wouldn't be a problem." Folsom finds out that Nixon almost immediately made a call to a Teamster rep, the tape of which has been erased. Then in the next tape, the famous gap appears, which probably reflected the conclusion of this phone call.

Fulsom suggests that the little blackmail Nixon pulled with Richard Helms of the CIA to get him to kill the Watergate investigation on national security grounds reflected an insider's knowledge of the Kennedy assassination. Throughout the Watergate tapes, there is frequent mention of "the Bay of Pigs". Because this made no logical sense in the tape, people have concluded that it referred to "Dallas" and the "Kennedy assassination". We will have to wait a few more years for the nearly 1 million pages on CIA documents on the Kennedy Assassination to be made public.

Fulsom's book also details Nixon's plan to kill Jack Anderson, the muckraking journalist in D.C. at the time. That Nixon was capable of this showed up in Spiro Agnew's phrase, "Go quietly, or Else" where he voiced his belief that he would be killed by Nixon's people if he didn't resign and just vanish from the scene.

While we are used to the Kennedy mob ties, Folsom does a a great service in detailing Nixon's own long-time connection to the mob bosses dating back to his gambling days in Havana. Nixon's favorite Godfather was Carlos Marcello, the mob boss in New Orleans, who Bobby Kennedy had kidnapped and taken to Guatemala. Later as he became senile, Marcello would talk about the Kennedy assassination.

For the more popular subjects, there are more revelations. Remember the old canard that Nixon couldn't hold his liquor and only one drink when he was fatigued would make him slur his speech. It turns out the Nixon was a binge drinker--had been one since college--and during the Watergate crisis became even a greater drinker, also taking seconal and other drugs. Once when Edward Heath, the prime minister of the UK called to inquiry about the Mideast War, he had to be put off by Henry Kissinger, who knew that Nixon had passed out drunk in the early afternoon. The episodes became frequent and often Nixon would call Kissinger and tell him to "Nuke" someone. Then Kissinger had to alert the military to ignore Nixon's orders at night, when he thought about nuking everyone, including Congress.

Remember when Nixon a angrily pushed Ron Zeigler back to answer the press questions. Apparently, everyone knew that Nixon would push and punch his aides, even pushing them down stairs. One Madison Avenue executive tasked with helping on his 1972 campaign was punched in the chest and suffering from a heart condition quit soon afterwards. The anger also was focused on Mrs. Nixon, who when not largely ignored was subject to physical abuse.

Folsom covers the Cambodia Bombings, the war against the press, the drama behind the resignation and the deal that led to Gerald Ford's pardon of Richard Nixon just as he was about to be hit with a flood of subpoenas. We get to see how Nixon courted Frank Sinatra and won his endorsement through Spiro Agnew and how Sammy Davis, Jr. got to perform at the White House. The book covers some of the greatest hits we remember with the private details we have been missing.

Is this what people mean when they say,"We want our country back?" To the great days when our Presidents were mobbed up and binge drinkers. Some of the dance between LBJ and Nixon is rich, with Nixon trying to cut a deal with Bobby Baker for more dirt on LBJ in return for a shorter prison sentence so Nixon could protect himself. Ah, the Good Old Days.

Flipper Wins Florida Sea World Contest

2012-01-31T17:36:00.000-08:00

Willard Romney won the Florida primary with tea party support, prompting pundits to comment that he has refuted the notion he wasn't conservative enough to win the Republican nomination.

As Chris Matthews opined he Dresden Bombed his opponent. 63% of the television ads in Florida were Romney anti-Newt attack ads. Matthews also expressed the opinion--hope?--that Newt would somehow exact revenge in the process because he knows what was done to him and how.

Romney surpassed his 2008 totals in the state and at this time looks like he will outdraw McCain's vote tally from that year. Over 40% of the voters told exit polls they were dissatisfied with their choices.

Early in the afternoon Ron Paul, who did miserably, and Rick Santorum were out of state, already working Nevada where there is a caucus soon.

Author Charles Pierce summed up Romney as "a man with the charisma of grass seed and the political principles of a moray eel."

Greg Sargent earlier in the day wrote a fascinating piece in the Washington Post about one R. Bradford Malt, who manages Romney's wealth. Based on a Boston Globe report, Malt sold in 2007 before Mitt's run for the Republican nomination stocks in tobacco, casinos and the firms Mitt invested in with holdings in Iran. In 2011, before Romney pushed for tougher trade sanctions against China, he dumped a number of his holdings in China. He recently shed a money market fund that had invested in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. His account of closing the $3 million UBS Swiss Bank account actually made some sense--he was hedging against the dollar and wanted to put Romney in foreign currency so that Swiss france investments wouldn't depreciate if the dollar fell.

Coincidentally this happened about the same time that the DOJ was negotiating with UBS to reveal Americans with Swiss bank accounts.

But tonight belongs to Willard,the first businessman since Herbert Hoover who has a chance at the presidency. Or as others have noted--George Will and Frank Rich--this century's answer to Tom Dewey, "America's best administrator".

Meanwhile, Willard's behavior in Florida has cost him dearly among independents, where his negatives have taken off.

Primary Day in Florida

2012-01-31T11:41:00.000-08:00

++The Pew Poll tells us that 46% of Republicans are satisfied with the candidates this year compared to 68% in 2008. This will affect the so-called enthusiasm gap.

++Romney is poised to win today. Nate the Great has it at 44%. Polls have varied the last day from 5-20% Romney lead. Early voting in Florida heavily favored Romney.

++Romney faces a few problems going forward. The empathy gap looms large--55% of voters think Obama cares about the problems they face; 33% say Romney does.

++An ABC/Washington Post poll shows that Romney's work with Bain Capital may also be an issue in the general election. Only 35% have a favorable view of his work there, 40% unfavorable. For Democrats, it is 18% favorable and 60% unfavorable. For Independents 36 favorable to 37% unfavorable; For blue collar voters 35% favorable to 38% unfavorable; moderates 32% favorable to 39% unfavorable. But it is an issue that still needs to be defined as almost 25% had no opinion.

++The last PPP poll had Romney at 39, Gingrich at 31, Santorum at 15% and Paul at 11%. PPP claims that their tracking poll has been consistent the last three days.

++In today's Washington Post, Eugene Robinson writes a column entitled,"Does Romney believe anything?"

++Roger Cohen in the same paper writes that Republicans have only themselves to blame. His piece says that "The GOP is brain dead." Cohen criticizes the established Republican paper for not stopping the "rampant anti-intellectualism" in the party. Cohen revisits the issues that have plagued the party this past year--abortion, taxes, global warming, evolution and more nonsense. The party has become a "mosh pit of madmen."

++We may expect Rick Santorum to drop out because of his daughter's illness, leaving the anti-Mitt forces in the hand of Newt.

++Like the good old days, the Catholic church is reading an anti-Obama letter from the pulpit, claiming the President in assaulting religious liberty because the Administration has ruled that health insurance companies must provide for contraceptives. The Catholic Church claims this has to do with policies provided by Catholic universities, hospitals and schools. Of course, no one is mandating people actually have to obtain contraceptives. It is very bizarre to argue it is an assault on religious liberty, when many of these institutions already received government funding. Perhaps, the proper thing for them to do is to refuse government funding en masse so we can actually have the separation of Church and State, instead of the constant erosion of freedom in the face of the diktats of a minority.Of course, Michael Gerson opined in the Washington Post about Obama's betrayal of his Catholic allies on this.

++We'll have more later as the primary results are known.

To The Moon, Newt

2012-01-30T13:39:00.000-08:00

I have been off the grid this past week. Tomorrow with the results of the Florida primary I will resume.

We've had a powerful State of the Union Address by President Obama and a weak response by former George W. budget Director Mitch Daniels. President Obama channelled the optimism of Reagan, while Daniels captured the pessimism and gloom of modern conservatives. Did Obama go as far as I would have liked?- No but it was a powerful hour-long speech that basically laid down the language of the 2012 campaign.

He had the good fortune of following the GOP debate and the release of Mitt Romney's taxes, which showed him paying a 13.9% tax rate and stashing millions all over the place abroad, not just the Cayman Islands. Ann Romney complained that now people knew how much they were worth. For the curious, Romney's net worth is the last eight President of the United States combined times 2. While Romney has outspent Newt 50 to 1 in Florida, among conservative voters his wealth remains a problem.

I didn't blog on the last GOP debate. Mitt, now coached by Michelle Bachmann's debate teacher, went on the offensive against Newt. This apparently swung the momentum in Mitt's direction. But he still came off as a nasty, rich guy. Both men lied like hell about their stances on immigration to the Cuban crowd. Mitt brought a laugh from me when he said he couldn't be against immigrants because his mother came from Wales and his father was born in Mexico. Univision tried to get Mitt to admit he would be the first Mexican-American President. Even Mitt said that no one would believe it.

Both Mitt and Newt agreed they would get rid of bilingual ballots, thus depriving millions of Hispanic voters a clear choice. During the last days of bombastic attacks by both sides, Romney has jumped to a ten point lead, but Obama has jumped to a larger lead against both men. This morning Gingrich said that his pollsters were telling him that he was within five.

Since I have no skin in this game, it's interesting to hear that Newt vows to fight on until the Convention. The entire Republican establishment, punditry, and conservatives lambasted him this week in a coordinated attack orchestrated by the Romney campaign. It will be interesting to see whether the GOP base in Florida obeys their orders to toe the line. Meanwhile, John McCain is begging for the end of the GOP debates because all they do is magnify the candidates' negatives. Chris Wallace said all the debates have been stupid and that the audiences were just waiting for a car crash.

Since virtually every major Republican has endorsed or winked in Romney's direction, it is interesting to see that Herman Cain of 9-9-9 fame and Sarah Palin basically endorsed Newt. Newt is screaming that the conservative movement will not roll over dead for Romney. (Or maybe they will?)

Frank Rich, in this issue of New York Magazine, and posted on line at www.huffingtonpost.com today, has a must read about Romney entitled,"Who in God's name is Mitt Romney?", which dissects the enigma that is the GOP candidate. Rich calls him the "white shadow" because even though he has been around forever, no one really knows that he thinks about anything and that his Mormonism is the strongest key to understanding his worldview. His fellow Bain Capital people talk about how good a manager he was and how competent he is but they all remain baffled that they never knew what he believed about anything. Even those who worked with him when he was Governor said he never knew his aides' names and often physically kept them away from any area he would be.

Even with his Mormonism, he never calls his religion by name. In the speech he gave in the 2008 campaign about his faith in Texas, he only mentioned Mormonism by name once. As Rich notes,it is very unlikely that Romney would have worked on the Olympics if they had not been in Salt Lake City. Also interesting in the article is that Romney has held various positions in his secret, not just Bishop.

Rich praises the Boston Globe investigative reporters new book,The Real Romney, for its balance and praise of Mitt, but Rich notes that the book is languishing on the Amazon list as evidence that Republicans are just not that into Mitt.

Salon.com writes about Romney's Mormonism in a piece on the White Horse Prophecy, which was the prophecy of a Mormon coming to the rescue of the nation. This was the prophecy Glenn Beck relished talking about.

While Romney is enjoying the war against Newt, it is interesting that his support among Republicans nationwide has now dropped to below his normal 25-26%. The Florida campaign seems to be working, but among the rest of the Republicans, he still has not sealed the deal.

On To Florida--Newt Versus Willard

2012-01-23T09:41:00.000-08:00

So to recap,the Republican race comes down to a former Bishop of an old American sect with his money stashed overseas,a thrice-married,former Speaker of the House who resigned in disgrace; a man who slept with a dead child; and a man who wrote racist newsletter and is implicated in the plot by the KKK to overthrow the Democratic government of Dominica and establish a libertarian paradise. The deadlines for new entries in the primaries has expired. So that's the choice for the next President of the United States.

Michael Steele, the former chairman of the RNC, says there is a 50-50 chance of an "open" or undecided convention. Because of the change of rules this time,it may be extremely difficult for one candidate to muster enough delegates without an intense floor debate. The closest parallel is the 1976 the convention which saw an insurgent Ronald Reagan go up against President Gerald Ford.

Like then the Republican party was torn between the conservative movement and the establishment types. Here you have an insider--Newt--running as an outsider and Romney, the so-called businessman outside, basically representing the establishment. Maybe Andrew Sullivan is right that this year marks the Republican crack-up as the Reagan fusion of fiscal conservatives, national security types and social conservatives falls apart.

By this morning Romney has declared war against Newt Gingrich, bombarding Florida with ads attacking Gingrich for his failed speakership and his days as lobbyist for Freddie Mac. Romney, who says let the foreclosure process continue, held a press conference near foreclosed homes to attack Gingrich and Freddie Mac in their role in the housing collapse. Romney also invested considerable in Freddie Mac and made millions.

The fireworks chased at least Jeb Bush away. He was rumored to endorse Romney but has backed away, saying he will be neutral. Governor Scott, who had been seen around Romney in the past year, has also stated he would remain neutral.

Romney had a huge lead in Florida before the South Carolina primary. Among early voters, Romney leads Gingrich. But now, you have two polls this morning with Gingrich leading Romney by 9 and topping 40%. PPP actually has the race closer. Romney is banking on his negative ads to destroy Gingrich like they did in Iowa. And Romney started the morning talking tough, which comes off as inauthentic also.

Only two weeks ago, Romney had a 23 point lead nationally over Gingrich. The new Gallup poll has Romney down to a five point lead. The constant slippage is worrying to the establishment types who see Romney coming out of the whole process as seriously damaged.

Romney will benefit down the road from the incredible sloppiness of Gingrich. If you can not secure enough signatures in your own home state--Virginia--to get on the ballot, you have problems. What the Romney people are banking on is that Newt will blow himself up--which is an almost sure bet.

The key number to remember is 100%--that's the number of Newt's name recognition--and 60%--that the number for people who have a negative view of him. Romney is at 53% negative. Both numbers are unelectable.

So,to actually get into this process, you have to suspend belief in a lot of fact-based reality. Then your decision on why you don't like President Obama. If you are for Newt, it's because having a black President is absurd. If you are for Willard, it's because he never had a real job and doesn't understand how the real world works. Now where you are at the end of this, no one knows. It's very hard to distinguish between two types of extremism.Frankly, it is very hard imagining any of the current candidates for the Republican nomination as plausible Presidents.

Newt Wins First Election in Nearly Two Decades

2012-01-21T16:42:00.000-08:00

Throughout the day, the networks were chomping at the bit to declare Newt the winner. Basically, all the networks by this time have declared that Newt Gingrich on the strength of his two debate performances is looking to win by almost double digits over Mitt Romney, who kept the ads and the robo-calling to the bitter end.

The Romney camp leaked the exit poll results to the networks earlier in the day. As of 8:30PM EST, Romney still had the lead but all networks already had tabulated the exit polls.

In the exit polls, over 50% didn't decide until the last two days. The primary issues were jobs and the economy--so for that you vote for Newt? Earlier polls demonstrated that over 40% of voters wanted another choice. This finding appeared also in Iowa and New Hampshire, which shows the GOP is unhappy with the present group of candidates. Newt won handily the voters who said the number 1 issue in America is defeating President Obama. The idea is , as I suggested in past posts, Newt could crush Obama in a debate.

To show how dispirited the GOP is at this point is to know that the largest political rally during the primary season in South Carolina was held by Stephen Colbert yesterday.

Ann Romney was heard on robocalls blasting Newt. Young Mormons from D.C. and northern Virginia were bussed into South Carolina for the Romney campaign. And the Romney campaign kept ads going until the bitter end. One local woman begged to see a commercial for coffee instead of the political ads.

Last night's polls showed that Newt had peaked at the right time. PPP had Newt with a 40-26 lead over Romney. ARG also had Gingrich over Romney by 14. And lesser polls had solid single-digit leads. More ominously is the PPP poll of Minnesota, which shows that Newt is leading there, where Tim Pawlenty, Romney's leading surrogate hails from.

Newt tweeted about an hour ago that he would be holding a Money-Bomb tomorrow so he can "deliver the knock-out punch in Florida."

The Romney camp quickly reversed Mitt's initial reluctance to participate in the NBC debate this coming week. It would not look good if Romney started doing a Rick Perry. By early this evening, it looks like Romney will participate in both debates next week. He has already aired $7 million in ads in Florida. Remember as we watch these primaries, Romney had a double-digit lead in Florida, as he did in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. He saw only one lead--in a state where he lives--hold up.

The problem today is that it is becoming evident that Romney doesn't wear well on the stump. Almost all his leads vanish whenever he starts to spend real time in the primary states. It is increasingly evident from the polling data that Romney's negatives appear to be going up all the time. The latest PPP poll has 35% think of him positively, while 53% have a negative impression of him. The Pew poll had 33% positive and 47% negative. Romney's ace in the whole until now has been the inevitability cloak and the passive acceptance by Republicans he would be the nominee.

Now that the Republicans are throwing negative ad bombs at each other almost every candidate's negatives will increase. But Romney seems to have a structural problem of relating to the voter. Frankly,they might like Romney as an idea in abstract, they are cold to him up front and personal. And the feeling in reciprocated.

Tonight continues the streak of Romney losses in the South. Florida would be a natural breakwater because it is a more varied state but senior citizens seem to be warming up to Newt as their warrior. Remember Florida closes the first chapter in the primary process on January 31. Then we go to small caucuses and states before Romney can land on safe turf in Michigan on February 28.

If tonight comes out as expected and we have a contested primary in Florida, then we are in for a long and dull process. The Republican establishment aren't pleased at watching this thing drag on because the attacks on each other by the candidates are doing damage to the party brand, which has already been wounded by the tea party and the congress.

January 19 Re-Run

2012-01-20T13:16:00.000-08:00

By this morning,Mitt Romney signaled he was about to accept not winning tomorrow's South Carolina primary. On Morning Joe, there was again talk about a brokered convention by the Republican establishment. The present field of candidates is now drawing dangerously high negatives, even among Republicans themselves. Romney has seen, according to Gallup, a collapse in his favorability rating.

Even if Romney should win tomorrow, it will come at a high price. Internal polls show that the attacks by Newt Gingrich on Bain Capital have done lasting damage, even though conservatives are upset Gingrich went after Romney's business experience. It was the sole qualification he was banking his candidacy on. If Romney doesn't win, it will throw the race up in the air. It would mean one of the candidates will have won one and Ron Paul will probably have come in second in three.

The day after reports confirm what some of us felt last night--Romney was beaten badly last night by both Gingrich and Santorum. Even his surrogates like Chris Christie are appearing everywhere pleading with him to release his tax returns. The longer this goes, there is more speculation on what Romney is hiding. This now ranges from the Cayman Island accounts, to his tax rate, to the contributions he has made to the Mormon church and , more nefariously about the nature of the Cayman Island trusts themselves--why there, why not Switzerland and other straight tax havens.

Newt's attack on moderator King may have drawn a standing ovation and the zip he needed to win the debate and maybe the primary. But is it really he Howard Dean Scream, the moment that sinks him later on. The Interview with Marianne actually let her hide the devastating thing should knows about Newt--while Speaker he had a nervous breakdown and his colleagues in the House demanded an intervention. If that actually gets discussed,and we have not advanced that far in accepting psychological distress, it will destroy his chances more than the rather pathetic attempt to have an "open party". By this morning, the Evangelical leaders said that their voters were the forgiving type. So, it's alright that Family values Newt had lapses along the way.

But if you are the party establishment, you now have a man sinking because of the perception about how he acquired his wealth and where he keeps it and another man known for serial marriages and affairs and having a nervous breakdown in a position of high authority and power. Then the war between the two men continue with Romney today challenging Newt to release the ethics report from the 1990s.

You supposed to be offering an alternative to Barack Obama. Instead, Mitt Romney looks like he can't handle pressure by his little tantrum with the Occupy demonstrator. He looks like he is melting down and this is only the third primary. And in the other corner, Newt says that Sarah Palin would play a major role in his administration. He would order out troops not to obey Supreme Court rulings. He would fire all liberal federal employees. And that was before he walked on stage last night. GOP insiders have voiced concern that the details of the FBI investigation into Newt in the 1990s will come to light.

Romney has been sidetracked by the Bain attacks. He is forcing up his political calendar like pulling down his celebrity endorsements like Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell before it is necessary. McDonnell has been rumored since the beginning to be on Romney's short-list for Veep picks.

Of course, the DNC has enjoyed Romney's discomfort at the Cayman Islands news. Since Romney's slogan is "Believe in America", it is rich that he holds his wealth on a tropical island.

Romney is looking toward Florida where he has had an operation since the last election. But in the Tampa Bay newspaper, the front-page story yesterday was about Bain's bad record in the region.

It's clear that yesterday's debate did nothing to advance the Republican positions for the fall. No one can remember what anyone really said. The impression left is of all four men fighting against themselves. The only positions I remember was that Mitt finally embraced Romneycare and listed all the qualities of Obama's health play he would not abolish; and the other was that all candidates want to deport by the millions all illegal immigrants--i.e. Hispanics. The first free primaries were fought in states largely white and only in South Carolina with a sizable African-American population. But no Hispanics. Florida should be an interesting challenge.

I thought it was funny that some blogger thinks Ron Paul should release his tax returns. I guess if he had a chance he should.

As of today, the Republican race looks like a bigger shambles than ever. If South Carolina produces a Newt victory, there will be a lot of internal debate whether to push forward another candidate. It is almost too late.

Too Mind-Blowing Day In Politics

2012-01-19T21:30:00.000-08:00

Rick Perry bows out and endorses Newt.
Iowa declares Santorum won.
The Wall Street Journal, Reuters,AP all write how Romney's money in the Cayman Islands is a tax dodge.
Mitt blows up at Occupy Wall Street guy saying he favors North Korea. "America is right and you are wrong."
Newt leads in all polls in South Carolina.
Newt blows up at John King and gets a standing ovation at the debate. I couldn't tell whether the ovation was for "open marriages" or Newt's attack on the media. This is the state of the Luv Gov afterall.
Mitt was booed for his answer on taxes.
Newt calls Barack Obama the most dangerous President we have had.

And Meanwhile up at the Apollo Theater, Barack Obama sings Al Green.

Once the images simmer, I'll write about it tomorrow. Too tired.

Marianne's Revenge

2012-01-18T20:09:00.000-08:00

Newt's second wife Marianne has been interviewed for two hours by ABC News. Marianne has always said she had enough on Newt to destroy his bid for the presidency. In an old Esquire magazine article, She outllined the fiscal troubles she and Newt had during his tumultous days as Speaker of the House, his "volcanic temper", and how the House Republicans asked for an intervention to get Newt back to having focus on his job. She also detailed at great length Newt's frequent infidelities and the war the two fought over the alimony and divorce agreements. She also described how she was diagnosed with MS and Newt's callous response to this. Since she was around for Newt's rise and then fall, she has plenty of dirt on her former husband. When she first told her story,the drama came from the details of the stories rather than her own tone. This was an intimate and not flattering look at a person who believes he is transformational.

Already Drudge, who is in the Romney camp, has alerted his readers about the impending destruction of Newt. Howard Fineman claims the interview doesn't reveal more than the Esquire piece did but for the public with short memories it could be destructive for a candidate who just boasted another endorsement by an evangelical preacher. Certainly in South Carolina, it could put a wrench in the candidacy that has seen several lives since the early days when his staff quit.

Perhaps, Newt had a foreboding about this when he said yesterday that if he doesn't win South Carolina than the race is over--his or the whole nomination process?

Meanwhile CNN still talks up a Newt surge,even though their polls show Romney with a comfortable 10 point lead over Newt. People were waiting for Rasmussen's poll taken after the debate, which people thought showed Newt at his feisty best and Romney at his most evasive. The DNC made an ad showing how the audience kept responding or reacting to Romney when he tried to evade direct questions. Romney was put on the defensive all night as the other non-Mitts took pot shots at him.

Apparently, the Romney handlers felt panic. Romney went off to a fund-raiser in New York,but had to return for more stump events--this time well choreographed and the candidate had to tow the line. No one quite understood the Romney camp's fears when Romney had such a commanding lead but some suggest polling was showing Newt coming on and Romney would be dinged. The other news that will be made public tomorrow is that a recount does give Rick Santorum an 80 vote victory over Romney--thus erasing the media line that no Republican has ever won Iowa, and New Hampshire and now South Carolina. If one just disappeared, a second could to and the nomination would be a long drawn out process.

Normally, the organizational structure and money would favor Romney in the long haul. But the last week has shown Romney has enormous liabilities--the manner he attained his wealth, his refusal to release his tax returns, and now the fact he and his wife have stashed funds in overseas accounts. Even the new Tweeter, Rupert Murdoch tweeted that Romney should not have used the tax loopholes he did. In fact, leaking through Fox News have been opinion pieces criticizing Romney and his business practices. Romney thought he had sewn up the deal when Mike Huckabee signed on as an adviser to his campaign.

Newt has not managed to persuade the other non-Mitts to drop out. Rick Perry still has alot of cash even though he is fading fast. Rick Santorum's social conservatism doesn't seem to be taking hold in South Carolina where the issue seems to be jobs and the economy. But to Romney's concern, these issues have raised interest in what exactly he did at Bain and how his actions led to the bankruptcy of businesses in South Carolina, something Newt has been feeding off.

The total disarray of the Republicans at this point is shown by Stephen Colbert now airing ads for Herman Cain and actually inserting himself into the process with greater success than Donald Trump. In fact, Colbert and Herman Cain are going to hold a joint event in South Carolina Saturday.

So tomorrow is a fateful day. The ABC interview with Marianne, the last debate before the primary vote and more revelations about Romney's finances. And no one is saying they will drop out as the campaign goes south to Florida.

Then the camera shifts to the President's state of the union address on the 24th. Already the Washington Post is raising questions about peoples' doubts about the President, the direction of the economy and naturally it is meant to create the dramatic tension of whether the President is up to the task. But for President Obama the occasion is to outline his main objectives for the coming year and to raise pointed questions of what kind of society are we and what do we want to become. It is a perfect time for him to command the air of political language.

House of Romney Under Seige

2012-01-18T18:17:00.000-08:00

++Willard feels threatened by Newt today. Apparently,there is an upsurge of support for Gingrich after the debate and Willard had all his surrogates on a conference call trashing Gingrich. Observers note that when Romney doesn't feel threatened he attacks Obama but when he does he attacks his fellow Republicans.

++Meanwhile Newt cut a television ad from his remark on the debate that he just didn't want to make Obama's nose bloody, he wanted to knock Obama out. This was his fund-raiser this morning.

++Pew released a national poll showing Obama beating Romney 50-45. A three-way race is interesting: Obama at 44, Romney 32 and Ron Paul 18.

++But both Romney and Obama have someone else to worry about. Steven Colbert gets 13% and Obama 41 and Romney 38. The more likely third-party candidate will be the fomrer governor of New Mexico as a libertarian, Garry Johnson. He would take 7% away from the Republican.

++Willard is now facing more investigations into his financial history. Only yesterday, he bragged about being in the Investor Hall of Fame. Indeed, he may. But ABC News released tonight a report that he and his wife have between $5 and $25 million stashed away in the Cayman Islands through Bain Capital's special investments using tax shelters. The Romney camp is screaming that these investments are not tax shelters. But more will come. Allegedly, the Romney had $1 million from these investments in 2010.

++Newt didn't miss a trick with Romney's dodge that he would release his 2011 taxes in April, conveniently when the nomination race might be over. Newt is releasing his 2010 tax forms this week and announced he pays 31.5% income tax. This has triggered a flurry of posts on various websites to guess whether you pay higher taxes than Willard Romney. Romney is rumored to pay between 14 and 15%, which would make him in the rate equivalent of someone earning around $50-75,000. I am sure the 2011 income taxes will be made to look more respectable.

++But Mitt also lives with the ghost of his father. George Romney, who ran for the Republican nomination in 1968, was the forerunner of transparency and released 12 years of his taxes. Romney paid in those days an effective tax rate of 37%. In other words, his son may pay about one-third of his father's rate. What I found staggering was that George sometimes gave away more than 57% to charity and all his years he was far and away above the requirement of tithing, which Mormons adhere to. This will be the next interesting number of Romney's to check out.

++Mitt is also drawing fire for his past remarks that Bin Laden wasn't worth going after and his 2007 article attacking President Obama for wanting to go into Pakistan to get OBL.

++As Rick Perry drains away, he is getting some good lines off. Observers have noticed that several of the GOP candidates this year claimed that God told them to run. Perry at least had the good humor to suggest he told him to run but didn't tell him he would win.

Oh No, President Bush Still Blamed For the Economy

2012-01-18T17:32:00.000-08:00

A Washinton Post/ABC News poll reports that Americans by wide margins blame George W. Bush for our economic woes rather than President Obama.

Of all Americans:
54% blame Bush
29% blame Obama
9% blame both
6% say neither men is to blame

Of Registered Voters:
54%--Bush
30%--Obama

Of Unaffiliated voters:
57%--Bush
25%--Obama

And, holy smokes, 1 in 5 Republicans blame Obama.

We know from recent polls that Congress now ranks the lowest since polling began and even before.

A New York Times/CBS News poll asked about gridlock.
60% of the public believes Obama has been trying to work with Republicans.
27% of voters say Republicans are trying to work with the President.

But Steve Benen of Washington Monthly warned that similar figures appeared prior to the 2010 election and the results went the other way.

Ballsy Move, President Obama

2012-01-18T16:58:00.000-08:00

In the fight over the payroll tax cuts, the Republicans demanded that President Obama expedite the decision over the Keystone XL pipeline, claiming the pipeline would create 100s of thousands of jobs. At the time, the State Department argued that a decision could not be rushed because enviromental impact studies would not be completed then. Nebraska went into an uproar over the placing of the pipeline and made political moves to find a new compromise site.

Keystone XL would stretch from Alberta, Canada to the Gulf Coast of Texas, bringing the tar sands oil to port. Environmentalists claim this would be an disaster because it would run through our agricultural lands,which also produce our leading exports in terms of foodstuffs. They argued that the pipeline would threaten the regional water supplies of the Midwest and sensitive habitats. The problem is that environmentalists know the record already of the pipeline's route to the Pacific in wilderness areas of British Colombia. What President Obama wanted was a study of alternative roots to avoid sensitive habitats and the water issue. But the GOP demanded he expedite the decision.

If you missed it, our oil industry went to the White House and literally threatened President Obama as if he were a Third World ruler. Basically, they said if he didn't approve the pipeline," he would face "huge political consequences". Over the past few months,the oil industry has run countless ads saying that the Keystone XL pipeline would generate hundreds of thousands of jobs, a theme picked up by House Republicans,especially John Boehner, who has substantial investments in the partner companies of the project.

For me, there are a few other odd facts of the project. The Chinese government owns a substantial piece of at least two of the major companies involved. The other issue is that the United States would not receive any of the oil from the pipeline. The whole idea was to ship it out of Texas for export to Europe and Latin America. I read one industry estimate that gas prices in the Midwest would rise as a result of the project. I have no idea how that can be. And, of course, everybody's favorite polluters are involved: The Koch Brothers.

So if no oil,then the idea is that it can create scores of high-paying permanent jobs. One report said that it would destroy more jobs than it created. Another more modest report from the State Department claimed it would create 1,500-2,500 new permanent jobs. But no report shows it will create hundreds of thousands of new jobs.

Politically,President Obama knew he would be giving the Republicans a weapon to use against him. They already were warned when they insisted on the expediting of the project that they basically had killed it because none of the appropriate reports would be done in time. More substantial is the threat of the oil industry--in this age where financial interests control our political life--to wage holy war on the President.

Since President Obama wouldn't be around when the pipeline turns out to be a disaster, he could have done the easiest thing and approved it. But he did the right thing and refused to approve the Pipeline in the time requested. This will also be a blow to the Harper Government in Canada, which had been pressuring the Obama Administration.

The President did the gutsy thing and made a decision in the public interest. Months ago I was worried about the XL process when it became known that the environmental impact report had been done by the American Petroleum Institute.

Now we wait the faux outrage.

Willard--America's Whitest Candidate

2012-01-17T17:04:00.000-08:00

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.

Dixville Notch, New Hampshire Results

2012-01-10T06:19:00.000-08:00

It appears it is another resounding victory for .....Barack Obama.
At the first voting tables in the country, the early returns are in.

Barack Obama 3 votes
Mitt Romney 2 votes
Jon Huntsman 2 votes
Ron Paul 1 vote
Newt Gingrich 1 vote

Quote of The Day--A Freeper about Mitt

2012-01-09T12:12:00.000-08:00

"The Bain Stuff, preppy warmonger/ draft-dodger, flip-flopping--he's got loser stink all over him."

Afternoon Delights

2012-01-09T11:19:00.000-08:00

++The latest Suffolk poll has Romney at 32, which was what he got last time. He keeps plunging in the New Hampshire polls but still leads. Andrew Sullivan is wishing for a three-way tie of Romney, Paul and Huntsman. He likes a New Hampshire surprise.

++Newt gave an interview to Byron York of the Washington Examiner, which actually worth a read. Newt tries to explain why Romney's vulture capitalism goes against Milton Friedman and Hayak. Actually, quite entertaining.

++Newt looks like he will press Romney on another issue. It is rumored that Newt will release his own tax returns and challenge Romney to do the same.

++Andrew Sullivan chastises all of us who pulled Romney's "I like to be able to fire people" line out of context. I'm not sure the context helps much as Romney was explaining how he likes the marketplace of having to fire health insurance companies that don't adequately service his family. But, the catch is that he thinks they should be able to fire unhealthy people--which got us into the problem we have in the first place.

++Rick Perry was campaigning in South Carolina today and having a hoot ,blasting Willard. Perry got off a series of one-liners zinging Romney. Stressing that Romney is probably one of the richest men to ever run for President and a son of a multi-millionaire, he was afraid if running out of pink slips when he ran Bain for all the businesses he was destroying. He said that Romney was "getting rich out of failure" by "looting companies" in South Carolina, which has the winning charm of being true. Bain Capital actually leveraged the debt of several companies in South Carolina, laid of its employees and eventually they declared bankruptcy.

++What was really lame was the Romney Camp's response. Rick Perry is acting like a Democrat (his former party affiliation) by " running against the Private Sector". I think Newt handled that one better--none of the economic icons of conservatism would have acted like Romney. Ouch!

++Jon Huntsman ran his first ad, which was his statement in defense of serving his country and his remark that Romney's attitude was what was polarizing America.

++For some reason, Romney's competitors all found their voice yesterday and today. As if on cue, Romney himself was confronted in New Hampshire by a woman,who worked with the UAW and who challenged him on his opposition to Obama saving the car industry. As Hunnfingtonpost headlined today, Romney was a "punching bag".

++While Romney has commanding leads in South Carolina and Florida, over 50% of those polled say they could change their minds. It's clear the field now senses Romney is not inevitable, even though the hard facts suggest he is.

++Rick Santorum is not finding that his brand of social conservatism is going over well in New Hampshire. Tomorrow is likely to see him disappointed. Remember independents and even Democrats can cast cross-over votes tomorrow.

++The thing to watch is whether Romney gets lower than 32%, whether Obama in the Democratic primary gets more votes than Romney, and whether Huntsman wins second place. Ron Paul will do what Ron Paul does. The flaps over his positions are relatively meaningless because he is not going to be the nominee and not going to run as an independent.

One Day Until New Hampshire and Citizen Bain

2012-01-09T08:07:00.000-08:00

++Citizen Bain or Willard Romney appears en route to a shaky victory in the Live Free or Die state. The last PPP poll has Romney at 35%, Paul at 18% and Jon Huntsman at 16% with a bullet. The only one who has significantly moved is Huntsman because of yesterday's debate performance. Romney underperforms so expect him to dip to 32% about the same as he did last time.

++Citizen Bain got off to a rough Monday morning with a speech to the Nashua Chamber of Commerce where he won the hearts and minds of people, saying,"I like to be able to fire people." Only yesterday he told a crowd that he knew what it was like to fear being fired. He had been afraid of being fired at Bain, where he was the CEO, not an employee.

++Sunday saw the entire Republican field dissect and destroy Romney's character. By the end , his reputation as governor, as businessman and as a non-politician lay in tatters. In addition, his slam at Jon Huntsman serving as ambassador to China for President Obama boom-a-ranged on him as Romney said serving the conservative agenda and the Republican Party was serving the country better than being an ambassador for Barack Obama. Huntsman handled this perfectly addressing himself to the audience and saying that he would always serve the country first. And he coyly got in a dig at Romney by mentioning his sons who are serving in the armed forces. Romney's sons studiously ignored the military for a life in business.

++Willard also related the story his father told him that he should not run for office if he needed a paycheck and he had a mortgage. Good advice but it was delivered as if only the rich should run for office.

++Newt Gingrich got Romney when Willard started talking about how he didn't want to run for President, that he ran for governor and achieved his agenda and then went back into the private sector. Could we stop the Pious Baloney and Gingrich demolished Romney's myth of the reluctant politician, who just happens to be running for office since the early 1990s and during this last years as Governor was raising money for his presidential run. A bewildered Rick Santorum asked Romney whether he would run for re-election if he became President. Of course, the answer was yes.

++Gingrich has taken the Bain issue by the horns. Frankly, I felt that this would not be a real winner, even though Ted Kennedy used it to get effectiveness in the 1990s. But since Romney still receives millions a year from his time at Bain it remains relevant. "They apparently looted the companies, left people unemployed and walked off"said Gingrich. Gingrich's SuperPac has purchased a 40 minute film about Bain , which they will be running in South Carolina but the clip is up and it is devastating.

++The DNC went after Romney's bizarre explanation about whether or whether or not he saw his SuperPac's attack ads against Newt. Romney seemed to drift toward illegality when he said he raised money for the Pac himself and put his staffers to run it. He did and did not see the ads--sort of.

++Democrats have been urging their party to reply toi Romney's assertions he has created more jobs than Obama. They needn't worry as the Republican field is demolishing that idea by their attacks on Romney.

++Romney also showed his human touch by saying he doesn't care for the type of humor in The Onion.

++Romney's very peculiar habit of chonically lying hit again when he said that President Obama didn't sign any Free Trade Agreements. Let's see--Korea, Colombia, Panama, and what was the Asian summit about.

++A CBS poll is out this morning that shows five Republicans within five pts of each other nationally. Romney is at 20 and over the last several months had not topped 23%.

++The Americans for Legal Immigration claim Romney is not eligible to run for President because he's an anchor baby. Romney's father was born in Mexico and according to the Mexican constitution was considered a Mexican citizen. This is sort of fun. We went through this when George ran for the Republican nomination in 1968 and of course the whole thing was nonsense then as now. But it is rich considering the multi-year effort to discredit Barack Obama as some kind of foreigner.

++Maybe that's the reason Newt said Romney was "anti-American" and Huntsman said Romney's attitude was the reason the country was "polarized". Actually, the 'anti-American" remark was about only rich people should run for office and the polarized remark was about Romney putting ideology and party before country.

++Romney is significant leads in South Carolina and Florida, raising the question whether we want the Republican primary to end soon or not. For independent observers, it would be a mercy-killing. Others say that the Democrats would benefit by the constant warring and the attacks on Romney. I'm not so sure. Remember all these debates are free advertsing. Once Romney clinches it, he has to spend his own dime to keep in the news and compete with an incumbent President. The upside of this is that he can start pivoting away from his extreme positions to more acceptable ones for the general electorate.

++Thomas Frank, the author of What's Wrong with Kansas and Pity The Billionaire, urges the Tea Party to just accept Romney. He writes with some irony that Romney is their perfect candidate, a pure capitalist, which is after all what they really wanted.

Back-to- Back GOP Debates

2012-01-08T09:38:00.000-08:00

It probably was not wise to schedule a debate during an NFL playoff game or for early morning television. In fact, at this stage, it probably would be a good thing not to have debates at all. Basically, the conventional wisdom is that Willard withstood the attacks and therefore sort-of won. But even when he was allowed to coast he did himself no good. Polls for Romney in New Hampshire show him losing ground every day and yet he will win. The man simply doesn't wear well.

The winners of the debates are Jon Huntsman, even though I thought he was too accepting of some of the more problematic GOP points and may himself look like he was pandering more to the right than necessary. Ron Paul really doesn't like Santorum and lambasted him throughout. Newt occasionally attacked Willard but shied away like Tim Pawlenty.

One wag said that "if you gave Romney a haircut and an enema, there would be nothing left." Romney will provide Obama with trouble because he's the perfect Nowhere Man. He doesn't seem to really believe anything. His flip-flopping on issues only plays to Republican audiences and probably not in a general election. But the issue here ,as Steve Benen noted this week, is the issue of trust. If you don't know what Romney believes, how can you trust his judgment, let alone decide what his judgment is.

The debates yielded some great ideas. Rick Perry wants to re-invade Iraq. Romney wants to re-negotiate the SOFA on Iraq and return some troops there. Romney seemed genuinely baffled about whether states can outlaw birthcontrol, even though the Supreme Court ruled on this issue eons ago. Everyone wants to overturn Roe v. Wade. None of the candidates will accept a deal on 10 spending cuts for $1 in tax revenue. None as yet has mentioned anything about the eight years of George W. Bush. But at least Gingrich got in that Romney had been a greedy investor. And of course, Obama is evil and wants to bring European Socialism to the United States.

Now, I actually gave myself a mental break from all this nonsense. I even caught Talkingpointsmemo wanting to let their reporters go because of the job of live-blogging this nonsense. Instead I read William Gibson's Distrust that Particular Flavor ( Putnam, 2012), a book of essays by the creator of Cyberpunk Sci-Fi.

William Gibson is one of the greatest writers of my generation. It's hard to believe he is two years older than I am given the freshness of his prose. But reading Gibson brought a new dimension to the GOP debates. Gibson writes about the future in our present and extrapolates the affect of our new technologies on our lifestyles and how it modifies our perceptions. He has a superb essay on Levender Bush, the creator of today's military industrial complex and how omniscient he had been about the role of new forms of technology in terms of the growing power and knowledge of the state. He also writes an essay on his own Filmless Festival, talking about the digital "films" being created by the younger generation and their implication for how we view reality.

All this leads to is that no one on the stage last night or this morning has the vagueless clue or even idea about the future of this society. William Gibson writes about today's Japan, one of his favorite locales in his novels, and notes that even though economists talk about their lost decade they neglect to mention that Japan has assimilated all the new technologies into their lives and that, despite their economic woes of the last ten years, remain one of the strongest economies in the world. What's implicit is that we may be buying all the new toys but we have not mastered them and our technologies are not evenly distributed.

Gibson argues quite persuasively that technology drives change and the future. But if you represent a political party that disdains science and technology, how will you even begin to comprehend what's happening in the world?

The GOP debates drive me crazy because they keep flogging the dead horse. To whom is birth control even remotely relevant today as a controversial issue? Why do you really want to re-visit the issue of Iraq? Why again would you suggest reviving torture when thankfully it has been abandoned? Why would you argue incessently about the national debt when all GOP candidates like their predecessors would plunge us even more in debt?

Of course, there are political reasons for the GOP to consolidate their base. But almost all these are irrelevant to a real national debate about the future of this society. All of the essays y William Gibson have nuggets on the elements that will affect our future. None of them are recognized by the GOP candidates. Our Geek-in-Chief President Obama has alluded to many of these in various speeches he has made but which are rarely covered.

Do you remember Richard Nixon dancing that crazy jig in front of the space capsule with the returning astronauts? There was a time political candidates embraced the future and the rhetoric of the future. When did that leave our politics? For the Republicans,one can date it to President George H.W. Bush's disdain for that vision thing. Since the 1992 election, no GOP candidate has argued the case for the future. It has been twenty years or more since we heard a Republican even allude to the changes being made via the InterTubes (Senator Stevens) or the personal computer. None of the present candidates dare mention the United States as playing a potentially positive role in the Pacific, where the center of the world's economic gravity is moving. And the list goes on.

The slogan "Take America Back" was never used until President Obama was elected. But I am not so sure this is just a reaction to a black President being elected. It's a reflection that the GOP knows it is inadequate to handling the future reality of the country. Sure there is a racial component, an age component, and even an economic class component. But it is deeper and citizens should be deeply concerned.

The Shiny Object Tour '12

2012-01-07T12:18:00.000-08:00

++Wired reports that there is a new conspiracy involving President Obama. Two people allege that they were Chrononauts--Time-Travelers--with a young Barack Oabam and they travelled to Mars on a secret mission planned by the C.I.A. to neutralize earth-destroying weapons on that planet. Obama was recruited while he attended Occidental College in California. The White House actually denied the claim. A little too fast from my opinion.But it might account why conservatives can't get a hold of his grades.

++Orly Taitz is celebrating the fact that a Georgia judge has OK'd hearing her birther claims about Obama's elgibility to be on the ballot this year.

++Ron Paul paid to win the Idaho straw vote today.

++Rick Santorum, not aware of Obama's Chrononaut history, accused the President of being a "tyrant" and "an elitist" for proposing that everyone should be able to go to college. Santorum, a coal miner's son, claims that working with your hands is an honorable way to make a living.

++President Obama lost a key constituency--the Nevada brothels. The Nevada brothels were disappointed that President Obama allowed horses to be slaughtered for meat. They now proudly sport signs "Pimping for Paul", having been won over by the 76-year old sweetheart.

++Obnoxious bloggers note that Willard Romney always quotes "America the Beautiful" which was written by a progressive Lebsian Katherine Lee Bates.

++Rick Perry has named Sheriff "Pink Panties" Arpaio, who is under investigation by the Justice Department for brutality against Hispanics and neglecting a rash of sex crimes under his jurisdiction, as his campaign manager in Arizona.

++Willard Romney denied he was a "Wall Street" person today, saying he never worked there. He went on to say that Obama has brought "big,bad things" to the country like the Dodds-Frank legislation ro regulate banks and Wall Street.

++Rick Santorum looks like he might even pick up Bill Kristol's endorsement so he's doomed. Kristol has given up getting another candidate into the race. Santorum is on a roll with ideas. He wants to abolish the estate tax, cut the corporate tax in half, and triple the child deduction. He also wants to abolish the courts that are "too powerful". Does that mean the Supreme Court? He also said that "gay marriage was like polygamy". This was a clever shot at Romney's religion, which all the Christian Right equate with polygamy.

++Jon Huntsman answered a question at a town hall meeting about whether corporations are people. "Of course, not, corporations are not people. Who would ever say a thing like that, especially if he was running for President." Willard Romney, for one.

++Depending on your source, did Ron Paul or Jon Huntsman's campaign itself show the ad criticising Huntsman for adopting daughters from India and China? Unlike Karl Rove's trick of planting ads against McCain showing he had a "dark child", an Indian daughter adopted by Cindi, this ad was shown in New Hampshire, a state not known for racism. Rove used it to good use in South Carolina.

++Salon. com posted an article today that Romney's Free and Strong America PAC paid over $1.3 million for some 35 political endorsements, including from South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley. I suspected something was up when Christine O'Donnell, "I am not a Witch", endorsed him weeks ago. It was typical of Romney to believe her endorsement would bring the Tea Party along.

++While The Republicans are campaigning, President Obama is huddled at the White House to discuss "insourcing", companies bringing jobs home to the United States. this has been another unsung accomplishment for the Administration.

"President Obama will turn this country around"--John McCain

2012-01-07T10:55:00.000-08:00

++Those footsteps you hear are progressive trying to sneak back into the Obama Camp because the President took some strong steps this week that convinced those who had been disappointed that he would put up a fight.

++Left-wing bloggers were screaming that the President should appoint Richard Cordray as Consumer Protection head during recess. Actuallly they were shocked that he filled the remaining seats on the National Labor Relations Board at the same time. They didn't realize that Obama actually laid a trap for Congressional Republicans when he asked them to raise the debt ceiling. These smart guys said they couldn't because Congess was in "recess", which Mitch McConnell claims the Senate wasn't when the President made his appointments. Yesterday, James Clyburn, Democrat from South Carolina,tried to introduce the bill to extend the payroll tax break for a year and he was shut down because the House republicans said, "the House was in recess."

++The U.S. Chamber of Commerce vows to sue the Obama Administration over these appointments. But the George W. Bush legal advisers, with the exception of Torture Memo author Yoo, and noted constitutional scholar Lawrence Tribe side with the administration. In any event, the Republican canididates, who denounced the appointments, clearly oppose consumer protection and labor rights--a real great place to put yourself in 2012. What's probably worse is that Richard Cordray came out firing on his plans to regulate non-bank lenders, who have abused customers.

++In case you missed it, President Obama dealt a death blow to neoconservatives with his announcement of a new defense strategy this week. For the first time, Obama put his mark on national security strategy amd moved away from the George W. Bush strategy, which some of us were uncomfortable with his following. Obama is moving our focus toward the Pacific, the center of economic gravity in the world, and downgrading the ability of the United States to fight prolonged land wars. His strategy comes in the face of severe budget cuts mandated by the failure of the Super Committee to reach an agreement over the debt. But he made a powerful case that defense spending has far outstripped anything over the past ten years and that the United States can adequately defend itself if its defense budget exceeded the first seven of its competitors combined. Interestingly, Steve Clemons was the only D.C. insider who picked up that this resembled Don Rumsfeld's original plan prior to 9/11. But it got howls of criticism from the Republicans but strangely is favored by the Republican grass-roots.

++Keeping on a roll, the President announced a program of Summer Jobs for 180,000 low-income young people and a total of 250,000 summer jobs for the young this summer.

++The President decided that he better give federal workers a slight raise, since they hadn't received one for the last two years.

++The President anounced a reform in Green-Cards, which will prevent families from being separated because one or more them are illegals. It's too complicated for me to understand but it will affect thousands of families. It takes off the sting of Obama's deportation record and only highlights the Republican struggle with the Hispanic vote.

++For me, Secretary of the Interior Salazar extended by twenty years the moratorium on uranium-mining around the Grand Canyon. The proposal for uranium-mining, which the Republicans have been presssing for the last two years, always remined me of the Honeymooners episode when Rakph Kramden invested in uranium mines in my Asbury Park. It was absolutely nuts and the threat to the integrity of the Grand Canyon was constantly shown in study after study. Good move.

++The unemployment rate dropped to 8.5% this week as 220,000 private sector jobs were added. A few brighter spots was that it looks like the drops of public sector jobs, a chronic syndrome caused by cash-strapped states with balance budget amendments, appear to be ending. The job number means that 2011 out performed all but one of George W's years and we have had 22 months straight of private job growth. Whether President Obama will get credit for this remains to be seen. Rick Santorum said the job numbers were the result of Americans believing Republicans will win the next election. And Mitt said he would bring the unemployment rate down to 8.9%--in other words make it go up.

++The Obama administration submitted its court brief to the Supreme Court arguing for the constitutionality of the individual mandate in the Affordable Care Act. This month also kicked in the part of the health care bill that calls for insurance companies to spend 80-85% of their income on actual healthcare and not bonuses for their executives.

Will Santorum Get Sandusky'd

2012-01-07T10:04:00.000-08:00

Rick Santorum actually won the Iowa Caucus because of a counting mistake that gave Romney 20 more votes. But Santorum's rise has only led him back to his fixation on sex. This is a man who spent his Senate career talking about the vagaries of female anatomy and health issues. With the win at his back, he has decided to crank up his old hobby horses.

In New Hampshire, college students challenged him on his assertion that gay sex was similar to man-dog sex. He doubled down on this observation and even said that children were better off with a father in prison than with two mommies, referring to same sex. He explained his absolutism on abortion explaining that banning abortion would solve the Social Security problem. See more younger people more Social Security revenue.

He alarmed his conservative audiences by criticising Ronald Reagan for not solving Social Security once and for all. In fact, Reagan's bipartisan agreement basically put Social Security on a sound financial footing for nearly 75 years. Santorum wants to slash Social Security now, even though it will cause great pain. (Of course, there is no reason to.)

Santorum criticized President Obama wanting "health care for everyone". He thought people with prior conditions should pay more for insurance and that was a penalty for not living a healthy life-style.

This week, hospitals linked to Santorum were accused of conducting exorcisms on a boy with autism. Santorum had also actively supported the charity of Coach Sandusky, who has been arrested again for a string of rapes of under-age young boys.

Santorum explained his position on why birth control should be made illegal. He said that people who think birth control is alright don't realize that using birth control will lead to couples exploring "unnatural" sex acts. I hope a reporter acts dumb and asks whether Santorum could be more explicit in what sex acts he has in mind--because you know he is thinking about them.

Rachel Maddow has done her usual good job in exposing how Santorum while Senator dealt with the sex scandals of his own party. When the cuckholded husband, who had served as a staffer for John Ensign, e-mailed Santorum about the Senator's affair with his wife, Santorum simply send on the e-mail to Ensign as a warning. John Ensign eventually had to resign from the Senate but not until the Ethics Committee was about to drop a bomb on him. Santorum also defended Senator Vitter's behavior with the Washington Madam and the New Orleans Madam. The Madam in New Orleans won the hearts and minds of all political watchers when she said in a soft southern accent "Mr. Vitters wore the most beautiful lingerie I have ever seen."

Santorum has captured the imagination of the Christian Right leaders, who now are asking Newt and Rick Perry to abandon the race and unite behind Santorum. Newt has espoused an alliance with Santorum to stop Mitt Romney. The Santorum upswing has made some pundits break out in fevers. Michael Gerson believes Santorum represents the return of "compassionate conservatism". Charles Krauthammer believes Santorum is a plausible candidate. Even David Brooks tried to make the case for Santorum's social conservatism as some new social ethos. I don't know what they have been smoking but I don't want any of it.

Washington pundits believed--before the South Carolina polls--that Santorum would appeal to the southern voter. But one reporter noted that while northerners have their own stereotypes of South Carolina, it is a state bristling with sophisticated political operatives and they did re-elect Lindsey Graham to the Senate. It's not totally a state of yahoos and the local Republicans are not all evangelicals. In fact, the polling shows the race is more a Romney-Gingrich race.

Both Santorum and Newt Gingrich brag about their roles in Welfare Reform. Their racist dog-whistles are meant to evoke that time. Santorum told the second-whitest state in the union that he would not "improve the lives of blacks at the expense of the taxpayer." Newt said that he would tell the NAACP that instead of food stamps they should ask for paychecks. And Newt loves to call President Obama "the foodstamp President".

Just a FYI--only 1.57% of Americans--that's right 1.57%--are on welfare. Of the millions of Americans who are receiving food stamps, over 70% are white. I humbly suggest Al Sharpton create an African-American support committee for white people. Every time in the 21st century that candidates play the race card, this committee should help whites discover which financial force is trying to pick their pockets. Like much of the social safety net, the problem is they are too weak, not too strong. And the primary beneficiary for them are whites.

Romney's Ride

2012-01-07T09:21:00.000-08:00

Before tonight's debate, all polls point to Romney picking up both New Hampshire and South Carolina. The talk is that Romney is looking for a knockout blow and to wrap the nomination up early.

But this second presidential campaign hasn't improved Romney's style or image. Yesterday, as the employment numbers were released and the unemployment rate was down to 8.5%, Romney promised in his first term to get it down to 8.9%. Dana Milbank wrote a column in the Post the other day that was devastating about the feel of the campaign and Romney's awkwardness around people.

Romney likes to brag about his job creating record versus President Obama's. The problem for him is that he has disowned his record as governor of Massachusetts and now is pining his hopes on the White House as a "successful businessman". The real problem here is that his whole record now is based on his time at Bain Capital. Romney's invitation for his record to be compared to President Obama's only got reporters to start digging into his record at Bain. The results haven't been especially positive. Yes, Romney made millions, the total amount remains unknown because of his refusal to release his tax returns. But the very projects that were the key Romney projects at Bain went belly-up. At this stage of the game, from what I can determine is that at best he had a 40% success rate as a turn-around artist, probably less. I'm sure that's pretty good for that business but it doesn't spark confidence in the man as someone entrusted with an entire country. So far in terms of job creation, it looks like Romney did not create 100,000s of jobs but lose more than he created. And remember he was not a CEO of a business that ever produced anything.

Romney chose this week to outline his tax plans. For the average American family, which now earns $50,000 or less, he would raise taxes. For those making $1 million or more, he would give them a tax cut of $150,000 to $300,000. Just his tax plan alone would increase the debt by $800 billion. As one observer marked, "This is the Bush tax-cuts on steroids." Why would that shock anyone since Romney's financial advisers are all alumni of the George W. administration.

With the exception of Ron Paul, Romney is the only Republican campaign with an organization. But that doesn't look to well-oiled. Yesterday, John McCain continued his campaign appearances for Romney, which can only be called a disaster. In the first appearance, Nikki Haley and Romney had to remind McCain not to endorse Barack Obama, who John said would lead the country back to prosperity. Then at the next stop, which followed McCain's favorite format in 2008, a townhall meeting with McCain with a microphone, John seemed to think he was running for President again and lapsed into his stum speech blasting Mitt Romney as if he was the competitor this time.

The McCain lapses got me to thinking about Romney's recent attacks on President Obama as "A Chicago-style" politician. The more he talked the wayback machine in me kept struggling to find why the reference was familiar. Romney actually was a very active surrogate for McCain last time. Romney wanted to be Vice-President and ate the $45 million he spent on his campaign rather than to ask McCain to bail him out. This got him nowhere but he was showcased as a surrogate attack dogs. Looking back almost all of Romney's lines today against President Obama were used then by Mitt in his surrogate role.

The Republican campaign against President Obama is to contrast the candidate Obama's promises with his performance as President. If the economy keeps on the mend, someone like Mitt Romney is going to have a tough sell if all he has is the time when he got filthy rich at Bain.

Today I saw the frontpage headline for the Washington,D.C. His paper:"Romney:No al Dream Act". In one of his lucid moments,John McCain explained that the GOP had to secure one consituency, which has been lost, namely the Hispanics. If the party doesn't do it, McCain said that Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and maybe Texas were in play. Political operatives have urged Romney to look at Governor Martinez in New Mexico as a possible running mate. But the problem with her is that her issues are education and opportunity, two things Romney hasn't talked about. The Hispanic advisers to George W. simply say that the GOP has lost the Hispanic community at this point. But you can't blame Romney for not trying,Mitt's people managed to get placed an article on Romney's Mexican relatives.

I know I have predicted Romney-Rubio and so has Robert Reich. I think for Romney such a move is too risky given the financial, political and familial problems Rubio has had to face in the last year. Since only Romney and Paul will be on the Virginia ticket and the Attorney-General has backed off correcting the situation, I have a hunch that our Governor McConnell will be the Vice President. He has all the evangelical baggage without acting offensive, is a Southern one-term governor and ,with the stimulus money, he appears to be an economically successful governor. Romney needs to patch up relationships with the social conservative right to make it appear that the party is united.

For the best Romney watcher this year, make regularly visits to Steve Benen at www.washingtonmonthly.com . Steve has been tracking Romney's chronic habit of laying on the campaign trail. On the business of Bain Capital, www.thinkprogress.org and Reuters have been digging things up.

Post Iowa Malaise

2012-01-04T13:29:00.000-08:00

++The loser of the 2008 election, John McCain today endorsed a man whom he despised over the years--Mitt Romney. Sounding ancient, McCain claimed that Romney would not lead from behind (the catchy slam at Obama) but would lead like Ronald Reagan in front. McCain adds to Romney's list of aged Republicans along with Bob Dole and George H.W. Bush. The problem with today's endorsement is that it raises the question whether Romney did in fact vote for Ronald Reagan. He claimed in his Senate race that he had been an independent and didn't want anything to do with Ronald Reagan or George H.W. Bush. The other impression of McCain's speech was that like every other Republican this year he never mentioned George W. Bush. It is incredible this year that throughout the Republican debates you never heard mention that George W. Bush was ever President of the United States.

++It seems Newt is now out for blood. He told conservative talk show host Laura Ingraham that he wanted to form an anti-Romney alliance with Rick Santorum. He says that he and Rick are old friends and that they are reformers and do not like how the establishment disrespects conservatives. It will be interesting to see Newt and Rick tag-team Willard in the weeks ahead. Newt was so peeved by Iowa that he and his lovely bridge Callista fled the state by corporate jet prior to midnight.

++What I thought was a Romney dirty trick--getting Rick Perry to stay in the race--may not be that. Rick Perry took his staff by surprise by announcing he would be competing in South Carolina. The early thinking was that Perry felt he should not quit too early like Tim Pawlenty, who now backs Romney. Keeping conservatives splintered benefits Romney but if Perry's statements are to be believed he will be slugging at Romney. So while Romney benefits from the conservative splits, he will be too bloodied from the fighting.

++Labeled conservative elites, it seems that Gary Bauer, Rev. Dobson and Rev. Weldmon have flown to Texas to cook up a way to stop Romney getting the nomination. As Newt so aptly said this morning,"Romney is a timid moderate, who has been rejected by 75% of the party."

++Newt Gringrich was deeply offended last night when Ron Paul called him a chickenhawk. I expect we will see more of this from Paul as he tries to rally his Love Revolution in New Hampshire. But what really interested me was a piece in Buzzfeed, which showed a photo of a young Mitt Romney organizing protestors against the anti-war protests at Stanford University. Mitt at the time had a draft deferment because he was a "minister of his religion" and later student deferments. Buzzfeed has been documenting Mitt Romney's rather luxurious missionary days in Paris, staying in a Chateau, which is now the embassy of the UAE.

++Rick Santorum still retains his bizarre social conservative beliefs such as outlawing birth control but he is trying to sell a blue collar populism and now speaks of being the son of an Italian immigrant, who worked in the coal mines until he was 75. The one aspect of his campaign that has drawn attention is his emphasis on restoring American manufacturing. None of the other candidates have mentioned this. Where this gets him in a libertarian leaning New Hampshire and the deep South is another matter.

++ Herman Cain beat out Buddy Roemer in the Iowa Caucus. Maybe he will have Michelle Bachmann on as a co-host when he gets his Fox gig.

++Richard Cohen, the Washington Post columnist, used the name of this blog "In another country" to describe his feelings about the GOP and their candidates. He felt he was observing the folkways of "another country" and not the lifestyles of Americans. There is alot of truth to this as the Republican candidates sound and even look like they are from somewhere else. Alot of this is the result of existing inside their own media bubble called Fox and actually believing the things they tell each other. For example, it is totally bizarre to hear presidential candidates proclaim they will ignore Supreme Court rulings they disagree with,make war on Iran as the first option and repeal all the financial reforms done by the Obama Administration. This is like hearing people who have ignored what happened to the country in the years 2008 and afterwards. They come off unhinged.

Obama Sticks It In Their Ear

2012-01-04T12:52:00.000-08:00

For the past three years, Senate Republicans and their House colleagues have resorted to symbolic sessions so that the President can not make recess appointments. Two of the latest examples have been the refusal to allow Richard Cordray, the former Attorney-General of Cleveland, to be appointed to head the new Consumer Protection Agency, and the three Democratic nominations for the National Labor Relations Board. In Cordray's case, it was because Republicans objected to the creation of the Consumer Protection Agency from the beginning and did not want it to become operative until significant changes were made to water down its powers. For the National Labor Relations Board, it was to neutralize the entity because it needs at least three members to decide issues.

Today President Obama in Cleveland announced the appointment of Richard Cordray to head the Consumer Agency. If you remember, the original popular choice for this position was Elizabeth Warren but Republicans overtly stated they would never approve her confirmation. Cordray, however, was strongly supported by Elizabeth Warren before she left government.

And only hours later President Obama appointed the three nominees to the National Labor Relations Board. Beneath the surface, there have been several legal reports suggesting that the President has the power to recess appointments even if and especially if Congress is only symbolically in session.

The idea is that Congress is trying to prevent the President from carrying out his constitutional duties. In the case of these two agencies,it is unprecedented for a minority party to block qualified appointments simply because they object to the existence of a legally approved agency of government. Observers were waiting for President Obama to act on these nominations believing he would have done it on Holiday. But he chose the moment when symbolically the Senate was in session, although it was not meeting on any act of governing.

Naturally Mitch McConnell and John Boehner were outraged at this "unprecedented act" and vowed to seek redress in the courts. Neither man would admit that President Obama has resorted to recess appointments less than any of his most recent predecessors. from the President's point of view, this was an adroit move. It forces Republicans in an election year to oppose the Consumer Protection Agency and for blue collar workers it shows that Republicans oppose labor with the appointments of the three Democrats to the National Labor Relations Board.

The latter has become an ideological point of conflict with the new Congress ,who believes the National Labor Relations Board is too favorable to labor, even though it has been without Democrats and any one representing labor for a long time. In fact, it was George W. Bush who appointed almost all Republicans and a few former Democrats to the board to tilt it toward business.

We can hear the screaming around town. But this is one of the few ways President Obama can produce on his promises while Congress is mired in obstructionism. Already the Senate has set an all-time record for filibusters, in fact more times than used altogether in American history. Does Obama benefit politically from this. Of course, he does.

It's worth noting that Theodore Roosevelt got this practice down to a science when he made recess appointments during 12 hour increments when Congress was in temporary recess or sessions had been adjourned.

Dog On Car Inches Out Man On Dog--Iowa

2012-01-04T07:58:00.000-08:00

How bad was it? How would you like the headline,"Romney squeezes out Santorum from behind?" The pundits said that Romney finishing 1, 2 or 3 would be a win. But Romney barely winning by single digits was a loss. He didn't even get a prime time address. It was so bad that the Romney people arranged for John "Get Off My Lawn" McCain to endorse him in New Hampshire to pick up positive media.

Romney did not reach the number he won in Iowa in 2008 and pathetically it was the Romney people who had to call the county caucus leader to get the final results for him to eek out the win--not the state party chairman. I thought Romney even made his wife Ann look bad when he had her become a political figure making remarks.

The lack of enthusiasm at the Caucus was commented on by all the journalists. This is the Party that believes defeating Obama is a Do or Die Moment for the Republic and they had less Republicans voting in the Caucus than in 2008. Democrats and independents made up the slight increase over that year. The gender breakdown was revealing--57% men 43% women. While shots of the Democratic caucus revealed vastly more women and younger people. Only Ron Paul drew younger voters.

Republican spin experts on Diane Riehm tried to portray Romney's win as significant saying that the Iowa Caucus was more right-wing than the rest of the primaries. But the details of last night showed that the Caucus goers were only 36% born-again Christians, more moderate and well-to-do than past years. In other words, this year's Iowa Caucus was different from the past. For $10 million and having run in Iowa before and having an organization when only Ron Paul had one,Romney could not reach 25%. His win was the lowest percentage victory in Iowa Caucus history. It was so bad that Barack Obama was only 5,000 behind Romney and he hadn't been in the state.

Romney's best hope today is that Michelle Bachmann's press conference will overshadow any statement by him. Meanwhile Rick Perry has gone home to think about things. But Newt is raring to go. Even Jon Huntsman got off a tweet last night that Romney would be the best representative of the bankers.

Remember Romney just got a 6 vote victory over a man who wants to make birth control illegal and wants to invade Iran. Borowitz tweeted last night that Romney must feel bad sitting between a lawn gnome (Ron Paul) and a man against man-dog marriages. In other words, the Caucus diminished Romney further. There is no spin around that.

The conservatives firewall is South Carolina and now it looks like Newt will be the only Southerner in the race and now Newt wants to make the race personal. He still is in the lead in South Carolina. For Romney I believe he has to be near 50% in New Hampshire to re-start the inevitability theme. Oddly enough Bill Kristol commented last night that Romney's performance in Iowa hurt his inevitability theme and the idea he was electable. If you can't soundly beat a man who you can't google, what will you do against Barack Obama?

Andrew Sullivan last night was live-blogging and coming to the defense of the young people for Ron Paul. I thought Ron Paul looked and acted senile last night and left the strange comment,"No one has ever done a poll about the Gold Standard." Even Frank Luntz noted that at the Romney gathering there were no young people and that no blue collar voters and that the GOP can't leave them all to Obama. But the other aspect of this was that the young people for Paul were all young white males--no women.

An interesting factoid of last night was that none of the candidates ever set foot in the one Iowa town that had a majority Hispanics. Maybe by voter suppression, the GOP can limit the electorate to white, relatively wealthy and elderly people. That's what the process is looking like.

The immediate take-away from last night is that there is no there there. David Frum this morning tried to portray a Mitt Romney presidency as a centrist one where he would retain most of Obamacare and not be radical in dismantling the safety net. But I think that is delusional because I do not believe a GOP candidate can pivot immediately away from extreme right positions to the center. It's not your father's Republican Party anymore. The other take-away is that there is no way Romney can generate any enthusiasm for his candidacy and that hating Barack Obama is not enough to win.

Who won last night? Dan Savage and Barack Obama

I Think I Got The Message

2012-01-03T11:49:00.000-08:00

After a dozen debates and listening to the Iowa appearances by candidates, I think I have the core Republican message down: "Barack Obama is bad". For variations, you can riff on Santorum saying he's "anti-American" or Romney, who always gives us a double dose of Hate Obama talk. Romney claimed that Obama wants to create a social welfare state like in Europe. Can we vote on this idea? Then he claims that Obama is responsible for the loss of 2 million jobs, and the closing of car dealerships because he saved the car industry. Huh?!

For the record, we have had 22 straight months of private sector job gains and the economy is in its best shape in six years. But Romney will take his record of creating 100,000 at Bain Capital. Of course, like his governorship of Massachusetts, there are no such records validating that claim. Romney even said he would stand on his record of job-creation in Massachusetts, where he was 47 out of 50 in the country,only missing 48th because of Hurricane Katrina.

But this is the argument from the GOP front-runner. Up is down. Down is Up. Strength is weakness. Peace is war. And frankly, I have times when the constant repetition of the Obama hate will actually influence the election. But there are other times that I remember 2008 and thinking then that the media really didn't have much influence despite the hype, the aftermath of books claiming the media was for Obama,etc. On the eve of the Iowa vote, I have no feeling whether the general voters believe this shit being said by Willard.

This is the case for Willard: "Make me President because I turned around Staples." That's it. Full stop. If you believe someone who made Staples profitable again should be the leader of the Free World, then do your thing. Then we can encourage other management consultants to run in the future. "I'm Bob, I turned around Best Buy. I can turn this country around using basic commonsense business principles, too." Man, how low do you go.

Romney's closing argument in Iowa is that he is the man who can beat the evil President Obama and save the soul --as a Mormon, that's a hoot--of the country. The reason Romney believes Obama is evil is that he letting loose his Mormonism. His father denounced the racism of his own religion but Romney has assimilated it. Black people are the people of Ham, cursed, according to the fictitious Book of Abraham written by Joseph Smith.

I was at the University of Chicago when some poor Mormon scholar shipped the original Egyptian papyrii that Smith translated to the Chicago Oriental Institute. The problem was, as the experts soon discovered,the fragments were funeral epitaphs and there was no mention of Abraham, Ham or anything Smith made up. But Romney is channeling the earliest teachings he heard in going after Obama. He no longer pretends anymore that Obama is just a well-meaning guy over his head as his condescending attitudes earlier reflected.

Maybe this is a winning message during a time of high anxiety. Blame the President. Put an extremely rich white man back in the office and all our troubles go away. Because if the Republican candidates believe they have made a winning argument on policy, they are dead wrong.

Even the extremely conservative Republicans in Iowa are beginning to sound baffled by these characters trapsing around their landscape. With a low 5.7% unemployment rate, hearing talk about restructing unemployment insurance as Romney argued or drug-testing unemployment recipients, doesn't make sense to people in Iowa. Rick Santorum pledging in the second whitest state in the uinion not to "improve the lives of black people with taxpayer money" sounds goofy. Then we have the great theater of Rick Perry blasting Frothy Mix Santorum as being "pro-gay" or Ron Paul accusing Santorum of being a "liberal". This is beyond the rhetoric of reality television.

The only thing that was sensible in the last few days was Newt protesting that Romney is a liar, a very slick and dangerous liar at that. It's really no wonder that over 40% of Iowa Republicans may change their mind at the last moment. None of them are satisfied with the field. They are trying to talk themselves into accepting Willard but are uncomfortable with his "elitism" and his condescending attitude.

Reporters flying in and have been capturing some of the strangeness of the whole affair. The BBC reporter talked about America's frustrations of being a superpower but not being able to afford it anymore. Leftwing bloggers have found out that the drill, Baby, drill mantra doesn't seem to resonate because Iowa long-ago went to alternative fuels and that citizens are earning thousands by hosting large wind farms to generate local power. Chris Matthews at Java Joe's had a caniption when he learned that most of the locals there were going to vote for Obama and then he found two lonely souls who might vote for Romney.

I just can't wait until all these characters show up in Florida. I want to hear Mitt explain his draconian immigration policy. "I can't hire illegals, I'm running for office for Pete's Sake." One of the problems is that the Republicans do not think of themselves anymore as a national policy. They have written off whole segments of our society so they do not have to address anyone except the extremely wealthy. There is still very little discussion about the fate of the middle class. The middle-class is supposed to be captured by appealing to social issues, not economic ones. So even if you manage to win office at a national level, you have already narrowed the population you pretend to represent. So it is funny to see Republicans complain about Ron Paul's association with White Supremacists--that's the logical conclusion of their focus as they leave one group after another group after another behind.

New Year Resolution For Politicians

2012-01-03T10:40:00.000-08:00

To save alot of trouble, debate and polarization, there are alot of issues which can be dealt with by doing nothing.

All these issues are interesting and thought-provoking, but the first law should be do no harm.

Concerned about a large federal government? Don't be. The Baby-Boomers are retiring in droves after two years of Recession. Now the USG can't even process all the pensions on time. Wait two years and we will have an urgent need to hire more government workers.

The National Deficit get to you? Just let the Bush tax-cuts expire and end the Afghanistan war a year sooner. The deficit disappears and hopefully more revenue will come in with a recovering economy.

Energy Independence? We are now exporting oil at a rate greater than at anytime in 50 years. All the available oil and gas rigs are being used. There is a rush to rehabilitate old ones. The Obama Administration has quadrupled alternative energy sources in public lands and there is a boom in the solar energy and wind sectors. Even without the XL pipeline, the United States looks to be energy independent within 4 years. So don't mess it up.

Illegal Immigration? Has dwindled to a trickle because of the Recession and the deportations. Now it is a wash in terms of economic affect on the country. Should there be immigration reform? Probably but nothing constructive will happen. So let it be.

Social Security? Don't touch it. It will last 36 more years paying out 100%. If we ever get sane politicians back, you can easier amend it so it will last another 75 to 100 years. The only ones talking about Social Security are ideologues who would love to destroy it.

Medicare? The Affordable Care Act actually cuts Medicare costs and provides for cracking down on fraud. Keep the Affordable Care Act and then see what happens after 2014.

Gay Marriage? If you are against it, don't marry a gay. All the efforts by NOM and homophobes will come to naught. In the meantime, alot of taxpayer funds will be spent trying to defend the Defence of Marriage Act, which two Reagan apointed judges has already ruled unconstitutional.

Voter Fraud? The RNC came up with a whopping 350 cases nationally of voter fraud. Maine, New Mexico and Wisconsin, who adopted new Voter ID systems,have admitted there is hardly any evidence of voter fraud. Not even enough to hit half of a percent. Presumably, we would like more citizens to vote in a democratic process. Just leave the process alone.

Federated funded abortions? House Republicans spent most of 2010 outlawing every kind of federally funded abortion. They have no existed since the Hyde Amendment over 20 years ago. Don't even think about it.

Drug Testing for recipients of unemployment insurance. You pay for your unemployment insurance. You are entitled to it. In the states where there is drug testing. Those who flunk are between 3 and 6 %. The costs of drug testing far outweigh the benefits these people would receive. It's a waste of time and money.

I am sure you can add to my list. But those are a few issues where I urge people to do nothing.

Polls That Matter

2012-01-02T11:05:00.000-08:00

If you read this blog, you may not be part of the 1% but you are part of the 6%. That's right. According to a new 60Minutes/Vanity Fair poll only 6% of Americans knew that Mitt Romney's real first name was actually Willard. 20% thought his name really was Mitt, while 18% picked Mitchell and 8% chose Milton.

How would Romney's poll numbers look if people really knew his name was Willard? Isn't Willard a rat? But these are things we all have a right and a duty to know.

Will his name on the ballot read Willard?

Countdown to Iowa

2012-01-02T07:16:00.000-08:00

We heard yesterday from Ann Selzer and now it's the PPP poll. Ron Paul at 20, Romney at 19, Santorum at 18, Gingrich at 14 and Rick Perry at 10. Interestingly in the crosstabs of the poll, Romney has only 12% of the tea party vote. The thinking is that Romney wins if the tea party doesn't coalesce around a single candidate. But the poll looks like you could have a four-way tie, which would be fun.

And you know what? None of this matters. The Iowa Caucus has literally no effect on how the delegates are divided. Republican delegates from Iowa are under no rules to even consider the Caucus results.

Steve Benen is back at Washington Monthly and he suggests that whenever Romney gets pressed he always invokes the line he is a "businessman". This time in response to the challenge by Santorum. Steve suggests the Romney people must have put that line through a focus group because to many of us it sounds hollow. I would even argue it is not accurate but that's just me. The other taunt is that his opponents are "career politicians". But Romney started to run for office in 1994 and has been running ever since for something. So does that make him a "failed career politician"?

Romney decided to go back to the 2008 game plan. Remember when John McCain attacked Barack Obama as being like Paris Hilton? Now Romney claims that Obama's promises are the same as those of Kim Kardashian's, alluding to her marriage vows. The subtext of these attacks are not just to cast doubts on President Obama's promises, which he has fulfilled more than I ever thought possible, but to ridicule Obama's manhood. This is an old ally tactic of Republicans. I guess that's why they pretend to be Alpha Males threatening to bomb everyone. Threatening war is muy macho as Laurie Anderson used to say.

I would suggest Ron Paul's continued strong support in Iowa is not for his fruity libertarian beliefs but his criticism of foreign policy. If you remember, historically Republican isolationism was based in the Midwest and proclamations of further war, especially after Iraq, don't wear well in the cornfields.

What happens after Iowa? If Romney doesn't top his usual 23-25%, then the process will be longer than he thinks. It means the anti-Mitt faction is still strong and resilient. Michelle Bachmann and Rick Perry have already said they would skip New Hampshire and move directly to South Carolina. South Carolina becomes the maginot line of the anti-Mitt forces. Historically, South Carolina defines the ultimate nominee.

The Conservative base is actually beginning to worry that they are looking at another 2008 and that Mitt Romney is a pale shadow of John McCain. The conservative analysis of 2008 is that McCain was a RHINO and that the only enthusiasm for the ticket was generated by Sarah Palin. With Romney the base will be less enthused even though all Republicans literally hate President Obama.

E.J. Dionne in today's Washington Post raises questions about whether President Obama can muster the almost messianic energy he did in 2008 and whether the disappointments of liberals and progressives with him will actually harm his chances of re-eletion as a mere mortal. The counter story to that is the behind the scenes planning going on at the Chicago headquarters of the Obama campaign. Without a primary challenge, Team Obama has been conducting alot of trial runs of their new technology and their grass-roots organization. They are claiming they are already in states where none of the Republican campaigns ,especially Romney's, even exist. Small donors exceed the 2008 levels now and volunteers top the numbers reached in the last campaign. But the Obama campaign is banking on a razor-thin election.

Meanwhile the RNC proudly boasts compiling 500 pages of opposition research on President Obama's statements and promises and plan to run Barack Obama ,the candidate in 2008 against the President of 2012. This seems to be behind the Romney strategy of attacking all his opponents with their own statements and skipping away without receiving return shots.

Iowa got to see over the weekend groups of people who were laid off or fired because of Bain Capital's restructuring their businesses. While this was successfully used during Ted Kennedy's campaign against Romney in the early 1990s,I didn't think this would be as successful this time around. But Romney's people stepped right into it by accusing these people of being types of "Communists, questioning the capitalist system". Now that reaction is not going to go over well.

One very strange element of the Republican race is that the front-runner is never attacked. Anyone who challenges Mitt Romney is sudenly attacked and deluged by attack ads but Romney isn't. The only one who has consistently attacked Mitt Romney has been Jon Huntsman and the DNC. This is very odd.

After seeing Mayor Bloomberg dance with Lady Gaga on New Year's Eve, I wonder what would happen if Bloomberg is the nominee of American Elect, which promises to be on the ballot in 50 states. Bloomberg actually was a businessman and he even has his Bloomber machine to brag about. What is Bloomberg's line to Mitt Romney's claim of being a businessman," I know businessmen, some are my best friends are businessmen, and Willard , you are no businessman."

An interesting theme for this year will be the third party candidates. We have gary Johnson as a libertarian. Rocky Anderson ,the mayor of Salt Lake City, running as a progressive. And Ralph Nader talking about an alliance with Ron Paul. Then with American Elect, how does the election look? Paul Begala predicted that third party candidates would receive 9% of the popular vote. Interesting.

Happy New Year! The Fourth Year of this Blog

2012-01-01T10:24:00.000-08:00

++ To get up to date on Iowa, J.Ann Selzer--the Des Moines Register's version of Nate Silver--finished her Caucus poll, which showed it Willard at 24, Paul at 21 and Santorum at 16. But Ms. Selzer gives a heads up as her last two days of polling showed Forthy Mix had the momentum. Ms. Selzer won her fame by calling Barack Obama's last minute burst to win the 2008 Iowa Caucus. She says that Santorum has moved into second place and is neck and neck with Romney. Democratic observers recalled when John Kerry came from nowhere to beat Howard Dean in 2004. The last two days are critical for the Caucus.

++Rick Santorum has been playing a strange game in Iowa. Yesterday, he vowed he would bomb Iran--that's the new GOP mantra--and then he went on about how we shouldn't celebrate diversity because diversity brings conflict.

++Last night I wanted to scream when I read that Mitt Romney would veto any federal DREAM ACT. That's the bill which gave young illegals who served in our military or went on to college a fast track toward legalization. Buried in Romney's remarks were the phrase that college education was a privilege--not an investment as some of us think. The remark opened the door once again to the highly privileged world of Mitt Romney. It also showed that he has been consistent on only one issue the whole primary--deporting illegal immigrants.

++As the New Year came in last night, I realized that my frustration with our present system and those wanting to lead the country is the amazing lack of political imagination, the total inability to envision a political future for this country, which citizens can adopt and embrace. I've written constantly about the retrograde views of the GOP and this desire to return to the Golden Age of America, which coincides with the Golden Age of Television. Within the Republican base, there is a tangible longing for that imaginary America. Forget the repressive atmosphere that existed then or the gross inequalities that plagued the country at that time, the myth of that past is alluring to a vast number of Americans. There is no rationalizing it or dismissing it. The stunning comeback of the Right over the last two years, which Thomas Frank writes about,is based on this fake nostalgia, strangely a nostalgia for a time when the top marginal tax rate was 90%, the union movement was strong, and that the government was actually larger per capita than now. But none of these elements are acknowledged and people actually believe that the 1950s and early 1960s were more libertarian than now, more religious than now, and more nationalist than now. This is pure political escapism and the GOP presidential contenders are adroitly playing on this. But there is real and present danger to our society if this attitude is adopted and someone actually governs with this in mind.

++The United States has to get a grip on its own reality again before it can plausibly argue that it can lead the world. We have not been an homogeneous country--ever. The reason Finland has a higher standard of education than the United States is not because it is ethnically monolithic but because it has a more equal distribution of wealth and also opportunities. We are not broke as Republicans like to say. Basically, the United States' GDP has again reached its pre-Recession high and is still the richest country in the world. But the average per capital income of our citizens is now below Canada. The United States must now compete in the world of global economics. That doesn't mean we are inevitably decline. It's just we can't dictate to the world the terms of that competition. It means that the United States has to make some fundamental decisions about what type of society it wants to become--not what it was.

++Here I need to hear a Futuroma Type Speech from President Obama, who actually understands these things, or from a Republican. We need the Vision Thing as George H.W. Bush used to call it. I am concerned that the President will just spend 2012 rallying against Congress, which now has the awesome approval rating of 5%. Just extending the payroll tax cut and unemployment insurance is not the platform to get the Mojo back into the system. The President has to swing for the fences and outline how American is going to move to the next phase of our future. This means talking about the next transition from our dirty energy independence (sometime in the next four years) to more alternative energy, from a manufacturing recovery to the next phase in our manufacturing, and from our low point in education to a point of excellence in all fields. And, no, the market will not get us there unfettered by regulation and government controls.

++Both parties view this next election as a cross-roads for America, a do-or-die moment for the future of the country. The only way one party will triumph is if it can articulate a future and a future built through practical programs which Americans can buy into. It's not enough for the Democrats to run against the Republicans as representing the rich, although in this election year this has become abundantly clear. Nor can Democrats just run on protecting the social safety net, which they are justifiably proud of their role in creating. Nor can they simply point to Obama's first two and half years of extraordinary achievements, it still gets down to what have you done for me lately. The campaign has to be waged against the fictional history being perpetrated by the Right about how America actually became prosperous and relatively freer than other countries. The temptation will be for both parties to retreat to argue over what things the both sides are prepared to preserve. That is not a vision of the future.

++President Obama is running in a Catch 22 situation. The previous administration was responsible for the total collapse of our economic system but the effects weren't felt until Obama took office. That is why Romney and the Republicans campaign without any feelings of guilt against Obama as if he worsened the situation. I do know of people who Joe Biden criticizes who suffer from selective amnesia about this. But even still the return to pre-2007 America is not a worthy vision in itself. America had lost its manufacturing base, it had existed on bubbles in various fields, and it had an economy based on FIRE--Finance, Insurance and Real Estate. It had to collapse but what do we replace it with? Here President Obama has to articulate his vision of the economic future of the country. Otherwise, the political debate will devolve into a debate on preserving the old economy, which could never get us to the future. It was a recipe for rapid decline.

++Last night since my wife and son were visiting friends and relatives, I watched a presentation about our national security by two Pentagon officials, who had spent two years developing a new model for American security. The good news is that our military has extraordinary brainpower;the bad news is that brainpower is dealing with issues that our politicians have not even begun to assimilate. The presentation revolved around using the Hiesenberg Uncertainty principle to develop a framework for dealing with the future. For the two presenters, the two key components were prosperity and security. But security they argued had to be consistent with our own self-understanding of our principles and core values. They argued that a national security doctrine can not be developed just to ward off every imaginable threat but it had to be sustainable and exhibit a national resilience. Their view was that we are about to begin a new phase in human civilization, a phase that is being foreshadowed by the developments in information technology. America can lead that future but it must start to understand it. They argued that we have not recovered from the containment theories of the Cold War but have just adopted new versions of it without rethinking its basic premises for today's world. They warned that if we do not begin to think anew we will be hunkered down in a lose-lose situation where we are focused on only protecting the past from threats from the future. We will not be able to get out of our social and political bind.

One of the interesting side remarks of these two was that because you pay or have money doesn't make you a citizen. It makes you a renter. You have no ownership in your society and country. You have to get involved and you have to be willing to pay the price for change. Otherwise, we will not move forward. Nice sentiment.

++I've always maintained that President Obama would only be able to stabilize and save the old economy, while putting down some of the green shoots for the future economy. What he needs to do is recap some of his stated goals on manufacturing,etc. and bring the country up to date on these things. Ignored by our media has been the slight recovery of our manufacturing base and the goal that Obama would double exports by 2014. Likewise, the fiasco over Solyandra has clouded the fact that the solar industry has doubled its capacity over the last two years. Instead, we get the litany of stories about Chinese progress in science and technology, without the negatives about their economy and political science. I remember when East Germany was touted as the most thriving economy in the world, something it never was or was even close to. But the country needs to hear about progress in these areas.

++We also need this year to hear Obama's vision for his foreign policy. We have heard the foreign policy of the Republicans--Bomb Iran and do anything Israel wants. The rest of planet Earth has been missing. David Ignatius wrote a piece about the need for Obama to articulate this vision because it was not good enough to say you are better than George W. Bush. In fact, the President has a very good record on foreign policy. But he must locate the United States and integrate how our going forward links with the broader vision of the United States in the world. This has been done rather off camera by the Obama Administration. You only get inklings of the change in foreign policy from critics on the Left. They rightfully note that Obama is moving the center of gravity for foreign policy toward Asia, citing the free trade agreements, the visit by Secretary of State Clinton to Burma, the creation of a military presence in Australia. But they argue this is all a product of a strategy of containment against China and some strange politics of oil. If President Obama can articulate moving the center of gravity of foreign policy to the most active areas of the global economy, I believe people will be relieved not to hear about the Middle East.

++The Obama administration should not get trapped into a situation where the President's sole accomplishments are cleaning up the tremendous mess left behind by the last President. This leads nowhere and only allows future Presidents to return to that sorry place.

++And lastly, Happy New Year to all those people around the world who fought, sacrificed and died struggling for freedom.

Thank You, Helen Frankenthaler

2011-12-31T13:13:00.000-08:00

Yes, painter Helen Frankenthaler did influence Morris Louis and Kenneth Noland when she perfected a technique of pouring pigment directly on canvas. This later became known as Color Field painting. She would pour turpentine-thinner paint in washes onto raw canvas so it soaked into the weave. And, yes, Helen Frankenthaler was considered a second-generation Abstract expressionist. And yes,the painting that secured her fame was "Mountains and Seas", painted in 1952 and now hangs at the National Gallery of Art.

But none of this is why I liked Helen Frankenthaler. In fact, I think the facts mentioned above don't begin to do her paintings and lithographs justice. I guess you have to bring in her marriage to Robert Motherwell, her relationship with Clement Greenberg, her upper-class background and her Bennington years and that for her first museum show Frank O'Hara wrote the catalog to create the appropriate geneaology.

But I loved her painted screens. She took a common fixture and made it a work of art. I also loved all her painting after 1980. I felt it was richer and exhibited a depth of talent missing in her earlier works. I also loved her lithographs, etchings and screen prints. In the 1970s, she reintroduced woodcuts to their former place and revolutionized the techniques of the medium.

In my view, almost all her later work surpassed her early and middle years when she was known as one of the originals, one of those who graced the studios with the great Abstract Expressionists.

This has been a hard year for losing some of my favorites--Cy Twombley, Lucien Fraud and now Helen Frankenthaler. Thank you all. You've made my life alot richer.

Must Reading Before the 2012 Elections

2011-12-31T11:31:00.000-08:00

Thomas Frank of "What's the Matter with Kansas?" fame is back with a new book that deserves a read so one can understand the bizarre and surprising comeback of the right in the United States. Pity the Billionaire:The Hard-Times swindle and the Unlikely Comeback of the Right (Metropolitan Books.) Thinner than his previous contributions, Frank reviews the reasons for the 2008 financial collapse and how and why conservatives didn't retreat but adopted an almost pure view of free market economics. Some of the issues I've written on in past posts--like the strange view conservatives hold that none of the past Republican administrations were conservative enough or embraced free market economics. In an age when our financial institutions were de-regulated and labor unions were eviscerated, how psychologically do you get to the point of blaming regulations and the government for the collapse of the economy, except if you say they didn't act--which was true. But to read the worst economic situation since the Depression as the clarion call to unfettered free market capitalism as the solution is very bizarre.

Frank does an excellent job is walking the reader through the strange mindset of the New Right and how its ideological commitment is very much like utopian leftists during the last Depression. Reality need not intrude. Frank is especially good on busting the myth of small business as a job creator since American small businesses have dramatically dwindled in size so that they are not that significant factor in our economy. He is also good about how the technocrats have failed us and how they provided the Greek chorus for the last generation of bubbles and derivatives and stock speculation.

Frank also writes how the Tea Party was an astro-turf movement created by insiders who were precisely the same people who brought the system down in the first place. Frank also takes up the issue that permeates his Wrecking Crew--how conservatives lost their way by monetizing their movement. He cites chapter and verse how people like Richard Viguerie and others made the Tea Party into a money-making venture.

There is a psychopathology to all this that few ever call out these people on. Frank refers to them as the depression people, people who now eulogize those people who went through the Depression as a type of spiritual renewal. In other words, the Right does not believe that the situation of the American people should be ameliorated in anyway but excerbated so that a purer American will emerge. The Forgotten Man is the businessman and that he alone symbolizes civic virtue. This helps explain how in a time of Depression Ayn Rand and Fountainhead makes an improbable comeback. A doctrine based on the virtue of selfishness becomes the supreme value. As Frank points out, any policy recommended by the New Right will have even more calamitous results than the previous supply-side economics.

Theda Skocpol and Vanessa Williamson's The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism (Oxford) is one of the few accounts of the tea party phenomenon, which is based on extensive fieldwork and interviews of local tea party leaders throughout the country. The two authors basically divide their findings up into the actual grassroots movement, the Koch-funded and corporate financed activities and the media coverage of the Tea Party via Fox News. What they found is that the media and the corporate funded components are at odds with the basic grassroots components of the Tea Party. They found what others have concluded that the Tea Party grassroots types are very conservative Republicans,better educated than most Americans, middle class or above and enjoying retirement, pensions, social security and Medicare. If you will, there is a generational warfare part of this phenomenon.

The authors found that the tea party types were not inherently racist, although very extreme right elements crept into local structures, and were dominated by small business types, who did identify with large corporate interests. The latter seems strange but the tea partiers felt that both elements of the private sector encountered the same problems and of course they were caused by Government and government regulation.

Their fixation was on the national debt and even though they were in part a reaction to George W. Bush, the prime target of their anumus is Barack Obama, who is "not one of us." On social issues, they are all over the map. Generally the identification of the tea party types with the religious right occurs according to region--particularly in the South. This book actually makes one understand how the campaign managers for Michelle Bachmann could easily switch sides to Ron Paul, something that would seem incompatible.

This book helped me understand how the tea party people will vote for Mitt Romney, precisely for the reasons many Americans will not--he's superrich from a field of dubious merit, doesn't pay alot of taxes, wants to eliminate corporate taxes and wants to cut out Medicare for younger people. In short, Mitt is what all the teabaggers aspire to.

The last must read is not about today except by historical analogy. Sally Denton The Plots against the President: FDR, A Nation In Crisis and the Rise of the American Right (Bloomsbury Press). It's hard to believe in the 21st century that American political leaders and captains of industry wants believed the most successful leader in the world was Benito Mussolini. At the tale end of the Hoover Administration, there was concern throughout the political system that American democracy was no longer viable and that America needed an El Duce to make it through the Depression. Sally Denton does a wonderful job of capturing the inadequacies of Herbert Hoover, the noblesse oblige of FDR, the atmosphere which fueled the rise of the radical Right with Father Coughlin and the populist Left with Huey Long. The book first explains the plot by Guiseppe Zangara, an Italian anarchist, who tried to shoot President-elect Roosevelt and ended up killing the Mayor of Chicago. Then the book details the Wall Street Putsch and the plot to involve two-time Medal of Honor winner Smedley Butler in "neutralizing FDR" and making him a figurehead President to be run by the likes of Howard Pew, Dow Chemical and insurance companies. While we read Seven Days in May in our youth, little did we know that it was based on a real plot during the FDR administration.

Denton's book recalls the rhetoric used against FDR, which is very similar to that used against President Obama. FDR was a socialist, a Communist, a fascist and under the control of Jewish bankers. And he was of the American elite so Barack Obama shouldn't complain. Also, the attacks on FDR from the Left remind one of the criticism of Barack Obama by liberals. And Denton does a great job in portraying FDR's cool, his noblesse oblige and his nonchalence in dealing with those demanding immediate answers to the country's crisis. I sympathize with those around FDR who found the waiting nerve-wracking. It's alot like people with high expectations of President Obama, wondering what he's going to do with the GOP obstructionism.

This short book reminds us that American democracy is not a sure thing,that it has been under seige many times in our history and frequently the most powerful were tempted to sacrifice it for their own good. What struck me was what temptations FDR avoided. Denton portrays a group of the leading bankers waiting on the new President to urge him to nationalize all the banks, something unheard of today. Like in the current financial crisis, the President did save the big banks and gradually restored the solvency of regional banks, much to the displeasure of the Left. At the same time, the wealthier classes were urging FDR to become a dictator like Mussolini, which he would not do even though he loved executive power.

And then there are the powerful monied interests. They thought FDR was a weak character, who could be bent to their purposes. They actually believed--during the two, not one coup attempt--that FDR would just succumb to their pressure and OK their plans to take over the government.

A good read and a reminder of where the most pernicious elements of the Right came from.

Last Call For Iowa

2011-12-31T10:10:00.000-08:00

++The best poll I saw had four candidates tied with 17%. The Republican race has so turned me off that I hope they all tie.

++Newt Gingrich cried yesterday when talking about his mother. This did in Ed Muskie and then was seen as a liability for Hillary Clinton. But there has been no pushback on Newt for this. But hearing the remarks,you have to wonder if Newt was forced to consider long-term care, bipolar disorder, and alzheimer's as he said, then why does he not have any policies that address these things? Presumably, one's personal experience shapes your policy choices. For instance, the issue of why Barack Obama pressed his healthcare reform had less to do with ideology than the memory of his terminally ill mother filling out insurance forms. Why don't we see this type of response among the Republicans?

++Doug Bandow of the CATO Institute finally stood up for Ron Paul's foreign policy statements at www.huffingtonpost.com and criticized the other candidates for simply following down the GOP line of the last decade, which led to the reckless loss of life, national bankruptcy and the militarization of our society.

++Mitt's son thought he would be cute and say that his father would release his tax returns when President Obama would release his birth certificate and his grades. Nice try, punk. President Obama tweeted that Mitt's son probably didn't buy the Obama 2012 mug with the birth certificate printed on the back. The Obama campaign fund-raised all day long on this idiocy. Mitt's son then tweeted,"My bad." He was just making a bad joke.

++But Mitt's tax returns are no joke. He actually told Andrea Mitchell that he might release his tax returns after he became President. Is it just me or does anyone else find Romney a condescending little rich guy who believes he doesn't have to play by the rules? The DNC released an internet ad on "What is Mitt hiding?" about the tax forms. The ad showed that every Republican president starting with Gerald Ford had released their tax returns. The kicker in my mind was the note that George Romney released his in 1968 when he was running against Nixon. I guess the son has alot more to hide.

++Josh Marshall at www.talkingpointsmemo.com picked up the theme of the tax returns today and suggested not only will it show Mitt pays around 14% but that the returns will show perfectly legal but complex tax shelters, which will not go over in the time of Occupy Wall Street.

++Speaking of which, Romney claims he is not a "Wall Street guy in the classical sense." Since Romney is running as a "successful businessman", this statement really needs some investigation. Reporters are beginning to sense there is more here than just Bain Capital and leveraging businesses and forcing some to move overseas. Instead, we are beginning to hear that his first successful gig was managing the money for the Mormons and their institutions. Expect to hear ore of this as we move along through the year.

++For my friends who claim that Romney is not so bad because he really is a moderate,check out the articles on how Romney "became" pro-choice when he ran in Massachusetts because he consulted polls that showed a pro-lifer could not win. Only Jon Huntsman seems relentless in going after Romney on his say anything to get elected posture.

++Expect to see Romney's Super Pac use the same techniques they did against Newt against President Obama. So far, the contributors to this Super Pac are anonymous but their attack ads against Newt plunged him down in the polls while Mitt acted above the fray.

++With all the pundits saying that Romney will go for a knock out blow with Iowa and New Hampshire, it's useful to point out that he only gets to 25%--although leading with that--nationwide. It really is true that people don't like him but Republicans are being conditioned to accept him. 39% of Iowa Republicans now believe he will be the nominee.

++Beltway pundits are beginning to see Romney's bald-faced attacks on his opponents as simply reflecting his own weaknesses.Whether Romney can continue to use these attacks to deflect people from aking about his own dubious positions is up for grabs.

++The Save Social Security organization put out their report card on the GOP candidates and found all failed to support Social Security. For me, this raises the mystery why senior citizens favor the Republicans and ,in fact. Mitt Romney. It doesn't make any sense.

++It looks like we will see Michelle Bachmann leave the contest after Iowa. She has lost her key campaign organizers to Ron Paul and "nativist" Steve King of Iowa appeared at a function yesterday with her, which had more reporters than citizens. And the guy didn't even endorse her. Her old campaign manager Ed Rollins said the reason she never attacked Romney was that she wants to be his vice-president. Get it--the attack woman like Sarah Palin.

++Newt said he would consider having Sarah Palin on the ticket or make her secretary of energy. Consider that for a moment. We currently have Nobel Prize winner Steven Chu as our Energy Secretary. Despite the Solyandra mess, Chu has been probably the most distinguished energy secretary in my lifetime. He has pushed alternative energies, he has been making technological breakthroughs on actually creating "Clean Coal" and he will be the one responsible for making America energy independent by next term, if allowed to work. And you replace him with Sarah Palin? That is exactly what this election is about. Competence and excellence over incompetent ideologues.

++I can't really get into all the MSM criticism about Ron Paul's racism, homophobia and other eccentric views. Nobody wants to take on his position on the Fed, when recent articles indicate the reason we don't have a European crisis of our own is the fact we have a Fed. Instead, let's go after a 76-year oold man, who has no chance to become President. Why? To support Romney?

++Don't count Rick Perry out yet.He still is hitting double digits. Perry got some zingers in yesterday when he pointed out that Rick Santorum voted for the Bridge to Nowhere. Santorum backed his own record for ear-marking. Personally, I am for earmarking appropriations. What else is a congressperson to do?

++The Los Angeles Times reports that Iowa Democrats will cross lines to vote in the Republican Caucus and vote for Ron Paul. The other Democratic story there is that the Obama campaign is treating Iowa as a trial run for the general election and mobilizing people in force. It will be interesting to see how we will know how successful they will be.

++The Obama campaign still values organization over media. We saw the mixed results in 2010. In races, Organizing for America mobilized voters Democrats did not do badly. But last election it seemed to me the flood of corporate money changed the results. That is clearly what Republicans are thinking. Why else would you have the majority of GOP candidates fail to make the Virginia ballot and now the primary in Tennessee? There has been no emphasis on organization except among the Ron Paul and Romney campaigns. In a general election, I think this would be a major flaw.

++Does Iowa mean anything? If Romney wins, it gives him momentum and serves to condition Republican voters to accept him. If Paul wins, no it doesn't mean anything. What it may mean is that the evangelical vote--the religious Right, which has been the most vociferous critics of President Obama may find themselves with no champion of their own. This would not be the first time. For decades, the religious Right have been used by the republican establishment but then tossed aside when they are no longer useful. I am surprised that their religious leaders haven't caught wind of this and warned voters not to be used.

++Iowa was supposed to be the social conservative state. But polls show that the Iowa voter is concerned about: the national debt; the economy; and jobs in that order. Very few social issues even make it in the top ten.

++One of the funny things I've noticed about the Iowa Caucus is that Andrew Sullivan at the Daily Dish has been musings about the positive aspects of the Ron Paul candidacy as an antidote to the never-ending war, torture and greed policies of other candidates. I don't know whether Andrew was serious in endorsing Paul in Iowa but Forbes magazine took his writing seriously to report "Andrew Sullivan endorses Ron Paul".

++Conservatives are miffed about what they see is the Romney-Ann Coulter-Drudge nexus. It has been clear from the beginning that the Drudge website has been in the bag for Romney from the beginning because of Matt Drudge's relationship with a key Romney campaign manager. With Ann Coulter coming out for Romney, conservatives and the extreme right have gone nuts. And to make matters worse, Rep. Steven King of Iowa said the evangelical Christians will just have to learn to live with Mitt Romney.

++Beltway pundits have spend the year trying to say this or that constituency for President Obama is not supporting him or being less enthusiastic. For Republicans,this is not a problem apparently. 92% of Republican voters are white; but only 76% of the general electorate is. Apparently, this is not a problem. But when the Hispanic community was polled to measure the latest dissatisfaction with Obama,an amazing 72% said they were going to vote for him again and only 28% were considering the Republican. This is for a man who has deported over 900,000 mostly Hispanic illegals in his short-term. The 28% for the GOP would be the lowest in more than 4 elections. Generally, this would be the news-maker.

++The above is why I can not comprehend Willard Romney's persistent insistence on massive deportation of over 10 million undocumented immigrants. It is one of the few positions he has been consistent on. Rumors have him considering Marco Rubio and Governor Martinez of New Mexico as running mates. But even polling in the Hispanic community with these two added doesn't help him any.

++The comic touch this week was added by Chris Christie, who flew from New Jersey to Iowa on behalf of the Romney campaign, and basically threatened Iowa voters to vote for Romney or he would come back for them. Classy.

++Something is up when George Will is saying that 2012 will be a good year for conservatives, even if they don't beat President Obama. I like the pessimism.

Santorum Surges From Behind*

2011-12-29T16:16:00.000-08:00

*There needs be no other comment.

The Iowa Caucus has become a multi-car wreck. Even the polls are now a mess. CNN projects Romney to win but their sample only included Republicans and not independents and Democrats who can cross the line to vote. Rasmussen is now clearly pulling his weight for Romney putting him in the lead. But others still show Ron Paul in the lead.

Michelle Bachmann is crying she can still win even though her chairperson walked right off the stage at one of her events and backed Ron Paul. She claimed he had been paid off.

The attack ads are out in force. This year Reagan's 11th Commandment--Don't attack a fellow Republican-- doesn't apply. A tone of hysteria has crept into the proceedings. Almost all the non-Mitt candidates are acting desparate. Dimissing this whole thing, one Republican thought it was "Andy Kaufman on a book tour."

The primary target now is Ron Paul. No, he's not anti-semitic. No, he is not totally against war. No, only a few lines in his newsletters were problematic. Even in New Hampshire, he was attacked by the Machester Leader-Guardian for his foreign policy views. Leaks from his former aides about his homophobia didn't offend Dan Savage. Savage said Paul was older than his father and came from an era that ostracized gays but to Paul's credit he thinks gays should have rights. Nah, it was nothing to worry about.

The major media is hyping Mitt Romney claiming huge crowds are greeting his bus tour. Even E.J. Dionne is falling prey to Romney-mania saying that if he wins Iowa and New Hampshire it's all over.

Willard claimed today that President Obama was like Marie Antoinette. Remember Mitt just finished a week of accusing Newt of being a flip-flopper. So I guess he just takes what applies to him and projects it against his opponent. Willard is now dumping millions into Iowa to win, even though he had written it off only weeks before.

Newt claims that Romney is the second most dangerous man in America. I'll let you guess who number one is. Newt was going to do an all-state bus tour but cancelled half the stops. He still doesn't have an organization.

Rick Perry accused President Obama of thinking about politics over his country. The reason--Obama did not sponsor parades for the soldiers returning from Iraq. Perry said that if he had to drop out of the race it was "God's will."

What's so interesting in this food fight is that six candidates are only separated by less than 10percentage points so it is still any one's game.

I have to admit I've never seen a presidential primary be as ridiculous as this one. As Huffington Post wrote yesterday the economy is almost nowhere on anyone's agenda. Rick Perry, for example, instead of talking about his Texas Miracle only emphasized that he had toughened his stance against abortion saying he would not even permit it even for incest or rape. Newt continued his war against the judiciary--which Ross Douhut of the Times seems to like. Newt said he would appoint his judges from the Federalist Society, Regent College, and Liberty University, all extreme right organizations.

At least the sane will have a chance to vote for former Governor Gary Johnson of New Mexico on the libertarian line in the fall. Johnson was an extremely popular governor and had an amazing record on creating jobs in New Mexico. Known as the governor who vetoes more bills than any other in American history, he favors decriminalization of marijuana and same-sex marriage.

Or if you need someone else, you can vote for whomever America Elect comes up with. There was an excellent article at Washingtonmonthly about how America Elect will select their ideal centrist for the next election. As things develop, I'll write about this gang of 1%ers later in the year.

Iowa was supposed to be where you got so see the strengths and weaknesses of campaign organizations, the power of candidates' messages, and the qualities of a candidate as a retail politician. Instead this year it was the sight of a freakshow. Only two people had campaign organizations--Romney and Paul. The campaign was almost exclusively waged over the television. Now even the final vote will be announced at a private "undisclosed" location, raising questions about its fairness. This the Caucus, which was the most open of all.

Always Kick a Man when He's Up--Tomasky on Romney

2011-12-28T12:21:00.000-08:00

Michael Tomasky blasts Mitt Romney's idea that this election will be about entitlements vs. opportunity. Romney has already embraced the dismantling of Medicare and the Paul Ryan budget. And in his blast at President Obama's Kansas speech, he accused the President of not just wanting equality but also equal results. Of course, Romney can't quite explain President Obama's education program of "A Race to the Top". Michael Tomasky in today's Daily Beast says the Mitt new opportunity shtick is just a familiar trick from the GOP's well-thumbed playbook and it won't work this year.

Romney is trying to meld the more traditional wealthy Republicanism with Tea Party resentment. Romney plays on the Tea Party using all the dog-whistles the Republican Right have always used against the poor and minorities. He uses the term "government dependency" as his accusation against President Obama and claims the election will be between someone who wants government to look after every aspect of your life and the candidate who insists on your freedom to pursue wealth and liberate yourself from any obligation to those below you.

But Tomasky argues that there exists mountains of evidence that most Americans really don't think the way Republicans want them to. Romney is assuming like most Republicans that he talks for the "real Americans", while Democrats are in some way fake Americans. But the General Social Survey since 1972 still show by margins of two to one voters consistently saying that too little is spent on the poor, on education, health care and on drug treatments and it goes on and on.

Then spending on the middle class enjoys far greater support than even social programs for those poorer. While the Republicans rant now about Social Security, Medicare and the national debt, Middle America, as we have seen throughout this blog, simply do not agree with them. And it is by a really wide margin. As we saw in Obama's job bill, Americans with large majorities back each of his ideas, which went down in flames because of the obstructionism of the GOP Senate and House.

Romney, like the other Republican candidates, really believes the GOP primary voter represents the Middle Class and not the extremely right-wing fringe that has become the party's base. Romney is retro and he believes that majorities of Americans believe the Democrats are stealing money from them like in the 1980s. Despite Romney insisting that Obama is " stealing the soul of America", majorities actually like the President personally and most are actually pulling for the man.

Tomasky is on to something. If the American people weren't rooting for the President, his approval ratings would be in the dumpster but they aren't. He is at a five month high for Gallup and teetering near 50% in two other polls.

If you are as wealthy as Romney, your personal frame is going to be distorted. What the GOP considered welfare in the past has now graduated to essential programs for the middle-class such as Social Security and Medicare. Romney wouldn't know this because he is so far away from the reality of everyday Americans. The so-called Opportunity Society sounds great except if people start realizing that it is President Obama who is committed to opportunity and is the living incarnation of it, not a wealthy rich kid.

Somehow I think someone who won't release his tax returns will probably fail to persuade average Americans that Medicare needs to be changed into a voucher system. It's also going to be tough making the case against health insurance reform when you created it.

The dynamics of this year has changed from the intense reaction of 2010, when the extreme Republicans rebelled against the Obama presidency. Instead we have a political debate now shaped by the terms raised by the Occupy movement and a feeling that the financial system as managed by the Mitt Romneys of the world let the country down.

The Myth of Mitt Romney's Electability

2011-12-28T09:55:00.000-08:00

At www.townhall.com John Hawkins, a blogger and editor of Rightwing news, attacks the myth going around GOP circles that Mitt Romney is electable and therefore should be the nominee of the Republican Party. Hawkins points out that Romney had an unimpressive record as governor of Massachusetts and left office with an approval rating in the thirties. Hawkins asks what a Republican who's not conservative and can't even carry his own state brings to the table for GOP primary voters.

Here's Hawkins' 7 Reasons Romney's electability is a myth.

Number 1--People just don't like Mitt. If the entire GOP primary process has been centered around voters trying to find an alternative to Mitt Romney. Maybe there is a message there. Hawkins refutes the idea that moderates and independents will support Romney if they think conservatives hate him. I agree it doesn't work that way. But more importantly, people of all political opinions simply don't like Mitt. Take the first little flap about the Obama campaign suggesting Romney was weird, then we have the very awkward months of Romney trying to be a retail politician and acting like a robot, then we have morphed into Mitt the Liar, the stunning ability he has shown to lie--almost about anything. But the bottom line is that--yes--people don't like him. And Hawkins claims that this will dampen enthusiasm for his candidacy.

Number 2--He's Proven Political Loser. Romney left office the 48th most popular governor in America and would have lost if he ran again in 2006. He failed to capture the GOP nomination in 2008, losing a stunning number of primaries. Despite enormous financial and organizational advantages this time, he is still struggling. "Choosing Romney as the GOP nominee after running up his sort of track record would be like promotin a first baseman hitting .225 in AAA to the majors."

Number 3--Running weak in the southern states. Hawkins points out that Barack Obama won Virginia, North Carolina and Florida last time and is targeting them this time. Romney would be less likely than either Gingrich or Perry to carry any of these states. In 2008, for example, McCain and Huckabee dominated Romney in the southern primaries. Mitt didn't win a southern primary and wasn't competitive in North Carolina and Virginia. This year because of the rules fiasco Romney looks like he will win the Virginia primary by default. Hawkins says that losing those states in a close race would hand Obama the presidency.

Number 4--His advantages disappear in a general election. Hawkins is right when he says that Romney should be lapping the entire Republican field by 50 points already because he has been running for the President longer than anyone, he has more money and a better organization. The party establishment and the Beltway media are firmly in his corner. This explains why everyone else has been savaged by the media while Romney, like John McCain before him, has been allowed to skate through the primaries without receiving serious scrutiny.

Then--presto--in the general election every one of these things disappears. Obama will be the more experienced candidate in the race, will have more money and have a better organization than Mitt. Romney then will become the target of the Beltway pundits and the media.

Hawkins asks if you took all the advantages away from Romney, he'd be fighting with Jon Huntsman to stay out of last place. What happens when all the pillars that barely kept him propped up in Second Place are suddenly removed?

5. Bain Capital:Romney has not paid the price of getting wealthy with an equity fund. In the Republican primary, raw capitalism and the free market are virtues. But in the day of Occupy Wall Street and the prospects of Obama running a populist campaign Romney is a tailor made villain. Hawkins points out the obvious about Romney gutting companies and throwing Americans out of work. But he throws a nice curveball in. Bain Capital was rescued by a federal bailout of $10 million and Romney and others made $4 million off the deal. Hawkins basically supports Romney's work at Bain Capital but says it will end up either a very small asset or a large liability, depending on who defines it.

6. The Mormon Factor : Hawkins tries to handle this sensitively. But this is not the old Kennedy Catholic issue. Americans always believed Catholics were Christians, despite antagonism to their precepts and their hierarchy. A vast number of Americans believe Mormonism is a false religion and therefore significant number of Americans will not vote for a Mormon as President.

A surey by the Public Religion Research Institute released on Monday shows that nearly half of white evangelical Protestant voters don't believe Mormonism is a Christian faith and two-thirds say the LDS is different from their own faith. 67% of Americans want the president to be a Christian and only 52% believe Mormons to be Christian. More than 40% of Americans would be uncomfortable with a MorMon as President.

While majorities believe Mormon are moral people. Hawkins warns that in the general election more pointed questions will be raised that make Mormons look weird, racist, kooky and scary and very different. What he doesn't mention is what will people make of Mitt having been a Bishop of a cult.

7. He's a Flip-Flopper. Romney seems to enjoy running ads against Newt about the former Speaker's flip-flopping on issues but can't handle press interviews about his own wandering positions. Hawkins nails it with " There are a lot of issues with trying to run a candidate who doesn't seem to have any core principles." He believes this is even worse when people know Romney has no firm beliefs so Democrats can make him into a "right-wing death-beast" and Republicans will think that Romney will screw them over and Independents won;t know what to believe. As Hawkins concludes Mitt Romney has proven to be "a pasty grey pile of formless mush."

IOWA CAUCUS--Who Cares?

2011-12-28T08:45:00.000-08:00

++The recent polls still have Ron Paul on top with Romney running a close second. Newt has been pulverized by the negative campaigning. The only candidate with more favorables than unfavorables is Frothy Mix himself, Rick Santorum. But Rick doesn't appear to be picking up any steam.

++I really don't understand the whole hubbub about Ron Paul's racist newsletters. It's not secret and his racist views have been known for years. In this particular GOP race,it hardly counts as a negative since minorities, African-Americans, gays and Muslims have regaularly been bashed throughout the debates.

++In another who cares note--Arthur Laffer of the infamous Laffer Curve and Supply Side Economics will endorse Newt today. The whole parade is looking like a bad version of "Where Have They Gone--Political Has-Beens."

++Mitt has been spending in Iowa like a drunken Mormon. The last minute ad campaign in Iowa has cost all candidates and their Super-Pacs over $10 million. Mitt is hoping to land a knock-out blow and to re-establish his mantle of inevitability. Beltway pundits are marvelling at his stealth campaign and his discipline.

++Mitt's tax returns are becoming a little issue. The Boston Globe writers believe the reason for his refusal to release is because he benefits from the "Interest carry" loophole for equity fund managers. Romney still receives a seven-figure check from Bain Capital all these years after leaving it. His base tax rate is a stunningly low 15%, a fact that would provoke backlash since almost every American pays a higher rate. But another factor has emerged also to explain Romney's reticience about releasing his tax returns. Apparently, shortly before Romney started attacking China in the debates, he began to receive the payments for his investments in China. During his days at Bain Capital, he closed American businesses and got them to move their facilities to China, where the Chinese authorities bought part ownership. This little wrinkle to the story might explain why Jon Hunstman has quietly circulated rumors about Romney's business deals with China.

++If Romney doesn't release his tax returns, he will be the first major candidate since Watergate to refuse.

++Meanwhile Rick Perry has run an ad blitz in Iowa and has been emphasizing social conservative issues. Perry also has filed suit to get on the Virginia primary ticket. Perry is floating around the double-digits in Iowa and needs a third-place finish to rationalize continuing.

++National polls still have Newt in a slight lead over Mitt and Paul is third. Basically, this is turning into a two man race. The Mormon vulture capitalist versus the disgraced Speaker of the House and ethically challenged lobbyist. It's no wonder that the National Review and William Kristol are still crying out for a new candidate.

++The polls in New Hampshire show Romney with a sizeable lead. But the thing to look at there is whether Romney hits the level of support he had in 2008.

++Remember the nominee will be who wins South Carolina. So far Newt has the lead.

++While the Republican race makes one's skin crawl, I'll leave you with the political rumor of the day documented in a new book. Richard Nixon had a gay affair with Bebe Rebozo. You can't get seamier than that.

Drips and Drabs Before the Holiday

2011-12-24T10:01:00.000-08:00

++The Donald just changed his voter registration to Independent from Republican. I guess he was tired of being dissed by the RNC, Karl Rove and all the others for his failed Newsmax debate.

++Steve Benen at www.Washingtonmonthly.com has an excellent piece trying to explain the three suicidal episodes of the Republicans in the House this year. The first was the vote for Paul Ryan's budget, which really would have eliminated Medicare, despite Polifact. The second was the debt ceiling debacle. And the third was the recent payroll-tax cut. He has alot of possible explanations for this, but I agree with the last one: They are just nuts.

++Paul Krugman had an op-ed yesterday about the Post-Truth Campaign, which skewers Mitt Romney's awesome capacity to lie and the fact he has been able to get away with it without the media hammering him about it.

++ For an anti-war candidate, Ron Paul's top three donor groups are Army veterans, Air Force veterans and Navy veterans. Of all the Republican candidates, Ron Paul has vastly more veteran donations than all the other candidates combined. What does that say about the mood of America's former military about our constant war making?

++Mitt Romney this week said he would not release his tax returns even if he won the Republican nomination. He didn't last go-around. When was the last presidential candidate who did not voluntarily release his tax returns? The last flap of this I can remember was the negotiations over Nelson Rockefeller becoming Vice President. Then it was the issue how to evaluate his mind-boogling wealth. It took a Senate committee to reach a compromise on his wealth. I can't understand Romney's campaign not understanding that this is a real political problem for their candidate. It's not like people think Romney is not very wealthy. After all that's his whole campaign.

++All you need to know about the health of a campaign's organization is to know that Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry, Michelle Bachmann, Rick Santorum and Jon Huntsman did not get on the ballot in Virginia for the March 6th Super Tuesday primary. Newt blamed it on the new voter registration laws in Virginia.

++Eric Holder also is someone who believes America is exceptional. In a speech in Texas, Holder invoked our exceptionalism on our ability to vote. Holder opined that when you reach the voting age, you should automatically be able to vote. In a year, when Republican-run state governments are scrambling to restrict the right to vote, it seems the Attorney General is gearing up for battle. This week he blocked the new voter ID law in South Carolina because it was discriminatory against racial minorities. Expect to see more of this throughout the coming year.

++Newt is claiming he had a miracle 4th Quarter fund-raising. We don't know the figures but we did hear from the Romney campaign that they raised $20 million this quarter, which would be their best quarter yet. But remember Obama raised $55 million last quarter.

++The next Congressional fight will be revisiting the millionaire's tax, which Harry Reid offered to pay for the unemployment insurance and payroll tax exemption this time. Before departing Washington, Reid said he was putting it back on the table in the next Congress.

++For the holiday season what a nicer story than the news that Rick Santorum, the original Family Guy, bought the endorsement from Iowa's religious right champion Mr. Van derPlaats. Van der Plaats urged other candidates like Michelle Bachmann and Rick Perry to drop out of the race when the religious Right could not unite around a single candidate. Apparently, you were asked to pony up $1 million for this endorsement. He even hit up the Romney campaign. The Focus on Your Family (Not Mine) decided not to endorse anyone. Now progressive groups in Iowa are demanding the FEC investigate the matter. It hasn't helped Santorum because the latest poll shows he is at the bottom of the food chain in Iowa.

++The Southern Baptists are having a tough time trying to reconcile the evangelical support for Newt Gingrich with their disdain for family man Mitt Romney. Apparently, Mormonism is still the issue and Republicans in South Carolina now proclaim it will be the issue in that state's primary.

++Remember the big clash on next year will be over the automatic defense cuts and the Medicare cuts mandated when the Super Committee failed.

++Ross Douhut was in despair over the House Republicans screw-up this week. Ross thought the GOP had the Democrats where they need them. He claimed that the big score in this debate was that the payroll tax cut showed that Social Security was not a self-funding program and that the GOP should have made this issue central. Boy, why not pick another Third Rail. This would have made issue 4 in suicidal episodes.

Aloha and Merry Christmas

2011-12-24T07:40:00.000-08:00

President Obama signed the extension of the payroll tax cut and unemployment insurance and then, without answering questions, bid the press corps adieu by saying, "Aloha". Off to Hawaii, where he claimed he got a touch of "laziness" while growing up. The last comment made Drudge and Politico for another attack on the President.

If the President's attacks on Christmas weren't enough, he allowed a giant Menorah in the Mall and even lit candles at a Hanukah celebration. But if this wasn't enough, the President and the First Lady appeared for his weekly video talk to the nation and kept repeating Merry Christmas throughout his talk and even alluded to the Christmas story and its inspiration for his family. In fact, you might say the Obamas went a little overboard with the Christian allusions. Maybe he was subtly suggesting the country could wake up next year with a Mormon as President.

I am sure that his Christmas address will be attacked because he alluded to a Christian ethic of taking care of one another and volunteering to feed the hungry and help the homeless in the holiday season.

The President was exuberant because he knew he was finally getting out of town. Hopefully, we will see him body surfing in Hawaii. For history buffs, he and Ronald Reagan are the only two Presidents who were body-surfers.

He leaves a town where Republicans are still fighting--at least as late as last night--over the debacle of the last month. The Roadrunner got away again and the rock fell on Wily Coyote.

Have a Happy Holiday and rest up for some real body slamming early next year when politics is likely to get even uglier than this past year. At least for our returning men and women from Iraq, there will be peace for them this year. And , hopefully, for the rest of us a more prosperous and fair country.

The GOP Implodes

2011-12-23T09:01:00.000-08:00

Throughout the year, it has been obvious that the GOP has obstructed almost anything the Obama Administration has proposed to stimulate the economy. But the extension of unemployment insurance and the payroll tax break for the Middle class seemed a no-brainer. The Senate Republicans extracted a concession on the XL Pipeline from the Democrats and the Senate bill passed 89-10 for the extension. And we could all go home for Christmas.

But strange things happened and they were disasterous for the Republicans. The Senate bill negotiated by Mitch McConnell was done with the active collaboration of John Boehner, who approved of all the Senate moves in advance. So naturally, the table was set for both sides to proclaim a great bipartisan victory and adjourn. Remember the extension is only for two months and both sides had agreed to recovene in January to negotiate a full year at that time. But the tea bag caucus in the House balked and Boehner was left trying to defend the indefensible.

In one swift moment, all the past year's obstructionism finally became obvious to the whole public and over 130 million Americans faced a tax increase of between $1,500 and $2,200. The great tax-cutting party now looked like they were OK with raising taxes on the middle-class, when they refused the millionaire tax to pay for the middle-class tax cut. Finally, the Obama Administration could zero in on the hypocrisy of the GOP and the very direct negative consequences their actions have on the average American. This has been clear all year to the broader public.

Throughout the week, Republicans began to eat themselves alive. Karl Rove denounced the House Republicans for losing the tax debate. John McCain said that House Republicans were damaging the GOP brand. Even Mitch McConnell had to weigh in calling on the House Republicans to fold. By week's end, the Tan Man looked pale and rumors from House GOP aides suggested Boehner's day as Speaker were limited. It was as if the polling of Congress as the worst ever came to focus on the House. Senate Republicans said that their own chances of taking the Senate back were fading.

Rachel Maddow returned to her thesis that John Boehner was incompetent and there was alot of evidence to support her view. Boehner didn't have the vote count accurate in his own Caucus and then was forced through a surrogate not to allow the Senate Bill to be voted on in the House because it would have passed with total support of the Democrats and a sufficient number of the House Republicans so that the GOP would looked divided.

Yes, the battle begins anew in January and one person commented in the Washington Post that this was all inside baseball and would soon be forgotten. I don't think so because all the Republican columnists waged war over this and the Wall Street Journal, the business side of the GOP,blasted House Republicans. It became very plain and the Democrats are exploiting this that the Republicans now really have come down on the side of the 1% against the 99%. With the change of the debate caused by the Occupy movement,the wind is now at the Democrats' back, partocularly President Obama.

One of the winners of this fracas was Willard "Mitt" Romney. The reason is that the news over the Boehner failure took away from Romney's astonishing weeks of lying. Romney claimed that President Obama has not created a single job and that Romney as head of Bain Capital created 100,000 jobs and he would pit that against Obama. Romney's campaign has systematically lied about when the great Recession began. His graphics blame all job loss on the Obama Administration and seems to imply that Obama was responsible for all events in 2007 and 2008. The problem with this is that we have Mitt on tape praising the President's stimulus plan.

The other problem with this is that we have had 21 straight months of private job growth. From 2010 through 2011, the private sector created 2.9 million jobs, or roughly three times the amount created during 8 years of President George W. Bush. Job creation this year has been the best since 2006 and the fragile green roots of the economy seem to suggest more job creation in 2012, if Europe doesn't collapse. That Mitt Romney, who was 47th of 50th governor in job creation, managing to eek out Louisiana who was ravaged by Hurricane Katrina,would like to criticize this is rather appalling.

But Mitt didn't stop there. In a sitdown interview, he said that it was great that President Obama got bin Laden but added that any President would make the same decision. The democrats immediately went aerial with an ad attacking Romney,splicing comments by Gates, Colin Powell and Rudy Guiliani suggesting Obama's decision took courage. And, by the way, Presidents Clinton and George W. didn't make the same decision, when they had the chance.

Mitt has spent the week trying to build moment by locking down Iowa after spending millions on attacks ads against Newt. With Ron Paul emerging as the Iowa front-runner, the news media is giving Paul the front-runner treatment and exacavating all his racist newsletters from the 1990s when he predicted a race war. Mitt is predicting a second-place finish, which would stem the tide of the anti-Mitt vote.

Romney picked up an incredibly lukewarm endorsement from President George H.W. Bush, who said he had favored Rick Perry but Mitt was the best the GOP could do for now. Also, old Iowa Senator and GOP presidential candidate Bob Dole weighed in on Mitt's behalf.

Iowa is seeing the slight rise in the fortunes of Frothy Mix Santorum, who nailed the endorsement of Van der Plaats, the evangelical leader who supported Mike Huckabee. Rick Perry is on a bust tour of the state and has dropped his homophobic ads for one with his wife.

It's all pretty unsavory. The Congressional Republicans acted and sounded like a bunch of chumps this week and the erstwhile Presidential candidates continued to embarrass.

It has not been a good week for conservatives. Brent Bozell of the right-wing Media Research group,tastefully referred to President Obama as "a skinny, ghetto crackhead". And that about sums up the current position on the right--Obama is the enemy and we have no new ideas and could care less about the public good.

President Obama continued his war against Christmas by sending people like me a Christmas card showing Bo lying in front of a fireplace, with a Poinsetta on the table surrounded by presents. I didn't know this was anti-Christmas until Fox News and Sarah Palin opined that Americans expected references to Christ. Although it seems that past Presidents, especially Republicans, neglected to mention Christ either. But we have to remember Obama is "the Other".

For his part, President Obama stayed home from his anticipated vacation in Hawaii, but he got criticized for planning on going to Hawaii anyway. A few polls showed him hitting 49% and roughly his average is around 46%, a nice range to begin the re-election year.

At least Jon Huntsman seemed to have a good week. He played Johnny B.Goode on the Letterman show and said he always wanted to be Paul Schaeffer when he grew up. And the Concord Monitor in New Hampshire endorsed him for that state's primary because he is relatively sane.

Gary Johnson decided to run on the libertarian ticket because no one would allow him to debate in the Republican contest. Interestingly enough, Johnson was the greatest job-creator in the field but his libertarian social views made him a paraiah.

Stephen Colbert of the Colbert report hit the right note when he offered $500,000 for the naming rights to the South Carolina Republican primary. And it looks like South Carolina might take him up on it.

The Conspiracy of Readers--In Memory of Vaclav Havel

2011-12-19T12:13:00.000-08:00

This weekend Vaclav Havel died at the age of 75. His death brought back fond memories of his glorious triumph as the leader of the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia. A few years later he received the Freedom Award from Freedom House in an upper eastside townhouse. After dining with Woody Allen, Vaclav showed up to receive the award with Milos Foreman, the great film director and cinematographer in toe. Asked what he did the first thing he became the first President of a democratic Czecholovkia, he answered that he had his cabinet in the room and had the doors closed and then he told everybody,"Let's laugh!"

Havel felt it was utterly preposterous when he heard the Civic Forum put his name forth as President. It was even more preposterous when the new parliament first elected him unanimously. Later Havel would win a popular election.

If you hear democracy groups speak about the civil society these days, it is a legacy of Vaclav Havel and the Czech Velvet Revolution. British author John Keane first used the notion of the civil society to rejuvenate British labor politics but soon found his idol in Vaclav Havel, whom he projected more hopes on than Americans did on Barack Obama. Later Keane would become disillusioned with Havel because Havel turned out to be a democratic politician and not the leader of an international movement Keane wanted.

But Havel probably tricked Keane after all because once Havel left the Castle he continued to be outspoken on democracy and human rights around the world. In fact, as if to return the favor, he supported some programs of his old supporters in the United States when we embarked on other projects in countries far afield from Central Europe.

Recently a young German doctoral student interviewed me about the American role in fostering the democratic revolutions in Eastern Europe. I had to disabuse her of the notion that this was a great triumph of American government policy. Some of us supported these revolutions because we came from backgrounds as freelance writers and great readers. People like Vaclav Havel were already considered great, even before writing Charter 77, for his literary works--his plays and his brilliant essays-- and he was lionized in the West by people like Tom Stoppard.

The Czech experience blended with the hipper moments of the counter culture in the United States. The Czech so-called Democracy movement had roots in the rise of jazz and rock clubs in the Czech Republic, the only space where citizens could go to be free. The crackdown on the rock group The Plastic People of the Universe sparked the larger struggle against the regime. None of this Washington understood or could ever understand. But this is the stuff which we found so appealing. Also it was cool that the Velvet revolution took its name from Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground.

There was another aspect of this struggle that people looking back don't realize. None of the Americans--whether right, left or center (mostly left and center)--would dare think of telling any of these people what to do. The idea didn't cross anyone's mind. These were people we looked up to as talents, not just democratic fighters. We were envious of their literary and philosophical imaginations. And we were supremely confident that they knew what they were doing, even if afterwards they admitted they hadn't.

Havel's essay on Living in The Lie applied to our lives, just as much as it did to people living under Communism. This attitude of listening to those struggling in repressive regimes has been lost. Instead today's democracy practitioner reads his "lessons learned" and tells people who have endured so much more than him or her what they should do to become free. It's quite wonderful what you can learn from talking to someone like those Czechs who were struggling to be free. And besides they were often better read than you.

I had the unique privilege of working with people like a young Chris Kean who came to Freedom House from his time as the media outreach person for the Civic Forum and young Czech Jiri Pehe, who would later leave us to become a personal adviser to Vaclav Havel. Jiri was interviewed today on Radio Free Europe about his memories of Vaclav Havel.

Everyone who quietly supported the Velvet revolution in the United States did so without any official prompting. In fact, I don't know of anyone on my Freedom House Board who knew, except for the civil rights leader Bayard Rustin, and he wouldn't tell. He thought it was terrific that a younger generation had their own heroes who were struggling for freedom. We actually thought it funny when Secretary of State James Baker bullied Vaclav Havel not to appoint Frank Zappa as his adviser since Havel had always revered the worldview of the great musician. Yes, can we finally admit Frank Zappa was a great musician, even if he warned everyone "Not to Eat The Yellow Snow". The United States government was clueless about whom they were dealing with. Baker even threatened to cut aid if Havel persevered with Zappa.

But looking back at the revolutions in Central Europe, those of us who supported them with the odds and ends of materials or writing the odd piece in support in the United States, the tremendous goodwill they generated was because of the good humor,literacy and general elan all the younger supporters demonstrated. It is amazing to consider that by the end Czechoslovakia, once the locale of the Prague Spring in 1968, was the most Stalinist of Central Europe. That a diffident playwright, who was made to work as a stoker and a janitor, should emerge as President was something out of a Charlie Chaplin movie. And more amazing still that his voice would be heard by all the world in defense of freedom for all.

I remember Vaclav Havel's quiet, and wise style. Slovakia was causing him and his aides troubles at the beginning. The younger aides were frantic about how to deal with these troublemakers. An American Alpha Male politician would have initiated a showdown, even threaten force. But Havel knew the stakes for his young fragile democracy were too high to prolong this trouble. Instead, he just let them go. And peacefully Slovakia was born with alot of anxiety among his American friends about its fate and its impact on the Czech Republic.

There are very few times in politics when you can say something is beautiful. Democratization is messy and clumsy and people you support often embarrass themselves and yourself. But in my mind the Velvet Revolution was a thing of beauty. The talent involved in its success and the creaton of a democratic Czech Republic was inspiring. The nearest we have come since is the campaign of President Barack Obama in the United States. These are rare moments to savour.

In summing up our interview, I told the German doctroal student that there were many people involved in assisting the Central European revolutions but when you boiled it all down, it was "A Conspiracy of Readers".

The Love Revolution Is Coming to Iowa and Newt Folds

2011-12-19T08:52:00.000-08:00

Having been bombarded with attack ads before and after the last debate, Newt Gingrich has taken a real hit in the polls nationally and in Iowa in particular. The side beneficiary of this is Barack Obama, who with dismal approval ratings in recent polls, has come out on top in a new Purple Strategies poll of Swing States leading both Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich by more than margins of error. The same swing state poll showed that only 29% of voters had a favorable impression of Mitt Romney.

It is true Bob Dole and the Des Moines Register endorsed Mitt Romney. But the attacks ads and the endorsements are not what broke Gingrich in Iowa. Now is the crunch time in Iowa when every one in the state expects the canidates to actually be around. What does Gingrich do? He flies to Washington immediately after the debate, is present at his wife's book signing party at Mount Vernon and attends a concert where she is playing a French horn. Then Gingrich puts his foot to the pedal on Face the Nation yesterday and doubles down on his criticism of "activist" judges, says he will ignore any Supreme Court ruling he disagrees with and will order U.S. Marshalls to arrest judges he doesn't like. Gingrich then went off into the ozone on his immigration policies saying that over 7 million undocumented workers will freely leave the United States and go home under his presidency. All of this tends to influence people more than the ads and Romney's endorsements.

So today's PPP poll has Newt cratering back to a stunning 14% level, almost 20 pts within a week. Here is just above the 10% gang of Santorum, Perry and Bachmann.

The big beneficiary from this is Ron Paul and the Love Revolution. Paul has been winning the under 45 vote massively. At this rate Nate the Great Silver predicts Paul will win Iowa with a 44%, Romney with 32% chance and Newt now down to 15%. From around the state, reporters are picking up that Paul has the best organization and is likely to gain not lose support as we head to the finish line.

Romney stands right now at 20%,which is usually where he is anywhere in the country.

Nationally, Newt still leads and Romney has peaked to 24%. CNN reports that the Tea Party Patriots polled 23,000 of their members and Newt won the strawpoll. It would have been nice if CNN actually told someone the results.

The most telling poll recently was the Gallup poll that over 70% are tired of the campaign and want to vote in the general election now. Amen!

Christopher Hitchens R.I.P.

2011-12-16T15:54:00.000-08:00

Militant pundit, slashing polemicist, essayist and author. Christopher Hitchens died yesterday from cancer at the age of 62. The England-born writer, who modelled his work after Tom Paine and George Orwell, managed to infuriate everyone from both the Left to the Right. His iconoclastic views were always couched in superb language. He was known to be democratic in the people he tolerated and argued with.

His last battle was an honest and open attempt to deal with the implications of his having a cancer that would prove to be terminal. He frankly filmed interviews of himself talking about the cancer treatment and his struggles to deal with the end of his life. This last battle triggered a wave of concerns about whether he would convert on his deathbed from his atheism. He assured all his friends that if they heard of such a thing then it was a very diseased brain speaking and to ignore it. Only a day before he died, the Daily Caller printed such a story about his embrace of Christ. No such thing happened.

Christopher Hitchens won the affection of the Left with his book about the trial of Henry Kissinger for war Crimes and his blast at Mother Theresa, whom he treated with his best acid tongue. He won acceptance among the Neoconservatives with his embrace of the Iraq War, which he insisted until the end was the right position.

Hitchens was prolific until the end, writing lengthy articles for Vanity Fair and printing his huge book of his last essays. Political Washington had a special affection for him as witnessed by today's eulogies on the House floor. The reason I suspect is that he was not identified with any one of the numerous subcultures in town and that he could be relied upon to make the outrageous statement or be offended by words and deeds deemed a violation of common decency. Privately, people treasured his gentility and consideration. This was especially true for younger political essayists, who needed advice and counsel.

It's hard to judge a writers's success or impact. But Christopher Hitchens can rest knowing that the New York Times literally stopped the presses so they could insert his obitrary on A1. That's not bad for an immigrant.

Pew Poll On Congress

2011-12-16T15:35:00.000-08:00

As we undergo more water torture on whether the government will stay open and the payroll tax extended, we wonder whether any one will pay for the obstructionism of the last year. Will House Republicans be rewarded for their laundry list of anti-abortion laws, their endless attempt to gut the ERA, and their attempts to hold hostage almost anything the President suggests? So far there is no evidence that there will be a price to be paid even though the approval rating of Congress is at an historic low of 9%.

But Pew has released a poll, which raises a number of issue which should disturb Republicans.

Which Party takes the most extreme positions?
Republicans : 53%
Democrats: 33%

Who is more willing to work with the other side?
Republicans: 25%
Democrats: 51%

Who can better manage government?
Republicans: 35%
Democrats: 41%

Who are more honest and ethical?
Republicans: 28%
Democrats: 45%

While Democrats have a slight lead in the generic poll for Congress, it looks like the electoral chances of a turn-over in the House seem to be diminished with the new gerrymandering in Pennsylvania and Ohio, which sought to preserve the House freshmen, who are most vulnerable.

The War Is Over--If You Want It*

2011-12-16T14:59:00.001-08:00

After 9 years,President Obama declared the Iraq War over yesterday. Over 1 million Americans served there,4,500 were killed, 32,000 were wounded and it cost $800 billion (not counting the interest, the cost of medical care for the future). Over 100,000 Iraqis were killed and another several million are in exile in Syria, Jordan and elsewhere in the Middle East.

This was the first of the pre-emptive wars waged by the United States and it violated the historical military doctrines going back to the founding of our country.

On Rachel Maddow's show, Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, Secretary of State Clin Powell's chief assistant, said that the Republican response to the end of the war "may cause me to leave my party". 77% of Americans support President Obama's decision to leave Iraq and that includes 61% of Republicans.

Republican politicians claim that the Obama Administration could have kept 25,000 -100,000 troops left behind, if it wanted. As Joe Biden pointed out on Rachel Maddow that this was not an option. The administration was open to the idea of keeping 10,000 troops maximum behind for training purposes but that the government would not agree to give these troops legal indemnity and "that was the deal-breaker." But even Leon Panetta weighed in that the administration never envisioned any large contingent of troops left behind. Mitt Romney stated that this was a strategic blunder by President Obama.

The most visceral reaction to the end of the war was John McCain's statement on the Senate floor," I believe history will judge Obama's leadership with the scorn and disdain it deserves."

Normally, you would expect that President Obama would get a slight bump in his approval ratings for ending a war that was divisive and that the American people had turned against. But like the killing of Osama bin Laden, any bump would be illusory. The President sent out an e-mail touting this as another promise he has kept.

Spookily, there has been no word from the biggest enthusaist for the Iraq War, George W. Bush. His name has vanished from the one event, which he said history would judge him by. Conservatives have started criticising President Obama for his fulsome praise of our troops as if the commander-in-chief should not speak at Fort Bragg. While there is an unease among the Right about the Iraq war at this moment,there are trying to lay the blame on President Obama if the violence escalates in the country.

By the end, the Iraqis didn't believe we would leave. Americans were considered occupiers and our military presence there was untenable. That the United States kept its word is significant and maybe will pacify the Iraqis in the near future. We leave behind a country with very fragile political institutions, sectarian and ethnic violence and rampant official corruption. But we did leave.

The Iraq War dominated a decade of our lives but in a very strange way. Very few of us were called to sacrifice for the war. The wealthy received tax breaks and we were told to go shopping. A very small percentage of Americans and their families will be changed by this event forever. If anything, this should teach us that prolonged wars can be waged now without the type of repercussions or social upheavals of the Vietnam period. That is the opposite purpose of the all-volunteer army, which was created to avoid prolonged war. While one should draw the lesson that such a war should be avoided at all cost and that it will hollow out our military in case we need it to defend against a real enemy, it seems some in Washington have drawn the opposite conclusion.

Secretary of Gates in his valedictory speech at West Point warned future Presidents not to get involved in another major war in the Middle East. he called the idea "crazy".

The good news about the war was that--by and large--the American military did an honorable job and served the country well. Luckily there is no residual resentment of those who served. But the war ends without an enemy surrendering, without the violence stopping, without a clear victory and not a sign of defeat. We are still a country mobilized for war. But the Iraq war seemed to go on for about five years without any clear purpose.
What should be an amazing triumph of President Obama, who opposed the war and campaigned on bringing it to an honorable end,looks like a hollow photo-op.

The American people now believe that there are 3 major accomplishments of the Obama presidency: Killing bin Laden; ending the Iraq war; and preventing another Depression. I would add a few like the health reform bill. But the almost decade-long war will soon vanish from our memory. But before it does, I hope our policy-makers reflect on the lessons it teaches.

Last Night's Debate in Sioux City--Before I Forget

2011-12-16T13:37:00.000-08:00

The day started with Newt being pummelled by the Republican establishment and some conservatives as well. The local Washington Examiner endorsed Mitt Romney, even though their reporter the previous week eviscerated the former Governor on both healthcare and his lack of understanding of the European crisis. The National Review came out against Newt and next issue will be totally devoted to why Newt should not be elected. But they haven't endorsed anyone. The Rasmussen poll from Iowa showed Newt losing 15 points in the poll and Romney pulling ahead there, even though that conflicts with other polls like PPP which does show a Newt drop but no pick up for Romney.

So to the last debate before the Iowa Caucus.

Both newt and Mitt Romney decided not to go mano-a-mano but instead let the second tier candidates create the fuss. Both campaigns had been warned that Iowa likes nice and cringes at negative campaigning. The first part of the debate favored Romney since the moderators and Michelle Bachmann aimed their criticism at Newt Gingrich for his lobbying career. Newt fended the more serious charges off but was defensive. Romney acted in the first part as the chosen one and tried to don the mantle of Ronald Reagan. In fact I found Newt's answer on electability more convincing than Romney's. After Occupy Wall Street, I just can't think how claiming you are a businessman warms the hearts and minds of voters.

Washington Post bloggers felt that Romney won the debate. But other live bloggers throughout the political spectrum didn't think he actually improved his position. The Post bloggers kept saying that Romney was at the peak of his game. But in the second half of the debate Chris Wallace hammered Romney and made him squirm about his frequent changes in positions. Most viewers were aware of Joe Scarborough's comment that Chris Wallace "hates Mitt Romney". So alot of one's response was based on knowing the hostility of the moderator to Romney. But the same should have been true with his treatment of Ron Paul, whom he claimed the day before had no chance of winning the GOP nomination.

The winners of the debate were Mitt Romney by not being beaten, Michelle Bachmann, who took the fight to Newt, and --believe it or not--Rick Perry, who seems to be creeping up in the polls, and who got some solid points across in English and made some memorable jokes. The big losers were Jon Huntsman, who seems to shrink inside himself during the debate, and while the most sane of the group seemed dispirited; and Ron Paul. Ron Paul blew the debate when he went ballistic over all the Iran war talk by the other candidates, almost screaming "this is war propaganda".

On the day the Iraq War officially ended, you would expect some measure of reflection by the Republican candidates about what it means for this nation to go to war and for such a long time. There has been none. Not yesterday and not during the last three years. Instead, we were treated to attacks on President Obama as an appeaser to Iran and that Iran was now the biggest threat to the United States--not to the region or Israel--but the United States itself. The whole discussion seemed to be that now we are out of Iraq, let's use those troops to invade Iran.

Romney continued on his condescending tone to President Obama. He said "Pretty Please" about Obama requesting the downed drone back from Iran. President Obama yesterday brought multiple lawsuits against banks who laundered Hezbollah funds. It should be noted the Great Appeaser seems to be assassinating Iranian nuclear scientists,waging cyber warfare against the nuclear sites, and inciting mysterious explosions of long-range missile and nuclear facilities. President Obama has also solidified an international coalition to tighten economic, banking and oil sanctions against Iran. Today, Russia intervened and stop the shipment of nuclear materials to Iran. This, despite the resurgence of Putin at the Kremlin. Maybe not sufficient to deal with the problem but these are hardly the acts of an appeaser.

Republican war talk is disconcerting because it is never coached in lower case letters like "military options". Instead, the language used implies a full-scale invasion of Iran with all that implies--the proliferation of terrorism throughout the region,high casualties on both sides, regional warfare and enormous collateral damage. 77% of Americans support President Obama's withdrawal of troops from Iraq, 61% of Republicans also. So why do the Republicans believe, if they really do, that they are going to get tough on Iran. They didn't under George W and Dick Cheney. Despite their hawkish language, Iran barely got a mention in Cheney's autobiography and the Bush administration constantly negotiated with Tehran, even when that regime was shipping IEDs into Iraq to kill Americans. If anything, Obama is the real hawk here.

The other issue, which keeps returning, is immigration. Non-documented workers are down to 10.5 million and Jon Huntsman came up with the best line is that if the economy doesn't improve than the number of illegals will drop even more dramatically. Rick Perry did the whole border routine and how he alone is trying to stop illegals with the Texas Rangers and that the Obama administration is doing nothing. Newt tried to toughen his stance a little bit and was accused by Bachmann of pandering to Hispanics, which naturally no one should cultivate. Mitt Romney retained his draconian vision of deporting everyone, despite the total impossibility of such a thing.

By the way, most independent studies of illegal immigration show that the negatives to the economy and the plusses like conttributing to social security and paying taxes end up as a wash. Yet for the Republican base, this is still a hot button issue.

There has been alot of comment about Newt's vow to go against sitting judges with whom one disagrees. He cited Jefferson and FDR on this but admitted they had failed. To the outsider the argument sounded like gibberish, but remember Newt was addressing Iowa voters. Iowa voters actually voted to remove the judges on the Supreme Court, despite warnings of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who had approved same sex marriages. The campaign against these judges was funded in part by Newt Gingrich himself.

If you are disapointed with President Obama, I have two words for you--SUPREME COURT. The candidates were asked which judges on the Supreme Court they liked. All of them cited the extremely right trio of Clarence Thomas, Tony Scalia, and Alito. Rick Perry said his favorite judge was Clarence Thomas. Huntsman opined that he liked Roberts and Alito. These are the judges who brought us Citizens United.

Tweeters had a field day with all the historical references being thrown in. Rick Perry did note that yesterday was the anniversary of the Bill of Rights. No one else got that. Others tried to drop historical names. One Tweeter suggested that had mentioned almost everyone except Vasco Da Gama.

All the canidates were on their best behavior for their last joint appearance of the year. But there were some odd moments. For instance, in the last debate, Romney bragged that he would create 11.5 million jobs in his first term. This time he waffled--surprise!--claiming that the President really doesn't create jobs. Newt boasted about his private sector experience and even about private-public sector joint ventures saying they are good things. Newt even came out for credit unions.

But they all concluded saying that what the country really needed was leadership. This hammering on President Obama's so-called lack of leadership would be more convincing if they ever mentioned the plight of the middle class or the growing inequality of wealth in the country. All we get are crickets. Mitt Romney dared to say that he would end gridlock in D.C. because he had worked with Democrats in the past. Not to be outdone, Newt also talked about his work with Democrats and claimed it was his bipartisanship that led to the Clinton economic boom and the balanced budget. I guess he might get away with this if there weren't people who remember those days.

An interesting sidelight to the debate was Ron Paul's criticism that Newt avoided the Vietnam War, the son of a career officer. Newt's daughter countered that he had lectured for over twenty years to the military on strategy, apparently a true statement. But what was missing in this exchange was Mitt Romney's deferments as a Mormon minister and later as a student. Romney is now bragging that he knows what it is to live like a poorer person because of his days in Paris as a missionary. The Daily Telegraph and the Guardian ripped this apart by interviewing the head of the Mormon Institute in Paris saying that Romney lived in what is now the embassy of the United Arab Emirates, a virtual palace with a French cook for the missionaries there.

The debate also had its ritual moments where the candidates tried to demonstrate they were more pro-life than each other.

So the conclusion is that if you want to wage war against Iran,outlaw abortion,deport all aliens, increase the military budget, and hope for more jobs, then you should vote for one of these people. What was missing was any sense of the future. What should be done about energy self-sufficiency, the environment, the problems facing young people.

There were two new oddball issues--the Fast and Furious issue of the AFT agency selling weapons to Mexico and the XL Pipeline. On the first, the candidates demanded Eric Holder resign. By the way any time you hear calls for Eric Holder to resign by Republicans, it has less to do with some imagined scandal than it does with the possibility he might go after the voter suppression acts in various states. And on the second, if there is a scandal in the Obama administration, it was the conflict of interests surrounding the evaluation of the XL Pipeline. Obama did the right thing in postponing the decision until the State Department got it right.

The candidates returned to a more understated "Drill, Baby, Drill" stance in criticising President Obama's energy policy. I've written about this before. According to Baker-Hughes, there are more oil and gas rigs working in the United States today than at any time since they started counting, which was in 1984. The United States has become a major exporter of oil. But the real issue for the new Republicans is that there should be no alternative energy sources. This past week the House tried to get coal listed as an alternative energy source. Even with the Solyandra failure, our solar industry is booming and improvements are coming in this sector everyday.

So far I haven't heard anything new and interesting from the Republican candidates. The best that has emerged is Newt Gingrich talking about Alzheimer's treatments and the implications about curing the disease. However, he doesn't talk about that in the campaign.

Now For The Other Side--The Case For Obama's Re-Election

2011-12-14T14:24:00.001-08:00

Hearing Dick Cheney return from the grave to lambast President Obama for muffing the Iraq withdrawal, being soft on Iran and failing to blow up the drone captured by Iran, a charge repeated by Romney today, I needed a break and read Alexis Simendinger's piece in Real Clear Politics on the arguments David Axelrod and Jim Messina made the other day about why Obama will win re-election.

Also Today the PPP poll on Virginia showed that Obama has a healthy lead in the Commonwealth against both Romney and Gingrich, despite have an approval rating of about 46%.

If you are deterministic about elections, the high unemployment and the turbulent wins buffeting President Obama should doom his chances of re-election after the sky-high expectations when he took office. For the record, his first two years were the most productive of any President in my lifetime, surpassing LBJ and John F. Kennedy. Yet you would never know it from the media. And this month will end the Iraq War, which he campaigned to end and he did, but any praise he may deserve is overshadowed by the dead-enders like John McCain, Lindsey Graham and Dick Cheney who thought we could occupy that country forever.

But what are the arguments of Team Obama?

1. The Republican presidential candidates are "simply not in the mainstream on so many issues." The GOP contenders share the same trickle-down theory that governed the policies of the last decade and more importantly the 1920s and they led to disaster. We've already gotten a trial run of these ideas with the 2010 House Republicans who have yet to introduce legislation that would lead to the creation of any jobs.

2. The GOP primary calender could stretch well into 2012,which means that Republicans will be forced to champion right-wing positions far longer that they can not pivot to the general election in time. Messina noted that a full third of Republican delegates are at stake in May or June. David Axelrod said,"The longer this race goes the more you're going to see these Republican candidates mortgage their general election campaign to try to win the nomination."

3. Obama is the embattled incumbent. His team believes he can overcome high unemployment and low job approval by touting his policy achievements and experience to key constituencies; use the bully pulpit to impress on the public his jobs and economic message; sell a compelling vision for the future, and spar with an unpopular Congress to draw sharp contrasts and show some fight. Axelrod again commented that there exists a solid core for the President, some argue it is 44%, but a significant number of voters are up for grabs. But those voters do not have a positive view of today's Republican Party.

4. Obama intends to shore up support from his Democratic base with renewed passion on the issues affecting the Middle Class and the economy. By diving into the debate over extending the payroll tax holiday and extending the unemployment insurance ,the President hopes to reinforce the view that conservatives care about protecting the wealthy and special interests. Axelrod says that he doesn't think they will be punished for advocating for 160 million taxpayers.

5. To win in 2012, Obama intends to backstop his chances by plowing multiple paths to 270 electoral votes. I posted these five options the other day.

6.The President wants to enlarge the electorate as he did in 2008 but it could be more problematic this time because of the voter suppression legislation in many of the key swing states. Voter registration and a focus on shifting demographics are considered key. Also Messina noted that there are 8 million young Americans who weren't old enough to vote last time and their brothers and sisters started this and they're going to finish it."

7. Obama's campaign team has been building a ground force for the general election while the GOP canidates are focused on primaries. For example, the Obama campaign actually has more organizers on the ground in Iowa than the Republicans. When he starts the general campaign Obama will have more infrastructure in place in key states than his rival.

8. The president's campaign will once again target demographic groups, including African-Americans, Hispanics and young people. Asked about the independent voter who supported Obama but has shied away from him recently, Axelrod said these are still amenable to voting for the President, they have swung to the Republicans.

9. Axelrod said that the legislative and other battles in key states like the union-busting law in Ohio this year allowed the campaign to test theories about Democratic engagement and volunteer organizations. It was a trial run which produced helpful data and helped the creation of neighborhood teams.

10. The Obama campaign believes the president will have enough money and enough cutting-edge technology to outpace his challengers. The Third quarter saw him raise more than $70 million and this quarter should see $55 million with over 45% of the Obama's donors this cycle being new.

One failing I have noticed since Obama has been President is the failure at messaging. Almost all Americans have little knowledge about the string of his accomplishments. These rise up and gain notoriety for the mandated 15 minutes and then are forgotten. While President Obama did managed to brag a bit in his 60 Minutes interview it was clear he is uncomfortable about tooting his own horn. While I appreciate his team acting low-key in contrast to the screeching we hear from Republicans, sometimes I think all of them appear somnolent and not geared up for battle. I hope at some point they start sending out the zingers and have snappy comebacks.

Nate The Great Weighs in on Iowa

2011-12-14T10:32:00.000-08:00

Nate Silver at his FiveThirtyEight blog at the New York Times is finished feeding all the numbers into his computer and weighing the possibilities for the Iowa Caucus.

Before Nate's findings Insider Advantage's poll from last night has Gingrich 27%, Paul 17%, Perry 13% and Romney at fourth with 12%. And for New Hampshire freaks it's Romney 32.3%, Gingrich at 24% and Ron Paul at 18.7%.

Nate explains his methodology, which weighs polls and reallocates averages and calculates momentum. Remember Nate was the star of the 2008 election nailing almost every primary with his funky ways.

His polling average has Gingrich at 25% and Mitt Romney at 15% in the Iowa polls.

Nate in his Vote Projection, which is the sum of the Reallocated Average and the Momentum factor, represents the best guess of how a candidate will do on election day. Nate's preduction is Gingrich at 25%, Paul at 21% and Romney at 16%.

So Nate then calculates the Win Probability, which combines the vote prokections and the uncertainty together to estimate how likely each candidate is win the caucuses.

So Newt's win probability is just under 50%. Ron Paul has gained ground and now has a 28% chance of winning. Romney, Perry and Bachmann are all between 5 and 10 %.

The question then would be is Newt and Paul get a little bounce heading to New Hampshire, where Romney is polling about the same as he did in 2008 before he moved there and adopted the state as his home. Now you can see how terrified the Republican establishment is because they have every right to be.

The 1,000th Post--The Pew Poll

2011-12-14T08:42:00.000-08:00

Thank you to all the readers as we reach the 1,000th milestone on this blog, which now has lasted nearly three years. It's been a hoot.

Now for the last item of the Pew Poll. President Obama's approval rating is 46%. If you compare approval ratings beginning with Jimmy Carter, if President Obama can get up to 48% he is re-elected.

Now for the Republican contest. The Pew finds there is less satisfaction among Republicans with their choices this year than during the last election. Also that the intensity factor for both Newt and Romney is lagging.

Here are the findings:
Newt is at 35%, his support has doubled in the last month, taking alot of that from Herman Cain supporters.
Mitt is steady at his 21%, which seems to be his ceiling for the past year.

35% of Republicans believe Newt can beat Obama.
28% think Romney can.

70% say they would support or vote for Gingrich.
61% say they would support or vote for Romney.

18% say they would never vote for Gingrich.
26% say they would never vote for Romney.
Over 40% have ruled out any of the other candidates.

What's interesting is that only 29% strongly support Newt but 33% strongly support Romney.

The Tea Party results are not as mystifying as they might seem at close glance. Newt is favored 35% to 20% over Romney. If their preferred candidate isn't available, 40% would vote for Romney. In one of my next posts, I'll described the findings of two scholars who studied the Tea Party phenomenon and concluded that their number one goal is to defeat Barack Obama. But 31% of the Tea Party said there was no chance they could vote for Romney. Only 17% said the same about Gingrich. 75% said they would vote for him.

The Evangelical Christian vote is reveealing. 10% favor Romney and 41% said there would be a chance thet would vote for him. 35% of evengelicals said under no circumstances would they vote for him. 35% were for Gingrich and another 30% said they could vote for him. Only 18% said they would not vote for Gingrich.

On the Gender Gap. 40% of males favored Gingrich over 19% for Romney. Surprisingly 29% of women were for Gingrich against only 22% for Romney.

In the South, Gingrich has 41% support and Romney only 16%.
But in the West, Romney nets 30% to Gingrich's 27%.

The Washington Post again had several op-eds blasting Gingrich. The Republican establishment is going apeshit over Newt's popularity because as we've seen in other polls he would be wiped out by Obama.

If this was troubling Republicans enough, the number 1 Vice Presidential pick for both Newt and Romney is the new Florida Senator Marco Rubio. He was a darling of the Tea Party and thought to be the solution to the Republican's increasing problem with Hispanics. But Rubio may not even be helpful in winning Florida with its sizeable Cuban population.

The PPP has been tracking Rubio's approval ratings for the past several months. They have constantly declined. Now he is at 40/40. But what's so interesting is that only 24% of Floridians say they'd be more likely to vote for the GOP ticket if Rubio was on it, compared to 41% who said they were less inclined. The numbers with independents were a dysmal 22/38. Apparently, Rubio's opposition to the Hispanic ambassador to El Salvador has sparked bad feelings in the Hispanic community. So Rubio is now in a muddle and his prospects as being the Hispanic bullet appear to be diminishing.

NBC/ Wall Street Poll

2011-12-14T07:54:00.000-08:00

The NBC/Wall Street poll wasn't good news for Mitt Romney. Gingrich in a multi-candidate race has a 40% to 23% lead over Mitt Romney. Over 2/3rds of Republicans believe Romney is either a liberal or a moderate. Only 29% view him as somewhat or very conservative. Over 57% believe Gingrich is a conservative. In a two-way race, it gets worse for Romney with Gingrich beating Mitt 59% to 36%.

Now when it comes to running against Obama, Obama beats Romney by 2--47% to 45%. But Obama whips Gingrich 51% to 40%. What is striking in the poll is that 50% of voters say they will absolutely not vote for Ginrgich. Of "real" swing voters he is disliked by a 3 to 1 margin. Only 16% view Gingrich favorably compared to 48% unfavorably.

On who will defend the Middle Class, the poll has shifted dramatically. 44% say Democrats will, but only 24% believe Republicans will.

On Congress, a combined 75% grade Congress as below average (33%) or the worse Congress (42%).

I imagine we will see more schizophrenic findings showing how far right Republicans have become against the population at large

Rancho Deluxe Enters the 21st century

2011-12-13T14:04:00.000-08:00

If we remember, our young rustlers, Sam Waterson and Jeff Bridges, took an old buffalo rifle to fell the cows on a ranch of a wealthy man and were apprehended by Slim Pickins, who used the old tricks of the trade from the cowboy West. Our young rustlers ended up at a prison farm tending the horses.

Today, Rancho DeLuxe, one of Tom McGuane's finest Hollywood creations, gets a remake. The Daily Mail of the U.K. writes that Sheriff Kelly Janke of North Dakota became the first American lawman to use an unmanned Predator to nail the dangerous Brossart family. This was the first reported use of a predator by local law enforcement officials without prior congressional approval or a search warrant.

The Brossart family had a reputation of being armed and being anti-government separatists who lived on a sprawling farm with a house, a trailer and two RVs.

The problem was that the Brossarts wouldn't give up three cows and their calves that wandered on their farm during the summer. The sheriff rounded up some deputies and arrested Mr. Brossart for failing to report stray livestock and then came back to collect the lost cattle only to be confronted by the three sons who confronted the officers with rifles and shotguns.

The sheriff then sumoned a MQ-9 Predator B drone from nearby Grand Forks Air Force Base, where it had been patrolling the Canadian border. Using a handheld device, the sheriff picked up video footage that tracked the movements of everyone on the farm. After 16 hours, he saw that the Brossarts had put down their weapons. Dressed in SWAT gear, they stormed the compound and arrested the three sons.

The police recovered the cattle, valued at $6,000. All the Brossarts face several felony charges and have repeatedly not shown up to court after posting $250,000 in bail.

Sheriff Janke said his operation would not have been possible without the intelligence provided by the predators. "We don't have to go in guns blazing. We can take our time and methodically plan out what our approach should be.", he told the Los Angeles Times.

All the surveillance occurred without a search warrant because the Supreme Court ruled that anything visible from the air, even on private property can be subject to police spying. No one asked about the having federal government predators serving at the beck and call of local law enforcement. Nor did anyone ask how much did this all cost compared to the $6,000 in cows.

I think I'll stay with Slim Pickens. He was a better sport.

The Five Paths to Re-Election

2011-12-13T13:29:00.000-08:00

Sam Stein wrote in today's Huffington Post about the briefing top Obama campaign officials gave for reporters in Washington, where they outlined five different paths they can pursue for President Obama to reach 270 electoral votes.

As Stein writes, David Axelrod and campaign manager Jim Messina pledged to follow the numbers-based approach used by former campaign manager David Plouffe in 2008. In my mind, that was as perfect a campaign I have ever seen run in the United States. Following that successful strategy,the two men have gamed out several different regional strategies to help them reach 270.

The campaign starts with the idea of holding all states won by John Kerry in 2004--not a guaranteed proposition. Then there would be the "West Path", which assumes Obama would win Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada. Added to Kerry's 246, you would have 266. Add in Iowa's six electoral votes and you have 272.

The second path is the "Florida Path:, which would mean winning that state and its 29 electoral votes, which brings you to 275.

The Third path is the "South Path", which involves North Carolina 9with its 15 electoral votes) and Virginia (13) for a total of 274.

The fourth path is the Midwest path, which involves adding Ohio ( and its 18 electoral votes) and Iowa (wits its six) for 270 on the nose.

The the campaign has the "expansion path", which has President Obama losing critical states such as Pennsylvania and New Hampshire (a total of 24 votes) and failing to win Florida and Ohio, which he won last time. But by re-winning Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and adding Arizona with its 11 votes , Obama gets to 272.

The re-election team said they were not tied to pursuing any of these paths. But it is clear they have a great deal of flexibility.

Axelrod thought that someone like Romney with his history in private equity is not going to be a compelling candidate in Ohio and Pennsylvania. He did say that newt would have "less to explain" in the Rust Belt but that Romney could play well in Michigan, where he grew up and his father served as governor. Of course, Michigan's recent good fortunes are the consequence of President Obama saving the auto industry and Governor's Stenholm's jobs policies but the Republican is likely to get the credit.

Stein's point is that the Obama campaign has more conceivable ways to victory than coventional wisdom suggests. I've noted again that the Obama Campaign seems to be opening offices in the Dakotas and in Georgia, which indicates they are playing a larger field than today's poll numbers would suggest possible.

Still Other Things You May Not Have Heard

2011-12-13T13:02:00.000-08:00

++Donald Trump has pulled out of his own debate, whch was supposed to be sponsored by Newsmax and shown on Aeion television, whatever that is.

++Politico has printed an article that shows that despite Newt polling way ahead of Romney in the South that no candidate this year has a lock on the region. Haley Barbour commented that "we're all split up this year." Haley said the natural favorite was Rick Perry but that disappeared after his faulty beginnings but Haley said Perry could make a comeback.

++NBC/ Wall Street Journal poll today shows that 51% of Americans believe the Republican field is average and another 27% believe it is weak. Only 21% said that the field was strong.

++Newt's surge may not be long lasting. His support among the teabaggers has gone from 35% down to 24% and his unfavorables are rising. Pollsters say the damage has been done by the attack ads on Iowa television. Remember this is what Nate Silver warned republicans about--the nastier the fight gets the more damaged will be the winner.

++The Romney campaign have deliberately set out to "humanize" Mitt after a series of devastating ads by both Republicans and Democrats showing how out of touch he is with the common people. To this end, they are sending his wife Ann to Iowa to campaign with him and make him seem normal. Political observers claimed that the Republican race has boiled down to a choice between aluminum siding and Pillsbury dough. A plurality of a Politico Poll believe the attempt to humanize Romney is a mistake because voters perceptions are already set.

++The latest PPP Iowa poll has Gingrich at 22, Paul at 21, Romney at 16, Bachmann at 11 and Rick Perry at 9. If Paul won Iowa,which is very possible, it would turn the race upside down. He would then follow in New Hampshire where traditionally he has been strong with traditional libertarians. But after that it would be downhill.

++Michael Tomasky at the Daily Beast pens a piece "Could Obama Be Headed For a Landslide." Tomasky cites the polls showing that Obama would beat either Romney or Gingrich in South Carolina in the general election. Those are poll taken with the President's national poll sitting at about 44%. If Obama is ahead in South Carolina and Florida when this low in the polls, Republicans have reason to be concerned. Tomasky also reviews the faltering approval ratings of teabagger favorite Nikki Haley, the Governor of South Carolina, and the abysmal ratings of Rick Scott, the lowest rated governor in the United States. Tomasky argues that Obama can lose a long list of states and still win 270 electoral votes. But he suggests if he's winning in these two, then he's not losing in the others. Tomasky says he is winning in Missouri, Arizona and Georgia against Gingrich.

++Gallup released a poll today that said that Obama was losing all the swing states. But the poll contradicted their own a shortwhile back and more current polls by PPP, Quinnipiac and Marist. That's alright because we have until March to really pay attention to the polls.

++One fact I noted in a recent approval poll of Obama was that 65% of Americans feel he is a strong leader and approximately the same like the man personally and his family. This is a far cry from the perception repeated by the Republicans that he is a weak leader.