Change? Obama Worse than Bush

The verdict is in, and Barack Obama did not produce the change he promised.  In fact, as he blames all his ills on the last 8 years, it is interesting to compare the Bush years to the Obama years.  Consider the following:

Average Annual Increase in Public Debt (in millions):

Bush: $543,818        Obama: $1,497,601

Total Increase in Public Debt (in millions):

Bush (8 years): $4,217,261   Obama (4 years): $5,990,407

Average Annual Unemployment (Also see here):

Bush: 5.26%                    Obama: 9.2%

Median Household Incomes:

January, 2009: $55,198       August, 2012: $50,678

The Average Annual Price of Gas (not even including 2012):

Bush: $2.14                     Obama: $2.89

Cost of Higher Education (adj. for inflation, not even including 2012):

Bush 2008: $16,661     Obama 2011: $18,497

But isn’t health insurance cheaper now with Obamacare?  No.  In 2012 the amount a family with employer provided coverage pays in annual premiums has increased to about $16,000.  For families with private individual plans, the amount is up to $5,615.  And before you ask why families don’t all just switch to private individual plans, remember that Obamacare taxes medium-large businesses up to $3,000 per employee that they don’t cover.

But we know Obama has handled the economy terribly.  The other thing people elected Obama for was to end the wars.  Obama promised to close Gitmo, which didn’t happen, and to end the war in Iraq.  He ended the war in Iraq by sticking to Bush’s timeline, but that wasn’t the whole story.  Obama intended to continue the war and leave troops in Iraq, but Biden could not negotiate simple immunity for our troops.  Don’t look now, but the Afghanistan war isn’t ending in 2014.  The administration is already negotiating to keep up to 25,000 troops in Afghanistan after 2014.

Let’s look at war by the numbers.

Involvement in Major Foreign Conflicts:

Bush: 2 countries           Obama: 3 countries

Military Spending as % of GDP:

Bush, 2008: 4.4%          Obama, 2011: 4.7%

Average Annual War Spending:

Bush: $99.3 Billion       Obama: $155.1 Billion

Obama boasts of ending the war in Iraq, but how is the peace President doing in Afghanistan?

Average Annual Troop Deaths:

Bush: 606                        Obama: 445

Iraq:  528                         66

Afghanistan: 78              379

But what about Bush’s handling of Katrina?  Surely Obama has done better than that, right?  Former NYC Mayor Guiliani says no.

What about taxes?  Obama boasts about cutting people’s taxes, but most of the tax hikes he passed don’t go into effect until next year.  Obamacare has 20 different tax hikes in it, and many of those affect the poor and the sick.

But Obama saved the auto industry, right?  Actually, the only Detroit major that survived was Ford.  Ford didn’t take Obama’s bailout.  Chrysler did, and is now owned by an Italian company called Fiat.  GM took Obama’s bailout and is now owned by the taxpayers.  This was after Obama spent billions to bailout the unions before letting the two companies go through bankruptcy.  If that’s Obama saving the auto industry, I hope he doesn’t do me any favors.

Add these factors to Benghazi, Fast and Furious, the Black Panther polling case, Solyndra, and the other various scandals and overreaches of the Obama administration, and there is no reason to re-elect Obama.  Except of course if you got an Obama phone and are afraid of losing it.

How Obama Could Still Win:

Several states in play are ties or tossups in the latest polls.  In some, Obama is leading by 3-5%, but 3-5% are either undecided or going third party.  Obama can still win, even with his horrible statistics, if people vote third party or stay home.

I know many out there are voting third party or not voting to protest Romney.  I, like you, am a very libertarian leaning constitutionalist.  I’d love to see us out of the Middle East.  I’d love to see government spending cut in half.  I’d love to see us hold to our 10th amendment.  But Mitt Romney is NOT Barack Obama.

If anything, Mitt Romney is far closer to Reagan.  Despite being hailed as a conservative hero, Reagan is not as conservative as I would have preferred.  In fact, many Ron Paul and Gary Johnson voters would probably not vote for Reagan either.  But Mitt Romney is not the candidate you should be protesting.  You should be protesting Barack Obama.

Consider your goals and which candidate will get us there:

Less involvement in the Middle East: Mitt Romney has a comprehensive energy plan that gets America using its own resources to lower our dependence on OPEC.  Obama spent billions of your tax dollars on green energy companies that went bankrupt, and we are no closer to independence from foreign oil.

Simpler, fairer tax system: Romney’s plan reduces rates in order to remove loopholes and deductions based on the government’s definition of what a good citizen looks like without raising taxes.  Obama’s plan is higher taxes, more redistribution and a more complex tax system designed to pick winners and losers.

Foreign wars: Obama has proven himself to be an interventionalist.  He is not the peace President people hoped for.  He hasn’t closed Gitmo.  He only left Iraq because he was too incompetent to negotiate a way to stay there.  But he is already negotiating to keep 25,000 troops in Afghanistan.  Romney’s approach is to show the kind of strength Reagan did.  What major war did we fight when Reagan was President?  The Cold War, where we sat across the ocean from each other and didn’t pull the trigger for eight years.  Finally, the Soviet Union collapsed under their economic system.

More personal freedom and responsibility: Nothing took us backwards further as a nation than Obamacare.  Obamacare mandates that every American buy private health insurance or pay a tax.  Obamacare takes deciding power away from doctors and patients and gives it to the government.  If you protest Romney, Obamacare is here to stay.  If you vote to protest Obama, we have a shot at repealing this monstrous tax on the sick and the poor.

Does My Vote Count?

If you are thinking of voting third party or not voting because Romney is not as conservative as you’d like, you could be part of the margin that gives Obama four more years to take us down the path towards socialism at hyperspeed.  So where does Romney need your vote the most:

Virginia, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Florida, Nevada, Colorado, Indiana, Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan, New Mexico, Arizona.

But believe it or not, he also needs you in Oregon, Minnesota, Connecticut, New Jersey, and Maine. If nothing else, vote to tell the liberals in your state that they do not have a mandate.  The country is changing and is leaning to the right.  You will never get the conservative, limited government you want if you let the country fall off the socialist cliff because the most conservative candidate who can win is not conservative enough for you.

When you walk into the voting booth, consider what you want America to look like in 2016.  Do you want to move forward the way Obama does?  Do you really want four more years of this?

Romney Pulls Ahead of Obama in Ohio

      President Obama’s failure to stop the continued momentum of Mitt Romney in the final days of the election has now allowed Romney to pull ahead of the President in the battleground state of Ohio where according to a new Rasmussen poll, Governor Romney now has a two-point advantage.

The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of likely Ohio voters shows Romney with 50 percent support to President Obama’s 48 percent. According to the poll, 1 percent likes a third party candidate, while another one percent remains undecided.

Rasmussen also finds that among all Ohio voters, Romney now has a 12-point lead over the President in voter trust – 53 percent to 41 percent – when it comes to the economy. Last week, Romney had just a seven-point advantage among voters in the state when they were asked which candidate they trusted more to deal with the economy.

Romney’s also trusted more by eight points in the areas of job creation and energy policy but leads Obama by just two when it comes to housing
issues.  And when it comes to national security Governor Romney now has a 52 percent to 42 percent advantage on the issue.

All of this is evidence of the fact that Romney continues to ride a wave of momentum which is tipping the election in his favor more and more with the passage of each day.

While White House 2012 knows that Ohio is relatively close, our own analysis of polls, data, and circumstances on the ground in each state and nationally, has projected that Mitt Romney will in fact ultimately see Ohio’s 18 electoral votes go to Romney.  Interestingly, that same analysis produced evidence that upended the existing narrative that Mitt Romney can’t win the presidency without Ohio. WH12’s newest analysis showed just the opposite.

For President Obama, while he has three paths to victory two less than Romney, each of one them requires that to win the election, the President must win Ohio.

For Mitt Romney, of the five routes to victory available to him, only one of them requires that he wins Ohio, and as seen in the graphic below, that path is the one which he needs only if he losses each of the other remaining tossup states.

This latest Rasmussen poll is of course a mere snapshot of opinions at the moment and while there is room for error in the poll and the possibility for  voter sentiments to change within the next 7 days, existing evidence indicates that such a reversal of fortunes for Romney is unlikely.

Suffolk Stops Polling Presidential Race in Fl, NC and VA. Says Romney Is Certain to Win All 3

    Since 2002, the Suffolk University Political Research Center has conducted polls and survey analyses with a 96% record of accuracy in predicting outcomes in Massachusetts, key battleground states, and nationally.  As such, Suffolk is considered far more reliable than not. So it should come as a surprise to those who believe that Barack Obama will defeat Mitt Romney handily when a reliable polling outfit like Suffolk announces that it is so clear to them that Romney has locked up wins in three key battleground states so securely that they are discontinuing any future polling of the presidential election in those states.

Pollster David Paleologos, the Director of the Suffolk University Research Center recently declared to Bill O’Reilly on his Fox News show “The Factor”, that his organization will not be taking anymore polls of the presidential election in Florida, North Carolina and Virginia.  According to Paleologos, a look at the existing polling data in those states indicates overwhelming evidence of the depth of Romney’s support in those states as compared to the president.  Paleologos adds, “we’ve colored those states red.” (See the video below)

This is an extraordinarily significant development in the race for President. Polling is a lucrative business and a decision such as the one Suffolk has made here would not have been made unless they were absolutely certain with of the results they now predict.  It signals the beginning of what White House 2012 has predicted to be Romney’s winning of the presidential election in the Electoral College by a much larger than margin than many believe possible.  Currently White House 2012 has Governor Romney defeating President Obama by 281 electoral votes to 257, but with with a stated expectation of soon putting New Hampshire and Nevada in Romney’s column, White House 2012 is sure that that Romney’s electoral vote count is on the rise.

If it is indeed true that Mitt Romney has a lock on Florida, North Carolina, and Virginia, President Obama finds himself facing an election that is totally different from the one he was running prior to last week’s presidential debate.  If those three states are solid for Romney, the number of paths that are available for the President to piece together the 270 electoral votes he needs in order to win reelection, are greatly reduced and it makes his need to deny Romney a win in Ohio almost essential to his reelection effort.  Meanwhile multiple polls from a range of independent survey outfits are now showing Mitt Romney to either be ahead of the President in Ohio or nearly tied with him.  These polls also show Romney pulling ahead in other battleground states and nationally.

But the decision by Suffolk to stop polling the presidential race in Fl, NC and Va, is a surefire sign that the race is over for President Obama in those states.  Pretty soon his own internal polls will probably make that inconvenient truth evident to his own campaign.  We will come to realize when they have reached that same conclusion as we soon begin to notice a lack of visits by the President to Florida, North Carolina, and Virginia and a noticeably larger amount of his time spent in Ohio, Iowa, Nevada and a few states that up to now, the President was so far ahead in that he did not to waste his time visiting.  Those states include Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, three states which the Romney-Ryan ticket is cutting in to the Obama-Biden tickets once double digit leads.

As early as two weeks ago, an analysis of polls and other factors by White House 2012 had reached almost the same conclusion that Suffolk did about Florida, North Carolina, and Virginia.   In fact, in White House 2012’s Electoral College Projection we stated that we no longer consider North Carolina a battleground state.  As for Florida and Virginia, White House 2012 has projected them to be red for Romney but we have not yet been confident enough to suggest that President Obama will at some point become more competitive in those two states again.  So far though, Suffolk’s polls and decision are o confirm that White House 2012 is doing a good job at analyzing the electorate.  In fact it just so happens that White House 2012 and Suffolk are independently in agreement with one another.

New White House 2012 Projection Has Romney Winning By 24 Electoral Votes

  With 29 days remaining in the race for President, White House 2012’s latest analysis of polls, circumstances, and conditions, concludes that there is a swing towards Mitt Romney in the Electoral College that is so pronounced that the Romney-Ryan ticket has increased its lead over the Obama-Biden ticket by at least 24 electoral votes.  The last White House 2012 projection had Mitt Romney winning 273 electoral votes to the presidents 265 electoral votes.  Today Romney stands at 281 electoral votes to 257 for the President.

For the first time, the latest projection gives Romney the all important state of Ohio, which up to now has been written off by White House 2012 as an almost certain win for President Obama. However, small shifts which have revealed themselves in most of the polls figured in to the Real Clear Politics average of polls since Romney’ stellar debate performance last Wednesday, now indicate that if the numbers hold up, Romney will win Ohio, a change that significantly increases the number of ways that Romney can reach the magic number of 270 that is needed to win the presidential race in the electoral college.

While Romney seems to be gaining momentum, it is too early to call it a steady trend, especially given the fact that while Romney has picked up Ohio in the newest projection, New Hampshire and Nevada which Romney did have in column last week, have flipped back to President Obama today.  The good news is that combined, New Hampshire and Nevada have a total of only 10 electoral votes while by itself Ohio has a total of 18 electoral votes.  So even if Romney did lose Nevada and New Hampshire, he stands on better ground after picking up the Buckeye State.  However; it is important to note that White House 2012 is being very conservative by flipping New Hampshire and Nevada to the Obama-Biden ticket.  While the RCP average has pushed the President’s lead in those two states to be in excess of the 3.7% margin of error which we give to Mitt Romney to compensate for each polls poor judgment in the use the 2008 turnout models, other factors prove to be working in Mitt Romney’s favor and allow us to give the President those states by only the slimmest of margins. So both New Hampshire and Nevada are now only barely light blue for the President and they could easily turn pink for Romney at a moment’s notice.

While most states are clearly leaning towards one candidate or the other, White House 2012 is currently only considering there to be seven battleground states.  They are Colorado, Florida, Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, Ohio, and Virginia.  Of those states, White House 2012 currently projects the following outcomes;

White House 2012 does see the potential for Romney to become much more competitive in Wisconsin, New Mexico, and possibly Michigan but for now, we do not consider them to be battleground states.

Other Favorable Indicators for Romney

As the race continues to evolve, this projection will change, however; at the moment the race is shaping up to be one that is moving in Mitt Romney’s direction.

For instance, it is with good reason that we continue to forecast Romney victories in the critical states of Florida and Virginia.

While some polls show small Romney leads in those states, most all other polls show Romney to have at least closed the small previous gap that existed between him and the President by as much as half or more.  For example, the latest number from PPP, a Democrat leaning polling outfit, shows that in Virginia, Obama’s lead has shrunk from +5  to +3.  While that Obama lead might not seem like good news for Romney, it is actually very good news when you consider the fact that by using the same turnout model from 2008, the PPP sampling finds this smaller Obama lead even after still giving Democrats a +6 advantage over Republicans.

Furthermore; it is that same Democrat advantage that polls are giving to the President which we see in other states such as Ohio, Florida, New Hampshire and all the other critical swing states.  Yet despite this Democrat advantage, Romney is gaining on the President.  So much so that WH12 sees evidence that indicates the Romney-Ryan ticket will probably not only win the election, they will probably win it by an even wider margin than anyone thinks possible.

Adding to this positive direction for Romney are indications that his own internal polling in at least two states. Currently, those internal polls are said to show Virginia and Ohio show him beating Obama by as much as 3.0% and 4.5%, respectively.

Conclusion;

The recent questionable jobs report has provided a slight spike in consumer confidence but it has not yet translated in to a bounce for the President.  At the same time, President Obama’s approval ratings continue to remain at or below 50%, a position not conducive for reelection of an incumbent President. 

Meanwhile, after his initial debate performance Mitt Romney has established himself as a real threat to the reelection of President Obama.  For the first time since their conventions, Romney is seeing evidence of his base becoming excited with his candidacy and there are signs that undecided voters are moving in his direction.  But Republicans must be careful to not consider this a trend until and unless future polls over the course of the next week show these recent numbers to still be moving in the right direction.  However; at the moment the Romney-Ryan ticket seems to have blocked President Obama’s own forward momentum in the polls and at the same time has finally gotten his campaign moving at pace that could turn the tables on the Obama-Biden and make them the ones with fewer paths to victory.  But to do that, Romney must be sure to keep the momentum moving in the right direction and at the right pace.  To do that, Romney must avoid any stumbles on the campaign trail and he must make sure that an endless repetitive stream of his well crafted 30 second ads are driving home his message and allowing it to sink in among the voters who have a new found respect for Romney after his first debate and are now more receptive to his message than they have been at any other point in this election.

The Projection Formula

The White House 2012 projection takes the Real Clear Politics average of polls and compensates for the outdated 2008 turnout models being used in each in poll by compensating for the under-counting of Republican turnout by adding to Romney’s total, the 3.7% average margin of error in the seven key swing states of Colorado, Florida, Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, Ohio, and Virginia.  Then along with a dose of personal political instinct, our projection incorporates other factors in to the equation such as the unemployment rates of individual states and the organizational strength of each state’s Party. 

Internal Polls Have Romney Ahead in at Least 2 Pivotal Swing States

     According to Breitbat editor Mike Flynn, the Romney campaign has internal polls that now show the Romney-Ryan ticket ahead of President Obama in two important battleground states… Ohio and New Hampshire.  According to two tweets posted by Flynn  on his Twitter feed, Romney’s internal polls have him beating the President in New Hampshire by 3.0%, and an almost unimaginably wider margin of 4.5% in Ohio.

If these numbers are true, this would suggest that my own estimation of a Romney victory that will be much bigger than most people think possible, could be shaping up.   Especially if Mitt Romney is ahead in Ohio.

While I have sensed that this race is not quite as close as most polls indicate, my inability to totally discount the preponderance of public polling numbers that are out there has been leading me to conclude that in 2012, the G.O.P. may win the White House without Ohio for the first time in history. Part of the reason for that opinion has been due to the available polling data.  The other part is my knowing that President Obama is going to do everything possible to win the Buckeye State for himself.  Doing so would leave Romney with significantly fewer paths to victory.  But aggressive campaigning by Romney in several other key states, specifically Iowa, Colorado, New Hampshire, Nevada and of course Virginia and Florida, has led me to conclude that while Team Romney has by no means written off Ohio, they are actively working on Plan B…. the plan to win the election without Ohio if necessary.

But if these leaked internal polls are accurate, Mitt Romney is currently on his way to being able to carry out his preferred plan of winning the election with Ohio and the way I see it, if he can do that, Americans will be stunned to find out on November 7th that Romney beat President Obama by far more than anyone predicted.

If the Romney-Ryan ticket can win Ohio, that bodes quite well for additional victories in swing states like Florida, Virginia, Iowa, Colorado, and New Hampshire.  Given the make-up of Ohio, it is very good bellwether of the sentiments that exist in those aforementioned states.  Furthermore, a lead in Ohio would also indicates that Nevada is quite winnable.  Even more stunning is that it could be a sign that Romney is in contention for wins in other states like Wisconsin, which according to most polls is currently slipping away from the G.O.P. presidential ticket.  No matter what though, a lead in Ohio would significantly turn the tables on the Obama-Biden ticket by suddenly making them the ticket with fewer paths available to them to reach the magic number of 270 in the Electoral College.

Unfortunately for Romney backers, the reliability of this second and now third-hand information is not enough for us to hang our hats on yet.

While all campaigns conduct internal polls, they do not spend much time publicly talking about them or releasing the data and information contained in them.  By law, if a campaign releases any numbers from their internal polls, they must release the entire poll.  However, as is always the case with politics, campaigns can and do find ways to see that certain tib-bits somehow leak out for public consumption without being caught.  In this case,  no one can be sure of where or how Mike Flynn got hold of these numbers.  But if he did somehow get a look at the Romney campaign’s actual internal poll numbers for Ohio and New Hampshire, the news contained in his two tweets changes the narrative of this election by turning President in to the underdog in the race.

If the numbers Flynn released are actually from the Romney campaign’s internal polls, you can rest assured that they are accurate.  Mainly because of Neil Newhouse, the man who put those numbers together.

Neil Newhouse is Romney’s chief pollster and globally, one of the best pollsters around.   He is a co-founder of Public Opinion Strategies, a national political and public affairs survey research firm that has been described as “the leading Republican polling company” in the country and in 2011 he was named “Pollster of the Year” by the American Association of Political Consultants for his work on Scott Brown’s winning Senate campaign in Massachusetts.

At Public Opinion Strategies, Newhouse developed a culture and approach to winning that is practically unsurpassed as he successfully helped political candidates win tough campaigns and scored hard-fought successes in the public affairs arena for some of America’s leading corporations and associations.  Through his polling efforts Newhouse has been a master at taking accurate polls and using the information derived from them to successfully tailor the type of winning messages that have allowed his candidates to get elected.  So if Neil Newhouse’s polling does actually have Romney up by as much as 3.0% in New Hampshire and 4.5% in Ohio, chances are that the vast majority of public polls which are basing their models on outdated 2008 turnout models, are offering us a very misleading perception of just how tight the election will actually be.

First Reliable Post Debate Polls Shows the Momentum Behind Romney

     Rasmussen Reports has released the first major polls for the critical swing states of Florida, Ohio, and Virginia since Romney’s masterful debate performance on Wednesday night.  The surveys seem to indicate that the first presidential debate has provided Romney with some of the forward momentum that previous polling indicated he needed in those states as Romney closes the gap in each of the three states to within either a percentage point behind or ahead of President Obama.

While all of this is good news for Mitt, the best news of all is in the Ohio numbers.

• FLORIDA:    Romney 49% – Obama 47%
• OHIO:            Obama 50%   – Romney 49
• VIRGINIA:  Romney 49% – Obama 48%

Up to now, White House 2012 has largely concluded that Mitt Romney was likely to become the first Republican to win the White House without winning Ohio.  Barack Obama knows that without Ohio, Romney has significantly fewer paths leading to the 270 electoral votes needed to win the election.  For that reason, the Obama-Biden ticket has targeted Ohio and made it the key to their own reelection effort.  So far they have done so with success by exploiting the President’s bailout of the auto industry which in one way or another, employs a significant number of Ohioans.  But these new numbers may now show that the Obama strategy to deny Romney Ohio is going to be tougher than heretofore believed.  Apparently, Romney’s debate performance swung at least some minds in his direction.  But the apparent turnaround in Ohio and Obama’s struggle to deny Romney the state is a problem for the President that is only compounded by the fact that the latest Rasmussen poll now also shows Romney ahead in Virginia and Florida.

If this trend continues, the tables can quickly turn and President Obama can find himself the one losing the number of paths available to reelection.

On Monday, when these and other polls are figured in to the  RCP average of polls, White House 2012 will be updating its own Electoral College projection which currently gives Romney an 8 vote lead over President Obama.  (See the current WH12 Electoral College Projection here.)

The White House 2012 Electoral College projection is based upon a formula which uses the average margin of error in all the polls that Real Clear Politics uses to reach its average of polls.  This formula compensates for what we believe is the undercounting of the Republican voter that most polling outfits are using by basing this election on the 2010 turnout models.  Under this formula, White House 2012 currently adds 3.7% to Romney’s RCP average in each of the swing states of Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, and Virginia….  the six  states we believe are still undecided.  North Carolina which is considered a swing state by the mainstream media, is not considered such by White House 2012.  We believe that Romney will win North Carolina and have put that state and its 15 electoral votes in Romney’s column.

As indicated in the map below with blue states being for Obama and red states being for Romney, most other states are clearly in the column of one candidate or the other.   A few exceptions could present themselves though in the coming weeks.  White House 2012 suspects that Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and New Mexico could open up and become much more competitive for Romney than it currently is.  If that happens, WH12 will consider them toss-ups and apply the 3.7% formula to their RCP average.

 

Who Do You Want Mitt Romney to Pick for Vice President?

 As the race for President seems to have entered a perpetual state of boredom that is filled with a bumper sticker mentality of shallow stump speeches that offer little insight and a whole lot of repetitive pot shots and one liners, concerned voters find themselves left with but one last intriguing question —- who will Mitt Romney pick for Vice President?

Rob Portman

Aside from the actual election results, the question of who Romney will pick for Vice President is perhaps the only moment of suspense remaining in the campaign.  And as such, who he picks could actually make more of a difference than it has in most of the presidential elections in our recent past.  In fact, according to a CBS News/New York Times  poll released last Wednesday, 74 percent of registered voters said that a candidate’s running mate  matters “a lot” or “somewhat” to their vote,(26 percent  said that it matters a lot, while 48 percent said that it matters somewhat). At  the same time, 25 percent said that it doesn’t matter at all.  However; that sentiment is often expressed at this point in every presidential election, but by the time Election Day rolls around, it is a sentiment that is usually proven wrong.  Yet in the case of Mitt Romney and this extraordinarily polarized electorate, who he picks could make the difference between winning and losing.With swing states like Ohio, Florida, and Wisconsin at stake, Rob Portman, Marco Rubio, or Paul Ryan  could add the percentage or two to the election result in their respective states that is responsible for putting Republicans over the top in the Electoral College.But with figures like former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice or New Mexico’s Susana Martinez also on the list of possible contenders, the combination of their being women and being representative of different minority groups, has the potential to erode an important part of President Obama’s base vote just enough to make a small difference in a multitude of states that Romney is currently considered less competitive in.

Marco Rubio

What Romney is thinking is anyone’s guess though and anyone who tells you otherwise is lying. The only thing we know for certain right now is that some names are less likely to be selected than others.  Take Mitch Daniels for example.  He’s a highly successful and popular two term, conservative Governor of Indiana who I originally hoped would be our presidential nominee.  With his command of matters of the budget and fiscal conservatism in general, he would be a perfect running mate for Romney in a campaign that will be based on fiscal responsibility.  Daniels also has crossover appeal and would be a perfect balance for Mitt.  Unfortunately though, Mitch  has agreed to become the President of Perdue University at the end of his term in January.  So he’s out.  Unless of course that decision was thrown out to throw us off the track?

Paul Ryan

The there’s Chris Christie, or at least there was.  He has supposedly been given the honor of delivering the highly coveted keynote address at the Republican National Convention.  That essentially means he won’t be delivering an acceptance speech at the convention.  Unless of course the rumors about his being the keynoter were intentionally thrown out for public consumption to throw us off the track?Another very striking contender was Virginia’s popular conservative Governor, Bob McDonnell.  With his national star rising from Virginia, another key battleground state in this election, his presence on the ticket could deliver a state that is practically a must win for Republicans.  But McDonnell has been named chairman of the Republican platform committee, a job that brings with it the type of contentious floor fights and baggage that automatically scratches him off of any V.P. short list.So those are is at least one name you can take out of contention and two which you can stop taking bets on.  Maybe.

McMorris Rodgers

But that still leaves us with a mix of both likely and unlikely contenders who can potentially be nominated to join Romney on the G.O.P. ticket.  They range from names such Senator Kelly Ayote of New Hampshire, to Washington State Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers, and from Louisiana’s Bobby Jindal, to Tennessee’s former U.S. Senator, Fred Thompson and a host of names in between such as Florida’s Allen West and Jeb Bush, or South Dakota’s John Thune and Minnesota’s Tim Pawlenty.  In one scenario, even a Blue Dog Democrat, North Carolina’s Heath Shuler has been floated as a game changing decision for Romney. Polls about who most Republicans want Romney to pick vary based on the audiences that frequent those platforms offering such polls.  For instance, the conservative site Town Hall is probably seeing it’s far right readers choose dark horse contender Allen West, while other more libertarian geared sites might find that Rand Paul is the choice that it’s audience most wants to see selected by Romney.But when it comes to less partisan entities that happen to do professional polling and are therefore far more accurate at polling than those who conduct online opinion surveys , there is one name that keeps emerging as the favorite among voters —– Condoleezza Rice.

John Thune

A Rasmussen Reports poll that was conducted between July 15-16, found  that 65% of likely U.S. voters share at least a somewhat favorable view of former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, while just 24% view her unfavorably. Those results included 29% who have a Very Favorable opinion of Condi Rice and 6% who had a Very Unfavorable opinion of her. Twelve 12% were undecided in the poll.  (To see survey question wording, click here).  Other professional polling surveys have had similar results and for good reason.Condoleezza Rice is regarded as a very respectable, likeable, admirable leader.  She is also viewed by most voters as someone who is guided more by personal conviction and ideology than Party and partisan politics.  Such a persona could do nothing but help the G.O.P.  and hurt Democrats.  This is especially the case when you consider the fact that as both an African-American and a woman, Condi Rice does have the potential to make significant inroads into a base vote that President Obama needs to keep in his column and that Mitt Romney desperately needs to peel off and bring his way.  Furthermore; Condoleezza Rice can help Romney with the all important independent vote that will essentially determine who wins in November.Whether Romney agrees with that assessment or not is anyone’s guess but I will state this.  If he doesn’t agree with that opinion, he’s a dope.

Condoleezza Rice

While I like many of the potential candidates for Vice President, I believe that Condoleezza Rice is the one person  who can bring everything that Romney needs to the ticket.  And I mean everything.  Not only does she cover the electoral aesthetics of being a women and being African-American, her presence on the ticket adds a degree of historic value that can benefit Republicans much the same way it benefitted Democrats in 2012.  Add Rice’s ability to articulate conservatism and the traditional American values of independence, freedom, personal responsibility better than practically anyone else other than Allen West and what you have is a running mate who is an electoral goldmine.But it’s not just the electoral politics that makes Rice such a good choice for Romney.  It is her ability to be a great President that makes her not just a good choice, but also a potentially good President.  And afterall, is that not what a Vice President is suppose to be? Few politicians have the experience and knowhow that Condoleezza Rice has and few Vice Presidents would be more immediately prepared to assume the office of President at a moments notice as she.Still, there are three things that stand in the way of a Romney-Rice ticket.

One is the fact that Rice herself has not seen fit to show any interest in the job.  Yet despite the lack of interest, her recent penning of an inspiring editorial in the Financial Times raises some question as to exactly how disinterested the former Secretary of State is in getting her country back on track.  Problem number two is Rice’s stance on abortion.  Rice does not support banning abortion.  She does however strongly support placing many restrictions on how its practice.  While that position may be tolerated by some on the right, it will not be acceptable by others, especially those who are already doubtful about Mitt Romney’s own committment to the right-to-life cause.

Lastly is the political fear factor that Romney and his consultants may have regarding Condoleezza Rice’s ties to the Bush Administration.  They may fear that teaming Rice with Romney will provide Team Obama with an unintended campaign theme that links Romney to the not so popular former President.   While such political fears are worthy of considering, political reality should lead Romney to realize that Condoleezza Rice brings far more positives to the ticket than negatives.  And Team Romney should also realize that if the Obama campaign wants to revisit Condoleezza Rice’s record, they will be entering in to a very dangerous zone.  Rice will be able to defend her record and the Bush record better than anyone else and she will also be able to remind the American electorate that it is President Obama who essentially carried out her policies in Iraq and Afghanistan even though he and his Vice President ran against those policies in 2008.

All things considered, I believe Condoleezza Rice would be the best choice for Romney and while I would certainly be gleeful over the selection of someone like Marco Rubio or even the man whom I believe Romney will ultimately choose, South Dakota Senator John Thune, I can’t help but believe that only Condoleezza Rice can provide the momentum, gravitas, and appeal that Romney will really need if he wants to win the independents, and undecideds who will decide who the next President is.

What do you think?  Cast your vote for Vice President here.

Illegals Debacle Shows The President Has No Clothes

Too true to be funny anymore?

The famous poem is inviting:

“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

Is this the spirit behind the president’s announcement of an immediate end to the deportation of illegal immigrants who came to the US as children? Obama thinks so, saying this is “the right thing to do,” just like everything else he decides.

The true spirit behind this action is the hubris of a President with no clothes. This announcement and the anger it has sparked gives an anatomy of how the president does things, to the point of obscuring the issues involved. Let’s look at the anatomy which is exposed:

 

First, Obama speaks objective truth which he then feels pragmatically he has to contradict.

It was only a year ago at a 2011 Univision Town Hall, President Obama admitted it is beyond his power to suspend deportations for anyone because there are laws he’d be breaking by doing that, and would be a breach of separation of powers. If he believed this then, then today he must believe he is violating the separation of powers. You can see the clip here: http://www.theblaze.com/stories/shock-video-obama-admits-he-cant-do-what-he-did-today/?utm_source=co2hog

Did the law change since? The jurisprudence? Of course, stupid me, last year was not election year. This year, Obama is naturally addressing a key Latino concern….in an election year.

 

Second, he ignores due process in an increasingly monarchical sense of self

As Charles Krauthammer explains: “He proposed the DREAM Act of which the executive order is a variation… He proposed a DREAM Act. The Congress said no. The Congress is the one who makes the laws. What the administration does is it administers law.” Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2012/06/15/krauthammer-new-obama-immigration-policy-out-and-out-lawlessness-video/#ixzz1xwzPGJip

The plan goes into effect immediately, affecting some 800,000 people, without discussion. He hath spoken, it is done.

Justification? Speaking at the White House, Obama said the initiative was “the right thing to do,” adding that “it makes no sense to expel talented young people” from the US. Is it me, cynicism, or are we really to believe there are 800,000 talented people out there, surely some of them are duds?

 

Third, a Machiavellian Prince who seeks to control and coerce rather than convince

Maybe the real story is the sense of visible shock when the President was interrupted by a Daily Caller reporter during his announcement. How dare anyone interrupt, that’s, well that’s like someone interrupting a monarch, just not done! The reporter ought to be expelled from the country!

The reporter, Neil Munro, explained Munro says open press events at the White House are “well designed by the president and his staff…He comes out of the Rose Garden, gives a short statement and then turns his back and walks away very quickly without taking questions,” he said. “Sometimes he takes questions. He took a question on Trayvon Martin in March. Sometimes these shouted questions at the end work — not today: He refused to answer an obvious and conventional question about the impact of his policy on American workers at a time of record unemployment.”

Munro said “Timing these things is a little awkward. He speaks very well, very smoothly — very nice delivery. It’s hard to know when he’s about to end. I thought he was going to end today. I asked my question too early. He rebuked me. Fair enough.”  In the future, Munro hopes the White House will “arrange events so the reporters can ask the president or his senior staff about the important policy changes.”

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2012/06/15/video-neil-munro-explains-his-exchange-with-president-obama-in-rose-garden/#ixzz1xx05KPCS

 

Finally, he sets himself up as a savior, but watch out for those “sell by “ dates folks!

In order to be eligible under the new initiative, illegal immigrants must:

• have arrived in the US when they were under the age of 16
• have lived continuously in the US for at least five years
• be in school, or have graduated from high school or be honourably discharged veterans of the US military
• have no criminal record
• be under 30 years old.

If successful, applicants would receive a work permit for two years that can (note my italics) be renewed an unlimited number of times. In other words, they’re safe until after the election and the end of Obama’s long-running campaign for office and re-election.

 

In running for this office, Republican opponent Mitt Romney needs to highlight this shameful anatomy and he himself must be: consistent, truthful and make long-term commitments. His reaction to this latest move from the White House was a good one: “I believe the status of young people who come here through no fault of their own is an important matter to be considered and it should be solved on a long-term basis so they know what their future will be in this country….I think the action that the president took today makes it more difficult to reach that long-term solution.”

More of this please, Governor!

3 things Romney needs to get Right, and so far he only has 1 of them.

Romney Looks the Part, but does he have the ideas in place yet?

 

To win in November, Mitt Romney has to get three things right. First, he has to be a positive physical presence, showing Americans what an optimistic American face looks like. Second, he needs to show how the American Mind works to solve problems. Third, he must win over the undecideds and the Blue Dog Democrats.

He achieves the first with some ease. He does look like a president, and although a little stiff and awkward at times, he has a smile and positive outlook that is very American. Unlike his dour and aloof opponent, Governor Romney shows hope in his physical presence which America badly needs in its leader.

Why? Because the one thing that all nations need right now, not just America, is a positive and can-do Capitalist attitude to lift us out of this recession. Back in 2007, at this time, candidate Obama was painting the economy in apocalyptic terms, because he was going to arrive on wings, lifted by adulation, to solve the nation’s, and the world’s, woes. Don’t just take my word for it, even Hilary Clinton was saying as much.

Also back in 2007, the economy was in a punishing mood. We were living in a bubble that was only amazing in the sense that it took so long to burst. Living off too much debt and leverage, which are not bad things in themselves when used wisely, the spirit was a “can’t do” attitude. The basics of economic life were consigned to the trash, and individuals, companies and government contrived to live as if the economy can’t fail and we can’t be bothered to work to produce real wealth.

Hence, the misery that followed. Hence, the big disappointment that became President Barack Obama. Hence, the constant concern on the president’s face, disguising a man out of his depth. So, we need a can-do president, who believes there is enough of the American dream to fuel a new era of economic growth; which brings me to the second thing.

Rooted in the American dream, Romney needs ideas that get the people energized. At a time when Capitalism is under stress, the battle of ideas has to be won. Folks need to see what the future can look like under Capitalism, not holed up in OWS enclaves or rallying against the rich. No-one complained about the rich when the economy was going up; why pin all the blame on them when it goes down?

Unlike Europe, Capitalism has been the engine of America from the beginning. It is inseparable from the enlightenment and religious ideas which formed the nation. Capitalism is not just a theory. It is a realistic, though like humanity itself imperfect, instrument for managing the needs and wants of a people. Romney needs to go beyond trotting out the same ideas of small government and tax cuts, and all those things, because they are ideas that are not just familiar, they are falling on barren soil.

Romney needs to shape these old ideas – and bring in some new ones – to show a recession weary nation why there is reason to hope. This is not the hope that was on the way for John Edwards, nor the hollowed hope of the Obama presidency. It is not even a hope in a Romney administration. It has to be a hope in Capitalism and a hope in the nation itself, in other words a hope in America.

So, the third thing falls into place if the first two are achieved. If Romney can capture the imagination, rooted in a realistic vision about the nation’s economic needs and other policy options, then he will reach out to those he needs to win over to become Romney 45. He needs to show a picture of the future that is not about government filling gas tanks or paying mortgages, but hard working Americans taking care of their own business.

The Obama bubble burst a long time ago, even for many of his supporters, and especially for those independents, youth and Blue Dog Democrats who believed he offered a new hope. Romney has only a little time to raise up new thinking in his campaign, and show why the economic bubble burst under the Republicans and George W. Bush, and why the economic solution bubble burst under the Democrats and Barack Obama.

Romney has one of the things he needs, the physical presence, but he needs the second thing of right thinking if he is to get the third thing which will sweep him into the White House. It’s over to you Governor….

Fundraising Apples and Oranges

The media is shocked to see the pronounced dead TEA Party raking in cash.  They shouldn’t be.  At the same time, the media is making hay out of Obama contributions compared to Romney’s.  This is a false comparison.  Romney fundraising compared to Obama fundraising is apples and oranges.  Here’s why:

Romney has not positioned himself as an inspiring political figure.  He hasn’t made the election about himself.  He has made it about Obama’s record.  In fact, it should be no surprise at all at all that TEA Party conservatives who consistently split their vote in the primaries for the non-Romney candidates would rather give to the TEA Party than to Romney.  Have no fear, they will vote non-Obama in November.

Obama on the other hand is one of the few inspiring characters left in the Democrat party.  Don’t expect massive donations to a DNC run by Debbie Wasserman-Schultz.  Don’t expect people to be inspired to give when they see Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid’s face.  But when Obama starts flashing Forward and talking about how nobody believed in America but him and how he shot Bin Laden and brought our troops home from Iraq, that sells.  Democrats aren’t going to shell out for DNC 2012 congressional elections or DNC superpacs, but they’ll buy Obama T-shirts and bumper stickers and pay for a one in a million shot at having a dinner with the President.

When political commentators measure campaign cash, really they should compare Obama to generic conservative groups and Romney to DNC pacs and superpacs.  In the end, the people who vote for Obama in 2012 will probably vote “D” down the line, and the people who contribute to the TEA Party and other Republican groups will show up to vote against Obama.

The Student Vote

There is a truth that Obama will have to face in 2012.  The majority of reasons students voted for Obama in 2008 are irrelevant or evaporated in 2012.  He is not running for the historical title of first black President in 2012.  He did not close Gitmo or bring our troops home, in fact he started a war in Libya.  He did not provide free health insurance for all.  Most of all, he has done nothing to guarantee all these sociology and philosophy graduates jobs when they graduate.

John McCain was not inspiring for student voters.  He was old, determined to win the wars America got into, white, male, loved America, and he was a Republican.  Students have it drilled into their heads that this represents the great satan.

Romney may not be the next great satan to the educational institution, but he certainly isn’t the hip symbol of progressive diversity that Obama was.  However, Romney doesn’t need to win the student vote.  He just needs Obama to lose it.

Obama is still popular with teachers, who by and large are enslaved to their unions and engrained socialism.  But students now have a record to go on, and the novelty has worn off.  The funny thing about students is that they tend to be idealistic purists as often as they are naively ignorant.  The same student who would trade an A for a six pack might also skip the Avengers movie because certain details don’t conform to the comic books.  Obama is certainly not everything American students hoped and dreamed about.  In fact, students who are honest with themselves would realize Obama is nothing that they hoped and dreamed for.

Obama has a special sort of hypocrisy that attentive students will sniff out.  Obama might flash his environmental credentials to a crowd of students, but then in front of business owners he touts how oil extraction has increased under his Presidency even if he had nothing to do with it.  He might tell students how he is bringing our troops home, but then he celebrates excursions into Pakistan to kill terrorists and Libya to do nation building.  He may make overtones to the gay community and talk about equal rights, but look how fast his administration is throwing Biden under the bus for endorsing gay marriage.  Perhaps in 2008, young students might be fooled.  But now Obama has a record.

Obama can’t even win on student loan rates since he demonstrated those take second place to his healthcare legacy.  Republicans wrote a bill to keep student loan interest rates low, but Obama has opposed the bill since it is paid for by tapping a special fund created by his healthcare law.  Obama would rather pay for it by borrowing more from China, which will cause interest rates to balloon even more in the long term.

The difference between a student voter and nearly any other of Obama’s target groups is that as purists students will not vote for the lesser of two evils.  Students won’t vote for Obama just to keep Romney out of office.  They have been taught two things very well: follow your heart, and your vote doesn’t count.  This frees them to vote for Rosie O’Donnell, write in their dorm-mate’s name, or skip the voting booth altogether to stay home and put those free morning after pills to good use.

Can Obama afford to lose the student vote?  Not if you believe the statisticians who put the student vote at 1/5th of the population.  A significant decline in this voting block for Obama means Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, Virginia,  and Colorado, even if they simply stay home.

Romney Outpacing Obama as Conservatives Relent

With Santorum out of the race and Gingrich out of money, social conservatives are beginning to embrace their fate.  The last man standing between us and four more years of the failed Obama administration is Mitt Romney.  Gallup and Rassmussen are giving Romney a lead over Obama, and the Gallup lead is increasing.  This has been an improvement over recent weeks for Romney.

Part of the shift in the polls can be attributed to an administration in a sort of free-fall as they are racked by scandal, gaffe, and misstep.  In recent weeks, Obama was caught on mic telling the Russians his current policies are a charade, a Democrat adviser declared mothers to be out of touch and unaware of economic issues, one of Obama’s biggest donors backed up the idea declaring that Ann Romney never “got her ass out of the house” and to work, Obama’s secret service is hiring hookers, the GSA is throwing extravagant parties, and Obama is joking about finding new spots for the wealthy first family to vacation.  While Democrats criticize Ann Romney for being too wealthy and out of touch to comment on economic issues that women face, Obama is defending his wife’s extravagant vacation spending by saying it’s not his fault they have to travel with secret service.  In the meantime, Obama is tossing out vague populism and praying that something sticks.

On the other hand, Romney is being helped by social conservatives who are less and less offended when the pollster acts like Romney is the only Republican left in the race.  Santorum supporters are less willing to have their heart broken twice and are accepting that Romney is the man.

Here is where Romney has to be careful.  He is making a good move by focusing wholly on Obama, but his quest to funnel independents into his big tent could result in a simple relocation of his big tent leaving conservatives out in the cold like 2006 and 2008.  Romney has recently said he supports eliminating certain tax breaks for more wealthy filers, which quickly blurs the lines in the sand between him and Obama.

Conservatives are not looking to associate their good name with a better candidate.  They are still looking for the best candidate.  If Romney makes himself unworthy of the title, some conservatives will stay home.  He needs them more than he needs wishy washy independents.

It’s NOT About the Economy, Stupid

Republicans are preparing to come to a rugby game in their best golf pants.

The world is different than it was in 2008 when we were caught with a war candidate going into an election that was all about the economy.  This time we have the best business man money can buy and we are about to go into an election that is all about the constitution, social issues, personal freedom, and the size of government.

Yes, I know.  Today the economy still sucks.  However, with the expanded power of the Fed and the Presidency, we are going to see just how much the President actually can affect it in the short term.  For example, leading into the 2010 election, the Fed had over $2 trillion in stock securities on their balance sheet and Wall Street was inflated.  Mainstream Media and administration spokespeople called that Obama’s summer of recovery.  Obama also ramped up federal spending and provided tons of government jobs.  Unemployment, as it is in our current “recovery”, remained mostly unmoved.  Despite all the tax hikes hidden in Obamacare, Obama said he was a tax cutter.

So why did we win big in 2010?  Social conservatives, lead by the TEA Party, made the election about deficit spending, constitutional rights, social issues, and personal freedom.

I keep hearing that only Romney can win because only Romney is focusing on the economy.  But Romney’s solutions on the economy include a redistributive tax policy that hits up the top 1% and a plan to increase the minimum wage and price low skilled labor out of the work force.  So why is Romney the economic guru who can save us?  Because he is a successful businessman.  But that won’t get voters to the polls in 2012, especially when Obama sinks another trillion dollars in imaginary money into the economy this summer to make the election about what Americans really care about: social issues.

Think about it this way.  How much more would you pay in extra taxes if it meant abortion would be made illegal?  Or legal, if that is your preference.  Democrats are willing to pay a great deal to force everyone to cover birth control and abortion pills.  I don’t think most Democrats have realized yet just how much Obamacare is going to cost them in higher insurance premiums.  The only Democrats who don’t know that Obamacare is all about social issues and government usurpation of personal freedom are still waiting for insurance rates to magically fall.  I have bad news for them.

Obama and his energy secretary have openly admitted that they want to let oil prices keep going up so that Americans will stop using oil.  I don’t know about you, but I can’t put wind, solar, coal, nuclear, ethanol, or algae in my gas tank.  And I’ve already inflated my tires.  That’s ok though because it’s not about the economy, stupid.  It’s about social issues.  It’s about greenhouse gasses and global warming and Obama is going to win on that because Romney is focusing on the economy.  Instead of fighting Obama on the social issue of whether the government should steal our freedom to protect us from made up scientific threats, Romney will be talking about how he is the best guy to grow the economy.

When the economy is artificially inflated this fall and “I’m the best candidate to grow the economy” rings hollow, what will we have left?  Don’t be fooled, Obama is already running on social issues.  Obama and his party are fighting for big government that will take care of and coddle every poor voter they can get their hands on.  What will we have?  Someone who will promise those poor coddled voters that he will provide them with the opportunity to work hard and be successful?  That’ll get the moderates to the polls.

In general, Americans oppose taxpayer funded abortion.  They oppose federally mandated gay marriage.  They oppose federally mandated funding for abortion.  They oppose big government and big deficits.  They oppose the current size of government.  They oppose the President stealing their rights in the name of coddling them.  These are TEA party issues, not establishment issues.

2012 isn’t about the economy.  At least it won’t be.  We’re about to run the wrong candidate, again, based on January issues for a November election.  What will get people to the polls in November is whether we want a President who will prevent taxpayer funded abortion, or a President who once voted to let doctors perform abortions after the baby is born.  Where do you stand?

The worst possible scenario for Republicans in 2012 will be a race where a significant percentage of Americans don’t care who wins or think the candidates aren’t that far apart.  We saw that in 2008.  The only way Republicans will win in 2012 is if we run a distinctly conservative candidate who gives Americans a clear choice.  Vote for the radical Liberal or the radical Conservative.   The more moderate a candidate we run, the more moderate Obama will look in comparison.

If the moderates stay home in 2012 and the 40% of conservatives beat the 20% of liberals in the country, I’m ok with that.  The strategy of getting the moderate vote and praying the 40% of conservatives will hold their nose and show up is a sure loser.

Reality Check

As we head into Michigan and Arizona, the Republican party needs a reality check.  Fortunately, here it is:

Rick Santorum

The media is doing their best to paint Santorum as some sort of radical conservative religious whacko.  Hardly.  Santorum on social issues is saying what most Republicans are thinking.  The thing is, conservatives are scared to death of Obama winning re-election and many will gladly sacrifice what they believe to take the candidate everyone is telling them can win.  But here’s the thing, Obama’s economy has about a 26% approval rating and any Republican looks amazing economically next to Obama.  If Obama wins, it will be because he runs an incredible marketing campaign, race bates, and paints his opponents as somehow more socially radical than he is.  It won’t be because Obama saved the economy, unless moderates and independents are even more gullible and stupid than we thought.

What should keep Republicans up at night about Santorum is his passion on Iran.  Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want Iran to get a nuclear weapon.  I think they will use it on Israel if they do.  But America is not ready to commit to another war.  I think we would have to see another 3,000 US civilians die on one day before the majority of Americans get the stomach for what Santorum has been talking about.  That includes what he has talked about with central America.

Mitt Romney

Romney is uninspiring by design.  His economic plan is a mixture of timid populism.  In the end, what he is running on is his record of creating a great deal of personal wealth and success, as well as his management skills.  But Warren Buffett, another populist, has also made great personal success through good management, and I think he would be a terrible President.  If this election were solely about the economy,the DNC would be looking for a new candidate and Romney would already be the GOP candidate.  The fact is, as long as Romneyites continue to downplay social issues, they will continue to loose the support of the majority of conservatives who actually care about social issues.  Believe it or not, many Americans on both sides of the aisle hold the value of their social and religious issues higher than the economy.   For example, many pro-lifers would sacrifice a great deal of wealth to stop the murder of the unborn.

What keeps Republicans awake at night about Mitt Romney is the fact that even his economic plan has been as malleable as his social stances.  What was supposed to be Romney’s conservative strength has instead turned into calls to raise the minimum wage and tax the rich to redistribute to the poor.  In each case, this was a reaction from the Romney campaign to criticism from the left.

Newt Gingrich

Newt is the smartest candidate and he has the best ideas.  It is no secret that I believe this.  But Newt is easily destroyed by opponents and the media.  He has tried to run a cheap campaign with little or no ground game, which makes victory as visionary as a base on the moon.  Part of Newt’s problem is that now his electability is questionable instead of Santorum’s.  Newt isn’t going to win anything until he re-establishes himself as the only electable anti-Romney.  Every time Santorum wins another state, Newt’s chances dim even more.  Get ready for things to start looking real bad as Santorum wins Arizona and maybe Michigan.

What keeps Republicans awake at night about Newt Gingrich is how easily he is destroyed by negative campaigning and how weak his campaign structure is.  If Newt can’t beat the unelectable Santorum and uninspiring Romney in every state, how would he propose to beat Obama?

Ron Paul

No one ever thought Ron Paul would win, except maybe his 10% who also think that being obnoxious will win people over.  However, it has been noted that Paul seems to have a cozy relationship with Mitt Romney.  Perhaps Paul also thinks only Romney can beat Obama.  Or, as some have suggested, maybe Paul has a secret deal with Romney to secure a VP slot for him or his son.  Actually, a Romney/Rand Paul ticket would be an incredibly smart idea and might be the only thing that can bring the extremes of the Republican party back together.  The only thing, of course, other than Obama himself.

What keeps Republicans awake at night about Ron Paul is his Iran policy.  Yeah, maybe we aren’t ready to go to war in Iran like we did in Iraq.  But I also don’t think most Americans are ready to stick their heads in the sand and pretend that Iran isn’t a threat.  I think fewer Republicans have an appetite to continue the World America Apology Tour under a different name.

Barack Obama

The real reality check for Republicans should be a refocusing on Barack Obama.  Believe it or not, there are people out there who support him.  After Solyndra, Fast n Furious, reversing Mexico City policy, forcing religious organizations to provide abortion pills, Obamacare, and everything else Obama has done, there are actually cars on the road with Obama 2012 stickers on them.  Somehow, Obama still has a shot in this race.

What should keep Republicans awake at night about Barack Obama is that despite all that he has done to this country and to the rule of law and constitution, there are people who still support him.  The media refuses to vet Obama, even ignoring his radical social positions on abortion.  Meanwhile, in desperation Santorum is releasing economic plans that are going ignored by the party and media.  GOP candidates are doing a great job of getting their message out.  Unfortunately, their message is that each other suck.  Let’s hope that Republicans will find a way to inspire the entire base, and expose Obama on fiscal AND social issues.

Romney Taking Heat Over Position on Auto-Bailout in Michigan

Throughout the media Mitt Romney has taken heat for his position on the auto-industry bailouts.  Voters are noticing, too, as recent polls show that Santorum has taken the lead in the state.  It comes at a particularly bad time as the Michigan primary is just weeks away.

Earlier this week, Mitt Romney penned an op-ed in the Detroit News criticizing the 2009 bailout of Detroit’s Big Three automakers.  In it, he stands by his position at the time of letting the companies go through a managed bankruptcy, which was eventually done by Obama, and touts his Michigan roots as the son of former American Motor Company and Michigan Governor George Romney.  Romney goes on to blast Obama, calling the bailout and subsequent caving to union demands “crony capitalism on a grand scale”.

What if Santorum Wins Michigan?

Rick Santorum is polling just slightly ahead of Romney in Romney’s home state of Michigan.  This is significant for more than just that reason.  Michigan is a blue state that has seen what the Democrat party can do to an economy.  So why is Santorum leading billionaire successful businessman Mitt Romney in a state that is starving for economic turnaround?

If Santorum does win, I think one thing it will demonstrate is how much Romney hurt himself with his scorched earth approach to his competitors. Romney has not set himself up as a policies or ideas candidate.  Instead he has set himself up as the “not the other guys” candidate.  Romney has correctly calculated that Ron Paul supporters would rather see four more years of Obama than vote for someone who has insulted Ron Paul.  So he hasn’t.  On the other hand, Romney knows conservatives will suck it up and vote for him if their guy loses.

What Romney didn’t seem to calculate was what effect his being the presumptive nominee and Ron Paul’s disappointing finish in Iowa and South Carolina would do.  Or what vetting Newt to death would do.  Now Social Conservatives, unburdened by the fear of a Ron Paul ascendency and no longer split now that Newt has descended into irrelevance, are freer than ever to vote their conscience.  It’s no longer about electability.  If you want to know what Social Conservatives with nothing to lose look like, look at the polls in Michigan.

But here is where it gets interesting.  Romney may be on the verge of losing Maine to Ron Paul.  Santorum is capitalizing on the mandatory abortion pill provision Obama has decreed.  Newt is all but finished with no momentum and the March 1 debate canceled.  Suddenly, Santorum is looking more viable than ever.  If Mitt loses Michigan, we could see the impossible: Barack Obama versus Rick Santorum.

The Republicans’ fading colours – The Spectator Magazine

Link to the original article:

http://www.spectator.co.uk/essays/all/7648068/web-exclusive-the-republicans-fading-colours.thtml

 

Web exclusive: The Republicans’ fading colours

David Cowan

11 February 2012

CPAC Review essay by White House 2012 writer David Cowan published on The Spectator magazine website

 

Growing up in the 1960s, my primary school in Cambridge had an outdoor roofless boy’s toilets, and we happily enjoyed urinating up the wall. It was a sign we were getting further up the school when one day we were able to urinate over the wall itself — much to the annoyance of people on the other side. This memory came to mind this week at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington DC over the weekend, the annual gathering of some ten thousand political activists. This year CPAC was a pissing contest to see who was the most conservative.

The three Republican frontrunners, Santorum, Romney and Gingrich, in that order, sought to reach the base and convince activists about their conservative qualities. The themes they all offered were: what’s wrong with the Obama administration; a shopping list of what conservative policies would work better; an appeal to American exceptionalism; and a return to the founding principles of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.

The three candidates are looking for the right to fight an Obama administration seen as somewhat Carteresque, from failed election promises through to the ideological infighting. Obama, though personally liked (Ann Coulter joked he would make a nice neighbour, unless you’re Chinese, then he’d keep borrowing stuff), is seen as ineffective and evasive.

To reenergise America, the candidates laid claim to the mantle of Ronald Reagan, frequently invoking his name and sunny disposition. Yet herein lies the rub. Reagan defeated Carter with ideas for the economy and foreign policy, successfully combining a conservative vision and charm to appeal to swing voters. At CPAC 1974, Reagan gave his famous ‘bold colours, not pale pastels’ speech, asserting conservative principles. This weekend showed that some of the colours have long since faded.

Things were certainly off-colour last time I was here, back in 2009, as defeated activists sought to pick themselves up after Obama’s coronation. The biggest cheers then were for Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh, as they offered succour. Newt entered to his incongruous theme tune ‘Eye of the Tiger’, but instead of entering stage right he walked in through the crowd, parting them Moses-like, shaking hands and hugging supporters.

The danger three years on is, of course, an election that will see CPAC 2013 take place after a second Obama inauguration. Expect then a sinking sense of what might have been. For many American conservatives a Republican failure this year will exacerbate what they fear most: n irreversible dependency culture and Europeanisation. Daniel Hannan flew into DC to warn on just this point, expressing his amazement to rapt delegates that while Europe is driving off the cliff they can see America in their rear-view mirror, overtaking them.

Back in 2009 something else happened at CPAC. Sarah Palin was slated to speak, but failed to appear either in person or via a hastily announced satellite link. This was the signal that Sarah was taking the celebrity high road, rather than the political low road. This year, however, she did appear as closing speaker to offer the benediction — but not the one most people expected. She did not endorse Gingrich, as he himself alluded to in his own speech by quoting her husband Todd. She called for unity, but convoluted as ever, Palin said ‘whoever our nominee is we must work together to get him over the finishing line, and then next year we will have a true conservative in the Oval office’ — only to go on Fox news on Sunday afternoon to say she is still to be convinced Romney that is indeed a conservative.

Despite this, and despite the Santorum surge, Romney will see this conference as mission accomplished — reinforced by the CPAC Straw Poll narrowly backing his candidature. Out of the three candidates it looks seemed that Romney pissed the highest this weekend. And, while still divided, all the delegates would agree about who should be standing on the other side of the wall, on the receiving end.