[kenberg]

 mike777, on 2012-January-03, 09:39, said:

Looks like Intrade has Iowa at:

Romney 52%

And rising.

I regard this as good news. Even if it deprives Justin of an opportunity to increase his holdings.

[BunnyGo]

It's probably a little too high. Paul probably has about 1/3 chance of winning and Santorum another 20%. At least according to god (Nate Silver).

[hrothgar]

To me, the most fascinating question of the night is what effect the Iowa caucuses will have on googling "Santorum"

[kenberg]

 BunnyGo, on 2012-January-03, 13:14, said:

It's probably a little too high.

It seems that you were right abut that!

[PassedOut]

 hrothgar, on 2011-August-15, 08:43, said:

It's going to be interesting watching how the Perry campaign unfolds. Perry has been very effective in keeping himself locked away from the press (he refused to debate his Democratic challenger during the last election in Texas)

Personally, I don't think that Perry should be viable on the national stage.

His jobs message can't be generalized outside Texas (we're not all going start putting oil wells in out back yard)
He is a religious nut case and was playing around with secession...
He is genuinely stupid.

This was a very accurate assessment.

[Winstonm]

Let's get to the critical report from Iowa:

Quote

Sarah Palin Debuts New 'Do

The GOP Iowa caucuses caused plenty of talk. But when Sarah Palin appeared on Fox to give her take on the race, it was her new wavy 'do that caught viewers' eyes.


The former governor of Alaska gave her rundown of the candidates while debuting a look that had the signature Palin pouf (the Huffington Post, noting Palin's new 'do, suggested the pouf might have been from a Bumpit) -- but went a little more curly than the usual flat-ironed straight tresses that, say, Michele Bachmann normally wears.

[Winstonm]

 PassedOut, on 2012-January-04, 09:39, said:

This was a very accurate assessment.

I'm not so sure on the accuracy - sure, Perry's stupid, but he's not all that genuine.

[Phil]

Bye bye Bachmann. She will not be missed.

Perry is going back to Texas to 'reevaluate'.

I expect the christian soldiers will get behind Sanitarium, but this effect won't be evident until South Carolina.

[kenberg]

All in all, the result was reasonable. It's obvious to everyone that the GOP really is split. If the jells into a Santorum/Romney contest, we will see what the Party can make of it. Probably each wing could wish for a more perfect representative of their views, but perfection is not to be found in politics so we will watch it play out.

[y66]

Excerpt from In Praise of Iowa by Ross Douthat

Quote

It’s easy to complain about the Iowa caucuses – easy and completely justifiable. Iowa’s caucus-goers have given us the presidency of Jimmy Carter, lent credibility to Pat Robertson’s political ambitions and created a permanent constituency for ethanol subsidies among Democrats and Republicans alike. As friendly and civic-minded as Iowans may be, there’s no reason why a low-turnout contest in a small, rural state should play such an outsize role in every presidential nominating process.

But in the wake of Tuesday night’s Romney-Santorum photo finish and Ron Paul’s strong third-place showing, it must be said that this time around Iowans have discharged their responsibility impressively. Presented with the weakest presidential field of any major party in a generation, they made the best of a bad situation, punching the three most deserving tickets without handing any of them a decisive victory.

This isn’t what you’ll hear from the many disappointed conservatives who dislike all of Iowa’s top finishers – Romney because he’s too moderate and phony, Paul because he’s too libertarian and anti-interventionist, and Santorum for all sorts of reasons (his aggrieved personality, his lack of electability, the taint of Bush-era “big government conservatism,” to name three). But on substance and strategy alike, Iowa’s top three deserved their joint quasi-victory, and the losers all deserved to lose.

This was particularly true of Rick Perry, who managed to spend $6 million advertising in Iowa without laying a glove on his competition, and whose reputation as a stud campaigner evaporated in the dead air of his atrocious debate performances. But Michele Bachmann and Newt Gingrich also squandered significant opportunities: Bachmann by never finding a message more compelling than her promise to make Barack Obama a one-term president, and Gingrich by wallowing in the mix of grandiosity and disorganization that his former colleagues in Congress remember all too well.

At one time or another, all three of these also-rans – as well as Herman Cain, lest we forget – seemed well-positioned to win the caucuses. In ultimately rejecting their candidacies, Iowans rejected a cascade of gimmicky tax plans, flagrant pandering (Gingrich’s denunciation of “big city attacks” on ethanol subsidies took the cake), and desperate appeals to identity politics. And they rejected, as well, the attempt to dress up in the mantle of True Conservatism™ records that were either threadbare or checkered by cronyism and corruption.

It’s not that Romney, Santorum and Paul ran campaigns free of gimmicks or pandering or that they boast records untainted by crankery or folly. But both Santorum and Paul at least had a message that set them apart from the rest of the field.

For all the talk about how Santorum’s social conservatism was ill-suited to a campaign focused on the economy, the former Pennsylvania senator’s emphasis on social mobility, family breakdown and blue-collar struggles spoke more directly to the challenges facing working Americans than any 9-9-9 fantasy or flat-tax gambit. From the opposite wing of the party, Paul’s libertarian and anti-war campaign scrambled partisan categories in useful and unexpected ways and supplied an alternative to the ritual chest-thumping that sometimes passes for Republican foreign policy debate.

Meanwhile, Romney’s cautious, calculating campaign managed to simultaneously stake out a plausible domestic agenda while ruthlessly exploiting the weaknesses first of Perry and then of Gingrich. Romney took few risks and inspired almost nobody, but his mix of substance and savvy largely confirmed the impression that he would be both the field’s most effective general election candidate and its most plausible president.

[BunnyGo]

 y66, on 2012-January-04, 21:47, said:

Excerpt from In Praise of Iowa by Ross Douthat

Huntsman who?

[y66]

That would be Jon Message Man Huntsman who was quoted today saying this:

Quote

“The one thing I’m taking away from Iowa is how wonderfully ambiguous the race is at this point,” Huntsman told reporters this morning. “When you have 75 percent of the voters in Iowa basically rejected the establishment’s choice, Mitt Romney. This is completely wide open. I mean there’s a lot of blue sky and opportunity for every other candidate.”

Asked how he would try to win over voters in these final days, Huntsman emphatically said, “Message, message, message.” And Huntsman said he believes that he his doing that successfully.

“This is a small enough state where once the buzz factor begins and when people start focusing in on who you are and what your message is, they start rallying around and coalescing,” he said. “And we’ve gone from zero to about last place to third place and I feel that there is good energy out there and I’m really excited to see what the days ahead will hold.”

The guy did get more than twice as many votes as Cain, Roemer, No Preference and Other combined in Iowa. Of course, not all those guys will be on the ballot in other states so he may slip a bit.

[Winstonm]

It appears Newt has started his comeback strategy by repeating the ugly and insulting right-wing narrative that African Americans are a lazy bunch who loll on the welfare rolls and should instead be demanding jobs.

Quote

....if the NAACP invites me, I'll go to their convention and talk about why the African American community should demand paychecks and not be satisfied with food stamps," Gingrich said earlier today in Plymouth, N.H.

Atta boy, Newt. Don't let stupid die just because Michelle is out of the race.

[y66]

Excerpt from Michael Kinsey's review of Thomas Frank's new book Pity The Billionaire:

Quote

Thomas Frank is the thinking person’s Michael Moore. If Moore, the left-wing filmmaker, had Frank’s Ph.D. (in history from the University of Chicago), he might produce books like this one and Frank’s previous best seller, “What’s the Matter With Kansas?”

As you can tell from its ham-fisted title, “Pity the Billionaire” is not the world’s most subtle political critique. But subtlety isn’t everything. Frank’s best moments come when his contempt boils over and his inner grouch is released.

...

Meanwhile, Conservatives continue their Sherman’s march through the landmarks of liberal government, burning and looting as they go. They’ve gone after the legacies of Lyndon Johnson (Medicare), Franklin Roosevelt (Social Security; financial regulation) and Theodore Roose¬velt (environmentalism). And working people continue to be duped into supporting measures manifestly against their own self-interest. In “What’s the Matter With Kansas?” Frank attributed this to a clever bait-and-switch by conservatives, who appeal to middle- and lower-class voters on the basis of social issues like abortion and gays in the military, and values like patriotism and religion. And then they govern on the agenda of traditional Republican groups like businessmen and bankers.

With “Pity the Billionaire,” the emphasis is different and the explanation is simpler: President Obama has betrayed the voters who elected him. He ran like a populist, Frank believes, but he has governed like a plutocrat, or at least a friend of plutocrats. Frank quotes a remarkable passage from Obama’s book “The Audacity of Hope” about “people of means” whom he met at Democratic fund-raisers:

“As a rule they were smart, interesting people, knowledgeable about public policy, liberal in their politics, expecting nothing more than a hearing . . . in exchange for their checks. But they reflected, almost uniformly, the perspectives of their class. . . . They believed in the free market and an educational meritocracy. . . . They had no patience with protectionism, found unions troublesome and were not particularly sympathetic to those whose lives were upended by the movements of global capital. Most were adamantly pro-choice and anti-gun and were vaguely suspicious of deep religious sentiment.”

Obama goes on to admit that by hanging around with these people, he was becoming “more like” them, and Frank — refusing to plea-bargain this stunning confession for a milder sentence — agrees, then piles on.

It seems to me that a Democratic president who gets us health care reform and tough new financial protection for consumers, who guides the economy through its roughest period in 80 years with moderate success (who could do better?), who ends our long war in Iraq and avenges the worst insult to our sovereignty since Pearl Harbor (as his Republican predecessor manifestly failed to do, despite a lot of noise and promises); a president who faced an opposition of really spectacular intransigence and downright meanness; a president who has the self-knowledge and wisdom about Washington to write the passage quoted above, and the courage to publish it: that president deserves a bit more credit from the left than Frank is willing to give him.

+1 to MK for that last paragraph.

[Winstonm]

Perry Regains Lead In Race To Crazy

Quote

AUSTIN, Texas — In a move to reassure conservatives who think he’s soft on illegal immigration, Gov. Rick Perry announced on Friday that controversial Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio will chair his campaign in Arizona.

Although admired by conservatives for his get-tough approach to controlling illegal immigration in his Southern Arizona county, Arpaio is facing allegations by the U.S. Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division on a wide range of issues, including claims of practicing a pattern of racial profiling and discrimination against Hispanics and carrying out heavy-handed immigration patrols based on racially charged citizen complaints.

Uh, Gov. Perry, you may want to take note that your decisions about Arizona are not secrets, not hidden inside a smallish state, but the rest of the country watches what you do and takes notes about how responsible and sensible your actions are.

PS: Miriam-Webster can help you understand the words responsible and sensible.

[Winstonm]

Rick Perry: Commander-in-Chief

Quote

One of oddest moments of Saturday night came when Rick Perry suggested that we should put troops back in Iraq.

Take that, Michelle!

[gwnn]

Why are people voting for Romney? His speeches seem fake and barely coherent to me. I know good speeches are not everything but isn't that very important in getting votes?

[cherdano]

 gwnn, on 2012-January-11, 02:01, said:

Why are people voting for Romney? His speeches seem fake and barely coherent to me. I know good speeches are not everything but isn't that very important in getting votes?

Have you seen the alternatives?

Edit: Actually I do think he is quite coherent, not sure what you mean there.

[gwnn]

I guess he is coherent but boring and I stop listening after a while.

[BunnyGo]

 cherdano, on 2012-January-11, 03:57, said:

Have you seen the alternatives?

Edit: Actually I do think he is quite coherent, not sure what you mean there.

I still don't understand why Huntsman is running so distant. He's not liberal in *any* way except that he worked for a Democratic administration (horror...that sort of thing happens all the time!) The main problem it seems for Huntsman is that he is smart and refuses to hide it. I've constantly found him well spoken and clear of thought, but that doesn't seem to matter as he's been labeled tainted.