http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/2011/PPP_Release_MO_8201.pdf

I said to myself–there must be something fishy about this poll.

“Number-Cruncher” via Campaignspot confirms: PPP used a biased GOP +9 sample to get the result.

http://www.nationalreview.com/campaign-spot/314552/ppps-sample-missouri-suddenly-becomes-more-heavily-gop

By my count, that means that all three of the GOP losers in my lifetime (who are still alive) have endorsed Romney.  All three of them lost in the general election after a primary in which their principal opponent(s) ran to their right.  McCain beat Huckabee and Romney; Dole beat Buchanan and Forbes, and Bush Sr. (in 1992) beat Buchanan.  Conversely, every winning GOP candidate in my lifetime won in the general after a primary in which their principal opponent was apparently less conservative: Bush beat McCain in 2000; Bush Sr. beat “Senator Straddle”; and Reagan beat “Voodoo Economics” Bush Sr.

THe Bush Sr.-Dole-McCain endorsements of Romney don’t help Romney.  And I say this as someone who favors Romney over Gingrich (but Santorum over either).  Knock if off, moderate losers–you’re NOT helping!

The polling showing Gingrich’s surge and victory suggest otherwise.

Gingrich has surged primarily by taking votes from Romney, not be taking them from Santorum.  At the end of last week, both Gingrich and Santorum picked up considerable support all while Romney was dropping.   Note how Newt and Rick finished seven and five points ahead of their respective final polling averages.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/president/sc/south_carolina_republican_presidential_primary-1590.html.

In Florida, Gingrich’s surge has been primarily a story of Romney losing support.  Comparing Rasmussen’s polls taken the day after NH with the day after the SC primary, we see the following:

Gingrich has picked up 22(!) points.  Romney has lost 9 points.  Santorum has dropped 4 points (going from 15% to 11%).

If Santorum revives some, as I think he will with the next two debates (as he clearly did after Thursday’s), it is far from clear that his gain will be at Gingrich’s expense.   The SC numbers suggest that he gained in the final days at Romney (and Paul’s) expense.

Indeed, if Romney has a week like last one’s, we may very well see his support plummet, with Santorum and Gingrich as the two strongest candidates….until a few weeks from now.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/president/sc/south_carolina_republican_presidential_primary-1590.html

I strongly suspect that we’ll see the same effect in South Carolina in new polls, with modest bump for Santorum because of the Saturday endorsements.

What do I recommend Santorum voters in SC do?  I honestly don’t know.  Vote for Santorum is what I would do.  Still, there is wisdom in Sarah Palin’s ad hoc endorsement of Newt.  Romney needs to lose South Carolina for this process to continue.  And if Gingrich pulls it out (and a similar debate performance on Thursday will do it, I think), then perhaps that helps Santorum more than Santorum coming in a strong second with Romney the winner.

It’s all very exciting–and for that reason alone I will be very disappointed if Romney wins South Carolina and then strolls to the nomination.  A protracted fight will be good for our eventual nominee.

And if Gingrich wins, and the Iowa recount shows that Santorum won Iowa, then Romney, Santorum, and Gingrich can credibly say that each has won a primary, but only Santorum did so in a state that wasn’t his back yard.

http://nation.foxnews.com/rick-perry/2012/01/13/oops-he-did-it-again-perry-forgets-three-federal-agencies-he-wants-abolish

“‘Commerce, Interior, and Energy are the three that you think of.’ Problem: Those are NOT the three he had previously not been able to name. He swapped Interior for Education”

A serious presidential candidate, after the first “oops,” would know the names of the agencies as well as he knows the names of his three sons.

A serious constitutional conservative would know that unlike the Department of Education and Energy, the Department of the Interior is both very old–dating back to before the Civil War–and has a mandate that in large measure corresponds to powers actually delegated to the central government, e.g., regulation of the property of the United States.

Governor, please withdraw.  You’re getting in the way of the serious conservative candidates.

The insiders, the smart people, the New York-Washington Axis all concurred–the ONLY solution was for the American people to write a check to wealthy insiders because those people, and their PRIVATE institutions were just too darn important to fail.

Bush advocated the measure, Obama supported it, and so did our candidate, John McCain.

I think McCain’s decision was a critical failure.  It divided and demoralized conservatives.  It secured his defeat.

If McCain, however, had decided to launch a conservative campaign against the Bush-Obama bailout, he could have at the same time (1) distanced himself from Bush AND (2) rallied his base.  He could have even won the election.

Which leads me to to our current field.

Of the candidates, only Santorum, Perry, and Paul opposed the bailout.  Gingrich and Romney supported it.  They proved there. as elsewhere, that in times of crisis, they will follow the consensus of the elites–elites that have failed out country so badly.

Of the three who understood otherwise, I support Santorum.

Until very recently, you and I have differed politically.  You have favored reforming our healthcare system so that individuals are forced to do business with a private insurance company.You once proposed such a program nationally, and adopted such a program in your home state. I strongly oppose such measures. You once repudiated the Reagan era.  I believe Reagan was the best President in our lifetime. You once sponsored a gay pride march in Boston.  I despise such marches, as they notoriously, prominently, and crudely mock my religion. You once favored legalized abortion.  I believe abortion is homicide, and that its targets, the unborn, are entitled to legal protection.  You once favored governmental funding of abortions.  Obviously I do not. You once donated to Planned Parenthood, the largest abortion-providing and promoting organization in the nation.  I donate to small pro-life, crisis-pregnancy centers, which Planned Parenthood seeks to close, and which, seek to close Planned Parenthood. You see, my opinions are roughly similar to those of many other Americans who call themselves “conservative.”

Recently, you’ve converted in all of these, and many other respects.  I am delighted.  We conservatives could use all the help we can get.  Would that more of the wealthy elite in our country would do so. In other words, Welcome Aboard the U.S.S. Conservative.  We can use you.

But there’s a slight problem.  At the very same time that you got on board the ship you proposed that you become captain of the ship.  While I do not wish to suggest that there was some connection between your aspiration to lead us and your conversion to our cause, I do think that prudence suggests that we not make you our captain.

I think I speak for many of the crew. In the words of our late captain of fond memory, we will “trust buy verify.”  We’d like you to get some experience on our ship, of fellowship with us.  In particular, we’d love to see you weather some storms with us–to take some personal or political risk with us before we entrust you with command.  We can’t help but notice that your conversion seems perfectly timed to facilitate your personal political interests.  You’ve never run as a conservative when it was difficult, when it cost you anything.  Couldn’t you run for statewide office first, say your home state, under our banner?

You must admit that you’re something of a “Romney-Come-Lately.”  The new kid in town.  The whole establishment loves you.  But some of us are feeling, well, a bit let down. Accordingly,  I welcome you on board, yet I must respectfully decline your invitation to elevate you to captain this year.

In 2008, Romney received 25.2% of the vote in the Iowa caucus while coming in second, this year he received 24.6% while coming in first.

In 2008, Romney received 31.5% of the vote in the New Hampshire primary while coming in second, this he will almost certainly come in first, but will he receive at least 31.5% of the vote?  The new poll out this morning (taken Saturday and Sunday), shows that Romney has consistently lost support over the past four days, and the two-day average is now at 33%, suggesting that his numbers yesterday may have been near 31%.

When he accuses him of the charge, and those who defend him of disingenousness, he has conspicuously failed to offer anything like a working definition of “statist” or “big government.”  Such a definition would at least allow us to confirm or deny his accusation.  You have to give us enough information to have that ingenuity by which we can be disingenuous.

And by the way, your efforts right now seem perfectly calibrated to ensure that Romney wins his third straight primary/caucus in South Carolina.   If so, then just say ROMNEY 2012! and be done with it.

Do any of you REALLY believe he has no chance?  If you were his advisor, would you seriously, this morning, recommend he simply withdraw?

I think he has a 50-50 shot at the nomination, given his victory last night, and Bachmann and Perry withdrawals.

In the SC primary, he will have no one to his right, no obvious alternative social conservative.  He is likely to pick up endorsements from other conservatives.  Unlike Huckabee, he will have no Fred Thompson nor Mitt Romney (who was then campaigning as a conservative).  Nor will his moderate opponent also be an American war hero.

As to negative advertising, he will also have a ton of money coming in the next week or so to run sufficient counter-advertising.  Plus Romney is about to get pummelled by Gingrich and Huntsman.

Santorum has at least a 50-50 shot of winning SC, and if he does so, then he has a better-than-average shot of winning the nomination.

I speak solely for myself, but I just got off.  His non-answers to the criticism of his 9-9-9 plan (much of which I like) and his non-explanation of his various and sundry pro-choice-sounding answers on abortion, were just too much.

And I’m depressed (uncharacteristically for me).

No, I’m not shilling for any of his rivals.   Before Cain, I flirted with Pawlenty, Bachmann, and Perry.  But for reasons that many, many have stated here, each of them are DEEPLY flawed candidates, insofar as I am hoping for a solid conservative who will win the general election and whose presidency will foster conservative solutions to our grave national crisis or crises.

Sure, any of them would be less bad than Obama, but each of them will, I believe less successful candidates and/or Presidents than President Bush, Jr., and even President Bush, Sr.  If they are elected (which I increasingly doubt,) it will be four years of the 1990 Bush (Souter, tax increase deal, etc.) or 1975 Ford.

I’m not expecting a Reagan, but maybe someone marginally more conservative, and more effectively conservative, than the Bush dynasty.

I pray strongly that one of these candidates will spend the next two months changing my mind.  But at this point, I may sit out the primaries.  But yes, I’ll vote in the general election and be not-too-happy if the GOP candidate wins, and not-terribly-sad if Obama wins.

Sarah Palin will not run, and will endorse Herman Cain shortly before the Iowa caucuses.

If I’m right, however, I DEMAND front page recognition, even universal adulation, in fact, for my prescience.

I was gonna post this, even before I saw Palin’s interview. http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0911/64590.html

The “flavor of the week” comment notwithstanding, her comments were very positive, and suggested that she thinks he’s a kindred spirit.

I believe I am not alone in looking for a presidential candidate who has the following characteristics:

1. A solid conservative–fiscal, social, foreign-policy, even if he might disagree with me in a particular.

2. An electable candidate.

3. An effective President–one who has the ability to effectively execute the office and duties of the President.

In my estimation, these are not independent requirements–they are closely interrelated.  One who is not a solid conservative will not unite the party and will prove unelectable, nor will he effectively perform the duties of the President, the chief of which is to conserve (or “preserve, protect and defend”) our constitutional order, and NOT to “transform” or “reinvent” it.

Conversely, a solid conservative who disdains electability and effective governance–who disdains the necessity of rallying majorities (which must include some not-so-solid conservatives) is not a solid conservative, because our polity is decided a republic.  A true conservative will be interested in governing by the consent of the majority, and NOT in sneering at the people.

SO, who to choose from?  Today, the man who’s receiving new attention in Herman Cain.

I’m wondering the following:

(1) Is he a solid conservative?  I think the answer is yes.  He supported TARP, but his recent explanation of his support was more-or-less satisfying to me.  His stance on marriage troubles me, mainly because he seems quite uninterested in talking about it, like Bob Dole’s “pro-life” stance in 1996.  Not good.  I don’t mind that he refused to adopt some pre-fabricated pledge, tho.

Any pro-traditional-marriage folks who are also strong supporters of Cain?  Anyone think his support of TARP is a deal-breaker?

(2) Is he electable?  He may be uber-electable, actually, frankly because of his business background (like Romney) and race–hello moderates and maybe, just maybe, 20%? of the black vote.???

But, if he runs away from the base, a la Dole, good-bye enthusiastic base.

(3) Can he govern effectively?  He actually seems to have better executive experience than anyone on the stage–handling lots of people in difficult circumstances.  Romney wasn’t a manager, but a wheeler and dealer.  Anything about his temperment that troubles you all?

If by Founding Father we mean a signer of the Declaration of Independence, he most certainly is not one, nor, for that matter, was the 19-year-old Alexander Hamilton.

If by Founding Father, however, we mean a citizen who was a significant participant in the broader Founding of the United States–which frequently includes the period through the 1800 election, John Quincy Adams qualifies.  He was probably among the most 300 significant men of the Founding.

1. Adams participated in the ratification of the Constitution.  A recent Harvard graduate, Adams was apprenticed to Theophilus Parsons, a Federalist delegate to the Massachusetts ratifying convention.  Adams participated in various discussions with Parsons personally and his fellow citizens, and by his own account converted slowly from open opposition to support of the proposed Constitution.

2. More prominently, Adams participated in the “founding” of American foreign policy in the 1790s, as ambassador to the Netherlands and Prussia, negotiating and signing, for instance, the Prussian-American Treaty of Amity and Commerce.

1. That traditional marriage is a peripheral issue.

2. That traditional marriage is a losing issue.

3. That even if, as of this day, it remains a winning issue, it will become a losing issue, for the polls show that young people are more in favor of the new marriage, and that therefore, the triumph (complete?) of this position is inevitable.

For those of us who have been social conservatives since the 1980s, all of these claims sound VERY familiar, and they were made at a particularly high decibel after the 1992 election, where the loss was placed squarely at the feet of those “extremist” opponents of a “woman’s right to choose.”

Even a nametag pro-lifer like Richard Bond, chairman of the GOP said as much, to the cheers of the “hey, I’m OK because I’m fiscally conservative but socially moderate” elites who then dominated the GOP leadership.  http://www.nytimes.com/1993/01/30/us/departing-chairman-scolds-republicans-over-zealotry.html

Now, of course, the once-pariah “extremists” and anti-choice position is embraced by the pro-sodomy group, whose posture appears strikingly similar to the self-confident “pro-choice” REpublicans of the 1990s.  http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0211/Gay_Republicans_blast_Pawlenty.html?showall

Compare this puff piece on so-called “true blue conservatives” for “choice.” http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20108471,00.html

Lessons to be learned:

1. There is nothing inevitable in a polling trend (young people have gone from most pro-choice to most pro-life in some polls).

2. Be wary of nametag social conservatives like Bond, who are NOT the friends of traditional marriage despite what they may say, and whose counterfeit friendly advice is always that social conservatives just declare defeat and otherwise shut up, while the “grown ups” focus on the really critical issues, like capital-gains tax cuts.

3. Be wary, more generally, of anyone who insists that you declare your cause defeated.  Nobody knows the future–nothing is inevitable except under God’s providence.  Do, say, what you think is right.  Do your best.  Pro-lifers did in the 1990s, despite the polls, the pro-choice dominance of Washington, and dominance of everything else, and got pro-life legislation passed that significantly reduced the number of murdered babies.

If so, he actually has a prayer.

If so, perhaps there is a strong argument for the nominally Republican candidate to throw his support to the conservative who can win (a reverse Scozzafawa).

Hmmmm.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2010/senate/ny/new_york_senate_dioguardi_vs_gillibrand-1469.html

(Please note that the lousy poll from Siena is of registered, not likely voters).

He is a solid fiscal conservative.  He is a CPA and has for decades been sounding the alarm that Congress has been fiscally reckless.

He is a solid social conservative–he was pro-life in the mid-80s (when that’s what GOP candidates did), and he remained pro-life in the late 80s and early 90s even when it wasn’t cool among New York Republicans.  (Remember when Susan Molinari was supposedly the model of the future of the GOP–even nationally?)

His consistency on this issue should be of interest to fiscal conservatives as well.  He has proven that he will stick with his principles in bad times as well as good.  Don’t expect him to get squishy.

I know because I am a refugee from New York–and did some campaign work for him during one of his unsuccessful races.  He has always been a solid guy.  And he would be the most conservative statewide office holder in New York since–well, I don’t know–sometime before Nelson Rockerfeller was born.

He’s at a major funding disadvantage.  So please support him with your voice, your money, and your vote.

http://www.dioguardiforussenate.com/home.php

In particular,

(1) The State Party retains the pre-election contents of its website–a website that seems dedicated to slamming O’Donnell and celebrating Castle.  http://www.delawaregop.com/Default.aspx;

(2) The State Party keeps a link to the “realchristine.com” website.  http://www.delawaregop.com/NewsBack.aspx?guid=7909a3bc-eeaa-4bb1-8219-af7080f1d44d;

(3) The State Party retains as its chairman Thomas Ross, a man who publicly and repeatedly attacked O’Donnell in a manner that could scarcely be surpassed by an angry anonymous poster at Daily Kos.  Come to think of it, it would not surprise me in the least to learn that he IS an angry anonymous poster at Daily Kos.

The State website must be altered, the “realchristine” website should be donated to the O’Donnell campaign to correct, and Thomas Ross must be fired, come out of the liberal closet, and perhaps begin his “Daily Ross” blog.

Delaware Republican Party
3301 Lancaster Pike, Suite 4B Wilmington, DE 19805
(302) 668-1954   info@delawaregop.com

The economy is likely to be stuck in stagnation, if not stagflation, so what will be critical will be acknowledging the problems, but attributing them to the prior eight years of GOP rule.

How ’bout this?

“After nearly four years in office, we Democrats have not solved all of America’s problems.

Most of these problems we inherited. Eight years of Republican politics left this nation weak, rudderless, unrespected and deeply divided.

As a result of this legacy, despite our progress, inflation still erodes the standard of living of every American.

As a result of this legacy, despite our progress, too many Americans are out of work.

As a result of this legacy, despite our progress, complete equality for all citizens has yet to be achieved.

As a result of this legacy, despite our progress, we still live in a very dangerous world, where competing ideologies and age-old animosities daily threaten the peace.

As a result of this legacy, our nation is still subject to the oil pricing and production decisions of foreign countries.

We will not run from these problems, nor will we fail. The record of the past four years is a testament to what the Democrats can do working together.”

Blaming Bush in 2012 might work, well, or maybe these words will be as effective as they were in 1980!

http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=29607

For the benefit of those of you who do not obsessively read polls, Gallup is notoriously erratic in its polling numbers.  10 days before the 2000 election, I recall, they showed Bush with a 13-point advantage over Gore.

And almost exactly two years ago, one Gallup poll showed that the GOP was 5-points ahead of the Democrats in the generic ballot–when everyone else in September showed the Democrats 3-8 points ahead (a lead that increased, of course, following the Lehman Brother collapse).

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/generic_congressional_vote-901.html#polls

Gallup, itself, should not be a cause of great optimism or pessimism.