To wit: show the American people that Mitt Romney’s just… a human being, like everybody else. Not that Romney should pretend to anything that he’s not. As Mickey put it: Note that this does not require that Romney show he’s a man of the people, down with NASCAR etc. No pork rinds are required. In fact, trying desperately to appear non-upperclass is likely to reinforce | Read More »
Jim Geraghty makes the call for a light touch: [A] lot of Obama voters must be persuaded that they made the wrong choice in 2008, and that it isn’t their fault. I happen to agree with this, by the way. Satisfying as it may be to have people* admit that they were wrong and stupid and should have listened to the rest of us, my | Read More »
That’s one potential conclusion that you can draw from today’s and yesterday’s Quinnipiac polls looking at Virginia political conditions. Admittedly, they’re just one firm’s polls; also admittedly, anyone likely to be reading this is a hardcore political junky anyway, so we might as well take a look. Yesterday’s Q-poll looked at Governor McDonnell’s popularity rating*, which is – to be modest about it – practically | Read More »
Karl over at Hot Air analyzes this WSJ article by Patrick Caddell and Douglas Schoen about as I would, but I have a couple of things to add. Executive summary of the Caddell/Schoen article: a third party is really, really likely next year! And it’d be good to have! Executive summary of the Hot Air article: no, it’s not really likely. Here, have some links | Read More »
It’s being reported that Governor Tim Pawlenty will drop his Presidential bid, in light of his third-place showing at yesterday’s Ames Straw Poll. There’s no official confirmation yet, but that’s just a formality. I’m on the way out the door to catch a flight home from the RedState Gathering, so my brief take on this: with Pawlenty leaving we’re back down to three real candidates | Read More »
Possibly the Obama campaign wants me to have that reaction, which was based on the news that they’ve released the total number of donors to date (just under 500,000) rather than the total amount collected in the second quarter. The campaign did so enjoy playing the expectations game in 2008. But what the heck: if it’s a trap, let me charge forward and trigger it | Read More »
The President’s apparently ramping up the use of his first campaign sign, but Chicago Boyz felt that it… lacked something. So they punched it up some. Link. Pass it on. Moe Lane (crosspost) PS: I prefer ‘improved’ to ‘hacked,’ actually.
In his official speech kicking off his campaign: I’m here today to tell Iowans the truth, too. America is facing a crushing debt crisis the likes of which we’ve never seen before. We need to cut spending, and we need to cut it…big time. The hard truth is that there are no longer any sacred programs. The truth about federal energy subsidies, including federal subsidies | Read More »
[UPDATE] Whoa, whoa, WHOA. Tim Pawlenty’s going to start off his candidacy by ‘speaking truthfully about farm subsidies‘? Speaking truthfully about farm subsidies? In IOWA? Former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty released this video (“A Time For Truth”) last night: …and he’s going to be formally announcing his candidacy at a town hall today in Iowa. My basic take from both the video above, and the | Read More »
The word is that former Governor Tim Pawlenty will officially announce tomorrow in a town hall in Des Moines, Iowa; judging from his campaign videos, this will be heralded by an overflight of a squadron of F-15E Strike Eagles, an announcement that Minnesota genetic researchers have recreated the passenger pigeon, and T-Paw personally leading a mission to disable the Yellowstone super-volcano caldera before it erupts | Read More »
There’s been a fairly large amount of insider-buzz over whether or not Indiana governor Mitch Daniels is going to run for President; he is widely expected to, but continues to indicate that he has not yet made up his mind. This is starting to bubble over into other political arenas – the latest speculation is over whether Governors Scott Walker and Chris Christie are or | Read More »
Mind you, Sean’s not saying that Obama’s in bad re-election shape, either: he’s currently scoring the President at essentially 50/50, with the slightest edge against the man. But he’s definitely out to demolish some of the current Democratic talking points. Short version (and this is only Part One): The popular correlation between incumbency and re-election falls apart if you look at it too long; If | Read More »
This is, of course, highly unsurprising: it is April of 2011. While the true start of election cycles have been notoriously creeping further and further back for some time now, the major reason why anybody’s talking seriously about the 2012 election at this point is because President Obama rather desperately announced exceptionally early so that he could officially fund-raise*. This means that those parts of | Read More »
My friend and RS colleague Erick Erickson has just put up a post noting that former Governor Tim Pawlenty has picked up a top-notch campaign manager in Nick Ayers. Erick rightly notes that this is a strong indicator that you have to take Pawlenty seriously as a Presidential candidate; Ayers was actively courted by everybody, and it’s unlikely that he’d sign on with a campaign | Read More »
(H/T: @jaketapper) Tim Pawlenty’s got a new campaign ad out (“A New Direction“) in response to the President’s formal announcement that he’s running again; and it features… Paul Krugman. Paul Krugman, criticizing Washington for giving up on jobs. I don’t care who you are: that’s just funny, right there. If you’ve lost Paul Krugman… Moe Lane (crosspost) PS: Tim Pawlenty’s site is here. PPS: Also: | Read More »
…I can’t begin to imagine what it could possibly be. Seriously, at this point in the game Governor Pawlenty’s my first choice: he’s got the right credentials (two-term Republican governor in a Blue State), there’s no scandal attached to him, his major problem policy-wise (cap-and-trade) is not really a game-breaker for me*, and he lacks drama. I am done with drama, thank you. I’m putting | Read More »
Which is not bad for a political prognosticator, actually. Charlie Cook is arguing in his latest column that the President must be hoping that one or more of the following things happen: Unemployment goes down; We not lose the war in Afghanistan; and/or THAT WOMAN gets the Presidential nomination. …if the President wants to be reelected. First off: amazing what two years of institutionalized blithering | Read More »
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