Back in 1992, Massachusetts Senator Paul Tsongas, running for the Democratic presidential nomination, labeled Bill Clinton a “pander bear.” We’ve come full circle I’m afraid and the issue goes directly to why so many conservatives who are willing to settle for Mitt Romney really do not want to settle more Mitt Romney. Romney is bringing up Sanctuary Cities again. He is using it as an | Read More »
Quinnipiac put out a pair of new polls, focusing on the Republican primary race in Pennsylvania and in Ohio. They have some problems that limit their utility, but I believe they will get much attention today because of their top line results, so it’s time to take a look anyway. Why the attention? Romney bucks the national trend again to lead in both states.
The big news yesterday on the health care policy front is that the 11th Circuit case against the individual mandate is headed to the Supreme Court before the 2012 election, not after. This means a decision about the constitutionality of the individual mandate is likely to come in mid-2012, after the Republicans have chosen a nominee but well before the election ramp up. This is | Read More »
I don’t speak for all conservatives, but most every single conservative I know will gladly settle for Mitt Romney and support him over Barack Obama. Even the conservatives I know who right now are saying they could never support Mitt Romney will . . . when push comes to shove . . . support Mitt Romney. The issue is that most conservatives, myself included, don’t | Read More »
A couple of debates ago we looked at where the Republican Presidential primary stood nationally. Since then we’ve seen Mitt Romney surge, presumably as the anti-Rick Perry candidate. But will Perry himself tumble after widely criticized debate efforts? Let’s check the new CNN poll.
I’ve got up a post at CNN.com right now on Mitt Romney and what the media is missing in its 2012 analysis. When the bulk of the Republican pundits and prognosticators support one candidate, the reporters and political analysts who rely on those Republicans tend to act as if that candidate is the one everybody supports. The media, in effect, have become film critic Pauline | Read More »
I’m starting to agree with Josh Kraushaar that “This election still shaping up much along the lines of ’80, but Romney/ “HW Bush” could be the winner this time around.” i think, fundamentally, this primary season is rather close to 1980. You have an activist, angry Republican base in a bad economy unhappy with the GOP establishment almost as much as they are with the | Read More »
Rick Perry is a horrible debater. If you did not think so before last night, you must now concede the point. Reading through the book about Dave Carney and Perry’s eggheads, the Perry camp concluded that debates really are not that impactful. Perry has not had a debate since 2005 2010 (corrected. Perry had two primary debates in 2010, but otherwise has refused debates with | Read More »
Promoted from the diaries Last night’s debate was not the best debate. Stylistically, the google & youtube questions were annoying and largely shallow. Substantively, Perry looked as bad as he ever has with Romney coming out the winner. This is a huge problem for conservatives. Rick Perry is on the cusp of becoming the consensus candidate that Romney isn’t. He is tea-party and establishment. He | Read More »
Good Lord this was the worst debate I think I’ve ever watched. The audio was terrible. When the audience clapped the sound of the candidates faded away. The charts and polling was silly. Too many bells and whistles and too damn many candidates on the stage. Did you know Gary Johnson intends to balance a budget? Whoopitydoo. Rick Perry was a train wreck in this | Read More »
The recent Social Security demagoguery that has been propagated by Mitt Romney and other big-government apologists is truly repugnant. Accusing those who desire to preserve and expand personal retirement – of eliminating Social Security for seniors is akin to an arsonist blaming firefighters for fanning the flames. It was the very big-government statists like Romney who obfuscated and corrupted the original intent of Social Security; | Read More »
Last time around, Mitt Romney took a blow when he took ‘silver’ in his neighboring state New Hampshire, losing to the man who’d been plotting to win the state since the last contested primary there, John McCain. This time it looks like Romney is going to repeat the McCain strategy. By never having given up on the state since November 2008, Romney looks set to | Read More »
After Mitt Romney attacked Rick Perry for joining Milton Friedman in calling social security a “ponzi scheme”, conservative intellectuals in the DC-NY corridor suddenly began treating Friedman as John Maynard Keynes’ bastard love child with Karl Marx and rejecting all calls to reform social security because Rick Perry dared to call it a ponzi scheme. Considering the behavior of conservative intellectuals in Washington and New | Read More »
Nicole Gelinas is over at National Review joining in questioning Rick Perry about his “ponzi” rhetoric on social security. I’ve read that post twice and really don’t see the point of it, even with the previous points. But what is relevant to me is that Ms. Gelinas is a contributing editor to the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal. The Chairman of the Manhattan Institute is Paul | Read More »
It is not histories I am writing, but lives; and in the most glorious deeds there is not always an indication of virtue of vice, indeed a small thing like a phrase or a jest often makes a greater revelation of a character than battles where thousands die. – Plutarch (HT: Livius.org) History doesn’t tend to repeat itself in completely sinusoidal fashion. It does, however | Read More »
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