Redstate

Posted at 10:23pm on May 8, 2008 REDSTATE ROUNDTABLE #9: The McCain Veepstakes

By Jeff Emanuel

Once again, RedState presents a peek inside the minds of those who make up the site's Editorial staff. This week, the RS Contributors debate Sen. McCain's potential Vice Presidential selection.

The big question: who should McCain pick? And, to revisit a question we took on back in February, should McCain try to make his choice early, or should he wait until close to the September convention?

Dan McLaughlin: I have laid out my own rules for who I think McCain should rule out , and I'll just say here that if the choice was mine to make today, I think my preferences would be SC-GOV Mark Sanford, RI-GOV Don Carcieri, and MN-GOV Tim Pawlenty, in that order, although I'm actually leaning towards the idea that Carcieri might be electorally the best bet in helping McCain crack Pennsylvania and maybe even New Jersey.

Continued below the fold...

Posted in 2008 | Elections | John McCain | Redstate Roundtable | Republican Vice Presidential Nomination | Veepstakes — Comments (127)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 3:07pm on May 6, 2008 "The FairTax Cult"

By Jeff Emanuel

That's the title of Chris Farris's outstanding piece on the "FairTax," posted over at my Georgia blogging home, Peach Pundit.

In his post (and please do read the whole thing), Farris addresses the publicize-at-all-costs tactics used by the program's supporters, and lays out the problems that can, and likely will, occur if and when the FairTax proposal leaves the Ivory Tower and becomes a seriously-debated policy prescription.

More below the fold.

Posted in Congress | Economy | Elections | FairTax | taxes — Comments (26) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 10:00am on Feb. 7, 2008 Larry Kudlow Looks at Market Losses on Primary Days

Is Politics giving stock markets a stomache-ache?

By blackhedd

Economics commentator and RedState friend Larry Kudlow opines in National Review's Corner that stock market investors are having a bad reaction to the disappointing (and slightly insane) political primary.

Kudlow points out that four of the closely-watched primaries, including Super Tuesday, either coincided with or immediately preceded multi-percentage point declines in US stock markets. He's right on the money when he says that stock market investors (who ultimately care primarily about the outlook for corporate earnings) have gotten nothing good to listen to from any candidate, at any time in this un-bear-ably [sic] long primary.

Before I continue about this, let me apologize for my recent silence. As you'll see, I don't have a lot of respect for the political primary that has been the bulk of the news. More to the point, I've been busy lining up capital for a new venture. I'm sure this will disappoint some of you, but I have not been singing in Die Walküre, nor am I the ghost of Kirsten Flagstad.

More...

Posted in Economy | Elections | Stock Markets — Comments (11)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 12:35pm on Jan. 30, 2008 X! Only X! Can Win In November! Pick X! Or We're Doooooomed ...!

By Martin A. Knight

I have never been well disposed (to say the least) towards "X!, only X!, and X alone! can win ...! Pick X! or we're dooooomed ...!" as an argument in favor of X being the GOP nominee. In fact, to be honest, it p*$$@s me off no end. I generally don't particularly care who "X" happens to be ... well, I'd like to say that I don't care who X happens to be, but I'll confess that I am somewhat more hostile towards those who make this argument where "X" just happens to be one particular crackpot of a Congressman from Texas.

Posted in Archived | Elections | pxawd | pxowd | self-fulfilling prophecies — Comments (5) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 6:44am on Jan. 3, 2008 MI Morning Update: Happy New Year, and gearing up for election 08

By saul anuzis

308 Days until Election Day

MORNING UPDATE:

Happy New Year!

Wow, it’s hard to believe we’ve started 2008. There are many challenges ahead of us, and one of the most important elections our country has ever faced.

Today, Iowans will be gathering in their caucuses to choose who they believe should be our party’s nominee for President. A week later, we’re off to New Hampshire and then the following week we are back to Michigan! The race is on.

Posted in Elections | Michigan | Michigan Republicans | Republicans — Comments (0) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 12:45pm on Nov. 30, 2007 Wiiiiide Open.

By Leon H Wolf

Let's not play around: this poll is shocking. Yes, Romney continues to hold a comfortable lead, and yes, as we expected, McCain is closing ground on Rudy. The shocker here is that Hukcabee has leapfrogged Ron Paul to be virtually tied with them both.

In New Hampshire.

Now look at this. I defy anyone to tell me that they know with any certainty what is going on in South Carolina, but it certainly seems that Huckabee is making up ground there, as well. What these polls show is that, for the first time in the race, a Huckabee path to the nomination is plausible. A win in Iowa, a strong second in NH (combined with a Rudy fourth or fifth place finish in both states), and a win in South Carolina puts Huckabee in very strong position indeed. The X factor right now is that Michigan and Nevada are barely registering Huckabee right now, and haven't polled during the last two weeks, which have been very good to Huckabee. It might be said that Rudy and his Florida/Feb 5 strategy is smiling on all this, but the rise of Huckabee means that he could very well finish out of the top 3 in 3 of the first 4 states (IA, NH, SC). It is hard to imagine him approaching Florida from a position of strength if that happens. Further, both Romney and Huckabee seem to be squaring off to be the candidate that has a whole lot of momentum (possibly with 3 or 4 wins) heading in to Florida.

The bottom line is that it's now possible to see three very plausible and realistic paths to the nomination by three different candidates - and further, as we have seen with Huckabee, the last month might see either McCain or Thompson come out of nowhere to make some noise as well.

This thing is wide, wide open. It's going to be a very interesting month.

Posted in 2008 | 2008 | Elections | John McCain | Mike Huckabee | Mitt Romney | Rudy Giuliani — Comments (33)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 2:20am on Nov. 20, 2007 I'm Tossing in with Romney

With apologies for any coronaries caused.

By Leon H Wolf

So this is probably the last thing I saw myself doing nine or ten months ago when I first started seriously following the 2008 race and committed to support Sam Brownback. But here I find myself doing it nonetheless. So I suppose a little bit of explanation here is in order.

In the first place, I want to rehash something I said a long time ago (Nov. 27, 2006 to be exact) about a three-way race between Romney, Rudy, and McCain:

More below...

Posted in 2008 | 2008 | Elections | Mitt Romney | Republicans | Stuff I Never Thought I'd Say — Comments (122)/ Email this page » / Read More »