Here’s the link: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/09/28/fox-news-poll-gop-race-top-tier-now-romney-perry-and-cain/‘

Results:

Romney  – 23%

Perry     –19%

Cain      – 17%

Gingrich — 11%

Paul       — 6%

Huntsman — 4%

Bachmann — 3%

Santorum — 3%

This is a big move and it confirms what we saw in the Poll Position poll released yesterday.

The first one is the much anticipated Homeland. They actually released their first episode online ahead of its official premier on Sunday.

You can find the release here:  http://www.imdb.com/features/fall_tv_preview/2011/shows/homeland

I also briefly caught a glimpse of it on the DirectTV’s Audience channel the other day. This is the 24 crew attempting a show that is a little slower, more methodical, and less outrageous. The old 24 had too many “Jumping the Shark” moments. I really couldn’t stand the show relying on last second saves and every character turning out to have ulterior motives.

Homeland is much more simple. A soldier that was kidnapped in Iraq for 8 years is found and brought home as a national hero. But one eccentric CIA operative has very good reason to believe that he’s actually been turned by Al Qaeda during captivity. Show officially premiers on Sunday the 2nd.

The one that I’m really looking forward to is the one Starz has been throwing the kitchen sink at, Boss. This is an attempt by Starz to develop a top end show to turn around the network the same way Mad Men turned around AMC. I also haven’t had as good of a feeling about an upcoming show since right before Mad Men was released.

Boss is about a corruption, moral depravity, and machine politics in no other place than Chicago, Illinois. It stars Kelsey Grammar(Republican) playing a vicious and corrupt Chicago Mayor(a Democrat) who has recently discovered that he has a serious degenerative health condition of which he tells no one. The show actually takes most of its inspiration from Mayor Richard Daley.

This is the first show that Chris Albrecht is bringing to Starz since he took control over a year ago. Chris Albrecht does have a good share of great shows to his name. While at the helm at HBO, Chris brought The Sopranos, Band of Brothers, The Wire, Entourage, Deadwood, Sex and the City, and Six Feet Under to HBO before he was let go for allegations of assaulting a women while he was drunk.

Why I think this is going to be a great one? Besides the fact that it will be very entertaining to watch Kelsey Grammar play a corrupt Democrat mayor from Chicago, we can look at what has occurred so far even before its first episode has even been aired.

When the script for Boss was released 4 separate networks fought a vigorous bidding war over who could bring the show to their network. Albrecht desperate to make sure that his first show for Starz was a hit made sure he won that bidding war for his new network. He even guaranteed the show 6 episodes before casting had even began in pre-production. That is completely unheard of since almost every new show only has its pilot guaranteed, if that. Furthermore, it was announced today that Starz has just approved Boss for a second season before the first episode has even aired.

Add this one to the list for Friday Oct. 21st on Starz. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1833285/

Its good to find out that 2 shows that wont have a leftist tilt are leading the new show expectations for this season. Its an unexpected yet pleasant surprise.

Just in. Christie has officially said that he is currently reconsidering running for President.

http://www.newsmax.com/Headline/Christie-president-Romney-Perry/2011/09/23/id/412133

A private meeting held a week ago resulted in Christie saying he would let folks know, “Within 2 weeks”.

I would never believe any of the reports until someone actually quoted him.

I think it would be interesting to see folks predictions for the polls coming out this next week after this debate.

Here’s Mine

Romney 28

Perry 21

Cain 13

Gingrich 11

Paul 9

Bachmann 4

Santorum 1

Huntsman 1

Lets hear your thoughts!

BofA has recently become target number 1 for short sellers. And that has invited all kinds of questions about whether the company is adequately capitalized and whether its big giant hole formally known as CountryWide might start taking on some higher then expected losses in the next 3-12 months.

I can say that looking BofA’s leverage ratio’s and estimates of home loan losses I will admit that its quite possible that problems are lurking inside of BofA. The numbers point to those problems being unlikely, but they also point to problems being very possible. So you can’t rule out a rumor like this.

The new rumor is that JP Morgan may be close to buying up BofA with some help from the Feds in the form of either $100 billion in preferred shares(more government ownership of what would be the absolute largest company in the world –like TARP) or by backstopping and guaranteeing much of BofA’s assets(like the Bear Stearns deal). If the rumor is true expect an announcement within a week.

24/7 Wall Street

Forbes

WSJ On Need For BofA Capital Raise

Examiner

Now this is also just the type of ideal rumor to send out there when your trying to make a quick buck shorting BofA for the next day or 2 and buying it for the other way. It is so ideal because it is actually quite believable.

If it is true, as mentioned before this would not only create a Super, Duper, Unbelievably Huge Bank, but it would likely then be the biggest company in the world by a lot of measures and the Feds would more than have a few fingers in this behemoth.

Just to recount, this bank would be the result of the following:

1) JP Morgan

2) Chase Manhattan

3) Bank One

4) Bear Sterns

5) Washington Mutual

6) Providian Financial

7) BofA

8 ) NationsBank

9) FleetBostonFinancial

10) MBNA

11) The United States Trust Company

12) LaSalle Bank

13) CountryWide Financial

14) Merrill Lynch

And these are just major acquisitions in only the last 15 years.

If this merger is true, god help us!

I was tempted into writing this after Erick made some primary related errors in a recent post and cited Sean Trende’s very, very bad primary analysis in a recent diary. And this is coming from someone that usually appreciates Sean’s work.

First, lets establish that both Sean and I are getting our sources from the same place… http://frontloading.blogspot.com/ which is the best 1 stop shop for all things related to the primary schedule, but Sean appears to have made a 5 minute glance of the site for his article and I actually read it regularly.

***Sean did make 1 very important point. Historically primary schedule is extremely influential in who gets picked.***

Here’s whats going on.

Few States Defying Rules

Florida, Georgia, Arizona, and Potentially Michigan are intentionally defying the RNC rules that state no primary or caucus should be held before the first Tuesday in March.

Read More →

http://www.acepolls.com/polls/1189091-from-a-business-point-of-view-who-will-next-get-the-ax

^^Poll on who you think is most likely to next get the ax at MSNBC from a business point of view(not necessarily who you want gone the most).

Hey everybody, I have been following the Comcast takeover of NBC Universal(MSNBC) quite a bit lately. I personally am buying into two motivations the company has in handling MSNBC. The first being to obviously make it more profitable and the other is best put by Newsbusters.

Comcast is a far different company than General Electric. Because its exclusive business is media – Comcast is now the largest cable and home internet provider in the nation as well as a growing force in television broadcasting – it might be far more concerned about the political image of MSNBC than GE was.

With many cable and internet options available to consumers, does Comcast want to jeopardize its vast customer base with hyper-partisan rhetoric on its new news network?

Seems difficult to conclude the answer to be anything other than “No” given Friday’s surprise announcement, and if more changes are made to MSNBC’s prime time lineup in the coming months further diminishing the network’s hyper-partisanship, we may look upon January 21, 2011, as the beginning of the end of a totally disgraceful period in television journalism.

So I’m actually trying to figure out what Comcast intends to do with the network. Now as much as we would like to say that everybody is going to get canned and start from scratch, that isn’t really realistic. A move like that would scare the crap out of every single existing advertiser, and it would balloon the costs of the network as they were forced to make large payouts on contracts ended prematurely.

So, only a few things can be concluded as most likely.

A) If they intend to revamp the network it will be done piecemeal over a considerable amount of time.

B) Since Comcast is concerned about its other areas of business(like providing cable) they have an incentive to want to get rid of people that are at most risk of negatively impacting that business and want to avoid highly controversial people on the left and right when engaging in the hiring process.

C) Since they are concerned about profitability, those with higher ratings(now that the blowhard who was a serious liability to B is gone) are more likely to be around longer than those with lower ratings(ratings obviously means money).

There are a couple of theories as to what Comcast intends to do with MSNBC.

1) Turn the network into a multi viewpoint network of conservatives, liberals, progressives, libertarians, and populists(think Lou Dobbs). This theory isn’t predicated on anything MSNBC has been signifying(except maybe the pick up of Uygur) during the merger talks and after, but is predicated on the idea that it could be a good business model.

2) Turn the network into an American version of the BBC predicated on an almost excessive pursuit of professionalism over controversy. This theory does have some signs of being a real possibility. The firing of Olbermann, the pick-up of Bashir, and the fact that this is the epitome of letter “B)” I listed above, points to this being really likely. I should say that the pick up of Uygur doesn’t seem to fit with this.

3) That they are crafting the network for a younger demographic. That would mean that they would try to set up the network on a more libertarian vs. progressive/socialist(yeah I know right) lines instead of the more traditional conservative vs. liberal lines. That would seem to be supported by the pick up of Uygur and the move of O’Donnell to the main 8pm et time slot. Look to the network picking up a high profile libertarian as a sign that this is where they are going.

4) Does nothing and leaves the network to much of the same forces that have ran MSNBC into the ground. That has traditionally been the result of previous take overs like Zeller’s acquisition of the Tribune company. I should say that changes are occurring fast at MSNBC right now, its hard to envision that Comcast isn’t involved at all in those changes, and two of the biggest Comcast heads aren’t your traditional semi-political executives(they count co-chair of the 2000 GOP convention and one of Bush’s biggest coveted bundler’s amongst their credentials).

But I would love to hear your thoughts on where you think they are heading. And from a realistic business point of view, what you would be doing transition the channel into something that is most profitable.

http://www.acepolls.com/polls/1189097-most-likely-to-be-picked-up-by-msnbc

^^A poll on who you think will most likely be picked up next by MSNBC. I left out big radio talk show hosts that are unlikely to want a spot at MSNBC even during a transition in programming, and individuals at places like FNC that have contracts, positions, and salaries that MSNBC is unlikely to be able to compete in offering.

Hey everybody I have been doing the old work and sleep(and nothing else) thing lately, but I thought I would pop in for some specific thoughts on the State of the Union.

To get it out of the way the Obama speech wasn’t good at all. He repackaged all of his old initiatives using new themes, symbolism, and language. And he gave the proverbial f’ you to the issue that Americans cared about most(spending). Okay we all appear to be in agreement on all of that.

My post is instead about 3 new developments: the corporate tax cuts/simplifying(revenue neutral supposedly), the government re-org, and tort reform.

Tort Reform: I know that Obama has brushed on it in the past very briefly, but you may have been wondering why he would bring it up when Republicans are very likely to put that bill on his desk. Well 2 reasons.

1) Because he wants the GOP to redirect the focus on a ‘fix it’ bill instead of a straight repeal. Bringing it up may actually entice some to go down that road.

2) Because he knows that another thing that can kill Obamacare is sky rocketing premiums and tort reform may make the premium increases less severe in a few years.

Solution is to wait until Obamacare gets repealed or sure to be repealed before passing such legislation.

The Government Re-organization: Basically he thinks the GOP is stupid enough to go for spending cuts by way of efficiency and removing redundancy in a re-org in exchange for more vague clauses in the legislation giving the agencies more authority. If he is thinking that he can go to he!!. That fight is going to be how vague bill language is and the presence of any new clauses for the bureaucracy to take advantage of.

Solution is for the house to move first and pass bills that narrowly re-org while reducing the powers of the agencies and force him into a situation where he has to decide whether or not he is going to veto something he said he wanted.

The Corporate tax cut/simplification: Many don’t know what Obama is referring to when he is talking about “corporate tax loop holes”. He has brought it up before and he is only talking about 1 thing and 1 thing only. Its called a unitary tax(google it). And so he is saying that he will take a corporate tax reduction in exchange for it to be simplified and placed on worldwide profits(or at least move in that direction). Frankly again he can go to he!!. No international company would ever want to headquarter in the United States with a unitary tax. You pass it and every penny of international tax revenue dries up. Also it is very immoral. How is it right that when a foreign subsidiary(a foreign legal person) of a US company makes money in (lets say) Hong Kong that they are left at the disadvantage of paying maybe double the corporate tax rate(mostly to the US) of their competitors. The holding company will just move.

Solution is again to pass a narrow bill on 100% expensing, no credits, and a reduced corporate tax rate(without the unitary tax) and push Obama in to the position where he has to decide whether or not he is going to veto something he appears to have asked for.

This is by far the most important diary I can make here at Redstate because it is the subject that I believe is the 100% most lacking from our activists, and the subject that would yield the most benefits to our movement if we only discussed it just a tiny bit more than we currently do.

Currently, we spend practically 100% of our time focused on the most near term: elections, bills, news, etc. These things are without a doubt extremely important, but in tandem with a focus on these things we also need to at least talk a tiny bit about how to win the long war which in my personal belief is achievable in a lot shorter period than most think. Essentially, my long studies has showed me that in our lifetimes we could actually see minorities majority conservative, universities majority conservative, urban areas majority conservative, etc. assuming we actually decided to spend the time and effort to win those areas. It wont be easy, but I can assure you that I have had plenty of conversations with professors, union guys, urban liberals, etc. that have been very, very productive. We could do this if we actually as a movement(not just our politicians and their campaigns) set out to win that fight. And just think of the larger and larger political rewards we would get every cycle that would come from at least some long term strategies.

Here is just a rough list of just categories that these strategies could fit in. I can assure you this is just a fraction of what is out there for just categories. And there are thousands of individual ideas for each category.

-Direct person to person communication(on a large scale)
-Issue focused marketing
-Distribution of books, audio books, and documentaries
-Production of new documentaries and books
-Capital for conservative causes(conservative VC funds and Angel networks for conservative movies, music, documentaries, books, etc.
-Creating and growing more conservative news outlets
-Changing control of existing liberal news outlets
-Accelerating the collapse in existing liberal news outlets
-Creating *more efficient* sources of information for students that are more conservative than what they are given
-Creating, promoting, etc. new or existing universities and private schools that are more conservative alternatives
-Seeking to damage liberal institutions or liberal departments
-Attempting to change the control of existing institutions
-Growing student conservative groups and conservative student movements
-Strategies to move the political beliefs of those with education power or changing the makeup of departments
-Attempts to change, get new leadership, crackdown on, or break up unions
-Creating, and growing new organizations
-Co-opting existing organizations(AARP, AMA, etc.)
-Government competition through technology(email, fedex, online education, etc.) and through jurisdictional arbitrage(medical tourism)
-Easy to use financing clearinghouse for all of the above(actright, bigredtent-when they actually get back up and running, and any others)

I am convinced that we first need a location and enough willing participants to act as a hub for ideas. So that all an activist or activist group has to do is plug and play any idea they like. I seriously want to hear others views on this subject.

But all I can tell you is that from the bottom of my heart and everything I’ve seen in the political world that this subject needs to be talked about. It is capable of yielding unbelievable returns to all of us. And if there was anything that I would put my entire political self on the line to promote, it would be this–winning the hearts and minds of the American people(not just for 1 election, but for the rest of their lives).

I thought this would be a fun exercise.

Consider this an open diary for anyone to post videos of a prominent conservative or republican just ruthlessly demolishing a liberal argument. Ones that just make it brutal.

I’ll start it off.

Chris Christie http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_dDtnr8SlE

Zell Miller http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C58YAONY_hE

Newt Gingrich http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkaKwJ9eOUU

Chris Christie http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuri7p_9pm4

Paul Ryan http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9ThvOyrPCw

Bill O’ Reilly http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bijtBkKQwY8

Newt Gingrich http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MoyPcX75RV8 – Last 30 seconds

Hopefully, this is a little more fun than the almost constant retreading the same posts on various presidential candidates over the last few days.

So link away guys and gals.