Finding God in a Dog

Quoting the Chicago Tribune:

Santorum's campaign has vowed to stay in through the Keystone State contest where the candidate could pick up a sizeable number of delegates with a victory.

Speaking as a partisan Democrat, I hope he stays in the race as long as possible. The primary contest has devastated Romney's chances in November. Obama leads Romney by nine points in the "swing states" - Obama is down one among men, but up a whopping 18 among women. (Yeah - systematically attacking women's rights, particularly their bodily autonomy, will do that to you.) At this rate, I figure Santorum will pad Obama's lead by one point every two weeks he stays in the race.

Nonetheless, Pennsylvania is probably Santorum's last stand. He had a huge lead in Pennsylvania, where he served as U. S. Senator, a few weeks ago, but this has disintegrated, and PPP now has Romney up by five. A loss here signals to everyone that he can't overcome Romney's financial and institutional advantages, even if he had a chance in hell of overcoming his substantial lead in the delegate count. Santorum's donors will tell him to hang up his hat, and Santorum will almost certainly oblige.

Then, Mittens will try to shift towards the center, as if that will save him from getting clobbered over the head with his gaffes, missteps, and general cardboard personality.

This is what's showing in the mainstream media today:



Rick Santorum is absolutely right. It's bullshit. The reporter was taking his remarks out of context and trying to reduce them to pablum for an audience that has a sixth grade education, and in doing so was losing the essence of Santorum's attack - that Romney is basically the same as Obama when it comes to the health care law.

But the message here doesn't matter. The meltdown does. That's what's going to be played over and over from here on. That's what's going to end Santorum's campaign, and in all likelihood, his chances to be the candidate for Vice President as well. You would think it would be all the other disgusting and horrible shit he's said over his career, but that's not the way this game works.

So, congratulations to Mitt Romney for being the Last Idiot Standing. Now let's see how he does in the general election. My guess is, not so well as he did in the primaries.

Edit Not the biggest fan of the New York Daily News, but "Santorum explodes on New York Times reporter Jeff Zeleny" is one of the better headlines I've seen.

Today the State of Michigan holds its primary elections. Polling is all over the map - not only on who's ahead (between Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum) but in which candidate is in the midst of a surge. Nate Silver gives Romney a 55% chance of victory in his model, which as far as he's concerned makes this race too close to call.

The narrative has shifted for Michigan. This used to be the state that Romney had to win or his inevitability would turn into a steaming wreck, and that Santorum had to win of else his campaign couldn't continue. Well, that's changed. Romney is no longer inevitable, Santorum's campaign will continue, and now Michigan is a test of organizational strength coming into "Super Tuesday" next week. A close win for either candidate isn't going to signal much other than this is still a two-horse race. Only a big win by either candidate - 15 points or more - is going to pose an existential threat to either Romney's or Santorum's campaign. If either candidate loses big, they have to find a way to come back next week, or their opponent takes sole possession of the first tier. That's what's at stake coming up.

And yes, this implies that, in all likelihood, this primary season is going to continue well into summer. Which means Oregon's primary might actually matter.

Via The Miami Herald:

Atlanta-based InsiderAdvantage announced last night that it surveyed 557 registered Republican voters Sunday night and found that Newt Gingrich is leading Mitt Romney by 8 percentage points. ... Polls will differ, and Public Policy Polling (a robo-polling firm which released a drop-dead poll before South Carolina that had some spot-on results) tweeted last night that, of about 600 Republicans surveyed in Florida, it could only find a 2-person vote difference between Romney and Gingrich.

A week ago, Romney was crushing all comers in Florida according to PPP.

Mitt has a fight on his hands. And, IMO, if he doesn't squeak out at least a virtual tie in Florida, he's done.

I still maintain that Obama will crush Gingrich in November.

Word is that John Huntsman, who was polling behind Stephen Colbert in the latest South Carolina polls, is dropping out of the GOP primary race and will endorse Mittens.

Frankly, it's only a matter of time before everyone else in the field does the same thing. What they're vying for now isn't the nomination, but the power to influence the Republican platform .. and maybe a VP nod.

Frankly, and speaking as a partisan Democrat, I hope they don't figure this out, and that they continue destroying Mittens with pieces like this:

CHEERS to the winner of the Iowa Republican Caucuses...whenever you guys figure out who it is. (These idiots keep screwing up elections, and they want to run the country?) Not that it matters much .. with the margins this close, the presumptuous nominee, Mitt Romney, gets as many delegates as former third-tier nobody Rick Santorum. That's gotta smart!

CHEERS to the actual winner of the Iowa Caucuses.

CHEERS to the nutty people who have apparently dropped out, and the nutty people who still think they have a shot.

And while we're at it, CHEERS to Rick Santorum for coming out in favor of giving Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip complete rights as Israeli citizens, including the vote. That is, after all, what he implies right here. Of course, this is precisely what the Israeli government has always wanted to avoid, which is why they never formally annexed the West Bank .. but never mind that!

The Iowa Caucuses are tomorrow. To celebrate (and help ease the pain somewhat), I suggest the following:

Turn on the caucuses (they should be on CSPAN somewhere).

For every time someone says "Santorum," take a sip.

If a crowd starts chanting "Santorum," finish your glass and pour another one.

If someone says "keep Santorum alive," and you lose your shit, there's a two-drink penalty.

Spread the word!

In 2008, Rasmussen was one of my "gold standard" polls - leaning slightly Republican, and very slow to move, it would give us a good lowball of where then-candidate Obama stood in relation to his opponent, John McCain. In the last cycle, Rasmussen's Republican bias became more pronounced. Whether this is a result of their likely voter model, or because they took more Republican money, or some other factor, is anyone's guess. Nonetheless, Rasmussen stands somewhere between slightly biased and somewhat biased towards the Republican candidate.

So this has to be rather unpleasant news for Mitt Romney:

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds Obama earning 44% support from Likely Voters, while Romney receives 38% of the vote.

That's right: Rasmussen has Romney six points behind. Given their bias, that means that in the real world, Romney is at least six points behind. A lot can happen in eleven months and change; but if this is where things stand now, Romney (who will be the nominee, bank on it) has a lot of work to do to catch up. Brazenly pulling stunts like this, and then getting called on it, isn't going to help him.

Happy Thanksgiving everybody!

You may have missed this in the hubub of Steve Jobs's passing, but former half-term governor of Alaska Sarah Palin announced today that she will not seek the GOP nomination. More here. No doubt she is rather pissed off to not have the media spotlight tonight.

That said, her participation in the race would not have have mattered much. She was polling in single digits, and would have entered thr race as a second or third tier candidate. Indeed, despite GOP primary voters' unhappiness with their field of candidates, Romney is the front runner in that race, and the rest are basically also-rans.

I had predicted that Palin would join the race, and that the GOP field would be Palin and a bunch of anti-Palins. In fact, we're seeing the exact opposite happening: most of the GOP field is trying to be the anti-Romney. There's a lot of GOP primary voters that consider Romney to be little better than "Obama Lite," and they want someone more conservative to be their standard bearer in 2012. The problem is, pretty much all of the alternatives to Romney are lightweights, albeit none more so than Palin herself. The sole exception is Huntsman, and he's going nowhere. I think that, once the primary season starts in earnest, this will become quite clear, and Romney will be the candidate. This would have been the case regardless of whether Palin ran or not.

The flip side of this is that Romney is the only candidate in the GOP field that actually has much chance against Obama, once you look at both their fundraising and recent polling. Even Ron Paul, who might be able to come close on the money, gets destroyed in the polls, and that's now when Obama is at his weakest. If the Democratic base gets re-vitalized -- as I think is likely to happen during the next 12 months -- look out.

Word is spreading that Congressman Ron Paul is running for President in 2012.

As was the case in 2008, I expect him to generate a lot of heat, and to not get that many votes. People on the left and the right like their big, imperial government just too damn much. I have a lot of friends who like him, but he's still a third tier candidate - the only real first-tier candidate that the Republicans have right now is Mitt Romney.