One of the thing candidates are judged on is their spouse.
Michelle Obama, Teresa Heinz Kerry, Hillary Clinton all had large effects on their husband’s campaigns.
In 2012 we ought to give a little attention to the spouses of potential candidates. I’ll cover the spouses of the lady and gentlemen on the left side of the screen.
Columba Bush, the wife of JEB Bush was born in León, Mexico. To the best of my knowledge this would make Columba the first non-native first lady if JEB was elected.
Columba has focused on Alcohol Abuse prevention as first lady of Florida. This is related to the issues her family has faced with substance abuse.
Callista Gingrich is Newt Gingrich’s third wife. Mrs. Gingrich is involved in the media side of Newt’s activities (doing the voice for several of Newt’s audiobooks). She seems to be intimately involved with his activism. Callista plays the French horn and promotes music education in northern Virginia.
Janet Huckabee has been the wife of Mike Huckabee since 1974. Janet Huckabee was the first lady of Arkansas from 1996-2007. She ran for Secretary of State of Arkansas in 2002 when Mike was running for re-election. She lost.
During Mike Huckabee’s Governorship she was dubbed “the First Tomboy”.
Supriya Jolly Jindal is the wife of current Governor of Louisiana, Bobby Jindal. Mrs. Jindal married Governor Jindal in 1997. Supriya has focused her attention on children’s issues
Supriya was born in New Dehli but arrived in Metarie, Louisiana only a few days old. That makes both Jindals first generation Americans.
Supriya has been a life-long Republican and has excelled in academics just like her boy-wonder husband.
Todd Palin is the only man on this list. In Alaska he informally goes by the title “First Dude”. Todd is a production operator on Alaska’s North Slope and a commercial fisherman. Mr. Palin married Governor Palin in 1988 after both had completed college.
Besides his work Todd, volunteers for youth sports.
Mary Pawlenty is not only the wife of Governor Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota. Mary Pawlenty was until recently also a district Judge.
As First Lady, Mrs. Pawlenty has supported charities for military families. She has also worked to educate children on the role of the judiciary. She partnered with national organizations to encourage awareness of heart health among women.
Ann Romney was First Lady of Massachusetts during Mitt Romney’s term (2002-2006).
The Romney’s were married in 1969.
Mrs. Romney has been involved in multiple sclerosis charities since she was diagnosed with the disease in 1998. Like many of the other first ladies, Ann has been involved in children’s charities.
She was a highly visible part of Mitt Romney’s primary campaign in 2007-2008.
Jenny Sanford is the wife of Governor Mark Sanford. Interestingly Mrs. Sanford has managed her husband’s campaigns for Congress and for Governor.
As First Lady of South Carolina, Mrs. Sanford has promoted charities to fight cancer and to promote personal health and exercise.
My opinion regarding the so-called “Big Three”: Huckabee, Palin, and Romney is that only two, and perhaps as few as one might make the race. Heath, a commenter asked on another thread asks why all three wouldn’t run.
I think there are many reasons in general why Sarah Palin might not run or that Mitt Romney might not run. I think there’s one reason (other than a spectacularly successful Obama Administration) that Mike Huckabee might not run: A Sarah Palin candidacy.
To win in 2012, Huckabee needs to expand his reach further. Yes, there needs to be expanding beyond cultural conservatives (though the idea that all Huckabee’s support came from cultural conservatives is untrue and a bit silly) but he also needs to consolidate cultural conservative support. A key opportunity for Huckabee is among Cultural Conservatives or what Huckabee calls Faith Voters. He needs more votes from conservative Roman Catholics and even Evangelicals. In Florida, Huckabee tied Romney among White Evangelicals. In South Carolina, Huckabee only carried 43% of White Evangelicals and 14% of Catholics who attend mass weekly.
Some of this can be explained by the fact that he was unknown for most of the campaign, or that he wasn’t given a small chance of winning in the Fall or of taking the nomination. Whatever, the case, Huckabee needs more united support from these voters. Against Romney and with more money and name recognition, Huckabee could improve on these numbers. Against Sarah Palin, though, it’s another story. Palin has a greater appeal among these voters (if only because she came on the scene at a time when a lot more people were paying attention.) Huckabee would probably even lose some of the folks who voted for him in 2008. I’ll be honest, I couldn’t convince my own wife to support Huckabee over Palin. Huckabee himself has indicated that a future run may depend on what Palin does.
Romney also may have to reconsider his position in light of a Palin run. Like with Huckabee, he has core supporters and then he has people who settled on him. Among some of his key supporters are Talk Radio hosts and their listeners: folks like Laura Ingraham, Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, and Rush Limbaugh settled on Romney as a way to avoid McCain or the best of a bad field. Defections from these hosts in support of Sarah Palin (which would happen) could hamper a run in 2012. Romney will have National Review (or at the very least, Kathryn Jean Lopez) but if the conservative media turns towards someone else, it could be harder for Romney. If he does run again, he’ll have no choice but to “pay to play” again and slap down at least another $40 million of his own money. Given the odds would be against him, is this a bet he’d want to make?
Of course, should Palin not run, then I think Huckabee (and probably Romney) run, but again, we’d still have only two of the big three.
The only way we get all three in the race is if Huckabee and Romney announce, and Palin leaves the door open only a crack for several months without announcing and then in Fred Thompson-style throws herself into the race in August to fill the demand of people not satisfied with Huckabee or Romney, or any of the second tier alternatives. I’ve got to consider this possibility very remote. Sarah Palin seems like a woman who knows what she wants. She’ll either throw herself into the race full force or not run at all.
Governor Mark Sanford (R-SC) has a good piece in the Politico where he hits on why the GOP lost (Hat Tip: Don Surber.):
Instead, voters rejected the fact that while Republicans have campaigned on the conservative themes of lower taxes, less government and more freedom, they have consistently failed to govern that way. Americans didn’t turn away from conservatism, they instead turned away from many who faked it…
Well said, and then Sanford lays out three principles for rebuilding the party. The first is key:
First, let’s go back to the principle of saying what you mean and meaning what you say. A political party is much like a brand, and brands thrive or wither based on how consistently they deliver on what they promise. Along those same lines, it’s important for brands to stick to their knitting. If John Deere’s tractor sales are declining, they don’t say, “Tell you what, let’s make cars and airplanes, too.” Instead, they focus on producing better tractors.
I make that point because there’s a real temptation in Republican circles right now to try and be all things to all people. We tried that already — it was called “compassionate conservatism,” and it got us nowhere
Emphasis mine. Sanford’s other principles include a loyalty to ideas and not individuals, and looking to the states and not to Washington for leadership and solutions. Good stuff. It’s also clear that Sanford is taking his job as Chairman of the Republican Governor’s Association seriously, heaping praise on Sarah Palin, Mitch Daniels, Rick Perry, and Bobby Jindal.
As chairman of the RGA, Sanford may be the highest ranking Republican in America to have some inkling as to why the party lost. He’s definitely someone to watch and listen to the next few years.
All right, it’s time to talk about supporting candidates for superficial reasons. There are many people who are basing their support for a candidate based on pure good looks and sex appeal rather than on the issues.
You know who you are. And it’s time to get over your infatuation.
Romney supporters, it’s time to face facts. You know, I know, that people who support Governor Romney claim to be doing so for a wide variety of reasons, but you know what it all comes down to: His debonair good looks.
I’m a guy, so I rarely comment on this, but you got to tip your hat: Mitt Romney looks good. The perfect hair, the perfect skin. In his younger days, he could have rivaled Harrison Ford. In fact, he could still make a killing in pictures. He’s aged far better than Sly Stallone. Rambo was a box office success, Rombo would be off the charts.
Women in their fifties swoon. And guys over forty who are honest admit there are several felonies they’d be willing to commit in order to get that hair. In brief, Mitt Romney looks like a President, right out of the movies. He could move to Hollywood and play the President and everybody would believe it.
The unknown fact about Mitt Romney is he can walk in any store in the country and just give orders. Everybody assumes he’s in charge because he looks like it.
Such superficial decision making, to back a Presidential candidate because of his Ward Cleaver chin and the hair, (did I mention the hair?) is unfitting. We shouldn’t choose a candidate based on looks, or on the fact that whenever he gives a speech, he manages to say exactly what we want to hear. No, speeches and looks should have nothing to do with a Presidential pick. I’m sure all Romney supporters will acknowledge the error of their ways now that I’ve accused them of being little more than drooling middle aged fanboys and fangirls.
Or, maybe, it’d be best not to argue that people who favor another candidate are driven by hormones. It tends to shut down debate, whether it’s Romney or Sarah Palin you’re talking about.
Last evening, I read one of the most sensible posts in the last two months on R42012. The 80+ comments that followed have left me depressed. Not because of the subtle sexism and anti-Palin rhetoric, but because of the oblivious attitude many on this site have towards the current functional state of the GOP.
I am going to take Adam’s post one step further and accuse some (the minority) elite/east-coast Republicans of unknowingly sabotaging the party and any near-future hopes of regaining control of congress or the White house.
Are you offended? Then let me explain the reality of the situation to you.
Expect President Obama and the DNC to raise $2 billion dollars over the next four years. Expect the Obama/DNC email distribution list to reach 20 million (from the current 13 million) and their online donors list to grow from the 3 million current supporters.
Today, the Republican party is in much poorer shape than it was post-Watergate and we are on the verge of handing the Democrats a filibuster-proof Senate majority. It may take our party 8 years to match the Democrats in terms of fundraising and volunteer lists. IMO, 2006-2008 may not have been rock-bottom for Republicans and we may experience further defeat.
Many conservatives believe that the 2010 mid-term elections will be a repeat of 1994, but do not hold your breath. In the eyes of the voting public, the words, ‘Republican’, ‘corruption’ and ’DC’ are virtually indistinguishable. We are just as ill thought of as we were in 2006 and might still be just as negatively perceived in 2010, when there are even more vulnerable Republican seats up for re-election then there were in 2008.
Is there any hope for the GOP? What do we have in our arsenal to compete with this Obama/DNC machine and halt the slide in our shrinking memberships lists and volunteer organizations?
Answer: Sarah Palin.
Let us put aside the 2012 campaign for a moment and review why Sarah Palin is critical to saving the Republican party from further electoral losses.
Currently, Governor Sarah Palin is the only Republican politician who is in high demand on the talk show circuit, has galliardising support, is directly or indirectly responsible for developing massive email distribution lists, growing the online presence of conservative chat rooms, networking site and blogs and has the ability to fund-raise at the level of President Bush. Since the Nov. 4th election, most of the new conservative blogs and sites have been created on behalf of Sarah Palin or created by administrators supportive of Palin and/or her conservative positions. The online growth (blogs, youtube, conservative social networking) is Palin motivated and Palin targeted.
The three largest national pro-Palin organizations, http://www.draftpalinforpresident.com/, www.teamsarah.org and the http://www.nfrw.org/links.htm have nearly 300,000 members. All three groups have a national organization, a fundraising apparatus and have utilized their membership lists, technology and networking capabilities to work on behalf of Senator Chambliss. DraftPalin and teamsarah only developed their networks in the last 45 days. These three sites, in combination with the other pro-Palin sites/blogs and networks will easily exceed the 1 million membership mark before the end of next year.
The online Palin movement is the only conservative network to adopt identical technology and networking platforms as the successful Obama Presidential campaign. The Palin movement will be the critical factor in saving many Senators and House members in 2010, which is why liberals want Palin to become insignificant and shun from the national stage. See a transcript from a recent Limbaugh show for further explanation.
Still do not believe me about Palin, then read this from Politico.
Three weeks after the Republican ticket suffered a sweeping defeat at the polls, Sarah Palin continues to dominate search engine queries, cable news and online video sites.
The only American politician who generates comparable interest is President-elect Barack Obama. No one else is close.
- Palin was the most popular Lycos search from the week she joined the ticket continuously through last Sunday,
- The Alaska governor now ranks fourth, just one spot below Obama, on the weekly Lycos 50 list.
- In September, the Anchorage Daily News reported a 928 percent spike in traffic, according to Nielsen Online.
- Her mid-October “Saturday Night Live” appearance drove the show’s highest rating in 14 years, and her Oct. 2 debate with Joe Biden was the most watched vice presidential debate ever — drawing more viewers than any of the three presidential debates between McCain and Obama.
- She ranked as the No. 2 top news search at Ask.com this week and No. 2 (after Obama) among newsmakers on the AOL 2008 year-end hottest searches list, and she occupied two slots on Politico’s list of the site’s 10 most searched terms.
- Palin also ranked fourth among Yahoo searches
- she sat for an interview with Greta Van Susteren of Fox News and delivered the show’s largest audience of the year.
- According to the Project for Excellence in Journalism, Palin was the second-leading newsmaker for the week of Nov. 10-16, trailing only Obama and ranking ahead of President Bush, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and McCain in the number of stories about her.
Some web sites and GOP activists/politicians have provided some excellent suggestions to improve the Republican party, election strategy and online and grassroots conservative activism, but without growing membership lists, fundraising dollars and motivated activists, the ideas will not materialize into success. Like her or not, Sarah Palin is the only net-positive national representative we have at the moment.
Next time you decide to repeat your Keith Olbermann talking points on Sarah Palin, remember which national GOP candidate is stumping across Georgia for Senator Chambliss, on the eve of the election. It is not President Bush, former President Bush or Senator John McCain, it is Governor Sarah Palin.
A wise choice, Senator Chambliss.
From the vulgar satire site Encyclopedia Dramatica (WARNING: EXTREMELY OFFENSIVE CONTENT)
To Republicans and Fox News fans, Barack “Saddam” Hussein Osama is an unpatriotic Islamic Manchurian candidate, a Muslim posing as a [Christian] who may even be the Antichrist…
To Democrats and Daily Kos readers, Barack Jesus F. Kennedy Christ is a messianic cult leader, the reincarnation of John F. Kennedy born as a black Jesus come to save America from six years of Iraq, eight years of George W. Bush, and two centuries of white guilt…
For all of the interest surrounding their existence, the Netroots and the Conservative Blogosphere both have little to show for their constant noisemaking. In the past, I have likened the disconnect between movement partisans and everyday Americans to being insulated from the outside world or living inside a bubble, but the actual reason for its existence, I have to come to believe, is very simply explained. Movement partisans — members of an apocryphal and ever-shrinking “base” — increasingly are not involved in politics to promote a particular set of convictions or a certain philosophy to which they will adhere to first and foremost. Rather, they view it as a sports competition of sorts: there’s an irrational need to root for the team above all else. Once a side has been chosen, it’s Them vs. The Other, and the only thing that matters is beating the other guy.
One can quickly figure out whether they’re a partisan or a principled thinker by their gut reaction to an article that criticizes their candidate of choice. There were articles that were released in the fall, for instance, that accurately called out Sarah Palin for lying about her support for the Bridge to Nowhere. Although there were a few who conceded that she was at the very least distorting her record, most Republicans’ reaction to anyone who brought it up was to dismiss the source — or even the person furthering the information — as left-wing trash (“Are you working for Kos now?!”) and, quite simply, reject the information from their mental processing. What mattered to such people was not whether the charge was verifiable, but whether it helped their side. Intellectual integrity took a back seat to being a Republican, little different than being a fan of a sports team.
Once you’re a devoted member of a team, accurately filtering information takes a backseat to cheerleading. Because they are not fellow team members, any information that comes from the Huffington Post, MSNBC, Slate, Salon, the Huffington Post, or the Daily Kos can safely be ignored and dismissed. The problem with this, of course, is that, by this chain of logic, if Hitler says the sky is blue, then people who oppose him are then obligated to disagree with him. But this is absurd: we opposed Adolf Hitler because he tried to conquer the Earth and massacre the entire European Jewish population, not because everything that he ever did in his entire life epitomized evil. One can safely presume that Hitler also enjoyed the occasional bowl of soup; this does not mean that anti-fascists are obligated to refuse to eat soup (“Are you eating soup? What are you, some kind of Nazi?”). By the same token, one should oppose Keith Olbermann simply because he espouses liberal views, and not conflate this with an inability to say anything that’s accurate. Considering the source and making sure to verify the information that one is being given is what has to be done, not ignoring or flatly disregarding a source that’s disliked.
Most Americans aren’t movement partisans, nor are they all that concerned with ideology. While most Americans will call themselves moderates or conservatives when made to select a label, this does not mean that they are subscribers to a rigid ideology or that they will refuse to vote for a candidate that isn’t “on the same team.” For those that mostly interact with other movement partisans, it’s often difficult to get into the mindset of someone who could have been torn, like my own grandmother, between supporting Hillary Clinton or Fred Thompson back in the fall of 2007. But like her, most Americans are not dogmatic ideologues and don’t reject information right out of the starting gate based upon the source. They quite often see the partisans as having their own personal little memory eraser from Men in Black: Sure, Sarah Palin performed terribly in that interview, but man, that Katie Couric sure is left-wing! INFORMATION REJECTED.
One can acknowledge a candidate’s flaws while continuing to support him wholeheartedly. In fact, it’s the best way to support him and convert others to the cause: who wants to listen to a surrogate blabber about his candidate’s infallibility? Acknowledging the flaws of one’s own candidate is very attractive to converts, who will see you as intellectually honest, rather than as a cheerleader. And Lord knows that the world needs fewer of those.
Now excuse me while I go enjoy a bowl of soup.
Reading the comments section, I’m struck often with how much liberals would be happy to see the bashing of Sarah Palin that goes on. Sarah Palin’s main crime appears to be agreeing to help out the nation by running for Vice-President and not being “qualified.”
The criticism of Sarah Palin seems to have several roots. The most popular though is that people have Presidential Candidates already picked out and Sarah Palin is not the one they want. They figure they can build up the candidate they want by tearing down Sarah Palin and what she’s meant to the conservative movement, to grassroots folks across this country.
Worst yet, people seem to be wishing her ill. To some folks, it seems like other than a huge Obama scandal, there’s nothing they’d welcome more than Sarah Palin being politically destroyed so that their fantasy politics candidate can run for the White House.
Over the next three years, many “candidates” are going to decide not to run in 2012. Other than candidates I really don’t want under any circumstances, I will not be wasting time ”Bashing” anyone. At a times as an analyst, I’ll be honest that I don’t think someone’s running or their chances would be poor, but really do we want to kneecap anyone? And do you really think, kneecapping Sarah Palin will help Jon Huntsman or whoever the heck you want to be President?
Is there any candidate I wouldn’t vote for in a General election in 2012 among those mentioned? I could vote easily for Palin, Huckabee, Sanford, or Jindal. I could vote for Newt Gingrich, Haley Barbour, Jon Huntsman, Tim Pawlenty, or John Thune. With great reservations, I could cast a vote for Mitt Romney.
This is not about some fan club. This is about our country’s future and we are very precariously balanced. Right now, I’m not cheering for any of these Republicans to fail.
Matthew Miller writes in the comments of a recent post, “I’m still not totally sold, though, on the idea that Jindal couldn’t run for re-election and Pres simultaneously. Louisiana has moved substantially to the right in the last two years and figures to move even farther right if Jindal has a successful term. ”
I’m wondering what I could do to sell him? Perhaps, imagining an honest ad for a Re-elect Jindal campaign:
Jindal: Hi, I’m Bobby Jindal and I want your vote to re-elect me as a Governor. I don’t really have much that I want to do. Mainly, I want something to fall back on just in case the Presidency doesn’t work out.
I expect to be totally ignoring my duties as Governor when the legislature convenes so that I can focus on Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina.
But I need your vote, because we all need something to fall back on.
Of course, Jindal would never run an ad like that, but the message would still get through to voters if he were spending time at the Iowa Strawpoll or trapsing about New Hampshire while running for re-election as Governor: He would be asking voters to elect him to a job he obviously had no desire to do. You can get away with that for the Senate, but not for Governor. People expect their governor to do the work.
Now, if you want to disbelieve Governor Jindal’s own words about his running for President in 2012, please feel free to. However, I feel 95% confident in putting all the Jindal speculation in the same category as people demadning Condi ’08.
However, the idea of trying to run two campaigns for executive office simulatenously is silly. It would be unprecedented gall and Chutzpah for Jindal to even try this.
I haven’t seen this latest poll from Zogby posted yet, so here it is. I think this gives Sarah Palin the lead among the number of post election polls that puts her ahead, if anyone is actually keeping track.
The results of this poll are slightly confusing because Zogby did not give a clear explanation of the questions he asked those who responded, which somewhat contradicts the posted headline. When asked, who is the best candidate to be the 2012 nominee, Governor Palin leads all republicans polled, but is in a “3-way tie” among all voters polled, yet the three way tie falls behind “someone else.”
Zogby Interactive: Palin Leads the Pack Of Possible 2012 GOP Candidates
-Support of Religious Conservatives & Gun Owners Give Her An Edge Over Romney & Jindal
Among Republicans:
- Sarah Palin 24.4%
- Mitt Romney 18.1%
- Undecided/Not Sure 16.2%
- Bobby Jindal 15.6%
- Mike Huckabee 9.7%
- None of the Above/Someone else 8.2%
- Rudy Giuliani 5.6%
- Ron Paul 2.9%
Among All Voters:
- None of the Above/Someone Else 20.3%
- Undecided/Not Sure 19.7%
- Mitt Romney 13.7%
- Sarah Palin 13.4%
- Bobby Jindal 12.5%
- Mike Huckabee 8.0%
- Ron Paul 7.4%
- Rudy Giuliani 5.0%
Survey Methodology [Zogby Interactive] 11/7/08 thru 11/18/08.
Zogby International conducted an online survey of [24964 voters].
A sampling of Zogby International’s online panel, which is representative of the adult population of the US, was invited to participate. Slight weights were added to region, party, age, race, religion, gender, education to more accurately reflect the population. The margin of error is +/- 0.6 percentage points. Margins of error are higher in sub-groups.
Here are some of the findings:
Palin’s strength is with all conservatives, conservative religious voters and gun owners. Among Republicans, she gets the support of 30% of Born-Again Christians, 32% of weekly churchgoers, 34% of National Rifle Association members, 28% of current gun owners and 29% of self-identified conservatives. More GOP support comes from 32% of blue collar workers, 30% who shop weekly at Wal-Mart, 28% of NASCAR fans and 25% of both those with children under 17 and those with family members in the military. She scores lower among GOP voters ages 18-29, with 15%.
Romney’s Republican support level is very consistent across demographic groups. Among his party members, Romney’s numbers fall off by a few points from his overall 18.1% with religious conservatives and gun owners. Surprisingly, Palin leads Romney among Republican investors, 24%-20%.
There are no highs or lows among subgroups for Jindal among Republicans. He is a newcomer to national politics, and already has a reasonable base of GOP support.
Palin looks to be stealing Huckabee’s thunder among Republican religious conservatives and working class voters. Huckabee is an ordained Southern Baptist minister, and his highest GOP totals still come from Born-Again Christians (15%) and weekly churchgoers (18%), but those numbers are about half of those drawn by Palin. Despite his populist economic message, he wins only 10% of blue collar Republicans.
The interesting finding about Paul is that he is more popular among all voters than he is among Republicans, reinforcing his appeal as a potential third party candidate.
Pollster John Zogby: “While someone other than those we listed could still emerge as Republican contender, GOP voters seem satisfied with this group. Only 8.2% would choose someone else. Despite all of the bad press and late night TV parody of Palin, she still leads the pack. So it is hard to see what could shake the faith of her supporters going forward. If she chooses to run, that solid base would likely keep her in the race through the early primaries. Both Romney and Jindal have appeal to Republicans, with Jindal having the advantage of being the new guy who could bring change to the party.”
A Wal-Mart worker and an expectant mother were trampled at Long Island Wal-Mart earlier this morning:
A worker died after being trampled and a woman miscarried when hundreds of shoppers smashed through the doors of a Long Island Wal-Mart Friday morning, witnesses said.
The unidentified worker, employed as an overnight stock clerk, tried to hold back the unruly crowds just after the Valley Stream store opened at 5 a.m.
Witnesses said the surging throngs of shoppers knocked the man down. He fell and was stepped on. As he gasped for air, shoppers ran over and around him.
You would when the Paramedics arrived some sense would be knocked into people:
Jessica Keyes was among the shoppers. She told the Daily News she saw a woman knocked down just a few feet from the dying worker.
“When the paramedics came, she said ‘I’m pregnant,’” Keyes said.
Paramedics treated the woman inside the store and then, according to Keys, told the woman:
“There’s nothing we can do. The baby is gone.”
Before police shut down the store, eager shoppers streamed past emergency crews as they worked furiously to save the store clerk’s life.
“They were working on him, but you could see he was dead, said Halcyon Alexander, 29. “People were still coming through.”
Only a few stopped.
“They’re savages,” said shopper Kimberly Cribbs, 27. “It’s sad. It’s terrible.”
When this level of materialism grips our hearts, I am just not so sure it matters what people in Washington do.
You know that is what will occur if the Washington Post has its way!
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton becomes secretary of state, New York Gov. David Paterson could send her husband to the U.S. Senate.
Hence the appeal of Bill Clinton. Who in his party could question so historic and dazzling a choice? In a stroke, the appointment would provide Sen. Clinton’s indefatigable husband with a fitting day job, serve the interests of a state beset by a meltdown in its most vital economic sector and offer a refreshing reverse twist on a tradition whereby deceased male senators, representatives or governors are succeeded by their widows.
In the editorial penned for the WaPo, Karl E. Meyer and Shareen Blair Brysac make an argument in favor of William Jefferson Clinton replacing Hillary Clinton as the junior Senator from New York. Of course, their argument is extrememly feeble and sounded more like a love letter to Britney Spears, but they left out the most important arguments in favor of sending Bill to the Senate.
When Senator Clinton accepts the position of Secretary of State, President Clinton will find himself in a serious conflict of interest with many of his international clients (apparently his primary source of revenue). Knowing Willy, he will make every attempt to subvert law and increase his income. As we all remember, Bill’s legal lubricity is his most skillful quality. Imagine his influence over Nursultan Nazarbayev to extract consultant royalties, not just as a former President of the United States, but also as the husband of the most powerful Foreign Secretary in the world.
Believing that Rudy will not run for the US Senate in 2012, thus giving the NY State GOP little chance of winning the election, combined with my steadfast determinination to protect American intertests abroad, I, Kristofer Damion Lorelli, endorse the appointment of President Bill Clinton for junior Senator from New York.
Of course, my main motive is the fact that a Senator Bill Clinton will provide us conservative bloggers with fantastic material (conflict, sex, etc…) during those dry days before the next primary season begins.
Bill Clinton For Senate!
Jim Martin is on his own
Originally published by Mike “gamecock” DeVine as Legal Editor for The Minority Report
Michael Barone reports:
Democrats hope for a disproportionately large turnout of young and black voters, but Barack Obama, busy building an administration with an eye to bipartisan acceptability, seems so far unwilling to deploy the one political asset—personal campaigning by the president-elect—that seems most likely to spark such turnout.
Democrats hope, but Obama’s non-change Clinton cabinet doesn’t extend to the Peach State:
I imagine there’s some behind-the-scenes arguments among Democrats about whether Obama should (pardon the expression) march through Georgia. Bill Clinton’s campaigning for incumbent Wyche Fowler in the 1992 runoff didn’t help Clinton’s prestige but rather signaled something in the way of political weakness, because Republican challenger Paul Coverdell won. I’m guessing that Obama wants to avoid a repeat of this outcome.
Do some Senate Democrats fear the spotlight and accountability of a filibuster-proof majority?
And I’m guessing, with some basis, that at least some incumbent Democratic senators would rather not have 59 Democratic colleagues, lest they be put on the record for imposing policies like the abolition of secret ballots in union recognition elections.
An astute political observer and life-long Democratic Party activist in Metro Atlanta advises TMR’s Mike gamecock DeVine that bitterness over Republican Saxby Chambliss’ campaign TV ad against then incumbent Democrat Max Cleland, six years ago, remains a factor in the race.
The ads, which included the passing visage of Osama bin Laden, criticized Cleland’s vote against a Homeland Security bill that failed to include a Labor Union provision preventing personnel changes by the President outside grievance rules that apply to most government employees. Chambliss claimed that the vote weakened national security, thus justifying the ad.
Gamecock doubts this bitterness will be enough to drive enough blacks, that are more conservative than Democrat Martin on social issues; and young people, that were too young to vote in 2002, to the polls to unseat Chambliss in this non-Obama on the ticket run-off.
With Obama on the ballot on Election Day, Martin trailed Chambliss by 3% and was saved from defeat only because the incumbent failed to garner more than 50% of the vote as required under state law.
An updated report on this race will be filed on my blog later this weekend or Monday.
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer, Examiner.com and Minority Report columns
“One man with courage makes a majority.” – Andrew Jackson
[Gamecock was legal editor of The (Decatur, GA)) Champion from 2002-2006 and convered the 2002 Chambliss-Cleland race.]
The emergence of the flag-waving liberal
Originally published at Examiner.com
Black Americans are justifiably proud of their country in the wake of the election of Barack Obama as President. In fact, most Americans, including yours truly and other conservatives and Republicans, are proud that the election of a Black man is proof beyond a reasonable doubt that America is not a racist country.
Of this, I am much thankful on this most American of holidays. I have known for decades that America isn’t racist, but do understand, as one African-American columnist put it, that only such an election could convince many blacks that “America loved them back.”
As I wrote on the day after Election Day, we have but one president at a time, and the President-Elect will be my President come Inauguration Day. But we have only one country for all time (if we can keep it), and my patriotic love for it is unrelated to the outcome of elections.
But, not all Americans share this kind of patriotism:
“I felt [Old Glory, pictured] was no longer a symbol of the country I love, but of Bush and support for his war,” said [Ronnie Chapman, a] 48-year-old pharmacist from Cary. “The first thing I did the morning after the election was take it from my den and fly it proudly in front of my house.”
You did the right thing, finally, as did all those that were flying their Star Spangled Banners the day before the election who didn’t take theirs down.
The Raleigh News & Observer considers Chapman’s response as reflecting “the emergence of an unusual – and some might say contradictory – new figure: the flag-waving liberal.”
“For years it’s felt like patriotism was a Republican thing,” said Raven Moeslinger, 21, a senior at UNC Chapel Hill. “Now I feel like we’ve reclaimed it.”
Why did you feel that way for years? Could it be because you have so often heard liberal Democrats complaining of having their patriotism challenged when only their judgment is challenged and remembered Shakespeare’s “Methinks thou dost protest too much” and reached the obvious conclusion?
“We’ve” reclaimed “it”? No, Raven, but hopefully you have joined “it” and that “it” will be a lifelong marriage in love for the extended family we call country. I pray we are not two irreconcilable Americas.
You can build that love by following this example:
“The night after the election, I got in bed and started reading the Declaration of Independence for the first time in a long time,” said Sherry Harmon, 55, of Cary. “I felt I needed to touch base with our roots because I think we need to refresh our ideas of who we are as Americans.”
Bravo. Read the reasons for loving this “Best hope of man on Earth” from the first Independence Day in 1776 thru Election Day 2008.
What you will discover is that, but for the “old” patriotism that led men and women to sacrifice their lives, fortunes and scared honor to found and preserve this Shining City on a Hill, no matter the party of the Commander-in-Chief, there would have been far less to be thankful for.
Here is hoping that the “new” patriots will remain so when the sunshine reflected off Barack’s visage has turned to night.
God Bless America and pass the turkey!
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer, Examiner.com and Minority Report columns
“One man with courage makes a majority.” – Andrew Jackson
Happy Thanksgiving to everyone, with a special salutation to Doug Forrester, AZvet, Illinoisguy and all our commentators who have/are serving our nation. God bless.
Hank Williams Jr. is planning to run for Senate in Tennessee as a Republican in 2012:
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Country music singer Hank Williams Jr. said he plans to run for the U.S. Senate as a Republican during the next primary election.
CMT.com said Williams has already talked with Sen. Lamar Alexander and former Sen. Bill Frist about his candidacy.
Does this mean that Corker is running for Governor?
I hope all of you are enjoying some good food on Thanksgiving with the people you love.
This is the time of year when we examine the things we are thankful for.
I am thankful for my wife and (unborn) child. I am thankful for my relatives. I am thankful for a job where I get to help soldiers do their job. I am thankful for having a home here in America that is safe and prosperous.
I am thankful for the soldiers who bravely and courageously serve our nation in hard circumstances. They endure hardship, depression, boredom, trauma, terror, loneliness and absence from their familes for you and for me.
I am thankful to men and women who serve those in need. I wouldn’t have survived childhood without these types of thankless saints.
Here in America we have a lot to be thankful for even with the things we complain about.
I hope you can put aside a few moments during Thanksgiving to reflect on how you have been blessed and to give thanks.
As everyone’s thoughts turn to turkeys and football (or to both, in the case of the Detroit Lions), here’s a speculative assignment to while away the time until the relatives arrive.
With President-Elect Obama filling-in the key positions of his administration, it’s your turn.
Let’s say you’re Sarah Palin, or Mitt Romney, or Tim Pawlenty, or [fill-in a name]. The Obama Administration hasn’t yet taken office, but you’re already looking to 2012 and a possible run to challenge Obama. The GOP has hit bottom (let’s hope) in the voting public’s confidence. You recognize the huge challenges ahead to develop policy positions and to regain the voters’ confidence. If you’re serious about the ’12 race, you have to begin now.
Who do you pick as your key advisors on the issues facing the country, and facing the party? Who are your key advisors on the economy; on taxation and budget issues; on national security; on health care; on education; on government reform; on foreign policy? Also, importantly, who would you look to for building a winning political strategy for 2012? Who would you want on your communications team? And who would you pick as a mentor to help you understand and articulate a new or renewed vision for the GOP? They could be authors, members of past administrations, current officeholders, from the private sector. Or, lacking names, what knowledge or expertise would you be looking for in a campaign team (or what would you be looking to avoid)?
Serious suggestions are expected. Joke suggestions are welcomed.
Governor Gary E. Johnson; wikipedia
“government only needs to ensure that no one is harmful to anyone else.”
Gary Johnson carries his Seven Principles of Good Government in his wallet.
1. Become reality driven. Don’t kid yourself or others.
Find out what’s what and base your decisions and actions
on that.2. Always be honest and tell the truth. It’s extremely
difficult to do any damage to anybody when you are
willing to tell the truth–regardless of the
consequences.3. Always do what’s right and fair. Remember, the more
you actually accomplish, the louder your critics become.
You’ve got to learn to ignore your critics. You’ve got to
continue to do what you think is right. You’ve got to
maintain your integrity.4. Determine your goal, develop a plan to reach that
goal, and then act. Don’t procrastinate.5. Make sure everybody who ought to know what you’re
doing knows what you’re doing. Communicate.6. Don’t hesitate to deliver bad news. There is always
time to salvage things. There is always time to fix
things. Henry Kissinger said that anything that can be
revealed eventually should be revealed immediately.7. Last, be willing to do whatever it takes to get your
job done. If you’ve got a job that you don’t love enough
to do what it takes to get your job done, then quit and
get one that you do love, and then make a difference.
In the late 1990′s, Gary Johnson was probably considered the most successful Governor in the United States. Although I disagree with Governor Johnson’s views on foreign policy, he is not to be underestimated in 2012. Many believe his marital problems prevented him from running for President in 2004 (he refused to endorse President Bush). Johnson endorsed Ron Paul in 2008 and is poised to attract most of Paul’s supporters in 2012. Unlike Congressman Paul, Johnson is a baby-boomer, has a softer delivery and a successful track-record of governing on his resume. Governor Johnson has an extremely interesting and attractive biography.
Some of Gary Johnson’s accomplishments as Governor:
- Iran claims nuclear progress
- Iran accuses 3 of spying for Israel
- Plans for US diplomats in Iran shelved: Rice
- Iran ‘fires second space rocket’
In a unanimous decision this morning, the State Canvassing Board (the entity which has been charged with determining the winner of Minnesota’s U.S. Senate race) denied Al Franken’s request to include rejected absentee ballots in the recount.
This is a big victory for Sen. Coleman as it has become evident during the recount that the only way that Franken could potentially only move ahead in the vote count would be to include rejected absentee ballots in the totals.
Of course, this is still far from over and further litigation to include rejected absentee ballots is inevitable. Should a court grant Franken’s request, a replay of Florida circa 2000 will ensue with judges going ballot-by-ballot to determine whether the vote should be recorded.
But for now, Sen Coleman will likely enjoy the moral victories of prevailing on election day as well as in the official recount.
UPDATE: I’ve decided to start including my contact information in posts that I make. I can be reached at apkkib@aol.com. Anyone who has any comments or queries that they’d like to direct toward me one-on-one can feel free to contact me there.
We’ve seen a few bullets fly back and forth here over the past few days over the seemingly benign issue of gay marriage, with comments ranging from the breathtakingly paranoid to unfalsifiable psychological accusations. Being the pragmatist that I am, though, I’m going to cast aside my more unsavory thoughts about those who oppose gay marriage and speak as a gay Republican, appealing to my party on its own terms to support it. This is a piece meant to persuade, and only conservative arguments will be offered here. You’ll not see any libertarian arguments about individual rights or liberal arguments about diversity and acceptance, here. This is why a conservative Republican should be supporting gay marriage.
Intrigued? Let’s begin:
I. Assumptions in Making This Argument
A few assumptions need to be mentioned at the outset. There are a lot of arguments that could be had separately concerning homosexuality, law, etc., that are not relevant to my particular argument, and some positions are virtually impossible to convert a person from. So I imagine that if you are to agree with my position, you will need to accept a few things. So here is where I start from:
(1) Homosexuality is not a choice. It’s time to put aside any ridiculous notions that homosexuality is a choice, that someone can be “converted” to homosexuality, or that adopted children of homosexuals are more likely to become homosexual. Really, it’s as ridiculous as claiming that the children of heterosexuals are more likely to end up heterosexual. I imagine that the children of homosexuals would be more likely to admit that they are homosexual, but how is that a negative?
(2) The 14th Amendment does not dictate gay marriage, and it is not the court’s job to ‘protect the weak.’ It’s silly to claim that the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause implies a right to gay marriage. Whether one is speaking from a textualist or originalist perspective, it makes no sense: the former, because marriage law is not predicated on sexual orientation: legally, marriage is between a man and a woman, not a straight man and a straight woman. A gay man and a lesbian can marry and it will be legally valid. So any textualist argument in favor of gay marriage is fallacious. From an originalist perspective, it’s more obvious: the intent of the authors of the 14th Amendment, regardless of how dubious some may claim it to be, certainly was not to include gay marriage in the meaning of the equal protection clause.
Some on this site have argued that the court is the last refuge for the weak and oppressed in society: if the courts won’t protect them from a tyrannical majority, who will? But that is simply not the role of the judiciary. We have a certain framework of law that’s set up, and it’s there for a reason. If a judge can take a wrecking ball to it at his arbitrary whims, our society degenerates into nothing more than robed oligarchy. So let’s discard any utopian notion of human infallibility in determining what’s right and what’s not.
The judiciary will therefore have no relevance in my argument (until the end, but for different reasons).
Chapter 6 of Do the Right Thing is called “Elections by Ebay” and it’s kind of reversal of Chapters 2-5 which focused on policy with a little bit of campaign story sprinkled in. This tells the behind-the-scenes story of the Huckabee campaign.
Some of the interesting factoids in here include the fact that, when Huckabee started his campaign website, he was receiving sixty online contributions per month. The website was programmed to buzz the blackberry of Chip Saltsman and each donation led to a ten second mini-celebration.
The book was put to bed in June when it wasn’t known who would prevail in the Presidential election, so Huckabee couldn’t have known that the race for the RNC Chairman would be an open seat with Saltsman running. However, this chapter makes a powerful case for Saltsman as Chairman of the RNC.
Saltsman’s work, as described by Huckabee, is remarkable as he managed to, with next to no resources, keep a national campaign that began behind in the game, in the game until the very end of the primary process.
In a couple different posts, a commenter has responded to the post whether on point or not by posting a list of Senate Candidates that the GOP needs to get run in 2010:
Arkansas: Mike Huckabee
California: Arnold Schwarzenegger
Colorado: Bill Owens
Hawaii: Linda Lingle
Maryland: Robert Ehrlich
North Dakota: John Hoeven
Vermont: Jim DouglasDon’t waste any opportunity to knock off some Senate Dems. If Steele becomes RNC chair, he needs to do everything he can to get these guys to run.
So, if I understand the suggestion, it is that the GOP go out and recruit the most popular and well-known Republicans in each state. If this is earth-shaking advice to John Cornyn and the staff of the NRSC then we’re in more trouble than I thought.
Of course, you can take issue with a lot of these picks. Senator Daniel Akaka (D-Ha.) and Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) are so well-entrenched that it would take an act of God for them to lise. Ditto Pat Leahy (D-VT.)
As for Huckabee, he’s said he’s not running. He’ll never will run for the U.S. Senate, he’s made that crystal clear. I have to wonder about the anti-Huckfolks who seem to make the argument, “Huckabee is a two-faced socialist liar and bigot who will bring a nanny state upon us and use government to impose his religion. And that’s why we want to elect him U.S. Senator.”
But beyond the logic of the individual picks, I think the meme (and there’s a variation on this on other blogs) is that what we need are the same type of leaders that have thrown us into the crapper. Are these people good, will they bring integrity back to Washington, do they represent an appealing vision that will address the issues that are on the hearts and minds of the American people? Or do they represent famous names we can throw out there in hopes we get lucky? Or are we going to spend tens of millions of dollars only to elect the corrupt losers who got us into this mess in the first place.
The job of the NRSC Chairman–and what would be far more interesting to hear of from bloggers and commenters is not a list of names that anyone could find by doing Google, but rather really innovative candidates that can sell Republicanism and help rebuild the party. At the Senate level, our party needs fresh face, not just to round up the usual suspects.
Besides, if you’re dealing with incumbent Democrats, many of these famous names will back away from the fight because they’ll tarnish they’re electoral capitol and spend it in a race they might not win. You need fighters, you need people who are eager to serve, and are worthy of it.
Wow. Now “change” really does look like “more of the same.” I am certainly not disappointed, though — but I have a feeling there’s some liberal heads exploding out there somewhere:
President-elect Barack Obama will keep Defense Secretary Robert Gates in that job for at least a year, according to an official familiar the two men’s discussions.
Gates has served as President George W. Bush’s defense chief for two years. Gates, a moderate with long-standing ties to Republican administrations and the Bush family, would fulfill an Obama pledge to include a Republican in his Cabinet.
So far Obama’s picks have given me some hope that he’s a lot smarter than he appeared during the Democratic primaries.
Yep, you read that right. Here’s Kudlow:
When President-elect Obama had a chance to squash the tax-hike threat once and for all at his news conference Monday, he took a pass and let the question linger for another day. But his new economic cabinet appointments strongly suggest there will be no tax hikes next year.
Stocks, for one, like what they’re seeing from Obama’s latest cabinet selections. On Friday, Obama announced Tim Geithner will be his Treasury man, and on Monday he made Larry Summers his White House economics tsar and named Christine Romer to the top spot in the Council of Economic Advisers (CEA). Stocks rallied 900 points across this stretch. That’s not the end of the stock story. Markets also like the new super-TARP government plan to bailout Citigroup, which effectively guarantees the banking system with a massive insurance-like policy. But markets may also sense a little pro-growth good news in the Obama policy mix.
When asked about tax hikes on Monday, Obama said the debate is between repeal and not-renewal. In other words, repeal the Bush tax cuts in 2009, thereby raising tax rates on capital gains and successful earners, or wait until the Bush tax cuts expire at the end of 2010. Investors want to hear the latter, and Mr. Obama said his team will make a recommendation.
Here’s my thought on his team. Summers, Geithner, and Romer will all recommend no tax hikes in a recession. Maybe for Keynesian reasons; maybe a nod to supply-siders. Obama talked about a liberal-conservative consensus. But what’s especially encouraging is the appointment of Ms. Romer, who easily could serve as CEA head in a Republican administration (just like Geithner could have been McCain’s Treasury man).
About a year and half ago economist Don Luskin sent me a long article about taxes by Christine and her husband David Romer, who were writing for the National Bureau of Economic Research. From the introduction: “The resulting estimates indicate that tax increases are highly contractionary. . . . The large effect stems in considerable part form a powerful negative effect of tax increases on investment.”
Later in the article, the Romers write: “In short, tax increases appear to have a very large, sustained, and highly significant negative impact on output.”
That’s what makes the Romer appointment so interesting. In fact, there is no question that Obama’s economic team is right of center. All three are market-oriented. They’re also pro-free-trade. Hopefully Summers and Geithner maintain the Robert Rubin King Dollar policy of the Clinton years. And if Ms. Romer can stop tax hikes, that will help the greenback even more.
At a minimum, both Romer and Geithner could have served under Gerald Ford or George H. W. Bush. But they may be more pro-growth than that. Romer’s study of the damage of tax hikes on the economy and her emphasis on investment are right on target. In a New York Times story, a former Treasury colleague of Geithner’s says, “he’s no liberal.” As for Summers, while he has been mau-maued by Democratic feminists and some of the unions, he is a tough, clear-headed thinker who has for years tried to merge Keynesian and supply-side policies. No mean feat.
My emphasis. And with the decision to keep Sec. Gates at Defense, a Republican foreign policy realist at heart, one has to wonder whether Obama’s presidency will look more like Ford’s second term than Carter’s second or Clinton’s third. Is Barack Obama the President Rockefeller we never had? Regardless of the answer to that and other only halfway serious questions, I am a bit relieved by the appointments Obama is making, which seem to acknowledge that this is still a temperamentally conservative country, if not an ideologically or politically conservative one.
When it comes to running for office, be it the Presidency or United States Senate, it’s tempting to treat the matter as if it’s like Fantasy Sports and you’re picking your team for U.S. Senate or the White House. Reality is that it’s a lot harder than that. I’ve dreamed of a lot of candidates running and I’ve heard names floated that have never come to fruition. Let’s take a look at some of the whys:
1) They Don’t Want the Job
Something that’s overlooked in our discussion of readiness is that some people just don’t want to be President-as hard as that is for some of us to grasp. There is no job (Senator, Congressman, Governor, Ambassador, CEO) that is completely sufficient preparation. Being President means living every day under threat of death, being responsible for America’s armed forces, wielding nuclear weapons, and being leader of the largest organization on the planet. It’s a big responsibility and it has an impact on those who wield it. It’s been said that one 4-year term as President will age someone by a decade. The song is wrong. Not everybody wants to rule the world, not at the cost of years off their life.
2) Campaign Finances
If you’re going to run for President, you’re going to need large amounts of cash. Failure to do so or or at least have a reasonable plan for how you’re going to raise that amount of money will lead to failed campaigns or not even launching a campaign to begin with. (See: Sam Brownback.) The less a candidate can count on getting, the less likely they are to consider running.
3) Personal Finances
Running for President can take a blow to your personal financial situation. You’re not paid anything for your time. Certain personal expenses can be charged to the campaign without creating problems, but you generally have even more expenses that can’t. Jeb Bush declined to run in 2008, partly because his personal net worth was under $2 million. Of course net worth is not money in the bank, it includes property, and other assets that can’t easily be liquidated. This will present an intersting challenge for any Bobby Jindal candidacy in any year as he’s spent most of his life in government service earning less than he could in the private sector.
Running without a financial cushion adds a whole other level of stress to the Presidential campaign. Candidates often need to find ways to make money while running for President which leads to allegations, fingerpointing, etc. When Mike Huckabee went to give a speech in the Cayman Islands in the run-up to the Wisconsin Primary, allegations were made that Huckabee wasn’t taking the campaign seriously. He was, but with his wife on leave from her work and him not bringing in any income other than a trickle from book royalties, he also had to take paying the mortgage seriously.
The two most acceptable ways to finance your life while running for President is to take a salary for a government job you’re not doing (in the House or Senate) or to already have a large fortune. If you don’t fit into either category, it’s going to be a struggle.
4) Children
Running for the Presidency is a nightmare for your homelife, because for 2 years, you’ll essentially have none. A presidential campaign is composed of hundreds of speeches, fundraisers, and events that take a parent away from their home constantly. In state or Congressional campaigns, at least a certain proximity is likely.
Presidential candidates with young children are kind of rare. Many candidates of both parties have foregone campaigns because of children. In 1992, Bill Clinton said that he didn’t run in 1988 because he thought Chelsea (then 
was too young. Of course, at what age a child is old enough to have a parent in a Presidential campaign varies by person. Bill Bennett said he would only consider a Presidential run once his youngest child had graduated High School. President-elect Obama’s children are much younger than that. Whatever, the age, the opinions and needs of the children will (or at least should) come into consideration.
5) Oxygen
There’s only room for so many candidates, so many frontrunners before people get squeezed out. There are only so many top-level staffers who can be hired. Usually, a candidate or two will dominate the discussion to the degree that making a run is futile. There’s essentially no room for certain candidates. The Iowa Strawpoll, while it’s a big fundraiser and not an actual primary can sometimes show where there’s really not enough interest and passion (not to to mention money) behind a candidate to make it worth their while to continue. Candidates like Lamar Alexander and Dan Quayle in 2000, and Tommy Thompson in 2008. Some men who would, no doubt, be good presidents have better things to do with their lives than banging their heads against an immovable brick wall.
6) Skeletons In the Closet
Somewhat obvious. Candidates who may have been able to hide embarassing details of their private lives from the State press may be less likely to risk exposure in the national press unless they’ve got some sociopathic tendencies.
In my previous article, I’ve explored why the current awkward dance primary system is broken, and why the Rotating Regionals, the Delaware Plan, and the Ohio Plan do not sufficiently address the issues inherent in that system.
Now, please indulge me as I unveil my Wyoming Plan – a plan which, I believe, lays out a primary calendar for this party that not only meets all of our current needs but is able to grow and evolve to match the challenges of the future as well.
The Rotating Regionals plan was based on geographic borders. The Delaware Plan was based on total state population. The Ohio Plan was based first on maintaining current early state status, and then on state size, and then on an ideological/geographic balance.
The Wyoming Plan is based on total primary delegates.
To understand the plan, you have to understand the way the GOP decides how many delegates each state gets in the primaries. Basically, the national party lines out four categories in which to award delegates to states: district, at-large, state party, and bonus delegates.
District delegates
This one is simple, and it factors in the size of the state (and potential size of the Congressional delegation) by awarding each state three delegates for each congressional district. (For example, Wyoming, which has one Congressional district, gets three district delegates. Alabama, which has seven districts, gets 21 district delegates.)
At-Large delegates
Another simple one – this one factors in the potential size of the Senate delegation by giving each state five delegates per Senate seat regardless of which party occupies the seat. Thus, each state gets 10 at-large delegates.
State party delegates
Three party officials in each state are automatically delegates: the state party chairman, the national committee chairman, and the national party chairwoman. Thus, each state gets 3 state party delegates.
Bonus delegates
This is where the GOP delegate allocation system is genius. Each state gets bonus delegates based on a number of different criteria:
As you can see then, the number of delegates each state gets the chance to award during the primaries can shift from year-to-year based on what happens within that state and on a national level in Presidential elections. By tapping into and piggy-backing on that shift each election, we can devise a plan which can grow with the needs of the party in the future.
The basis of the plan is thus: arrange the states in order from smallest number of delegates to the largest number of delegates. Obviously, this order shifts slightly every four years because of the bonus delegates (and shifts ever more slightly every 10 years because of the census).
Once you have this list, remove the non-state entities like American Samoa and Guam from the list and then group the states in groups of five. Each of these groups will hold their primary on the same day, one week apart from one another, beginning the first Tuesday in March. Taking a week off for Easter, we end the process in the middle of May, just in time for summer vacations.
So that’s the basis of the plan: ten primaries with five states each, beginning with the states that have the lowest number of delegates. Why is this so beneficial? For so many reasons…
So we have a process that allows the little guy to compete at the beginning, and if he or she can win support there can continue on into the later rounds; a process which energizes the state parties; a process that makes local politics relevant; a process which offers ideological and geographic balance and promises to create a more balanced candidate; a process which is pliable and flexible enough to change and remain relevant; and a process which gets more people in more states involved in choosing our nominee. What’s not to like?
Well, for one, Iowa and New Hampshire lose their first in the nation status. To some folks, this is inexcusable, and to others, they’d like to see IA and NH take their place at the back of the line. What I’d like to offer as part of the Wyoming Plan is a compromise: allow Iowa and New Hampshire special permanent spots in the first group of five. They still get to be in the group of the first primaries in the nation, but they do not have undue influence over the process.
And we haven’t done anything with the six non-state entities yet, either. The Wyoming Plan would place one of them every week alongside the five states already voting, during weeks 3-8 of the process. Why then? Because you don’t want a non-state primary to have a lot of influence at the very beginning of the process or at the very end (think Puerto Rico in 2008 for Hillary and Barack), and putting more than one at a time makes their influence to great as well.
The only other problem (and it could be major) is that South Carolina loses its “first in the south” designation – and if they complained long and loud about it, you could potentially promise them a spot in the second group of five… although the more spots you promise like this, the more states are going to want them.
So here’s what the calendar would theoretically look like, using delegate numbers from 2008 (and understanding that they will change for 2012):
(more…)
Slate writes on Obama’s promise to sign FOCA straightaway:
What in the world were these bishops talking about, claiming that religious freedom in America was under attack? Keep up the hysterics, boys, I thought as I scanned the latest story, and this will be birth control all over again: Your lips are moving but no one can hear you. And the most ludicrous line out of them, surely, was about how, under Obama, Catholic hospitals that provide obstetric and gynecological services might soon be forced to perform abortions or close their doors. Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Paprocki of Chicago warned of “devastating consequences” to the health care system, insisting Obama could force the closure of all Catholic hospitals in the country. That’s a third of all hospitals, providing care in many neighborhoods that are not exactly otherwise overprovided for. It couldn’t happen, could it?
You wouldn’t think so. Only, I am increasingly convinced that it could. If the Freedom of Choice Act passes Congress, and that’s a big if, Obama has promised to sign it the second it hits his desk. (Here he is at a Planned Parenthood Action Fund event in 2007, vowing, “The first thing I’d do as president is, is sign the Freedom of Choice Act. That’s the first thing I’d do.”) Though it’s often referred to as a mere codification of Roe, FOCA, as currently drafted, actually goes well beyond that: According to the Senate sponsor of the bill, Barbara Boxer, in a statement on her Web site, FOCA would nullify all existing laws and regulations that limit abortion in any way, up to the time of fetal viability. Laws requiring parental notification and informed consent would be tossed out. While there is strenuous debate among legal experts on the matter, many believe the act would invalidate the freedom-of-conscience laws on the books in 46 states. These are the laws that allow Catholic hospitals and health providers that receive public funds through Medicaid and Medicare to opt out of performing abortions. Without public funds, these health centers couldn’t stay open; if forced to do abortions, they would sooner close their doors. Even the prospect of selling the institutions to other providers wouldn’t be an option, the bishops have said, because that would constitute “material cooperation with an intrinsic evil.”
The bishops are not bluffing when they say they’d turn out the lights rather than comply. Nor is Auxiliary Bishop Robert Hermann of St. Louis exaggerating, I don’t think, in vowing that “any one of us would consider it a privilege to die tomorrow—to die tomorrow—to bring about the end of abortion.”
Whatever your view on the legality and morality of abortion, there is another important question to be considered here: Could we even begin to reform our already overburdened health care system without these Catholic institutions? I don’t see how.
Ed Morrissey comments:
As Henneberger notes, these facilities aren’t in overserved areas, either. Catholic facilities tend to be in places other for-profit clinics and hospitals avoid. The sudden disappearance of these clinics and hospitals would leave millions of people with much fewer choices in medical attention, or none at all.
Some people on this site, the social moderates or liberals, might find this debate silly or worse. As a general rule, I don’t comment too much on social issues and frankly I think there are higher priorities then attempting to end legalized abortion in a country that isn’t remotely ready to make that step. I don’t think there are many worthier goals, but I’m a pragmatist, and I’m able to recognize the wisdom of, to a certain degree, “tabling” or at least de-emphasizing some of the more unpopular elements of our social program. But, I have to comment on FOCA, which strikes me as disastrous in every sense. Shocking though social moderates might find this position, if FOCA is passed in its current form, and freedom of conscience laws are overturned, I fully support the closing of these hospitals. I am not Catholic, but I sympathize with their plight. No one should be required to all but openly support and fund a practice they find equivalent to murder. This is more poignant in the case of Catholic hospitals because- unlike the federal government (which might well fund abortions under Obama)- they’re privately owned religious institutions. Hopefully, for the sake of Catholics and health care consumers both, Obama backs off FOCA or at the very least, revises it.
Georgia Senate Runoff
RNC Chair
2010
Mitt Romney
Sarah Palin
Mike Huckabee
Tim Pawlenty
Mark Sanford
Bobby Jindal
