With the slow news days we’ve recently had, I wanted to pass along an article I came across in HuffPo (yes, I know, many will categorically dismiss the story because of the source). FreedomWorks, the national Tea Party organization headed by former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, apparently doesn’t think too highly of Gov. Romney:

Interviews with top officials at FreedomWorks, a Washington-based organizing hub for Tea Party activists around the country, revealed that much of their thinking about the 2012 election revolves around derailing the former Massachusetts governor.

“Romney has a record and we don’t really like it that much,” said Adam Brandon, the group’s communications director.

…The group knows they cannot impose their will on the fiercely independent conservative organizers fueling the Tea Party. But they say the activist base is just as anti-Romney as they are.

…Brendan Steinhauser, who travels around the country meeting with activists as FreedomWorks’ top liaison to the grassroots, said most people he talks to are “definitely trying to stop Romney.”

“I don’t think I’ve met any groups or any local activists that like him or want him to be president,” Steinhauser said. “They just don’t believe he’s authentic. That’s the biggest problem in addition to the health care thing.”

…FreedomWorks is not currently leaning in any one candidate’s direction, though Pawlenty’s was mentioned as having the best shot to beat Romney and win the general election.

The article proceeds to analyze FreedomWorks’ clout compared to other Tea Party organizations. The information provided here clashes with some polling data we’ve seen, which have ranked Romney at or near the top of Tea Partiers’ lists of preferred candidates.

Will the Tea Parties ever bring themselves to back Pawlenty – a candidate whose rhetorical stylings and personality contrast with what they hope to see in Republican candidates (see: Scott, Rick; O’Donnell, Christine; and Paul, Rand)? If so, T-Paw will find himself in a rather comfortable position.

The problem with early polls is that they depend so much on name recognition and the celebrity factor. It’s hard to get a really clear reading of who Republican voters are going to pick at the end of the day, when you have such huge disparity between name id between the various candidates that will be on the ballot. Take the most recent Gallup poll, for instance: 95% of respondents know who Sarah Palin is, while only 18% know who Gary Johnson is. And the rest of the candidates run the whole gamut in between.

In order to get a better feel of how strong the candidate himself or herself actually is, I like to employ a method whereby I measure the support of each candidate, adjusted for name recognition. This involves dividing the number of supporters by the number of those who have heard of the candidate, and assigning a score to them based on that. My reasoning is that, if all these candidates stick it out until the primaries begin, they will all have much higher and much more similar name recognitions amongst Republican primary voters.

Going by the most recent Gallup poll‘s numbers, here’s their–what I will call–NAS (Name-id Adjusted Strength) scores. Each score means that, out of 100 Republican primary voters who are familiar with this candidate, the score is how many people would vote for the candidate, at the present time:

Scores Adjusted For Name ID – from Gallup, 5/16-29/2011

• Herman Cain – 22%
• Mitt Romney – 20%
• Sarah Palin – 16%
• Ron Paul – 13%
• Tim Pawlenty – 12%
• Gary Johnson – 11%
• Newt Gingrich – 11%
• Michele Bachmann – 8%
• Jon Huntsman – 7%
• Rick Santorum – 4%

(The tallies do not add up to 100%, nor should they — these are merely the percentages of how much support each candidate gets out of all the people who have heard of them.)

What is perhaps most surprising is how little the candidates actually change positions when this method is used.  The effects of name recognition are still there, as many of the people who voiced support for particular candidates perhaps did so because they felt the candidate’s high name ID made them a winner worth getting behind.  But this does give us a slight glimpse past the name ID veil.

Herman Cain and Mitt Romney have the best scores (indicating people tend to like them when they get to know them).  The middle of the pack, in the teens, consists of Palin, Paul, Pawlenty, Johnson, and Gingrich.  In the third tier is Bachmann, Huntsman, and Santorum.  There is, of course, still lots of room for some of these candidates (Pawlenty, Santorum, Cain, Huntsman, and Johnson) to make a good first impression.  And some of the candidates–particularly those above 75% (Romney, Palin, Paul, and Gingrich)–must largely change the minds of those who have already decided, if they want to increase their share of the vote.  That will be much more difficult for them.

Yes, there are things that can and will wildly impact the race between now and January, 2012, and I’m not saying this is exactly how the polls will look, come that time.  But I think adjusting for name ID does give us a slightly better gauge of the strength of each candidate at this stage.

As always, comments, criticisms, insults, and death threats, are welcome.

I just received the following email from the Romney camp:

Dear Friend,

I hope you can join us this Thursday, June 2, at 12:30pm EDT and watch LIVE as I formally announce my candidacy for President of the United States.  Please RSVP on Facebook now or visit our website,www.MittRomney.com, this Thursday to watch.

As I travel across our great county, I am frequently asked why I want to run for President and my answer is clear and simple.   We have been experiencing hard times lately and America is hurting – but I believe in America and I believe I can get our economy going again.

To be as straightforward as possible, this effort is not about more rhetoric, it’s not about a person, or politicians giving speeches – it is about the cause of restoring American greatness.  Yes, America is struggling; and President Obama and his administration have failed to lead America in the right direction. But I am optimistic, and I know with the right policies it’s possible to put our country back on track, with a growing economy, more jobs, accountability and fiscal responsibility in Washington.

We need your help spreading the word by encouraging your friends and family to join our community by visiting our website and signing up for our email list, joining us on Facebook and Twitter, or by making a donation today of $10, $20, $50 or more.

As an early supporter, Ann and I wish to convey our sincere gratitude for all that you have done.  Thank you again for your continued support.

Best,
Mitt Romney

So, for those interested in seeing him announce live…sign up. For those who will wait to watch later, like me…don’t worry about it. Just an FYI for those interested.

After last year’s huge congressional victories, it was assumed by many Republicans that the 2012 elections would follow suit as a matter of course. Tea Party conservatives, government reformers, tax cutters and party activists seemed to assume that the next national election, which would include a presidential election, was certain to go their way because the voters had clearly rejected in 2008 Obamacare and other policies of the first two years of the Obama administration and the Democratic congress.

I don’t want to throw cold water on conservative enthusiasm, but that’s not the way national politics work. Yes, the voters made a clear statement about the first two years of Mr. Obama’s leadership, but they made no commitment, lacking further good reasons, persuasive arguments, and strong candidates to vote that way again. No one said the follow-through election, and defeating Mr. Obama, would be easy. History indicates that, to the contrary, it is very difficult to defeat most first-term presidents without near-perfectly negative economic conditions and an obvious failure of incumbent leadership.

In fact, there should be no surprise that the president and his allies are fighting back and trying to keep control of the U.S. government next year.

The issue of Medicare reform is an excellent illustration of the task Republicans face ahead. Like Social Security, Medicare is financially unsound as now structured. In a few, and clearly foreseeable, years, it will be unable to perform its function without massive (and economically unsustainable) subsidies from the Treasury.

Because it is an entitlement program (although taxpayers contribute to its funding), most voters resist making it more expensive. Democrats, realizing this, have used any suggestion of reform of Social Security, for example, as a “third rail” in politics, and employed scare tactics against Republicans and others who tried to fix it. This tactic no longer works in the case of Social Security because voters have generally come to believe they will not receive benefits unless something now is done. They are not yet convinced, however, that Medicare is in the same dire condition. Those who want to reform Medicare are correct in their analysis of the situation, but they have so far forgotten that to make reform happen, they have to persuade voters that it is necessary. I am not suggesting that Republicans should abandon their reform agenda; in fact, I strongly support it. But it will come to naught, and even backfire on them, unless they begin a massive effort to educate the electorate why it must be done, and how they are going to do it.

Republicans have some advantages going into 2012. President Obama is clearly underperforming in office. His understanding and application of economic policy and foreign policy have been amateurish, out-of-date and unpopular. Unemployment has become chronically high, and although there have been some positive signs in the economy, a true recovery has not been made. In the 2012 races for Congress, the GOP seems poised to maintain control, even if they do not win the presidency, and because so many more Democrats are running for re-election to the senate, it seems likely the Republicans will make gains no matter how the election goes. Furthermore, with many more governorships and state legislatures in their control since 2008, the GOP is in a good position to benefit from redistricting, and in statewide campaigns. Finally, the remarkable turnout of blacks and Hispanics for candidate Obama in 2008 would seem unrepeatable four years later. In fact, the overwhelming majorities of Hispanic and Jewish voters for Obama in 2012 are almost certainly to be reduced. Republicans elected several attractive new Hispanic figures in 2008. Mr. Obama’s Middle East policies have been increasingly poorly received in the Jewish community. (The chance for Republicans to attract a greater share of the Hispanic voter, however, could be lost if certain GOP factions prevail with an unsympathetic and unrealistic immigration policy.)

These are advantages, but they do not even remotely guarantee that 2012 will go as Republicans hope it will. Democrats, as I suggested earlier, are fighting back. They are very good at demagogic ads that portray Republican ideas in the worst light (the new Democratic ad showing the GOP pushing a senior in a wheel chair over a cliff is a perfect example of this).

Usually, a political party gets at least one full term or two terms to enact its agenda and promote its policies. The Democrats stumbled in 2009, and paid for that in 2010. It is unreasonable to assume they won’t try to repair their relationship with the electorate, especially those in the political center where they must do well to return to power. Many Republican leaders who are not running for president do seem to understand the challenge facing the GOP, most notably Speaker of the House John Boehner who, so far, has done well to keep his party and his members viable for the 2012 election.

Yes, the conservative economic principles espoused by most Republicans these days are the basis of the right course for the nation through this difficult time. But in order to have the right to lead the nation, this party must have the confidence, understanding and good will of a majority of voters. That’s the way it works. No one should say it is going to be easy.

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-Please visit Mr. Casselman’s personal site, The Prairie Editor Blog.

Just about every election cycle, there is talk about how some candidate (this time it happens to be Sarah Palin) is going to win by using unconventional means. Often this is heralded by comments about how ‘the rules have changed’ or that ‘this year is completely different.’

While rules do change over time, fundamentals change only when there’s a revolution; and while every year is different, the fundamentals aren’t.

No remotely unconventional campaign has been successful (or even come really close) in the era of primaries.

The last somewhat unconventional successes were by Willkie in 1940 (when a relative unknown came from nowhere to get the nomination) and by Eisenhower in 1952 (when a national hero upset the candidate who was clearly next-in-line in every conceivable sense). Both were essentially palace coups organized by one faction of party bosses against another faction.

But these instances tell us little about today, other than to remind us that the fundamentals did change after the 1968 election (thanks to McGovern-Fraser), in ways that made even the mildly unconventional campaigns of Willkie and Ike virtually impossible to replicate.

There’s a reason – the primary system has removed the rationale that underlies the whole idea of unconventional candidacies. The stated reasoning behind unconventional campaigns has always been:

“The bosses are against me, but The People are for me, so I’ll go around the bosses, direct to The People.”

This was the story in 1940 and 1952. Ike truly was tremendously popular, which the bosses came to recognize. Willkie was the beneficiary of a manufactured draft that gave the impression of widespread support. The problem is that primaries have meant that ‘the bosses’ don’t have the absolute control they did in the Willkie/Ike era. And to the extent they still wield power, bosses are pragmatists, almost by definition. Which means they want, above all else, to win; so if you’re wildly popular with The People, the bosses will fall in line (as they did in ’40 and ’52).

Thus, the unconventional campaigner’s statement above generally should be translated as:

“I don’t have enough support for a conventional campaign, so I’ll try something else and hope lightning strikes.”

It never does. Because the rationale of the unconventional campaign – going direct to The People – is what conventional campaigns do now. And what that requires today is that you need to do a lot of pressing the flesh in Iowa and New Hampshire, you need to raise a lot of cash to pay for media in the bigger states that follow (this is where the bosses still come in handy), and you need to hire the people who know how to organize campaigns. Those are the fundamentals that haven’t changed in the past several decades.

Via a “knowledgeable source,” according to The Daily Beast:

Sarah Palin’s “One Nation” Bus Tour launched Sunday, but is it an unofficial exploratory phase for a potential 2012 run or is it a Palin family vacation stopping in historic sites in the Northeast? The answer may well be both.

According to a source with knowledge of Palin’s operation and thinking, keep a careful eye on how long the tour lasts, because it is intended as a way to test the presidential waters. If the road trip ends abruptly, it’s a sign she didn’t get the enthusiastic responses she believes she needs to launch a campaign. If the tour heads to regions outside of the Northeast like Iowa and South Carolina that, the source says, is a “big indicator” that Palin will pull the trigger.

At this point, Palin’s impact on the race is anyone’s guess. And if Palin, Bachmann, Perry, and Giuliani all decide to get in, we’re looking at a field where no single candidate has any niche of the party, or any early state, to himself. However things fall into place, this race will NOT be a coronation for anyone.

A reporter went to a New Hampshire woman back in 1968 and asked her “what do you think of Richard Nixon?”

The woman’s response? “Don’t know. I’ve only met him 5 or 6 times.”

That old joke actually illustrates a very important point. Winning over the voters in early primary states, particularly flinty New Hampshire requires an incredible amount of work. A candidate can’t just land in Manchester, go out on the tarmac, make a five minute speech, and then jet off to the next location. It simply doesn’t work like that. In fact, one of the arguments in favor of keeping New Hampshire and Iowa as early states in the calendar is because of that attitude. Being small states both Iowa and New Hampshire force candidates to campaign like they’re running for Mayor. That type of campaigning can’t be done statewide in a place like Texas or California or Florida; these states are simply too big, with too many people. What this also means is that candidates can’t just burst onto the scene, give a good speech, and hope to win.

If you look at 2008, it was clear that Fred Thompson (and to a lesser extent Rudy Giuliani) both believed that they could just appear in places like Iowa and New Hampshire and somehow win these states without doing the legwork that other candidates were doing. Which three candidates did the best in these states? The ones who spent more time, worked harder, met more people and shook more hands were the ones who won. In 1996, Steve Forbes dumped millions in both states but didn’t do the campaigning that Bob Dole, Pat Buchanan and Lamar Alexander did. The end result? Forbes placed a very distant fourth in both. In 2000, Forbes still dumped millions into Iowa and New Hampshire, but he also worked and stumped and campaigned much harder, especially in Iowa. Forbes would take silver in Iowa and a bronze in New Hampshire. He learned.

This time around there is lot of talk around some candidates about how “once they start giving speeches in (insert state here) the people will fall in love with them, vote for them, etc.” Well, yeah they might fall in love, but that doesn’t necessarily turn into votes. People admire hard-work; they respect it, and particularly in Iowa and New Hampshire, they’ll vote for it. No candidate is going to win either of these states by making big speeches to big crowds or having good zingers in a debate and nothing else. It may not be glamorous or exciting but sheer legwork is very important. Meeting people in their homes or at their neighborhood cafés counts more than making them and 1,000 of their closest friends cheer for a ten-minute speech. If a person isn’t willing to do that, then they need to find another line of work.

The Atlantic has a fascinating piece on all of the major 2012 presidential contenders’ high school years.  It’s funny seeing how–in some cases–the candidate’s look like they haven’t changed a bit, and how–in other cases–they’re barely recognizable.

Let’s make it a contest for you readers here.  I’ll number these pictures.  Without looking at the article first, respond in the comments section and see if you can match the number with the correct candidate name.  Have fun!

(P.S. Just to make things interesting, I did a little research of my own, and found the yearbook photos of 3 other Republican candidates who were overlooked by this article.  Extra points if you can figure out who they are.  Hint: One of these extra 3 is announced, but is not receiving any attention.  One is undecided, but is receiving lots of attention.  And one is still undecided, but is not receiving any attention.)

Here’s the answer key. Don’t look at it until you’ve guessed!

#1
#2
#3
#4
#5
#6
#7
#8
#9
#10
#11
#12
#13
#14

This doesn’t look good.

The Raw Story reports that, apparently, a statutory rape-convicted sex offender named Jeremy Giefer was given an extraordinary pardon by Gov. Tim Pawlenty (who wiped Giefer’s record completely clean, and even excused Giefer from ever having to report himself to sex offender registries any longer) in 2008.  That man has been arrested again, this time for raping his own daughter (while forcing her to start taking birth control pills at the age of 15).

Pawlenty needs to nip this in the bud now, before the DNC can make any hay with it.  Memo to T-Paw: Simply complaining that the Minnesota attorney general and supreme court chief justice also signed off on the pardon is not going to cut it with voters.  Please, take responsibility, make an honest apology, and find a way to reassure voters that this won’t happen again under a Pawlenty presidential administration.

These are serious times for our country and our economy, and we can’t afford to have a potential presidential nominee dragging distracting scandals around by their ankles like this.  We need someone with as clean an executive record as possible, so they can focus on economic issues and make a convincing case for conservative solutions.

The Governor made an appearance to talk about his background, entitlements, and his campaign’s prospects:

For my money, the best parts come after the 6:20 mark, when T-Paw again displays his ability to argue for conservative solutions in a manner that can tug at the heart strings – true compassionate conservatism, as our inimitable Matthew Miller put it. He then proceeds to explain why his unique background grants him such a political advantage over his opponents. Good stuff.

Herman Cain was interviewed by Huckabee last night. Here’s the video:

I plan to watch it tonight when Huckabee re-airs. This is now back to back week with Presidential contenders on Huckabee; Pawlenty was on last weekend. With Huckabee’s old support base still up for grabs, I expect that Huckabee will get a number of Presidential contenders visiting his show in the coming months.
_______________________________________________________

-Matt Newman is a conservative blogger from Maryland who blogs at Old Line Elephant and Tweets far too often.

Gov. Romney recently announced who would take part in his Iowa organization this go-round:

Heading it will be Brian Kennedy, a former state GOP chairman. In a statement, Kennedy called Romney “a proven leader who has developed the skills needed to create jobs and grow our economy.”
Continue Reading

Rounding out the team are a state Rep. Renee Schulte, Polk County GOP official Connie Schmett, Rose Kramer, a former GOP committee member; activist Alan Lucken; and Steve Cates, a former Pottawattamie County GOP chair.

Romney has a small coterie of political advisers in Iowa, led by longtime consultant Dave Kochel. His state director is Sara Craig, who also worked for him in 2008.

Missing from the roster: Doug Gross, who was Romney’s 2008 campaign chairman in Iowa. Gross is still uncommitted for 2012.

You have to credit Romney for making a more concerted effort to focus on jobs than the other 2012 candidates. As we have recently discussed here at Race, political junkies like ourselves may ascribe great concern to the debt and deficit, but most voters care first and foremost about kicking the economy back into gear and reigniting the American jobs machine. Romney appears to understand this and has tailored his messaging accordingly. Kudos to Mitt to learning the lessons of his 2008 campaign and following his mantra of “Focus, focus, focus”.

Gov. Johnson made an appearance on Hannity last night, discussing a range of issues from the economy, to entitlement reform, to Libya, to Johnson’s signature issue, drug de-criminalization:

If only Johnson could have performed like that during the first debate… He did a good job of emphasizing his pragmatic, cost/benefit approach to governing. If he continues to do that, instead of coming off as a more impatient version of Ron Paul, as he did during the debate, he could see his strategy of focusing like a laser on New Hampshire pay some dividends.

Of course, Ron Paul’s continued rise in the polls could cause him some trouble; after all, if the Congressman places well in Iowa, he could carry his momentum into the Granite State and cannibalize some of the Governor’s support.

From Politico:

Tim Pawlenty announced Friday that top Iowa fundraiser Nicole Schlinger will join his presidential campaign.

In 2007, Schlinger ran Mitt Romney’s Iowa straw poll campaign, delivering the former Massachusetts governor a victory. She also founded a telemarketing firm, Campaign Headquarters, that could be key to helping Pawlenty reach Iowa voters.

Ouch, not an insignificant loss for Mitt, but another nice “get” for T-Paw. Does this further suggest that Romney may not contest the Ames Straw Poll?

There is a temptation by some at this early point in the presidential campaign to dismiss ex cathedra certain major candidates for the Republican nomination. In fact, there are those who have already done this about each of the three major announced contenders.

History demonstrates time and again that premature dismissals are not a rewarding undertaking before a single vote has been cast in a primary or a caucus, before any large-scale debate between all the candidates has taken place, before the Iowa Straw Poll, and yes, before all the candidates have announced.

We have already heard that, despite his leading in most polls, having virtually unlimited funds, and already well-organized nationally from his run in 2008, that former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney can’t win. Why can’t he win, we are told? Because of his religion, because of state-mandated healthcare enacted when he was governor, and because he does not fit predetermined stances on some issues. Somehow, however, Mr. Romney’s campaign is thriving. Despite being so rich he could finance his own campaign without a single donation from anyone, he raised $11 million in one day recently (a record). His poll numbers either have stayed the same or are growing.

Anyone who dismisses Mitt Romney at this point is likely to be already committed to another candidate and indulging in wishful thinking.

We are now told that former Speaker Newt Gingrich absolutely can’t win. Why can’t he win, we are told? Because he is too old, because of two past divorces, because he’s “had his day” and most recently because he criticized Representative Paul Ryan’s Medicare reform plan. These contentions are made despite Mr. Gingrich’s cutting edge technological prowess (he was the first to announce by Twitter), his remarkable decade-long recovery from his 1998 resignation as speaker, and in spite of his current happy marriage. His choice of words in regard to Mr. Ryan were indefensible, but he has apologized. The latter incident was the most serious because he was violating The GOP eleventh commandment about not criticizing leaders in his own party. Nevertheless, the national media, including the conservative media, have piled on and proclaimed Mr. Gingrich’s campaign dead in the water. Yet even as they were doing this, and many blog commentators were echoing his political demise, Mr Gingrich was drawing large and positive crowds in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, sites of the first primaries and caucus. Perhaps sensing a premature dismissal, even The Washington Post is now calling the former speaker “The Comeback Kid.” The contretemps with Mr. Ryan has furthermore seemed to chasten Mr Gingrich about his tendency to speak carelessly in public, and his fundraising has temporarily slowed, but he has more than a million persons (and funders) on his regular mailing list, draws large friendly crowds wherever he goes, and has no intention of going away quietly.

We are told that former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty can’t win, because he has no experience outside of Minnesota, because he can’t raise sufficient campaign money, has a history of poor political organization, and because he is boring, Yet he continues to draw praise for his bold style of campaigning, including telling Iowa voters he now opposes funding for ethanol, and Florida voters it’s time to reform Social Security and Medicare. For a man who is supposed to be boring, he is being quoted in the media a great deal, continues to attract endorsements from major political figures, and continues to draw top political operatives to his campaign. Mr. Pawlenty, a virtual unknown only months ago, is now frequently touted as the major challenger to Mr. Romney. Mr. Pawlenty does not seem like a good choice for early dismissal.

I am not suggesting that any of these three men are going to win the Republican nomination for president, but I am suggesting we have not yet seen what any of them, nor any other GOP candidates, can do on the actual campaign trail when voters actually go to the polls.

I also want to point out that each of the three seem quite determined to be president. They do not hesitate to say so, nor to wilt under pressure and the ruthless glare of the presidential campaign season. Mr, Gingrich in particular has undergone a withering series of dismissive criticisms by editorial writers, political cartoonists, and political “experts,” and yet he seems to have found a second wind for the campaign ahead. I seem to remember so many telling me in the winter of 1992 that then Governor Bill Clinton, mired in scandals about his girl friends, was “finished,” and had no chance to win his party’s nomination only a few months ahead.

A second wave of announcements by Republican hopefuls now seems imminent. Perhaps the eventual nominee will be one of them. Or perhaps the nominee will be one of the three candidates who announced early in the race, and are somehow still standing after the media and political elites (on all sides) said they could not possibly make it to Tampa in triumph.

Isn’t it interesting that a biography of Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens), famously declared dead more than a hundred years ago (and long before he did pass away), was recently the number one bestseller in America?

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-Please visit Mr. Casselman’s personal site, The Prairie Editor Blog.

My apologies for there being no Miscellany last weekend – I was enjoying a brief vacation visit with my family in Arizona. (I did briefly consider doing a post saying there would be no post).

More importantly, we should take a moment before engaging in rants and snark, to remember the reason for the holiday and to thank those who ‘gave the last full measure of devotion.’

Illinois Has the Highest Taxes in the World

Okay, in the interests of a grabber headline, I’ve stretched the truth a bit. It’s just the highest corporate income tax in the developed world. Still terrifying.

… the corporate income tax will rise 49% to 10.9% from 7.3%, “making Illinois’ the highest state corporate income tax in the United States and the highest combined national-local corporate income tax in the industrialized world.”

Even before this most recent tax increase, Illinois ranked 47^th among the states in private sector job growth for the years 2001-2011 (net loss of 363,000 jobs). Do you think things will improve much? I’m getting out of this state at my first opportunity, and so will every business that can. More importantly, no new businesses will come in.

Related: I came across this in Instapundit.

The man in the aisle seat is trying to tell me why he refuses to hire anybody. His business is successful, he says, as the 737 cruises smoothly eastward. Demand for his product is up. But he still won’t hire.

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t know how much it will cost,” he explains. “How can I hire new workers today, when I don’t know how much they will cost me tomorrow?”

He’s referring not to wages, but to regulation: He has no way of telling what new rules will go into effect when. His business, although it covers several states, operates on low margins. He can’t afford to take the chance of losing what little profit there is to the next round of regulatory changes. And so he’s hiring nobody until he has some certainty about cost.

The Ultimate Government Job Story

While on the subject of jobs, we can’t pass up this one:

A mail carrier who was caught using a yard as his personal toilet will not be fired.

The incident happened last month at a home in southeast Portland and a neighbor, Don Derfler, captured the man in the act with his camera.

Derfler had been waiting for his babysitter when he saw his mailman acting odd at his neighbor’s house across the street. The postal worker then pulled down his pants and that’s when Derfler began snapping pictures.

His punishment? After a short suspension, he was transferred to another route.

Consider what would happen if an employee of a private company had done this. I feel absolutely confident in saying that there is no private company on earth where that person would not be fired. This is the final proof, if proof were required, that government employees can do absolutely anything with no fear of being fired.

The Last Weekly Mitch Pitch

I was, of course, very disappointed, though not terribly surprised, when Mitch Daniels decided to pass up his shot at the White House. Mark Salter offers a good explanation of why this is a problem for America (beyond the loss of a good candidate). Daniels decided not to run because his family would be torn to pieces by opponents and the media. Discussing Daniels’ marriage, he notes:

It really was none of our business. No one believes the matter reflected poorly on Daniels’ character or leadership qualities. And the fact we believe such intimate truths are our business will probably dissuade other talented Americans from subjecting their families to vivisection by a gossip-hungry press and public.

In any case, I’m searching for a replacement candidate. The Chicago Tribune, in an editorial lamenting Daniels’ withdrawal, has a good take on what we should be looking for – ‘Midwestern virtues’:

His fiscal conservatism has transformed Indiana’s state budget without the raucous spectacle seen in Wisconsin. His call for a truce on social issues reflected his sensible view that the budget and the economy are more urgent. Rich Lowry, editor of the conservative magazine National Review, marvels that he “seems temperamentally incapable of unseriousness; he is the anti-panderer.”

Such virtues are hardly unique to the heartland states, but they tend to be valued more here than on the coasts. We can’t help but notice that many of the other actual and possible candidates who have emerged include some oversized egos and brash manners that clash with the modest ethos of our region.

Newt Gingrich would fit in fine in a grand opera — or a comic one — but not so well on the Decatur City Council. Sarah Palin’s showy style and refusal to finish what she started as governor of Alaska are the opposite of what wins respect in these parts.

Eager-to-please Mitt Romney is not what you’d call an anti-panderer. Ron Paul’s uncompromising libertarianism is a much better fit with Houston than Des Moines. Is it something about salt water that induces these extremes?

They go on to express slightly higher opinions of Pawlenty and Huntsman. Since I have stated often that I think the race will be won in the Midwest, and more specifically in Midwestern suburbs, I find their opinions (though flawed) interesting – I do think the virtues of seriousness and sobriety that Daniels personified are what we need in our candidate.

In Which I Shock Myself by Defending John Edwards

I have a contemptuous attitude toward politicians as a class, but it is not evenly spread, and there are few for whom my contempt is deeper than John Edwards. I can think of nothing about him – political or personal – of which I approve.

And yet, I find his current legal situation troubling. It is tempting to say that anything nasty that happens to Edwards is thoroughly deserved, but do we really want to set precedents in which failed politicians are witch-hunted into jail on dubious interpretations of byzantine regulations?

As Kevin Williamson puts it, Edwards’ actions of getting his pals to pay off his mistress might be “unethical, distasteful, dishonest, vulgar, etc., but illegal as a matter of campaign finance?”

Being a cad is, in most jurisdictions, perfectly legal. Conning your gullible rich pals into underwriting your fling (and conning one of your sycophants into temporarily claiming paternity of the resulting offspring) is pretty awful behavior (though probably indicative of why Edwards was a wildly successful lawyer and probably would have been twice as dangerous as Barack Obama in the White House), but I do not see which part of that contains an element of what we now think of as a crime.

At EspressoPundit, Greg Patterson moves the argument forward:

Someone gave Edwards a bunch of money so that he could hide his mistress…and those funds “arguably aided” his presidential bid? That means that every dime that any candidate has ever received could later be classified as a political contribution because it “arguably aided” his candidacy.

The laws around campaign finance are incredibly complex – such that it is quite common for campaigns to be required to pay fines for multiple violations (some intentional, others not). Edwards is an easy target because he is so thoroughly despised by virtually everybody (and liberals can assuage their guilt over covering for him when it mattered by stoning him in the public square now that he’s no longer useful). But who will be next?

Quickly Noted

Ban on Circumcision Could Become Law in Santa Monica: Because we know what’s best for everybody. I love the term ‘male genital mutilation’.

Gary Johnson vs. Ron Paul: Ilya Somin on why Gary Johnson is a better libertarian and a better candidate (the latter is irrefutable, in my opinion) than Ron Paul.

Racism to Blame for Obama’s Problems, Key Democrat Says: Well of course. What else could it be?

47% See Major Changes in Defense, Social Security, Medicare As Necessary to Big Budget Cuts, 36% Don’t: Rasmussen presents this as a problem, because most are still in denial. But I think it shows that we’ve moved a long way toward recognizing reality.

Add your own miscellany in the comments.

The Des Moines Register reports that Mitt Romney may sit out the Ames Straw Poll in August:

Massachusetts Republican Mitt Romney said in Ankeny this morning he’s not sure yet if he’ll be in Ames for the Iowa straw poll in August.

But after he officially announces his bid for the White House next week during an event in New Hampshire, he said he will talk about it with his strategy team. The straw poll is considered an test of campaign strength and popularity and is less than 80 days away.

…“These are lean times. We’ve got a more lean campaign,” Romney said this morning to about 20 reporters in the parking lot of AgVision Agriculture Software, an agribusiness technology company in Ankeny. “I’ll take my message to the people of Iowa the best way I can.”

Romney said he’s fully committed to Iowa and to the caucus process here but as to the tactics of his campaign, “that’s something which we’ll leave for the future.” He said he’ll be back in Iowa “a number of times before the contest is complete.”

Obviously, Romney will weigh the Straw Poll with the issue of expectations clearly in mind. As has become abundantly clear in the past couple election cycles, momentum and media coverage bear the utmost importance to winning a nomination. If Romney decides to compete in Ames and finishes behind, say, Palin, Bachmann, Cain, and/or Pawlenty, the media will report it as a devastating blow to his campaign, diminishing his chances in the absolutely vital state of New Hampshire.

On the other hand, if he chooses to not contest Ames, the media cannot report a poor showing as a disappointment, since he will not have invested time and resources.

Mitt and his campaign have a difficult decision to make. We’ll see which direction they eventually choose.

The Pawlenty campaign released a video detailing the Governor’s recent travels and attempts to portray himself as the new resident truth teller in the race:

I thought it ran a little too long, and I really wish they would turn down the music a bit, but it nonetheless did the job of further repositioning T-Paw. Fortunately for him, his personal background makes him the best option to take up Mitch Daniels’ abdicated truth teller mantle. It appears that he fully intends to run with it.

Rich Lowry has penned a conventional-wisdom-challenging piece on the Republicans’ transformation into the Party of Austerity:

If political life were fair, (Republicans would) be rewarded for their farsightedness. Medicare’s trustees report that the trust fund that covers hospital stays will go broke in 2024, five years earlier than forecast just last year. But bureaucratic reports about threats more than ten years off don’t hit people where they live, especially not during a recovery that still feels like a recession.

If you are worried about the security of your job, if your personal income is stagnant, if the value of your home is still declining, and if you are paying more for food and fuel, the perilous state of a government program circa 2024 that you know, one way or the other, will never be permitted to go bankrupt is not a subject of proverbial kitchen-table conversation.

The special election in New York’s 26th district served as an early, albeit imperfect, referendum on the Republicans’ new calling card. Democrats made the Republican plan to transition Medicare to a premium-support program the overwhelming issue. It worked. Henry Olsen of the American Enterprise Institute points out that blue-collar independents and Democrats who swung the GOP’s way in 2010 swung against them in that race. The Republican candidate, Jane Corwin, even bled blue-collar Republicans to a bogus “tea party” candidate.

These voters are especially sensitive to economic conditions and especially chary of changes to government programs they will come to depend on. They also are absolutely essential to Republican hopes in 2012.

A couple of observations.

First, as has been discussed previously on this site, Republicans have absolutely lost a handful of blue collar voters between the 2000s and the elections of 2011. We saw this in Wisconsin earlier this year, where Prosser underperformed George W. Bush in key working class counties. This was to be expected. The 2000s were all about national security and culture, issues where blue collar voters tend to agree with the Republicans. The last few years have been about economics. Naturally, there are going to be some blue collar voters from the Bush years who will abandon the GOP on economic issues. But thus far, Republicans have actually experienced a net gain in terms of their share of the electorate in Obama’s America, largely because of white collar suburban voters, who are terrified of Obama-nomics, and who are open to a GOP that is less stridently socially conservative and less prone to foreign adventurism.

Secondly, as I noted last week, the MediScare campaign, while effective, wasn’t the sole reason for the GOP’s loss in NY-26. There are no exit polls from that election, unfortunately, but the pre-election poll that I cited last week mirrors the actual results from Tuesday. In that poll, the number of voters pulling the lever for the Democrat in order to preserve traditional Medicare was fairly equal to the number of voters casting ballots for the Republican in order to stave off the red menace of the debt. What killed the GOP was the fact that only 17 percent of voters who cared most about the jobs issue were voting Republican.

In that sense, Lowry is correct that the GOP essentially has a jobs problem. There is simply no good reason that, in a Republican congressional district, fewer than 1 in 5 voters trust the Republican candidate to do the right thing when it comes to jobs. The lion’s share of the jobs vote went to the anti-free trade Tea Party candidate, because, as Bill Clinton once told his fellow Democrats, bad ideas will always defeat no ideas.

Republicans can’t run away from austerity, nor should they. The GOP nominee, whomever it ends up being, will probably present to the nation an entitlement reform plan that is a bit less bold than that of Paul Ryan, but the issue will still be on the table. But again, the GOP can lose on MediScare as long as it wins on jobs. It’s still the economy, stupid. If Republicans can’t win on the economy in an environment like this, there is something seriously wrong with this party.

While in NY, Pawlenty sat down for a number of interviews.  The first two are “on the couch” interviews and the last one, on Morning Joe, is half and half.   Notice how much more animated, comfortable, and confident he is when interacting.  In the Morning Joe interview, there are moments in the second half where he drones a little.  But overall, he is getting close to being a first-rate interviewee.  One of the advantages, I think, of getting out on the trail early and working the kinks out.  Oh, and for Pat Buchanan fans, Pawlenty has a little…fun with him.

Even if you have lived for a number of decades (as I have), it cannot be avoided that, in the past year or so, a remarkable number of extreme phenomena, political, economic, geological and meteorological, have been quite visible. Experts in these fields rightly point out that the unusual and extreme are always occurring. Extreme events often easily provoke alarm, and sometimes even hysteria. The “end of the world” prophets seem always with us. (The current wave of these doomsday predictions included a photo I saw from a London crowd in which signs stated the world was imminently going to end. I remember going to a London flea market more than 40 years ago when almost identical signs proclaiming “The End Is Near!” were plentiful in the crowd.)

Yet we ARE surrounded this year, and in recent days, with extraordinary weather and geological events that seem to defy normal statistics of frequency and degree. I cite the Mississippi River Valley floods which will either match or exceed the historic flooding of the same area in 1927. Most Americans do not remember or are not aware how much those floods drastically changed American history. (They changed the balance of power between the federal government and the states when conservative President Calvin Coolidge, his flood crisis czar Herbert Hoover, and the U.S. Congress ordered and enabled the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to take over the region, and when these floods also provoked millions of black Americans, many of them former slaves, to leave the area and emigrate to the industrial cities of the North where, over time, they dramatically altered U.S. politics and demographics.)

Today’s floods in the Mississippi River Valley are already as serious, and potentially as damaging as those of 1927, but the story almost seems like quiet background noise (except to those enduring them) to other events, including an unprecedented wave of huge tornado clusters, the third of which is still taking place, across mid-America. Yes, there are the usual number of local earthquakes, Atlantic hurricanes, Pacific typhoons, volcanoes and other natural phenomena, but we have also just finished a winter of unusual bitterness in temperature and snowfall. Throughout the Pacific Rim region a seemingly unusual number of earthquakes, underwater volcanic eruptions and consequent tsunamis have taken place, including the horrific conflation of an earthquake, tsunami and man-made nuclear reactor disaster in Japan which has profoundly altered the economy and society of one of the world’s major industrial nations. An earlier Pacific Rim earthquake had similar serious consequences in Chile. A second giant volcanic eruption in a short time has just occurred in Iceland with major physical impact on the skies over Europe (and potentially on climate over the northern hemisphere.)

In the humanity-oriented category we are witnessing an historic and unprecedented political revolution throughout the Arab nations in the Middle East, events that were not predicted. In Asia, the vastly-populated states of India and China are finally beginning to assert their immense economic power in world trade, as is the South American giant nation of Brazil. Epidemics and droughts continue to massively waste away middle and southern Africa (although these phenomena have been present for some time).

Some have suggested that so-called “global warming” is behind some of the meteorological phenomena, but this is transparently a superficial and self-serving political explanation. Others have turned to more mystical explanations, including astrology, numerology and biblical prophecy, but these usually seem to most persons as parochial and limited explanations.

There may be, in fact, no final “explanation” for these phenomena seemingly occurring all at once, other than they are some kind of signals that the earth and mankind are passing through a period of extraordinary transformation and change. The earth has existed for a few billion years, life for several million years, and “modern” civilization for about 10,000 years. The universe is much “older” than that.

My reading of history is that human change accumulates over time, breaking out and becoming visible when certain thresholds are reached. Most of human history is made of the former, but there are many precedents of the latter. The phenomenon of “nations” first appeared about 3500 years ago, most modern religions merged about 1500-2000 years ago, the industrial revolution happened about 350 years ago, and the digital revolution began only about 50 years ago. Each of them not only witnessed their specific consequent phenomena, but were also accompanied, in most cases, by conflations of natural phenomena (e.g. the flood of Noah, Vesuvius, the Black Plague, Krakatoa, the meteor in Siberia, etc.) as if the natural world were somehow bestowing an implacable and mysterious testimony to what we mere humans had wrought.

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-Please visit Mr. Casselman’s personal site, The Prairie Editor Blog.

Guess who just received an invitation to a bloggers only conference call with Gov. Rick Perry? None other than yours truly, Managing Editor of Race42012.com.

Take from that whatever you will…

From Politico this afternoon comes news on Pawlenty’s healthcare reform views in 2006.

Commenting on how to insure the uninsured, Pawlenty said:

“If you simply go to the marketplace and mandate coverage, that is an incomplete solution. And Massachusetts didn’t do that and neither would I.

The problem, Pawlenty went on to explain, was that you can’t simply mandate people have something that they cannot afford. He maintains that mandates are desirable, however:

And so, the question then becomes – if you’re going to require insurance — and I think that is a worthy goal and one that we’re intrigued by and I think at least open to, how then do you enable people to access the insurance?”

The solution proposed by Pawlenty?

“‘A combination of new efficiencies in health care and new subsidies’ from the government to help people pay for the insurance being mandated.”

Just like MassCare. As they say, be sure to read the whole thing.

As noted here and across the blogosphere, mandates used to be championed by conservatives as a legitimate tool to solve the problem of the uninsured and the strain they were placing on the system. It was only when Pelosi and the Democrats centered ObamaCare around a mandate that conservatives railed against it. It will be interesting to see how hard Pawlenty fights against Romney and the very ideas he once spoke in favor of… and how T-Paw will choose to reinvent himself on this issue.

(As an interesting side note — in this speech, Pawlenty also recommended limiting or outright banning pharmaceutical companies from advertising prescription drugs…)

Public Policy Polling Wisconsin Republican Primary (PDF)

• Romney – 17%
• Palin – 16%
• Pawlenty – 12%
• Bachmann – 11%
• Cain – 10%
• Gingrich – 10%
• Paul – 10%
• Huntsman – 2%
• Not sure / someone else – 14%

Without Palin

• Romney – 19%
• Pawlenty – 15%
• Bachmann – 14%
• Gingrich – 14%
• Cain – 11%
• Paul – 11%
• Huntsman – 3%
• Not sure / someone else – 14%

Favorable/Unfavorable

• Palin – 66/28
• Romney – 46/32
• Gingrich – 28/49

Survey of 666 Republican voters was done May 19-22 and has a margin of error of +/-3.8%.

CNN 2012 Republican National Primary (PDF)

• Rudy Giuliani 16%
• Mitt Romney 15%
• Sarah Palin 13%
• Ron Paul 12%
• Herman Cain 10%
• Newt Gingrich 8%
• Michele Bachmann 7%
• Tim Pawlenty 5%
• Rick Santorum 2%
• Jon Huntsman 1%
• Gary Johnson 1%
• Buddy Roemer *
• Someone else (vol.) 3%
• None/ No one (vol.) 5%
• No opinion 2%

NOTE: Fred Karger was listed as an option, but no respondent chose him

Second Choice:

• Romney 15%
• Giuliani 14%
• Gingrich 10%
• Bachmann 10%
• Palin 10%
• Paul 7%
• Pawlenty 6%
• Huntsman 6%
• Cain 5%
• Santorum 2%
• Johnson 2%
• Karger *
• Roemer 1%
• Someone else (vol.) 4%
• None/ No one (vol.) 8%
• No opinion 2%

(more…)

The Texas governor reverses course:

Gov. Rick Perry today gave his strongest indication yet that he may run for president.

“I’m going to think about it” after the legislative session ends Monday, Perry said.

For years, Perry has said that he would not run for president and that he had no interest. He has often said something along the lines of “I don’t know how many times I have to say no.”

And T-Paw fans begin to stress once more.

Public Policy Polling Ohio Republican Primary (PDF)

• Mitt Romney – 21% (18)
• Sarah Palin – 16% (15)
• Herman Cain – 12% (-)
• Newt Gingrich – 12% (16)
• Michele Bachmann – 10% (-)
• Ron Paul – 9% (7)
• Tim Pawlenty – 5% (5)
• Jon Huntsman – 1% (-)

Without Palin

• Romney – 23%
• Gingrich – 16%
• Cain – 12%
• Paul – 12%
• Bachmann – 11%
• Pawlenty – 6%
• Huntsman – *

Favorable/Unfavorable Ratings

• Palin – 66/24
• Romney – 55/25
• Gingrich – 42/34

Survey of 400 Republican voters was done May 19-22 and has a margin of error of +/-4.9%.

Now that the field has largely materialized, it’d be interesting to see where the R412 community stands on the range of candidates.  Of the 12 major candidates (Governors or Congresspersons, + Giuliani and Cain) who have announced, or are close to announcing, who is your favorite to least favorite?

Try to rate them on a scale of 0 to 100: 100 being you’re entirely enthusiastic about every aspect of the candidate; 50 being you don’t particularly like the candidate but you don’t particularly loathe the candidate (you’d vote for him or her in the general election, but might not campaign or volunteer for him or her); 0 being you loathe everything about the candidate and will not vote for, and will perhaps even campaign against, this candidate in the general election.

Here’s how my list stacks up:

• 98 – Gov. Gary Johnson
• 95 – Rep. Ron Paul
• 60 – Rep. Michele Bachmann
• 55 – Herman Cain
• 55 – Gov. Sarah Palin
• 50 – Gov. Tim Pawlenty
• 35 – Gov. Buddy Roemer
• 20 – Gov. Jon Huntsman
• 15 – Mayor Rudy Giuliani
• 15 – Gov. Mitt Romney
• 3 – Rep. Newt Gingrich
• 2 – Sen. Rick Santorum

How about you?

SurveyUSA did a pretty dismal job last election, so take this with a grain of salt.  They were commissioned to poll how Pawlenty and Bachmann would fare against Obama in Minnesota.  Here are the relevant numbers, badly formatted (sorry).

Tim Pawlenty

Overall- 35% Favorable, 38% Unfavorable

Among Republicans-  68% Favorable, 11% Unfavorable

Among Independents- 30% Favorable, 37% Unfavorable

Michele Bachmann

Overall- 23% Favorable, 51% Unfavorable

Among Republicans- 44% Favorable, 22% Unfavorable

Among Independents- 20% Favorable, 54% Unfavorable

Tim Pawlenty vs. Obama

Obama 48%, Pawlenty 43%

Michele Bachmann vs. Obama

Obama 57%, Bachmann 32%

PPP is polling Minnesota next week so we’ll get a chance to compare results.  But if this one’s any indication, Bachmann couldn’t even come close to beating Pawlenty in a Republican Primary, let alone carry Minnesota in the general.  And T-Paw has to be fairly pleased with those general election numbers.  That’s well within striking distance, especially since this is a registered voters poll.

T-Pawers can breathe a huge sigh of relief:

Texas Gov. Rick Perry will resist the pull to get into the White House race, he said again on Wednesday.

“I can’t say I’m not tempted, but the fact is, this isn’t something that I want to do,” Perry said.

Perry’s comments came during a fly-over tour of the Texas-Mexico border with Fox News host Greta van Susteren.

In the interview, the staunchly anti-Washington governor strongly criticized the border fence currently under construction, saying the federal government is failing to keep people safe.

But instead of running for president, Perry said he had to focus on Texas legislative session and that he hoped “that person will come forward that can win the presidency that we can all get behind.”

The search for the “white knight” is drawing to a close. Not sure how many times Christie, Jeb, Ryan, and Perry can say no before folks start believing them. Now focus can shift to McCotter and Giuliani for a while, I suppose.