With the fundraising quarter set to end in a week and the totals for the GOP hopefuls set to be made public shortly after, the rumors and leaks are about to start flying with regards to who raised what and who outraised whom. So before we hear anything, here’s your chance to play Nostradamus: what will the second quarter fundraising totals be?

For what it’s worth, here are my predictions at this moment:

1. Romney – $40 million
2. Pawlenty – $8.5 million
3. Huntsman – $7 million
4. Paul – $6 million
5. Cain – $5 million
6. Bachmann – $4 million
7. Gingrich – $3.5 million
8. Santorum – $1 million
9. Johnson – $0.6 million

The filing deadline is on July 15, but most campaigns either file before that date or release their totals prior to filing.

The Club for Growth has released their Presidential White Papers on Jon Huntsman. Check out the link for the entire article. Here is the bottom line summary from the Club for Growth:

Governor Huntsman is often a frustrating political figure. He pushed for and passed significant pro-growth tax policies, but promoted and passed large increases in state spending. He’s demonstrated a clear understanding of the benefits of global free markets, but is lukewarm on school choice. Governor Huntsman also supported a bigger stimulus bill, TARP, and was a leading advocate of cap-and-trade.

In a 2009 interview with Politico, Governor Huntsman laid out his vision for the Republican Party as compared to the Tory Party in the United Kingdom, saying:
“They were a very narrow party of angry people. And they started branching out through, maybe, taking a second look at the issues of the day, much like we’re going to have to do for the Republican Party, to reconnect with the youth, to reconnect with people of color, to reconnect with different geographies that we have lost. How do you win back the intelligentsia? How do you win back some of the editorial boards of major newspapers that Richard Nixon used to carry?”
We are concerned that Governor Huntsman chooses policy positions based on what the so-called “intelligentsia” believes, and too often, that happens to be the anti-growth position. For example, cap-and-trade, more stimulus, and bailouts were all anti-growth positions supported by the editorial board of the New York Times, as well as Governor Huntsman.

In addition, we find Governor Huntsman’s statement that “health care is a right” to be simply flabbergasting. We’re not sure what part of the United States Constitution Governor Huntsman was referring to when he made that statement, but he certainly needs to explain what he was thinking.

In the end, it is Governor Huntsman’s spending record that is inexcusable. There is now widespread recognition that the next President must address the enormous threat posed by federal spending that threatens national bankruptcy. Huntsman’s failing grades on controlling state spending raise serious questions about whether he would be equal to that task.

We believe that pro-growth conservatives looking for a kindred spirit in Governor Huntsman will probably find common ground on trade and taxes, but they will most likely be disappointed overall if he is elected President.

The Club for Growth has done an excellent job, I have felt, providing an unbiased assessment of the candidates based on their background on fiscal issues. You can read their previously released white papers on Santorum, Cain, Romney, Gingrich, and Pawlenty here. They plan to prepared future white papers on Johnson, Palin, Bachmann, and Paul. I look forward to reading each of them.

_______________________________________________________

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

Bloomberg has just released a poll on the national mood. It doesn’t look good for Barack Obama.

Which of the following do you see as the most important issue facing the country right now?

• Unemployment and jobs – 42
• Government spending – 17
• The federal deficit – 13
• Health care – 10
• The war in Afghanistan – 5
• Gas prices – 5
• Immigration – 3
• Taxes – 1
• Other (VOL) (specify:) – 2
• None of these (VOL) – x
• Not sure – 3

Combine that with this question:

Do you approve or disapprove of the job Barack Obama is doing as president?
(Follow with:) Do you approve or disapprove of the job he is doing: (Rotate.)

(Approve/Disapprove/Not Sure)

• As president – 49/44/7
• With terrorism – 69/27/4
• With the economy – 39/57/4
• With creating jobs – 38/57/5
• With the budget deficit – 32/61/7

Americans only consider the President’s strong suit — terrorism — the fifth most important issue facing America today. By nearly a twenty point margin, they disapprove of his handling the three most important issues to them — unemployment, government spending, and the deficit.

For the pièce de résistance, there is this question:

In the 2012 election, do you anticipate you will definitely vote for President Obama, consider voting
for another candidate, or definitely vote for another candidate?

(Likely Voters/All)

• Definitely Obama – 31/30
• Consider another candidate – 24/27
• Definitely vote for another candidate – 40/36
• Will not vote (VOL) – x/1
• Not sure – 5/6

Only three out of ten Americans plan to “…definitely vote for President Obama”.

The Cato Institute reports today on a leaked letter from Congresswoman and presidential candidate Michele Bachmann to Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack in 2009, in which she expresses her support for literal pork spending, in the form of farm price supports:

“Your efforts to stabilize prices through direct government purchasing of pork and dairy products are very much welcomed by the producers in Minnesota, and I would encourage you to take any additional steps necessary to prevent further deterioration of these critical industries, such as making additional commodity purchases and working to expand trade outlets for these and other agricultural goods.”

Yikes.

This past month we’ve seen the GOP field for 2012 begin to solidify as candidates have begun launching their campaigns formally. After the first two debates and a series of announcements, the structure of the field is now much clearer than it was just a month ago.

Scott Conroy reports over at Real Clear Politics:

Less than a month after she appeared poised to shake up the Republican presidential campaign, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has once again receded from the 2012 limelight.

When Palin launched her “One Nation” bus tour on Memorial Day amid a swirl of media attention and excitement from her fervent fan base, many political observers who had once dismissed her were reminded of the jolt that her candidacy could provide to what has thus far been a relatively sleepy GOP nominating fight.

…

In an apparent repudiation to those who dismissed her trip as a mere publicity stunt, Palin’s openness with reporters about her intentions to visit Iowa and South Carolina — in addition to her highly scrutinized stop in the first-in-the-nation primary state of New Hampshire — lent credence to her repeated assertions that she was indeed seriously considering a White House bid.

Though Palin and her staff never announced a timeline for the remaining legs of her trip, aides had drafted preliminary itineraries that would have taken her through the Midwest and Southeast at some point this month. But those travel blueprints are now in limbo, RCP has learned, as Palin and her family have reverted to the friendly confines of summertime Alaska. …

As Palin enjoys her sojourn to the 49th state, she has not reconnected with key early-state figures like Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley. … Her political action committee’s website still greets visitors with a stale banner, announcing the nationwide bus tour beginning “[t]his Sunday, May 29th.”

More than a few of Palin’s core supporters have grown impatient and confused about her strategy, venting their frustration on Internet fan sites.

Two things leap out at me in this:

1. She is once more quitting something halfway through. The comparison between this and her resigning her Governorship is unavoidable.
2. She is once more announcing future events before their plans are firmed up. She recently got into unnecessary trouble when she mused about visiting Margaret Thatcher without first actually checking to see if Lady Thatcher was even available to be seen. Now she is telling reporters she was going to visit Iowa and South Carolina, and she doesn’t follow through

As far as I can tell, the two biggest things Sarah managed to accomplish on this bus tour was get into a totally unnecessary squabble over Paul Revere’s ride, and interject herself into Mitt Romney’s official announcement. That doesn’t exactly scream “presidential material”, does it?

I like Sarah Palin and wish her well, but I am starting to view her potential entrance into the race the same way I viewed Newt Gingrich’s campaign before he entered and Rudy Giuliani’s threatened run. “Don’t Do It! You’ll only embarrass yourself!” If this is an example of the slipshod, by-the-seat-of-the-pants, make-it-up-as-you-go method by which she plans to campaign, a real Presidential run is going to be a disaster for her.  The Gingrich collapse will be only a foreshadow of what will happen.

It’s time to face facts. A successful Presidential campaign takes some serious nose-to-the-grindstone 24/7/52 kind of discipline. Sarah Palin just doesn’t seem to have it.

At long last, it seems as though the field is pretty firmly set. So, as one of R412’s resident undecideds, it’s time for a more robust assessment of the field, and its strengths and weaknesses. I will discuss the candidates in the order that I prefer them:

Tim Pawlenty

Good stuff: Pawlenty probably has the best record of any candidate with a real shot at the nomination, from a conservative perspective. His two terms of conservative governance in a blue state—including an A from the Cato Institute, speak very well of him, and he has made tough choices in regard to spending cuts. He has produced a number of very specific policies, which indicate he understands the complex problems facing the US in 2012. Pawlenty could also be an extremely formidable general election candidate against Obama, without serious deviations from conservative orthodoxy. His blue collar background and ability to win over metropolitan independents from the twin cities area should serve him well in a contest against President Obama, who is losing working-class whites and floundering among suburbanites.  He has also by and large resisted the isolationist drift of much of the rest of the field, which I consider a very good thing.

Bad stuff: Pawlenty’s campaign remains somewhat schizophrenic, which could cause serious problems later on. It may be that Pawlenty is being over-advised, or it may be that he’s pandering, but he needs to be clear on who he is before he introduces himself to the voters. In addition, Pawlenty seems incapable of having a good debate performance. One or two really solid debates could probably fix this problem, and the Pawlenty campaign is far from down and out, as some have argued, but it needs to find it’s footing by the end of July at the latest.

Conclusion: It’s not that I think Pawlenty is the perfect candidate, but he seems to me to be “a little better”: a little more conservative than Romney, more electable than any of the strict tea party conservatives. My theory of elections is to support the most electable conservative, and Pawlenty is just slightly above the man in my number 2 slot for this honor.

Mitt Romney

Good stuff: Romney is an accomplished governor in his own right, with one term governing fairly conservatively in literally the bluest state in the nation. In addition, as I will discuss in a later post, a thorough reading of Romney’s book (as opposed to cherry-picking it for quotes) shows that Romney understands in detail the many and severe problems which the US is facing, and has solutions for them. Romney also has two additional advantages: he has done this before and so knows the ropes, and he’s actually leading President Obama in a couple of state polls. While I have been somewhat nervous about some of Romney’s recent comments on Afghanistan, he has a long-term commitment to a strong national defense, and a deep and whole-hearted belief in American exceptionalism, which I like a great deal.

Bad stuff: Odd as this may sound, I don’t think the particulars of Mass-care are in and of themselves Romney’s biggest problem, so much as the perception that his plan and Obama’s are identical. Romney will have to probably give a detailed explanation of the differences between the plans, and keep on doing so until Election Day, but there’s some truth in the old adage that he who is explaining is not winning. I see three additional problems for Romney. The first is that, at heart, he is more of a pragmatic problem-solver than a small-government ideologue, and primary voters are, or seem to be, looking for the latter (whether they should be or not is an entirely different question). The second is a perception of inauthenticity. It is the widespread perception of many within the Republican Party that Romney will (still) say or do anything to get elected. I don’t think this is the reality, but Romney will need to start telling people stuff they don’t want to hear (he could start by backing off his cut-and-run strategy in Afghanistan). Finally, Romney is very susceptible to the kind of class warfare in which Democrats so dearly delight. Given how effectively Obama has ginned up faux populism about nasty, bad, evil CEOs, Romney needs to be prepared for this line of attack, and prepared to hit back forcefully against it. This does not mean trying to come across as a blue collar guy at heart, so much as an ability to call BS early and often.

Conclusion: I am extremely comfortable with Mitt Romney as our potential nominee, and believe he would govern as a fairly conservative president. Romney’s primary goal will probably not entail taking a meat-axe to the federal government, but he understands that a twenty-first-century super-power needs a twenty-first-century government, and he very strongly believes in the free market, all be it one in which the government plays a regulatory and stabilizing role. I do think Pawlenty is a shade more conservative than Romney, but let me be clear—as Obama would say—that both of these gentlemen would make excellent presidents.
(more…)

Most folks get a boost from their announcement that they are running for President. Not Jon Huntsman.

In fact, Huntsman’s launch yesterday caused him to lose about a quarter of his value on Intrade. Politico notes:

“The near-universal word used by observers of Jon Huntsman’s declaration this morning was “bland.” (Or, if the observer was a Huntsman supporter, the word most used was “mellow.”)

Someone joked on Twitter: “BREAKING: Ben and Jerry’s announce a new ice cream flavor for the Huntsman/Pawlenty 2012 campaign: vanilla with vanilla swirls.” (Which was almost as funny as Stephen Colbert’s tweet earlier this month: “Tim Pawlenty will make a great Vice-President. Or failing that, an extra in a documentary about manila envelopes.”)

Not only was Huntsman’s rollout bland (or “mellow”, if you’d prefer), it was riddled with JV-grade mistakes:

There were the press cards that misspelled the candidate’s first name – there’s no “H” – and journalists were directed initially to the wrong plane. The Statue of Liberty, the sole reason for declaring in New Jersey was – thanks to riser placement – not visible in the TV shots.

All the cable networks cut away from Huntsman mid-speech thanks to his low-octane delivery and content. And the campaign’s website wasn’t listed on the placard affixed to the podium.

And some supporters who came all the way to meet him complained afterward that the candidate didn’t stick around to shake hands with actual voters – he departed the dais, then went straight to a Sean Hannity interview, and then right to his car, with a scrum surrounding him.

Even the website had misinformation. The campaign’s website listed the state where Huntsman declared as New York, instead of the Garden State.

It also contained, briefly, according to several reports, a headquarters telephone number of 123-456-7890 – a placeholder, apparently, until the site went live, but which wasn’t caught.

I have been more than willing to give Jon (no “H”) Huntsman the benefit of the doubt up until this point… but this is just crazy. Another story revealed that Huntsman made the official decision to run for President on May 1st, just hours after his resignation from the Obama administration took effect. He’s had eight weeks to prepare for this launch (and his PAC has had longer than that).

If this is the best he can do, then count me among the “underwhelmed”.

My take: this is actually a really good ad by Team Pawlenty. They eschewed the action-movie Transformers feel of the early web ads and went for a simple, straight forward delivery with some piano in the background. Very effective. I’m a little surprised they didn’t go biographical, but this may be just as strong of an opening ad. Even the line about health care was well done and sounded much more grown-up and serious than the “Obamneycare” fiasco of the past couple weeks.

Now, if you live in Iowa, make sure you watch the ad here – because with just a $50k buy, you probably won’t see it on your TV.

Never thought I’d be saying this: Alex Jones injects a little sanity into the Rick Perry lovefest that’s been sweeping the conservative political class recently.  Jones’s website recently brought to light a long list of facts about Perry’s tenure as Governor that should give conservatives and Tea Partiers pause before hailing Perry as a “Southern-fried Reagan”.

Several of the bullet points have to do with conspiracy theories regarding the “NAFTA Superhighway” or the Bilderberg conference — I’m not going to bother listing those — but the other bullet points are issues that Perry may have trouble responding to, if he wants to present himself as the GOP’s savior in 2012:

• “When Rick Perry became the governor of Texas in 2000, the total spending by the Texas state government was approximately $49 billion.  Ten years later it was approximately $90 billion.”
• “The debt of the state of Texas is out of control.  According to usdebtclock.org, the debt to GDP ratio in Texas is 22.9% and the debt per citizen is $10,645.  In California (a total financial basket case), the debt to GDP ratio is just 18.7% and the debt per citizen is only $9932.”
• “The total debt of the Texas government has more than doubled since Rick Perry became governor.”
• “Rick Perry has repeatedly raised taxes and fees while he has been governor.  Today, Texans are faced with significantly higher taxes and fees than they were before Rick Perry was elected.”
• “Even with the oil boom in Texas, 23 states have a lower unemployment rate than Texas does.”
• “Back in 1988, Rick Perry supported Al Gore for president.  In fact, Rick Perry actually served as Al Gore’s campaign chairman in the state of Texas that year.”
• “Between December 2007 and April 2011, weekly wages in the U.S. increased by about 5 percent.  In the state of Texas they increased by just 0.6% over that same time period.”

• “Texas now has one of the worst education systems in the nation.  The following is from an opinion piece that was actually authored by Barbara Bush earlier this year….

• We rank 36th in the nation in high school graduation rates. An estimated 3.8 million Texans do not have a high school diploma.

• We rank 49th in verbal SAT scores, 47th in literacy and 46th in average math SAT scores.

• We rank 33rd in the nation on teacher salaries.”

• “Texas has the highest percentage of workers making minimum wage out of all 50 states.”
• “In 2007, 221,000 residents of Texas were making minimum wage or less.  By 2010, that number had risen to 550,000.”
• “Rick Perry actually issued an executive order in 2007 that would have forced almost every single girl in the state of Texas to receive the Gardasil vaccine before entering the sixth grade.  Perry would have put parents in a position where they would have had to fill out an application and beg the government not to inject their child with an untested and unproven vaccine. Since then, very serious safety issues regarding this vaccine have come to light.  Fortunately, lawmakers in Texas blocked what Perry was trying to do.  According to Wikipedia, many were troubled when ‘apparent financial connections between Merck and Perry were reported by news outlets, such as a $6,000 campaign contribution and Merck’s hiring of former Perry Chief of Staff Mike Toomey to handle its Texas lobbying work.’”

Given the fact that this general election will undoubtedly be first and foremost about the lagging economy, is Rick Perry really the best person to take up our banner in this regard?

Earlier today, I characterized Tim Pawlenty’s ad buy in Iowa as being “relatively small.” Apparently, I was too kind…

Politico refers to CMAG in noting that Pawlenty’s $50,000 Iowa ad buy is actually “tiny by historical standards.”

Not sure what a tiny ad buy is supposed to accomplish, other than a little free media for being the first candidate up on the air. Meanwhile, Pawlenty himself is out in front tamping down expectations for the straw poll in August. Everyone knows that Ames is tailor made for a Pawlenty victory. If he doesn’t come out in front, or a very close second, it will spell the beginning of the end for his campaign.

Today, however, Pawlenty announced a less ambitious goal:

Tim Pawlenty is aiming to be one of the “top few finishers” in the Ames straw poll this August… Pawlenty declined to say that he needs to win the summer straw poll, which could provide a powerful boost of momentum to whoever comes out on top. But, he said: “We need to do reasonably well.”

Everyone expects campaigns to play the expectations game, but “reasonably well” isn’t exactly an inspiring round of truth-telling.

Winning the Ames straw poll requires a lot of voter support plus a well-run organization, and the necessary cash to bring the two together. Pawlenty should be leaps and bounds ahead of his Ames rivals in organization given his massive campaign team in Iowa, but his support and his cash flow remain the biggest question marks to his success.

Providing yet more fodder for Mitt Romney’s and the other Republican candidates’ criticisms of President Obama’s economic stewardship, John Merline, of Investor’s Business Daily, unleashed on the administration yesterday:

IBD reviewed records of economic forecasts made just before Obama signed the stimulus bill into law, as well as economic data and monthly stimulus spending data from around that time, and reviews of the stimulus bill itself.

The conclusion is that in claiming to have staved off a Depression, the White House and its supporters seem to be engaging in a bit of historical revisionism.

…The same month, the Congressional Budget Office predicted that, absent any stimulus, the recession would end in “the second half of 2009.” The recession officially ended in June 2009, suggesting that the stimulus did not have anything to do with it.

…The argument is often made that the recession turned out to be far worse than anyone knew at the time. But various indicators show that the economy had pretty much hit bottom at the end of 2008 — a month before President Obama took office.

Monthly GDP, for example, stopped free-falling in December 2008, long before the stimulus kicked in, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research. (See nearby chart.) Monthly job losses bottomed out in early 2009 while the Index of Leading Economic Indicators started to rise in April.

The stimulus timing is off.

When the recession officially ended in June 2009, just 15% of the stimulus money had gone out the door. And that figure’s likely inflated, since almost a third of the money was in the form of grants to states, which some studies suggest they didn’t spend, but used to pay down debt.

I owe a hat tip to James Pethokoukis on this one. This information lends credence to Romney’s argument that President Obama hasn’t shortened the downturn, he’s made it worse.

With the President’s campaign machine revving into high gear (his favorite part of politics!), expect to frequently hear the charge that conditions would have become much worse if those reckless Republicans had remained in power. Romney and his competitors for the GOP nomination will need to have substantive rebuttals like the one shown above prepared and handy.

Continuing to assume the posture of the clear frontrunner for the Republican nomination, Mitt Romney has announced that he will skip the next debate, in Las Vegas:

The former Massachusetts governor will participate in six debates: a Fox News debate in Iowa on August 11, an NBC/Politico debate in California on September 7, a CNN/Tea Party Express debate in Tampa on September 12, a Fox News debate in Orlando on September 22, a Washington Post/Bloomberg in New Hampshire on October 11 and a CNN debate in Las Vegas on October 28. That means Romney will not attend the upcoming July 10 debate in Las Vegas, sponsored by the Daily Caller and Americans for Tax Reform.

With the commanding leads Mitt holds in the early Nevada polls, he probably would rather focus his time and resources on his campaign efforts in New Hampshire. Furthermore, as the frontrunner, he really has more downside than upside to participating in all the debates; after all, with his name recognition already at high levels among Republicans, the risk of a gaffe or other significant blunder outweighs any gains he could make at every debate.

To all our humble, Republican leaning readers – I’m here to posit a scenario. Imagine that John McCain won the 2008 Presidential election. I know, awesome scenario right off the bat, right? With President McCain in office, McCain decides to be as mavericky as you would expect and taps Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer as Ambassador to Pakistan. Schweitzer is fluent in Arabic and spent years in Africa, Asia, Libya, and Saudi Arabia as an irrigation developer. His midwestern, moderate temperate would fit in well with a potential McCain administration.

As I said, we have a President McCain and an Ambassador Schweitzer serving in Pakistan. Due to his tenure as Governor of Montana, his years in the United States Department of Agriculture, and his moderate appeal, there were some among the Democratic party faithful who considered Schweitzer to be a potential candidate in 2012 to challenge President McCain. While serving as Ambassador, Schweitzer hinted to aides that he was interested and stateside supporters began to set up a nationwide action network to support Schweitzer. Schweitzer even established a national political action committee, while still serving as Ambassador. After a little under 3 years in his post, Schweitzer resigns his post and arrives stateside to seriously begin his candidacy for President.

Now, as a Republican supporter of McCain, how would you feel? How would you feel as an American? A man while serving in his capacity as Ambassador was plotting to challenge the sitting President. To me, I find that offensive. Schweitzer was serving as Ambassador to a strategic ally in the War on Terror who, as we’ve found out recently, may not have been much of an ally after all. His duty was to our nation – his duty would be to serve our country and represent us to the Pakistani Government to deal with these issues, not politicize.

That’s how I feel about Jon Huntsman. I agree with Erick Erickson’s assessment of Huntsman. This is what bothers me about his candidacy. It’s not his tenure as Governor, he actually did a fine job from what I’ve seen despite his obnoxious views on global warming issues. It’s not his stances on social issues, he’s incredibly pro-life and has passed some important pro-life legislation as Governor. As I said, this is offensive to me. Bottom line, if Huntsman knew he wanted to run for President, he should not have served as Ambassador. His actions may have betrayed us and as an American I’m offended. I will vote for him over Obama, if he’s the nominee – but as Erickson said more eloquently, I will not support him in the primary, even if the choice is between him and Ron Paul.

_______________________________________________________

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

The Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions has created the Vanderbilt Poll with support from Peabody College and with The Tennessean as a media partner. Among many questions, the poll asked Tennesseans whom they would vote for in various matchups in a Presidential Election. The results are as follows:

In 2008 John McCain carried the state by a margin of 15%. The vote was 57% to 42%. We’ve got our work cut out for us to equal that. However, note the large number of Neither votes. Those are most likely supporters of other candidates not wishing to help out a rival. Hopefully we can squeeze out a win from them.

With 700 respondents to the Vanderbilt Poll, the margin of error for the poll is +/- 3.7 %.  The poll was conducted by calling a random sample of landline telephone numbers over a period of six days – from June 3 through June 8.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s plans to be in South Carolina on the day of the Ames straw poll seems to shed some light on the governor’s presidential strategy, should he throw his ten gallon hat into the ring:

Perry will be speaking to a RedState conservative blogger conference on Aug. 13 in Charleston. The event is the same day as the influential Iowa straw poll, one of the earliest momentum-building contests in the 2012 presidential race.

This suggests to me that either Perry isn’t yet committed to a run, or that he plans to run a sort of modified Rudy strategy, circa 2008, where Perry puts all of his chips on a win in South Carolina, hoping that a win in the Palmetto State will render Iowa and New Hampshire meaningless.

While somewhat smarter than Rudy’s Florida strategy, I suspect that even South Carolina is a bit late in the game for a candidate with no wins under his or her belt to shake things up. If Bachmann wins Iowa, as I suspect that she will, and if Romney wins New Hampshire, which is also probable, the media will frame the race as a Romney/Bachmann event, and once that narrative is set in stone, it will be hard for Perry or anyone else to break through. If anything, a strong Perry campaign in South Carolina will simply dilute the Bachmann vote and make Mitt the winner of the state, resulting in a Super Tuesday sweep by Team Romney.

All of this leads me to believe that fellow Race contributor Chris Lars may be correct in his assessment that Perry is actually running for vice president. Given that the nominee is almost certainly going to be a non-Southerner (sorry, Newt), Perry would protect the GOP’s Southern flank and allow the eventual nominee to focus on Western and Midwestern swing states. Perry also shores up the Tea Party vote in the event that the nominee is not a favorite of the conservative base. Perhaps the “Boston-Austin axis” of a Romney/Perry ticket is what the Texas governor truly has his eye on.

President Obama has refrained from taking shots at any of the Republican candidates as they entered the Presidential race. The only exception has been John Huntsman. Team Obama wasted no time attacking Huntsman’s economic plan. They also sent Dick Harpootlian, the South Carolina Democratic Party chair and a long-time insider Democrat flack, to mock Huntsman as a “former Obama administration official”. This should remind us all of a striking fact: the Obama administration’s appointment of Huntsman as ambassador to China was done with the express purpose of ensuring Huntsman couldn’t run for President in 2012.

So, why is Team Obama so afraid of John Huntsman? Granted, he has a star-studded resume, was considered a pretty good governor, and would bring instant foreign policy gravitas to a race against Obama. On the other hand, Huntsman is at around 1 percent in the polls, and is widely viewed as too moderate to win a Republican nomination in the tea party era. But all this fear from team Obama should lead us to give Huntsman a second look. In general, the things you’re opponent fears from you are things you want to at least seriously consider doing.
It’s also the only path Huntsman has to victory. The Huntsman campaign needs to take the “Obama is afraid of me” angle, and run with it hard. This is the only thing that can mitigate Huntsman’s previous service in the Obama administration (aside from a scathing insider indictment of the way Obama runs his administration, which seems unlikely given Huntsman’s “Mr. nice guy” approach). In actual fact, there isn’t a whole lot that Huntsman did as Ambassador to China which can be seen as overtly pro-administration, or partisan, and unlike a cabinet post, an ambassadorship to one of the most powerful countries in the world is hardly something one can turn down; the ambassador, after all, represents the country, not the President.

The details, however, will easily get lost, as competitors do everything they can to tie Huntsman to Obama. However, Huntsman can argue that Obama has been afraid of him since January 2009; that’s not something many other potential candidates can claim. And if it doesn’t put Huntsman’s name at the top of our list, it ought to at least make us start asking ourselves why Obama fears him so much?

…or else this might happen. That’s right, someone else registered JonHuntsman.com before the former Governor / Ambassador and posted his letter to Barack Obama where he said the following:

Dear Mr. President,

I am most grateful for the graciousness and kindness you have shown me and my family – particularly your confidence in my ability to represent you in China. Mary Kaye and I will begin our journey tomorrow – leaving behind a state we love – but also anticipating an extraordinary experience in Beijing. You are a remarkable leader – and it has been a great honor getting to know you.

Jon

Yea, that’s going to hurt.

HT to Sunshine State Sarah

According to FoxNews, Gingrich’s finance team has quit. Here’s the excerpt:

The top fundraisers for Newt Gingrich’s presidential campaign have abandoned his struggling bid amid anemic fundraising and heavy spending.

Campaign spokesman R.C. Hammond is confirming to The Associated Press that fundraising director Jody Thomas and fundraising consultant Mary Heitman have left the team.

The former House speaker’s campaign has been on life support since earlier this month when 16 top aides and advisers resigned en masse over disagreements with the Republican candidate.

People familiar with Gingrich’s campaign spending say his fundraising has been weak since he launched his bid and that he has racked up large travel bills. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk openly about campaign inner workings.

Gingrich has insisted that he will stay in the race.

Gingrich continues to say that he is committed to staying in the race, but this is another big loss to his campaign.

Ben Smith has the details:

Tim Pawlenty will become the first Republican candidate to launch a major media buy in Iowa.

Pawlenty is going up with ads in the first-in-the-nation caucus state starting tomorrow on Fox News with a buy just under $50,000 in the Cedar Rapids, Des Moines, Omaha, Ottumwa, Rochester, and Sioux City media markets. The ads will run from June 23rd to July 3rd.

The ad buy is a sign of the urgency for Pawlenty to generate interest for his candidacy before the end of the second quarter and the run-up to the Ames straw poll in August.

Finally. It’s a relatively small buy (in comparison, Romney spent over $8.6 million in ads just between Feb and Oct 2007), but it’s something that Pawlenty really needs at this point. We’ll post the ad here at R4’12 when it becomes available.

Dick Morris has released a poll of likely Republican primary voters. It contains some surprises.

First, he asked about the candidates who were in the last debate:

Then he added Rick Perry and Jon Huntsman to the mix:

A national survey of 700 likely Republican primary voters conducted on June 18-19, 2011 with a 95% confidence of a margin of error of +/– 4%

The first thing these numbers suggest is that Mitt Romney has a commanding lead. Among the debaters he leads by 16%. His weakest area is the Midwest. His strongest is the Mountain region.

The second thing to notice is the strong showing for “Don’t Know / Refused“. It leads all candidates across all categories.

The third thing that leaps out at you is the change in Ron Paul’s numbers from the smaller field to the larger field. They almost doubled! That would seem to imply that the shock of a Huntsman and Perry run shakes loose a large number of undecideds to vote for Ron Paul.

Finally, note how poorly Huntsman and Perry do. Perry is well known across the South, yet he only manages to pull a 9% in the region. That is only good enough for fourth place there. He trails Mitt Romney there by double digits where Mitt is supposedly the weakest. The South is Rick’s strongest area. He does less than half as well anywhere else. And Huntsman? He collects 1% everywhere except in the mountains where he doubles his take to a whopping 2%.

I’ve said it before. I really do not see a point in a Huntsman run except for vanity. Huntsman is a solution in search of a problem.

The conclusion these numbers suggest is inescapable. Romney is the undisputed frontrunner.  However, things are far from set in stone. With eight months to go before the first binding contest, nobody should be writing any acceptance speeches for the convention just yet.

The National Review published a thought-provoking article online today, looking at the job creation records of the various Governors running for President in 2012.  While the article admits there are a lot of variables, since some of the Governors presided over better economic times than others, there are some interesting comparisons to be made.  Here’s the raw numbers:

Job Growth Rate during Governing Tenure

• Gov. Rick Perry +12.5% (so far)
• Gov. Gary Johnson +11.6%
• Gov. Jon Huntsman +5.9%
• Gov. Mitt Romney +1.6%
• Gov. Tim Pawlenty +0.5%

As the article points out, the numbers by themselves aren’t entirely fair.  For instance, Pawlenty was governing in a blue state (Minnesota) during a bad economic time (2003-2011), but they also point out that Perry managed a 7.2% rate during the same period that Pawlenty served.  In the area where Huntsman’s tenure overlaps with Perry and Pawlenty, Perry managed a 4.9% job creation rate, whereas under Pawlenty, jobs actually bled away -1.8%.  The average, national rate for job creation during Pawlenty’s tenure was 0.6%, meaning Pawlenty may likely be the only Governor in the running who couldn’t keep up with the rest of the country.  Ouch.  Huntsman’s rating also must take into account that he was governing a conservative state (which would therefore expect to see a better pro-growth record anyway), whereas Johnson was governing a state with a 2-1 Democratic legislature.  Johnson, who received the best total rating (from start to finish), also governed during a mostly healthy economic period, but one that was punctuated with the bursting of the NASDAQ bubble and the post-9/11 recession.

In another example of his lack of genuine concern for Hispanic-Americans, President Obama blew off the annual conference of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials for the third year in a row:

Leaders of a national Hispanic organization are criticizing President Barack Obama for skipping their annual conference for the third consecutive year after he promised as a candidate in 2008 that he would return as president.

Some members of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials also are questioning Obama’s commitment to immigration reform, noting that deportations have increased under his watch — even as the administration intensifies its outreach for Hispanic votes. NALEO, which includes more than 6,000 Latino leaders who represent major blocs of voters in key electoral states, opens its annual conference Thursday in San Antonio.

..“In front of a group like NALEO, blaming Republicans for their intransigence on immigration reform and not addressing what the president’s own administration is doing to immigrants would not wash,” said [Democratic Rep. Luis] Gutierrez, who traveled with Obama to the 2008 NALEO conference. “So it isn’t surprising to me that the president is not showing up.”

Luis Miranda, a White House spokesman, said the administration has shown “unprecedented” work and outreach on issues important to Hispanics.

“The scope of the president’s efforts on behalf of Latinos and all Americans is not defined by his participation at one event, but rather by the work carried out every day to put our economy back on track and spur job creation, improve access to health care, strengthen education and reform our immigration system so that it meets America’s 21st century needs,” Miranda said.

How long will Latinos continue to let the President and his fellow Democrats use them for political gain? The Dems’ failure to mount a legitimate, aggressive push for immigration reform while they controlled the White House and both chambers of Congress proves that they care far less about the issue than their public pronouncements would indicate. Just look at the significant legislation passed during that time. How many bills focused on immigration? That’s right: none.

Heck, President Bush placed a far higher priority on the matter, sticking out his neck politically to support comprehensive reform in 2006 and 2007. In contrast, Obama’s handling of the issue has essentially amounted to, “Don’t worry, I PLAN on getting to immigration, I really do! Trust me! Just wait a little longer, and we can begin the ‘conversation’ on reform!”

I’ve long held the firm belief that the Republican Party cannot assume an adversarial posture toward the Latino community and hope to maintain viability over the long term. Calling out the President on his shameful misleading of Hispanics could go a long way toward the goal of guiding their fundamental values and interests to their appropriate home in the GOP.

Even though I’m not a Romney guy, the race is approaching the point where the former Massachusetts governor’s lead in the polls, organization on the ground, and stature during the debates of GOP candidates for president all point to Mitt as the frontrunner. As such, it’s time to start talking about whether Mitt Romney can win a general election against Barack Obama. Following are five reasons that Romney may be able to give the president a run for his money.

1) RomneyCare 2.0: Given that ObamaCare is pretty much the president’s only major achievement in terms of domestic legislation during his first term, and given that this legislation still polls horribly, with either a plurality or strong minority of Americans wanting repeal, Mitt Romney’s decision to design a new version of RomneyCare that could have been, and in large part was, taken from the pages of National Review constitutes a real coup in terms of the coming debate over health care in the general election. While many or perhaps even most Americans want ObamaCare to be repealed, that doesn’t mean they want a return to the pre-ObamaCare status quo. Indeed, the Democratic attack ads are probably already in the works, complete with a 38-year-old soccer mom distressed over the fact that she can’t get insurance for her 2.5 children due to their pre-existing conditions. The facts of the ad won’t really matter; what will matter is that suburban women everywhere will view such ads and think, “That could be me…”

As of now, Romney is the only Republican candidate to craft a specific replacement for ObamaCare. I believe that this will be an essential part of any Republican victory next fall. While other candidates may promise to replace ObamaCare with a generic “free market solution” that is light on specifics, and while still others may simply offer Americans outright repeal to “get government out of the way,” I believe that Main Street America will require a tangible solution on the part of the Republicans instead of what sounds like another attempt to kick one of Washington’s many cans down the road. Romney’s new plan is both conservative and presumably effective, and it addresses all of the concerns that soccer moms will have with the repeal of ObamaCare.

2) Yes, it really, honestly, truly still is the economy, stupid: The last few months have pretty much disabused us all of the notion that this was going to be the great “eat your vegetables” year for Republicans, when men like Paul Ryan and Chris Christie were going to be carried into Washington on the backs of the popular will in order to dramatically re-organize the size and scope of the federal government. Indeed, as recently as this past spring, Ryan was being touted as the likely dark horse for the GOP nomination. Now, with no shortage of polling outlining how poorly the public views the GOP’s plans for entitlements, and with the 2008 Democratic coalition basically coming back together in NY-26 in order to elect a Democrat in an ancestral Republican congressional district during a special election, Republicans have wised up to the public mood on spending. The truth is that the public will not accept a campaign based on cuts. Voters instead want a campaign based on growth.

This does make some degree of sense. If you’re a middle-of-the-road, non-ideological voter who simply wants to live your life in peace, you are going to be far more concerned about the economic situation on the ground as opposed to something that might happen to Medicare down the road. Further, given the economic uncertainty in communities across America, telling Americans who are living in fear of losing their jobs that the answer is to cut off things like unemployment benefits just doesn’t make any political sense. To his credit, Romney figured this out before many of us did. He has avoided the debate over the debt entirely and has focused on the economy. A couple of months ago I would have called this cynical. Now I call it necessary. Jobs have to come first. Then we can talk about cuts.

3) Obama’s approval rating: It’s hovering in that sweet spot, between 45 and 50 percent. RCP pegs it at 48.1 percent as of today. It will fluctuate, but aside from a couple of bumps earlier this year, due to the rally around the president moments after the Giffords shooting and the bin Laden mission, Obama’s approval rating has been fairly static since early 2010. If Obama goes into his re-election season with a similar approval rating, he will be one of only four presidents to do so since modern polling began. Harry Truman, Gerald Ford, and George W. Bush were the other three presidents who headed into Election Day with similar approval ratings. All three elections were very close. An approval rating in the upper 40s seems to suggest that a president is beatable, but not already beaten.

4) Identity politics are for real: None of us want to believe that we prefer politicians who are similar to us, but the reality is that many voters are influenced by identity politics. And just as JFK likely upped the Democratic share of the Catholic vote, so will Mitt Romney increase the GOP share of the Mormon vote. More to the point, given that Mormons already vote heavily Republican, Romney will probably bring out a lot of apolitical Mormons to the polls who don’t usually vote, thus upping GOP numbers in key Western states with large Mormon populations. This could make a world of difference in a close election, in which Colorado, Nevada, and New Mexico will all be key swing states.

5) Mitt will play on Main Street: At the end of the day, after all the campaigning is behind us, the type of voter that’s going to decide the coming election is the relatively apolitical, mushy, Main Street voter in places like suburban Ohio and Northern Virginia. These are the voters who essentially want a government that makes the trains run on time and who don’t really care about big picture issues like ideology, the courts, or democracy at the far side of the world. They care about whether they have a job, whether they can pay their mortgage, whether the streets are safe enough for their kids to be out after dark, and whether their property taxes are going to go up. They’re not looking to cast a ballot to move the tectonic plates of Washington or the world. They just want to live their lives without ever having to think about politics.

These are the sorts of voters who would probably be open to a guy like Romney. Remember, most of these voters went for Obama in 2008. They were perfectly open to voting for a liberal Democrat provided that he was able to offer solutions to their problems. Romney, it seems, is the sort of culturally-neutral, managerial problem-solver that could pull these folks out of Obama’s column. The reality is that these folks aren’t looking for a revolution. They just want the job market to pick up so that their kid doesn’t have to move back in with them after college, thus allowing them to convert his or her old bedroom into a rec room. We may view these voters as mushy and simplistic. But guess what, they’re the ones who are going to decide the election.

Given all of this, I feel that even those of us who haven’t supported Romney in the past shouldn’t be despondent over his potential nomination. After all, he has as good a shot at beating Obama as anyone else in the field, and quite frankly, may have a better shot than most.

The bleeding, first begun when he unleashed his clever “Obamneycare” attack, continues unabated for Tim Pawlenty.

He was in a solid second place on Intrade before the attack, the subsequent embarrassment at the NH debate, and the return to the attack via Twitter and the Hannity show later on in the week. After Monday, he began slipping – and hasn’t stopped since. He has now fallen behind Rick Perry, Jon Huntsman, and now behind even Michelle Bachmann to land in fifth place:

1. Romney – 33.1
2. Perry – 17.0
3. Huntsman – 10.8
4. Bachmann – 8.3
5. Pawlenty – 8.0

Just a few weeks ago, Pawlenty tipped the scales at 24.1, meaning he has now lost over two thirds of his value as a candidate.

As I’ve noted before, there are probably just two things that will stop Team Pawlenty’s bleeding: a good poll from Iowa or reporting a great fundraising total next month. With the dearth of Iowa polls, I wouldn’t be surprised to see the Pawlenty campaign release an internal poll showing him in a good position.

And in case you’re wondering, Perry’s rise isn’t the cause of Pawlenty’s decline, either: during the last week when Pawlenty has been steadily losing value, Perry has also been retreating from his own artificial high of 24 points (including losing 2 points just today).

-The Texas governor could be the one for whom Republicans have been waiting.

Four summers ago, 73 percent of Republicans were satisfied with the candidates seeking the 2008 GOP presidential nomination. Now, an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll revealed on Wednesday, only 45 percent of Republicans are happy with today’s 2012 contenders.

Despite pro-market ideas and an impressive, limited-government record, former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty seems too genteel to leapfrog the apparent frontrunner, Willard Mitt Romney. For his part, Massachusetts’s telegenic former governor is a philosophical contortionist. He has inhabited at least two sides of nearly every major issue and even defends an individual mandate for health insurance, provided that state governments inflict it, à la Romneycare. Romney, thus, would let the states becomes laboratories of tyranny.

Texas governor Rick Perry, 61, could cure the GOP’s ennui. As America’s economy slumbers, Perry tells a stimulating story about Texas’s pro-market growth and job creation, two subjects atop the American mind.

Between January 2001 and June 2010, the Bureau of Labor Statistics calculates, Texas’s non-farm employment grew from 9,542,400 in January 2001, when Perry took office, to 10,395,800 in June 2010 — an increase of 853,400 or 8.9 percent. Big-government California simultaneously lost 827,800 jobs. Employment in Texas grew more than in the other 49 states combined. “Texas was one of the very few which even added jobs over that time,” BLS’s Cheryl Abbot told PolitiFact.com.

Since June 2009, when the Great Recession officially ended, Texas has produced 265,300 net jobs, equal to 36.7 percent of the 722,200 positions created nationwide. Even during the downturn, the Texas Public Policy Foundation discovered, Texas’s peak employment dropped by 2.3 percent, versus California’s 8.7 percent plunge.

As last October 27’s Wall Street Journal opined, “Austin, Dallas, and San Antonio have become destinations for investment and entrepreneurship. Texas has become a mecca for high tech, venture capital, aeronautics, health care, and even industrial manufacturing, like the building of cars and trucks.”

For seven years running, CEOs polled by Chief Executive magazine have rated Texas first in business development and job growth. Texas boasts 58 Fortune 500 companies — more than any other state.

As America’s No. 1 exporting state, Texas shipped $206.6 billion in goods abroad last year, a full 16 percent of America’s $1.28 trillion in exports. California’s $143.3 billion in exports ranked it second, with 11.2 percent of U.S. outflow.

Americans seeking opportunity often vote with their feet. Texas wins that race in a landslide. “Texas led all other states with a net in-migration of 500,000 people from 2004 to 2008,” W. Michael Cox and Richard Alm found in a report for Southern Methodist University’s O’Neil Center for Global Markets and Freedom.

Texas’s achievements so stunned Gavin Newsom, California’s Democratic lieutenant governor, that he flew a delegation to Austin last May to ask Perry how he lures defectors from the Golden State. Of the 70 companies that fled California in 2011, the Wall Street Journal’s John Fund reported last April, 14 relocated to Texas — these exiles’ favorite destination.

So, what is Perry’s secret? Texas taxes neither personal incomes nor capital gains, and Perry proposed a 2010 constitutional amendment to require two-thirds supermajorities to legislate tax hikes. Beyond that, as Perry told Manhattan Republicans on Tuesday, “don’t spend all the money.” He advised “a regulatory climate that is fair and predictable” as well as “a legal system that doesn’t allow for over-suing.” Thus, Perry signed a ground-breaking “loser pays” tort reform and medical-litigation rules that caused malpractice-insurance rates to fall. Some 20,000 doctors since have flooded Texas.

Texas is a right-to-work state, which Perry should trumpet nationally. He should demand a woman’s right to choose — whether or not to join a union. Indeed, Perry should promise to fight for and sign Sen. Jim DeMint’s (R., S.C.) National Right to Work Act.

On Dec. 21, 2000, while Illinois state senator Barack Obama was casting some of his 129 “present” votes, Perry took over a state government that now features some 384,000 workers and a $172.5 billion biennial budget. While Obama’s oratory often soars, he sometimes seems disengaged and indecisive — as if the Oval Office were a training facility. As Texas’s governor for a record ten years, Perry’s executive experience is quadruple Obama’s. A President Perry would not need a how-to guide in the White House.

Perry rejected federal taxpayer dollars for education and unemployment assistance, arguing that the “free money” was not worth having the Lone Star State lassoed by the strings that usually accompany Washington’s checks.

Perry also perfectly reflects the zeitgeist, which finds citizens annoyed with Uncle Sam’s sniffing about in virtually every crevice of American life.

“The American people are fed up,” he writes in his 2010 book, Fed Up! Our Fight to Save America from Washington.

“We are fed up with being overtaxed and overregulated. We are tired of being told how much salt we can put on our food, what windows we can buy for our houses, what kinds of cars we can drive, what kinds of guns we can own, what kinds of prayers we are allowed to say and where we can say them, what political speech we are allowed to use to elect candidates, what kind of energy we can use, what kind of food we can grow, what doctor we can see, and countless other restrictions on our right to live as we see fit.”

“After four years of Obama officials forcing Americans to do things they have no constitutional authority to impose, such as requiring people to buy health insurance, the public might embrace a Tenth Amendment advocate,” Dr. Merrill Matthews of the Institute for Policy Innovation in Dallas recently argued in Forbes.

My old friend and fellow commentator Quin Hillyer suggests tapping on the brakes before the pro-Perry bandwagon approaches ramming speed.

“A governor of Texas can do well just by being hands-off, including keeping his hands off his own administration,” Hillyer told me. “What we need in Washington is somebody who is activist within the administration in order to dismantle all the outrages of government. Perry inherited a good situation and thrived by doing nothing; doing nothing in Washington means leaving the status quo in effect, which would be awful.”

Such skepticism aside, Perry’s biggest challenge may be that he is the governor of Texas. Americans suffered through the mitigated disaster that was George W. Bush’s presidency. They may recoil at electing another commander-in-chief from Austin. Perhaps more worrisome for Perry are his appearance and mannerisms. At a well-delivered speech to the Heritage Foundation’s Resource Bank in Dallas on April 28, Perry did not quite resemble Bush. However, he mirrored actor James Brolin’s portrayal of the 43rd president in Oliver Stone’s film W.

Perry can overcome this potential handicap by loudly and explicitly distancing himself from the White House’s disgraced former occupant.

There reportedly is little love lost between Perry and the aristo-socialist Bush family and their political henchman, the annoyingly ubiquitous Karl Rove. Team Bush backed U.S. senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R., Tex.) in her failed primary bid to unseat Perry in March 2010. Perry should relish this rift and educate voters about it. He should remind them of Bush’s LBJ-like spendaholism and Carteresque regulatory overreach (e.g. Bush’s repugnant 2007 ban on Thomas Edison’s incandescent light bulb, effective 2012). Perry should declare that his domestic agenda will not echo Bush’s, much beyond tax relief and school choice.

As the anti-Obama and anti-Bush, Perry soon could emerge as a seasoned, competent, growth-generating conservative. This should unite the Republican base, make tea partiers boil with glee, and magnetize independents and sensible Democrats. If so, voters just might dispatch Barack Obama to design his presidential library.

________________________________________________________________________________

— New York commentator Deroy Murdock is a nationally syndicated columnist with the Scripps Howard News Service and a media fellow with the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace at Stanford University. This article was originally published on National Review Online.

A couple stories about Huntsman’s growing campaign, showing just how serious of a competitor he may turn out to be.

First, Hotline has news of some impressive staff hires in the key early state of Florida:

David Johnson, a former executive director of the Republican Party of Florida, has worked on slew of campaigns and ballot initiatives in the state. He helped oversee the Presidency III straw poll won by Bob Dole, an experience that could be valuable to the Huntsman team as it competes in the Presidency V straw poll in September.

Marc Reichelderfer was a consultant to Mitt Romney’s campaign in Florida in 2008 and has close ties to state Sen. John Thrasher, the former state party chairman, who has endorsed Romney. He has advised the state GOP’s House and Senate campaign committees and helped elect a number of lawmakers, including House Speaker Dean Cannon.

Alex W. Castellanos Jr., is the son of the veteran GOP media consultant with the same name to the Bush family. He is a partner at Purple Strategies.

And Mark Halperin has the news of a key endorsement for party insiders:

C. Boyden Gray backs Utahan’s bid, poised to become chair of policy team.

This is the first, but by no means the last, of eye-catching endorsements Huntsman will get from the GOP Establishment, including many with ties to Ronald Reagan and Bushes 41 and 43. Gray’s endorsement will be a semiotic dog whistle for a lot of big-time bundlers. It doesn’t mean Huntsman will get the nomination, of course, but combined with the Wall Street and corporate America backing he is already in line to receive, it will give him a leg up on becoming the Romney Alternative. And, at this point, becoming the Romney Alternative is the whole ball of wax.

If bundlers have already begun lining up behind Huntsman as was reported last month, this is sure to give Huntsman’s 2Q fundraising numbers an even bigger shot in the arm.

First Read notes something rather peculiar about Newt Gingrich’s sputtering campaign:

In his schedule this week, all of his events are within driving distance of his Georgia and DC-area homes. On Tuesday, he attends a screening of “A City Upon A Hill” in Savannah, GEORIGIA… On Wednesday, he delivers a speech on the federal regulations and the Federal Reserve at the Atlanta Press Club’s Commerce Club in GEORGIA… And on Thursday, he speaks at a Maryland Republican Party dinner in BALTIMORE. This is what a campaign looks like when it’s running on fumes.

Additionally, the Des Moines Register takes note that Gingrich hasn’t been in Iowa since May 21, and doesn’t plan on returning until the July 4 holiday weekend. Even more telling, Newt has made no moves to replace any of his Iowa staff, which all quit earlier this month.

First Read draws the conclusion: “Newt Gingrich is no longer campaigning in the early nominating contests[.]”

Which, essentially, means he is not campaigning. What in the world is Newt’s end game now?

Mitt Romney was in the center of quite the dustup over the weekend over abortion. He refused to sign what he claimed to be an overly broad pledge restricting abortions. He later issued a pledge of his own.

He suffered a number of attacks from the usual suspects because of it. Now it turns out that the pro-life group at the bottom of it, the Susan B. Anthony list (SBA) has started to defend Mitt.

Jennifer Rubin, the resident conservative columnist at the Washington Post reports:

SBA president Marjorie Dannenfelser … denied that there was any attempt to damage Romney and stated,“Romney has been an ally of mine/ours since the last election. His not signing came after a sincere effort to clarify intent and convince him to sign.”

…

She insisted that in conversations with Romney adviser Peter Flaherty she explained that the pledge — despite clear written language on defunding providers to the contrary — didn’t extend beyond abortion providers. In the end she said that the two sides “agreed to disagree.”

SBA spokesman Billy Valentine emailed:

“Defunding hospitals has never been considered by Congress, is not part of public debate and is not part of the pledge. Ninety-five percent of abortions are performed outside of hospitals. We made this clear to the Romney campaign.”

…

In e-mails both the SBA president and spokesman also talked about “relevant cabinet and executive positions” in departments such as Health and Human Services and the Justice Department, along with the National Institutes of Health. But those are examples, not qualifiers of the broad language Romney objected to. (Does that mean all Justice Department positions that may litigate on abortion issues? If it doesn’t extend to other cabinet positions, why not say so?) Confusion abounds.

Rubin comments in her article:

It is baffling that SBA, if it intended to qualify and limit the pledge, didn’t redraft and recirculate it. What is the point of a pledge that says one thing but is interpreted privately in an entirely different way?

Actually, I can think of a very good reason for it. If you use broad enough language, you can later claim it means whatever you want it to mean. It gives power to hold it over the heads of those who signed it.

The SBA is in a pickle:

1. Nobody ever wishes to admit that they were wrong. It allows your opponents to find fault and ridicule.
2. Mitt Romney is currently the GOP frontrunner and as such stands a better than average chance of claiming the nomination. You don’t want to alienate the man, especially since he “has been an ally since the last election”.
3. If they reworded the pledge now, it would put SBA in conflict with those who have already signed it. It would make those guys look incompetent and foolish. The candidates might then feel forced to argue for the original language to avoid that appearance.
4. This controversy has brought to the forefront the biggest problem with overly broad political pledges. People who sign them consider them political theater not to be taken too seriously.

Just imagine a President who doesn’t read through and carefully consider the ramifications of everything he signs. That shouldn’t be too difficult to do. His name is Barack Obama.

What a mess.

I find it  interesting to note that Hermann Cain and Mitt Romney are the only two candidates who have refused to sign the SBA pledge. They also happen to be the only two who have had extensive experience in the private sector where the language in contracts means what it says. The other candidates who didn’t think twice about signing the pledge come from the world of politics. That’s where the attitude of, “Sign it. Get it out the door. Let the courts decide what it means”, is all too prevalent. What a mess that has caused us.

One of the goals Mitt Romney started out with in this campaign was to be the serious candidate, the adult in the room as some have put it. It would appear that he is succeeding.

ABC News has set a firm date for their Iowa debate in December, giving us a reason to update our 2012 primary campaign calendar:

Did I miss an event? Let me know in the comments.