Didn’t get a chance to post these with the primary numbers earlier, so here’s some more fodder for discussion:

NBC / Wall Street Journal General Election Matchups (PDF)

• Obama – 50%
• Pawlenty – 37%

• Obama – 49%
• Romney – 43%

Survey of an unspecified number of registered voters was taken June 9-13.

Not sure why they only polled Romney and Pawlenty against Obama, but there you go.

Mainly, I needed to do another post to give a shoutout to Massachusetts Conservative, who, in my completely and utterly subjective editorial opinion, came the closest to guessing the GOP horserace numbers for this poll. He had Bachmann (who polled lower than anyone expected) further down and Cain higher up his list, and pegged Gingrich, Pawlenty, and Paul exactly. Huckarubio and Smack1968 get honorable mention.

It looks like this is really happening:

Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani held meetings with two Republican heavyweights in New York Wednesday in an attempt to gauge support ahead of a potential 2012 campaign.

Giuliani, 67, held separate meetings with two allies — Texas Gov. Rick Perry and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie in Manhattan.

Perry, who was in town to meet with The Wall Street journal editorial board and address a GOP fundraiser in Manhattan Monday night, met Giuliani for breakfast Wednesday morning while Christie had a lunch meeting with the former mayor.

According to MSNBC, the meeting with Christie came at Giuliani’s request as he seeks to sound out the popular governor’s advice on a potential 2012 run.

What do Rudy, Christie, and Perry have in common? They occupy the niche of pro-growth tough guy, and my guess is that Rudy suspects that the trio would be playing for the same voters, hence his attempt to turn Perry and Christie into Rudy allies instead of primary opponents. Christie, I think, has no plans to run this time around. But Perry seems ready to leap into the field, and the Texas governor is younger than Giuliani, with cultural cues and social positions that appeal to the GOP’s conservative base. Will Perry really defer to Giuliani in this case?

Speaking of social positions, if Rudy does get in, how does he handle the fact that he continues to part ways with most Republicans on cultural issues? Does he run as an unabashed social liberal? Or does he attempt to take a federalist position, without allowing those issues to distract him the way they did in 2008? One tack I can see Rudy taking is leaping onto the Tenth Amendment bandwagon that seems to be so popular among conservatives these days. Abortion? State issue. Gay marriage? State issue. Gun control? States are awesome, aren’t they? But in contrast to 2008, Rudy would likely give one-word or one-sentence answers when these issues are brought up, and then go back to focusing on the economy.

Relatedly, a Perry run would also focus heavily on the Tenth Amendment, given that the governor has a penchant for states’ rights that he is not shy about voicing. Indeed, one of the ways that Perry could neutralize his own cultural problems, i.e., being too Texas for the country, is to double-down on his Tenth Amendment orthodoxy. Ohio voters aren’t going to elect Rick Perry if they think he’s going to culturally Tex-ify the country. But that may not be as much of a problem if he’s able to cloak culture in Amendment No. 10, and then promise to economically Tex-ify the nation, something that voters may embrace given Texas’ record of growth. After all, this is a guy who has suggested that California should be able to legalize gay marriage and marijuana if it chooses to do so.

Exit question: Of Rick Perry and Rudy Giuliani, who would pose a greater threat to Crown Prince Mitt Romney?

Wall Street Journal / NBC National Republican Primary

• Romney – 30% (21)
• Palin – 14% (10)
• Cain – 12% (-)
• Perry – 8% (-)
• Paul – 7% (-)
• Gingrich – 6% (11)
• Pawlenty – 4% (6)
• Santorum – 4% (3)
• Bachmann – 3% (5)
• Huntsman – 1% (-)
• Other/Not sure – 11%

Six Candidates Only:

• Romney – 43%
• Bachmann – 11%
• Paul – 11%
• Santorum – 9%
• Gingrich – 8%
• Pawlenty – 7%

Survey of likely primary voters was conducted June 9-13. Numbers in parentheses are from the NBC/WSJ poll ending April 4.

While it received pathetically little time in the CNN debate, the section on foreign policy illustrated an interesting phenomenon. After years of being the party of hawks, it seems like the GOP is becoming the party of doves.

The most telling incident of this was the question about Libya. Out of all the candidates questioned on this, which didn’t include Romney or Pawlenty, none of them supported military action against Qaddafi. Most of the field seemed to be content to let the brutal tyrant massacre his own people because it wasn’t in our narrow interests (not that I have an opinion about it or anything). Mitt Romney has taken some heat for characterizing the war in Afghanistan as “a war for Afghan independence”. The most prominent hawk in the Republican Party, Senator and former nominee John McCain, has said nothing, but his close friend and ally, Senator Lindsey Graham, did and in not so friendly terms.

As much as I agree with Senator’s McCain and Graham on foreign policy, I’m almost completely sure that folks like Michele Bachmann (who harshly criticized the Libya mission) are closer to the average Republican voter on this issue. After nearly a decade of foreign intervention and an activist foreign policy, there is a backlash against such ideas amongst many Americans. This has happened before in American history; after World War I, the nation retreated into neo-isolationism until essentially Pearl Harbor. After the Cold War, many Republicans were not interested in too much activity overseas (see Somalia, Rwanda and Bosnia).

So now we are entering into an age of a much more dovish Republican Party. This won’t be exploited by the Democrats politically since they are impossible to out-dove. With that, there is only one real question; is there any room in this new GOP for us foreign policy hawks?

PPP has just released their Horse Race poll of Massachusetts Republicans.  To nobody’s surprise, Mitt Romney easily wins both with and without Sarah Palin in the field:

Big deal, I hear you say. You’d expect Mitt to lead in his home state, correct? To help put things in perspective, PPP also published a chart of the GOP hopefuls and how they fared in the latest horse race poll taken in their home states:

Romney leads convincingly in the home-state derby, as well.

*Correction made to Paul field in the home state chart.

Nearly all pundits agree that Mitt Romney was the most presidential of the debaters last Monday. On Tuesday, the day after, he walked around Kerry, NH, to get in some personal politicking. He took the opportunity to let his hair down a bit.

I enjoy seeing this side of Mitt. One of the traits I look for in a leader is the ability to not take themselves too seriously. It helps keep things in perspective. When they start to believe their own press clippings is the time when they start to get into trouble.

Just don’t overdo it.

PPP has just released their vs. Obama poll for the month of June. Matt Coulter will likely post his more complete report later; but for now, I want to examine the trends shown in the data.

Here is the data for the last six months:

Here is the trend graph of the top four, the only ones with enough data to produce meaningful trendlines so far:

For two years now, PPP’s data has shown the candidates divide easily into two groups: Romney and Huckabee, and everyone else. No matter the polling ups and downs caused by the many political winds during the past two years, Romney and Huckabee always finished either first or second. One of them would always take first. The other would invariably take second. Everyone else fought over third and worse. With the withdrawal of Mike Huckabee from the race, it has become Mitt Romney and everyone else.

Is it any accident that Mitt is focusing his attention like a laser upon Barack Obama? Data such as this suggests that he is entirely correct to be doing so.

The first GOP presidential debate held in New Hampshire is only the first of many such events that will take place between now and the end of the primary/caucus season next year. Results from a first debate can hardly be expected to be dispositive about the race, and none of the candidates behaved in a manner that will disqualify them from going on.

Nevertheless, the debate signaled that the Republican contest is going to be hard fought, and that the field, as it stands now, has been undervalued generally by the media. At least two more “serious” candidates are likely to enter the race very soon, and the next debate could be noticeably larger.

A number of opinions have already been expressed by pundits, political operatives, and campaign staff figures about who “won” and who “lost.” I urge the reader to be cautious about making judgments based on these various opinions, including any that I might express here.

I do think some candidates enhanced their standing in the public with their performance in the debate, and others did not. The consensus of “conventional wisdom” was that Mitt Romney, Michelle Bachmann, Newt Gingrich and Herman Cain were in this positive category. Consensus seems to suggest that Tim Pawlenty missed an opportunity to enhance his, and that Ron Paul and Rick Santorum did little to improve their image. This conventional assessment may or may not be entirely correct, but the general impression is that the whole field had an initial positive evening.

This occurred in spite of the very flawed format created by CNN for the debate, and I hope that the individual campaigns and candidates will resist the gimmickry and moderator interference of this format imposed by sponsors and producers of future debates.

Almost certainly, the next debates will include the eventual full field. Former Governor Jon Huntsman of Utah and current Texas Governor Rick Perry are likely to be not only serious candidates, but should be strong new voices in future debates if one or both of them enter the race. The first debate saw the candidates turn their main criticism to President Obama, his administration and the Democratic-controlled Congress. As the calendar approaches actual voting, most of these candidates will be sorely tempted to attack each other as well.

Mr. Huntsman, advertised in advance as the most moderate figure in the field, may introduce some conflict in future debates, but for now, the whole field seems in general agreement on most issues. Only Mr. Paul has clear record of believing in very different perspectives on major issues, and as happened in the last cycle, he is expected to receive very limited if somewhat noisy support from his small neo-libertarian base. On foreign policy, in particular, Mr. Paul is outside the general conservative agreement on foreign policy. Mr. Santorum, a former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania, is familiar with the issues, but other than his resume, there was no indication from the first debate of why he is running for president.

Mr. Gingrich has been widely dismissed in the media, and among political insiders, following his recent gaffes and the quitting from his national campaign by some of his top staff. His strong performance at the first debate, however, indicates he is not going to fade away any time soon.

The promotion of Mrs. Bachmann’s performance in the debate included much of it coming from the Old Media and liberal Democrats whose sincerity and wisdom on the subject is seriously in doubt. Mr. Obama’s supporters would rejoice if Mrs. Bachmann were the GOP nominee. I also think the criticism of Mr. Pawlenty’ performance is, at the least, premature. He has shown himself in the past to be a quick study, and could shine in future debates.

Finally, Mr. Romney’s standing was clearly improved in New Hampshire. He did not make any mistakes, while he sounded as if he were more and more in command. He has political weaknesses, and does not yet, have the conservative GOP base behind him, but if future debates go generally as this first one did, his “frontrunner” status
will become more difficult to overcome.

_________________________________________________________________________________________

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

From the Twitter stream:

WSJ’s Jonathan Weisman, on FNC Special Report earlier, said WSJ will debut a poll in Wed paper that solidifies Romney as frontrunner.

Chuck Todd gives us some more details from his Twitter feed:

Oh, poll junkies, know what today is? NBC-WSJ poll day. We’re out at 630pmET

Then he responds to requests for the numbers to be released early by tweeting: “will trickle out starting at 1pm!”

Continuing their narrative of Romney as frontrunner, MSNBC then describes the GOP race using a phrase first employed by the Boston Globe to describe Monday’s debate: “Mitt and the Munchkins.”

So, prediction time: what will the new NBC/WSJ poll numbers look like? And how will Romney’s frontrunner status be affected by Perry’s and Huntsman’s entrances into the race in the coming weeks?

UPDATE: The first leak reveals that this poll contains six contenders… Newt Gingrich clocks in at 8%… Gingrich has literally the worst favorability ratings of his entire career at 16/48… among Republicans his favorability rating is 28/33… among likely primary voters it is 32/34…

UPDATE II:Just as in previous NBC/WSJ polls, two different GOP primary questions are asked – one with a full field, and a second one with only the top candidates. So this poll will include horserace numbers for the full field, and then one with just the top six from the first question… Newt’s 8% comes in the question only containing the top six candidates, meaning he probably has less than 8% in the full field question…

When I first heard about Sarah Palin’s emails and the media frenzy around them, including calls to their readers for help in combing through the documents, my first response was:

First: Palin’s emails as governor are public record and should be available.

Second: What a colossal waste of time. What exactly do they think they are going to accomplish? Some smoking gun of — what exactly?

…

Any person foolish enough to waste their time combing through those emails looking for dirt, any dirt, are to be pitied, in my opinion. Don’t they have anything better things[sic] to do? Something that might actually improve their lives?

Well, the frenzy is now over, and the media is left with egg all over its collective faces. Has there ever been greater public proof of their unhealthy obsession with “getting” Palin than this? To great fanfare, they trumpeted their obsession for all the world to see. Ann Althouse perhaps says it best:

This intense eagerness to get Sarah Palin for whatever it is she might have done on line unfolded concurrently with all the attention that had to be paid to Anthony Weiner for his on-line antics. What we can’t see is the agony the poor journalists must have endured as Weiner’s wienerisms hurt the Democratic Party just when they stood ready to damage the Republican Party with Sarah’s misdeeds. And then — oh, how awful! — they got nothing from Sarah. Nothing but hard work and — urrrgghhh! — good government and — damn! — family values.

The expression, “hoisted on their own petard“, comes to mind.

One thing this did accomplish was the publication of the full text of Sarah’s “Letter from God”, a truly heartfelt, touching letter concerning the impending birth of her son, Trig, with Down’s Syndrome.

Did I say the exercise was a “colossal waste of time”? I was wrong. The complete text of the letter alone makes it all worth while. I especially love the poignant ending:

Trig can’t wait to meet you. I’m giving you ONLY THE BEST!

Love,

Trig’s Creator , Your Heavenly Father

Fox News is reporting:

President Obama explained to NBC News that the reason companies aren’t hiring is not because of his policies, it’s because the economy is so automated. … “There are some structural issues with our economy where a lot of businesses have learned to become much more efficient with a lot fewer workers. You see it when you go to a bank and you use an ATM, you don’t go to a bank teller, or you go to the airport and you’re using a kiosk instead of checking in at the gate.”

(Video at site)

So unemployment isn’t the fault of his policies. It’s the fault of all those ATM machines.

It is now 585 days until January 20, 2013.

Check out the Poster that the guys over at Mitt Romney Central have come up with:

It’s a takeoff of Obama’s famous “HOPE” poster.

It’s not bad for an unofficial poster, not bad at all.

How’s that for a provocative title? As President Obama often begins, now, let me be clear, I don’t mean to definitively predict that Rick Perry will win the 2012 Republican nomination. However, with whispers about an imminent run becoming louder every day, this news intrigued me:

This should be a fun meeting – Texas Gov. Rick Perry and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani are set to have a private get-together Wednesday morning, sources tell us.

Perry and Giuliani will meet at the tail end of the governor’s trip to New York, which has already included a lunch with New York politicos and donors, and will feature a speech tonight at a Manhattan County GOP fundraising event.

As the article notes, Perry endorsed Rudy in 2008 – a clear symbol of the Governor’s pragmatism. Perhaps that pragmatism might manifest itself again in a selection of America’s Mayor to become his running mate, should he become the Republican nominee?

Think about it: it makes sense for Perry. His biggest obstacle in a general election would undoubtedly become his blatant and unabashed southern – Texan, in every implication of the word – cultural cues. What better way to (seek to) moderate their influence by running with the most urbane of the high-level Republican figures?

Rudy’s weaknesses on social and cultural issues would meet the Republican base with a more muted impact, since they would stand next to Perry’s relative purity. The Mayor’s perceived strength on national security issues would address area most governors lack in their realm of expertise. Giuliani has already shown that he can ably play the attack dog role. And among national Republicans, Perry has no bigger allies than Sarah Palin and Rudy Giuliani. Unlike the Mayor, mixing Palin with Perry would create a combination that would make the media foam at the mouth, and the suburban swing voters the GOP desperately needs to win back would run for the hills.

Lastly, this ticket would provide some geographical gains for Perry. While his cultural cues will always put him at a serious disadvantage in the Midwest, the addition of the classically liberal Giuliani could enhance his potential strength in the Southwest, while also establishing the outside possibility of taking New Hampshire.

When it comes down to it, Gov. Perry, should he nab the nomination, would be hard-pressed to find a more suitable Veep than Rudy. And for the lingering Rudyites who still dream of seeing the Mayor in the White House, running with Rick could, very well, represent his best chance of one day getting there.

Last night, seven candidates debated on stage, but, inexplicably, the first major candidate to officially declare, the candidate with more experience than Mitt Romney and Sarah Palin combined, the candidate who qualified for the debate under CNN’s own criteria but whose requests for an invitation were bizarrely ignored, and the candidate whom a Gallup poll on the day of the debate showed polling right behind Newt Gingrich (and with twice the support of debate invitee Jon Huntsman), was forced to debate off-stage.

That candidate was two-term New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson, who instead opted for a big campaign swing through Iowa, where he hosted a debate watching party with the Iowa Tea Party organizations, and later released his own (in many cases much more succinct) answers to the debate questions:

For those who don’t have time to watch the video, I’ve also provided a written, paraphrased version of Gov. Johnson’s answers for quick reference:

Q. How would you create jobs?
A. Abolish the corporate income tax, no more “stimulus” spending, create certainty and predictability in the marketplace, and deregulate the energy industry.

Q. What would you do about Obamacare?
A. Press for a repeal, offer a repeal of the GOP’s Medicare Part D (the largest entitlement ever passed) while we’re at it, and put health care as much in the free market as possible.

(more…)

Fresh off his tour de force debate performance last night, Romney took to the streets of Derry, NH, today for a bit of retail politicking that the New Hampshire voters love so well. He held an impromptu news conference with the media that had been tagging along with him.

Unscripted, off-the-cuff, and without a teleprompter in sight, he took a number of questions from the assembled crowd. He pressed home that economy was now Obama’s. The President could not blame George Bush anymore. He pushed his vision as to why he was the man to face Obama and lead the country back to prosperity. When asked about the debate last night, ever the gentlemen Mitt was gracious and said he thought all had a good debate. Every candidate showed they were united in their opposition to Obama.

While watching his performance before a sometimes hostile press — one guy at one point tried to twist his words into a slam at Pawlenty — I could not help but compare that with another prominent candidate we all know who refuses to submit themselves to hostile questioning — declining to be interviewed by anyone other than the friendliest of media, people who will ask only the easy questions. Whenever they do find themselves at the receiving end of a tough question, they get indigent and belligerent.

And this person’s supporters? They go ballistic! They immediately initiate a seek and destroy mission aimed at destroying any trace of the questioner’s credibility and deflect any criticism away from the object of their worship.

And as for off-the-cuff, extemporaneous speaking? Forget about it. The guy’s addiction to teleprompters is well known. Several of his off-script remarks have been disasters. So he is tied to the teleprompter wherever he goes now.

And yet there was Mitt handling all his off-the-cuff remarks just fine.

*** Update ***

The Atlantic has an article about Mitt’s turn around Derry:

DERRY, N.H. — This morning, newly minted presidential candidate Michele Bachmann took the first flight out of New Hampshire, but Mitt Romney stuck around. Both candidates helped themselves at last night’s debate — Bachmann especially, since so little was expected of her. After her performance, she’s sure to get a turn in the spotlight. But debates alone don’t win the nomination. Especially in the early states, voters expect plenty of one-on-one attention. So by hitting the campaign trail early this morning, Romney probably did more to help himself.

…

Romney’s experience also showed in how he handled himself with the press. This morning’s sport among the reporters was to get Romney to respond to Tim Pawlenty’s shrinking-violet performance last night, in which he repeatedly refused to expand on his attack of Romney’s health-care plan as “Obamneycare.” But Romney wouldn’t be drawn in. “I think it was a very good debate for everyone there,” he said. “We were respectful to one and other and we aimed our rhetoric toward the president, where it was deserved.”

…

For all the media hoopla and trending Twitter hashtags, it’s performances like the one he turned in today in Derry that will probably determine Romney’s fate. Right now, he’s the clear front-runner in the polls, but also a very weak one: most supporters indicate that they’re willing to switch to someone else. It’s still early and anything can happen. But after hearing Romney talk about the economy, and easily deflect questions that would have tripped him up for years ago, it’s not hard to imagine that current supporters might ultimately decide to stick with him.

Not only that, but he’s outlining a “Southern strategy” of sorts that will allow him to clinch the nomination while still getting bruised in the blue state primaries:

Perry’s camp has just hired Elizabeth Vaughan to run their Georgia campaign. Vaughan was most recently statewide campaign manager for Georgia Agriculture Secretary Gary Black, who swamped his Democrat opponent to capture the constitutional office from Democrat control. Vaughan is said to be one of several former key Newt Gingrich for President staffers who have abandoned their former boss to join the Perry campaign.

Perry insiders say their candidate will formally announce his bid in late June, and will visit Georgia in early July, right after former MN. Governor Tim Pawlenty’s Peach State jaunt.

Perry’s new hires have reportedly convinced him their campaign can carry Georgia and sweep the southern primary states, including winning the all important South Carolina primary.

The conventional wisdom since about 10 pm last night has been that that this race has become Mitt Romney’s to lose. If Perry gets in and puts all his chips on the South, all bets are off. Perry could easily force a very, very lengthy primary against Mitt, with the battle lines drawn at Mason-Dixon. It’s hard to say just how the race for delegates would shake out in a race like that. At the very least, Perry’s entry complicates Romney’s strategy for an early knock-out, in which Romney wins the Granite State by a mile and then goes onto beat the winner of Iowa in South Carolina, appealing to the Palmetto State electorate’s desire to nominate a candidate who can actually win the general election. The reality is that Perry does have a plausible path to victory should he choose to pull the (purely metaphorical) trigger.

Or, “Our Condescending President“:

While meeting with his Jobs and Competitiveness Council today in Durham, N.C., President Obama cracked wise about one of his administration’s early catchphrases.

Remember “shovel-ready projects.”

Those were construction projects in the 2009 stimulus bill that were supposed to get moving right away — but jobs council members told Obama today that some got held up because of elaborate government regulations and permitting procedures.

“Shovel-ready was not as shovel-ready as we expected,” Obama said.

This comes on the heels of Romney’s successful ad slamming Obama’s “bumps in the road” remark.

If Obama insists on describing the plight of financially troubled Americans in such dismissive terms (note that the referenced USA Today article contains the title “Obama Jokes About Shovel-Ready Projects”), he deserves every negative ad that comes as a result.

Republicans increasingly have the opportunity to paint the President as out-of-touch with conditions on the ground in the economy. He has no clue how to re-ignite the American growth engine, and he doesn’t seem to care much, either.

Besides, that would only get in the way of his next round of golf or his next chance to hob-knob with foreign leaders.

Not following in Michele Bachmann’s footsteps, Jon Huntsman has made plans for a more traditional campaign announcement:

Former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman will announce he is running for president next Tuesday at Liberty State Park in New Jersey.

Sources familiar with the plans told POLITICO the site will showcase the Statue of Liberty in the background. The park is the same place where Ronald Reagan formally kicked off his 1980 general election campaign.

Huntsman is expected to discuss his plans at a previously scheduled appearance with former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger on Tuesday afternoon in New York City.

…Huntsman already has staffers on the ground in New Hampshire and also in South Carolina, another early primary state where Huntsman plans to play. Huntsman has already said he’s likely to skip the caucuses in Iowa, and he’s announced plans to headquarter his campaign in Orlando, where his wife, Mary Kaye, grew up and still has family.

Count me among those who believe Huntsman intends to wage his campaign to position himself for prime VP consideration. With a virtually nonexistent pool of options with foreign policy experience and expertise, the Ambassador has plenty to offer.

Unfortunately for Huntsman, the candidate least likely to choose him as a running mate has nominal frontrunner status.

As many halfway clever deodorant commercials will tell you, first impressions are everything in life. And last night was Tim Pawlenty’s chance to make a stellar first impression on the average Republican or conservative voter. At this point, I have to agree with the conventional wisdom, coming from all corners, that T-Paw fell short of this aspiration, with an introduction that threatens to relegate him to Lamar Alexander territory, circa 1996, as a seemingly halfway decent candidate with executive experience who just can’t seem to break through into the top tier. As such, it’s now the job of “Team-Paw” to reboot the T-Paw candidacy before pundits begin characterizing the governor as someone who just might make a rather good vice president.

As I’ve said before, it is more important than ever in our iPad world for politicians to understand the capabilities of modern media. No longer are we living in an era when a candidate for high office can give contradictory speeches to two different audiences and receive high marks from each. Now, any and every utterance made by a presidential candidate has the potential to be transmitted throughout the globe in the moments that follow. Thus far, Team Pawlenty has been fairly effective at navigating the world of Facebook and Twitter. But Pawlenty absolutely hit a major bump in the road over the last couple of days by essentially giving opponents conflicting sound bites on the subject of Mitt Romney’s health care legislation, both of which are now readily available on YouTube. It’s been less than 24 hours since last night’s debate, and this clip has already gone viral:

Needless to say, the optics of this clip, complete with a chuckling questioner and a smirking Romney, are horrible for Pawlenty. In an earlier age, such a gaffe would be less harmful. But today, scores of likely Republican voters are getting their first look at Pawlenty via this very clip, which is likely being emailed and “Tweeted” to and fro as we speak.

As if that weren’t enough, Pawlenty guru Nick Ayers seems to dig the hole a bit deeper for Team Pawlenty by suggesting that, hey, RomneyCare was never a big deal to begin with:

Then, Pawlenty’s campaign manager Nick Ayers made things even worse in the spin room, telling Slate’s Dave Weigel, “The point is, and what the governor’s point was yesterday, is that everyone’s got a few clunkers in their records. He continues to defend it.”

In case you forgot, “clunkers” is the term that Pawlenty has used when describing his previous support for cap and trade. Going into the race, I assumed it would be a goal of the Romney campaign to try to use cap and trade to neutralize the Romneycare issue — yet here you have Pawlenty’s own campaign manager doing the job for them. It’s quite stunning.

Again, there was a time when this sort of reversal over a 24-48 hour period would play, but not in 2011, when anyone with a laptop and some free time on their hands could create a YouTube video contrasting Pawlenty’s Sunday position on RomneyCare with Pawlenty’s Monday position and send the clip throughout the Twitter-verse. Team Pawlenty needs to decide whether RomneyCare is a capital offense, or simply a “boys will be boys” moment for Gov. Romney.

All of this really makes one wonder just what is going on inside the Pawlenty camp. On one hand, Pawlenty’s campaign roll-out has been fairly flawless, with lots of big gets in terms of talent and endorsements, and with great ads. On the other hand, Pawlenty the candidate seems a bit rough around the edges. Indeed, another reason why Pawlenty was unable to break out from the pack in last night’s debate was that he was so focused on proving that he was the three-legged stool conservative in the race that he was unable to respond to queries in a highly specific manner that reflects the national mood. Do Americans really need Pawlenty to remind them of what happened on 9/11 when asked about foreign policy? Is it really politically savvy to refer to Iraq as a “shining example of success” given the manner in which the public has soured on land wars in Asia? Pawlenty is really close to falling into the Romney ’08 trap. He didn’t quite have a “double Gitmo” moment. But some of his attempts to prove that he is Reagan ’81, Bush ’01, and Bush ’03, all wrapped in a bow, come awfully close.

I think it’s time for Pawlenty to be Pawlenty. He should stop trying to be all things to all people and simply run as the guy who won re-election in the Upper Midwest in 2006 while Republicans lost statewide offices by double-digits throughout the rest of the region. It’s not too late to turn things around, though re-inventions rarely work, meaning that T-Paw will be swimming against the tide of history if he hopes to succeed. And all of this, of course, contines to serve as a hearty helping of Rick Perry bait.

…and nobody came?

Politico reports:

MIAMI, Fla. — A low-dollar fundraiser here Monday felt like a throwback to the 2008 campaign.

There was the same old soundtrack – including “City of Blinding Lights” by U2, the president’s 2008 anthem — the enthusiastic organizers and the abundant appeals for supporters to rally behind President Obama.

The one missing element? Overflowing crowds.

Granted, it was a fundraiser, not a free rally. But the empty seats were hard to miss.

The top level of the 2,200-seat concert hall at the Adrienne Arsht Center for Performing Arts was entirely empty, as were the seats along the side of the second and third levels.

“The expectation was 900,” a Democratic official said, and more than 980 tickets were sold.

Obama recently admitted there are days he thinks one term would be enough. If the attendance at his fundraisers doesn’t improve, his words may prove prescient.

National Journal polled a number of political insiders, both Republican and Democrat, as to whom was the biggest winner in last night’s debate. They also polled as to whom was the biggest loser. The results are as follows:

They also asked who helped their cause, and who hurt their cause. This is how the Journal described it:

And when asked whether candidates had helped or hurt themselves the most in the debate, a whopping 78 percent of the Republican Insiders said that Bachmann had helped herself while only 9 percent said she hurt herself (the rest said neither). Romney also scored well on this question; 80 percent said he helped himself with his performance. At the same time, and by a narrow margin, 44 percent of the GOP Insiders thought Pawlenty hurt himself compared to 38 percent who thought he helped himself. “Romney made it through without a scratch; Michele Bachmann actually beat expectations, Pawlenty wimped out at engaging Mitt,” said one GOP Insider. “The rest were just there on the stage.”

So all in all, a very good night for Romney and Bachmann, a terrible night for Pawlenty.

From my vantage point, there was simply no candidate in tonight’s debate of Republican presidential contenders who stood head-and-shoulders above the rest of the field. If anything, tonight’s event will serve as fodder for the bevy of potential donors and political consultants who are presently whispering sweet nothings in the ears of would-be-candidates like Gov. Rick Perry and Rudy Giuliani, both of whom are rumored to be considering a foray into the race for the GOP nomination.

Gov. Romney, the frontrunner based on the polls, seemed to almost fade into the crowd tonight. This was similar to the way Giuliani, the frontrunner at this time in 2007, generally failed to give a stand-out performance in the early debates of the 2008 field. That’s not to say Romney didn’t look and seem presidential. He did. But he wasn’t George W. Bush, circa 2000. He wasn’t the obvious frontrunner, and at times seemed to be just a member of the pack. And many of his answers seemed designed for a general election campaign, not for the primaries. This will further reinforce the suspicion that Romney isn’t particularly ideologically-rooted as a conservative, something that may result in primary voters continuing their search for an alternative.

Gov. Pawlenty, meanwhile, also failed to really break out in the way that he needed to. Pawlenty was arguably the obvious consensus choice on stage as a mainstream conservative former governor with proven crossover appeal. He needed to use tonight to introduce his brand to GOP voters, which is why his responses to many of the queries were broad and all-encompassing. His response to foreign policy questions had to touch on 9/11. Otherwise, casual voters just tuning in might not realize that he’s a strong-on-defense conservative. His response to the cultural questions had to drift off into the land of conservative judges, because that’s one of the most important issues to social conservatives. And so on. In so doing, it was hard for Pawlenty to really address the intracacies of the specific questions he was asked. But more to the point, Pawlenty committed an unforced error with his decision not to attack Romney on health care just one day after creating the moniker, “ObamneyCare” to describe President Obama’s appropriation of the Massachusetts health care reform. Pawlenty should either have never used that line of attack in the first place, or should have been prepared to attack Mitt from across the stage tonight. This was sloppy on the part of Team Pawlenty, and it may suggest that the mechanics of the campaign aren’t running as smoothly as they ought to be if Pawlenty is ever going to catch on.

As for the others, what is there to say? Old and busted? Cain-Mania. The pizza man seemed off his game tonight, and had even fewer policy specifics than usual. The new hotness? Michele Bachmann. The congresswoman was good at hiding the aspects of her persona that strongly suggest to voters that she partakes in an occasional sip of Kool Aid. And she will almost certainly supplant Cain as the Tea Party Flavor of the Month. During the previous debate, a lot of casual GOP voters likely thought to themselves, “Wow! A Black American candidate who is also a conservative? No one has ever thought of running such a candidate before! We have to nominate this man!” These voters, of course, don’t eat, live, and breathe politics, which is why a candidate like Cain seemed novel to them, even though plenty of non-Caucasian conservatives have run for, and been elected to, public office. Now, these voters will move to Bachmann as the leggy conservative in the race who will appeal to them for the same reasons that Cain did for a week or so. Whether Bachmann has staying power remains to be seen. She would be a disaster in a general election though, when the Kool Aid aspects of her candidacy would be revealed to swing voters.

To round out the field, Santorum is in over his head, Ron Paul seemed as if he was sneaking a swig from a hidden flask in between questions, and Newt will remind voters of a grandfatherly figure who deserves lots of respect, but who shouldn’t be put in charge of anything. All in all, there was no winner tonight. And that makes a potential presidential run a very attractive option to folks like Rick Perry.

Let’s be honest, tonight’s event is the first “real” debate of the 2012 presidential election. Therefore, the stakes are much greater than they were in the South Carolina debate.

The big show starts in 30 minutes and can be viewed live on CNN.com if you don’t have access to TV. And, as always, have at it in the comments.

Here is Candy Crowley’s thoughts on expectations for tonight:

There was a great deal of speculation about where ‘orphaned’ voters would go after the spate of withdrawals in May, with most of the interest of course on Mike Huckabee’s supporters. While the dust hasn’t settled yet (and we may get a bit more dust when Newt Gingrich either withdraws or finishes his collapse), we’re beginning to get some ideas about how the shake-out is going.

I maintain a database of polls and do monthly charts (the latest is here) of a rolling average of the five most recent national polls. Here’s a comparison of the results of the last five polls before Huckabee’s withdrawal and the most recent five polls:

A couple observations:

• Romney has picked up five points, a nice gain of just over one-sixth of the orphaned voters — almost identical to the one-sixth he held previously. So he got his fair share of the orphans.
• Palin has clearly gained the most, especially proportionate to her previous total.

Before supporters of either start up the victory parade, it should be noted that neither has anything near a number befitting the title of front-runner. The questions are whether either will rise much more and how much the gains they have made are dependent on mere name recognition (i.e., did some former Huck/Trump supporters merely answer with whatever name they recognized that wasn’t Gingrich?).

A few more observations:

• Gingrich, Bachmann, and Paul have dropped despite the smaller field. Gingrich is easy to explain, but Bachmann and Paul are another matter (though their decreases are small in absolute terms).
• Pawlenty continues to go nowhere. What happened to all those SoCons who were supposed to jump to him?
• Cain can’t be compared, since he was seldom included in polls up to a month ago. But clearly he has carved out a niche.
• Contrary to my statement above about Palin having gained the most, one could argue that the biggest gainer is None of the Above. As the Total column shows, this number has risen from 17.2 to 32.8 — an increase of over 90%.

Much of the increase for None of the Above may be attributed to Rudy Giuliani, who is intermittently being included in polls (not regularly enough to track). He’s getting some decent numbers when he is included, though that could, as with Romney and Palin, be attributed to name recognition.

If she is, she has somehow managed to play Fox like a fiddle, something that still doesn’t seem to pass the smell test. But that’s the takeaway line from the most recent exhaustive tell-all from a Palin confidant:

But in spite of being approached by Sarah’s husband Todd only a month ago and specifically discussing the possibility, I won’t be working on any Palin presidential campaign. Why? Well, first of all, contrary to what geniuses like Andrew Sullivan and Howard Dean may want you to believe, there is absolutely no way that she can be elected. I’ve told this to her directly; more than once. While many pundits mistakenly think what she is doing is some Trump-like PR stunt, I’m pretty convinced she is running and in doing so will damage the prospects of any conservative defeating Barack Obama in 2012.

I’m not sure what more there is to say on Palin, as any arguments will assuredly fall on deaf ears. I simply don’t think there is a single persuadable left among Republican primary voters with regard to a Palin run. Those opposed to her either find her ideology offensive, a group that is likely very small among Republicans given her success at breaking from the Bush/McCain camp after the election, or they believe she lacks the skill set necessary to be president, or they suspect that she is unelectable, or some combination of that. Those who support her either believe that she can reverse her catastrophic numbers among the general electorate between now and Election Day, or would prefer to lose with Palin than win with someone else.

Either way, the number of likely Republican primary voters who are undecided on whether they would support Palin in the primaries could probably fit inside a phone booth. As such, the seeming perma-debate over Palin across the conservative blogosphere seems counterproductive, or at the very least a waste of time. Opinions on Palin are set in stone at this point. And I still think she’s not running.

This will probably be remembered as the year of the showdowns in state legislatures and the U.S. Congress. It was bound to happen sometime, and now that time has come.

In those states where the governor is of one party and the legislature is controlled by the other party, or split; and in Washington, DC where the president is a liberal Democrat and the House of Representatives is controlled by conservative Republicans, the confrontation is epic and historic.

The Democrats, the liberal party, want to preserve as much as possible many New Deal entitlements and programs, and to raise taxes as much as they can to pay for them. The Republicans, the conservative party, want to scale back or eliminate as many of the entitlements and liberal programs as they can. They have told voters, at both the state and national level, that they will not raise taxes. More than any time in the recent past, the two parties are canyons apart on the issues, and unlikely to arrive at the usual kind of compromises in the usual way.

The Republicans received some mandate in the 2010 national and state elections when their candidates won massive victories on these issues. But now that individual Republican governors and legislatures are following through on their promises, there are second thoughts by some voters as they see entitlements and programs disappear. In most states, balanced budgets are constitutionally required. In Minnesota, the governor is a liberal Democrat (there called the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party or DFL) and both houses of the legislature are decisively in Republican control. The conflict between the two sides over revenue and expenditures was not resolved in regular session of the legislature, and in the interim, the two sides have not moved much closer to a resolution. On July 1, lacking an agreement to balance the state budget, the state government will close down. Massive layoffs of state employees, and severe cutbacks of state services and facilities (such as state parks) will take place. Each side perceives that the public will side with it at this point, and an argument can be made to support each of their views. Normally, the DFL would have the advantage, since voters traditionally do not like to be inconvenienced. But will this year be different?

This is the mystery about this state’s showdown and all the others. Has the public at large realized the time has come to change the fiscal road governments in most states, and at the federal level, have been traveling? Social Security used to be the third rail of U.S. politics. Conservatives would suggest reforms, and liberals would batter them at the polls by scaring voters that their entitlements would be taken away. Finally, that is no longer true, and there seems to be widespread acceptance of extending the age at which Social Security benefits begin and other basic reforms. But Medicare/Medicaid now appears to be a new third rail, and proposed conservative reforms are not a slam dunk as a recent special election in New York state may indicate.

We live in a time of extended economic recession, marked by chronic unemployment, depressed prices in real estate, very low interest rates, and a general lack of confidence in economic prospects by both consumers and entrepreneurs.

As I see it, the voters’ choice is only about the timing and circumstances of a general change of direction of national and state economic policy. They can vote for Republicans in 2012 (and for centrist Democrats who agree that change must happen) and expect a somewhat orderly transition. Or they can return liberal Democrats to power in 2012, and passively wait for profound economic axes to fall. Either way, the entitlements will be eliminated or be reduced. The difference will be the level of hardship and suffering, since orderly transition will likely be much less brutal and sudden than a transition brought on by stock market collapse, industry failures, general economic chaos, and sudden government paralysis.

We do live in a representative democracy, and voters do have choices. They demonstrated this in 2010. In 2012, they will have to make choices again. The issues are the same, but the stakes are greater. While democracy is clearly the best for of government in the world, no one said it would only be a summer picnic.

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

Race 4 2012′s New Hampshire debate open forum will go live at 7:30pm EST.

CNN has released their latest horse race poll on the 2012 GOP hopefuls. Here are the results along side those of their poll from only two weeks ago:

(*Based on 433 Republicans — Sampling Error: +/- 4.5 Percentage Pts.)

Romney and Palin are the only two hopefuls who managed to increase their standing in two weeks. All the other ones either declined or remained the same. Paul and Pawlenty almost dropped by half. Giuliani dropped from first place to third.

Palin is showing numbers in the twenties, which has to be good news for her and her supporters.

***Update ****

Here’s a gem located deep inside of CNN’s results:

Just your best guess… Regardless of who you support, which Republican candidate do you think is
most likely to win the Republican nomination for president next year?

Is Romney starting to be viewed as “inevitable”? That would explain Pawlenty’s sudden switch from Mr. Nice Guy to attack mode.

Saturday morning at 8:00 AM I received a call from 2012 US Senate candidate Daniel Bongino. Bongino is 37 year old Republican from Maryland who’s goal is to take on incumbent Ben Cardin in the general election. Bongino has an extensive background in law enforcement, serving four years in the New York City police department and twelve years in the Secret Service, serving under President’s Clinton, Bush, and Obama. Bongino left the Secret Service in early May. He has a Master’s degrees in Psychology and an MBA from Penn State University. Bongino and his wife have founded and run a number of successful small businesses. He was genuine, knowledgeable, and open to any question I was ready to throw his way. When asked about his platform, Bongino said, “I’m not just trying to tote the conservative line, [this is my platform] because these policies work.” I agree. What follows is the transcript of my interview with Bongino and some additional comments.

Matthew Newman: What grade would you give our incumbent Senator?
Daniel Bongino: An unequivocal F. Capital F. Failure in every regard – tax issues, education issues, second amendment issues, economic issues, and social issues. An F across the board. But, I give him an A for politics. In 44 years, he’s become quite the expert.

MN: As a first time candidate, how difficult do you feel it will be to compete in the primary or general election against more seasoned, political veterans?
DB: It is going to be difficult, no doubt about it. Maryland is not an enormous state, but it is difficult to traverse…our message is strong. I feel my message in the primary is the strongest. My ideas on education, health care, and the economy are strong and resonating. In 12 years of research on macroeconomic policy. You know what I found? You spend your money better than other people do. Not surprising.

(more…)

Mitt Romney first pounced upon Obama’s cavalier dismissal of those “bumps in the road” in his Faith and Freedom Conference address. He continues that theme with this new ad.

Romney continues to hammer the president on his failed economic policies. The expected bad economic news due out this week will not help Obama’s cause:

The full calendar of economic data in the coming week should help paint a picture of what is happening in the second quarter. Economists have been downgrading the second quarter and now mostly see growth under 3 percent.

Producer and consumer inflation data are released Tuesday and Wednesday, respectively. Retail sales for May are reported Tuesday, and industrial production is Wednesday. “Everyone’s thinking gloom and doom here. The glass is half empty,” said Chris Rupkey, chief financial economist at Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi.

And hitting home for those “bumps in the road”:

Oppenheimer Asset Management chief investment strategist Brian Belski said the stock market’s focus is going to [be] most particularly on weekly jobless claims on Thursday, which some analysts say must show signs of improvement before stocks can recover. “I think it’s going to be a longer and more drawn out correction. Next week we’ve got some numbers coming out. We’re all going to be waiting for Thursday,” he said.

The claims number has been elevated above 400,000 since April, and is expected to fall slightly to 420,000. “…the question is what’s happening with unemployment claims. As long as they stick above 400,000, there are some downside risks to the forecast out there,” Rupkey said.

(emphasis added)