Last Friday, Mitt Romney was conducting a New Hampshire Town Hall, when he was asked about Global Warming/Climate Change. Romney answered the query by stating his belief the Earth is getting warmer and man may have some role in causing it. Romney’s response set off a furor within the Talk Radio and Blogosphere circles, culminating in Conservative potentate Rush Limbaugh to proclaim, “Bye, bye Nomination.”

However, Rush and Co. may find they have their collective asses in a bit of a sticky wicket, considering Romney’s potential 2012 GOP rival, Sarah Palin also once believed in Global Warming.

That’s right, you read that correctly.

Sarah Palin believed in Global Warming. And apparently “man-made” global warming at that:

“I believe that man’s activities certainly can be contributing to the issue of global warming, climate change.” – Sarah Palin, Sept 2008

From the Alaskan Government website on Climate Change:

“On September 14, 2007, former Governor Sarah Palin signed Administrative Order No. 238, officially forming the Alaska Climate Change Sub-Cabinet (see Press Release). The Sub-Cabinet is charged with preparing and implementing an Alaska Climate Change Strategy. This will be a transparent document which deals with state policies for anticipated climate change.

The Sub-Cabinet’s strategy will discuss:

• Building the state’s knowledge of the actual and foreseeable effects of climate warming in Alaska
• Developing appropriate measures and policies to prepare communities in Alaska for the anticipated impacts from climate change
• Providing guidance regarding Alaska’s participation in regional and national efforts addressing causes and effects of climate change

On September 21, 2007, former Governor Palin signed on as an Observer to the Western Climate Initiative (WCI). The WCI is a collaboration launched in February 2007 between the Governors of Arizona, California, New Mexico, Oregon and Washington to meet regional challenges raised by climate change. Other States and Canadian Provinces have joined, some as partners, some as observers.”

During the 2008 campaign, Palin seemed to be in agreement with McCain and the newly adopted GOP platform accepting GW exists. But Palin did not believe that man was the cause. Evidently, that did not sit well back at McCain campaign headquarters, so Palin, as only she can, embarked on a verbal tour of reiterating her positions. According to ABC News ( yes I know a disreputsable source):

The subject was global warming, covered in Chapter 2 of ABC’s multi-part interview with the Alaska governor whom John McCain cast as his running mate. Just a few weeks ago, in an interview with conservative Newsmax, Palin had this to say:

‘I’m not one … who would attribute [global warming] to being man-made’

“Asked about that view by anchorman Charlie Gibson in a clip played on “Nightline,” her initial response was: “I believe that man’s activities certainly can be contributing to the issue of global warming, climate change.”

A shift, to be sure, but note the use of “can be” instead of “are.”

But to be fair, Palin’s position on Global Warming would best be expressed by the Governor herself. So here are to clips of Palin articulating her positions on the issue, on two separate occasions (here and here).

Now Palin, in the opinion of this author, was in a position to act responsibly while Governor, to review the scientific research at that time and act accordingly. And she did. Palin has also been against the Liberal big government policy solutions, such as Cap & Trade, American Only compliance on clea air initiatives and any indusrty regulations which would hamper growth of the US economy or energy production. In fact, Palin’s former positions on the issue were basically Mitt Romney’s positions on the issue.

In April 2009, just a few months before Palin resigned her Governorship, she gave a speech, in which she seemed to be warming up to some GW solutions:

“Many believe that in order to mitigate these long term and systematic changes it will require a national and global effort to decrease the release of human produced greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. However, simply waiting for low carbon emitting renewable capacity to be large enough will mean that it will be too late to meet the mitigation goals for reducing CO2 that will be required under most credible climate change models, including the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) modeled scenarios”

So again we see Palin addressing human behavior in the role emissions play in the global warming issue and a need to address it.

However, there has been a significant shift in the thinking regarding the entire Global Warming issue, with may on the right taking a decidely more strident and skeptical view, in light of the scandal involving the dubious nature of the scientific research. Talk Radio, a major component of Palin’s fan base, led the policy charge.

Palin appears to have gauged the sentiment on the right was shifting, and in order to curry favor and remain in good stead with them, began taking issue with the science involved. Resorting to her new found talent for social media, in December 2009, Palin tweeted:

“Copnhagn Climate Summit;Obama should boycott in light of bogus “findings”Public leary re:snake oil science,he must take stand on climategate”

In February 2010, Palin moved further away from her previously held beliefs, when she gave a speech in Californina, in which she described the so called studies supporting global climate change a “bunch of snake oil science.”

Does this mean Sarah Palin now believes the entire issue is a fraud?

Meanwhile, Romney has maintained his position on GW in a consistent manner since they were established. His response in New Hampshire last week, which was not played on the Rush Limbaugh, outlined Romney’s views, which werefully fleshed out in his book – ‘No Apology’ – and even generated applause. So while Romney has not flipped and remained true to his beliefs, even in the face of partial right-wing ire and skepticism, the real question is:

Did Sarah Palin, in order to retain the favor of her ardent media supporters, Global Warming deniers Rush Limbaugh and Mark Levin, sell out her beliefs and flip-flop on the issue, rather than stand up like a true Mama Grizzly, for her previously well stated position, for crass 2012 political opportunism?
And if she did, isn’t that just a form of right-wing “finger in the wind” pandering?

Mama Grizzly indeed.

*H/T’s to Bosman, Hamaca and Pablo for referencing their excellent works in preparation of this post.

______________________________________________________________________________

-Doug NYC GOP also blogs at RightSpeak

Much has been made about Sarah Palin showing up in New Hampshire the same day as Mitt made his big announcement. Ever the gentleman, Mitt refused to get upset and said instead that Sarah did him a favor by helping him avoid overexposure.

Well, Sarah apologized on the air a day or so ago. She said she didn’t mean to step on anybody’s toes and ended up paying Mitt a compliment on his fiscal policy.

Click here to view

Did you notice where Chris Wallace didn’t ask or prompt her to apologize? She apologized on her own. That shows some genuine class on her part.

I have said more than once that Mitt and Sarah seem to have a great relationship. Neither one of them has slammed the other. In fact, they have each defended the other on more than one occasion.

I will never forget when David Letterman attempted to get Mitt to criticize Sarah. Mitt’s reply left David completely nonplussed with egg on his face.

Yes, it is true that Sarah did recently express her differences with Mitt on healthcare when she was asked if she thought MassCare would be a problem for Mitt. Her answer was honest, fair and completely above board. She IS a paid political analyst after all. She was asked to give some political analysis on the current frontrunner. You could hardly expect her to say that MassCare posed no problems to Mitt, could you?

Sadly, the partisans on either side aren’t always as gracious. They can get rather vicious at times when describing the other. This is truly unfortunate.

To few surprises, the general election in 2012 will focus on a handful of red states that Obama won over in 2008. Both Team Obama and the RNC has made public a rough sketch of the electoral map they will be fighting for next November, and some of the decisions are quite revealing.

First, the RNC’s nine-state strategy:

Republicans Lay Out 2012 Electoral Map: “In a memo obtained by The Fix, RNC political director Rick Wiley notes that Virginia is one of nine states — Indiana, North Carolina, Ohio, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Iowa and Florida are the others — that Obama won in 2008 and President George W. Bush carried four years earlier.”

These nine Bush/Obama states represent 112 electoral votes that the RNC thinks they can snag from the blue column in 2012.

For their part, Team Obama is content playing defense for now in many of those same states:

The early focus is on the same collection of states that Mr. Obama carried in 2008, with the exception of Indiana, which advisers believe is out of reach. But among these, strategists are digging deeper into Colorado, Florida, Nevada, North Carolina and Virginia — where census figures show surging populations of Hispanics and blacks, groups that supported Mr. Obama in 2008 by wide margins. The campaign sees possibilities for gains, for example, around Charlotte, N.C., which is where Mr. Obama chose to hold his party’s nominating convention next year, a decision that aides said signaled how serious they are about competing in North Carolina.

So Obama is ceding one state off the top – Indiana – to the GOP, and will focus on re-winning the other 27 states he won in 2008.

I recognize it is early in the race and strategies will shift based on who the GOP nominee is; however, both of these strategies have immense shortcomings.

For the Republicans to simply focus on the nine Bush/Obama states leaves out many other states we have a decent shot of winning: most notably, New Hampshire, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. Plus, this nine-state strategy requires us to win both Florida and Ohio – if we lose one of the two, there is no path left to victory.

And the fact that Team Obama is focusing almost solely on identity politics in order to hold onto the barely-blue states from 2012 is wonderful news for the GOP in my opinion. It is a tacit admission that his policies have failed and all he has to fall back on is increasing the black and Hispanic vote in those states. If the Republicans can make any sort of inroads with Hispanics whatsoever, it ought to cripple the Obama strategy.

A Romney/Rubio ticket, anyone?

At any rate, it looks like according to the RNC and Team Obama, the map for 2012 will begin like this:

I would argue depending on who our nominee is and how bad the economy is, it ought to start like this:

So prediction time: where does it go from there?

It’s becoming increasingly clear that Gov. Tim Pawlenty did himself a world of good by laying out his pro-growth economic blueprint at the University of Chicago yesterday, with the old Reagan supply-side crew, having spent years in exile after the Bushes took over the Republican Party, giving the governor high marks for his advocacy of lower, flatter tax rates, real cuts in government spending, export-driven trade, and a stronger dollar. But beyond the philosophical underpinnings and policy specifics of Pawlenty’s plan lies another component, one which politicos are only subconsciously picking up on. For the first time this cycle, a Republican presidential candidate has emerged who is approaching this country with a sense of optimism, and with the belief that America doesn’t have to accept its supposedly imminent status as just another Western nation, a geopolitical relic that will soon be a satellite of an ascendant Southeast Asia.

As America continues to seemingly sputter along, it becomes easy to believe that the nation’s best days are behind it. We are living in an era far removed from that of 1945, when a victorious nation, having triumphed over the threat of Fascism, sat atop the world, economically and politically dominating the once great empires of Europe, which were barely visible through the post-war haze. Nations like China and India were still considered the mysterious Orient, as America dominated the world economy, with the sky being the limit to anyone willing to work hard and play by the rules. The American Dream was almost tangible, and as it was exported throughout the globe, the existential threat of Communism soon collapsed from within.

But that dream seems to have made way for the new normal of semi-permanent mediocrity, as productivity and innovation now seem to be the niche of our competitors, while Americans seem to be floating along like shades in the ancient Greek concept of the afterlife, never quite reaching Elysium. As growth recedes, public coffers go dry, all while the number of Americans demanding public support expands. The nation nears bankruptcy, as faint laughter can be heard from long-dead European intellectuals, suggesting that they’d warned us about how a democracy only survives until the populace learns that it can vote itself endless largesse from the public treasury. All of the sudden, the wisdom of the Athenians who gave us democracy seems in question. Heck, even Greece is going bankrupt.

And so as America’s long winter purportedly begins, the Republican response to President Obama’s managed decline has largely presented itself in the form of shared sacrifice. From the hinterlands of the North, seemingly emanating from the frost of the Rust Belt, emerged leaders like Chris Christie, Scott Walker, Mitch Daniels, and Paul Ryan, explaining to Americans the cold, hard mathematical facts on the ground, insisting that Americans eat their vegetables. But the average American, who was already hurting due to a lack of growth, had no desire to hear that he or she must endure yet more sacrifice. Hence the declining approval ratings of the new class of Republican Rust Belt governors. Hence the shot across the bow that was the NY-26 special election, where an ancestral Republican district elected a Democrat to office in response to the rise of “eat your vegetables” Republican-ism. That election sent shock waves throughout the GOP establishment, and it became apparent that the icy Republican message needed to be thawed.

It is against that backdrop that Gov. Pawlenty has revealed his economic vision for the country. And for the first time in awhile, Republicans have a prospective leader who is selling growth, not decline, who is offering choices, not sacrifice, and who is promising morning in America, not dusk over our great nation. Note Pawlenty’s description of his Medicare plan in his interview with Larry Kudlow, where Pawlenty describes how seniors are going to have a choice between traditional Medicare and escaping the system for something better. This sort of packaging is important. Americans dislike cuts. But they like choices. Also note Pawlenty’s emphasis on growing the economy, instead of focusing on all of the tax deductions that are going to have to disappear, something that is inevitable as part of any tax reform plan. That’s because Pawlenty understands that you don’t sell sacrifice. You sell growth. You also don’t sell the past. You market the future. Pawlenty isn’t getting rid of Amtrak or the USPS. He’s replacing a 1940s solution with a 2011 solution.

I suspect that a lot of those casual, middle-of-the-road voters in NY-26 who rejected the Republican message in 2011 would be open to what Pawlenty is selling in 2012. What was rejected by these voters was the dour, dispassionate message of Daniels, the brusque approach of Christie, and the attempt by Ryan to draw red lines through chunks of the federal budget and expect Americans to be adult enough to accept it. What a lot of Republicans didn’t count on was that Americans, adult or otherwise, really want someone who can take a step back and, to use Bill Clinton’s phrase, feel their pain. And then to do something about it in an optimistic manner that recognizes that America’s best days can be ahead of us. That’s what the frost-bitten Republican leaders of the North are missing. And it’s that very spirit of growth, choice, and opportunity that is being spearheaded, ironically, by a man from the tundra of Minnesota.

Quinnipiac Republican National Primary

• Romney – 25% (18)
• Palin – 15% (15)
• Cain – 9% (-)
• Gingrich – 8% (5)
• Paul – 8% (5)
• Bachamnn – 6% (4)
• Pawlenty – 5% (4)
• Santorum – 4% (1)
• Huntsman – 1% (1)
• Johnson – 0% (1)
• Don’t know – 20%

Survey of 830 Republican primary voters was taken May 31-June 6 and has a margin of error of +/-3.4%. Numbers in parentheses are from their poll which ended May 1.

General election matchups below the fold…
(more…)

Don’t just take my word for it, read what Aaron Blake, of the Washington Post, had to say:

Presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty unveiled an ambitious series of tax cuts on Tuesday that harkens back to the economic policies proposed by Ronald Reagan during his 1980 presidential campaign.

But in fact, Pawlenty’s proposal goes a step beyond “Reaganomics” in some ways. It slashes the corporate tax rate more than Reagan did, reduces defense spending rather than raising it to record levels like Reagan did, raises the Social Security retirement age, and places control of services like the Post Office out of the government’s control.

Aside from the obvious and essential fact that Pawlenty-nomics (not nearly as catchy of a name as Reaganomics or Obamanomics, sadly…) would finally re-set the United States on a clear and ambitious growth agenda, a stark and much-welcome contrast to the prospect of – at best – stagflation under President Obama’s watch.

The always-insightful James Pethokoukis says as much in a fantastic review of the Pawlenty address:

Tim Pawlenty should be praised for decisively rejecting the declinism that has infected much of the Washington and New York elite. His speech Tuesday at the University of Chicago was a robust reminder of all that once was good in America and could be again.

He then adds the following:

Overall, U.S. GDP growth has averaged 3.3 percent over the past 50 years, with roughly half coming from a growing labor force (1.6 percent) and half coming from higher productivity (1.7 percent). But with America aging, annual labor force growth is expected to slow dramatically to just 0.5 percent. The McKinsey Global Institute thinks a higher retirement age and smarter immigration policy could boost that rate to 1 percent or so. But even then, productivity growth would have to increase to 2.3 percent long term just to maintain that historic growth rate.

The good news is that McKinsey thinks that’s possible, too. One move it recommends is enhancing the U.S regulatory environment. Another is reducing marginal tax rates. Both actions are in line with the Pawlenty agenda. Pawlenty’s proposal to eliminate capital gains taxes would create a de facto consumption tax, which many economist think good for growth. He would also lower the top individual tax rate to 25 percent and the top corporate rate to 15 percent. And like McKinsey, Pawlenty thinks the federal government and healthcare sectors can made be much more efficient and productive. He also wants to sunset federal regulations.

The better news is that GDP growth of, say, 3.5 percent would take a huge chunk out of America’s long-term debt problem since the government’s long-range forecast assumes growth of just 2 percent. So Pawlenty is squarely on the right track. Higher growth is key to avoiding a debt crisis, not to mention improving the American standard of living. With the right policies, America can grow a lot faster than what the pessimists in the Congressional Budget Office and center-left think tanks believe.

The Pawlenty campaign should bookmark this article and refer to the information contained within it as often as possible. I strongly urge everyone to read the entire thing. To top it off, today Pethokoukis Tweeted that Pawlenty’s proposals attracted a very warm reception from “key” minds behind Reaganomics.

With recent economic news and data further discrediting the ineffectiveness of Keynesian policies, which the Obama administration – and the Democratic Party as a whole – has embraced wholeheartedly, Republican candidates have a colossal opportunity to present a clear contrast and make compelling appeals to voters.

And unlike Democrats, Republican candidates won’t have simply rely on arguments rooted in emotion and fear. One need not look far to find a visual refutation of President Obama’s hailed “stimulus” plan, courtesy of non-partisan economic policy think tank e21:

Or how about the Dems’ new campaign tool, the Chrysler bailout? Even allies like WaPo have turned against it.

In short, the President’s re-election pitch will boil down to the following: “Things might still be bad, but you don’t wanna KNOW how much worse they would’ve been if those crazy Republicans stayed in power! Don’t give them the chance to blow up our fragile ‘recovery’, throw Granny off a cliff, and put countless teachers and policemen out of work!

If that represents the best they’ve got, they may find themselves in more trouble than they expect come next fall.

*Update*: Larry Kudlow, former Reagan administration economist, recently Tweeted the following:

Game-changer for @timpawlenty? Blockbuster supply-side growth and jobs plan forces @MittRomney to put new meat on his policy bones.

For those interested, Kudlow also interviewed T-Paw on his show tonight, as a follow-up to the speech:

Continuing their Presidential White Papers series, today the Club for Growth analyzed Gov. Romney. In short, they came away less than impressed. Their summary:

Because of his long tenure in public life, especially his presidential run in 2008, Mitt Romney is considered a well-vetted candidate by now. Perhaps to his consternation, he has developed an unshakeable reputation as a flip-flopper. He has changed his position on several economic issues, including taxes, education, political free speech, and climate change. And yet the one issue that he doesn’t flip on – RomneyCare – is the one that is causing him the most problems with conservative voters. Nevertheless, he labels himself as a pro-growth fiscal conservative, and we have no doubt that Romney would move the country in a pro-growth direction. He would promote the unwinding of Obama’s bad economic policies, but we also think that Romney is somewhat of a technocrat. After a career in business, quickly finding a “solution” seems to be his goal, even if it means more government intrusion as a means to an end. To this day, Romney supports big government solutions to health care and opposes pro-growth tax code reform – positions that are simply opposite to those supported by true economic conservatives. How much Romney’s philosophy of governance will affect his policy goals if elected, we leave for the voters to decide.

Read the entire thing to discover details of Mitt’s record and history that may unnerve Republican primary voters, along with legitimate bright spots. As the campaign heats up, don’t get surprised if Gov. Pawlenty begins to hit Romney on this information; T-Paw has already shown an inclination to tout publications from external political organizations, such as his grade from the Cato Institute, as evidence of his fiscal hawk credentials.

Following are some key quotes from Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s speech on economics that he delivered at the University of Chicago earlier today:

How are you enjoying your recovery Summer? That’s what the President said we were having. And that was last year.

Now — gas is nearly $4 a gallon. Home prices are in the gutter.

Our healthcare system — thanks to ObamaCare — is more expensive. And less efficient.

Unemployment’s back over 9%. Our national debt has skyrocketed.

Our budget deficit has grown worse. And the jobs and manufacturing reports are grim.

If that was a recovery — then our President needs to enter economic rehab. And the American people need to stop his policies. Cold turkey.

…

I promised to level with the American people. To look them in the eye. And tell them the truth.

I went to Iowa. And said we need to phase out federal ethanol subsidies. I went to Florida. And said we need to raise the retirement age for the next generation. And means-test cost-of-living adjustments for Social Security. I went to New York City. And told Wall Street that the era of bailouts — carve-outs — and handouts had to end.

I’m willing to tell Americans the hard truth. And I believe Americans are ready to hear it.

…

Let’s start with a big — positive goal. Let’s grow the economy by 5%, — instead of the anemic 2% currently envisioned.

Such a national economic growth target will set our sights on a positive future. And inspire the actions needed to reach it.

By the way — 5% growth is not some pie-in-the-sky number. We’ve done it before. And with the right policies — we can do it again.

Between 1983 and 1987 — the Reagan recovery grew at 4.9%. Between 1996 and 1999 —- under President Bill Clinton and a Republican Congress. The economy grew at more than 4.7%.

In each case millions of new jobs were created — incomes rose — and unemployment fell to historic lows. The same can happen again.

Growing at 5% a year — rather than the current level of 1.8% — would net us millions of new jobs. Trillions of dollars in new wealth. Put us on a path to saving our entitlement programs. And balance the federal budget.

…

We should start by overhauling the tax code. Its currently an anti-growth — nine thousand page monstrosity. That’s chock full of special deals for special interests. It’s main goal — seems to be to generate campaign contributions. Not jobs.

American businesses today pay the second highest tax rates in the world. That’s a recipe for failure — not adding jobs and economic growth.

We should cut the business tax rate by more than half. I propose reducing the current rate from 35% to 15%.

But our policies can’t just be about simply cutting rates.They must also promote freedom and free markets. The tax code is littered with special interest handouts — carve-outs — subsidies — and loopholes. That should be eliminated.

Such reform would not only help offset short-term revenue loss from the rate cuts. But it would also reduce cronyism — favoritism — and government manipulating markets for political purposes.

…

On the individual rates we need a simpler — fairer — and flatter tax system overall. I propose just two rates — 10% — and 25%.

Under my plan — those who currently pay no income tax would stay at a zero rate. After that — the first fifty-thousand dollars of income or one-hundred thousand for married couples — would be taxed at 10%.

Everything above that would be taxed at 25%. That’s it.

…

I have and will continue to outline specific proposals to reduce spending — reform government — and balance the budget. As mentioned I’ve already begun that process. With proposals regarding ethanol — entitlements — government employees — and Wall Street.

For example — I’ve proposed capping and block-granting Medicaid to the states. Raising the Social Security retirement age for the next generation. And slowing the rate of growth in defense spending.

But we can’t trust Congress to do it. We cannot allow the situation to risk being unresolved. And take down America’s potential for growth and prosperity.

So — I propose that Congress grant the President the temporary and emergency authority. To freeze spending at current levels. And impound up to 5% of Federal spending. Until such time as the budget is balanced. If they won’t do it — I will.

As an example — cutting just 1% of overall federal spending for 6 consecutive years — would balance the federal budget by 2017.

…

The post office — the government printing office — Amtrak — Fannie and Freddie were all built for a different time in our country. When the private sector did not adequately provide those services. That’s no longer the case.

What’s more — the same competitive efficiency that revolutionized America’s private sector over the last three decades — should at long last be applied to every corner of the federal bureaucracy as well.

It is no longer enough for government to go on a diet. Government needs to hit the gym.

One efficiency program — Lean Six Sigma — already has a proven track record. Using performance-based management practices to streamline programs at the CIA and the Pentagon. And — as I can personally attest — various agencies of the Minnesota state government.

If we applied this approach throughout all federal agencies — we could save up to 20% in many programs.

…

I will require sunsetting of all federal regulations. Unless specifically sustained by a vote of Congress. Under my administration — the NRLB will never tell an American company where they can and cannot do business.

…

Congress should ratify completed free trade agreements with South Korea — and Colombia. And complete the agreement with Panama. We should start new bilateral talks with our trading partners. To promote our exports.

President Obama set a goal of doubling exports. Yet his policies have prevented this. Mine will achieve it.

Finally — even if we are successful in changing the way Washington taxes — spends — and regulates. Many of the gains we’d realize could be lost by the continued debasement of the dollar. As a result of the loose-money policies of the Fed.

A strong dollar undergirds all that we do for economic growth. Inflation cruelly undermines the life savings — and life prospects of every American.

One of the components of Pawlenty’s economic plan that critics seem to be jumping on is his supposedly unrealistic tax cut. But as Pawlenty makes clear in this address, it is tax reform he is seeking, with deductions and loopholes disappearing alongside the lower rates that he is proposing. In addition, Pawlenty seems to be proposing entitlement reform, cuts to discretionary domestic spending, slowing the growth of the defense budget, expanding trade in a way that increases American exports, and strengthening the dollar.

Of course, Pawlenty will eventually have to present to the nation a greater number of specifics about his plan, such as which tax deductions he plans to eliminate, how he intends to reform Medicare, and what sorts of discretionary cuts he envisions (e.g., does he support Pat Toomey’s plan to freeze discretionary domestic spending, or to roll back spending to 2006 levels?). I think Pawlenty is being purposely vague as of now in order to put off the imminent attack ads that will come from all corners once the specifics are released. I don’t fault the governor for refusing to attack, say, the mortgage interest deduction (or whatever) at this time, but I do hope that Pawlenty will be ready and willing to get into the details as the campaign progresses.

Catfight!!!!!!!!!!!

Michelle Bachmann’s new top consultant, Ed Rollins, began his tenure with scathing criticism of potential Bachmann rival Sarah Palin.

“Sarah has not been serious over the last couple of years,” Rollins told Brian Kilmeade on his radio show, Kilmeade and friends. “She got the Vice Presidential thing handed to her, she didn’t go to work in the sense of trying to gain more substance, she gave up her governorship.”

He suggested that the contrast would favor Bachmann.

“Michele Bachmann and others [have] worked hard, she has been a leader of the Tea Party which is a very important element here, she has been an attorney, she has done important things with family values.”

Ed Rollins didn’t title his book, Bare Knuckles and Back Rooms, for nothing.

More seriously though, I suspect that we’re about to see two “sub-primaries” in the early states, with Iowa’s Tea Partiers and evangelicals going for one another’s throats, and with Romney, Huntsman, and perhaps Rudy engaging in a Granite State knife fight. What the candidates involved in these clashes are missing is that all of this negativity has the potential to create a “Dean v. Gephardt” dynamic, circa 2004, that drags all of the combatants down and allows a reasonable candidate who stays positive to clinch the nomination.

Sarah Palin announced last week that she is “…going to Sudan in July and hope to stop in England on the way. I am just hoping Mrs Thatcher is well enough to see me as I so admire her.” The only trouble is, nobody thought to ask Lady Thatcher.

From the Independent:

When Ms Palin does arrive in London, she may be thwarted in her ambition to meet the country’s only woman former Prime Minister. Baroness Thatcher had to stop making public appearances years ago because of ill health and is seldom at home for guests. A reception hosted by David Cameron in Downing Street to celebrate her 85th birthday had to go ahead without her.

An aide said: “Nowadays, the Lady rarely meets people at all. If a meeting went ahead it would be very much low-key, and would very much depend on how things were on the day. We don’t make firm appointments for this sort of meeting.”

…

Tim Montgomerie, of the ConservativeHome website, said: “When the idea was first discussed nine months ago, it was thought that David Cameron might agree for them to appear at a function at the same time so that they could be photographed, but since then her star has fallen so far that I don’t think even that would be thought necessary. She is an embarrassment for mainstream Conservatives.

Ouch! Anonymous sources were even less kind. From the liberal Guardian:

It would appear that the reasons go deeper than Thatcher’s frail health. Her allies believe that Palin is a frivolous figure who is unworthy of an audience with the Iron Lady. This is what one ally tells me:

Lady Thatcher will not be seeing Sarah Palin. That would be belittling for Margaret. Sarah Palin is nuts.

…

Margaret is focusing on Ronald Reagan and will attend the unveiling of the statue [of Reagan at the US Embassy]. That is her level.

It would appear that Mitt Romney isn’t the only one bedeviled by anonymous quotes in the media from so-called “advisers”, “insiders”, and “allies”. It will be interesting to see if C4P puts as much stock in this anonymous “ally” of Margaret Thatcher as they do in the always unnamed Romney “insiders” and “advisers” whom the media claim trash Palin.

Regardless of the accuracy of the sentiments expressed above, the fact remains that Sarah just made an unforced error. It is a mistake to announce a major event like meeting Margaret Thatcher without first making sure the British Conservative icon is available and agreeable to the meeting. If you don’t, you run the risk of having to wipe embarrassing egg off your face — not a pleasant experience.

If Palin plans on running for President, she can ill afford sloppiness such as this. These sorts of things can kill campaigns.

It’s PPP, but until somebody decent starts polling these early states, we have to go with what we’ve got:

Public Policy Polling / DailyKos (D) South Carolina Republican Primary (PDF)

• Romney – 27%
• Palin – 18%
• Cain – 12%
• Gingrich – 12%
• Bachmann – 9%
• Paul – 7%
• Pawlenty – 4%
• Huntsman – 2%
• Someone else / Undecided – 9%

Without Palin:

• Romney – 30%
• Cain – 15%
• Gingrich – 15%
• Bachmann – 13%
• Paul – 10%
• Pawlenty – 5%
• Huntsman – 2%
• Someone else / Undecided – 11%

If it came down to a two-person race:

• Romney – 55%
• Pawlenty – 23%

• Romney – 54%
• Bachmann – 29%

• Romney – 53%
• Cain – 29%

• Romney – 50%
• Palin – 38%

Favorable/Unfavorable Ratings

• Bachmann – 45/16
• Romney – 56/27
• Palin – 60/33
• Cain – 41/20
• Santorum – 31/16
• Pawlenty – 33/24
• Paul – 38/31
• Gingrich – 37/44
• Huntsman – 10/20
• Roemer – 4/16
• Johnson – 2/14

Survey of 1,000 usual primary voters was conducted June 2-5 and has a margin of error of +/-3.1%.

Pawlenty offers up his first major policy speech this morning in Chicago:

CHICAGO — Republican Tim Pawlenty was set to propose an economic policy Tuesday that would simplify individual tax rates to just three options and cut taxes on business by more than half as he offered himself as a replacement to Barack Obama in the Democratic president’s hometown.

The former Minnesota governor also was to propose that any services available privately, such as the postal services or mortgages, should not be something government handles. He said he would require a vote in Congress to extend any regulation or he would cancel it. And he said he would eliminate taxes on investments and inheritances…

Pawlenty was ready to propose a three-tier income tax system:

– The estimated 45 percent of U.S. households that did not pay income taxes in 2010 would see no change in their tax rates.

– Individuals would pay 10 percent tax on the first $50,000 of income. Couples earning $100,000 would also pay that rate.

– “Everything above that would be taxed at 25 percent,” Pawlenty said.

He also wanted to cut business taxes, reducing the current rate from 35 percent to 15 percent.And he proposed that taxes on investments, bank interest, stock dividends and inheritances should all be zero.

Pawlenty also suggested privatizing Amtrak, the Post Office, and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac: “The post office, the government printing office, Amtrak, Fannie (Mae) and Freddie (Mac) were all built for a time in our country when the private sector did not adequately provide those products. That’s no longer the case.”

Quite an aggressive plan proposed by Pawlenty this morning. What do you think? Is it practical? Doable? Desirable? I’ll leave my impressions in the comments.

Chris Cillizza has the encouraging news for Romney supporters:

As he ramps up his 2012 presidential bid, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney (R) has been actively recruiting major donors who did not support him four years ago — with impressive results.

Romney, who collected more than $100 million in 2008, has recruited at least 18 heavy-hitters (or “whales” in the political fundraising parlance) to help him secure the nomination this time around…

The list of new names is loaded with major contributors who backed Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) in 2008 including: lobbyist Wayne Berman, who served as McCain’s national finance co-chair, New York Jets owner Woody Johnson, New York Yankees president Randy Levine, oil magnate Kit Moncrief, philanthropist Mica Mosbacher, former Ambassador to Spain George Argyros and former Ambassador to Belgium Sam Fox.

Romney also has two major donors previously committed to Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels and his un-pursued campaign — attorneys Dan Dumezich and Bob Grand — as well as two people who had planned to back Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour’s presidential campaign: Austin Barbour, the nephew of the governor, and Bobbie Kilberg, the president of the Northern Virginia Technology Council and the 1993 lieutenant governor nominee in Virginia.

Lew Eisenberg, a major GOP money man who served as the co-chairman of the 2008 Republican National Convention, is also on board with Romney, as is Texas homebuilder Bob Perry, who has used his wealth to fund a number of conservative-aligned groups including Swift Boat Veterans for Truth in the 2004 election.

Perhaps most interestingly, Skybridge Capital managing partner Anthony Scarramucci, a former Obama donor, has signed on with Romney. (Scarramucci was a law school classmate of Obama but engaged in a high profile back-and-forth with the president in a town hall meeting last fall.)

The most interesting parts of this news to me are twofold: first, former Daniels and Barbour folks are landing at Team Romney (including Barbour’s nephew) along with some big RNC names. This would seem to indicate to me all the talk about “the establishment” not being satisfied with Romney is overblown.

Secondly, and more interesting to me, is the fact Bob Perry is now with the Romney campaign. Why is this interesting? Because less than a month ago, the Wall Street Journal reported that Bob Perry had signed on to be a fundraiser with the Pawlenty campaign (as reported here at R4’12 as well). Now, three weeks later he has shifted back to Romney.

So there are former McCain, Daniels, Barbour, Obama, and Pawlenty supporters all raising money now for Romney. With the latest news on the fund raising and polling fronts, this is a certainly becoming a good season to be a Romney supporter.

ABC News/Washington Post National Republican Primary (PDF)

• Romney – 21% (16)
• Palin – 17% (5)
• Giuliani – 8% (-)
• Gingrich – 6% (2)
• Paul – 6% (2)
• Cain – 4% (-)
• Pawlenty – 4% (1)
• Bachmann – 3% (1)
• Perry – 3% (-)
• Huntsman – 1% (*)
• Santorum – 1% (*)
• Johnson – * (-)
• Other / no opinion – 17%

General Election Matchups — All Adults

• Obama – 47%
• Romney – 47%

• Obama – 50%
• Huntsman – 40%

• Obama – 52%
• Gingrich – 42%

• Obama – 51%
• Pawlenty – 40%

• Obama – 52%
• Bachmann – 39%

• Obama – 56%
• Palin – 39%

General Election Matchups — Registered Voters

• Romney – 49%
• Obama – 46%

• Obama – 50%
• Gingrich – 44%

• Obama – 50%
• Pawlenty – 41%

• Obama – 50%
• Huntsman – 40%

• Obama – 51%
• Bachmann – 40%

• Obama – 55%
• Palin – 40%

Survey of 1,005 adults was conducted June 2-5 and has a margin of error of +/-3.5%. Numbers in parentheses are from the April poll.

Obama’s job approval rating spiked up from 47/50 to 56/38 in the aftermath of the bin Laden killing. In this survey, however, it has slipped back down to 47/49. Fifty-nine percent of adults now disapprove of Obama’s handling of the economy, a new high, along with 61% who disapprove of his handling of the federal deficit.

For Romney to be tied with Obama among adults is ridiculously good news; for him to be leading by three among registered voters is even better — I imagine that translates into a 5-6 point lead for Romney among likely voters at this stage in the game.

It seems obscenely early for this sort of discussion, but now that summer re-runs are upon us, giving me a dearth of new episodes of House with which to fill by Monday evenings, I have to find some way to entertain myself. As such, I’ve taken to playing with this nifty Electoral College calculator in order to create a variety of scenarios for the coming general election between the Republican nominee and President Obama. In so doing, I’ve come up with what I think is a reasonably likely result for a contest between the president and my preferred candidate, Gov. Pawlenty. My analysis will follow, but I think it would be fun for readers to use the comments section to predict how the candidate(s) of their choosing would fare against Obama in 2012 against the backdrop of these new Electoral College numbers. Also useful for this endeavor is this roll-over map of the state-by-state presidential election results from 2008.

Anyway, here’s my prediction with regard to an Obama/Pawlenty race.

First, I suspect that Pawlenty would win back the Southern states that defected to Obama in 2008. That gives T-Paw Virginia, North Carolina, and Florida. I also think that Indiana and Ohio, which are Rust Belt states, but traditionally Republican ones, going for Obama by only 1 and 4 points in 2008, respectively, would mosey back into the GOP column in a race against Pawlenty. If the best Obama could do in these states in 2008, the most Democratic election year in a generation, was to eke out a low-single-digit victory in each of them, then he is absolutely going to lose these states to a reasonable GOP nominee, and by reasonable, I simply mean a nominee who the base can live with, and who swing voters could stomach.

Shifting to the Southwest, I think that Nevada and New Mexico will probably stay in Obama’s column. They went for the president by double digits in 2008, and were significantly more Democratic than the national average. The GOP’s problems in these states don’t necessarily start and end with Hispanic voters, but the lack of a serious outreach to the Hispanic community by Republicans over the last few years has set the party back in these states. As such, I suspect Obama will hold onto these Southwestern states, and I also think that Colorado will very, very narrowly give the Democrats its electoral votes.

All of that said, I do think that Gov. Pawlenty has the potential to unseat the president, and I think that the Midwest and Rust Belt is the region that will give Republicans a win this time around. Both Iowa and Minnesota were only a hair to the left of the national average in 2008; Obama won both states by about 10 points, while he won the nation by 7 points. Pawlenty probably gets a few points for a home state, or home region, advantage in Iowa and Minnesota, meaning that in a close election, where the national vote is pretty much a tie, Pawlenty would be expected to snag both states.

Wisconsin and Michigan, however, will remain with the Democrats this time around. Michigan has one of the worst economies in the country, but also sports a very heavy Black American population, and I just don’t see the state betting against the first Black American president, for reasons of identity politics if nothing else. Meanwhile, Wisconsin Republicans have probably been dealt a one-two knockout punch given the way that Democrats are seething at both Gov. Walker and Rep. Ryan. Prosser’s victory earlier this year in the wake of Walker’s legislative agenda does give Republicans some hope, but Ryan’s presence in the state gives Democrats yet more ammo in the wake of the successful MediScare campaign that turned NY-26 blue just weeks ago. Wisconsin was significantly bluer than either Iowa or Minnesota in 2008 and will probably remain blue this time around.

Finally, I believe that Gov. Pawlenty is tailor-made to flip two more blue states, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania. The Granite State has never been particularly fond of the president. It gave Hillary a big victory in 2008 during the primaries, and unlike much of the rest of New England, participated wholeheartedly in the GOP sweep in 2010. Further, New Hampshire has always had a soft spot for politicians who give off the cultural cues of a working class Northerner (see Buchanan, Pat). Thus, I can see Pawlenty flipping the state. A similar analysis applies to Pennsylvania, where Hillary was more popular than Obama, and where Pawlenty should appeal to voters culturally, but it is also important to remember that Pawlenty knows how to win Northern suburbs, and as Pat Toomey showed, Northern suburban voters are the keys to victory in Pennsylvania. I suspect that Pawlenty would do just as well as Toomey in the suburbs and probably better in the Jack Murtha parts of the state, snatching the Keystone State from Obama’s grasp. That would give Pawlenty 306 electoral votes to the president’s 232.

So how would your candidate do?

Rasmussen asked 1,000 likely U.S. voters June 2-3, “Is _______ (candidate’s name) qualified to be President of the United States”? The results are as follows:

Several things stick out in this poll:

1. Mitt Romney leads in the number of Americans that thinks he is qualified to be President. His margin is more than 20 percentage points.
2. Sarah Palin leads in the number of Americans that thinks she is NOT qualified to be President. Nearly two out of every three likely voters do not think she is qualified to be President. She trails Tim Pawlenty and Romney by more than 30 points in this category.
3. More people are sure of their opinion of Sarah Palin than any other candidate.
4. John Huntsman has by far the largest number of unsure voters. Ten percentage points behind him is Pawlenty. These two have the greatest opportunity for growth.

The most worrisome numbers here have to be Sarah Palin’s. Leading the number of people who think you are unqualified, and at the same time being the one whom people are the most sure of their opinion about is not a good position to be in. She will have her work cut out for her if she decides to run.

How tough will it be for her? Consider that Rasmussen is reporting that “[p]erceptions of Romney and Palin are unchanged from a year ago”. It is very hard to change peoples’ minds once they are made up. The old adage, “You only get a single chance to make a first impression”, applies to politics as well as to real life.

Hers will not an impossible task by any means. But it will be a daunting one nonetheless

Today, the Romney campaign released another pseudo-advertisement:

Fantastic work, if you ask me; the video strikes exactly the right tone Mitt must take if he hopes to win. He’ll never win the devoted affection of the most fiery members of the party base (the “angry Tea Partiers”, if you want to invoke the media’s false caricatures), so he must play to his strengths and separate himself from the pack by consistently pushing an optimistic message of economic (and, therefore, national) growth and revitalization.

In a field with Pawlenty, who will corner the “personal touch” market, and Palin/Bachmann/Cain/Santorum, who will own the Tea Party vote, Romney doesn’t have a better angle to the nomination.

Aside from this, the video also does a tremendous job of portraying Mitt as presidential, in virtually every sense of the word – another of his competitive advantages (to utilize a term he undoubtedly knows and holds dear).

Today’s ad represents another impressive performance by the Romney organization, which has hummed like a well-oiled machine since the 2008 election.

Breaking news from ABC:

Experienced Republican operative Ed Rollins will play a key role, likely that of campaign manager, when Rep. Michele Bachmann announces her bid for the White House later this month, he told ABC News…

Rollins said he just returned from a two-week vacation and he was “trying to get his hands around” what it will take to put together a campaign organization for the Minnesota congresswoman and Tea Party favorite.

He also said he wanted to avoid some of the “stumbles” of other candidates in their initial campaign launches. Bachmann, he said, would be a “first-rate candidate, she deserves a great launch.”

Rollins, an experienced campaign manager, ran Mike Huckabee’s national bid in 2008 and helped Ronald Reagan win in the White House in 1984.

Rollins helped former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee win the 2008 Iowa caucus, the state where pundits think the socially-conservative Bachmann has the best chance of victory. Bachmann is expected to make her candidacy official later this month in Waterloo, Iowa the town where she was born.

This is big news for the once-third-tier candidate – especially and particularly in Iowa, where it will most likely propel her to first-tier status at Ames and in the caucuses. Rollins has the experience, knows the lay of the land, and understands how to win the state of Iowa. Bringing his expertise to Bachmann’s campaign lends her more of an air of legitimacy that she has been lacking.

UPDATE: CBS News also notes that Bachmann has hired “Brett O’Donnell, who advised George W. Bush and John McCain and is considered the best debate coach in politics.” Some big name gets for Bachmann…

Another fiscally troubled nation took a big step forward this weekend:

(RTTNews) - The ruling Socialist Party in Portugal has conceded defeat in the country’s general elections in the wake of exit polls forecasting a clear victory for the Opposition Social Democrats (PSD), reports said late Sunday.

…The exit poll predicts that the PSD will secure 37 to 42.5 per cent of the votes, while the Socialists’ vote-share is projected between 24.4 and 30 per cent.

…The PSD-led by Pedro Passos Coelho is now expected to form a majority government with the help of conservative CDS and the coalition government will be required to bring in swingeing cuts, a pre-condition for securing a 78 billion euro ($116 billion) bailout to rescue the country from a soaring budget deficit and a crumbling economy.

Seeing a candidate who campaigned on a platform of fiscal restraint and government spending cuts should give Republicans some hope for 2012.

In the wake of her campaign-style bus tour throughout the nation, many pundits believe that former Alaska governor and current Fox News contributor Sarah Palin is prepping for a Mama Grizzly-sized presidential run. The signs and signals are all there, say those certain of her endeavors. Her supporters are pumped, and those who dread her the most, such as former DNC Chair Howard Dean and Obama-supporter Andrew Sullivan, are huddling in holy fear given that the weakness of the current Democratic president could propel “that woman” into office. But despite all of this, I still maintain my belief that Sarah Palin is not running for president.

The basis for my near-certainty that Palin will stay out of the race lies in the treatment that she has received from her employer, Fox News, over the course of the past few weeks and months. Fox has approached a potential Palin presidential bid in a manner that is far, far removed from the treatment that it gave to three other possible presidential aspirants who were also on its payroll earlier this year. In the case of Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum, the instant that both men began to test the presidential waters, so to speak, Fox suspended their contracts with the network. Further, when Mike Huckabee spent Spring 2011 playing coy with the notion of a run, circling Mitch Daniels as both donned full Hamlet jacket, Fox repeatedly told Huckabee to put up or shut up regarding his intentions.

Indeed, so determined is Fox to ensure that Huckabee’s plans are set in stone that, in the aftermath of a report last week that Huckabee may be leaving his options open, Fox aired an interview with Huck on the subject of 2012 that felt more like an inquisition than anything else. Note that Fox nailed down Huckabee’s position on 2012 as a refusal to run absent a draft movement at a brokered convention.

Given all of the aforementioned evidence as to Fox’s discomfort with any ambiguity on the part of those on its payroll regarding a presidential run, one would expect that Sarah Palin would be garnering similar treatment right now from the folks at Fox. But instead, the opposite seems to be true. There have been no leaked reports of Fox pressuring Palin to make a decision. No contracts have been suspended or terminated. And instead of angst, Fox seems to be reveling in the Hamlet role that Palin is now filling. This weekend, Fox’s Chris Wallace called the governor “a serious candidate for president.” In the same interview, Palin told Wallace that she remains “50/50″ on a run, a quote that Fox is gleefully broadcasting at every juncture.

Whatever one thinks of Palin’s presidential prospects, it would not be intellectually honest to claim that she is receiving the same treatment as did Gov. Huckabee, Sen. Santorum, and Speaker Gingrich at the hands of the Fox network. Fox essentially gave pink slips to Gingrich and Santorum, and has taken every opportunity available to get Huckabee on record swearing off a presidential run. But in Palin’s case, Fox seems to be relishing every minute of her purported indecision. That suggests to me that the decision has already been made, and that Fox is well aware of Gov. Palin’s intention NOT to run for president.

As this report notes, Fox, or any other network, could be in deep trouble with the FEC should it be found giving free air time to a presidential candidate to essentially promote his or her campaign or attack his or her opponents. That would be classified as a prohibited campaign contribution, and would open a legal can of worms that Fox has thus far tried to avoid. Hence Fox’s skittishness and Spanish Inquisition treatment of Huckabee. It follows, then, that the network’s kid gloves approach to Palin shows that Fox is “in on the joke,” and that no FEC troubles will follow because no Palin run for public office is coming down the pipe. Instead, Palin will likely continue her role as a talking head and Fox News contributor.

So why the song-and-dance on the part of Gov. Palin? The reality is that Sarah Palin simply couldn’t shrug off a presidential run. Her supporters were too numerous within the GOP electorate, and believed in her too deeply. In order to give them a fair shake, she at least had to create the illusion that she was considering a run, thus allowing her to maintain the respect of her Palinistas when she bows out. This will preserve her role as a right-wing pundit, alongside folks like Rush and Ann Coulter, and will allow Fox to avoid being the network that pushed her into a decision not to run, thus becoming the enemy of every Mama Grizzly on the ground. My guess is that Palin’s decision will come near the end of the month, and will indeed be a decision to decline a presidential run.

The Club for Growth have released their Presidential White Papers on Mr. Herman Cain and former Senator Rick Santorum. Check out the entire articles.

For those who want the bottom line from each, I present to you the summaries.
Rick Santorum

On the whole, Rick Santorum’s record on economic issues in the U.S. Senate was above average. More precisely, it was quite strong in some areas and quite weak in others. He has a strong record on taxes, and his leadership on welfare reform and Social Security was exemplary. But his record also contains several very weak spots, including his active support of wasteful spending earmarks, his penchant for trade protectionism, and his willingness to support large government expansions like the Medicare prescription drug bill and the 2005 Highway Bill.

As president, Santorum would most likely lead the country in a pro-growth direction, but his record contains more than a few weak spots that make us question if he would resist political expediency when it comes to economic issues.

Herman Cain

Herman Cain has generally used pro-growth rhetoric during his time in public life but has not had to serve as an elected official to prove he would govern to match his rhetoric. Aside from his support for TARP, we have very little question, based only on his rhetoric, that Herman Cain would be a pro-growth president. We look forward to seeing more details about his economic policy proposals.

The Club for Growth has done a pretty good job assessing each of them and makes it very clear that any of these potential candidates would be more pro-growth than Barack Obama. If interested, check out their previously released white papers on Newt Gingrich and Tim Pawlenty.

_______________________________________________________

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

Mike Allen has the scoop:

Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R), who had played coy about a 2012 presidential run but did not seem to be seriously considering it, is now talking about the possibility with his biggest financial backers in Texas. If Palin doesn’t get in, he sees a path to the nomination. Makes no sense to some of the nation’s top Republicans, who think American has Texas fatigue, and who found Perry’s comments about Texas secession to be boneheaded. Perry is still more likely to challenge Jeb in 2016.

In a move clearly aimed at religious conservatives, Perry also announced over the weekend that he will be hosting a day of prayer and fasting for America in Houston this August. Officially titled “The Response, a Call to Prayer for a Nation in Crisis,” the event is co-sponsored by the American Family Association and the International House of Prayer. Perry said he will send out invitations to each of the other 49 Governors in the country to attend the event.

David Brody, of CBN’s The Brody File (a major player at times in the 2008 primary season), sat down for an interview with Jon Huntsman at the Faith and Freedom Coalition over the weekend. The two talked about the role of social issues in America and specifically civil unions – one of Huntsman’s more controversial stances in GOP circles. Some highlights:

On whether there should be a truce on social issues since the economy is doing so poorly right now:

“Well, social issues is the gel that binds us as people. That’s the gel that keeps generation after generation together. You’ve got to have societal values that allow young kids to grow up to be responsible adults and to carry on life in this great republic of ours. Those values, they transcend the generations and they’re about our beliefs and they’re about the respect we show one for another and they’re about understanding respect for the constitution, and life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness by the way, which is, I think, the bottom line of what we in this great country of ours believe in and aspire to so, it’s always important, not only to talk the numbers, not only to talk about the economy. A job is about the most important thing one can have in life. But you’ve got to talk about the gel that binds us as a country and as a society and we should always be talking openly about values.”

And on his support for civil unions:

“I would say that on traditional marriage I stand tall and proud for traditional marriage. You can’t re-open the definition of marriage, that would not be a good thing, It would be wrong for us to be discussing that. Subordinate to traditional marriage, one man one woman, I think we sometimes don’t do an adequate job in talking about equality and in addressing fairness: hospital visitations, reciprocal beneficiary rights, insurance. There are a lot of these issues that I think we can do better with as people in the name of fairness and in the name of equality. I’ve been somewhat outspoken on this for a while. It’s what I feel within and I’m not going to change my general direction on this. Some will understand it and agree. Others won’t. You know what? I respect everybody’s opinion on it. That’s just where I come down.”

Oh, and remember that insiders’ poll that showed the two candidates the Democrats most feared running against were Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman? Well, Rahm Emanuel admitted to George Stephanopoulos last week that one of the reasons Huntsman was appointed as Ambassador to China was to prevent him from running for President. Way back in 2009, the Obama administration made a calculation that they didn’t want to run against this guy – and believed it so strongly they sent him to China to get rid of him. Only their plan didn’t work…

Rick Santourm becomes the seventh official major GOP candidate in the 2012 primary season, announcing this morning on Good Morning America that he is “in it to win” despite his longshot bid for the nomination:

“We’re in it to win and very excited about what the future holds,” Santorum said. “We’ve got a great team and in the early primary states we’ve got a lot of momentum.”

Santorum is expected to appear on local news outlets later in the morning, followed by an 11 a.m. courthouse speech in rural southwestern Pennsylvania coal country, where his Italian immigrant grandfather once worked in the mines. He lost his last election five years ago to Democrat Robert Casey, 59 percent to 41 percent…

In a recent Gallup poll, only 2 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents preferred Santorum to other possible presidential contenders, placing him third-to-last in a field of 12.

Santorum joins Romney, Pawlenty, Cain, Gingrich, Paul, and Johnson as major contenders for the nomination; Michelle Bachmann and Jon Huntsman are expected to announce later this month.

When CNN, WMUR, and the New Hampshire Union Leader announced the candidates they had chosen to participate in their June 13th presidential debate, I was as surprised as anyone to see that an experienced, two-term Governor like Gary Johnson had been excluded, even though he routinely polls above some of the other invitees, and even though several of the invitees have not even so much as formed an exploratory committee.

CNN explained their criteria for inclusion, by stating that an individual could qualify for the debate in one of three ways:

1. A candidate must have received an average of at least 2.00 % in at least three national polls released between April 1 and April 30 that were conducted by the following: ABC, AP, Bloomberg, CBS, CNN, FOX, Gallup, Los Angeles Times, Marist, McClatchy, NBC, Newsweek, Pew, Quinnipiac, Reuters, USA Today and Time.

2. A candidate must have received an average of at least 2.00 % in at least three national polls released between May 1 and May 31 that were conducted by the following: ABC, AP, Bloomberg, CBS, CNN, FOX, Gallup, Los Angeles Times, Marist, McClatchy, NBC, Newsweek, Pew, Quinnipiac, Reuters, USA Today and Time.

3. A candidate must have received an average of at least 2.00 % in polls of New Hampshire voters conducted by the University of New Hampshire Survey Center released between May 1 and May 31.

Two discrepancies stood out to me:

One: the first requirement for inclusion in CNN’s debate is that the individual be “a candidate,” whereas some of the invitees not only are not candidates, they have not even taken a single official step toward becoming one.  CNN’s own definition of a potential invitee is “a candidate”.

Two: CNN only used the versions of polls that included the names of spoiler non-candidates (individuals who should not have been eligible for invitations anyway).

Gov. Johnson does qualify for the June 13th debate under the “2.00% average of three polls in the month of May” category.

In the May 27th CNN poll, three different surveys were taken.  One including spoiler non-candidates Giuliani and Palin, one including spoiler non-candidate Palin but not Giuliani, and one including neither Giuliani nor Palin.  In the survey that did not include the two spoiler non-candidates (who, as non-candidates, were not eligible for invitations anyway, under CNN’s objective criteria), Johnson earned 2%.

In the May 26th Gallup poll, two different surveys were taken.  One including spoiler non-candidate Palin, and one not including spoiler non-candidate Palin.  In the survey that did not include the spoiler non-candidate, Johnson earned 3%.

In the May 4th Quinnipiac poll, only one survey was taken, and Johnson earned 1%.

Taken together, Gov. Johnson qualifies for inclusion in the debate, by averaging 2.00% in three polls during May.  The only way Gov. Johnson does not qualify is if one uses the versions of the polls that include the names of individuals who are not candidates (as CNN’s criteria defines a potential invitee), and have made no formal moves toward becoming a candidate.

I call upon CNN, WMUR, and the New Hampshire Union Leader to reassess their poll math, in light of the fact that the versions of the polls they used included the names of individuals who are non-candidates (and therefore not eligible for invitations), rather than the versions of the polls whose lists of names most closely reflect the actual field of candidates.

If you agree, then contact the debate sponsors and sign this petition.

In an interview with The Hill, Howard Dean said, “I think she could win. She wouldn’t be my first choice if I were a Republican but I think she could win.”

Dean goes on to say,

“Any time you have a contest — particularly when unemployment is as high as it is — nobody gets a walkover. … Whoever the Republicans nominate, including people like Sarah Palin, whom the inside-the-Beltway crowd dismisses — my view is if you get the nomination of a major party, you can win the presidency, I don’t care what people write about you inside the Beltway,”

First the Senate unanimously voted down Obama’s budget. Then Harry Reid and other prominent Democrats flat out rejected Obama’s call for Israel to retreat to the pre-1967 borders. Then Congress gave the Israeli Prime Minister’s speech to a joint session a warmer reception than Obama got for this year’s State of the Union address.  Then Obama’s request for an unconditional raising of the debt ceiling was overwhelming voted down in the House with many senior Democrats including Nancy Pelosi voting against the president. Now Howard Dean, the former DNC chairmen is talking about the much maligned by Liberals and Democrats Sarah Palin being able to defeat Obama.

The Obama administration is becoming more and more isolated. In response, they are falling back to the two things they know best how to do — campaign and blame others. It is truly an administration in trouble.

From Reuters:

President Obama is pointing to problems in Japan and Europe as challenges for the U.S. economy, placing some blame on events abroad for a domestic recovery that is showing signs of slowing down.

…

[It] is a political challenge for the president, whose re-election in 2012 may depend on his ability to convince voters that his economic policies have been successful.

Part of his pitch will include steering attention to outside forces as causes for economic woes at home.

The president did just that in his weekly radio and Internet address, broadcast Saturday, by highlighting “head winds” that are affecting the United States.

“Even though our economy has created more than two million private sector jobs over the past 15 months and continues to grow, we’re facing some tough head winds,” he said.

“Lately, it’s high gas prices, the earthquake in Japan, and unease about the European fiscal situation. That will happen from time to time. There will be bumps on the road to recovery.”

(emphasis added by MBL)

It’s always somebody else’s fault with this guy. Blaming Bush is passé now, so he has to find someone else to throw under the bus. So why not our European and Japanese allies? They can keep Israel company under there.

Does this guy have a foreign policy worthy of the name? If he does, it is very difficult to detect. Mitt Romney has pointed out this lack of discernible foreign policy a number of times. Obama seems to be making it up as he goes.

(Mitt also made the point that those aren’t “bumps on the road” as Obama so cavalierly labels them. They’re Americans.)

The only consistent foreign policy this president seems to have is to offend our friends and coddle our foes. One would think you could expect better from the reputed smartest person ever to hold the office. Yet such is not the case.

It is now less than twenty months to January 2013. Can we endure Obama’s incompetence that long?

Ralph Reed held his Second Annual Faith and Freedom Conference this week in Washington, D.C.. A number of 2012 GOP hopefuls were invited to speak. Four of them spoke last night. One of them was Mitt Romney.

Here is Mitt’s address, including his introduction by his wife, Ann. Click to watch:

Reuters had this to say about his speech:

Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, who announced his bid this week, began his 2008 presidential run talking largely about social issues. His 2012 run has begun with an emphasis on the economy.

Romney told the crowd the sputtering economy is a “moral crisis” and criticized the White House for saying the rise in unemployment represented “bumps on the road to recovery.”

“No, Mr. President, that’s not a bump, that’s Americans,” Romney said. Unemployed people are not statistics, he said.

The talk was well received. Mitt was mobbed afterward. That didn’t happen to any of the other three hopefuls that night. Said one commentator :

When The Gov’s Faith & Freedom speech ended last night, he was inundated by the excited crowd; so much so, that after waiting for a few minutes, the emcee had to interrupt the crush to introduce the next speaker.

If you check the tape of all the hopefuls, you will see that none of the other speeches got that reaction. Here are the links to the speeches, the introductions, and the aftermaths of the other three hopefuls last night so you can judge for yourself:

Tim Pawlenty

Donald Trump (On again, off again hopeful)

Ron Paul

What did I think of their speeches? I was not impressed with Trump. Paul was Paul. Pawlenty? Well let me put it this way. There’s an old saying, “You’ll never get a bad hamburger from McDonald’s. On the other hand you’ll never get a really good one, either.”

That pretty much described Pawlenty’s speech. It wasn’t bad. It really wasn’t. It was pretty good, to be honest. It just wasn’t that great. Hopefully it was an off night for him.

Jon Huntsman sketched out his plans to Politico for the five early state primaries in 2012, and it only includes three states:

“We will be competing vigorously here [New Hampshire], in South Carolina and in Florida.”

The obvious omissions are Iowa and Nevada. As to why he is skipping the first-in-the-nation Iowa caucuses, he pointed to ethanol subsidies:

Jon Huntsman confirmed in New Hampshire that he’s “not competing in Iowa,” according to ABC News, saying “I don’t believe in subsidies that prop up corn, soybeans and ethanol.”

It’s interesting that he’s calculated a lack of support for federal ethanol subsidies would cause him to lose Iowa, while Pawlenty has taken the opposite side of that gamble. Meanwhile, if you’re wondering what Huntsman has been doing since returning from China (since he hasn’t actively campaigned much), the answer is: fundraising.

The Wall Street Journal has an article highlighting some of the big name bundlers who have signed on with Team Huntsman, including many that Romney and Pawlenty were vying for, as well as two that bundled for Hillary Clinton (!) in 2008. The list includes:

• Georgette Mosbacher, former RNC finance chairman
• John Mack, Morgan Stanley chairman and a prominent George W. Bush bundler
• Peter Malone, McCain bundler in 2008
• Lady Lynn Forester de Rothschild, Hillary Clinton bundler in 2008 primaries, McCain supporter in general election
• Michael Ashner, courted by Romney and Pawlenty
• Scott Anderson, CEO of Zions Bank, also sought by Romney and Pawlenty
• Tom Loeffler, former George W. Bush bundler in 2000 and 2004, McCain bundler in 2008

When the fundraising totals for Q2 are released in July, I think there will be some pretty surprised folks because of what Huntsman has been doing behind the scenes the past couple of months.

After a series of recent announcements by possible Republican candidates for president that they would not run next year, a mood of disappointment in the conservative grass roots has emerged that has taken the form that the major candidates who said they would run were simply “not acceptable” to many in the grass roots.

The implication for the GOP is that a certain number of its base would stay home in 2012, as some of them did in 2008 when John McCain was the party nominee. That was a factor in the outcome of that election (just as was the huge turnout of black voters across the nation for candidate Obama). The net result was that Mr. Obama was elected president. His administration and his policies are now an anathema to these same grass roots voters who seem to be still looking for an “ideal” candidate.

I want to assert right here that neither party very often, if ever, presents the “ideal”candidate to the electorate in a national presidential election. Yes, this kind of candidate does emerge in races for governor, senator and congressperson because states and districts are more homogeneous than the nation as a whole. Mr. McCain was not a perfect candidate, and I did not agree with him on certain issues, but is there any doubt that the political and economic landscape would be dramatically different if he had been elected, and that many (but not all) of our crises would be closer to resolution?

I also want to assert that either Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich or Tim Pawlenty have what it takes to be good conservative presidents. Obviously, they are different from each other, and each has their strengths and weaknesses, but any of them would be an enormous improvement, as I see it, on the president we have now. Furthermore, one of these three men is likely (but of course not certain) to be the next Republican nominee. Yes, there are others already in the race, and a few big names may yet enter at the last minute, but barring the unforeseen, one of these aforementioned three will be the winner at the Tampa convention.

If I am correct (and I may not be of course), then many party activists, operatives radio talk show hosts,and funders will have to take a hard look at what they will do after the national party convention next September. Historically, this dilemma has faced each political party in the recent past. Democrats were grievously split in 1968 by the Vietnam War and following assassinations of two of its icons. The incumbent Democratic president was forced to retire, and a grass roots liberal candidate Eugene McCarthy emerged as the grass roots favorite. But it was Vice President Hubert Humphrey who won the nomination after a bitter convention, as was probably inevitable given the nationwide make-up of the Democratic electorate. McCarthy spitefully refused to endorse Humphrey until the last week (and then only half- heartedly), and many Democrats stayed home. The result was the election of Richard Nixon, a brilliant but flawed man who eventually brought on Watergate and the despoiling of the office of president. In 1976, President Gerald Ford, the first person in effect “appointed” to the presidency (following the Nixon resignation) was clearly a decent man, but he pardoned Nixon and this caused many who might have voted for him to stay home. The result was the election of Democrat Jimmy Carter whose presidency was marked by economic failure (and whose post presidential years have been an embarrassment). I am not suggesting that Gerald Ford was or would have been a great president, but history suggests that he would have been much better than the holier-than-thou busybody Carter.

The United States has a population which now exceeds 300 million. Now more than ever, it is a nation of many ethnicities, races and religions. It is also the quintessential middle class nation, the first and still the most vital democratic republic in the world. In spite of temporary economic problems, it is still the largest economy in the world. To be elected president of the United States, a man or woman must win a substantial vote in the nation’s political center, much of which owes no allegiance to either major political party. In some ways, Barack Obama is the most radical figure in the 20th century to win the presidency, but it took dissatisfaction with the Iraq War and a huge mortgage banking meltdown to enable him to win. At the time of his election, furthermore, he was not generally perceived to be the radical president he has become.

I am suggesting that Republicans of all kinds should be grateful that their nominee is likely to be Romney, Pawlenty or Gingrich. Each of them is authentically conservative, but also has appeal to the political center. The Democrats this time, and unlike in 1992 and 1996, have a nominee (and now incumbent) who increasingly appeals less and less to the political center.

It is several months until the primary/caucus season, and more than a year until the GOP convention in Tampa, so no one can say with certainty that unexpected events and candidates might not yet emerge. History suggests, however, that Republican voters, including more conservative grass roots voters, will be asked to vote a year from this November for someone who does not perfectly fit their political wish lists, but who will be a clear choice nevertheless.

Their decision may determine not only when national prosperity will return, but whether this democratic republic will be able to face and resolve the fearsome challenges which lie ahead.

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