Gov. Perry issued the following statement on Vice President Joe Biden’s comments regarding China’s one child policy:

“China’s one child policy has led to the great human tragedy of forced abortions throughout China, and Vice President Biden’s refusal to ‘second-guess’ this horrendous policy demonstrates great moral indifference on the part of the Obama Administration. Americans value life, and we deserve leaders who will stand up against such inhumanity, not cast a blind eye.”

Hat-tip: The Argo Journal.

Rasmussen 2012 Presidential Survey

• Barack Obama 39% (41%) {42%} [44%]
• Ron Paul 38% (37%) {34%} [35%]
• Some other candidate 14%
• Undecided 8%

>Survey of 1,000 likely voters was conducted August 15-16, 2011.  The margin of error is +/- 3 percentage points.  Results from the poll conducted June 26-27, 2011 are in parentheses.  Results from the poll conducted March 20-21, 2011 are in curly brackets. Results from the poll conducted between January 17-18, 2011 are in square brackets.

Inside the numbers:

Paul picks up 61% of the Republican vote, while 78% of Democrats fall in behind the president. Voters not affiliated with either of the major political parties prefer Paul by 10 points – 43% to 33%.

Seventy-six percent (76%) of Tea Party members support Paul. Fifty-one percent (51%) of those who are not members of the grass roots smaller government movement opt for the president.

Paul leads Obama by 11 points among male voters but loses female voters to the incumbent by a similar margin. Voters under 30 prefer the president, while Paul edges the incumbent in all other age groups.

The president leads among voters who earn $60,000 or less a year, while the GOP candidate is ahead among those who make more.

-Data compilation and analysis courtesy of The Argo Journal.

Once again, the Club for Growth has produced new Presidential White Papers on the policy / history of candidates. This time, here’s the one for Rick Perry. Here’s the summary:

When evaluating members of congress, it is somewhat informative to look at the partisan nature of their congressional district in the case of a House member or their state in the case of a Senator. When evaluating a Governor, it is even more instructive to judge performance in the context of the political climate of their state and the partisan and ideological composition of their legislature. Working in the environment in which a Governor finds him or herself, the operative question is often whether he or she improved or worsened the climate for economic growth.

The Texas tax and regulatory climate Governor Rick Perry inherited from Governor George W. Bush was already among the best in the nation. Further, during Perry’s entire long tenure as governor, the Texas Legislature has had conservative Republican majorities. So the bar for judging Perry’s performance should be set high.

It is quite clear that Perry did not move his state in reverse, or on the wrong course. In many instances, he merely maintained a positive status quo. In others, such as tort reform and regulations, he improved the Texas economic climate.

Still, his support for taxpayer-subsidized funds to lure jobs away from other states shows he has at times an interventionist streak rather than consistent free-market principles. His semi-apology for the big government interventions of President Bush suggests a similar inclination.

Should Rick Perry become President, he will inherent a far worse economic climate than he has in Texas, as well as a less hospitable Congress than he has in the Texas Legislature. It is quite likely that Perry would seek to move the country in a much more pro-growth direction. Almost any movement in the direction of the Texas approach would be welcomed. However, given some actions in his record, it is questionable whether Perry will maintain his steadfast fiscal approach when faced with a less favorably inclined legislature than he is accustomed to.

_______________________________________________________

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

I guess this means we’re looking at a Romney/Perry race. Gulp:

With some establishment Republicans starting to fret over Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s chances in a general election and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney’s ability to win the GOP nomination to face President Obama, speculation continues to roil the party about a possible new entrant in the 2012 presidential contest.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie? House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan? Former Florida governor Jeb Bush? All have said they are not interested.

And now, in an interview this week, Bush predicted that the eventual Republican nominee is already in the mix.

“It’s jellin’,” said the former Florida governor. “The field is pretty well set.”

Without Ryan, Christie, or Jeb, there are a dearth of potential White Knights remaining who could scoop up both the GOP establishment and the pitchfork-wielding base. That leaves Romney as the candidate of the establishment (with Huntsman nipping at his heels) and Perry as the candidate of the base (with Bachmann and Palin both circling the Texan in the event that he stumbles).

Given yesterday’s Gallup Poll showing Romney narrowly besting Obama, and Perry tied with the president, in potential general election matchups, will the desire by the Republican base to beat Obama result in pragmatism trumping primal urges in the coming race for the nomination? Or will the base decide that the Texan is “close enough” to Obama to go long on a Perry nomination? What if America wakes up the day after the presidential election to find that the president has narrowly won a second term over Nominee Perry, perhaps by a razor thin margin of 50-49, with exit polls showing that a Nominee Romney would have flipped the race on its head and beaten Obama by a similarly narrow margin?

I suspect that such a result will yield a political environment similar to the one faced by the country after the re-election of President Nixon in 1972. Like Nixon, Obama will have won by running solely on foreign policy accomplishments, and largely due to the inability of the challenging party to nominate someone that the general electorate could stomach. Indeed, the nomination of George McGovern occupies a special place in presidential history, as it constitutes an election in which Democrats decided to nominate the candidate who best represented the uninhibited id of their party’s base, someone who boldly and unabashedly proclaimed and embodied mid-20th Century American leftism. In so doing, Democrats got the sort of election result that such a strategy deserved.

If Republicans this time around are intent on nominating whichever candidate will pander most to the base’s primal fears, President Obama just may find himself winning a second term on a 40 percent approval rating. That will likely lead to a lackluster second term for Obama, and another four years of domestic woes for the nation. But just as McGovern’s nomination was followed four years later by the nomination of someone who appeared to be a reasonable Southern Democrat, so might a loss by one of the GOP’s primal candidates result in a Ryan, Christie, or Rubio nomination in 2016.

PPP (D) Iowa 2012 GOP Caucus Survey

If the candidates for President next year were Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, Jon Huntsman, Sarah Palin, Ron Paul, Rick Perry, Mitt Romney, and Rick Santorum, who would you vote for?

• Rick Perry 21%
• Mitt Romney 18% (21%) {25%}
• Michele Bachmann 15% (11%) {10%}
• Ron Paul 12% (8%) {15%}
• Sarah Palin 10% (15%) {15%}
• Newt Gingrich 7% (12%) {15%}
• Herman Cain 6% (15%)
• Rick Santorum 5%
• Jon Huntsman 3% (0%)
• Someone Else/Undecided 4% (8%) {11%}

(more…)

EPIC-MRA Michigan Republican Primary

• Romney – 32%
• Perry – 17%
• Bachmann – 12%
• Gingrich – 5%
• Palin – 5%
• Paul – 5%
• McCotter – 1%

Survey of 210 likely primary voters was conducted August 13-16 and has a margin of error of +/-6.7%.

EPIC weighs in with their first take on the GOP primary in Michigan, and the leader is no surprise: Romney up double digits in a state where he has roots. Perry’s second place showing is perhaps better than expected. This truly is becoming a two-man slugfest — everyone else is fading away.

I am not a beleiver in the Divine Right of Incumbent Republican Senators. If there’s a primary challenge to be had, I’m usually up for it.

Arlen Specter? Let’s do it.

John McCain? Right on!

Bob Bennett? Go for it!

Richard Lugar? Absolutely!

But now that Jason Chaffetz is out of the picture in the Utah Senate, let me be the first to say, it’s time to rethink national involvement in the Utah Convention and national support for the ouster of Orrin Hatch.

How bad is Orrin Hatch? His career ACU Rating is 89.47%. Since 1992, with the exception of one year when he had a C+, the National Taxpayers Union has awarded him a grade of between B- and A.  He received an A+ grade from the NRA last time around.

Is Hatch perfect? Heck no. He’s definitely much more of an establishment guy in terms of who he supports in elections, being on the opposite side of the Tea Party in races like the Pennsylvania Senate race in which he suggested Pat Toomey couldn’t win back in 2009. Hatch has also had some votes that conservatives haven’t liked in his career, but a lot more that they have.

If Chaffetz had been the candidate against Hatch, conservatives might have had a shot. Chaffetz is a solid guy who has a great future in Utah politics. After 36 years, there’s a good case for giving someone else a chance, and Chaffetz could be that voice for the future. With Chaffetz out of the race though, it appears that many of the groups involved at their core have only pique as their rallying cry against Senator Hatch. And that’s not going to be enough. While Hatch has had his break with conservative orthodoxy, he hasn’t made the effort McCain and Bennett did to establishment himself as a self-righteous maverick who looks down on the very people who make it possible for him to get elected.

There’s also this. After 36 years, we know what type of Senator Orrin Hatch is and what he stands for. We know his integrity and character. With a new Senator, it’s always a gamble.

One fact remains: resources for conservatives are not inexhaustable.  There are many Conservative Congressman up for re-election. If you want to kick out an incumbent Republican, I’d suggest Dick Lugar. In addition, Democrats have multiple Senate seats up, many of which could be won by a good conservatives. If conservatives waste their energy and resources on difficult to win races against fairly decent incumbents, they’ll find themselves short of the money needed to fight the races that really matter.

In addition to Paul Ryan declining a presidential run once and for all, today produced various other news stories regarding 2012.

First and foremost, Jason Chaffetz has decided against running for the Senate:

Saying that the battle to limit the federal budget “cannot wait,” the tea party-backed rising star explained that he didn’t want to devote his energy to a campaign — even one he’s “convinced I could win.”

“I’ll continue fighting for fiscal discipline, limited government, accountability and a strong national defense. That’s why I was elected. That’s what I’m doing. That’s where my passion is,” Chaffetz wrote in a statement. “Ultimately, I can spend the next 15 months doing my job, or I can spend the next 15 months campaigning to do Senator Hatch’s.”

At the end of July, Chaffetz said he would “probably” run and that “people are ready for a change.”

The decision comes as a huge relief for Hatch, who has been busy courting tea party voters, and as a disappointment for national groups who hoped to oust the six-term incumbent.

The same goes for Tea Party firebrand Alan West:

That leaves former Sen. George LeMieux, former state Rep. Adam Hasner, former Ruth’s Chris Steak House CEO Craig Miller and retired Col. Mike McCalister in the primary to take on Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.).

Chaffetz and West would have faced different situations in their hypothetical primary campaigns: Chaffetz would have become the virtually unanimous favorite of the Utah Republican base against longtime Sen. Orrin Hatch, whereas West would have had to compete with Adam Hasner, billed by some as “the next Marco Rubio”, for Tea Party and base support. Of course, none of this musing now matters, but isn’t always fun to think, “What if?”

Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad had some distinctly positive things to say about Rick Perry today:

“I think he did a tremendous job at the Iowa State Fair,” said Branstad, a fellow Republican. “I thought he was as relaxed and confident and at home at the Iowa State Fair as anybody I’ve ever seen and I’ve seen a lot of them. He comes from a farm background, he’s a former agriculture commissioner, he’s a graduate of Texas A&M.”

Branstad added: “Only thing, in Texas they always say how big everything is and we tend to downplay and understate here. But I think he came across very well.”

Despite these compliments, I would not expect Branstad to make any formal endorsement until very late in the game, if at all.

Former NY Gov. George Pataki apparently thinks he may have a shot in the 2012 race:

His aides say he’s seriously looking at running – getting serious about getting serious, if you will – and as part of that look, George Pataki is heading back to Iowa this weekend.
Continue Reading

Polk County GOP officials said the former New York governor is set to attend a party picnic there this weekend.

I can’t say I agree at all with Pataki. If you’re looking for a former Northeastern governor to back, you’ve already got an enticing option. If you want someone clearly positioning himself as moderate-leaning, well, then you’re also all set.

Lastly, it seems that more media outlets have started to come around to the opinion expressed here at Race on multiple occasions, that Rick Perry will look very hard into tapping Rudy Giuliani as his VP if he wins the nomination.

For a candidate who’s far behind in the polls and in need of traction there’s nothing better than free publicity and free media. One such candidate, Governor Jon Huntsman, is certainly hoping all his upcoming media appearances translate into some much-needed publicity for his bid. The Huntsman campaign released the following email/media schedule for the Governor:

Friend,

In just the last five days, our campaign has experienced a huge surge in website traffic and more than 10,000 new followers on Twitter – far outpacing any other candidate – not to mention a record amount of online donations.

Governor Huntsman’s campaign is energizing voters across America who are desperately seeking a serious, experienced leader with real solutions to turn our country and economy around.

Yesterday morning, Governor Huntsman appeared on ABC’s news program “This Week”, and he will continue his media blitz this week to spread his message and share his vision in a series of television appearances you won’t want to miss:

Monday: Piers Morgan (CNN) @ 9:00 p.m. ET – part 1

Tuesday: Squawk Box (CNBC) @ 8:30 a.m. ET

Tuesday: Piers Morgan (CNN) @ 9:00 p.m. ET – part 2

Thursday: Neil Cavuto (Fox News) @ 4-4:30 p.m. ET

Thursday: PBS Evening News Hour – check your local listings

Saturday: The Mike Huckabee Show (Fox News) @ 8:00 p.m. ET

Sunday: Meet the Press (NBC) – check your local listings

Our nation is facing severe problems, and to solve them we need serious, responsible leadership, not partisan rhetoric.

Unlike his opponents, Governor Huntsman will not pander for votes; he will continue to level with the American people about the tough choices ahead and bring people together to enact long-term solutions.

Be sure to catch the Governor on television this week, and if you like what you hear, please consider a donation of $5, $10, $25 or more. Your participation is critical to our campaign’s success.

Sincerely,

Matt David
Campaign Manager

The appearance on Meet the Press ought to be very interesting, especially since David Gregory does not play nice with Republicans. Stay tuned. Also, it will be interesting to see how Huntsman and Huckabee hit it off. There will be more music-playing former Governors on stage than we’ve probably ever seen.

From the official release:

“The world is about to be rid of Muammar el-Qaddafi, the brutal tyrant who terrorized the Libyan people. It is my hope that Libya will now move toward a representative form of government that supports freedom, human rights, and the rule of law. As a first step, I call on this new government to arrest and extradite the mastermind behind the bombing of Pan Am 103, Abdelbaset Mohmed Ali al-Megrahi, so justice can finally be done.”

Gallup 2012 Presidential Survey

• Mitt Romney 48%
• Barack Obama 46%

• Barack Obama 47%
• Rick Perry 47%

• Barack Obama 47%
• Ron Paul 45%

• Barack Obama 48%
• Michele Bachmann 44%

Survey of 879 registered voters was conducted August 17-18, 2011. The margin of error is +/- 4 percentage points.

–Data compilation and analysis courtesy of The Argo Journal.

He apparently was a lot closer to running than people thought, but in the end decided against a run:

“I sincerely appreciate the support from those eager to chart a brighter future for the next generation. While humbled by the encouragement, I have not changed my mind, and therefore I am not seeking our party’s nomination for President. I remain hopeful that our party will nominate a candidate committed to a pro-growth agenda of reform that restores the promise and prosperity of our exceptional nation. I remain grateful to those I serve in Southern Wisconsin for the unique opportunity to advance this effort in Congress.”

This leaves the anti-Perry Bushworld folks and other establishment types with only a few options; get behind Romney now, make one last push for Chris Christie, or go out on a limb with Huntsman.

ARG Survey on President Barack Obama and the Economy

Do you approve or disapprove of the way Barack Obama is handling his job as president?

• Approve 41%
• Disapprove 53%

Do you approve or disapprove of the way Barack Obama is handling the economy?

• Approve 40%
• Disapprove 55%

Survey of 1,100 adults was conducted August 17-20, 2011. The margin of error is +/- 3 percentage points.

-Data compilation and analysis courtesy of The Argo Journal.

Rasmussen 2012 Presidential Survey

• Barack Obama 50% (47%) {48%} [49%] (46%)
• Sarah Palin 33% (38%) {38%} [38%] (43%)

Among Independents

• Barack Obama 51%
• Sarah Palin 30%

Among Men

• Barack Obama 44%
• Sarah Palin 38%

Among Women

• Barack Obama 56%
• Sarah Palin 29%

Surveys of 1,000 likely voters were conducted August 11-12, 2011.  The margin of error is +/- 3 percentage points.  Results from the poll conducted July 16-17, 2011 are in parentheses.  Results from the poll conducted between March 10-13, 2011 are in curly brackets. Results from the poll conducted between January 7-10, 2011 are in square brackets. Results from the poll conducted November 24, 2009 are in parentheses.

Inside the numbers:

If Election Day was right now, President Obama would defeat the former Alaska governor 50% to 33%, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. This marks the first time that the president has risen out of the 40s in hypothetical matchups with any of the major GOP presidential hopefuls. Fifteen percent (15%) prefer some other candidate, and two percent (2%) are undecided. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

Last month, Obama posted a 47% to 38% lead over Palin, the GOP’s unsuccessful vice presidential candidate in 2008.

Palin earns support from 62% of Republicans, while 88% of Democrats back the president. Voters not affiliated with either party prefer Obama by a 51% to 30% margin.

Obama holds a narrow 44% to 38% lead over Palin among male voters, but women prefer the incumbent by a sizable 56% to 29% margin.

–Data compilation and analysis courtesy of The Argo Journal.

Ryan Streeter is out with a lead editorial in today’s ConservativeHome in which he argues that the candidate who talks about “upward mobility” and not just “jobs and growth” will have the greatest appeal in the election next year.  I could not agree more.  Streeter’s commentary is built around comments made last week on C-SPAN by Gov. Mitch Daniels of Indiana in praise of Rep. Paul Ryan.

Last week on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal, Mitch Daniels was asked about Paul Ryan. Instead of praising Ryan’s work on entitlements and the deficit, for which Ryan is well-known, Daniels took a different angle and said Ryan would “do whatever it takes to restore upward mobility in this country, to restore the conditions for a stable, broad middle class.”

Of all of the people either running for President or among those who were once seriously considering a bid, Daniels is the only one who talks like this. Had he run for President, he would have been the upward mobility candidate.

While the leading candidates talk about “jobs” and “growth,” Daniels is talking about mobility and the middle class.

It’s not enough to create more jobs if they’re dead-end jobs. It’s not enough to have growth that only benefits the upper 20 percent of American households. Jobs and growth matter in so far as they are part of an opportunity society in which it’s still worth it for everyone, regardless of life’s station, to pursue a dream, aim high, take risks, and have a reasonable expectation that hard work will propel you to a life that is better than your parents enjoyed. The gauge for how we’re doing isn’t the upper middle class, but the middle class itself.

The upward mobility candidate would be the one who says:

1. Cutting spending and reforming entitlements are necessary but not enough;
2. Job growth and GDP growth are necessary but not enough;
3. Accelerating the rise of median income in America (without doing so through redistribution) is the key indicator of how prosperous America really is.

But, as Streeter points out:

For some reason other conservatives have a hard time laying out economic objectives this way. They rightly resist falling into the rhetoric of class warfare while wrongly neglecting to take seriously the very real difference in America between the opportunities enjoyed by the affluent and those available to everyone else.

Oddly, and for whatever reason, the GOP field largely ignores upward mobility. Doing so isn’t even good politics. Independents are much more likely to support a Republican who lays out an appealing program of upward mobility in America than one who focuses mostly on cuts. And Tea Partiers will gladly follow the candidate who is able to demonstrate how limiting the government goes hand-in-hand with a vision for increasing upward mobility in America.

Upward mobility is what people care about. Who hears a mother on the sideline of a soccer field talking about GDP growth? She’s much more likely to be talking about the things she and her husband are doing to help their children get a shot to move up in the world.

The “upward mobility” theme should also have strong appeal among the burgeoning Millennial generation that we have discussed recently on this site.  Read the entire Streeter commentary here.  It is worth noting, btw, that the most recent presidential candidates to emphasize  the importance of creating a political environment where in all Americans have the opportunity to move upward were Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton.

From the official release:

Boston, MA – Mitt Romney today announced the endorsements of current and former elected officials in Georgia.

“I am pleased to receive the endorsements of so many great leaders in Georgia,” said Mitt Romney. “I look forward to working with these leaders to reverse the failed policies of the Obama administration, put Americans back to work, and get the economy turned around.”

“Georgians are suffering under the leadership of President Obama. Mitt Romney is the candidate with the vision and experience to turn around the failing economy,” said House Majority Whip Edward Lindsey. “As governor, he balanced the budget without raising taxes and created jobs. He has the experience in both the private and public sectors to get Americans back to work.”

Georgia Attorney General Sam Olens has also endorsed Governor Romney.

 

Georgia Elected Officials Endorsing Mitt Romney:

·         Former House Speaker Mark Burkhalter

·         State Senator Bill Hamrick, Chairman of Senate Judiciary Committee

·         State Representative Calvin Hill, Vice Chairman of House Appropriations Committee

·         State Representative & House Majority Whip Edward Lindsey

·         State Representative Wendell Willard, Chairman of House Judiciary Committee

·         State Representative Bruce Williamson

·         Public Service Commissioner Doug Everett

Scott Conroy has the scoop:

She may not be an official candidate at this point, but Sarah Palin will hit the airwaves in Iowa on Monday, and it’s not going to cost the former Alaska governor a dime.

Tea Party of America — a recently created group that is hosting a Palin-keynoted rally in the south-central Iowa town of Indianola on Sept. 3 — is launching a major radio blitz in the nation’s first voting state to promote the prospective GOP presidential contender’s attendance at the event.

Organizers hope that the promotional effort will help them gain a rough idea of the expected crowd, which is almost certain to number in the thousands.

Speculation that Palin might use the Labor Day weekend event to declare her candidacy has ramped up on cable news and the conservative blogosphere, but RCP has learned from sources close Palin that an official announcement is unlikely at that time.

Be sure to read the entire piece here.

Well, it looks like the war in Libya is pretty much over:

A convoy of Libyan rebels has rolled into central Tripoli past celebrating crowds after a day of heavy fighting in and around the capital.

They appeared to meet little resistance and civilians emerged to cheer them, waving flags and firing celebratory shots as they passed in their pick-ups.

Now there are a couple of questions: where is Qaddafi and what will be his fate? Personally, I favor the Mussolini Treatment. Secondly, what happens now in Libya? Finally, what is the effect on the rest of the Arab World, particularly in Syria where Bashir al-Assad continues to brutally cling to power? We’ll have to see what happens, but for now, I think everyone should celebrate the fall of the Qaddafi regime, one that has antagonized the United States and our allies for decades.

A Western Party?

The south may be the GOP’s strongest region, but for presidential nominees, the party has looked to the west.

File this one under weekend trivia, but I decided to take a look at all presidential elections since 1960, in order to determine where, regionally speaking, the Republican and Democratic parties have found their general election nominees. Conventional wisdom has it that, since 1960, the Republican Party has become more southern-dominant over time, while Democrats have found their greatest regional strength in the northeast. To be sure, there’s a lot of truth in these stereotypes, but I was curious to see how well they tracked with regional presidential selection. One would expect that a southern-dominated Republican party would increasingly draw on the south to find its nominees, while Democrats, with their strongest bastions in the northeast, would increasingly nominate Northeasterners. However, in looking at the regional data, the picture is a bit more complicated.

Since 1960, Republicans have nominated: Nixon (CA, three times), Goldwater (AZ), Ford (MI), Reagan (CA, twice), H.W. Bush (TX, twice), Dole (KS), W Bush (TX, twice) and McCain (AZ). Democrats have nominated: Kennedy (MA), Johnson (TX), Humphrey (MN), McGovern (SD), Carter (GA, twice), Mondale (MN), Dukakis (MA), Clinton (AR, twice), Gore (TN), Kerry (MA), and Obama (IL). I counted HW Bush as a Texan, because he held elected office in that state; I suppose one could also count him as a Mainer, given his family home in that state, but I think electoral office counts more. On the Republican side, the complication surrounds Texas, which can either be counted as a southern or a western state. If you count Texas as a western state, then all but two of our nominees since 1960 (Dole and Ford) have hailed from three western states: Texas, California and Arizona. Even if you consider Texas more of a southern than a western state, not a single Republican nominee has come from any other southern state since 1960 (and I think you’d be hard-pressed to find any Republican presidential nominees from the old south from before 1960 as well). For Democrats, by contrast, Massachusetts has had by far the most nominees of any state in the union, with three(Kennedy, Dukakis and Kerry). Minnesota is second (Humphrey and Mondale), and all the other states listed (Texas, Illinois, Arkansas, South Dakota, , Georgia and Tennessee) have given the party one nominee a piece. For Democrats, if Texas is counted as a western state, it is the only western state to have a native son as the Democratic nominee. However, if it is counted as a southern state, then the south has four nominees, tying the Midwest (two from Minnesota and one each from South Dakota and Illinois) and beating the northeast (all of whose nominees come from the state of Massachusetts) in regional strength.

I decided to push things a little bit further, and measure how each party’s candidates did in a general election, by region. If Texas is counted as a western state, Republican nominees from the west have won seven presidential elections, and lost four. Breaking it down by state, AZ is 0 for 2, Texas is 3 for 4 and California is 4 for 5. If one counts Texas as southern, then the south’s record is 3 electoral wins and one loss, and the west moves to 5 wins and 3 losses. Alas, the Midwest has fared poorly since 1960, with 0 wins and two losses, but it’s worth noting that neither Dole nor Ford was a governor, and part of Ford’s loss may be attributed to spill-over from his Californian predecessor, Richard Nixon (in addition, Eisenhower, who won twice, was a Midwesterner, and Republican nominees very regularly came from the Midwest before 1960). For Democrats, Massachusetts may have given the party three nominees, but only one of them, John F. Kennedy, was victorious. The south, as a region, has a very respectable 4 wins and 2 losses. Broken down by state, Arkansas is 2 for 2, Texas is 1 for 1, Georgia is 1 for 2 and Tennessee is 0 for 1. In the Midwest, 1 nominee, Barack Obama of Illinois, has won, making him the first Midwestern President since Kansan Dwight David Eisenhower left office in 1960. The Minnesota Twins, Humphrey and Mondale, and the South Dakotan McGovern all  lost, giving the region a 1 for 4  win to loss ratio.

I draw a couple of conclusions from this information. First, Republicans like western nominees. Given that the only nominees the GOP has put up from the south are from Texas, a state which is as much western as southern, it seems as though even a southern-fried nominee needs a dash of western sauce to make it through the primary. Mitt Romney, as a Republican from the Northeast, is sailing into a regional headwind; you have to go back to 1948, and the candidacy of New Yorker Thomas Dewey, to find a Republican nominee from the Northeast. Democrats, while they love nominating from Massachusetts, really should stop doing so. The ideal nominee for Democrats seems to be a former southern governor. Given this, the declining fortunes of the southern Democrat should be a national concern for Democrats. Alternatively, Democrats may start drawing future nominees from the west, which they haven’t done since LBJ, or other states in the Northeast aside from Massachusetts. Midwesterners, from both parties, have fared poorly since 1960. This is particularly odd, given the region’s very strong showing before 1960. Ohio, in particular, was something of a Republican Presidential Juggernaut before 1960. What has caused this declining success rate for Midwestern Presidential aspirants, and why hasn’t the first-in-the-nation Iowa caucus helped?

Of course, there are some serious flaws in any regional analysis like this. It ignores factors like previous experience (another post looking at how many Presidents have come from various electoral positions could be interesting as well). Most of all, it fails to account for two things: demographic change and candidate quality. It’s doubtful, at this point, whether Republicans can actually elect statewide officials in California, or whether Democrats can do so throughout much of the south. In addition, candidate quality is important, and hugely variable. All that said, it is interesting to note just how many Republican nominees have come from the west coast. Republicans, after all, have a new crop of western governors, as well as more Eastern and Midwestern super-stars like Walker and Christie. More importantly, I think arguments that the GOP is overly centralized in the South do very little to account for actual regional distribution of nominees. This is not to say that candidates not from the west shouldn’t bother running; one of our two nominal front-runners, Mitt Romney, was a governor of Massachusetts after all. I leave it to the R412 community to speculate as to what, exactly, attracts the GOP so strongly to Western presidential candidates.

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) has apparently ignored the advice of our fearless Commander-in-Chief to employ “civility” in our politics:

“I’m not afraid of anybody,” the California congresswoman told constituents in footage that appeared on ABC affiliate KABC in Los Angeles, not backing down from comments made about President Obama earlier in the week. “This is a tough game. You can’t be intimidated. You can’t be frightened. And as far as I’m concerned — the tea party can go straight to hell.”

Of course, the entirely objective mainstream media will overlook this example of hypocrisy in the Democratic Party. After all, only the Tea Party bears the guilt of devolving the public debate into anger, discord, and disrespect.

I am in full agreement with Jonathan’s excellent post from yesterday detailing Perry’s miscalculation in the manner in which he is framing his candidacy for the American electorate. When Perry’s name was initially floated as a potential candidate for president, I halfway believed that he was a candidate that I might be able to get behind, given his record as a small government, Sunbelt Republican with a history of presiding over economic growth. And while Perry could have packaged himself as such, he has instead decided to enter the race in full Boomer jacket, running a campaign based on personal identity and cultural cues instead of ideas and issues.

Longtime readers will be familiar with my argument that the 1960s never really ended for the Baby Boomers, a highly narcissistic generation that has long viewed politics as a mechanism to achieve personal validation. Ever since the Boomers took the reins of the nation in the early 1990s, national politics has been bathed in cultural battles that have little to do with issues, and everything to do with the cult of self-esteem, which is yet another bastard child of the Baby Boom generation. During the ’90s, the most important issues facing our nation seemed to be the president’s sex life and whether or not the First Lady was willing to bake cookies. In the 2000s, the battle lines were made more concrete, and Americans were asked to choose between two cultural caricatures: the uber-religious, rural, militaristic Red American, or the effete, urbane, pacifistic Blue American. My guess is that neither of these stereotypes neatly fit the bulk of Americans.

But that didn’t matter. What did matter was that the Baby Boom generation got to feel good about itself via a perpetual knife fight that largely centers on which side was “correct” about the cultural revolution of the 1960s. Every time a George W. Bush wins re-election, the folks who went to Vietnam instead of Woodstock get a bump to their self-esteem. And each time a post-racial, professorial Barack Obama beats a gritty war hero like John McCain, the aging flower children who made love and not war get a tingle that runs through various parts of their bodies. The serious structural problems that are facing our country economically and geopolitically become an afterthought to the Boomers. After all, by the time these problems come to fruition, they won’t be around to experience the consequences. It really is all about them.

In any case, it becomes clear that Gov. Perry intends to be the candidate of the Boomer Right this time around. Perry, a Boomer himself, is intimately familiar with the pathologies of his generation and, like Donald Trump before him, sees a path to victory within the swelling ranks of retiring Boomers, who have nothing to do but listen to talk radio and watch Fox News as they collect their Social Security checks and Medicare benefits. These folks don’t want entitlement reform. Nor do they want to chart a “way forward” in a post-globalization, post-cultural revolution world. Instead, they want to pretend that Iraq and Afghanistan are Vietnam, that all of our problems can be solved by defunding “culturally blue” programs like NPR, and that morning will return to America if a guy like Perry beats a guy like Obama.

To them, a Perry victory over Obama would provide even more catharsis than did Bush’s victory over Kerry. It would represent a victory not for a set of ideas, but for a specific identity. Rural would have defeated urban. South would have beaten North. The outspoken evangelical would have bested the closet atheist. And so forth. And the aging Boomers get to lean back in their armchairs and think to themselves, “See, I was right all along…”

Call me crazy, but I don’t think this nation can afford yet another Baby Boomer president who is intent on kicking the can of the nation’s structural problems down the road in order to resume the debate over just what sort of behavior makes one a “Real American.” What’s needed instead is someone who will boldly confront the nation’s structural problems, all of which can only be solved via a series of least-worst options, and who will attempt to unite the nation instead of purposely polarizing the electorate based on manufactured cultural cues. A president with a 40 percent approval rating can lose in a landslide to someone who runs to be the president of all Americans, not just half the nation.

Indeed, even Karl Rove, who understands Baby Boomer politics better than any strategist out there, has rejected the strategy of red/blue polarization in the last few election cycles. Rove, who ran this strategy about as well as anyone could have in 2004, now routinely bashes candidates who embrace it, such as Sarah Palin, Christine O’Donnell, and now Rick Perry. That’s because Rove is smart enough to realize that such a strategy only made political sense in a certain sort of environment, one where you’re running to re-elect an incumbent with an approval rating in the mid-to-upper-40s, and you’re presented with an opponent who is the cultural polar opposite of the incumbent. In that event, it made a lot of sense, from a cynical, political perspective, to run the red/blue strategy. But running that game to unseat an incumbent who is pretty much unpopular with everyone is just silly, because there will be lots of voters who don’t approve of President Obama but who can’t bring themselves to vote for someone as dissimilar to them as the newest version of Rick Perry.

Instead of viewing this election as yet another opportunity to bring the world of Dr. Phil into national politics, and to polarize Americans at a very personal, cultural level in order to make the race for presidency about personal validation rather than the issues at hand, Republicans should consider the novel approach of making this election one about the actual future of our country. Rick Perry could have run as such a candidate, but he is instead choosing to lead the angry-about-everything segment of the Republican Party. As such, I continue to hope that either Mitt Romney can prove himself to actually be the candidate that his well-meaning supporters claim that he is, or that Rep. Ryan or Gov. Christie will run as the Gen-X candidate that our nation so sorely needs, addressing the issues that will face our nation for the next fifty years, instead of obsessing over the regrets and mistakes of the last fifty years.

2012 Republican Presidential Nomination

While Pawlenty only had about 3 percentage points to his name when he dropped out of the race, the first full post-Ames poll (done by Rasmussen) shows a healthy Perry lead, with no real gains for anyone else.  It has to be assumed that Perry benefits a little bit by the absence of Pawlenty (though the biggest beneficiary may be a prospective Christie or Ryan run).  In this edition, Bachmann continues to slide, even while solidifying her position as the Iowa frontrunner.  National polls, of course, mean little at this point, as a good showing in an early primary or caucus state can cause tectonic alterations in national polling overnight.

Like I said last week, little is keeping Gingrich and Cain in the race at this point, either polling-wise or issue-wise.  For some reason, Santorum’s 9% finish in the Ames Straw Poll seems to be garnering him a lot of press, despite the fact that in 2007′s Ames Straw Poll, no-chancers like Brownback and Tancredo got 15% and 13% respectively (while eventual nominee McCain received less than 1%).  It reinforces my perplexity as to why so much weight is given to this Straw Poll at all.  Ron Paul, the man who came in a fraction of a percent behind Bachmann, has been shamefully treated by the media, though his polling numbers continue to build, slowly and steadily.

US Attorney Says Murdered Border Agent’s Family Aren’t Crime Victims
Giving the family of murder victims status as victims themselves is pretty much standard practice – allowing them to participate in the trial and to speak at the sentencing. These rights are granted under the federal Crime Victims Rights Act. Usually, it is the defense that tries to block such participation.

In the case of the murder of Brian Terry, however, it is the US Attorney for Arizona, Dennis Burke, who is objecting. Brian Terry was killed with one of the 2000 weapons that the feds’ ‘Fast & Furious’ fiasco put into the hands of the Sinaloa Cartel.

And guess who was in charge of Fast & Furious: Dennis Burke.

No wonder he doesn’t want the family to testify. He wants this whole thing swept under the rug as much as possible (a task in which the Obama Administration and the mainstream media are assisting him).

I shouldn’t need to add, but I will – Burke is a loyal acolyte of Janet Napolitano, having been her chief of staff when she was governor.

Coming Out
It’s time for me to admit it – I’m cisgendered.

Among my many weirdnesses is that I’m fascinated by words, and a recent newsletter on words alerted me to a relatively new one – cisgendered. The prefix ‘cis-‘ means ‘on this side’, which is the opposite of ‘trans-‘. As you might guess, the need to create a word to describe people who are not transgendered is driven by political correctness – we could not, of course, call them ‘normal’. Such a judgmental word.

The term ‘cisgendered’ is used [instead of the more popular 'gender normative'] to refer to people who do not identify with a gender diverse experience, without enforcing existence of a ‘normative’ gender expression.

Have You Had Sex with Rick Perry?
Continuing the sexual theme, a Ron Paul supporter in Texas is running the following full page ad in a popular Austin weekly:

As if our politics had not gone deeply enough into the gutter.

You can read a little about the wacko who placed the ad here.

Although the Perry campaign responded by pointing out the guy’s record of nuttiness, I preferred Ad Age’s response (in part):

• I have never acceded to Mitt Romney’s demands for an erotic scalp massage.
• I have never spanked or been spanked by Herman Cain while wearing a Godfather’s Pizza delivery-boy uniform.
• I have never been in a Newt Gingrich-Buddy Roemer sandwich.
• I have never Googled Rick Santorum.

Quickly Noted
The Imperial Presidency: If you don’t think the pomp of the presidency has gotten out of hand, take a look at the motorcade film here.
Which Republican candidates despise each other?: A handy guide to who hates and fears whom.
Latino Approval of Obama Plunges to 49%: Which may explain why he decided to effectively grant amnesty by executive fiat.

Posting will be irregular (and at odd hours) for the next several weeks, since I’m out of the country on a business project. But, as always, please feel free to add your own Miscellany in the comments.

Not quite as big of a deal as the Ames Straw Poll, but New Hampshire’s New Castle Straw Poll hosted by Young Republicans took place last evening:

• Ron Paul 45%
• Mitt Romney 10%
• Rick Perry 8%
• Thaddeus McCotter 8%
• Gary Johnson 6%
• Michele Bachmann 5%
• Herman Cain 5%
• Jon Huntsman 3%
• Rick Santorum 3%
• Buddy Roemer 3%
• Newt Gingrich 1%
• Paul Ryan (write-in) 1%
• Rudy Giuliani (write-in) 1%
• Fred Karger 0%

All the official campaigns participated in and had representatives at the event, except for Gingrich, Perry, Romney, and Santorum.

EPIC-MRA Michigan 2012 Presidential Survey

• Mitt Romney 45% [46%] (46%)
• Barack Obama 43% [41%] (41%)

Survey of 600 likely voters was conducted August 13-16, 2011. The margin of error is +/- 4 percentage points.  Results from the poll conducted July 9-11, 2011 are in square brackets.  Results from the poll conducted February 12-17, 2011 are in parentheses.

–Data compilation and analysis courtesy of The Argo Journal.

InsiderAdvantage (R) Georgia 2012 GOP Primary Survey

• Rick Perry 24%
• Herman Cain 15% (26%)
• Newt Gingrich 9% (12%)
• Michele Bachmann 8% (13%)
• Sarah Palin 8% (11%)
• Mitt Romney 6% (10%)
• Ron Paul 5% (1%)
• Jon Huntsman 1%
• Other 4% (4%)
• Undecided 20% (22%)

Survey of 425 was conducted August 18, 2011. The margin of error is +/- 5 percentage points.  Results from the poll conducted June 2, 2011 are in parentheses.

–Data compilation and analysis courtesy of The Argo Journal.

There’s no doubt that the man making the most news this week in the Republican Primary is Texas Governor Rick Perry. After his initial splash jumping into the race 7 days ago, the Texan has made more than one controversial statement. While some of these are to be expected from a candidate just in the race, it is also pretty clear that Perry is courting controversy, trying to keep his name in the headlines. In this if nothing else, Perry has been successful; Perry has been a dominating presence this week. However, the way he’s going about it is a Texas-sized mistake.

At this point in the race, Perry should have one public goal; to introduce himself to the American people at large. This past week has been the first real chance that American’s outside of Texas have had to look at Perry and see what he’s offering. What they are seeing, is a candidate accusing Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke of acting “near treasonous”, questioning evolution and global warming, and refusing to answer whether he thought President Obama was a patriot (yes I know this isn’t the whole story but most folks aren’t going to look beyond the headlines). All of this might make those looking for red meat happy, but it ultimately is not helpful for Perry.

The main problem for Perry is that Mr. Red Meat is not the reason why Perry was being courted to run. The idea of the Perry candidacy was that here was a Governor who was acceptable to the base, but who would run on the jobs record of his state. This would make sense; after all, jobs and the economy are the biggest issues that people are focusing on. Perry though doesn’t seem to want to go on this route. After all, while Perry is going to have to compete with Michele Bachmann for the Tea Party wing of the GOP, his advantage was that he’s done while Bachmann has talked. Instead of emphasizing his record, Perry is wading into the rhetorical fray, trying to win over the hard-core right by words instead of deeds.

Governor Perry is a potent candidate; his initial strength in the polls is evidence of this. He comes from the biggest Republican stronghold in the country, and is a known fundraiser. But the Texas Governor is making a mistake in how he’s introducing himself to the public. This is the time when people will start forming their opinion about Perry and this full-throated red meat throwing Texans is their first impression. And first impressions tend to stick.

Former Ambassador to Canada David Wilkins has endorsed Texas Gov. Rick Perry for President.  This is a nice get for Perry for a few reasons. One, Wilkins was the South Carolina Chairman for Bush/Cheney ’00 and ’04 and has been a major South Carolina player for a long time. Second, it shows that not all of Bushworld is lining up against Perry, and that the infamous feud is likely confined to a few top staffers in both camps.

From today in South Carolina:

The man who introduced the newest candidate for the GOP presidential nomination to a packed Tommy’s Country Ham House in Greenville this morning brought a little extra energy to the lectern.

“I’m David Wilkins and I’m proudly standing before you to declare that I support Rick Perry for president of the United States.”

Hundreds cheered, and then Wilkins, Greenville resident and former speaker of the state House, introduced the Texas governor’s wife, Anita, and daughter, Sydney.

“You know, it’s not every day you get to have breakfast at the Ham House with the next president of the United States of America,” Wilkins said. “I’m here for the same reason you are. I believe in Rick Perry. I believe in what he can do for our country and I’m convinced we need his principled, conservative leadership now more than ever.”

UPDATE: This comes on the heels of Perry picking up one of South Carolina’s most influential fundraisers, physician Eddie Floyd.