PPP (D) 2012 Michigan GOP Primary Survey

• Mitt Romney 25% (26%) {22%} [30%] (37%)
• Rick Perry 13%
• Michele Bachmann 12%
• Sarah Palin 12% (14%) {18%} [17%] (24%)
• Herman Cain 7%
• Ron Paul 6% (7%) {10%} [8%] (6%)
• Newt Gingrich 6% (16%) {15%} [16%] (16%)
• Thad McCotter 5%
• Tim Pawlenty 3% (3%) {3%}
• Someone else/Undecided 11% (10%) {7%}

(more…)

It is said that as Nero fiddled, Rome burned. Yet the current President of the United States has managed to do the infamous Imperator one better: yesterday, as Obama spoke, the Dow collapsed. Nothing could illustrate in a more poignant manner the complete dearth of confidence that the American people now have in their head of state. The president who once descended from Olympus to cavort with we mere mortals has become mortal himself. He has gone from national savior to just another confused American, trying in vain to spin gold out of the straw that constitutes the modern economy and the modern world.

President Obama strikes the nation as a man who is perpetually twisting in the wind. He is animated not by his own will, but by external forces that are out of his control. He does not dictate, he reacts. He does not command, he responds. He does not charge forward, but leads from behind. Americans who wanted a balance to the visceral, gut-driven presidency of George W. Bush may have gotten their wish, but many are now wondering whether they went too far in electing a man whose inability to lead is costing the nation its sorely needed recovery.

Which brings us to the topic of the hour: why would Democrats want an Obama second term? What political good could possibly come from such an adventure? Sure, liberals get to see conservative heads explode on talk radio, Fox News, and get to tease their conservative colleagues and friends. But in their quest for Schadenfreude, Democrats may be missing the bigger picture.

Gallup currently pegs the president’s approval rating at 43 percent. The RCP average of all polls has the president at 44 percent. Numbers such as these generally constitute a death knell for incumbents, the exception being those cases where the out party snatches defeat from the jaws of victory. We saw an example of this last year in Nevada, where Harry Reid’s approval rating was similarly dismal, leading Republican operatives to believe that the batty Sharron Angle would be certain to unseat the Senate Majority Leader. “Americans won’t forget what the Democrats did to the economy!” was the battle cry. Well, Americans didn’t forget any of that. They just weren’t willing to replace clueless with certifiable.

As such, if the president were to win re-election, it would be via a scorched earth campaign during which the Republican nominee is transformed into a presence so odious that even a second Obama term would be preferable to the GOP’s standard bearer. But even if that works, the result will be a lame duck second term from the moment the dust settles on the election results. The president will be the first since Harry Truman to win re-election with an approval rating in the mid-40s. Throw George W. Bush in the mix for good measure, as the previous president polled in the high 40s in the weeks leading up to his own re-election. What do both of those presidents’ final terms have in common? Both resulted in a massive landslide for the out party just four years later, with Americans deciding they liked Ike in 1952, and Obama himself being triumphant in 2008, taking the highest percentage of the popular vote won by any Democrat since 1964. If Obama wins in 2012, the Democratic Party loses in 2016.

But is 2016 more important than 2012 for Democrats? Absolutely. The next few years are going to be tumultuous indeed for America. The middle class is going to see its programs cut and its tax deductions disappear, all while job growth remains tepid at best. It’s going to be squeezed from every direction no matter who ascends to the presidency, and it’s not going to like it one bit. Meanwhile, there are still boots on the ground in dusty places where residents haven’t yet moved beyond the 10th Century. Extracting the American presence from these places is going to be messy. Maintaining such a presence will be costly and unpopular. Do Democrats really want to deal with all of this for another four years with a president who continues to flail about helplessly? Is the preservation of a health care bill they didn’t even want really worth losing in 2016 to a beaming Jon Huntsman, a triumphant Marco Rubio, or a grandiose Chris Christie?

Indeed, a Christie, Rubio, or Huntsman presidency, coming on the heels of a failed Obama presidency in 2016, could be destructive for the Democratic Party. All of these candidates are Millennial-friendly, and by that I mean that they all have the potential to appeal to the generation of voters born post-1980, a generation whose size and inclinations leads many to believe that it will come to dominate politics in this country for much of the century. Democrats, by doubling down on their current president, a throwback to the era of mid-20th Century leftism, may be opting to placate aging Boomers on the Left while giving the Republicans a real chance to win the up and coming generation. Democrats will be putting all of their chips on a lagging demographic while totally ignoring the leading demographic that elected Obama in the first place.

Should Obama lose, though, the proverbial hot potato will be passed to Mitt Romney, or to whoever happes to be the Republican standard bearer next year. It will then be up to the Republicans to walk the tightrope between appealing to their rural, religious base and suburban, secular swing voters. It will be the GOP that will have to raise the ire of a middle class that wants only to tax someone else’s income and cut someone else’s programs. It will be a President Romney who will have to figure out how to speak simultaneously to seniors who like their one-size-fits-all entitlements, and Millennials who want to customize everything, all while figuring out how to bring America’s prowess back in the age of globalization. If that sounds like a tall order, that’s because it is.

During the mock 2004 presidential debates on SNL, actor Will Forte, in character as President Bush, opined that he didn’t understand why John Kerry would even want his job. It was one of the funniest lines of the night, but for Democrats in 2012, it may be true. Why would Democrats want to govern for the next four years, when they could pass the country’s many structural problems and demographic tensions onto the lap of someone like Mitt Romney? Given that the next president, despite his intellect and skills, is unlikely to untie this country’s massive Gordian Knot, such a move would allow a refurbished Team Blue to return in 2016 with Gov. Andrew Cuomo at the helm, a New Democrat who understands the realities of the modern world and who would have the potential to scoop up the Millennials en masse, all while promising an end to what will then be deemed as the GOP’s malaise.

USA Today / Gallup National Republican Primary

• Romney – 24% (17)
• Perry – 17% (15)
• Paul – 14% (8)
• Bachmann – 13% (11)
• Gingrich – 7% (3)
• Cain – 4% (3)
• Pawlenty – 3% (2)
• Huntsman – 2% (2)
• Santorum – 1% (2)

Survey was completed August 4-7 of an unspecified number of GOP primary voters. Results from Gallup’s last survey ending July 24 are in parentheses.

With yesterday’s 600-point drop in the Dow stock average, and an even more severe drop in the NASDAQ stock average, we see a predictable consequence of the previous Friday’s after the-close-of-the-market announcement of Standard and Poor’s downgrade of U.S government bonds. Over time, the stock market usually reflects realistically the near and intermediate term prospects of the economy, but in the wake of dramatic economic news, the market often reflects the fears and confusion of investors, particularly small investors. So-called “panic selling” frequently occurs, and the price of most stocks decline beyond a “fair and reasonable” level. Sophisticated traders, and experienced investors usually wait until the small investor’s emotions are exhausted, and then begin to acquire stocks they believe to be below what they are worth. The “bottom” usually occurs at a point of maximum fear, and this stock market phenomenon is called “capitulation.”

We don’t know yet if capitulation has already occurred, or if the market has more decline in it, but after more than 50 years of personal stock market investing, I suspect we are close to it. Nevertheless, current economic conditions have an unprecedented character, and the traditional rules may not apply. I warned recently that the debt ceiling “crisis” was a political contrivance of the liberal Obama administration engaged in a life-or-death struggle with conservatives over revenues (taxes) and spending (federal entitlements). The real warning sign, I said, was the potential for a a downgrade of U.S. securities. Congressional Republicans blinked in the details of their agreement with President Obama, raising the debt ceiling while cutting only a small amount of spending. They won a long-term victory in preventing tax increases and changing the debate from “how much an increase” to “how much can we cut,” but that was too little for Standard & Poor’s concern about U.S. debt and deficits.

President Obama is now exposed as a man who has no real idea of what is going on in the economy and what to do about it. Although Republican conservatives do know what is going on, and what should be done, they control only one house in Congress, and are overly fearful of being blamed for our prolonged economic distress. I did applaud Speaker Boehner for what he did accomplish in his debt limit “deal” with President Obama, but, like many who are worried about the direction of U.S. economic policy, I am concerned that the “deal” was too little and, possibly, too late. Obviously, Standard & Poor’s thought it was too little and too late.

Panic occurs in confusion. With an administration that wants to prolong the mistakes of the past (including growing deficits, untenable unfunded liabilities, and unrealistic and unsound attitudes about raising revenues), investors are not only confused, but without a positive light at the end of our economic tunnel, their confusion becomes compounded. Small and inexperienced investors traditionally over-react, but what happens if more sophisticated investors, many of whom have large cash positions, do not intervene as they traditionally do? Anything can happen in “maximum confusion.”

The more stubborn Mr. Obama is, the more that the investment community in the U.S. and worldwide, will downgrade the prospects of the U.S. economy. The coterie around Mr. Obama apparently has no will or stomach to tell him the economic truth; many of his aging allies in the Congress even share his outmoded economic views.

Last January I wrote that Mr. Obama might not run for re-election. My comment was received with incredulity, even by some conservatives. The fact that the Republican field of presidential candidates seemed “weak” or lacking in so-called “charisma” encouraged Democrats and their media supporters to think he would actually win re-election. It was as if the 2010 election had not really occurred. Obamacare, huge deficits, growing unfunded liabilities, demagogic calls for “taxing the rich,” and new spending programs went forward as if nothing were amiss.

One year before the 2010 elections, I openly predicted the results. The electoral disaster for the Democrats, as I saw it, was inevitable. I will now say that if Mr. Obama and his allies do not make a dramatic turn in their economic policies, and soon, 2012 will be the greatest electoral catastrophe a political party will have suffered in modern times. Voters, conservatives and independents, are worried and confused. It’s only a matter of time before liberals will come to share their concerns. The federal government is failing to respond to the crisis which grows day by day. Governors in individual states (including at least one Democrat in a major state) are putting new and prudent policies in effect, and by the summer of 2012, they will be seen as successful, and that will magnify the dimensions of the Democrats’ defeat in November if Mr. Obama does not begin to embrace their reforms.

The stock market between now and then will go up and down. The American economy is much bigger than any group of politicians, but if there is a perception of no relief from government policies, it will go down much more than it will go up. This is not a true “recession,” but more like a “contraction” of the economy, and thus in spite of bail-outs and government spending, unemployment persists at very high levels, and business confidence remains low.

The summer of 2011 is becoming the summer of maximum confusion. It will not likely remain in that state very long. If the Democrats cannot get their house in order, the Republicans will find the right candidate, someone who will not blink in the face of liberal blame-gamesmanship or a fear of completing the political transformation already begun. Forget the polls of today and conventional “wisdom.”

In November, 2012, some real change will be demanded by the American people, tired of bad news, confusion and failure.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

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

CNN/ORC Political Survey

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

• Approve 44%
• Disapprove 54%

(IF DISAPPROVE) Do you disapprove because you think his policies and actions since he became president have been too liberal, or because you think his policies and actions have not been liberal enough?

• Approve 44%
• Disapprove/Too liberal 36%
• Disapprove/Not liberal enough 16%
• Disapprove 2%

(more…)

Or so says Carrie Dann, of MSNBC. I came across this article yesterday, and with Rick Perry in the news again today, it remained relevant:

In The State Which Must Not Be Messed With, the governor’s political skills are the stuff of legend, and the economic robustness over which he has presided is the subject of a steady stream of brags by his fans nationwide. Friends and foes allies alike are impressed with Perry’s deft negotiation of the Tea Party and business wings of the GOP.

…”Rick Perry is the best politician to come out of Texas since LBJ,” says Jason Stanford, a Democratic political consultant who managed Perry opponent Chris Bell’s gubernatorial campaign in 2006. “His abilities are probably on par with Obama’s.”

…Although the Texas constitution makes the governor’s authority fairly weak on paper, Perry has amassed remarkable power throughout his decade-long tenure, in part by appointing allies to posts throughout the state. Those in both parties who have worked against him often add that political revenge — or at least the threat of it — can be his weapon of choice when anyone stands in the way of his success.

Still, past enemies in Texas often shrug when asked to lay out a clean line of attack against Perry that would drive GOP primary voters en masse into the arms of a Mitt Romney or a Michele Bachmann.

The man has never lost an election, they say, and most things have already been tried.

Opponents have run against Perry’s 2002 transportation plan, a system of new toll roads and railways that would have required a massive land acquisition by the state and could have increased consumer costs. They’ve tried to paint him as a wine-drinking career politician who has reaped a small fortune from political cronies. They’ve slammed him for mandating that young girls receive a cervical-cancer vaccine unless their parents opted out. And the governor became a late-night comedy laugh line when he appeared to flirt with secessionism at a Tea Party rally.

After all that, his last really close race was in 1998.

Chief Perry strategist Dave Carney, a man who has worked with Perry for over a decade, doesn’t see chinks in his potential-candidate’s gubernatorial armor, either. Asked what items on Perry’s long record might keep him up at night as a strategist anticipating attacks by political opponents on a national scale, Carney replies bluntly. “Nothing.”

…With his ability to mobilize the conservative base (like Bachmann can) and to tap into big business interests (like Romney can), Perry would likely shake loose supporters from each potential rival’s base.

“He’s a Frankenstein of the best qualities of both of them,” said GOP consultant and Texas native Matt Mackowiak, who worked for Perry opponent Kay Bailey Hutchison in the 2010 gubernatorial contest. “That’s exactly what many primary voters were looking for.”

“People are looking at Michele Bachmann, and saying: ‘I agree with her, but this woman kind of scares me,’” said another Texas Republican who has worked against the governor. “Those people are Rick Perry voters.”

Those who have watched his campaigns do not doubt his ability to turn his theoretical support on paper into results in the diners and community centers of primary states. Supporters and detractors alike describe Perry as disciplined, driven (some say ‘ruthless’), instinctive, and naturally energized by the parade of handshakes and bull@!$%# sessions
that make up a campaign.

And aides say he’s prepared to stomach the ugly parts of the contest, too — the inevitable opposition research hits, attack ads, and rhetorical brawls.

“He enjoys the engagement,” Carney said of the governor’s campaign style. “He enjoys the battle.”

The missive goes on to examine Perry’s strengths and weaknesses, discussed often here at Race42012 in greater detail. While Ms. Dann makes plenty of points and cites some telling remarks from connected people, I maintain a skeptical eye toward Perry’s ability to appeal to states outside the South and Southwest.

After all, no matter how strongly a candidate appeals to voters on the issues, they must achieve a certain level of visceral connection with their audience. While Perry could certainly accomplish this in a state like South Carolina, I’m not sure if we can say the same about Iowa or New Hampshire.

From POLITICO:

Rick Perry intends to use a speech in South Carolina Saturday to make clear that he’s running for president.

According to two sources familiar with the plan, the Texas governor will remove any doubt about his White House intentions during his appearance at a RedState conference in Charleston.

————-

Immediately following his speech in South Carolina, Perry will make his New Hampshire debut at a house party at the Portsmouth-area home of a state representative, Pamela Tucker, the Union Leader reported Monday. Tucker was among the Granite Staters who went to Texas last week to encourage Perry to run.

Steve Deace, evangelical radio host and Iowa activist extraordinaire (the Des Moines Register has him listed as one of the 50 most influential Iowa politicos) has released his prediction of the Ames straw poll this Saturday. He knows Iowa, so his prediction carries a little more weight than other predictions we will see this week:

• Bachmann – 21%
• Paul – 18%
• Pawlenty – 15%
• Santorum – 13%
• Cain – 9%
• Romney – 8%
• Perry – 7%
• Gingrich – 4%
• Palin – 3%
• McCotter – 1%
• Huntsman – 1%

Of course, predicting the Ames results this year is trickier than ever before because of the allowance, for the first time ever, for write-in votes. Deace’s prediction looks pretty good to me, though, with the exceptions that I would place Romney and Perry lower down on the list. I expect both Perry and Romney to get around 2% of the vote. Candidates not participating in the straw poll have historically not done well at all in the voting (Giuliani, McCain, and Thompson all got less than 2% in 2007).

At any rate, this prediction gives us a good water cooler conversation starter.

2012 Republican Presidential Nomination

We are less than a week away form the Iowa Straw Poll, the symbolic opening event of a presidential campaign year, at least for Republicans. It is always a colorful affair, and the first occasion for political memorabilia collectors to load up, especially with the buttons and bumper stickers of minor candidates who soon enough will disappear from the campaign trail.

The Straw Poll is a fundraising event for the Iowa Republlcan Party. Candidates pay for space to display their candidate and his or her political wares. They pay for the admission tickets for many to attend, and bus them in from all over Iowa. Others come on their own dime, but the final tally is much more about political organization than true voter popularity. The Iowa Straw Poll only occasionally predicts those who win the Iowa caucus (next February), the GOP nomination or the presidency. On the other hand, since 1979 it has become a “tradition,” and I would not miss it.

While it does not accurately reflect Iowa voters’ attitudes, the Straw Poll usually settles some scores, and this year will probably be no exception.

Here are some of the specific matters that could be decided in Ames this year: First, a Minnesota “grudge” match has developed between former Governor Tim Pawlenty who entered the campaign early, and Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, who entered it late. Minnesota shares a border with Iowa, and Mrs. Bachman was born in Waterloo, IA. Only a few months ago, Mr. Pawlenty was initially the most serious “dark horse” in the GOP field, and on his way to become favorite Mitt Romney’s major challenger. But this changed when Mrs. Bachmann entered the race, openly courted Iowa evangelicals, and rose quickly in the polls. (Some of the latest polls now have her leading.) Mr. Pawlenty, however, faltered after an ill-advised and bumbling attempt to attack Mr. Romney. As of late, Mr. Pawlenty has redoubled his effort in Iowa with an all-out 24/7 tour of the state, adding his wife, and spending some serious money for the effort. My sources tell me that this will pay off, and that Pawlenty will exceed Straw Poll expectations (now expected to be a fourth-place finish), thus keeping his campaign alive for the Iowa caucus, the New Hampshire primary, and possibly beyond.

Ron Paul (a libertarian more than a Republican), has a small but devoted following, tends to do very well in straw polls, particularly the Iowa Straw Poll. He has a next-to-zero chance of winning he GOP nomination, but he might even win the vote in Ames. If he does, the poll’s results will be even more ignored than usual, and the occasion will result in being only what it is, a fundraiser for the state party.

Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich and Jon Huntsman did not purchase display space in Ames, and won’t be actively seeking votes there. But they will be on the ballot, and a better than-expected total for any of them would be politically helpful. (Romney particulary would see his frontrunner states enhanced if he comes in the top three.) In addition to Bachmann, Pawlenty and Paul, Rick Santorum, Herman Cain and Thaddeus McCotter will have booths in Ame and are on the ballot. No surprises are expected with any of these minor candidates.

Texas Governor Rick Perry is not on the ballot, although write-ins are possible. Some consider his probable late entry in the race could be significant. (Others consider his impact will be more like Fred Thompson’s late entry in 2008, i.e., minimal.)

Although the media, collectively, likes to think it can impel candidates who do not do well to leave the presidential race, I think two major figures will remain in the field no matter what happens in Ames. They are Pawlenty and Newt Gingrich. Pawlenty, who was co-chairman of the 2008 John McCain presidential campaign, remembers the Arizona senator’s remarkable comeback after being declaredpolitically D.O.A. in 2007. Gingrich, already a major figure in Republican history, feels he has something unique and important to say in 2011-12, and won’t leave until he thinks he has fully expressed what is on his mind.

Iowa Republicans throw a good party. There will be free barbecues, hot dogs, potato salad, beverages of choice, as well as rock and blues bands. other entertainments, political memorabilia, funny hats, and glad-handing politicians. Like the national conventions, the Iowa Straw poll, in addition to fundraising, is primarily a holiday for the national media. More serious political signals will have to wait.

________________________________________________________________

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

-or-

How you can prove anything you want through selection of data.

For some time now Mitt Romney has been attacking President Obama’s horrible record on jobs. In response, the President’s supporters (and even some of Mitt’s fellow Republicans) have been attacking Mitt’s jobs record during his tenure as Governor of Massachusetts. They toss around numbers like, “The Massachusetts’ jobs record was only 47th among the 50 states during the Romney administration”.

So is what they are saying correct? What does the data really show? Let’s go to the actual Bureau of Labor Statistics to find out, shall we?

I collected the seasonally adjusted Massachusetts employment data from the BLS for the period of Romney’s tenure, January 2003 through January 2007. I then collected the National data for the same period. I manipulated the data so that the low points of both trends were the same, normalized the Massachusetts recovery to the National one, and then plotted them on the same graph. Here is the result:

As can be seen, the data pretty much agrees with Mitt’s detractors. Yes, both trends do show an initial dip in employment due to the 2002-2004 recession, but the difference is after the economy picked up, Massachusetts only added about two jobs for every one lost during Mitt’s administration whereas the nation added about ten jobs for every one lost during same time period. To make matters worse, the recover in Massachusetts lagged the nation’s recover by around half a year.

So it would seem that Mitt’s detractors have a point, right? Their “47th out of 50 during Romney’s Governorship” is likely quite correct.

(more…)

For those who don’t know, Saturday was “The Response” – the big prayer, fasting, and worship event headlined by Governor Rick Perry of Texas. The event was highly controversial to some. Here’s the video of Perry’s comments.

The transcript is below the fold: (more…)

Rasmussen Reports Republican Iowa Caucus

• Bachmann – 22%
• Romney – 21%
• Paul – 16%
• Perry – 12%
• Pawlenty – 11%

Results were taken from the Rasmussen Reports radio report on 630 WMAL radio. More details, including numbers for the other candidates, will be added when they become available.

Among those who are absolutely positive they will vote and are absolutely positive who they will vote for, Ron Paul is in first place. Just 49% of Ron Paul supporters say they will vote for the GOP nominee in the general election if that nominee is not Ron Paul.

An Interesting Debt Ceiling Factoid

A plurality (46%) of Americans express disapproval of the debt ceiling bill, according to Gallup. The breakdown by party has Democrats supporting it by a 2-1 margin (58%-28%), while Republicans oppose it 26%-64%.

Which is interesting, when you think that that is almost opposite to how the parties voted in the House, with the Republicans supporting it strongy (174-66), while the Democrats split 95-95.

Academic Qualifications

Yesterday’s discussion of Rick Perry’s college GPA reminded me of Woodrow Wilson, who was without a doubt the most academically qualified president we’ve ever had. Not only was he the only president with a PhD, he also was a very distinguished professor of political science before becoming president of Princeton.

Yet I would not rank him particularly high among the presidents. A survey of historians by the Wall Street Journal had him at the edge of the upper quartile (boosted, I’m sure, mostly by leftist academics), but his ranking as #11 still left him nine spots below the self-taught Abraham Lincoln.

Perry’s transcripts seem to have attracted the attention they deserve elsewhere on the web and in the media – not much. Perez Hilton, however, is almost as worked up over it as some of the R4’12 folks.

Fox News Hosts Admit to Giving Sarah Palin a Pass

A couple Fox News hosts, Greg Gutfeld and Bob Beckel, said that they take it easy in criticizing Sarah Palin, because she’s a co-worker.

Gutfeld said: “The only problem with talking about Sarah Palin is that she works here and it’s like a co-worker and, if I say something bad and I see her in the hallway, I feel really awkward and wrong. So I just kind of say, ‘That was a good job.’” Beckel was blunt: “I’ve pulled my punches on her.”

This in no way reflects badly on Palin – she isn’t, presumably, asking for special treatment. It does, however, reflect very badly on Fox News. This is a wholly foreseeable result of their policies of employing active politicians on news shows.

Miscellaneous Miscellany

The Tooth Fairy Goes Grinch: According to a survey by Visa, the Tooth Fairy has reduced payout this year by 13%. The average American kid hauled in only $2.60 per tooth this year, compared to three bucks in 2010. Tough luck, kids. Perhaps Obama can give them one of his sermons on the need for ‘shared sacrifice’.

The Chicago Way: A charity, After School Matters, headed up by Maggie Daley, got a $6.5mil grant from the city four days before her husband’s term as mayor ended. The new CEO of the charity is the mayor’s former chief of staff, and the new CFO was a department head in his administration. (Hmmm … the link has now stopped working. I guess the city leaned on Chicago Business.)

If You Want a Chevy Volt, I’ll Bet There’ll Be Some Deals in a Few Months: GM reported that they sold 125 Volts last month. So they’re going to increase production.

The Miscellany History Test

During World War I there was only one land battle involving American and German troops that resulted in American casualties within the 48 states. It was not a large battle, but it was sufficiently big to involve several hundred total casualties on the two sides. What was the name of this mostly forgotten battle?

Those who wish to cheat may glance here.

Please add your own miscellany in the comments.

Americans for Fair Taxation, the political group which pushes the so-called “Fair Tax”, has endorsed Herman Cain for President in 2012.

It has been widely known for some time that Cain was the group’s favorite candidate, and they made their endorsement official on Friday evening.

AFT endorsed Mike Huckabee in the 2008 primaries and their assistance was a key proponent in his surprising second place finish at the Ames Straw Poll – the main (and perhaps only) reason his campaign gained traction in that race.

However, don’t expect similar results for Cain this year. AFT announced that their endorsement won’t pack quite the same punch this time around. Four years ago, the group spent $150,000 on the straw poll, buying tickets for and busing in 1,500 people. Five hundred of those folks were Iowans who voted for Mike Huckabee. (Without the Fair Tax group, Huckabee would have placed third behind Sam Brownback at the poll.)

This time around, the group is only budgeting $20,000 for the event and will only bus in 100 people — and only some of those hundred are from Iowa. So Cain might pick up and extra 50 votes or so.

P.S. Speaking of Iowa, Rasmussen is set to announce their new Iowa numbers tomorrow afternoon in the 3:00 Eastern hour.

We interrupt the debt downgrade debacle for some more mundane politics.

The recent Politico article about the Huntsman campaign that Mark linked to is both interesting and informative. Aside from the inside baseball aspect (which I personally find fascinating), the Huntsman piece also helps highlight a key strength of his main rival, Governor Mitt Romney. Simply put the Huntsman’s campaign infighting shows how important experience and staff cohesion can be, particularly at the Presidential level.

While the turmoil inside the Huntsman campaign is getting attention, at least amongst us political junkies, there is surely staff tension within every camp, especially the first-timers. Having worked on a couple of campaigns, I can tell you that staff tensions are almost always inevitable. Disagreements over strategy, time, and how things are managed pop up in pretty much every campaign. This is can be a big headache for the campaign and the candidate for obvious reasons. After all, the more time the campaign spends tearing into their own, the less time they are focused on their rivals.

Which brings us back to Mitt Romney. The Governor has assembled a very loyal staff, many of whom were on his 2008 campaign. This article about the Romney organization, while dated, should still be presumed to be accurate; after all, how many stories have there been about Romney staff shake-ups? The fact that so many Romney advisors have been together since at least 2008 and all played roles in the 08 campaign is overlooked but critically important. This underscores one of Romney’s main political strengths; the fact that he’s done this before. The infighting that is plaguing the Huntsman campaign, the full-scale resignations from the Gingrich camp, the lesser resignation drama out of the Cain camp, all of this is absent the Romney campaign. They made their mistakes, had their internal drama but the difference is that all of that happened in 2007, not 2011.

Having a harmonious staff is not the key to victory, but it can lead to defeat. The fact that the Romney campaign is not having this problem, while other campaigns seem to be, is just another advantage for the front-runner. It also is a useful illustration as to why most presidential campaigns do better the 2nd time around. The experience from actually being in the race, for both candidate and staff is a huge commodity, one the Romney campaign has in spades.

As everyone knows February 6 of this year marked the centennial of Ronald Reagan.  Today, August 6, 2011, marks the centennial of another beloved American—Lucille Ball.  For many of us older folks, I Love Lucy was the first television show in our memory.  Lucy and her husband Desi Arnaz were champions of hard work, individual enterprise and innovation—a true American success story.  Not only did they change the way television was produced in the early years, but were also responsible for the highly innovative Star Trek TV series in the 1960′s—a decision quite risky due to the enormous cost and sophisticated production technology that was required.  Yet, after careful thought and worry, Lucy, by then president of Desilu Productions, gave Star Trek the green light.  It is worth noting, btw, that President and Mrs. Reagan hosted Lucille Ball at the White House in 1986.

So, as one who still love’s Lucy, Happy Birthday and thanks for all the laughter and fond memories.

With yesterday’s downgrade of the U.S. bond rating, the political commentary is flying. Since I didn’t want to be left out, here is the core of a post I put up this morning at Conservative Home:

…[T]he takeaway is the following (paraphrased): the recent debt deal did not cut enough future debt; the political debacle surrounding the debt deal showed political weakness and political inability to address the problem; and neither tax increases or significant entitlement reforms are on the horizon.

Let’s look at a few items related to all of this:

• This year alone, the deficit— the annual payments by Congress that are spent with borrowed money— is expected to be $1.6 trillion. This means each of the 150 million workers in America will owe $10,667 above and beyond their own personal debt by the end of the fiscal year, September 30.

• Throughout 2011, Congress has debated how much to cut from that $10, 667. In the most recent debate, on whether or not to allow Congress to borrow more money, the final plan cut less than 10% of the expected debt per worker in 2021. Workers, you can thank your Member of Congress for bringing your portion of the public debt in 2021 from $161,637 to just over $146,000. This is in addition to any credit card, housing, car and college debt you may have incurred.

• Prior to the most recent changes to the government’s estimates on the life of Social Security and Medicare, payroll taxes were expected to rise from 15.3% of income to 25.07%. With the new estimates shaving a year off the life of Social Security, and five years off of the life of the hospital fund of Medicare, that expectation may have gotten much worse.

Of course, instead of paying extra Social Security taxes, you could just lose 22% of your scheduled benefits. Either/or.

• In fiscal year 2010, interest payments totaled $414 billion. Through five-sixths (83.333%) of FY 2011, interest payments have totaled $413 billion. While the year-end calculation of interest payments is not a straight-line calculation, if we end up with the $1.6 trillion deficit CBO estimated, our national debt will be about $15.1 trillion. This means our interest alone in 2011 will be $445 billion- fully 11.71% of the federal budget.

With the downgrade, of course, those payments could be about one-third larger.

Here are some of the public statements from the candidates in alphabetical order by last name on the credit downgrade:

Michele Bachmann

Tonight’s decision by S&P to downgrade our credit rating to AA+ is a historically significant and serious event for the United States. The United States has had a AAA credit rating since 1917. That rating has endured the great depression, World War II, Korea, Vietnam and the terrorist attacks on 9/11. This President has destroyed the credit rating of the United States through his failed economic policies and his inability to control government spending by raising the debt ceiling.

“We were warned by all of the credit agencies that a failure to deal with our debt would lead to a downgrade in our credit rating, but instead he submitted a budget that had a $1.5 trillion deficit and then requested a $2.4 trillion blank check. President Obama is destroying the foundations of the U.S. economy one beam at a time. I call on the President to seek the immediate resignation of Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and to submit a plan with a list of cuts to balance the budget this year, turn our economy around and put Americans back to work.

Herman Cain

On Tuesday, April 19, 2011, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner promised that America faced “no risk” of a credit downgrading. Less than six months later, he is proven shamefully wrong. As I have feared for months, the S&P has chosen to downgrade America’s credit rating from AAA, which we have always enjoyed, to AA+.

Perhaps this is because the Obama Administration and Congressional Democrats never once demonstrated a willingness to propose its own ideas for meaningful spending cuts, something credit agencies signaled were necessary to redeem America’s financial standing in the world.

As a corporate executive, I’ve rescued companies from the brink of bankruptcy and returned them to profitability. That involved balancing budgets or even creating them in the first place, something that the Democratic leadership in Congress hasn’t done for 828 days. If I couldn’t run companies without budgets, how can the government?

I also had to make tough budgetary cuts to save companies. Leadership is about doing what’s right, even when it’s difficult. But somehow, that sort of idea was never floated among those within the Obama Administration.

Now, Americans are fearful for their retirements and for their children’s educational savings. This is a country known for dreamers and innovators, for thinkers and doers. And now, we are a nation living in fear.

This is a sad day for America. Such a rating is unfitting of the greatest and most prosperous nation the world has ever known. And such a weak leader is, as well.

Jon Huntsman

Out-of-control spending and a lack of leadership in Washington have resulted in President Obama presiding over the first downgrade of the United States credit rating in our history. For far too long we have let reckless government spending go unchecked and the cancerous debt afflicting our nation has spread. We need new leadership in Washington committed to fiscal responsibility, a balanced budget, and job-friendly policies to get America working again.

Newt Gingrich

The Obama disaster continues. Highest food stamp level and lowest credit rating in history in the same 24 hours

Mitt Romney

America’s creditworthiness just became the latest casualty in President Obama’s failed record of leadership on the economy. Standard & Poor’s rating downgrade is a deeply troubling indicator of our country’s decline under President Obama. His failed policies have led to high unemployment, skyrocketing deficits, and now, the unprecedented loss of our nation’s prized AAA credit rating. Today, President Obama promised that ‘things will get better.’ But it has become increasingly clear that the only way things will get better is with new leadership in the White House.

Rick Santorum

If this downgrade holds, then it’s another example in a long line of examples of the President’s failure of leadership. Is anyone surprised at this point? There are 14 million people out of work and looking to the White House for answers – but they are receiving nothing but a blank stare. The markets are scared and the credit downgrade has happened because the President and this Congress continue to address the symptoms and not the disease. This nation is spending more money than it takes in and the world knows it – now, it’s time to show the world that the United States has the fortitude and resolve to pass a Balanced Budget Amendment to stop out of control spending and shrink the scope of government once and for all. The deal the President cut with Congress was supposed to avoid this downgrade but all it did was once again kick the can down the road.

“President Obama and his Administration have been a failure. I’ve even heard the US Treasury is going back to Standard and Poors to say that a two trillion dollar mathematical error by S&P contributed to the downgrade. So, in addition to blaming President Bush for all of its problems, now the White House is blaming S&P – but this happened on the President’s watch – and he has to deal with it. I guess President Obama is left to cling to the to the “hope” that a mathematical error caused this. Is that the “hope” the President was talking about?

“Folks, an AA rating should be so far in our rear view mirror – that no mathematical error should affect it. Tonight, I’m saddened for the millions out of work – but I’m hopeful that I will replace Barack Obama as President and get this country and its economy moving again.

EDIT: Our own Josiah Schmidt pointed out Gary Johnson’s comment on the issue. Here is his statement:

Losing our AAA credit rating is obviously bad. The reasons for it are much worse, much more important, and not complicated. Everyone from our largest creditor, China, to the 14 million Americans who are unemployed get the simple reality that a $14.6 trillion debt is unsustainable. They also get that simply raising our credit limit is not an economic policy and certainly not a solution. Washington can dance around reality all they want, but there is only one way to get us off the path toward financial disaster: Enact real spending cuts now — not ten or twenty years down the road, and balance the budget.

_______________________________________________________

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

For the first time in history, the debt of the United States does not possess a perfect AAA rating. Standard & Poor’s announced publicly this evening that they have downgraded US debt one notch to an AA+, after allowing the Obama administration the afternoon to try and persuade them otherwise.

CNBC calls this “a dramatic reversal of fortune for the world’s largest economy.” To pour salt in the wound, S&P also said the outlook on this new credit rating would remain pegged at negative, meaning another downgrade could potentially occur in the next 12-18 months.

As the Washington Post notes, “The AAA rating has made the U.S. Treasury bond one of the world’s safest investments — and has helped the nation borrow at extraordinarily cheap rates to finance its government operations…”

While it is uncertain exactly what the effects of the downgrade will be, several sources tonight cite a JP Morgan Chase estimate that a downgrade would raise the cost of borrowing approximately $100 billion per year. These costs will be borne by US taxpayers as government borrowing becomes more expensive, but the downgrade will also most likely make it more expensive to get business loans, car loans, and mortgages, and raise interest rates on credit cards as well.

In other words, the downgrade will add yet more roadblocks along the path to economic recovery.

Of course, as soon as the announcement was released, Democrats blamed Republicans for not accepting tax hikes that would have decreased the deficit, and Republicans blamed Obama and the Democrats for their deficit spending practices and poor management of the economy.

But the person who might just benefit the most from this news, politically speaking, is Mitt Romney. When Romney took office as Governor of Massachusetts, the S&P was threatening to downgrade the state’s debt. Romney met with them in their offices in New York, invited them up to Boston and met with them in his office, and laid out a debt reduction plan that instilled so much confidence in the S&P folks that they not only relented on the downgrade, they upgraded Massachusetts debt. Yet another tailor-made issue for a Romney candidacy, and one I expect to become a major topic on the campaign trail. Romney has the personal experience of not only dealing with this exact same issue, but getting a more-favorable-than-expected outcome from it as well.

It says something about Obama and his administration that they had nothing of worth – no plan, no anything – that could convince the S&P to at least hold off on the historical downgrade. In fact, there is no indication that the Obama administration even made any attempts to contact S&P until the S&P called them this afternoon.

This highlights a complete and utter failure of leadership by Obama, laying out one of the starkest contrasts of the 2012 election.

In case you haven’t heard, Standard & Poor’s just announced that they will downgrade the U.S.’s credit rating:

S&P dropped the ranking one level to AA+, after warning on July 14 that it would reduce the rating in the absence of a “credible” plan to lower deficits even if the nation’s $14.3 trillion debt limit was lifted. The U.S. was awarded the top credit ranking by New York-based S&P in 1941. It kept the outlook at “negative” amid the failure to end Bush-era tax cuts.

“The downgrade reflects our opinion that the fiscal consolidation plan that Congress and the Administration recently agreed to falls short of what, in our view, would be necessary to stabilize the government’s medium-term debt dynamics,” S&P said in a statement today.

…S&P said it may lower the long-term rating to AA within the next two years if spending reductions are lower than agreed to, interest rates rise or “new fiscal pressures” during the period result in higher general government debt.

Well, we can’t act surprised. Ratings agencies have warned us for years that our elected officials needed to enact structural entitlement reform to maintain top-quality credit. One can’t help but assume that the Obama administration convinced S&P to wait on making the decision official until the markets closed today.

In a shameless abdication of reality, the media has already begun attempts to lay the blame on the Republican Party or the ratings agencies themselves. Just look at some of these headlines: “Is the U.S. Credit Rating a Victim of GOP Sabotage?” (written by none other than Yahoo! Finance’s economics editor) and “S&P Downgrades the U.S. – But Why?”

How will President Obama try to wriggle out from under this one? Sure, he can lean on his tried-and-true tactic of blaming the opposition party, but the fact remains that he has bowed to political considerations and avoided entitlement reform (other than adding an additional entitlement, of course…) as much as possible, in an attempt to force the GOP to “make the first move” and thus create more fodder for the negative attacks he vowed to cast aside but has instead embraced.

Simply put, the President had his chance; with the stratospheric amount of goodwill he carried when he entered office, he could have harnessed the opportunity to advocate true entitlement and tax reform. However, he passed. Instead, he opted to pour his political capital into an ill-begotten “stimulus” plan that did more to safeguard public union jobs than it did to fund the infrastructure projects Democrats so love, in addition to a frighteningly complex and opaque health care bill.

Try as he might, I can’t see how anybody other than hardcore Democratic partisans and the lowest of the low-information voters can let Obama slide on this. The problem didn’t start with Obama, nor with George W. Bush (although both did their part to contribute), but he sure didn’t do anything to help.

I’m surprised it’s taken this long. Here is an article, and here is S&P’s official statement/analysis.

Any guesses as to how long it will take the first GOP primary ad to go up starring this terrible news?

Of course, it will be spun by most media as anti-tax intransigence by the GOP, but S&P notes (in the bit of it I skimmed) that no real change to entitlements PLUS no new tax revenues PLUS how the debt deal didn’t do much for the long-term expectations PLUS our dysfunctional political leaders created the downgrade.

I found the following on the web at “A Shot In The Dark”. It is by Mitch Berg. Here are some excerpts:

I’ve been listening to some of my fellow conservatives – especially Tea Partiers – complaining about the debt ceiling deal, in terms that start with “it’s awful” and often as not end with “well, it was a great run – time to start hiding gold under the mattress”.

To which I answer, as appropriate, “what did you expect when we only control the House?” and “if you’re not storing gold, ammo and food even in the good times, you’re nuts”.  But I digress.

…

When Concealed Carry Reform Now first formed, and started trying to change Minnesota’s racist, sexist, patriarchal weapon carry laws, they couldn’t even get time to talk with legislators – with “friendly”, Republican ones.

I can’t help but feel that some of the Tea Party conservatives who are complaining about the debt ceiling deal today would have fumed about the unfairness of it all back then, thrown in the towel and spent the next six years silently stewing.  But I’d hope it’d be a teaching moment.

Because the next year…well, only a few legislators talked with CCRN.  But it was more than the previous year.  And CCRN’s mailing list bloomed, and outstate voters started paying attention.

And the next year?  A few more legislators opened their doors.  And CCRN’s mailing list started having an effect – legislators started hearing from more people, which opened still more doors.

And the next year?  There was talk of a bill.  It never happened, but legislators were getting the message in droves; CCRN’s volunteer lobbyists were getting audiences with key legislators.

And the next year?  Well, the CCRN mailing list grew some more, and the DFL had to start playing defense.

And the next year?  And the following?  More of the same.  The DFL – and their point man on the issue, Wes “Lying Sack of Garbage” Skoglund – had to crank the smear and lie machine up into full force, since it was becoming clear they had no basis in fact.

And the next year?  There was a bill – and it died on the table (as I recall – I could very well have the specifics wrong, but it doesn’t really detract from the point).  And CCRN’s mailing list told voters which legislators voted against it.  And they got an earful, and a few of them – outstate DFLers who’d voted against the bill – lost their return tickets to Saint Paul.

And the next year?  We won.

Welcome to democracy. It’s ugly. It’s inefficient. It often moves at glacial speeds. But quoting Winston Churchill, “It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried”.

Now on to taking back the White House and the Senate.

McCotter has still not yet been invited to the Fox News debate in Iowa associated with the Straw Poll. So, McCotter had the following to say in someone’s kitchen.

Michele Bachmann may have just provided the nail in the coffin for the campaigns of some of her competitors, looking an awful lot like Mike Huckabee as she released a list of one hundred pastors and Christian leaders in Iowa who have endorsed her campaign:

Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann announced today the endorsement of more than 100 Iowa pastors and faith leaders. Many of the evangelical leaders offered support after hearing her testimony and witnessing how her faith guides her strong leadership on critical issues such as marriage, life, and the overbearing impact of government policies on the family.

“Michele has a long track record of standing firm on and fighting for conservative issues on the local, state and national level,” said Pastor Brad Sherman in his endorsement. “She has been in the battle for decades and has shown that her core values are non-negotiable in political storms. She has earned her claim to having a ‘titanium spine’ on the issues we care most about.”

In 2007 Mike Huckabee, of course, rode the very loose organization of churches and church leaders to an unexpected second place showing at Ames. Huckabee had no money, hardly any support, and no organization other than that (and the FairTax group) to speak of. Bachmann is certainly better off than Huckabee at this point, at least on paper. She easily has the highest level of support and by far the most cash on hand of any candidate competing at Ames ($1.5 million more than Ron Paul, and $2 million more than Pawlenty). With a hundred pastors and Christian leaders providing that loose organization now, the chances of a different candidate winning the Ames Straw Poll has grown incredibly dim. After all, Tim Pawlenty’s greatest hope was for the evangelical community to coalesce around him, giving a much-needed boost to his lackluster poll numbers and mediocre cash on hand totals.

Politico points out something I didn’t realize as well — all throughout this campaign, Bachmann has been touring Iowa on the weekends and speaking at a different church every Sunday. That kind of involvement probably led to a lot of these endorsements.

(This move could help explain Pawlenty’s flip-flop on the NOM marriage pledge as well. After refusing to sign the pledge at first, this evening spokesman Alex Conant announced that Pawlenty changed his mind and signed the pledge today. There was confusion and publicly expressed frustration from evangelical groups yesterday as to why Pawlenty wasn’t signing the pledge.)

Someone who doesn’t like Rick Perry leaked his college transcripts to the Huffington Post this morning… and they are not pretty:

The future politician did not distinguish himself much in the classroom. While he later became a student leader, he had to get out of academic probation to do so. He rarely earned anything above a C in his courses — earning a C in U.S. History, a D in Shakespeare, and a D in the principles of economics. Perry got a C in gym.

Perry also did poorly on classes within his animal science major. In fall semester 1970, he received a D in veterinary anatomy, a F in a second course on organic chemistry and a C in animal breeding. He did get an A in world military systems and “Improv. of Learning” — his only two As while at A&M.

“A&M wasn’t exactly Harvard on the Brazos River,” recalled a Perry classmate in an interview with The Huffington Post. “This was not the brightest guy around. We always kind of laughed. He was always kind of a joke.”

The HuffPo article is clearly a hit piece on Rick Perry, but they have his scanned transcript posted for everyone to see. A quick calculation that I did reveals a cumulative GPA of 1.9 over his college career. In other words, Perry was a “D” student at Texas A&M. (To be fair, he was one tenth of a point away from being a “C” student. So close.)

The release of this kind of information eerily mirrors the beatings that Fred Thompson endured from the press in 2007. Thompson had a reputation for being lazy – doing just enough to get by. Soon, while he was waiting to jump in the race, the press was running article after article with quotes from his yearbooks, former classmates and coaches, and other ‘incriminating’ evidence that simply reinforced the stereotype of laziness. The label haunted Thompson for his entire campaign and colored how reporters (sometimes unfairly) reported on his events.

Rick Perry finds himself in the same exact situation. He is stereotyped as being a bad caricature of Dubya (who, by the way, got better grades than John Kerry in college), and I suspect there will be a half dozen more stories just like this one in the coming weeks which just strengthen that stereotype. And don’t expect Perry to get any favorable press, either – just like Fred four years ago, only worse. Perry has got to be furious at whoever leaked these transcripts.

This, of course, is the dangerous downside to staying out of the race for so long: the media gets a free pass to define you while you wait on the sidelines.

UPDATE: Because A&M did not use a four-point GPA system in Perry’s first year, my calculations of his 1.9 GPA are most likely a little off. According to our reader Thomas Alan, his GPA would have been 2.1. Without having time to double check the arithmetic, the headline has been changed accordingly.

Kavon noted earlier this week the formation of Mitt Romney’s Judicial Advisory Committee. That same day two of its three chairmen — Judge Robert H. Bork and Professor Mary Ann Glendon — released an op-ed entitled, “Toward a Government of Laws”. It is a broad, sweeping condemnation by two of the most prestigious legal minds in the country of the current administration’s disdain for and disregard of the rule of law.

Here is the op-ed in its entirety :

Today, we join over sixty leaders of the legal profession — private practitioners, corporate lawyers, former judges and executive branch employees, academicians — in expressing our fervent support for Mitt Romney in his run for the presidency.

Each of these individuals has his or her own reasons for supporting Mitt Romney.  Our reason is this: America was founded on and owes its freedom and prosperity to rigorous devotion to the Constitution and the rule of law.  President Obama lacks dedication to these principles.  He has repeatedly attacked the rule of law and the institutions and virtues it protects.  Mitt Romney, in contrast, is assiduous in his defense of the distinctive legal heritage that is the bedrock of our society.

Barack Obama’s presidency — marked by unprecedented claims of federal power and executive fiat — has accelerated an imprudent and dangerous drift from the rule of law.  We see this drift in three main instances.

First, we are alarmed by President Obama’s abdication of his duty to zealously defend and administer the laws of the United States.  In an absolutely unprecedented action, President Obama and his attorney general have refused to defend an important federal statute, the Defense of Marriage Act, in court.  This lawlessness is particularly striking, given that the DOMA was passed by large majorities in both Houses of Congress before it was signed by President Clinton.  What the administration’s decision seems to reflect is not only the President’s disregard for the rule of law, but his disdain for traditional family values and the people who hold them (people who, as he contemptuously put it, “cling to guns or religion”).

The Obama Administration has also refused to fully enforce federal immigration laws, going so far as to sue states that pass laws to perform the enforcement duties the federal government will not.  And in Guantanamo detainee litigation, the administration has declined to make the most obvious legal arguments, apparently for political reasons.

Second, we see the drift in numerous examples of President Obama’s expansion of executive discretion and regulatory power.  Most glaring is Obamacare, which constitutes an unprecedented federal usurpation of powers reserved to the states and to the people.  Further, both Obamacare and the wide-ranging financial regulatory law have created multiple independent boards with broad mandates to act free from both the ballot box and meaningful oversight.  Those same laws have given bureaucrats the discretionary power to grant waivers, the criteria for which are largely unknown.  The Environmental Protection Agency has claimed vast powers to regulate carbon emissions despite clear congressional intent to the contrary and widespread popular opposition.

Third, we see disdain for the rule of law in President Obama’s standard for selecting judges.  He desires that his judicial nominees have a capacity for “empathy” with litigants — to shade their decisions based not on the law, but on who stands before them.  This is in flat violation of the oath every judge takes to decide the cases before them “without respect to persons.”  It is a dangerous invitation for judges to arrogate power to themselves and to discount the text of our Constitution and the will of the people as expressed through democratically enacted statutes.

Our observations stand independently of any substantive assessment of the political outcomes President Obama pursues.  Rather, we are dismayed that, in pursuing these outcomes, the administration has unmoored itself from constitutional and legal constraints on its power.

We support Mitt Romney because he is committed to restoring a government of laws, and not of men.

— Judge Robert H. Bork & Professor Mary Ann Glendon

From the Chicago Tribune:

The stock market plunge highlights a challenge President Obama faces in his quest for a second term: With a recovery that is anemic at best, he probably will be forced to run on something other than his economic record.

Already, the outlines of a hard-nosed reelection campaign are emerging. Using surrogates to distance the president from the effort, his team is pushing back hard against criticism of his handling of the economy. At the same time, aides are developing lines of attack against potential GOP opponents.

…

However the effort is characterized, the results already are visible on the campaign trail in repeated forays against former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, the Republicans’ nominal front-runner. The Obama campaign’s efforts against Romney have been unusually intense given that the GOP primaries do not even begin for more than five months.

Case in point: Romney’s recent stop at a vacant shopping center in North Hollywood. Romney’s campaign designed the event to illustrate his claim that Obama’s policies have only made the recession worse, but it quickly became a magnet for the president’s response machine.

Hours before Romney’s arrival, the Democratic National Committee rounded up local reporters for a conference call with Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who delivered a scripted critique of Romney’s subpar job-creation record as governor.

After Romney’s brief campaign appearance at the mall had ended, local Democratic officials were at the scene, telling reporters that many of the businesses there had been closed during George W. Bush’s administration. The Democratic rebuttal became part of TV and newspaper accounts of the event.

Targeted attacks immediately before and after an opposing candidate’s event — known as “bracketing” — are a timeworn campaign tactic. But the Obama team has applied it virtually everywhere Romney has gone in recent months.

Romney’s campaign advisors regard the attention as a backhanded compliment, confirmation of his status as his party’s front-runner. “It’s clear that the White House has Mitt Romney on the brain,” said Andrea Saul, a Romney campaign spokeswoman.

Well, Mitt has been laying into Obama’s record. It is only fair that Obama should take shots at Mitt’s record.