The editor-in-chief of the Huffington Post was on MSNBC’s The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell yesterday. After pointing out that Obama had held 37 fundraisers so far in this tense year, she made the following observation:

But the point is that the most important number going into 2012 is going to be the unemployment number. And there is absolutely no prospect at the moment that would make us believe that unemployment number is going to be below nine percent. Now that is really the greatest fear for the White House. And of course Mitt Romney again and again is talking about the failure of the President to produce jobs, and he doesn’t have to tell us how he would have done it. He just has to point out to that failure. And when the President again and again talks about how, I mean, I went through and looked since 2009 how many times he has said, “Jobs priority number one,” “The sustained focus of this administration,” “The relentless focus of this administration,” “We’re pivoting to jobs.” Nobody believes it any more.

(quoted from NewsBusters.Org)

Wow! When the lefties get frustrated with the President and aren’t buying his spiel anymore, his chances for re-election take a decided turn for the worst.

There is more in the article, including quotes from Alex Wagner, another HuffPoster slamming the President’s “green jobs” shtick to Mr. Tingles himself, Chris Matthews. Be sure and read the whole thing.

The following two comments were made on my recent thread about Romney’s campaign working the RNC summer confab in Florida this week. They bring up a point that I think deserves front page attention.

The first is from “wateredseeds”, a long-time Huckabee supporter:

Super smart. Romney has the edge…and is going to win out of iowa no matter what. The question comes down to momentum…and holding the line. Romney is playing it SMART rather than SAFE as many people assume. He had nothing to win at the straw poll…he’s a top 3 finisher in iowa no matter what. He wins new hampshire almost no matter what. And he has nevada pretty much in the bag as well. Romney is running for the general election…and if he tap dances a miracle victory off in iowa…it’s over. People don’t understand…romney doesn’t HAVE to win iowa…but he very well may do it. I’ll bet romney lays low and makes a small push in iowa until right before the caucus. He can win it….and if he does it’s over.

The second is from “Still Hurting”, a Romney supporter:

Wateredseeds,

To add to your commentary, the rest of the early calendar also favors Romney, almost as if he could have drawn it up himself. (Conspiracy nuts, knock yourself out with that one.)

The RNC voted today to not levy harsh penalties against AZ, MI, and FL if they jump the gun on the first Tuesday in March. They have tabled the discussion until their January meeting, meaning that everything will be irrevocably calendared by then.

FL is solid Romney territory (not unchangeble, though). He’s a favorite son in MI. And Romney did very well in AZ in ’08.

It looks like he will have lots of opportunity to build momentum in teh 1st quarter of 2012.

There is little doubt that the odds right now are in Mitt’s favor. Things are shaping up well for him. Will anyone be able to beat the odds and take the nomination from him? They might. Will they? Not likely.

I am reminded of that old saying, “The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, but that is the way to bet.”

Now don’t get me wrong. Mitt should not be writing his nomination acceptance speech just yet. By the same token none of his opponents should be slitting their wrists, either. There is still time for someone other than Mitt to catch fire. Time is growing short, however.

If things remained the same, Mitt’s path to the nomination is clear. Everyone else’s path, however, depends upon Mitt imploding. In other words, Mitt controls his own destiny. Nobody else can say that.

Many people like to draw the analogy between Rudy Giuliani in 2008 and Mitt Romney in 2012. Rudy led the polls for most of 2007. Mitt has led most of this year. Rudy led in numbers of endorsements. Mitt leads in numbers of endorsements so far this time around. Rudy led in money raised for the campaign. Mitt currently holds a commanding lead in money raised for 2012. (Did you know that back in 2007-2008 Rudy actually raised more money for his campaign than Mitt did for his? Well, it’s true. If you discount Mitt’s own money, Rudy Giuliani actually received more funds for his campaign than Mitt did.)

This is all true. However, where the analogy breaks down is in work ethic. Rudy pretty much coasted until the winter of 2007. He would give an occasional speech now and again, and would show-up for the debates. But for the most part he never really did any serious campaigning until the snow started to fly. By the time he did, however, hard charging John McCain and Mitt Romney had left him in their dust. He never recovered.

Does anybody here seriously predict that Mitt will sit back passively as Rudy did in 2007? I think not. It’s just not in his nature.

Mitt will continue as he is now, working his tail off for the nomination, taking nothing for granted. He is not an over-confident hare who will be tempted to take a nap before the finish line because he thinks he has the race won. He is in an all-out race for the finish line. If someone wishes to take the nomination away from him, they are going to have to fight him for it. They are going to have to run hard, catch him, pass him, and then never let him back in the race until it is over.

Anyone who can do that deserves the nomination.

PPP (D) Nevada 2012 GOP Caucus Survey

• Mitt Romney 31% (33%)
• Rick Perry 18%
• Michele Bachmann 10% (11%)
• Sarah Palin 10% (14%)
• Ron Paul 9% (6%)
• Herman Cain 7%
• Newt Gingrich 6% (18%)
• Jon Huntsman 1%
• Tim Pawlenty 1% (9%)
• Someone else/Undecided 6% (8%)

(more…)

PPP (D) Vermont 2012 Republican Primary Survey

• Mitt Romney 26%
• Michele Bachmann 16%
• Sarah Palin 16%
• Rick Perry 10%
• Herman Cain 9%
• Ron Paul 7%
• Newt Gingrich 6%
• Jon Huntsman 3%
• Tim Pawlenty 1%
• Someone else/Undecided 5%

(more…)

Jonathan Martin at Politico is reporting the following:

Vogel and I couldn’t figure out the provenance of “W Spann LLC,” an entity that showed up on the Romney SuperPac’s report as having given a cool million.

Isikoff does the sleuthing:

The company, W Spann LLC, was formed in March by a Boston lawyer who specializes in estate tax planning for “high net worth individuals,” according to corporate records and the lawyer’s bio on her firm’s website.

The corporate records provide no information about the owner of the firm, its address or its type of business.

Six weeks later, W Spann LLC made its million-dollar donation to Restore Our Future — a new so-called “super PAC” started by a group of former Romney political aides to boost the former Massachusetts governor’s presidential bid. It listed its address as being in a midtown Manhattan office building that has no record of such a tenant.

The Boston lawyer, Cameron Casey, dissolved the company on July 12 — two weeks before Restore Our Future made its first campaign filing of the year reporting the donation from the now-nonexistent company, the corporate records show.

This is a perfect example of the double-edged sword that is a Super-PAC. Yes, they have the wonderful characteristic of having no limits on how much money can be donated to them. The bad part of it is, the candidate has no control over them whatsoever. Technically, the campaign and the Super-PAC can’t even coordinate in any way, shape, or form. For example in this case, if Romney or anyone connected to him were to call these guys up and asked, “What in blazes do you think you are doing?!?!”, that would be considered coordinating. The FEC could then come down on Romney like a ton of bricks.

In plain English, Super-PACs are by their very nature a loose cannon waiting to happen.

This all comes from the silly election finance laws that the nation has enacted. When you boil most of them down, what you are left with is an attempt to limit political speech. That is simply anathema to the American system.

Besides, trying to stop money flowing from those who have it to politicians who need it is an exercise in futility. Like flood waters rushing downhill, it will find a way around any obstacle you attempt to erect in its path.

Ironically, the biggest result from all these laws is to give the candidate and the parties less and less power over their campaigns. Instead, the power flows to those PACs, 537′s, etc. that can bypass the limits and are not controlled by the candidate or the party.

And this is a good thing?

The Washington Post is reporting that Mitt Romney is the only 2012 GOP hopeful who is working the RNC during their summer meeting this week:

In the minds of the investors, it seems the race is now Rick vs. Mitt as all the other candidates step out of the ring to watch the heavyweight title bout. Romney and Perry have been trading the lead back and forth for the past two weeks, with Perry generally occupying the 30-32 point range and Romney in the 29-31 point range. During that time, Perry has been on top for longer periods of time, but the fluctuations are pretty constant as the investors attempt to digest just how powerful a Perry candidacy will end up being.

With all the oxygen sucked out of the room, the second- and third-tier candidates have all seen their hopes fade. And so Perry and Romney each hold roughly a 1/3 chance of winning the nomination, and everybody else combined make up the remaining 1/3.

Without further ado, this week’s update (movement is from last week):

Only candidates who have announced an official candidacy or who have greater than a 3% chance at the nomination are included.

To give you a better picture of just how much of a two-man race this is turning into, here is the above data as an awesome pie chart:

National Journal has just published a poll of “Democrat Insiders” that shows them considering Mitt Romney the biggest obstacle to Obama retaining the White House in 2012.

With the economy sputtering, Democratic political operatives view former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney as the main Republican threat to President Obama‘s reelection, according to this week’s National Journal Political Insiders Poll.

Democratic Insiders see Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who has not yet declared whether or not he will run for president, as the second strongest against Obama. A separate poll of Republican insiders, released Thursday, also showed Perry as Romney’s main GOP challenger.

Who would be the Republicans’ strongest presidential nominee in 2012?
Democrats (105 votes)		June 2011 (100 votes)
Mitt Romney	48%	27%
Rick Perry	20%	5%
Jon Huntsman	16%	25%
Chris Christie	6%	11%
Tim Pawlenty	6%	20%

Romney has nearly doubled where he was two months ago.  Perry has surged from also-ran 5% to a respectable 20%.

The Democrats continue their odd fascination with Huntsman giving him 16%. The man continues to languish down in the 1 – 2% range in most if not all of the polls, yet here he is in third place among Democrat insiders. They appear to like his penchant for only criticizing fellow Republicans and not Obama.

Nobody else is in double digits.

It seems as though nobody, on the left or the right, is even remotely happy with the recent debt deal. Liberals bemoan the spending cuts and lack of new tax revenue, and throw around terms like “terrorists” and “nuclear blackmail” to describe the negotiating tactics of Tea Partiers. On the other hand, many in the tea parties, and more broadly on the right, bemoan the fact that the current debt deal does not do anything to fix the serious, structural deficiencies which cause the debt in the first place, and site the desperate need for entitlement reform as an example of this. Some have even analyzed the crisis as an example of “democracy in decline”, in which political gamesmanship and cultural dog-whistling has taken the place of actually fixing the problem. I am actually a lot more sanguine about the debt deal than many of my conservative colleagues, and I think that those who believe government spending and entitlements need to be permanently inviolate, and that tax increases on the wealthy can close the debt loophole, do have reason to worry. Most of my optimism comes from what my political science background has taught me about institutions. There are two critical lessons: institutions are almost impossible to change accept at very specific points, and the culture and assumptions of those who make the changes will help shape the new institutions which are created, and which will, in turn, become equally difficult to change.

To understand this argument, you need to know something about the theory of “path dependence”. Economists began noticing, a few decades ago, that the free market does not always lead to the most efficient choice, where consumer behavior is concerned. Economists site the development of the qwerty keyboard, as compared to one in which key placement would better reflect typing habits, and the triumph of VHS over beta as examples of this phenomenon. These economists postulate that, once a standard is established, it becomes progressively more difficult to change that standard, as more and more people become invested in it. Political scientist Paul Pearson applied this insight–with a great deal of success–to political institutions. Pearson found that, in highly institutionalized democracies like our own, institutions are constructed as a result of specific political circumstances at the time of their creation. Long after those circumstances have changed, at which point a different institutional configuration might be considerably more efficient, stakeholder interest in the institution has grown, to the point that change becomes difficult to impossible. Only a deep and serious institutional crisis–what Pearson calls a “critical juncture”– truly gives policy-makers the opportunity to remodel institutions. When they do so, they will (usually) bring their momentary political considerations into the process with them, which will shape the institution long after circumstances have changed.

Based on this theory of institutions, I think I can draw a couple of conclusions about the current fights over debt and entitlement reform. First, we have not reached a “critical juncture”, at which large-scale institutional reform is possible. Popular resistance to the Ryan plan, and the timidity of all political parties vis-a-vis entitlement reform, tells me we’re still at a point where institutional durability–particularly in the minds of the public the institutions serve–trumps oncoming crisis. If anything, path dependence theory tells me that the American public won’t be ready for institutional reform of entitlements until a crisis is either upon us, or so close that the public at large recognizes it’s inevitability. The Ryan plan, then, is genuinely ahead of it’s time, by 4 to 10 years in my estimation. Second, upcoming elections really could be critical in the long-term. The ideological make-up of our political decision-makers at the moment when a critical juncture finally allows for institutional reform is going to be absolutely pivotal in determining the kind of new institutions we get moving forward. This entitlement critical juncture could be a literal once in a lifetime opportunity to remake and limit government. Third, the importance of the debt deal is not that it fixes the problem–a problem that is inherently structural can’t be fixed until the brokenness of the structure is inescapably revealed–but rather in that it sets a new normative precedent. According to this precedent, cutting government, rather than increasing taxes,  is the new appropriate response to a debt crisis. This is not to say that current tax rates are inviolate and will never increase; such a notion would be foolish and ahistorical. Rather, it implies that the new political default is shrinking government. Ardent fiscal conservatives may be right in arguing that the cuts in the compromise bill are laughably small given the scope of the problem we face, but, perhaps for the first time in living memory, serious cuts in the size and scope of government are on the table. Put differently, if the question when we do eventually reach a critical juncture and can reform institutions is where and how to shrink government rather than where and how we can expand it, and if this debt deal contributes substantially to that understanding, we may have a lot more to thank house and senate Republicans for than a few small spending cuts, when all is said and done.

There is one final point worth making. The debt deal is not, by any stretch, a failure of democracy, but a necessary side effect of having strong institutions. It has nothing to do with a young-old divide, the timidity of house Republicans, or any other aspersion you’d like to cast. The plain fact of the matter is that institutional reform is very nearly impossible most of the time, and very difficult to get right in the narrow window one has in which to do it, before the new pattern hardens. It’s also worth noting that most societies have a very deep strain of institutional conservatism, which views askance any attempt to tamper with institutions that have existed for a very long time. Only the abject failure of such institutions will lead to a widespread understanding that reform is necessary. On the whole, such institutional conservatism is probably a good thing: “don’t fiddle with what works” may not be a glorious utopian principal which satisfies every fine point of conservative ideology, but eight times out of ten, it’ll be sufficient to keep the mechanisms of society running. Unfortunately, it appears that our current situation is one of the two times in ten that institutional conservatism is more of a hindrance than a help. The key for those conservative Republicans who oddly find themselves cast in a reformist role will be to recognize the critical juncture when it arrives, and to capitalize on the widespread support for reform to refashion a government that will function until the next eventual crisis, seventy or eighty years down the road. And for those Democrats who are counting on defense of the institutional status quo to preserve their short-term political advantage, be warned that, when institutions do change, there is little chance of going back.

Post-script: These institutional arguments have a lot of relevance to Obamacare as well. The hope of conservatives is that Obamacare can be repealed and replaced. This may be possible, but will have to happen quickly, before the institution hardens into permanence. By contrast, most progressives hope that, eventually, this system can be transitioned into a single-payer system. They should read very carefully what I have said above regarding institutional reform. I think it is highly unlikely that, if Obamacare is firmly established, either side will be able to budge it significantly in the direction they would prefer. Once established, the actual structural institutions Obamacare creates will be hard to change or abolish for a very long time. This is yet another reason why elections–and the 2012 elections in particular– matter a great deal.

Quinnipiac Florida 2012 Presidential Survey

REPUBLICAN NOMINATION

• Mitt Romney 23%
• Rick Perry 13%
• Ron Paul 9%
• Sarah Palin 9%
• Herman Cain 8%
• Michele Bachmann 6%
• Newt Gingrich 4%
• Tim Pawlenty 3%
• Rick Santorum 1%
• Jon Huntsman 1%
• Thaddeus McCotter 0%
• Someone else (Vol) 3%
• Wouldn’t vote (Vol) 3%
• Don’t know 17%

(more…)

The debt ceiling “crisis” has passed, but the critical issues have been barely addressed. The final “deal” had something for everyone, but there was much more, in long-term impact, for the conservatives. Some Tea Partiers and Rush Limbaugh are not very happy, but there was almost no chance their idealized expectations would be attained. Moreover, for them and others who wanted to let the deadline on raising the debt ceiling simply to pass without any action, it was just an opening skirmish in a politico-economic war that can only be decided in the 2012 elections.

Most of the complaining, however, is taking place on the left where it is now fully realized that the conservatives have the upper, if incomplete, hand.

The bottom line, as I see it, is that the consequences of the 2010 national elections have now become the transformative instrument that they were designed to be. The debate of where to increase public spending, and how much to spend, the established tradition for many decades has been replaced  by a new culture of reduced public spending and no new taxes. This is what is driving liberals to moan and lament. Their multi-trillion dollar party is over for the foreseeable future. The man they expected to prevent this, President Obama, failed in this basic task, and the left base of the Democratic Party is not happy. To be fair to Mr. Obama, however, a more experienced and clever president might have obtained better terms, but there was no way he or the liberals could have averted the outcome.

On the other hand, although the old trend was halted, the size of the “cuts” is not very large, and as now established through the debt ceiling agreement, not even close to a level that will, for example, avoid eventual downgrading of U.S. debt instruments, something that I have been asserting is much more consequential and dangerous than failing to raise the debt ceiling. The AAA rating by the three major private agencies which set the rating is holding for the short term, but the details of the “deal” fell far short of requirements for averting the downgrade in the intermediate and longer term. The agreement, while historic in that they brought deficit spending in principle to a halt, is essentially now a shell game in the hands of the mandated congressional special committees.

There was no reasonable opportunity to “settle” the issues which separate liberals and conservatives in this “skirmish.” With the White House and the U.S. senate in Democratic hands, and the U.S. house in Republican hands, the debt ceiling crisis could only lead to a much more critical confrontation in the 2012 national elections. As I have pointed out in another commentary, it is almost a certainty that Republicans will gain control of the U.S. senate regardless of the outcome of the presidential election, and (although less of a certainly) it is likely that the conservatives will continue their control of the U.S. house. So next year’s national elections will primarily be about whether President Obama is retained for a second (but probably powerless) term, or he is replaced with someone who will “finish the job” begun in 2010.

The unexpected can always happen in national politics, and often does in one way or another, but it is difficult to see how the economy, with its hands tied by liberal programs and policies, including Obamacare, can recover in less than the a year. On the other hand, the beginning of the introduction of conservative polices now, especially in many individual states, will actually help the economy.

We are in the midst of a transformative period of U.S. economic policy. The liberal assumptions and practices have failed to remedy the current crisis. Liberals will disagree with this, but they cannot avoid the facts of prolonged unemployment, unfunded liabilities, titanic deficits, and the lack of confidence in U.S. current economic policy. it is true that Republicans and Republican presidents have often been complicit in this, and can rightfully be criticized for it, but the simple truth is that it is a very liberal Democratic president now in the White House, and liberal Democratic policies at work in the economy.

Obamacare clearly will make matters worse, possibly much worse, and the liberal preoccupation with raising taxes and increased public spending no longer have their traditional support, especially among independent and centrist voters who will, as always, decide the next election.

It might be comforting to assert that there was an unambiguous winner in the debt ceiling crisis now concluded. As I said, there were details in the final agreement for all sides. But the bottom line is that the direction begun in the 2010 elections is not only intact, it was strengthened. The primary task ahead for Republicans and their presidential nominee is now to articulate how they will repair the economy, reassert U.S. foreign policy, and restore voter confidence in the American future.

A skirmish is past; a long and contentious struggle lies ahead.

_____________________________________________________________________________

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

According to a new seven page article by Politico’s veteran reporter, Jonathan Martin, the atmosphere inside of the Huntsman campaign is suffocatingly toxic. Here are a few excerpts:

A blistering internal feud in the Jon Huntsman presidential campaign is erupting into public view, with dueling camps trading charges and an exodus of campaign officials.

And now, a longtime family friend tells POLITICO that Huntsman’s wife and father fret that his presidential prospects have been threatened by the turmoil — and he places the blame on John Weaver, Huntsman’s controversial chief strategist.

…

Tensions within presidential campaigns, especially those struggling to find traction, are common. But the ferocity with which Fischer and others attack Weaver and the extent they went to disclose sensitive internal problems is not merely the stuff of a power struggle. It’s illustrative of a campaign that has been thrown together on the run and is comprised of figures who hadn’t even met the candidate before he returned from China this spring, working alongside those who have known him for much of their adult life.

The problem for Huntsman, of course, is that all this high-decibel public squabbling undercuts his main rationale for winning the GOP nomination — that the former Utah governor offers the level-headed competence and executive experience needed to unseat President Barack Obama. Not only that, but voters might wonder how he’d bring civility to the public discourse — another Huntsman promise — if he can’t do the same inside the four walls of his campaign headquarters.

…

After a campaign announcement that featured a raft of missteps – a speech that lacked pep, a camera shot that missed the Statue of Liberty in the background, misspelling the candidates’ name on the credential, taking the traveling press to a Saudi plane instead of the campaign plane – Huntsman indicated that evening that he was losing sleep over the operational side of the organization.

If even half the things recounted in the article are true (and Politico is claiming multiple sources and is providing quotes from a large number of original emails), the Huntsman campaign is in serious trouble. The main quoted source for all this, the former head of operations, David Fischer, attempts to lay this entirely at the feet of Huntsman’s chief strategist, John Weaver. However, the person who ultimately has to take responsibility has to be Jon Huntsman himself. The buck has to stop there. It has to be up to Huntsman to correct any problems. Otherwise, the fault will be entirely his for not acting.

Today, the Washington Post’s Aaron Blake wrote an enlightening analysis of the respective decisions by Mitt Romney and John Huntsman to oppose and support Washington’s recent debt ceiling agreement:

Basically all of Romney’s opponents are getting some traction by criticizing his inaction on the issue. And one of The Fix’s favorite reporters – Politico’s Ben Smith – coined a term this week that could haunt Team Romney in the weeks and months ahead: The Mittness Protection Program. It refers to the idea that Romney has basically been hiding from the big ideas and issues of the day.

This could all help Romney’s opponents paint a picture that ends up being very similar to the image that emerged of Romney’s 2008 campaign. In that race, Romney got pegged as an expedient politician with no real convictions.

At the same time, by not supporting or opposing all of the other proposals that were brought forward before the final deal, Romney avoided pinning himself down on all manner of things that could be used against him in the future.

Any time you’re supporting or opposing a broad package of spending cuts and reforms, its pretty easy to cherry pick one or two items than make for a powerful campaign ad. If you were one of Romney’s opponents, you could easily pick one of the more controversial aspects of the plan and hang it around Romney’s neck. Or, if he didn’t support the larger proposal, you could accuse him of opposing this or that spending cut.

Romney also has an eye on the general election, where he still wants to be able to attract independent voters. Embracing some of the more conservative proposals could have hurt him if he gets to that point.

…Huntsman, meanwhile, was quick to jump on board with the last two proposals. This is part of his strategy of trying to look like the adult in the room – the moderate pragmatist who wants to get things done and isn’t a craven politician.

“Everyone else played politics,” Huntsman spokesman Tim Miller said. “Voters want a president who is going to be honest with them.”

Inasmuch as Huntsman has a path to victory right now, this is it. While all the other Republicans will be fighting over ground on the right, Huntsman is content to appeal to the leftovers in the middle.

Mr. Blake also notes that any negative proposals coming from the debt super-committee could easily get pegged to Huntsman by his opponents.

As we’ve seen, the polling data that has emerged since the agreement has suggested that candidates like Romney, Pawlenty, and Bachmann, who opposed the deal, may not see much political damage, as most of the public disapproved of the proceedings.

For those who, like me, came away perplexed from Mitt’s posture (or lack thereof) during the debt ceiling debate, Blake’s article certainly sheds some light on the strategy behind it.

Welcome to the sixth monthly version of this exercise. As with each preceding month, we had some interesting developments in July.

As always, please note that the charts show the candidates’ average, at a given point in time, of the five most recent serious polls (interactive and not generally recognized polls are excluded). The first chart shows all activity, the second shows only month-end figures.

Mitt Romney had a great June. July, not so much. In last month’s update, I wondered aloud whether he had developed into a real frontrunner, as opposed to merely primus in pares. He was pushing toward the thirty percent mark and had a ten-point lead on his nearest competitor, Sarah Palin. Now he’s dropped back under twenty, and he’s only four up on Rick Perry, and another two or three on Michele Bachmann and Palin. Very much a PIP.

Perry’s performance has been amazing. If he keeps it up, it shouldn’t take him long to close that small gap. Note the qualifier, though. We’ve seen these flavors of the month before, and Perry might very well be just another. If so, Jon Huntsman is eagerly waiting his opportunity to be the next. And, while discussing flavors of the month, Donald Trump now thinks he might get back in. Would someone please pretend to pay him some attention, so he’ll go away and stay away?

After getting a nice (dead cat?) bounce when Mike Huckabee withdrew, Palin has now slid for the past two months and is back close to where she was, while Bachmann climbed another couple points in July to pass her. Still, with Romney’s recent decline, both are reasonably close to the lead.

As for the others, Ron Paul is hard to categorize — he was sharply up in May, even more sharply down in June, and then made a nice recovery in July. Who knows where he’s going? (Other than being reasonably certain he isn’t going to the White House). Herman Cain, of course, continues his collapse (last month he was tied with Bachmann, now he has half her support), as does Newt Gingrich.

And then there’s Tim Pawlenty, who you may note has disappeared off the bottom of the chart. I’ve used three percent as the baseline for these charts from the beginning, and Pawlenty is now at 2.6. I considered adjusting the X-axis and then asked myself, “Why?” Maybe he’ll be back, maybe not. And maybe Gingrich will be joining him soon.

PPP (D) Nevada 2012 Presidential Survey

• Barack Obama 47% [43%] (47%)
• Mitt Romney 46% [46%] (46%)

• Barack Obama 48%
• Herman Cain 39%

• Barack Obama 49%
• Rick Perry 40%

• Barack Obama 50%
• Michele Bachmann 40%

• Barack Obama 51% [50%] (52%)
• Sarah Palin 39% [39%] (39%)

(more…)

This is reportedly a major buy, running statewide beginning today.

The Romney Campaign has issued the following press release:

“I am proud to add these Iowans to my statewide Leadership Team,” said Mitt Romney. “I look forward to working with them as I continue to campaign across Iowa and the rest of the country, spreading my message that President Obama’s policies must be reversed.”

“I am honored to be a member of Mitt Romney’s Iowa Leadership Team,” said Mary Kramer, former United States Ambassador and former President of the Iowa Senate. “Mitt Romney is a proven leader and I am confident in his ability to run an efficient government that will work swiftly to reverse the damage done by the Obama administration.”

“It is clear that Mitt Romney is the best candidate to beat President Obama and bring our country back to greatness,” said Bob Rafferty, former State Representative and former Chief of Staff to Governor Terry Branstad. “Through both his private sector experience and his time as governor, Mitt Romney has a proven track record of creating jobs and showing the fiscal discipline that our country needs.  I look forward to working alongside the campaign and the rest of the Iowa Leadership Team to elect him president.”

New Members Of Mitt Romney’s Iowa Leadership Team:

• Former Ambassador to Barbados and Eastern Caribbean and Former Iowa Senate President, Mary Kramer, Clive

• Former State Representative and Former Chief of Staff to Governor Terry Branstad, Bob Rafferty, West Des Moines

These two join the following announced three weeks ago:

• State Senator James Hahn, Muscatine
• Romney For President Iowa Volunteer Legal Counsel And Former Linn County Republican Party Chairman, Mark Hudson, Marion
• Dallas County GOP Activist, Paul Bissinger
• Former University Of Northern Iowa College Republican Chairman, Patrick Finnegan, Des Moines
• Dr. Stephen Hunter, Iowa City
• Lorene Hunter, Iowa City

It doesn’t appear that Mitt is going to ignore or bypass the state, does it?

CNN/ORC Debt Ceiling Survey

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

• Approve 45% (45%) [48%] {54%}
• Disapprove 52% (54%) [48%] {45%}
• No opinion 2% (2%) [5%] {2%}

Note: Results in parenthesis taken July 18-20. Results in brackets taken June 3-7. Results in curly brackets taken May 24-26.

Do you approve or disapprove of the way Congress is handling its job?

• Approve 14%
• Disapprove 84%

As you may know, an agreement between Barack Obama and the Republicans and Democrats in Congress would raise the federal government’s debt ceiling through the year 2013 and make major cuts in
government spending over the next few years.

Based on what you have read or heard, do you approve or disapprove of that agreement?

• Approve 44%
• Disapprove 52%
• No opinion

As you may know, the agreement would raise the debt ceiling through the year 2013. Regardless of
how you feel about the overall agreement, do you approve or disapprove of raising the debt ceiling
at this time?

• Approve 48%
• Disapprove 51%
• No opinion

As you may know, the agreement would cut about one trillion dollars in government spending over
the next ten years with provisions to make additional spending cuts in the future. Regardless of how you feel about the overall agreement, do you approve or disapprove of the cuts in government
spending included in the debt ceiling agreement?

• Approve 65%
• Disapprove 30%
• No opinion 4%

And as you may know, the agreement does not include any tax increases for business or higher-income Americans. Regardless of how you feel about the overall agreement, do you approve or disapprove of the fact that the debt ceiling agreement does not include tax increases for those
groups?

• Approve 40%
• Disapprove 60%

Do you think that a failure to raise the debt ceiling by Tuesday would create a crisis for the United
States, major problems, minor problems, or no problems at all?

• Crisis 14%
• Major problems 38%
• Minor problems 31%
• No problems at all 15%

Who do you think is more responsible for the debt ceiling agreement? Do you think Barack Obama
and the Democrats in Congress are more responsible for that agreement, or do you think the Republicans in Congress are more responsible for that agreement?

• Obama/Democrats in Congress 34%
• Republicans in Congress 42%
• Both equally 18%
• Neither/no opinion 6%

Next, please tell me whether you approve or disapprove of the way each of the following has handled the negotiations over the debt ceiling in Washington over the past few days.

Barack Obama 46% approve/53% disapprove (-7%)
The Republican leaders in Congress 30% approve/68% disapprove (-38%)
The Democratic leaders in Congress 35% approve/63% disapprove (-28%)

Interviews with 860 adult Americans conducted by telephone on August 1, 2011. The margin of error is +/- 3.5%

A few follow-up points:

1. Ouch. These numbers certainly don’t look good for Republicans. Apparently, the majority of the public views our Republican leaders’ performance as childish, unreasonable, and selfish (maximizing political gain at the expense of “reasonable compromise”). Prepare to see the Democrats paint their Republican counterparts with this brush well into the future.

2. After seeing this, the decision of all the Republican presidential candidates except Jon Huntsman to oppose the deal make more sense (at least from a political standpoint).

3. This poll gives the Dems even more ammo to wax poetic about the need for a “balanced approach”, filled with “shared sacrifice” and “millionaire and billionaire corporate jet owners paying their fair share” in future deals. In fact, we’ll probably hear the words “balanced approach” so often from Democratic leaders, they might as well tattoo them on their foreheads.

By TwitterButtons.com

One of my favorite movies is the 1995 film, Rob Roy, a story about, among other things, the danger of concentrating too much power in too few hands. In the film, the character Rob Roy is a hard-working man of high ethics who is enjoying a prosperous life via the sweat of his brow. But the protagonist soon finds his life torn asunder, with his wife raped, his wealth confiscated, and his village burnt to the ground, and a death sentence on his head to boot. The protagonist’s misfortune, however, came not from his own doing. Nor did it constitute collateral damage from some sort of messy military conflict that, while unfortunate, turned out to be necessary in the grand scheme of things. Quite to the contrary, Rob Roy found his entire life taken from him due solely to a petty, personal squabble between two men of nobility who were constantly trying to humiliate, embarrass, and trump one another’s actions, for no other reason than personal amusement.

This sort of abuse of power, of course, was supposed to disappear upon the advent of democracy, when the concept of one-person, one-vote would prevent the few from dominating the many. Indeed, the great concern of small-d democrats was that the many may end up dominating the few once democracy was instituted. Interestingly, it has taken just two and a half centuries for the world’s greatest democracy to seemingly revert back to the model of the Everyman twisting in the wind as his supposed betters toy with destroying his life and livelihood in order to do nothing more than get under their opponents’ skin. And everything comes full circle.

The recent battle over the debt ceiling was a low point for democracy in America, as the nation’s two major political parties acted not as statesmen, but as showmen, holding the country hostage in a perverse game of “chicken” in order to see which side would give in to the relatively meaningless demands of the other. And the demands were indeed meaningless. No amount of fiddling around the edges of taxes and spending are going to solve the country’s debt crisis. The only solution is structural reform in a number of areas where government interacts with American life. But the politicians in Washington don’t want to hear about that. They simply want to use this and every other crisis to continue their half-century battle over the cultural and economic revolutions of the late 20th Century, with Republicans’ convinced that the biggest problem in America is NPR, and Democrats certain that all of our problems will go away if marginal income tax rates are raised by 4 percentage points for upper income Americans.

But these issues are petty indeed, and the fact that both parties essentially held the American economy hostage in order to obtain “bragging rights” is evidence that our democracy may be nearer to its end than its beginning. Again, our debt problem is a structural problem, and a structural problem requires a structural solution. But structural solutions tend to create seismic change, and seismic change creates winners and losers, the latter of whom are inclined to vote against those public officials at the ballot box who enacted such change in the first place. If Washington were filled with statesmen, though, we’d see grand compromises in order to enact those structural changes that are necessary to save the nation from decline, and from drowning in debt.

The structural changes that are needed are well known to most policy wonks, and third rails to most politicians. The tax code needs to be restructured to reward savings and investment, to close loopholes, and to allocate capital more efficiently. The way that government interacts with health care needs to be restructured to lower costs. Anyone who’s looked at the long-term Medicare and Medicaid projections knows that. Social Security needs to be restructured to provide a greater rate of return to an aging population. Education needs to be restructured to direct money away from public employee benefits and security and towards students, and to slowly deflate the student loan bubble that has transformed colleges and universities into the equivalent of subprime mortgages. Defense needs to be restructured in a way that re-evaluates America’s commitments around the world.

But all of these things are hard. And politicians don’t come to Washington to do hard things. They come to Washington to fight about whether we’re going to be Red Americans or Blue Americans, fueled by the desires of scores of aging Baby Boomers who have nothing better to do than get hot and bothered while watching Fox News and listening to talk radio, enjoying their Social Security and Medicare benefits while calling and emailing their Republican elected officials and informing them that they’d better vote to destroy the country, or else. The Boomers, still on a quest for personal validation, would rather take the country down with them than admit that the cultural revolution of the 1960s might be a settled issue.

Even more pathetic though were the cowering candidates for president, so terrified of the news-entertainment complex that constitutes the right-wing media that many of them all but hid in their respective offices until a deal was reached. Former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman remains a notable exception, showing that he is neither a coward nor crazy by endorsing a deal to raise the debt ceiling, and possibly providing himself a path to the presidency in 2016 should a president with a 40 percent approval rating be re-elected over a Republican field that has failed to earn the respect of the nation. Jon Huntsman is a statesmen. The rest are barely men at all.

It is indeed ironic for a democracy to become a “tyranny of the minority,” but such a dynamic is the logical consequence of the collapse of a national sense of civic duty. When the broader population is content to be placated by bread and circuses, the substantive decisions about the direction of our nation will be left to public officials disproportionately influenced by collections of interests, and by those voters who are so ideologically wedded to a particular point of view that they demand fealty to their articles of faith and not to matters of fact. It is the latter, of course, that those who we elect to public office must address in order for the nation to survive, as a democracy or otherwise.

Ratings of 2012 Contenders Steady in July: Giuliani, Palin & Romney enjoy broadest popularity

Favorability Ratings

• Rudy Giuliani 70%
• Sarah Palin 65%
• Mitt Romney 62%
• Ron Paul 50%
• Michele Bachmann 49%
• Newt Gingrich 48%
• Rick Perry 40%
• Tim Pawlenty 36%
• Herman Cain 35%
• Rick Santorum 31%
• Jon Huntsman 22%

Positive Intensity Score (Strongly Favorable minus Strongly Unfavorable)

• Herman Cain +25%
• Rick Perry +24%
• Rudy Giuliani +19%
• Sarah Palin +16%
• Mitt Romney +15%
• Michele Bachmann +14%
• Tim Pawlenty +9%
• Ron Paul +8%
• Rick Santorum +7%
• Jon Huntsman +5%
• Newt Gingrich +1%

Name Recognition

• Sarah Palin 96%
• Rudy Giuliani 89%
• Mitt Romney 84%
• Newt Gingrich 84%
• Ron Paul 77%
• Michele Bachmann 76%
• Rick Perry 54%
• Tim Pawlenty 54%
• Rick Santorum 50%
• Herman Cain 46%
• Jon Huntsman 40%

Survey Methods

Results are based on telephone interviews conducted as part of Gallup Daily tracking July 18-31, 2011, with random samples of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. Questions asking about the 11 potential candidates measured in this research were rotated among randomly selected samples of Republicans each night; over the 14-day period, each candidate was rated by a minimum of 1,500 Republicans and Republican-leaning independents.

For the overall ratings of each potential candidate among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents, including recognition scores, one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum margin of sampling error is ±3 percentage points.

–Data compilation and analysis courtesy of The Argo Journal.

The Jobs for Iowa for Iowa “Super PAC” will spend $40,000 to run this TV ad over the next two weeks (hat-tip National Review):

PPP (D) Virginia 2012 GOP Primary Survey

• Rick Perry 20%
• Mitt Romney 16% [16%] (15%)
• Michele Bachmann 15%
• Sarah Palin 13% [16%] (17%)
• Herman Cain 10%
• Newt Gingrich 6% [14%] (20%)
• Ron Paul 6% [8%] (7%)
• Tim Pawlenty 2% [4%] (5%)
• Jon Huntsman 1%
• Someone else/Not sure 11% [11%] (11%)

If Sarah Palin didn’t end up running for President, and the candidates were Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, Jon Huntsman, Ron Paul, Tim Pawlenty, Rick Perry, and Mitt Romney, who would you vote for?

• Michele Bachmann 21%
• Rick Perry 18%
• Mitt Romney 18%
• Herman Cain 10%
• Newt Gingrich 8%
• Ron Paul 7%
• Tim Pawlenty 3%
• Jon Huntsman 2%
• Someone else/Not sure 13%

Favorable / Unfavorable {Net}

• Sarah Palin 61% [63%] (70%) / 28% [29%] (24%) {+33%}
• Rick Perry 44% / 18% {+26%}
• Herman Cain 44% / 20% {+24%}
• Mitt Romney 50% [58%] (63%) / 32% [23%] (22%) {+18%}
• Michele Bachmann 46% / 34% {+12%}

Survey of 400 usual Virginia Republican primary voters was conducted July 21-24, 2011.  The margin of error is +/- 4.9 percentage points.  Political ideology: 43% [38%] Very conservative; 33% [38%] Somewhat conservative; 19% [18%] Moderate; 4% [3%] Somewhat liberal; 1% [2%] Very liberal.  Results from the poll conducted February 24-27, 2011 are in square brackets.  Results from the poll conducted November 10-13, 2010 are in parentheses.

-–Data compilation and analysis courtesy of The Argo Journal.

Rasmussen 2012 Republican Nomination Survey

If the 2012 Republican Primary for President were held today and you had a choice between only Mitt Romney, Rick Perry or Michele Bachmann. For whom would you vote?

• Mitt Romney 34%
• Michele Bachmann 27%
• Rick Perry 26%
• Some other candidate 5%
• Undecided 8%

Suppose the 2012 Republican Primary for president were held today and you only had a choice between Mitt Romney and Michele Bachmann. For whom would you vote?

• Mitt Romney 44%
• Michele Bachmann 42%
• Some other candidate/Undecided 14%

Suppose the 2012 Republican Primary for president were held today and you only had a choice between Mitt Romney and Rick Perry. For whom would you vote?

• Mitt Romney 43%
• Rick Perry 39%
• Some other candidate 9%
• Undecided 9%

Suppose the 2012 Republican Primary for president were held today and you only had a choice between Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry. For whom would you vote?

• Michele Bachmann 39%
• Rick Perry 39%
• Some other candidate 12%
• Undecided 9%

Favorable / Unfavorable {Net}

• Mitt Romney 74% / 21% {+53%}
• Michele Bachmann 68% / 22% {+46%}
• Rick Perry 62% / 19% {+43%}

National survey of 1,000 likely GOP primary voters was conducted July 28, 2011. The margin of error is +/- 3 percentage points.

Inside the numbers:

Tea Party voters strongly prefer Bachmann and Perry over Romney in all these matchups. They break almost evenly between the congresswoman and the Texas governor in that hypothetical contest. Romney is the clear favorite of non-Tea Party members. Perry edges Bachmann among non-members when they’re pitted against each other.

Conservatives in the party like all three candidates but favor Bachmann the most.

The congresswoman runs strongest among Evangelical Christians and Catholics. Romney earns higher favorables among other Protestants and those of other faiths.

–Data compilation and analysis courtesy of The Argo Journal.

From the official release:

Mitt Romney announced today the formation of his Justice Advisory Committee.  This group of distinguished lawyers will draw on their experience in all three branches of government, private practice, industry, and academia to advise Governor Romney in his campaign for the presidency. The committee will advise on the Constitution, judicial matters, law enforcement, homeland security, and regulatory issues. Where appropriate and permitted, some committee members will provide legal counsel to the campaign.“Our democracy depends on a government that respects the Constitution and the rule of law.  Our nation needs a Congress and an Executive branch that are cognizant of the bounds of their powers and a judiciary that will strictly construe the Constitution and refuse to legislate from the bench,” Governor Romney said. “I am proud and honored to have the support of an extraordinary group of attorneys and legal scholars. Their deep experience and wisdom will be invaluable as we address the constitutional and legal issues facing the nation.”

The Chairpersons of the Advisory Committee – Judge Robert Bork, Professor Mary Ann Glendon, and Richard Wiley – issued a joint statement saying, “Mitt Romney deeply understands that the rule of law and the integrity of our courts are essential components of our nation’s strength and must be preserved.  He will nominate judges who faithfully adhere to the Constitution’s text, structure, and history and he will carry out the duties of President as a zealous defender of the Constitution.  We fully support Mitt Romney’s campaign and look forward to working with other members of the committee as we advise him on today’s pressing legal issues.”

The committee includes such prominent lawyers as Secretary Michael Chertoff, Chancellor William Allen, Chief Justice Thomas Phillips, Steven Bradbury, Maureen Mahoney, Christopher Landau, Wendy Long, David Rivkin, Jr., Lee Casey, Alan Gura, Jay Stephens, Robert O’Brien, and John Sullivan.

The full list is below the fold.
(more…)

Quinnipiac Pennsylvania 2012 Presidential Survey

REPUBLICAN NOMINATION

• Mitt Romney 21% [21%]
• Rick Santorum 14% [16%]
• Sarah Palin 12% [11%]
• Michele Bachmann 11% [5%]
• Rick Perry 8%
• Ron Paul 5% [6%]
• Herman Cain 4% [8%]
• Newt Gingrich 4% [5%]
• Tim Pawlenty 2% [4%]
• Jon Huntsman 1% [1%]
• Thaddeus McCotter 0%
• Someone else (vol.) 3% [2%]
• Wouldn’t vote (vol.) 2% [3%]
• Don’t know 14% [17%]

GENERAL ELECTION

• Mitt Romney 44% [40%]
• Barack Obama 42% [47%]

• Barack Obama 45% [49%]
• Rick Santorum 43% [38%]

• Barack Obama 45%
• Rick Perry 39%

• Barack Obama 47%
• Michele Bachmann 39%

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

• Approve 43% [48%] {42%} (51%) [44%]
• Disapprove 54% [48%] {53%} (44%) [43%]

(more…)

As was expected, the House of Representatives passed the debt-ceiling deal tonight by a margin of 269-161. Democrats split their vote exactly evenly 95-95 while Republicans voted 174-66 in favor of the bill. As Politico points out, all this talk of uber-radical freshmen turns out to be more than a little spin. You can see how your Representative voted here.

However, the most dramatic moment of the night was when Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, still recovering from an attempted assassination, made her way to the floor and cast her first vote since January. As you might guess, the returning Congresswoman was met by an emotional, emphatic and overwhelming response. I defy anyone to not feel a small lump in your throat or a tear in your eye at this one.

Sorry to spoil the President’s victory lap and throw some cold water on his fire, but the issue of the day – the economy – still looms large:

Manufacturers had their weakest growth in two years in July, a sign that the economy could weaken this summer.

The Institute for Supply Management, a trade group of purchasing executives, said Monday that its index of manufacturing activity fell to 50.9 percent in July from 55.3 percent in June. The reading was the lowest since July 2009 — one month after the recession officially ended.

…The disappointing report on manufacturing is the first major reading on how the economy performed in July. It suggests the dismal economic growth in the first half of the year could extend into the July-September quarter.

…The economy expanded at a dismal 1.3 percent annual rate in the April-June period after an even worse 0.4 percent increase in the first three months of the year, the government said Friday.

…The index fell in May to 53.5 from April’s reading of 60.4. That was the sharpest one-month drop since 1984.

Employers have responded by pulling back on hiring. The economy added just 18,000 net jobs in June, the fewest in nine months, and the unemployment rate rose to 9.2 percent. Hiring by manufacturers was nearly flat in the April-June period.

Of course, when the economy continues to sputter into 2012, Obama will most likely suggest that the spending cuts contained in the debt ceiling/deficit agreement contributed to the malaise.

Typical of Keynesians, the President wants to have his cake and eat it, too; he stumps for increased government spending to end the recession, calls for even more when these measures fail to have their desired effects, and then rails against the massive federal deficit largely caused, of course, by spending.

When it comes down to it and people challenge Kenynesians on why their policy prescriptions rarely, if ever, achieve their expected growth effects, they often take the easy way out and argue that they simply didn’t go far enough.

By TwitterButtons.com

When Rick Perry gives his speech announcing he is running for President in late August, try picturing a scene that includes former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former Governor of Alaska and Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin flanking him on stage in support of his candidacy.

According to the latest rumors from GOP circles, that scene (or something like it) could become a reality – much to the consternation of every other already-announced Republican candidate. Such an alliance would symbolically bind together disparate factions of a splintered Republican Party, giving Tea Party members, “establishment” members, and moderates a single candidate to unite behind.

It would undoubtedly make Rick Perry the candidate to beat for the Republican nomination, leapfrogging ahead of Mitt Romney for the position of front runner.

How plausible is it? The fact that it has Republicans talking as much as they are (either in excitement or dread) says something already. But consider: the friendship between Perry and Giuliani is well documented; the friendship between Perry and Palin, if not as well known, is just as well documented. Palin and Perry have served together on oil and energy panels and respected one another as Governors. After George H.W. Bush endorsed Hutchinson in the Texas Gubernatorial primary in 2010, Palin jumped in and endorsed Perry, campaigning and making appearances for him. The two have been political allies for some years, and it seems that they are personal friends as well.

The linchpin in this political motley crew is Perry, which is why it makes sense for him to be the one to run. Giuliani may not be able to count on Palin’s support, and vice-versa. But with a Perry candidacy, the trio stands united. Giuliani and Palin get to play the roles of kingmakers and keep their public personas in the spotlight (and their favorability ratings unsullied) as they campaign for Perry.

And Rick Perry gets to step in as the one who unites and saves a splintered and fragmented party.

The extent to which this move is being thought about or is already being planned differs depending on the rumor being heard. The way some tell it, Sarah Palin has (wisely) recognized her own inability to win, and the damage it would cause her brand if she were to lose. Giuliani burns with a desire to stop Mitt Romney from being the party’s nominee because of the rough 2008 primary campaign – and he recognizes the best way to end Romney’s bid isn’t to run himself, but to get behind a strong Perry candidacy. (Other versions of the rumors have Giuliani entering the race as well, but with the sole purpose of bringing Romney down in New Hampshire.) Giuliani also has the desire to remain active in politics at some level, and would love having some sort of power in Washington.

And so the three have been having behind-the-scenes discussions regarding a Perry candidacy with support from Giuliani and Palin. They may or may not be discussing positions in a future Perry administration. They may or may not be working out the details of campaign appearances. But all the rumors say they are at a minimum exploring the possibility, either formally or informally, of such a united campaign.

It may not happen during Perry’s announcement speech. The two high-powered endorsements may come later in the campaign if they perceive a more opportune time to take advantage of their star power down the road. Regardless, having Giuliani and Palin in his corner makes Rick Perry a very, very dangerous candidate in these Republican primaries. And this may be just the plot twist this primary narrative has been thirsting for.

Conservative British MEP Daniel Hannan, who became a YouTube sensation after blasting [now-former] Prime Minister Gordon Brown for his spendthrift ways, to the man’s face, (and an MEP whom some see as a potential future Prime Minister of Britain) sees a presidential candidate worth supporting in Gov. Gary Johnson.

Hannan came out in support of Johnson in his latest Telegraph column, who calls the two-term governor a “sea-green incorruptible who is surely the most anti-government candidate ever to have sought the GOP presidential nomination,” and places Johnson in the same category as Marco Rubio, Paul Ryan, and Chris Christie.

Hannan sums up his seal of approval thusly:

The fragility of the US economy is perhaps the gravest threat to world prosperity. Heaven knows the White House needs someone who can balance the books. Well, my American friends, if you’re looking for a president with the gimcrack charisma of a Blair or a Clinton, stick to the incumbent. But if you’re looking for someone who has shown that he can cut government spending, ecce homo [Latin: "behold the man"].

And if, by some chance, you missed the speech that made Hannan an international conservative hero, you must see this: