Today, the Majority Leader of the New Hampshire House of Representatives threw his weight behind Mitt Romney:

D.J. Bettencourt, the outspoken conservative majority leader in the New Hampshire House of Representatives, has decided to endorse Mitt Romney as the candidate who has “the absolute best chance at winning back the White House.”
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“My criteria, from the very beginning, was to select a candidate who was the most conservative candidate, who gave us the absolute best chance at winning back the White House. And I came to the conclusion that that was Gov. Romney,” Bettencourt told POLITICO. “I was very much attracted to his executive experience, both as governor of Massachusetts and running the Olympics.”

The 27-year-old Bettencourt is a prominent face in the younger generation of New Hampshire GOP leaders. His endorsement could help Romney shore up support on the right in a state where he is already strong.

Bettencourt had warm words for Romney’s chief Republican rival, Texas Gov. Rick Perry, but said he ultimately felt Romney was a better fit for both the political moment and the responsibilities of the presidency.

…Bettencourt said he doesn’t believe there’s “any question” that Romney remains the prohibitive favorite in the Granite State.

If you read the rest of the Politico article, you’ll see Bettencourt defend Romney’s gubernatorial record as “plenty conservative”.

While this doesn’t necessarily represent groundbreaking news, it does suggest that Mitt maintains strong establishment support in New Hampshire. Furthermore, Bettencourt’s conservative credentials will help bolster Romney’s support among the base in the state.

As many have discussed ad nauseum, Romney needs a decisive victory in New Hampshire to ward off Rick Perry or whoever else becomes his top challenger by the time of the state’s primary.

Fox News 2012 GOP Nomination Poll

• Rick Perry 26%
• Mitt Romney 18%
  
• Sarah Palin 8%
• Ron Paul 7%
• Michele Bachmann 4%
• Rudy Giuliani 4%
• Herman Cain 4%
• Newt Gingrich 3%
• Rick Santorum 3%
• Jon Huntsman 1%
• Gary Johnson 1%
• Buddy Roemer 1%
• Fred Karger 0%
• Thaddeus McCotter 0%
• Roy Moore 0%
• Too soon to say 9%
• Don’t know 4%

(more…)

One of the reasons why this country is in so much trouble is that the punditry on one entire side of the political aisle suffers from a paucity of understanding regarding basic civics. Case in point,  Cenk Uygur over at The Huffington Post today:

President Obama has now changed the day of his address to Congress to accommodate the Republicans. They were having a GOP presidential debate on the original date he picked. So, Boehner told him to move his speech. He is the president for Christ’s sake. Of course, they should have accommodated him, not the other way around.

What Uygur should have learned in the third grade is that Congress is a co-equal branch of the United States Government. Raul Castro may have the power to order the Cuban National Assembly to session, but the President of the United States may only submit a request for a joint session of Congress to convene so that he or she can make a speech. The Speaker of the House, who presides over all joint sessions of Congress* and, as such, serves as the leader of a co-equal branch of government in this regard, is free to accept or decline the request.

A good way for Uygur to brush up on what he missed in grammar school would be to invest in some of the terrific courses offered at TheGreatCourses.com, which I have recommended to people studying for the U.S. Citizenship exam.

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*Except for those which are convened as part of the Electoral College, which are presided over by the President of the Senate.

Rasmussen 2012 Presidential Survey

• Rick Perry 44% {40%} [39%] (28%)
• Barack Obama 41% {43%} [44%] (45%)

• Barack Obama 43% {46%} [42%] {45%} [42%] (44%)
• Mitt Romney 39% {38%} [43%] {40%} [44%] (44%)

• Barack Obama 42%
• Herman Cain 35%

• Barack Obama 46% {43%} [46%] (49%)
• Michele Bachmann 38% {39%} [39%] (27%)

Surveys of 1,000 likely voters were conducted August 23-30, 2011.  The margin of error for each survey is +/- 3 percentage points.  Results from the polls conducted August 17-22, 2011 are in curly brackets.  Results from the polls conducted between June 24 and July 17, 2011 are in square brackets.  Results from the polls conducted May 1-14, 2011 are in parentheses. Results from the poll conducted between March 6 and March 31, 2011 are in curly brackets. Results from the poll conducted between January 3 and February 1, 2011 are in square brackets. Results from the poll conducted November 24, 2009 are in parentheses.

Inside the numbers:

Perry leads by nine among men but trails by five among women. Among voters under 30, the president leads while Perry has the edge among those over 30. The president leads Perry by 16 percentage points among union members while Perry leads among those who do not belong to a union.

Against all four Republicans, the president leads among voters who earn less than $40,000 a year and those who earn more than $100,000 a year. The Republicans do better among those in the middle. Perry leads Obama by 70 percentage points among Republicans while Romney leads by 63. The president leads all three among unaffiliated voters. However, the president’s support among unaffiliateds ranges from 41% to 44% and a quarter of unaffiliateds remain either undecided or interested in a third party option.

Match-ups for each candidate were conducted on separate nights as part of the Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll.

-Data compilation and analysis courtesy of The Argo Journal.

Those who support Mitt Romney for president have used electability as their back-up argument throughout this campaign. “Yes,” they’ll say, “you don’t like Mitt because of RomneyCare or this or that … but he can win. Do you want to beat Obama or not?”

It’s a powerful argument.

But it may be slipping away. According to Rasmussen, Rick Perry leads Obama in their latest match-up, 44-41, while Romney trails 39-43. Not a huge difference, but important in that it calls into question Mitt’s claim to be The Republican Who Can Win. Certainly he can, say these numbers, but so can Perry (and maybe others).

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows Perry picking up 44% of the vote while the president earns support from 41%. Given the margin of sampling error (+/- 3 percentage points) and the fact that the election is more than a year away, the race between the two men is effectively a toss-up. Just over a week ago, the president held a three-point advantage over Perry.   [...]

Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney currently trails the president by four percentage points, 43% to 39%. That’s a slight improvement for the Republican compared to a week ago. Earlier in the year, Romney held a one-point edge when matched against the president. Prior to today’s release, that was the only time a named Republican has held any kind of lead over President Obama. A Generic Republican currently leads the president 48% to 40%.

If Congresswoman Michele Bachmann is the GOP candidate, the president leads 46% to 38%. Unlike Perry and Romney, Bachmann’s numbers are a bit weaker now than they were a week ago.

Finally, if the Republicans were to nominate businessman Herman Cain, President Obama would attract 42% of the vote to Cain’s 35%.

To me, it’s most interesting that all the candidates are close to Obama. A sitting president should blow away a candidate like Herman Cain, but Obama’s lead is `barely outside MoE.

Presidential elections take place every four years, and a media-dependent public has to learn once again why certain events ritually take place in the months before the campaign begins in true earnest.

In only a few weeks, Governor Rick Perry, previously rumored to be a candidate for president, has formally announced he is running, and almost immediately vaulted ahead in mot state and national polls. Until very recently, few outside Texas and GOP activists had even heard of him. How could this happen?

My answer is that it almost always does happen, albeit with different personalities and different issues. Ever since presidential nominating contests, when there is no incumbent in the major political party, became media events, wildly gyrating polls have been features of the early stages of the contests.

Remember Fred Thompson’s much-ballyhooed late entrance to the 2008 Republican campaign? It fell flat soon enough, but for a while the former movie actor seemed to the inevitable next Wendell Willkie (the latter being the only recent, in 1940, late entrant to upset the political apple cart and win his party’s nomination.) And remember that Rudy Giuliani led all the polls by a wide margin in 2007? Likewise, Hillary Clinton dominated Democratic polls that same year. Anyone seen President Giuliani or President Hillary Clinton lately?

There is another reason why Mr. Perry is doing so well in the polls right now. The true frontrunner for the GOP nomination, Mitt Romney, has adopted a very low profile approach to this part of the long campaign period. In my opinion, this is a good strategy, including his avoidance of the recent Iowa Straw Poll, and his refusal to attack rivals in debates and his advertising. As good as this strategy might be, however, it is not sensational news, and thus the media collectively and reflexively turns elsewhere for daily “news” fodder. Thus, they continually run stories about Sarah Palin, Rudy Giuliani (again), Chris Christie and even George Pataki getting into the race. Their coverage has little to do with these persons actually running, or even being serious candidates. Their coverage is about promoting audiences for their print publications and broadcast programs.

This is not to say that Rick Perry cannot be a serious candidate. He has been a successful political figure in Texas, and he has personality and charm. But Fred Thompson was a famous and enormously well-liked movie and TV star. It didn’t matter. His campaign soon fizzled. (To be fair to Mr. Perry who is working hard so far, Mr. Thompson did not seem to have fire in his political belly.) Also to be fair, the Republican field, except for Michele Bachmann, has not produced many sparks (and remember how Mrs. Bachmann was the darling of the polls only a few weeks ago?).

Like Mr. Romney, Tim Pawlenty had the background, skills and viewpoints, that made him an authentic presidential contender. but Mr. Pawlenty was drawn into public relations traps by the media that seemed to doom his efforts. The quest for a major party presidential nomination is a formidable and risky enterprise to begin with, but the mediazation of the contest has made it into a much more treacherous political enterprise than any time in the past.

Finally, somewhat like the Democratic 1992 presidential contest, the 2012 GOP battle has seen some of its most attractive or well-known candidates choose not to run next year. Mike Huckabee and probably Sarah Palin are not running. Nor is Jeb Bush or Mitch Daniels. This has resulted in a partial vacuum that someone like Rick Perry can appear to fill.

Th answer to why Rick Perry is doing so well in the polls is that someone like him HAS to do well in the polls. If Mr. Perry did not exist, or was not running, the media would invent someone else to fill this role.

In 1992, third party candidate Ross Perot actually led both incumbent President George H.W. Bush and certain Democratic nominee Bill Clinton in the national polls (only months before the actual election) It was shocking, but short-lived. Anyone seen former President Perot lately?

Although I am not yet predicting Mr. Romney’s ultimately victory, nor Mr. Perry’s ultimate defeat, I do think the former Massachusetts governor’s campaign strategy is not being given its proper due. Unlike Senator Ed Muskie (1972), his own father George Romney (1968), and Gary Hart (1984) — all temporary frontrunners – Mitt Romney has avoided the kind of gaffe or political mistake that would diminish his chances once the actual voting begins.

That’s the key to understanding the current phase of the GOP presidential nomination contest. Until December and January coming, when the candidates trek through the snow and ice of Iowa and New Hampshire, and then under the palm trees of South Carolina and Florida soon after that, it is primarily a media puppet show, with the press pulling most of the public strings.

In about 90 days or so those strings will be removed, and the political show will get much, much more serious.

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

Want to know why Mitt Romney isn’t worrying about Rick Perry (yet)? Because Perry is the new frontrunner, he gets to put up with all the attacks for awhile. First, it was Rick Santorum laying into him on the Gardisil issue (after Santorum also attacked Perry for his muddled gay marriage stance earlier in August).

Now, a pro-Bachmann Super PAC is releasing the following attack ad in South Carolina:

It’s not a particularly devastating ad taken by itself, but as a first shot in the attack ad wars it certainly foreshadows open season on Rick Perry. And the person that benefits the most is Mitt Romney.

Not a whole lot has changed in the dynamics of the race since two weeks ago: Perry and Romney hold steady at the top of the pack – combining for more than 2/3 of the votes and jumping around quite a bit, but always landing about six or seven points apart from one another. Meanwhile, nobody else is able to break single digits, and Bachmann continues her downward slide.

The investors do seem bullish on Jon Huntsman for some reason that I simply cannot explain. I’ll admit it: I was on the bandwagon of media types at the beginning of Huntsman’s campaign, believing he would take off and become a top tier candidate. However, that has simply failed to materialize at any level, and it turns out Huntsman is a glaringly weak campaigner. After his debate performance in Iowa, and seeing his ridiculously stratospheric negative ratings in all the early states, I don’t see how anyone can still believe he is anything but a bundle of wasted potential. Much like Tim Pawlenty.

Without any further ado:

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

Since we’re discussing Huntsman’s jobs plan outline, I thought it fitting to post up the details of Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 plan, which is the first stage to his economic plan that he released on August 21. Here’s the meat from his presser on the topic:

Here’s Phase 1 of my economic growth plan. It’s called the 9-9-9 plan. 

A 9% business flat tax. Gross income less all investments, all purchases from other businesses, and all dividends paid to shareholders.

A 9% individual income flat tax. Gross income less charitable deductions.

A 9% national sales tax. This significantly expands the tax base, which helps everyone.

• This plan has the following advantages:
• It is fair, revenue-neutral, transparent and efficient.
• It puts zero tax on capital gains and repatriated profits.
• It replaces the payroll tax.
• It will aid capital availability for small businesses.
• It saves taxpayers $430 billion in annual compliance costs.
• It eliminates the uncertainty holding this economy down.

You can read about the rest in the above link or watch his appearance on Cavuto. This is the beginning of his economic framework package and an interesting one at that. While he may be down in the polls, Cain does have an interesting story to tell.

EDIT 9/1/11 09:40 AM EDT: Here’s Herman Cain’s “Economic Vision” document which includes additional details. Appears that the 9% national sales tax proposal would be akin to the Fair Tax a sort of merger of the Fair Tax + a Flat income tax rate.

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