2012 GOP Presidential Campaign -- "This individual's going to accuse me of an affair for an extended period of time."

@maggiepolitico: Newt, tells Hannity, "Mitt and I have become much closer" during the campaign.

you have to get close, in order to use a knife.

Gingrich/Romney

(not an election ticket)

really psyched for the Obamney general-election travesty now that we're officially a police state.

HA HA right on brother!

The national-security state has been dominant since before I was born. Becoming a police state was always just a baby step away.

I see the Nikki Haley shoe dropped for Romney, and while Branstad won't endorse, he's saying mean things about Newt.

I posted something similar to this last night--I'm not the only one wondering what's going on there:

http://www.salon.com/2011/12/16/deconstructing_michele_bachmanns_war_on_newt/

A thread for Rick Perry roffles

i'm guessing Alfred posted this already? but I don't see it.

http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2011/12/ron-paul-for-the-gop-nomination.html

Chait's response.

Sullivan's fascination with Ron Paul is between curious and O_O

it's not so curious when you read him go on and on about the bell curve...

I just skimmed some of the worst lines from the Paul newsletters, and I don't think I want to read them any more closely. (I remember reading/hearing about them during the '08 cycle.) Disappointing--I've come to like him over the course of the debates. Not for all his stuff about the fed--I don't know enough about monetary policy to know if that's as crazy as many commentators say it is. I just like his manner, and it is amazing to see a politician who never wavers--never--from his beliefs no matter what the context or who the audience, and who never dodges. Debate moderator asks him a question, he listens, he responds--and even if he knows he'll get booed, or knows everyone else on the stage will pounce with rehearsed lines that will get the crowd cheering, he says his piece. And he does it every time. I keep waiting for him to hedge as he gets closer and closer to winning Iowa, and he never does. So it's too bad there's all this other garbage.

The other night a friend and I shook our heads wondering why this man wasn't the nominee already. If the Tea Party had principles, then Ron Paul would be the Inevitable One.

Guaranteed to stop the bleeding and rescue Newt's campaign:

http://www.salon.com/2011/12/16/gingrich_lauded_good_parts_of_obama_health_plan/

Nothing can rescue that poor man now. Pray for his soul.

The concept of Newt's soul kind of reminds me of this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qoS635XbKhE

Why even worry about that has-been? National lead fading, going nowhere in NH, very possibly down to 3d in Iowa. Worked out perfectly for Pres. Romney.

You're taking this much better than I am. I'm on maybe the second or third stage of grieving, at best.

I've been a fan of Pres. Romney all along.

He's my favorite Republican technocrat.

I've been a fan of Pres. Romney all along.

I remember very well a time when you were all in for Newt...it was last Thursday, I think. I'm cutting a vicious flip-flop attack ad immediately.

Tomorrow morning I roll-out the "Bachmann '12" buttons.

New slogan: "There's still a chance." Catchy.

Des Moines Register unsurprisingly endorses Romney.

http://caucuses.desmoinesregister.com/2011/12/17/23902/

Probably time for an RIP thread, but let Kim Jong-il have his day.

http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2011/12/the-gingrich-bubble-pops.html

I love how Cain's been wiped from chart history there.

it's kind of amazing how ppl forget every other prez campaign they've seen every 4 years.

Herman's line, below, was removed from the graph.

http://www.daviddarling.info/images2/number_9.jpg

Quoted from Joe Klein:

Iowa Republicans are not neoconservatives. Ron Paul has gained ground after a debate in which his refusal to join the Iran warhawks was front and center. Indeed, in my travels around the country, I don’t meet many neoconservatives outside of Washington and New York. It’s one thing to just adore Israel, as the evangelical Christians do; it’s another thing entirely to send American kids off to war, yet again, to fight for Israel’s national security.

What is this "again"??? None of Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya were fought for Israel's national security.

Name a nomination in the last 30 years or so that resembles the way this one has gone.

The Vietnam and Korean wars were about Israel.

If Romney does take it, it certainly won't resemble 2008; Giuliani and Hillary were heavy favourites just prior to Iowa. This would be a presumed front-runner reasserting himself after, what, five different people moved ahead of him? I don't remember anything like that.

I guess it's just easier to blame AIPAC for all these wars than to blame the American public for getting us into war after war after war for the last fifty years. xp

there isn't one but there also isn't a nomination that went anything like obama vs. clinton

pundits like to gain insight from comparing stuff to history but w/ american politics you're working w/ such a small sample set

xp

I agree. I think you could find nominations that pair up well in--as I always say--broad detail, but every one has different twists and turns. (My knowledge of American politics is pretty much post-war, so that's the sample set I'm always talking about.)

well there's even less to garner from comparing things to the pre-war nomination process

tbh I am amazed they aren't shoehoning in 5 more debates before New Year's

or shoehorning, even

those are some pretty sharp shoes you got there, Ron

dammit xpost

hahaha

Name a nomination in the last 30 years or so that resembles the way this one has gone.

You mean, ignoring all the pretty lights and flea circuses you live for? Dole's in '96 is close enough. ("No one else? Are we sure? Shit, you're it.")

This would be a presumed front-runner reasserting himself after, what, five different people moved ahead of him?

AAAAAGH, THERE'S BEEN NO BLOODY VOTING

polls aren't everything (esp w/ a caucus) but they aren't nothing

Yes--having not yet reached your level of political sophistication, Morbius, I live for them (not just merely find them entertaining). There's just nothing else going on.

FYI:

Going into the 1996 primary contest, Senate majority leader and former vice-presidential nominee Bob Dole was seen as the most likely winner. However, in the primaries and caucuses, social conservative Pat Buchanan received early victories in Alaska, Louisiana, a strong second place in the Iowa Caucus, and a surprising victory in the key New Hampshire primary, while Steve Forbes finished first in Delaware and Arizona.

this is like the vaporware version of the '96 primary

nah the difference is that even though they might have been crazyish human beings they were 'viable candidates'

whereas this has all been a big show

hated unacknowledged-corporatist "un-American" Democratic prez, etc.

Bob Dole was a viable candidate?

whereas this has all been a big show

dude....