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

Newt Gingrich Ideas @GingrichIdeas -- Reduce length of the mile to improve fuel efficiency.

lol. newt gingrich would turn the white-house into an "idea machine"!

ThingsLikeThatHaveActuallyHappened @ TLTHAH -- Change definition of unemployment to improve employment rate

Wolf Blitzer just finished a big interview with Gingrich. I caught the last 15 minutes and some earlier clips. He went after Paul pretty hard--after resisting the theoretical, said he wouldn't vote for him if he were the nominee. He wants Romney to debate him for an hour in Iowa, no moderator. Newt wants to debate everyone. (Funniest part was when he said something like, "Herman Cain and I debated..."--yes, that was quite a spirited, contentious debate.) He bristled at what I thought was a pretty funny line from Romney--that not getting on the ballot in Virginia was less like Pearl Harbor and more like the Lucy episode in the chocolate factory. (Wolf's got Romney on there tomorrow.)

lol Shakey remember when you were predicting that the Tea Party was going to splinter off? I totally thought a couple months ago that it would do that and coalesce around a Paul/Cain (or perhaps Cain/Paul) ticket...

another interesting view:

We’re talking about a French-speaking Mormon vulture capitalist named Willard, who used to support abortion rights, gay rights, gun control, “amnesty” for undocumented immigrants, and combating climate change. He distanced himself from Reagan, attended Planned Parenthood fundraisers, and helped create the blueprint for the Affordable Care Act. He supported taxpayer-funded abortions and taxpayer-financed medical care for undocumented immigrants.

Given all of this, I thought there was no way Romney would coast through 2011 without facing brutal attack ads from his GOP rivals. But I was completely wrong — the attacks never came; Republican voters never heard about this record; and Romney appears well positioned to win the nomination.

i think the answer here is that the race was defined as romney and whomever-will-emerge-as-the-one-alternative-to-romney. while a dozen idiots and cranks were tearing at each other to be the "non-romney," romney just coasted along, occassionally fanning the flames but mostly watching idiots and cranks exposed themselves as idiots and cranks. and now it's just about too late. there isn't time for a "non-romney" to emerge, and so the base is stuck. enjoy your nominee, republican party.

lol Shakey remember when you were predicting that the Tea Party was going to splinter off?

oh I think this is still a definite possibility, but Paul is not a Tea Partier

correct. he's a racist libertarian.

Ron Paul Newsletter @RP_Newsletter -- Here's Ron Paul giving a special, handwritten discount on the newsletters he never read or managed: http://twitpic.com/7xe4ze -RPN

and whether or not any of the remaining candidates have the necessary pull/finances/hatred of the GOP will be the big question. whatever happens, it's abundantly clear that the GOP convention will entail some kind of reckoning with the Tea Party wing, and it isn't going to be pretty.

you think so? i think the non-romneys have f--d things up so badly that romney will coast to the nomination (unless gingrich somehow recovers).

what's the scenario -- aside from the possibility that newt catches fire in, say, south carolina and florida -- in which that "reckoning" have to take place at the convention?

Obama caught in bed with a white boy.

oh stop

that happened last year, and it's old news already

Romney will totally coast to the nomination, but he is going to have to bend over backwards to appease the actual members of his party and that's what I'm predicting won't be pretty. I don't think there's going to be a floor-fight at the convention, there's going to be a lot of Tea Party dog-whistling and platform-packing and shameless attempts to appease the base while at the same time nominating roboRomney

assuming romney has the delegates to take the nomination at the time of the convention, how could there be a floor-fight?

i'm sure i knew this at one point, but age has dimmed my memories.

Alright: Obama in bed with Mark Ruffalo.

Lol

i.e., couldn't romney just smile and say to the tea-party, "that's it, screwballs, i'm the only one left. go swivel on this (points middle finger skyward)"?

btw if romney did say that i'd totally vote for him.

he could also send me $5 cash. either/or.

The uglier the Republican convention gets, the better I will like it.

assuming romney has the delegates to take the nomination at the time of the convention, how could there be a floor-fight?

like I said, I don't think there will be a floor-fight, it won't get that far

but there will still be huge chunks of the party that don't want to vote for him

Floor fights won't happen in 21st century America.

like I said, I don't think there will be a floor-fight, it won't get that far

then romney could smile at them with his robot smile and say "f--k off" with his robot voice!

and i would love him for it.

but that's not going to happen, because romney has apparently decided it's in his best interest to appear stupid and pandering:

A few weeks ago, Mitt Romney abruptly changed his main campaign message. Before that point, he had been lambasting President Obama as a likable failure, well intentioned but sadly unable to revive the economy. When asked if Obama was a socialist, Romney would deny it outright, insisting he was merely in “over his head.” But starting December 7, Romney began to paint Obama as a sinister radical who had not failed, but had succeeded all too well, in transforming the basic nature of America.

At the time, I thought Romney’s sudden switch was a response to Newt Gingrich’s sudden (and apparently short-lived) challenge from the right, positioning himself to speak more directly to the fears of a freaked-out Republican electorate. But I now think Romney’s campaign has concluded that his old campaign message wasn’t strong enough for the general election. Conservative columnist Kimberly Strassel has a column passing on research findings from American Crossroads, a Republican independent expenditure group. Crossroads surveyed a large number of swing voters and concluded that they couldn’t beat Obama merely by portraying him as having failed:

"To lock down voters in the middle, Republicans are going to have to convince them that Obama isn't just a flawed and ineffective leader, but that he has an agenda and motivations that they don't share," says Steven Law, president and CEO of Crossroads

Strassel presents these findings as advice that Romney needs to take. But I think it’s pretty obvious that Romney has already taken it. His tone toward Obama has grown harsher, and he is now openly (and falsely) calling Obama a socialist who is promoting total economic equality. I’m actually pretty skeptical of this research – the political middle clearly seems to be voters who like Obama but blame him for the poor economy without having a strong ideological understanding of why the economy has failed. But, whatever its merits, this seems to be the strategy Romney has embraced.

The tension between the previous version of Romney and the newest model sprang to the fore when he visited the Wall Street Journal editorial board for a weekend interview. In it, Romney carefully presented himself as an ideologue rather than a technocrat:

"(Romney) concludes with even more force, 'America doesn't need a manager. America needs a leader. The president is failing not just because he's a poor manager. It's because he doesn't know where to lead.'"

Voters will have to judge the quality of that vision, and how it compares with President Obama's. But there's no doubt it's a contrast with Mr. Romney's visit to our offices in 2007, which became legendary for its appeal to technocratic virtue.

In that meeting the candidate began by declaring "I love data" and kept on extolling data, even "wallowing in data," as a way to reform both business and government. He said he'd bring in management consultants to turn around the government, mentioning McKinsey, Bain and the Boston Consulting Group. Mr. Romney seemed to elevate the power of positive technocratic thinking to a governing philosophy.

So it is also notable that now Mr. Romney describes the core failure of Mr. Obama's economic agenda as faith in "a wise group of governmental bureaucrats" rather than political and economic freedom.

Romney’s problem is that he is, as Jodi Kantor’s New York Times profile shows, a technocrat at heart. He approaches public policy from a data-driven standpoint, searching for solutions that do the most to increase human welfare. This inevitably estranges him from the conservative tradition, which in its essence is a philosophical belief in limited government that holds firm regardless of empirical effects.

It was Romney’s technocratic inclinations that caused him to look at a problem like health care and wind up embracing essentially the same solution that the Obama administration did, which is why conservatives distrust him. The irony is that Romney approaches campaigning the way he approaches governing, obeying the data above all else. If the data tell him to start wildly accusing Obama of abolishing all economic inequality, then that is what he will do.

if romney goes this route he is a remarkable dum-dum.

No byline--that's Chait, right?

that post is totally the kind of thing I was alluding to - to secure the base, Romney is going to have to do a lot of unpalatable shit, including talking and acting like a moron

i didn't realize he'd already started doing that (and almost a month ago!)

chait, yeah.

I think the whole key to this election rests here. This is the gateway that will, in time, reveal all.

thought you were going to rickroll me there.

You've been 9-9-9'ed, my friend.

Sam Stein @samsteinhp -- just in: Perry Files Federal Court Challenge to Virginia Ballot Access Rules

is it a pro-se filing, written in crayon?

to secure the base, Romney is going to have to do a lot of unpalatable shit, including talking and acting like a moron

What, you think he's been quoting Montesquieu for the last six months?

okay an even BIGGER moron

I'll repeat something I've said many times: I expect Romney will have lots of wiggle-room in a general because a) voters in the middle who he needs will cut him slack for appeasing a base they consider crazy, b) most of the GOP base will reluctantly vote for him anyway, and c) by then (if not already), Romney will be long past the point where outrage over him changing his mind on something or contradicting himself will barely even register.

b) most of the GOP base will reluctantly vote for him anyway

the question is will they be driving their friends to the polls to vote for him (hint: the answer is no)

I'll repeat something I've said many times: I expect Romney will have lots of wiggle-room in a general because a) voters in the middle who he needs will cut him slack for appeasing a base they consider crazy, b) most of the GOP base will reluctantly vote for him anyway, and c) by then (if not already), Romney will be long past the point where outrage over him changing his mind on something or contradicting himself will barely even register.

yes this is all true and why i think romney will win 47 -- 48 states and by a popular margin of 70% -- 30% it's all over a new conservative era is about to dawn

http://www.humorgazette.com/images/romney-robot1.jpg

by a popular margin of 70% -- 30%

hahaha waht

you think 80% -- 20%?

okay okay you've convinced me.

If Republicans dislike Romney enough, they have a chance to do away with him in the next two or three months--and when Gingrich was surging, I thought that's what they were indeed finally going to do. But if they nominate him, then I assume that means the majority of them, enthusiastically or otherwise, have decided they can abide by him as president.

abide by /= vote for

Do you really believe those numbers, Daniel? If I were a wagering kind of guy, I would wager a large amount on the proposition that no candidate will exceed 55% of the vote (I'm tempted to make it 53) or 350 electoral votes.

You're dividing the base into those who will reluctantly vote for Romney and those who'll need to be cajoled and driven to the polls. Maybe--I just think of it as one homogeneous base, and that most of them will vote for the Republican nominee.

One thing I do know: if Romney becomes president, I'm going to start hanging around NRO and have fun enjoying all the right-wing Morbiuses mercilessly pummeling Romney day in and day out in the comments section.

As one who (I think) shares Daniel's absurdist sense of humour, I think he's just having fun there.

personally I'm betting on the 80% - 20% Ron Paul landslide

I was kidding. I do think Romney will win, tho.

Of interest to wild gossipy political horserace fiends:

http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/main/2011/12/paul-maintains-his-lead.html

No uptick or backlash backlash for Newt. "But Paul's candidacy looks like it's going to attract an unusual number of younger voters to the caucus this year, and with those under 45 he has a 35-11 advantage on Romney." Paul's anti-war stand notwithstanding, I don't totally get this--wouldn't younger voters be the ones most bothered by the newsletters?

they like that he's the realest poster candidate that this board election has ever seen