Not Romney, Bachmann or Perry
By Brian Kirwin | Monday, August 15th, 2011 | PoliticsI have an unexplainable feeling that the current key candidates for the Republican nomination aren’t going to win the nomination.
Mitt Romney is frontrunner in polls that only tell me that people remember he ran four years ago. Michelle Bachmann just won the Iowa straw poll. Now, do you remember who won the Iowa straw poll four years ago?
Mitt Romney.
Iowa doesn’t predict winners well with a crowded field. Heck, the straw poll and the eventual caucus winner for the 1980 nomination was…
No, not Ronald Reagan.
Heck, Reagan didn’t even announce for President until November, 1979.
Romney is giving a hat tip to Iowa and gunning for New Hampshire. He’d better. I don’t think he can afford to lose both. His Giuliani-like non-compete in Iowa puts all his chips in New Hampshire. If he can’t win New Hampshire, he is toast in South Carolina again.
Michelle Bachmann seems to have an edge in Iowa caucuses, but in New Hampshire polling, she barely edges out Ron Paul. Bachmann is now officially stuck. If she wins Iowa, she’ll just do as she was expected, and will get likely no momentum going into New Hampshire. If she finishes second, she’s finished.
Now that Texas Governor Rick Perry has announced, I wonder what that does to the field. I don’t think Perry grabs anti-Romney votes at all, since I think the anti-Romney voters have their choices made, and those candidates aren’t dropping out any time soon. I actually think Perry’s voters will come out of Romney’s core who are polling for him mostly because they’ve heard of him. Those are the toughest voters to hang on to.
Look at New Hampshire polls currently. The larger Perry’s number is, the smaller Romney’s number gets.
It’s a long way until January, but right now, Perry’s entry into the race is only serving to hurt Romney, and if that holds, it opens the door for someone else to walk through.
Right now, that helps Bachmann. Moving forward, it can help anybody.
Will voters connect Perry with George W. Bush and not want that again? Watching Perry speak, the similarities are pretty strong. He wants to be Reaganesque, but voters have a funny way of choosing for themselves who gets that title.
Despite the buzz about Perry’s announcement, Bachmann’s straw poll win and Romney’s frontrunner status, the ground is still ripe for someone else to walk right in and grab New Hampshire and take over the race.
Then, all bets are off.
Tags:
Contribute for Conservatism!
Share this post
About the author
The right wants to jeer him. The left wants to censor him. Moderates usually want both. Brian Kirwin is a political consultant and public relations strategist in Virginia Beach with a lightning-rod flair. Brian also serves on the VB Arts & Humanities Commission and frequently appears on Hampton Roads theatrical stages, if only to prove that all actors aren’t liberals. Kirwin’s columns stir up debate and hit the political scene with no punches pulled.
Comments
31 Responses to "Not Romney, Bachmann or Perry"
“I think the anti-Romney voters have their choices made.”
I don’t.
There is a large cadre of Republicans who view Romney as an opportunist rather than a principled conservative and who are looking for a strong principled conservative with the credentials, qualifications, and charisma to take out Obama. Until Perry entered the race, Bachmann had momentum on this front, but many Republicans who have gravitated toward her remained worried about her lack of executive experience and general viability in the general election. The one subject on which most Republicans are unified is that Obama must be defeated.
Because it is still very early, most Republicans have not, in fact, locked in any choice. I know I haven’t. Many conservatives who have favored Bachmann will give Perry a hard look. The ball is in his court. If he comes out strong and shows both that he is indeed a principled conservative and a good candidate, then conservatives will be likely to abandon Bachmann for the more qualified and viable conservative. If, on the other hand, Perry stalls a la Fred Thompson 2008, then those voters will go back to Bachmann.
It is way too early to say that very many Republicans have locked in their choice. Conservative voters are keeping their powder dry and waiting to see if Perry could be the principled and viable candidate they’ve been waiting for.
Ken, the only problem with your view is that there is absolutely no polling data to back it up. You might be right, of course, but Bachmann’s numbers haven’t moved a bit by adding Perry’s name and Romney’s have.
While anything could happen, I think 48 hours of polling data really isn’t enough to make this kind of assertion. Especially with a Sunday in there.
One other point: It’s hard to make the assertion on the one hand that Perry has a problem because “the anti-Romney voters have their choices made” but then on the other hand support an assertion that “the ground is still ripe for someone else to walk right in and grab New Hampshire and take over the race.” Either anti-Romney voters are open-minded and Perry has an opening, or anti-Romney voters have their minds made up, and the ground isn’t ripe for someone else to walk in.
Ken, it takes thought. I said I think polling shows that Romney voters are soft, and likely to move. That’s what makes the ground ripe. Romney’s lead is likely to shrink.
Unless you are asserting that Romney is going to lose “anti-Romney” voters. I’m pretty sure Romney doesn’t have a whole lot of “anti-Romney” voters supporting him.
Mike, if I wait until after the fact, it’s a little less brilliant.
As for this “anti-Romney” voter, I have yet to make a decision. I like all the candidates at least some and dislike all the candidates at least some. So I have to look at Perry more. It appears he does combine what I like from several of the candidates.
I think Brian is on to something. Now that the economic crisis is over, the Republicans must manufacture a political crisis, and the debt ceiling debacle served their needs perfectly. But worse, it was not the Tea Party wing of the Party, it was the Republican Study Committe which is 176 fiscal hard liners who make up two thirds of the entire caucus, that called the shots. When Boehner was close to a deal with the President along the lines of Bowles-Simpson, it was this group that threatened Boehner with the withdrawal of the Speakership that got him back into line. Had Boehner and the President made the $4 trillion dollar agreement, and it passed the Congress, there would have been no debt crisis, no downgrade of our debt, no sell off of assets, no decline in our 401ks, and of course, no fiscal issue for the eight screaming heads for the party’s nomination to talk about. This was a manufactured crisis for one purpose; that is, the defeat the President. Regretfully, all of us had a role to play, that is, the loss of value of our personal financial assets. Frankly, anyone who votes for any of the current republican candidates is voting for fiscal ruin, so for our own sakes, there must be a higher quality candidate who values our national interests waiting for the smoke to clear.
I’d rate Perry the favorite for the nomination right now. He’s the only candidate so far who has credibility with the Tea Party and the GOP “establishment.” He could, however, run a rotten campaign, like, as someone mentioned, Fred Thompson. We don’t know that yet. Romney’s the best bet in the general, but I just can’t see how he gets there.
Don’t look now but BK is edging towards Chris Christie.
Christie will just make matters worse The fiscal crisis is over, and now we have a self imposed political crisis. Think back to the differences between 2008 and today. Then, banks were on the verge of collapse, there was no interbank market, so markets simply seized up, there was no liquidity, and the leverage that investment banks had used made their viability impossible. Today, banks are strong, investment banks became banks and must have adequate capital, leverage is way down, so systemic risks are minimized. In fact, TARP funds have been paid back with interest and profit, and much of the stimulus too. Sure, S&P downgraded our debt, but they said it was because of gridlock in Washington, not the economy. Now, I admit that the republican tea party types have used the perception of continued fiscal crisis as your reason for forcing more cuts, just like Christie did in NJ, but that is absolutely the wrong thing to do on the federal level at this point in time. Regretfully, it is the uncertainty about the political will to act that has caused the equity markets to go down recently, not the economy.
Mike,
I’m beginning to wonder if you are playing with a full deck. The Republicans do not have the best interest of the country at heart, but are instead intentionally driving the economy down in a sinister plot to defeat Obama and seize power again? Once they do that they will continue to concentrate all wealth in the hands of a few super-rich at the expense of the middle class?
How about this: Obama and the Democrats do not have the country’s best interest at heart, but instead are intentionally driving the economy into the ditch so that they can increase taxes on the upper middle classes and make the working class more dependent on government hand-outs and the Democratic Party.
Believe me, your version sounds just as stupid.
HR – they may not be TRYING to run the economy in the ditch…but between the two sides they’re doing a hell of job.
However, since Obama has pretty much agreed with the lame-brain Republican notion that what the economy needs while unemployment is over 9% is huge spending cuts, I think a case can be made that they are working in a bi-partisan manner to wreck the economy.
Perhaps the President actually cared that the Republican Study Committee would actually put the country into default, and he got a terrible deal, but the best he could get under the circumstances. This issue of when to turn off fiscal stimulus is not exactly pure science, yet I think the President’s team has done fairly well under the circumstances. The tactics employed by the administration may not have been perfect, but the intent of the opposition has been clear; they will do or say anything to defeat the President, and apparently, cutting our own net worth is included in their bag of tricks.
Mike,
Let me try one more time. Robert Byrd spent 50 years in the US Senate earmarking tens of billions of dollars of Federal money for West Virginia. And what was the result of all this Federal wealth redistribution? West Virginia still has the second lowest median income in the US, behind Mississippi. You see, Mike, government cannot create wealth. It can redistribute wealth, but to no net effect. “Economic stimulus” is cutting public debt, reducing taxes, and encouraging private enterprise. Increasing taxation on economic activity and increasing public debt is a zero sum game at best and causes economic decline at worst. The President’s tactics have been far from perfect because they are fundamentally flawed. The opposition can see the flaw in his “stimulus” spending and two and a half years of economic stagnation proves them right. They are not trying to defeat the President at the expense of our net worth. They are trying to reverse a failed course of action before it does even more harm.
Hisroc,
But where would West Virginia be if it had not been for Senator Byrd?
LD,
Right where they are today. That is my point.
Mike,
As for Chris Christie, we know better than to trust anyone from New Joisey with the keys of government.
More seriously, the Republican candidate to breakout will be the one who has the guts to publicly flip off the TEA Party. A scenario similar to how McCain surged in 2000, only to lose a grip on it. So far, the candidates have been kowtowing to the TEA Party. The one way to differentiate yourself from the field is to do the opposite.
Valentinus, it often amazes me how right you can be.
Mike, it often amazes me how wrong you consistently are.
HisRoc: “Increasing taxation on economic activity and increasing public debt is a zero sum game at best and causes economic decline at worst.”
Let me assure you, it is much much worse than that. Borrowing to consume (all that government is capable of) crowds out those who would borrow to produce.
Consumption borrowing merely pulls demand forward in time. IT DOES NOT ‘NET’ INCREASE DEMAND, it merely moves it forward on the calendar. You cannot increase demand in a sustainable manner with debt. Eventually, debt saturation occurs and there is no more cash flow available to make any more debt payments. Additional borrowing then stops, and the temporary boost to demand realized by the new debt becomes a drag on the economy in the form of debt payments.
Stimulus is a lie. Even Keynes himself (originally) noted that governments were supposed to use stimulus only to ease the downside of a business cycle, and they were supposed to do this by spending money they’d saved during the boom years. Fat Fricking Chance.
As for taxes, people work for many reasons, but one of them is NOT to pay taxes. It is widely accepted that when you tax something you get less of it. If you tax production, guess what happens? If you tax income from work, guess what happens? If you tax gains from productive investments, guess what happens?
This government taxes everything:
Communications
Travel
Entertainment
Income
Gains from investments and business
Income from employment / labor
The mere existence of a business
Power
Property
Marriage
This government allows certain activities only because / when it can tax them:
drugs
gambling
OTOH, when you subsidize something you get more of it. This government subsidizes:
Sloth
Envy
Greed (by bailing it out)
War
So, everyone rush right out and vote for your favorite “more of the same” candidate. Things are going just great!
Jamie,
I have to agree with you. Demand is flexible but cannot be artificially created. The Obama “Cash 4 Clunkers” program is a case-in-point. The program did not create any new demand. It simply concentrated future demand in the present and as soon as the program ended, auto sales slumped. All at a cost to the US taxpayers of $3B. The only positive aspect of the program was that it took 90% of the Obama-Biden bumper stickers off the road.
Steve Vaughan said:
“I’d rate Perry the favorite for the nomination right now. He’s the only candidate so far who has credibility with the Tea Party and the GOP “establishment.”
Credibility with “the Tea Party”? Which one(s)?
Mike thinks “the economic crisis is over.” Sorry, Mike, it is going to take a LOOOOOOOOOONG time to repair the damage to the economy that Obama and his Democrats did over his first 2 years.
HisRoc,
If Virginia receiving $1.51 for every $1 paid in Federal taxes isn’t wealth redistribution I don’t know what is.
-Matt
ToR,
That is a tired, old talking point that misrepresents the facts. Virginia receives Federal payments for hosting government agencies and being the home of Federal contractors. That Federal money is earned, not gifted or earmarked. And it has no relationship whatsoever to the amount of Federal tax that Virginians pay.
Is that the best you can do, bunky?
I keep reading the comments where everyone is looking for the candidate with the most ‘experience.’
Democratic AND Republican ‘experts with experience’ put us in the mess we are in. Maybe it’s time that WE THE PEOPLE start to run things.
Maybe there IS no experience that prepares you for the Presidency!
TOR,
Can you grasp the difference between an individual and a state?? In your imagination each state sends money to the Feds and then the Feds send it back to the State capitals. You cackle that some “blue states” send their precious tax money to the feds who in an act of generosity give it to benighted red states. This is just a regurgitation of leftist website tables that you don’t understand very well.
The tax money comes from individuals and corporations. Believe it or not the states cannot print money unlike Bernanke.
The individuals and small businesses who get taxed pay according to a progressive schedule believe it or not.
For your convenience, I provide the following table:
Top 1% $380,354 pay 38.02% of total income tax revenues
Top 5% $159,619 pay 58.72%
Top 10% $113,799 pay 69.94%
Top 25% $67,280 pay 86.34%
States with rich citizens have to contribute the bulk of the income since the top 5% do 60% of the total. The distribution of a relatively few very rich people accounts for the majority of discrepancies between states (eg Hollywood, Silicon Valley, Microsoft, Boeing, Wall St etc.) Most of these richer centers arose prior to the control of leftists and socialists in these states or the leftists give them waivers from their regs (as with Obamacare). Under Obama as a result, the Dems attempted to fund the Blue States’ governments directly in various stimulus packages as they go bankrupt.
People up to very recently worked in the North and retired in the South. Thus they would pay into the Federal government in the North and receive retirement related payments (ie SS and Medicare/medicaid) in the South. In addition, the military is mostly in the South for operational reasons
Most of the Blue states in the tables you reference became prosperous while being run by conservatives and Republicans. They have become indigent while being run by leftists (a State can be bankrupt even with rich citizens you know). Leftists are economic termites who use a prosperous capitalistic economy to raid the treasury for income redistribution and then corruption. Some states are a bit better at reserving economic conservatism for themselves while exporting leftism to the Feds.
In addition, these rich folks “coax” your Dem legislators for all kinds of policy favors that result in big bucks that they extract from the public or just compensate them for the cost of the leftist regs. (not excluding Repubs too but they have controlled Congress fewer years since WW2 and are not leading the process). Did those AIG bonuses that Obama secretly engineered and paid in 2009 show up in Federal outlays to states?? What about those massive tax breaks for Govt Motors?? Hmm?
There are other confoundments and finagles in the data but you get the idea or not.
Kumbaya my lord, Kumbaya.. Fasten your cummerbunds
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0811/61444.html
Ron says, Maybe there IS no experience that prepares you for the Presidency!
How about we look at what people did in the past. Up to JFK, Presidents were almost all taken from big state governors, Secretaries of State or Army Generals. The only big state governor after Eisenhower was Reagan. (Texas is a large state but the governor has much less to do than most other states; NB Perry.) There were no secretaries of state (unless Bush41 gets half credit for being CIA director) or Army generals. Since the USA achieved greatness before JFK and has had at best a variable but generally downward progression since, I would urge your consideration for going back to the future.
I miss Ron Mexico, who was the BD village idiot before MB and ToR.
Yes, I the economic crisis is over, although I and others would certainly prefer more robust growth. But yes, the fiscal chaos brought to us by the Bush administration, in which we peered into oblivion, and then acted, however imperfectly, has been converted to slow and steady growth based upon real, albeit lower in value, assets. Now that did not suit the eight talking heads plus Perry, nor the Tea Party and the Republican Study Committee, so they brought us two months on the precipice, which ought to be made into a Broadway musical. The self imposed mini drama was totally unnecessary, and of course, did little to solve the problem which is deficit and debt relief of $4 trillion dollars, which to be accomplished, must involve cuts, increased revenue, tax reform, and modification of entitlements. Most Americans know this; the problem is the Congress, and I have written to Mr. Starbucks to endorse his pleas for every corporation in America to stop funding incumbents until they get back to Washington to do what we know has to be done.
Leave your response
The comments section is for meaningful discussion. Readers are reminded to post comments that are germane to the article and write in a common language that steers clear of personal attacks and/or vulgarities.
Please take a moment to review our comment policy.