Live-blogging the 2012 Florida primary: Mitt goes negative, Newt falters -- the beginning of the end of the Republican presidential race

By Michael J.W. Stickings 

UPDATED FREQUENTLY. VERY FREQUENTLY.

7:18 pm - Yup, here we go again.

After Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina, our full attention's been on Florida for about 10 days now... and it's a biggie. I'm just going to have some dinner, but I'll be back shortly and will be live-blogging frequently throughout the evening, with contributions from Richard as well. We know who's going to win, and it'll be called very early (like 8:01?) but we'll try to keep it interesting by keeping the whole damn thing in perspective. See you soon.

7:28 pm - You can see the results here. Returns are already coming in -- 36% reporting.

7:29 pm - Okay... we're almost there...

7:30 pm - Almost there...

7:31 pm - Just a little bit more...

7:32 pm - Yes! The Reaction is now ready to declare Mitt Romney the winner of the 2012 Florida Republican primary.

7:33 pm - We called it! We called it! We can state the obvious! Take that, Wolf Blitzer, you bearded wonder! Ha! Go ahead and wait for those polls in the Central time zone to close in 27 minutes. We're not letting anything get in our way.

7:54 pm - So... is it over yet? With 51% reporting, it's Romney with 48, Gingrich with 31, Santorum with 13, and Paul with 7. Needless to say, a huge lead for Mitt. I thought he'd win by 12 or 13, though the trend was suggesting even more, like 15.

RKB: Yes, this is over.

8:00 pm - Earlier today, I set the over/under for the call on Romney's win at 8:01 and 30 seconds. Are we there yet?

8:01 pm - And I also wrote this: "In case you weren't clear, it's (mostly) the money, stupid. Money, in short, wins." And so, in "honor" of Mitt's big win, here's Rush (once upon a time infatuated with Ayn Rand, though they are one of my favorite bands -- and maybe the greatest Canadian band ever) performing "Big Money":

Big money goes around the world

Big money underground

Big money got a mighty voice

Big money make no sound

Big money pull a million strings

Big money hold the prize

Big money weave a mighty web

Big money draw the flies

It's that old time religion

It's the kingdom they would rule

It's the fool on television

Getting paid to play the fool

8:04 pm - Congratulations, Mitt. You the man. And you're clearly the frontrunner (once again).

RKB: I know Newt said he would stay in for the long haul, but at about 18 points back with 65% reporting that will be hard to do. We all know that Gingrich is really good at ignoring his critics and shooting the messenger and all that, but it's starting to look more than a little sad.

8:21 pm - In case you missed it, Florida Republican wunderkind Marco Rubio said today that the winner of the Florida primary would be the nominee this fall. Hardly an out-on-a-limb prediction. He knew it would be Romney, and Romney is by far the likely nominee.

RKB: This is a WSJ clip discussing the gender gap between Gingrich and Romney. Guess which candidate women don't like? (Can't embed, but you can watch it here.)

RKB: Brit Hume on Fox is speculating about the extent to which Romney will want to turn his attention away from Gingrich and start focusing his attention on Obama. Of course, when he eased off on Newt in South Carolina, he got smoked. I guess it begs the question of when Romney will start to tack to the center to begin courting independents. That'll be hard to do as long as hardcore conservatives don't trust him. Quite a problem. But if Gingrich is mostly done, Romney will need a plan to start sounding more reasonable.

8:45 pm - Florida really does look like penis, doesn't it?

8:46 pm - With the rest of my family watching Glee (ugh), I'll hand it over to Richard to comment on Romney's victory speech...

RKB: Ann Romney is at the podium thanking the whole team. Blah, blah, blah. And then she intros her husband. Could this guy be more insincere? Romney says that a competitive nomination race doesn't divide Republicans, it prepares them. Well, no. Not when the attacks are on character.

Funny how no Republican ever mentions George W. Bush as the architect of the current economic mess. The nerve of these guys.

Romney is so full of shit.

Well, I guess we have our answer.Romney thinks the campaign against Obama starts now.

Romney is all about mindless, meaningless platitudes. What a mean-spirited idiot.

If Romney really is the best the GOP has to offer, Obama must be sleeping well these days. 

8:51 pm - Ditto. Have I mentioned that Romney's a privileged rich douchebag with a plutocratic sense of entitlement who will do and say anything for votes? Well, there you go. And that's the narrative that should attach itself to Romney through November.

8:53 pm - Sorry, maybe you expect us to comment on Romney without all the insults? That would be fine if he hadn't shown himself throughout this entire campaign to be a shameless liar pandering to GOP extremism with all his anti-Obama nonsense and otherwise turning himself into a soul-less "Mitt Romney" candidate who seems to stand for nothing but maximizing the wealth of the super-rich and getting himself elected. I mean, he said just yesterday he wishes he could claim he was Hispanic. How utterly pathetic is that?

RKB: Sarah Palin is on Fox right now (8:50 pm). She sounds bitter that Romeny's $17-million investment in Florida bought his success. She is saying that the process has not been "very attractive to the electorate." Palin is obviously lukewarm on Romney. She better get used to him. Man, she is so stupid ,but I guess she has her followers. I still can't believe anyone is fooled by this dolt. What a lot of nonesence from the former half-term governor of Alaska.

8:59 pm - Sure, but I can't argue with her assessment of how Romney won Florida. (I would just add that she isn't terribly "attractive to the electorate" either, including the Republican electorate.)

9:01 pm - Romney's up by 15 with 76% reporting, 47 to 32. Just what the likes of Nate Silver were saying. Needless to say, a big win, regardless of how he did it. Newt's lead in the national polls has been slipping, and there's little doubt that Mitt will now surge (the key and perhaps most overused word of this whole race, no?) into the lead.

9:07 pm - And now I turn it over to Richard again... 

RKB: Santorum is speaking from Colorado (?).

Santorum is thanking people for their support during his daughter's recent health problem. Nice to see people reminded that even politicians have lives and families. Nice touch by Santorum. Much as I hate Santorum's social conservatism, he sounds the most honest of the bunch. So, to that extent, he honestly holds values I hate.

Still, Santorum is generally a weak candidate. What a horrible field.

9:09 pm - I've thought the same about Santorum, particularly since his excellent speech the night of the Iowa caucuses (which he ended up winning, of course). I don't agree with him on... well, on pretty much anything, but there's no denying his general sincerity, which contrasts starkly with Romney's shameless dishonesty and Newt's bullying egomania.

RKB: And it certainly doesn't look like Santorum is getting out. Chris Matthews is suggesting that Santorum is angling for the VP job. Don't see that happening. There are a lot better choices.

9:13 pm - It's possible, but I agree. Unlikely. And while Santorum is certainly a bona fide social conservative, he's toxic to independents (and his name is just too much of a joke). Romney will have to appease the right with someone else: Ryan? Rubio? Haley? Jindal?

9:18 pm - And over to Richard again, who's watching and reporting so I don't have to...

RKB: Gingrich is now at the mic:

This will be a two-person race between Newt and the Massachusetts moderate is what he is saying.

He is saying that he will stay in as long as it takes. People power will defeat money power. When did the GOP become the party of poor people? Newt is calling it a "people's campaign." That's great. He's contrasting himself with Romney as the candidate of the establishment. Will anyone believe that Newt is a man of the people?

This stuff is red meat for the base, but rings hollow for independents. 

9:20 pm - For some of the base, sure. But Newt's attempt at populism won't fool many on the right. It's okay to be a Buchananite pitchfork populist (i.e., a lynch mob), but going after Big Money is just too... socialist? 

9:28 pm - Mitt's still up by 15. 

9:44 pm - And again... 

RKB: Ron Paul is in Nevada. At the mic now:

Paul's crowd is certainly enthusiastic, as is he. Pretty happy for a guy who just came in last place in Florida with a whopping 7%. Yes, it's all about personal liberty, whatever that means. Oh, I can't stand listening to Paul. Such a waste of time. I do like the idea of bringing our troops home and stopping "unwinnable, undeclared wars." I could get behind that. Otherwise, libertarians make me tired. They aren't even worth arguing with.

Ron Paul is also saying he will go all the way to convention.

9:46 pm - And so he will. It's not about winning for Paul, it's about his libertarian agenda/platform and making sure it's a core part of the GOP. (Note to Rep. Paul: It's not. Well, not really. The anti-tax stuff is, of course, but Republicans have no time for anti-imperialism and civil liberties these days. Even your anti-government views are a tad too out there for most in your party. Why not unite with Trump for a third-party run?)

9:52 pm - Uh-oh. Major drama! Mitt's lead has fallen all the way from 15 to 14. With 94% reporting he's ahead just 46 to 32. What does this mean? What can it mean? Is Mitt falling short of expectations? OMG! WTF? It's back on, baby, back... on!

10:17 pm - Kidding. Of course.

10:18 pm - That's about it for us. There's not much else to say tonight. But, as I peruse some live-blogging posts at other sites, let me quote from Wonkette, which offered up these extremely amusing observations earlier on this evening:

"Florida is a microcosm of America," we just heard one of the Romney and/or Gingrich spin-whores say on the MSNBC just now. Yes, because Florida is a limp dick dangling over a sex-slave resort in the Dominican Republic or whatever. Also, America is truly a symbol of America. Just look at the map, and look at it in profile. What you'll see is a morbidly obese man with a pinhead and a dangling, useless dongle, with a massive ass to the west and a couple of unloved children from his first or second marriage literally "out to sea." Anyway, how badly will Mittens beat the jewelry piglet tonight? Or will there be a surprise?

7:45 PM — Polls are closed in the "fancy part" of Florida, with the Jews and the Blacks and the Cubanos and the gay CIA retirees, while polls remain open for another fifteen minutes in the "Dukes of Hazard" part of Florida, with the angry 60-year-old thrice-divorced small-time property speculators fuming in their single-wides tonight. Which part of the state is "more American," anyway?

Good question. I go back and forth.

But it's certainly true that there's a divide in Florida just as there's a divide elsewhere -- if not quite as stark as Wonkette's humorous characterization of it. It's usually described as red state-blue state, but it's not so much a state-by-state divided, it's an urban-rural one, and we see this clearly in today's results. Romney is winning the largely urban and suburban counties, while Gingrich is winning the largely rural ones. (Santorum is doing better in the rural ridings, while Paul is fairly consistent all over the state.) Take Miami-Dade, for example. Mitt's up 61-26 over Newt there, with Santorum at 6. In Escambia, though, the state's westernmost county, up in the panhandle, Newt's up 39-35 over Mitt, with Santorum at 16. These are extremes, but they reflect what's going on all across the state.

10:35 pm - Okay, done. For now. We're all over this Republican race, and we'll have a lot more to come. Stay tuned.

Good night, everyone.

What Floridians are learning about Newt (and what we're all learning about the GOP presidential race)

By Michael J.W. Stickings 

Via twitter: 

Top 4 Google searches in FL for Newt? "Callista", "Newt ethics violations", "Newt wives", Newt scandals". Ouch. (link)

-- Chris Cillizza (@TheFix)

What can we learn from this? 

1) Romney's merciless anti-Newt ad blitz has worked remarkably well. 

2) Money is power. Romney has tons of it and has outspent Newt by miles and miles. 

3) Newt is still Newt. He can say he's changed, but his ugly past will always haunt him. 

4) For those voters who don't know anything about that past, who have forgotten, or would prefer not to be reminded, Romney has been more than happy to be Newt's character reference. 

5) The Internet is a powerful source of information, misinformation, and disinformation.

And more generally: 

6) Newt's in big trouble in Florida. Romney will likely crush him by 12-13 points. Maybe more like 15. 

7) The polls close tonight at 7 pm, with some counties in central time. That means all voting will be done by 8 pm eastern time. The over/under on the networks calling it for Romney should be 8:01 and 30 seconds. I'll take the under (earlier). No need to drag this out. 

8) The race won't be over, but it's almost there. Newt could do well in the upcoming caucuses, but they're in the Mitt-friendly states of Nevada and Maine. And he needs Santorum to get out, but that seems unlikely, particularly with the Missouri primary coming up next week. Newt's not on the ballot there. 

9) In case you weren't clear, it's (mostly) the money, stupid. Money, in short, wins. (Sorry, Mr. Beane, but it's true.)

And so... 

10) Republicans may not be enamored with Romney, and he may be a privileged rich douchebag with a plutocratic sense of entitlement and insufficiently right-wing views who will do and say anything for votes, but it looks like they're stuck with him.

Good times.

This day in music - January 31, 1968: The American Breed's "Bend Me, Shape Me" is certified Gold

By Richard K. Barry

I remember this song. Can't say that I really remember the group, though. Well, sort of. To be fair, they did chart with a few other songs, though "Bend Me, Shape Me" was their biggest hit. If you were a fan, you will know that other efforts by the band that charted include "Step Out Of Your Mind" and "Green Light." Okay.

Perhaps the most interesting thing about the group is that they eventually morphed into an R&B/funk band with the name Rufus featuring a singer by the name of Chaka Khan, and in 1974 had a top ten hit with "Tell Me Something Good." That I remember.

Anyway, The American Breed was a Chicago-based group that lasted from 1966 to 1969 before going in a different musical direction. And in their first incarnation they even got a gold record out of the deal.

I love the general grooviness of the video of "Bend Me, Shape Me" and, what the hell, you'll find a clip of "Tell Me Something Good" just below it featuring Chaka Khan.

By the way, "Tell Me Something Good" was written by Stevie Wonder and is among the earliest songs to make use of a guitar talk box. If you know the song, you'll know what that means. 

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

"I wish I could claim that I'm Hispanic": Another helpful glimpse into the shameless, whoring opportunism of Mitt Romney

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Mitt just can't help himself. Sometimes, without even intending it, he shows us who he really is, what he's really made of, what he's really all about:

On Monday morning's Fox and Friends, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney let out another one of those "I'm running for office, for Pete's sake!" bursts of honesty which, like a burlesque revue at a leper colony, are revealing, but not in a good way. Asked if his father's Mexican birthplace is helping him with Florida's Hispanic community, Romney replied "You know, I wish I could claim that I'm Hispanic..."

Host Steve Doocy highlighted the fact that Gov. Romney hasn't exactly bragged about his Mexican roots before. "The other night when I saw you at one of the debates in Florida," Doocy said, "you mentioned for the first time in my memory, where you were talking about that anti-immigrant allegation by Newt Gingrich. You were talking about how your father was born in Mexico. It's the first time I'd heard you say that. Is that helping you with the Latino community in Florida?"

Romney replied "You know, I wish I could claim that I'm Hispanic..."

That's a bit of a weird thing to say, but let's hear him out. Does he admire the rich cultural heritage, the strong current of faith, the diverse culinary tradition? Romney continued "...and it would help me with the Latino community here in Florida and around the country, but my dad was born of American parents living in Mexico."

Oh, right, he didn’t say he wished he was Hispanic, just that he wishes he could claim it.

It's almost like this privileged rich douchebag will do and say anything for votes, take any opportunity to sell himself to whatever constituency he needs to woo, and pander without any shame or self-regard whatsoever.

Almost? No, that pretty much describes him out on the campaign trail.

Thanks so much, Mitt. We know you're busy lying, but we really appreciate the unintentional honesty. Keep it up.

Jailhouse Rock.

by Capt. Fogg

"Well, victims have rights too," is the usual evasion given to the question of why the United States has more people in confinement or under correctional supervision than the Soviet Union under Stalin. Well, of course they do have rights, but it's hard to reach the notion that a victim of a crime, or the state which represents that victim has the right to do anything at all to satisfy the rage we feel when someone harms us or our property from that position. Even the harshest laws of classical antiquity were set in place to hinder the endless cycle of revenge.

Harder it is indeed to get to the level of punishment typical in our land for crimes that in fact harm no one at all: "crimes" that throughout the years include marrying outside the arbitrary dictates of dominant religions, drinking from the wrong faucet, having a beer in private or smoking the herb that makes you feel mellow and sleepy. Most hard to justify is the rage for "Zero Tolerance" that makes judges into clerks and executioners unable to apply reason or a sense of proportion as it relates to crime and punishment.

Imagine, as Adam Gopnik suggests in Mass Incarceration and Criminal Justice in the January 30th issue of New Yorker, "Lock yourself in your bathroom and then imagine you have to stay there for the next ten years, and you will have some sense of the experience." At least 50,000 men don't have to imagine it at the moment, they simply have to be conscious.

Although it's tapered off some recently, we've been given editorials and articles and TV harangues about how prison life is too "soft" for "Criminals" such as some teen who sent a naked picture on a cellphone to another teen and gets life in a cage -- or another unfortunate caught with marijuana who has to endure 10 or 20 degrading and terrifying years and lose his civil rights in perpetuity, but Prison life in the US is a veritable nightmare in comparison to what it is in places like Europe. 70,000 prisoners are raped in our prisons every year where HIV is widespread. Texas alone has sentenced more than 400 teenagers to life imprisonment.

My own state of Florida, with a governor who somehow escaped incarceration for having been involved in the largest Medicare swindle ever, is as I write this, trying to "privatize" Florida's prison system. Is that another way of washing conservative hands of blood or is it simply that to the conservative mind, being profitable makes it moral: a corporation locking up people and keeping the corporate bottom line healthy by squeezing convicts as well as punishing them?

Of course Florida, as many other states have done, turned to prison labor as a substitute for slavery after Liberals ended their horrific atrocities, locking up "vagrants" and selling their "slave" labor for private gain in much the same way as China is accused of when we try to seem better than they are.

" More than half of all black men without a high-school diploma go to prison at some time in their lives"

says Gopnik and mass imprisonment has tainted our mass culture with affluent kids in shopping malls imitating prison dress and speech and tattoos. We wear our incarceration culture on the bodies of our children, like the mark of Cain.

"Mass incarceration on a scale almost unexampled in human history is a fundamental fact of our country today—perhaps the fundamental fact, as slavery was the fundamental fact of 1850. In truth, there are more black men in the grip of the criminal-justice system—in prison, on probation, or on parole—than were in slavery then."

Nor is it tapering off. The rate of incarceration is accelerating; tripling in the last couple of decades and with the tendency toward private slaveholder corporations, the comparison to the anti-bellum south is all the more frightening. We'r e being sold a southern sense of justice, suggests the author, and we sell it, as we sell our wars and our attacks on what we were taught were fundamental rights and even our attacks on reformers with appeals to rage. "If the accused had shot someone in your family, wouldn't you want to kill him?" asks the voice and of course I might, but fortunately for all of us, we have a system of laws, we have a civilization to prevent it. Indeed civilization exists as a brake on our base instincts, which instincts so often destroy it.

Is our current fascination with a withered government that thereby facilitates freedom in some magical way really compatible with a government so concerned with keeping all freedom away from so many people for ever expanding reasons? Or is the subjugation of such a huge number of people only a part of a vast scheme to subjugate most of us, to establish America as a vast plantation for the benefit of a very few slaveholders?

Perhaps not. Perhaps it's simply the fear in which we're all marinating in this safest period in history that's pickled our sense of justice; our fear of terrorists, dope fiends, predators, drunk drivers and heretics, but regardless of where the blame is put, we are, and continue to grow as a nation which more than any others, keeps people in cages and allows other people to profit from it.


(Cross posted from Human Voices)

Obama connects better with Americans than GOP contenders

By Richard K. Barry

Swiss Francs, Mitt!

Here are some interesting polling results worth passing along.

According to a Pew Research Center/Washington Post poll, 55% of those surveyed say that President Obama connects with the needs of average Americans very or fairly well. This contrasts with 41% who told pollsters that the president doesn't understand the people's problems too well or at all well.

As for the two leading GOP contenders, only 39 percent say that Romney understands the problems of average Americans very or fairly well, and just 36 percent say the same for Gingrich.

As Politico reports on the survey:

Slightly more than half of independent voters, or 53 percent, say Obama is empathetic, while only 38 percent and 37 percent, respectively, had the same positive rating for Romney and Gingrich.

Along party lines, a whopping 84 percent of Democrats say Obama does connect with the concerns of average people. Among Republicans, 61 percent told pollsters Romney does connect well, and 60 percent say the same for Gingrich.

I suppose one could say that the lower numbers for Romney and Gingrich amongst Republicans have to do with the fact that the GOP nomination race is in full swing and these numbers will consolidate around the eventual nominee whenever he is chosen.

But the percentages among independents are interesting. That's a pretty big gap between swing voters who think Obama understands their situation vs. the number who think leading Republicans do.

It may be a simple calculus, but I tend to think people would rather vote for someone to whom they can relate and who can relate to them. After the dust settles and Romney becomes the GOP nominee, there is little doubt in my mind that most American will see the former Governor of Massachusetts as clueless when it comes to the challenges faced by most citizens.

Want to make a $10,000 bet on that? Or maybe we could make the wager in Swiss francs?

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

In Other Election News

 

By Carl

 

You heard it here first: I fully expect the Democrats to chip large portions of the Republican majority in the House away, if not overtake them completely.

 

Right now, there's a distinct anti-Washington fervor in the nation. There was two years ago, too, but the Teabaggers fucked that up by co-opting any populist agenda into the now-transparent "let's give MORE money to our corporate overlords so we can beg for scraps" ploy that created the whole Mitt Romney candidacy that is limping into the nomination.

 

Really. Think about it. After Occupy Wall Street & the 99% meme, and Mitt's revelations of paying less than 15% on tens of millions in income, the average voter has got to be thinking "Who's really in charge here?"

 

Add to that the overheated anti-Latino rhetoric of the Republican primary campaign-- and the last Congress, altogether-- and you have a recipe for taking back enough seats, 25, to overturn the balance of power in Congress.

 

And for the final kicker, if Romney wins the nomination, the vaunted "enthusiasm" factor the Republicans allegedly had flies out the window. Romney's coattails will be next to non-existent-- he might bolster some Northwest and Mountain races-- and indeed, it will be the down-ticket votes that propel him to any showing whatsoever.

 

That said, it troubles me how much superPAC money there is floating around. As you are no doubt aware, Newt Gingirich has been the beneficiary of something like $10 million from Sheldon Adelson, who could easily afford to pump another $490 million and still break even on one year's taxes.

 

Romney can afford at least nine figures himself. Add Adelson's generosity to any potential Republican candidate, altho clearly not as enthusiastically as to Newt, and you have a formidable bloc of money, despite Obama's war chest of nearly a billion.

 

Worse, this superPAC money can go downstream too and influence tight races, thus propelling Mitt's prospects a little further.

 

Things look good for Democrats this year, but don't get cocky. It ain't over til the last Cayman withdrawal is made.

 

(crossposted to Simply Left Behind)

Why is Newt losing in Florida?

By Michael J.W. Stickings

It's the money, stupid:

Newt Gingrich has been outspent on the Florida airwaves by a nearly $12 million margin, according to a source monitoring the Sunshine State ad war.

Through Friday, the Romney campaign and the super PAC Restore Our Future had spent a combined $15,340,000, the source said. Gingrich’s campaign and the super PAC Winning Our Future spent a comparatively paltry $3,390,000.

That's just the differential in paid-media spending, so it doesn't include Romney's edge in field operations, mail, et cetera. And Romney's advantage isn’t likely to go away in the primary, though the general election is an entirely different story.

Done.

The Book of Jeb: Why no endorsement yet?

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Why does Jeb Bush hate Mitt Romney? What, you say he doesn't hate him, that that's the wrong word to use? Okay, fine.

Why has Jeb Bush not endorsed Mitt Romney? After all, Jeb's once-president dad has endorsed Mitt, and of course Mitt is the near-universal choice of the GOP "establishment," or whatever's left of it, even if no one's all that enthusiastic about him.

True, Jeb once talked up Mitch Daniels, and maybe he wishes that Mitch were in the race, or someone other than Mitt, some other establishmentarian, but it's hard to see how Jeb remains silent as late as the day before the primary in Florida, where he was once governor and still holds great sway, and where an endorsement would mean so much.

Maybe he thinks Romney will win anyway, which he will, and so maybe he wants to hold off for a more opportune time. Or it maybe it's that the Republican Party, and this presidential race in particular, has just gotten too crazy for him:

Mr. Bush has made clear in television interviews and in conversations with friends that he is troubled by the sharpening tenor of the race, particularly on immigration. He voiced his concern directly to Mr. Romney, two people close to him said, urging him to moderate his oratory and views to avoid a collapse of support among Hispanic voters in the general election. 

This may be giving him too much credit. It could just be that he wants to run for president himself one day and at this point doesn't want to hitch his wagon to a weak and embarrassing candidate who may get crushed by Obama.

And, yes, that includes Romney.

Some jokes never get old

By Richard K. Barry

What Happens If...?

By Carl

 

First, I'm not going to snark on a dying child. No one, no matter how misguided they may be or how evil their opinions may be, should be teased about something like that.

 

Second, of course, I'm talking about Rick Santorum and the health scare of his young daughter that forced him off the campaign trail this weekend, ahead of the Florida primary. It got me to thinking: what happens if the worst scenario unfolds?

 

Santorum stands a pretty good chance of making a case for continuing his campaign in the Florida primary: his religion and his religious nature certainly appeal to one or two of the three ethnic groups in Florida, as according to Bill Maher ("Jews, Cubans, and rednecks").

 

A strong third or even, heaven forbid, swiping second from a faltering Gingrich, would place Santorum squarely back in the hunt.

 

This would, of course, do two things: it would force Mitt to extend the primary season by at least a few more weeks and to divide his fire across two camps, and it would offer more Not-Mitt alternatives that people can choose. It's not a secret that the lion's share of Republicans neither like nor trust Mitt, but factions have their different reasons.

 

I suspect the Newt faction is the faction that dislikes the individual mandate that Romneycare imposed on Massachussetts' citizenry. This is the faction that really dislikes healthcare in any way shape or form, preferring to see people die in the streets than provide a sick person a hospital bed.

 

The Santorum faction, of course, is the faction that dislikes Mitt, or more likely mistrusts him, for his Mormonism. Santorum is Catholic, and while that dismays many Evangelicals, it's a damned sight more palatable than someone wearing magic underwear and re-baptizing the dead.

 

So if Santorum has to drop out, quo vadis? (OK, correctly, "quo ibunt?" but I couldn't resist the Biblical reference). Newt's recent seeing of the light has generally been viewed as a sham, a desperate pandering political ploy, and really serves only as a calculated rationalization by those who are devout but more devoutly devoted to their wallets instead.

 

The Santorum faction, the hard-core ones, at any rate, probably number no more than fifteen percent in Florida. Anything he pulls beyond that is either Not-Mitt or Not-Gingrich. The most recent Marist poll shows Santorum the only candidate to increase his poll numbers after last week's debate. It seems he stole equally from Romney and Gingrich, altho it's hard to be certain.

 

So here's the scenario that I think Romney is hoping for: After tomorrow, Newt, who has said a strong Florida showing will be the reason to keep his campaign alive, flails and ends up in a surprising third. He drops out.

 

Then, Santorum, for his personal reasons, agrees to drop his campaign and unite behind Romney, putting his name in the hat for Veep and angling for a 2016 run after Romney gets swamped in the fall.

 

That scenario, at least vote-wise, seems pretty likely. Whether the egos involved can see the logic behind is awaits to be seen.

 

(crossposted to Simply Left Behind)

Mitt way up, Newt flailing about: The state of the GOP presidential race, the day before the Florida primary

By Michael J.W. Stickings

I was initially going to comment on Cain's endorsement of Gingrich like this:

While it's possible that Cain's endorsement will give Newt a small boost in Florida, and while it's likely that the self-absorbed and not terribly self-aware Cain thinks his endorsement will mean a whole lot more, maybe even pushing Newt over the top, endorsing at this point is like hopping aboard the Costa Concordia.

But then I thought... wait.

That ill-fated ocean liner is just lying there, while Newt, after his poor (relative to expectations, but also in absolute terms) debate performance the other night, is sinking fast.

I thought that Romney might win by 8-10 points, but he's now up by a whopping 15 in a new NBC/Marist poll. Another poll conducted by various Florida news organizations has him up by 11.

Part of this is that Newt may simply have peaked. Expectations were high, too high, going into Thursday's debate, but the fact is, he was never going to live up to those expectations anyway. But of course the other key fact here is that Romney simply has the better campaign (even if he isn't a terribly good candidate himself): He's got money, organization, rigor, and, perhaps most importantly, the will and power of the Republican establishment behind him (even if they're behind him because he's all they've got and not because they actually like him all that much).

Now, there's no denying that Newt is still fighting. And why should he not? He's still doing well nationally, even if his lead has narrowed and a loss in Florida would likely boost Mitt back into the lead, likely for good. At this point, he doesn't have much to lose. His standing with the party? The party's trying to crush him. His future earnings potential as a leading conservative commentator? He'll be fine. His dignity? Please. At some point, sure, all his hammering away at Romney will be too much of a liability, but then he'll just turn on a dime and play the partisan hack again, saying all the right things on Meet the Press and deflecting attention away from himself by attacking Obama and the media. This, as you should know by now, is his modus operandi. Even all the Romney surrogates saying nasty things about him now will change their tune when the party has to unite behind Romney or else.

Maybe Newt is "mad and mental enough to fight on long after Florida," as New York mag's John Heilemann put it, and maybe there will be "a straight-out contest for the next four or five months," as he himself put it yesterday, and maybe if Santorum gets out and his supporters go to Newt, and... well, sure, maybe. But I don't think so. If Romney wins Florida by, say, 12 points or so, which the media would call a landslide, it's pretty much a done deal, what with the next contests coming up in the Romney-friendly states of Nevada and Maine.

At least, that's how it looks today. But if we've learned anything so far, it's that the crazy and largely unpredictable twists and turns of this race will end up biting your confident prognostications on the ass. Yes, I think it's safe to say that Romney will win tomorrow. But what if he doesn't win by as much as we now think he will? What if Newt makes it close -- say, 5 points? And what if Santorum does get out and endorse him (and/or his supporters go to Newt?) And what if Newt does well in the upcoming caucuses (not primaries, which are more open and less likely to be dominated by the hardcore party faithful on the far right) in Nevada, Maine, Colorado, and Minnesota? What if this really does become a tight one-on-one (with Ron Paul still in, of course)?

Hey, anything can, and could, happen.

Republican idiot extraordinaire Allen West says liberals should "get the hell out"

By Michael J.W. Stickings

It's really not worth paying any attention to Allen West, the insane right-wing Republican Congressman from Florida who says stupid things (and bigoted things) pretty much everytime he opens his mouth.

But pay attention we do, if only because it's good to keep track of the crazy things Republicans say and do and because in his own way West speaks to the current degraded state of the conservative, er, mind -- a mind that has been purged of reason and civility.

Here, for example, is what West said yesterday at a dinner -- and of all things a Lincoln Day dinner, as if the GOP has anything at all in common with Mr. Lincoln -- in West Palm Beach:

We need to let President Obama, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, and my dear friend the chairman of the Democrat National Committee, we need to let them know that Florida ain't on the table. Take your message of equality of achievement, take your message of economic dependency, take your message of enslaving the entrepreneurial will and spirit of the American people somewhere else. You can take it to Europe, you can take it to the bottom of the sea, you can take it to the North Pole, but get the hell out of the United States of America.

Of course, this is the usual sort of ridiculousness we hear from so many Republicans these days, even the supposedly sane (but not so much) Mitch Daniels. Seriously, in what world is any of this true? Unless you're completely delusional, perhaps as a result of spending too much time in the presence of Republican propaganda without an ounce of critical thinking, how can you possibly think that Obama and the Democrats are anti-free market? And how exactly do Democrats seek equality of achievement? By refusing to gut Social Security, pumping (not nearly enough) money into the economy when it's just about to go off the cliff, and bailing out Wall Street and the auto industry?

It's like some bat-shit-crazy bizarro world these people inhabit. And it is.

And, yes, Europe, that anti-capitalist, freedom-hating dystopia with... with... with all that social mobility and those hugely profitable companies like GlaxoSmithKline and Siemens and Novartis and Shell and Nokia and Airbus and those massive banks like HSBC and Santander, and those dynamic global cities like London and Paris and Berlin, not to mention that great quality of life.

Slavery!

This is the level of "discourse" we've come to expect not just from West but from Republicans generally. And, as the GOP descends further and further into madness, it's not going to get any better anytime soon.

Behind the Ad: Gingrich assails Romney's character

By Richard K. Barry

Who: Newt Gingrich attacks Mitt Romney

Where: Florida

What's going on: There have been so many twists and turns to the GOP presidential nomination process that I'm not quite ready to say it's over. Polls in Florida are still settling and I suppose it's still possible Gingrich could pull it out and keep this thing going for a while longer. He certainly seems to be thinking that way, based on his most recent ad airing in Florida.

The money line is this: "What kind of man would mislead, distort and deceive just to win an election. This man would: Mitt Romney."

It begins with this comment by Governor Mike Huckabee: "If a man's dishonest to get a job, he'll be dishonest on the job."

Wow. Not that it hasn't been personal before this, but now it's really getting personal. I still think Romney wins the nomination, but attack ads like this that impugn Romney's reputation as a true conservative are going to have an impact once Romney finally emerges as the candidate.

In part this is the stuff professionals like to call voter suppression. In other words, even if Romney wins the nomination, the feeling that he can't be trusted may well make it less likely that Tea Party or other hard-core right wingers will bother to come out and vote for him. They won't vote for Obama, of course, they just won't vote.

It's pretty effective stuff.

And, among swing voter, repeating over and over that Romney will say whatever it takes to get elected is not going to make him an attractive candidate. As I've said many times, I just think Mitt Romney is a lousy politician, that he doesn't understand how it's done, doesn't understand that voters need to trust the person they vote for, need to believe that the candidate stands for something.

This ad feeds into the feeling growing numbers of people have that Romney is a fraud, that the only thing he stands for is winning because rich privileged people like him, he'd like us to believe, ought to be running the country anyway. Everything else for a guy like Mitt is background noise.

Newt Gingrich doesn't care about the success of the Republican Party. This is scorched earth politics at its best and, as a Democrat, I love it. More of this please.

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

This day in music - January 27, 1970: The Partridge Family's "I Think I Love You" hits #1

By Richard K. Barry

The Partridge Family

When I decided to have some fun with this feature, I told myself I wouldn't impose my own opinions about what was good music and what was "less good." For all sorts of reasons, different artists and songs mean things to other people beyond the understanding of some of the rest of us. Clearly the fact that The Partridge Family had a #1 hit with "I Think I Love You" means that a lot of people went out and bought the record. I can respect that.

The Partridge Family was a television sitcom that aired between 1970 and 1974 on ABC and has lived on in syndication for a long time after that. The basic idea for the show was that a widowed mother and her five children would embark on a music career. This allowed for normal family-type hijinx, with a couple of pretty teenagers (David Cassidy and Susan Dey) in the cast to occupy the hormones of any peers who might be watching.

And then there was the obligatory song in each episode always somehow woven into the plot. As for the music, only David Cassidy, who sang lead, and Shirley Jones (the mother), who sang backup, were featured on the recordings.

One of the more obscure pieces of information about the song "I Think I Love You" is that it made The Partridge Family the third fictional group to have a #1 hit (after The Chipmunks and The Archies). To give the man his due, "I Think I Love You" was written by veteran American songwriter Tony Romeo, who also wrote for a lot of other people.

I remember watching The Partridge Family as a kid. It seemed to pass the time as well as anything else. I doubt the show ever did anyone any real harm, and as pop music goes, it wasn't the worst.

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

Eva Longoria slams Romney over DREAM Act

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Via twitter: 

85% of Latino Voters support the #DREAM Act, 100% of @MittRomney, doesn’t!

-- Eva Longoria (@evalongoria)

Yes, that Eva Longoria. The extraordinarily beautiful Eva Longoria.

Very well put. (More here.)

Just because Mitt can name some Latino Republicans (and suck up to Rubio in particular) and pander to militant Cubans doesn't make him a friend to Latinos.

And his shameless pandering to the far-right GOP base, including on immigration, just makes him look like a bigoted nativist.

**********

I generally don't pay much attention to the political views of celebrities, but, to her credit, Longoria is pro-Obama and anti-Tea Party, and generally seems to be a very thoughtful person.

[President Obama] keeps getting beat up lately because there's such an extremist movement, and for me, it's very dangerous because its not the character of America," Longoria continued. And though she didn't specify that the movement beating up Obama she was referring to was the Tea Party, she later scoffed when Kimmel mentioned them, saying they were "good for comedy."

Watch:

The horrendous human costs of your beloved gadgets

By Michael J.W. Stickings

So you like your iPhone, do you? And your iPad? And maybe you're even one of those Apple cultists. (I'm not, but I do love my iPod Touch. I go Samsung/Android with my phone.)

Maybe you love all your gadgets. Maybe you think technology has made your life so much better, so much more fun. Hey, I hear you.

But there's a cost to be paid, and not just whatever low, low, ridiculously low price lured you into your local Best Buy. No, there's a human cost. Actually, many human costs. And it's important that you (and I) know about it (and make decisions accordingly):

In the last decade, Apple has become one of the mightiest, richest and most successful companies in the world, in part by mastering global manufacturing. Apple and its high-technology peers — as well as dozens of other American industries — have achieved a pace of innovation nearly unmatched in modern history.

However, the workers assembling iPhones, iPads and other devices often labor in harsh conditions, according to employees inside those plants, worker advocates and documents published by companies themselves. Problems are as varied as onerous work environments and serious — sometimes deadly — safety problems.

Employees work excessive overtime, in some cases seven days a week, and live in crowded dorms. Some say they stand so long that their legs swell until they can hardly walk. Under-age workers have helped build Apple's products, and the company's suppliers have improperly disposed of hazardous waste and falsified records, according to company reports and advocacy groups that, within China, are often considered reliable, independent monitors.

More troubling, the groups say, is some suppliers' disregard for workers' health. Two years ago, 137 workers at an Apple supplier in eastern China were injured after they were ordered to use a poisonous chemical to clean iPhone screens. Within seven months last year, two explosions at iPad factories, including in Chengdu, killed four people and injured 77. Before those blasts, Apple had been alerted to hazardous conditions inside the Chengdu plant, according to a Chinese group that published that warning. 

And then there's that whole suicide problem. (Yes, a very serious problem. In addition to the suicides themselves, workers at Foxconn, a manufacturer for Apple and others, have threatened mass suicide to protest the horrible working conditions.)

Now, sure, it's easy to pick on Apple and it's huge profits and cash, but it's hardly alone in this. Pretty much every major (and not-so-major) consumer electronics company is implicated.

Will this stop me, or you, or most anyone else from lapping up the latest wonder-gizmo? Maybe not, but, then, what are we to do? Not have these gadgets at all? Please. We need our superphones and tablets and laptops and PCs. I'm on them all the time at home, at work, pretty much everywhere.

But maybe we should at least think twice (or more) about what we're doing, and maybe, if Apple (to take but the most obvious example) is one of the most egregious players in this horrific system, it should pay -- and pay by losing customers, by having customers demand better of it. And perhaps, too, our attention and habits, should we change them in a meaningful way, and the attention this human toll is getting, will turn this into a political issue with governments demanding, and requiring, meaningful change.

Maybe I'm hoping for too much. Actually, I'm sure I am. And I know I'm a hypocrite. Most of us are. But I do know I look at Apple quite a bit differently now, and if making a choice means choosing the less bad of some generally bad options, well, that's something, at least.

Food for thought next time you're playing Angry Birds.

My one and only post about Fred Karger

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Who's Fred Karger, you ask? Why he's a political consultant and gay rights activist running for the Republican -- yes, the Republican -- nomination for president. Suffice to say that he's not doing all that well. But he is on the ballot in Michigan!

I've been on his mailing list throughout the campaign. I didn't sign up, I didn't ask for it, but there I am. And I'm fine with it. He seems like a decent guy and if his campaign wants to send me an e-mail now and then, so be it. I can pay attention or not. Usually not.

But yesterday... well, yesterday came one of the best moments of the whole campaign so far. Yes, courtesy of Fred Karger.

He announced yesterday in an e-mail blast that he has released his tax returns from 2000 to 2010, obviously a swipe at Romney. But that wasn't all. Do you know where he actually made the announcement? No, probably not...

At the George Romney Institute for Law and Public Policy at Adrian College in Michigan.

Yes, that George Romney. The dad.

"George Romney did the right thing 44 years ago when he released 12 years of his federal tax returns," said Fred. "He was the first presidential candidate to do so when he ran for president in 1968. At the time he said he released so many years of tax documents because one year was not enough. I just followed his lead."

If only his son were so, er, honorable (and less of a privileged rich douchebag with a massively plutocratic sense of entitlement).

Well done, Mr. Karger. And well played.

**********

Photo above, with more on Karger, here. He may not be what Republicans are looking for, not even close (you know, being gay and all), but he's certainly a partisan:

There is no doubting Karger's Republican credentials. He has spent his life working for the party's cause as a top strategist. Like Karl Rove, he was a disciple of the controversial Republican tactician Lee Atwater. Indeed, Karger played a key role in publicising the "Willie Horton" adverts that destroyed the Democratic candidate Michael Dukakis in 1988.

Yeah, that's some serious GOP cred.

The Republican Party vs. Newt Gingrich

By Michael J.W. Stickings

I wrote last night that Newt is probably done. He's still ahead nationally, but Romney has pulled well ahead in Florida and simply has too much of an advantage for Gingrich to overcome.

I would add that this is especially true with both establishment and movement conservatives, seeing him as a legit threat and entering full panic mode, going ballistic on his ass, from Dole to Drudge to Coulter, predicting disaster (for the GOP) if he's the nominee. Newt may still have some big names on his side, including Dear Leader Rush (who hasn't endorsed him but who despises Romney), but the full force of the Republican Party is coming down on him, and there's no way the party allows him to win. It'll do whatever it takes, and spend as much money as it takes, to make sure of it.

So much for that moon base. Alas.