Live-blogging the 2012 Wyoming caucuses: Romney wins, but it's really a tie, so whatever

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Well, why not? But let's make this quick.

10:16 pm - With all the attention recently on Michigan and Arizona, you would be excused for not knowing that Wyoming has been holding caucuses, from February 11 to today. These caucuses in the state's 23 countries end with straw polls that determine the allocation of 26 delegates (with three more unpledged RNC delegates, so 29 in total). By comparison, yesterday's super-hyped primary in Michigan resulted in the allocation of only 30 delegates (given that the state had its delegate number cut in half for violating party rules).

10:21 pm - And Romney won. (Results here.) With 100 percent reporting, it's Romney 39, Santorum 32, Paul 21, and Gingrich 8. In delegate terms, it looks like 10 for Romney, 9 for Santorum, 6 for Paul, and 1 for poor Newt.

10:25 pm - Does this mean anything? Well, a win's a win, even by just a single delegate. And this win only serves to reinforce Romney's frontrunner status after yesterday's much more prominent votes. But of course Santorum can still claim something of a tie here, just as he can in Michigan, and he no doubt would have done better here had he not been such a late surger in the race (that is, if he's been seen as a viable alternative, and as really the only genuinely conservative alternative, to Romney earlier on).

10:34 pm - Anyway, only about 2,000 people actually voted. Any way you look at it, this was hardly a ringing endorsement of anything other than general apathy. These were just some hardcore partisans assuming disproportionate influence over presidential politics. Good for them, perhaps, but this wasn't exactly American democracy at its finest. 

10:38 pm - Alright, enough. Don't say we didn't show any love for... no, not The Cowboy State but officially The Equality State, which is rather funny when you consider what Mitt and Rick think of equality, whether it's for women, the non-rich, or anyone else not demographically privileged by Republicans.

10:42 pm - Come on back tomorrow for many more new posts, including one from Richard on Erick Erickson's rather unfavorable view of Romney, as well as a guest post on police/government spying on Muslims.

10:44 pm - Good night, everyone.

Davy Jones (1945-2012)

By Richard K. Barry 

Davy Jones, one of The Monkees, died today at the age of 66.

Olympia Snowe, Republican senator from Maine, decides not to seek re-election

By Richard K. Barry 

How interesting is it that one of the most moderate Republicans in the Senate, Olympia Snowe from Maine, is not seeking re-election? 

The Washington Post had this to say:

In announcing her plans, Snowe, 65, emphasized that she is in good health and was prepared for the campaign ahead. But she said she was swayed by the increasing polarization in Washington.

"Unfortunately, I do not realistically expect the partisanship of recent years in the Senate to change over the short term," Snowe said in a statement. "So at this stage of my tenure in public service, I have concluded that I am not prepared to commit myself to an additional six years in the Senate, which is what a fourth term would entail."

Snowe's retirement represents a major setback for the GOP's efforts to regain a majority in the Senate. As a moderate Republican, she may be the party's only hope to hold a seat in the strongly blue state.

According to the report, her announcement took the Republican leadership completely by surprise, noting that she had hired some heavyweight staff to help her in the campaign and that as late as Monday she had sent out an invitation for a fund-raiser.

Traditionally, Snowe has been one of the most moderate Republicans, though more and more, no doubt to fend off challenges from her right, she has been taking more conservative positions on a range issues. However, according to the just-released National Journal 2011 vote rankings, only her Republican Senate colleague, Susan Collins, also from Maine, voted with the Democrats more than Snowe.

In this strongly blue state, Snowe might have been the Republican's only chance to hold the seat, or as Nate Silver tweets, "We had estimated GOP's chances of holding Maine senate at 85% before. Maybe 20-30% now after Snowe retirement."

As important as that is, her decision not to run says volumes about how difficult it must be for moderate Republicans to maintain their sanity in the crazy world that is now the GOP. They are a dying breed, these moderates, and her decision reinforces the point that Washington is becoming more polarized by the day.

Perhaps she realized what she would have to become to secure her party's nomination, amidst claims from radical conservatives that she is a RINO (Republican in Name Only). Or maybe she decided that the Republican Party she once knew no longer exists, and it just wasn't any fun banging her head against the wall.

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

The self-aggrandizing hypocrisy of Olympia Snowe

By Michael J.W. Stickings 

As you may have heard, Republican Senator Olympia Snowe is retiring.

Via twitter: 

Sen. Snowe: "frustrating... that atmosphere of polarization and 'my way or the highway' ideologies has become pervasive" in politics. 

-- Steve Brusk (@stevebruskCNN)

But what is the self-righteous, process-paralyzing, power-wielding, Republican-leaning "centrism" of Snowe, Collins, Nelson, Lieberman, Landrieu et al. if not a "my way or the highway" ideology and general approach to politics?

Besides, as Zandar reminds us:

Weep not for the Snowe Queen, because when it counted, she was a GOP whackaloon through and through.

Indeed she was (even if she's much more acceptable than the crazy Tea Party types currently in favor in her state). And now the good people of Maine can get back to their senses and send a Democrat to replace her in Washington. Preferably one who isn't of her ideological ilk.

To No One's Great Surprise

 

By Carl

 

Mitt Romney pulled a double last night, ekeing out a victory in Michigan while swamping Santorum in a frothy heady victory in Arizona.

 

This re-establishes, temporarily, his status as heir-apparent to the Republican punching bag for Obama.

 

I mean, nomination.

 

Santorum had a double digit lead at one point, and despite heavy turnout by Democrats supporting Santorum (over 10%) in this open primary, he lost Michigan by a not-uncomfortable margin, when all was said and done.

 

This probably came two days too late. I don't know who's handling Santorum's press, but they need to be fired. Santorum should have been on FOX Sunday or one of the other talking head shows, expressing this, and since you can't fire the candidate, someone needs a sword to fall on. This was without a doubt the single stupidest irrelevant and clumsy things Santorum has said, hands down.

 

When he talks dogwhistles to his base, that's one thing and as stupid as it seems to you and me, it works for them so at least there's a rationale for whipping strawmen.

 

But Rick is Catholic. He's speaking to other Catholics ahead of a primary in a state that is filled with Reagan Democrats and their progeny. These are folks who were loyal Democrats from FDR on down, and who hold JFK up as a martyred saint, a throwback to a time when it was OK (for them) to be a Democrat . JFK was the first Catholic, only Catholic President.

 

Insult Kennedy, you insult their parents and grandparents. In a religion that places value on ancestry as much as Catholicism does, the last thing you want to do is make that kind of linkage, particular with such a visceral image as vomiting.

 

How Romney doesn't have this nomination sewed up already is beyond me. He's left an awful lot of money on the table, as they say in poker. He can't close the deal, and Super Tuesday is next week. He has the funding and the organization to do surprisingly well, but his own tone-deafness has allowed Gingrich and Santorum to hang around.

 

If they pull a few upsets out of the hat, it could be all over for Mitt, altho he'll never know it. He's too stupid to fall down.

 

(crossposted to Simply Left Behind)

Live-blogging the 2012 Michigan and Arizona primaries: Two terrible candidates and a GOP divided against itself

By Michael J.W. Stickings

UPDATED FREQUENTLY.

7:10 pm - Okay, let's do this. I'm still not quite over my extensive live-blogging of the Oscars two nights ago, an exhausting exercise, but politics beckons. Well, Republican politics. Certainly the Oscars are political as well, in a different but similarly ridiculous way. I'll be commenting throughout the evening, a lot, so keep checking back, with updates to this post, and Richard will be weighing in with his commentary as well.

7:16 pm - My predictions for tonight: Romney by 3 in Michigan and 17 in Arizona. Nate Silver notes that Michigan is too close to call, and of course he's right. Democratic turnout in the open Republican primary is helping Santorum a lot, but I don't think it'll be enough. Maybe, as a massive Santorum fan (in a way, or at least for today), I'm just being overly pessimistic, but I figure that Romney's huge spending advantage will help him in the end.

7:20 pm - From WaPo's Felicia Sonmez (via twitter): "Mitt Romney on Tuesday downplayed the significance of a potential loss in the Michigan primary, telling Fox Business Network, "If I were turned down by Massachusetts, where I have lived for the last 40 years and served as governor, that would be a little harder to explain."

Ah, yes, the expectations game. And for Romney, once the pretty clear frontrunner, it's all about lowering them as much as possible so that at the very worst he can walk away with a big win in Arizona and a close loss in Michigan and still look like a plausible option for Republicans, still the narrow frontrunner. He'd have a hard time explaining a loss in Michigan in his speech later tonight, but he could just ignore it by saying it was a tough race but now he's looking ahead, no mention of how he lost a state he's called one of his own, where he outspent his rivals by a wide margin, and where his name and organization really should have been enough to put him over the top.

Would it be harder to explain a loss in Massachusetts (where, of course, he won't lose)? Yes, but, well, no, not really, not to anyone who's being honest about what's going on (and who's being honest about Romney). He's a terrible candidate, a privileged rich douchebag (as I keep saying) who's widely viewed as a massive phony who will do and say anything for votes and who's deeply unpopular throughout his own party and particularly with the non-establishment. A strong candidate would have wrapped this thing up by now. Mitt's not a strong candidate. Similarly, a strong alternative would have beaten Mitt by now. No one thrown up by the right has been a strong alternative, including Santorum. This is why Romney will be the nominee. And why the party will wither from a lack of enthusiasm, with so many of the faithful, when Romney take the stage to give his acceptance speech in Tampa this summer, wondering what the hell just happened.

7:33 pm - Okay, I'm off to have some dinner. Be back soon with more.

8:05 pm - If you want to dig a little deeper in Michigan, Chris Cillizza has five counties to watch. 

8:12 pm - "What happens if Rick Santorum wins Michigan?" asks George S. I thought everyone knew that frogs will fall from the sky.

8:15 pm - Most Michigan polls closed at 8, but some are open until 9. Some results are trickling in... 41-37 for Santorum with 1% reporting, with Paul at 12 and Gingrich at 7. (You can find the results here. And for Arizona here.)

8:18 pm - It should be noted, too, that Michigan lost half its delegates by violating the RNC's schedule (that is, by moving up in the calendar). There are only 30 delegates at stake today, hardly enough to justify all the attention this race has received. But, then, this isn't about delegates, it's about momentum, about what it says about the race as a whole. And a win for either Romney or Santorum would be significant in those terms.

A Santorum aide said that they've already won Michigan: "No matter what the results are, we've won. This is Romney's home state." But that's just spin. Losing by a narrow margin would be something of a moral victory given where Santorum was just a few weeks ago and would allow Santorum to solidify his position as the only viable alternative to Romney, but Romney's been playing the low-expectations game, too, and with a win, no matter how large, he'd be able to solidify his position as the frontrunner and likely nominee, particularly in combination with a big win in Arizona.

But certainly a win for Santorum would be more significant than a win for Romney. Which is to say, Santorum would benefit from a win more than Romney would, as Romney was expected to win here and has had such a hard time staying on top of the pack. Put the other way, a loss for Romney would be more significant than a loss for Santorum, as a loss for Romney would reinforce the narrative that he is incredibly weak (which he is) and that Republicans are desperate for someone else to lead them in November (which they are).

8:34 pm - Not much to say about the results so far. Santorum's up 40-39, with just 71 votes separating them (but with results coming in fairly quickly now).

8:46 pm - Ron Paul's speaking to his supporters. An early speech, but, then, it's not like he had much to wait for. Coherent and engaging, he's making the same points as usual, some of them excellent (about civil liberties and American militarism), most of them the usual right-wing libertarian nonsense. If you've been paying any attention at all, you've heard it all before. But those excellent points deserve repeating, particularly given the way both parties trample all over civil liberties and promote misadventurous warmongering.

8:50 pm - And now for our first comment from Richard...

RKB: Romney's surrogates on the various election coverage programs are still playing the inevitability card. I guess that's the theme that got them this far so they have to stick with it, sort of like dancing with the one that brung ya, but it's a dangerous game. If Romney loses Michigan tonight, all talk of inevitability will probably end pretty quickly.

8:53 pm - David Corn tweets: "'This country doesn't need another war at all.' -- Paul's biggest applause line so far. Are these really Republicans? Check their papers!" They're RINOs, of a sort.

RKB: Howard Fineman on MSNBC is saying that Romney's people are focusing on everyone else's weaknesses rather than Romney's strengths. Chris Matthews called it the "If you think I stink (you should consider the other guy) strategy." The truth may be that Romney doesn't want people to think about him but rather about how much they dislike Obama and how supposedly unprincipled Santorum has been in the campaign.

8:57 pm - Markos Moulitsas tweets: "Results are still within #OperationHilarity margin." What does that mean? Click on the link or go to my post from earlier. (Briefly, it's about Democratic "support" for Santorum, which might be enough to put him over the top.)

9:01 pm - The networks are calling Arizona for Romney.

9:02 pm - Chuck Todd tweets: "Officially calling Romney the winner of AZ primary, winner take all of 29 delegates. MI is 'too close to call.'" Note: one fewer delegate than in Michigan. And Romney wins easily. Even if Santorum wins Michigan, this shouldn't be forgotten when figuring out what today meant. And with delegates in Michigan handed out proportionally in Michigan and winner-take-all in Arizona (correct me if I'm wrong on that), Romney comes away from today with the most delegates by far.

RKB notes Arizona call is based on exit polls.

RKB: With 20% reporting in Michigan, Romney is ahead of Santorum by a margin of 41% to 38% (74,893 to 71,289), according to CNN.

9:12 pm - Ana Marie Cox tweets: "Blitzer: 'Who could have predicted Romney would be struggling' in Michigan? People in Michigan, mostly." You're a genius, Wolf.

9:13 pm - Yes, Romney has surged into the lead. With 27% reporting, he's up 41 to 38. Now, can he hold on? Michigan exit polls show Romney winning 40 to 37, but Todd tweets: "Our models showing MI may be tighter than those leaky exit numbers folks floated on twitter."

RKB: It may be starting to look like Romney is trending ahead in Michigan. My sense is that it won't matter how much he wins by as long as he wins. It would be such a train wreck for him to lose that my guess is the establishment will swallow hard and throw everything they've got behind Mitt. This will be a wake-up call. They will have believed they dodged a bullet and will finally do what it takes to push him over the top.

My guess is that he wins by 5% and that the meme is that it's over now.

9:21 pm - Check out Cillizza on why Romney's win in Arizona matters: Because of the delegates he won in that winner-take-all primary. And: "Of course, this race for president isn't solely a battle for delegates -- a series of trench warfare battles fought in each state. There's also a symbolic national race going on -- one that is influenced far more by momentum than raw numbers." Hey, I said the same thing back at 8:18 pm! I guess this is the CW. Or just stating the obvious.

RKB: Karl Rove on Fox is predicting a 5-6% victory for Romney in Michigan, claiming that areas that are good for Romney have been slower to report. Rove sounds positively relieved.

9:43 pm - David Roberts (Grist) tweets: "If Wolf Blitzer didn't exist, no one would have to invent him." Line of the night.

9:44 pm - Bored yet? I am. Unless the race somehow tightens, which seems unlikely given how well Romney is doing in Wayne and Oakland counties (two highly-populated Detroit-area counties), it'll be as (I) expected, a clear (if hardly decisive) win for Mitt. And with Arizona already called and Romney likely to win by up near 20 points, well... what more can you say? (I can barely keep up with my twitter feed, and I don't even follow that many people. But there's a lot of repetition now.)

Richard and I have been saying this for some time now, but it does appear that Santorum has peaked and is now on the way down. Which means it's Romney's race to lose. Again. And he'll come out of tonight looking strong -- that will be the perception anyway, if not the reality (he's only strong in relative terms). Santorum may win the non-binding caucuses in Washington on Saturday, but it's hard to see him doing well on Super Tuesday next week. Ohio's the big one, and he's ahead there, but Romney will have the momentum and should be able to win there. Maybe Santorum does well in Tennessee's open primary and/or Oklahoma's closed one, and maybe also in Georgia (where Newt's ahead), but that'd be about it.

I think it's over.

RKB: The Republican spin is still that, should Romney get the nomination, the hard slog to get there will make him stronger as a candidate against Obama. I don't think so. What we are seeing time and again is that Romney is a lousy politician, and we've seen nothing to suggest he is getting any better. More than that, the more people see of him, the less they like him. And as the nominee, people will see a lot more of him.

9:57 pm - Jim Geraghty tweets (via my conservative friend Ed Morrissey): "Great news for Mitt: Looks like 2 big wins tonight! Bad news for Mitt: If the pattern holds, he'll screw it all up tomorrow morning." Let's hope so.

RKB: Romney is starting to open up a significant lead in Michigan, 40% to 36%, with a margin of more than 22,000 votes. CNN isn't calling it yet, so they must have reason to believe there is some volatility, but that's a lot of votes to make up with 59% reporting. It looks over. John King is calling it "almost impossible" for Santorum to come back.

10:03 pm - David Corn tweets: "Don't want to get ahead of #miprimary returns, but I'm putting my college diploma back on the wall (and will start using hand lotion again)." Don't forget the porn.

10:10 pm - Howard Fineman tweets: "Santorum up with TV ads in every Super Tuesday state but Mass and Vermont. His people say they will focus on Ohio, TN, and even GA." It's his last stand. But it won't matter.

10:13 pm - Santorum speaking. NBC calls Michigan for Romney. Finally.

RKB on Santorum's speech:

Santorum's people are admitting that their guy screwed up over the past few days with his fooling comments about separation of church and state and on education. They are saying that they are going to get back to their core message on jobs and the economy.

Here comes Rick's speech.

Santorum looks crestfallen to me. I wonder if he knows that he had to win here to have a shot. and that it is probably over. Yeah, the thing that made him attractive in the first place was a certain sense of humility that he seems to have lost more recently. As he got some wind in his sails, he really was sounding like a goof.

He's talking about his mom and the fact that she got a college degree when that was rare. Could he be trying to get some of the woman's vote back? Now he's talking about his daughter Elizabeth. Too late, Rick. Women aren't going to vote for you.

Now he's talking about the big bad government that thinks it knows better what's best for Americans. Back to the faux populist message.

Gut reaction to Santorum is that he really is not ready for prime time. He's not impressive on the stump.

Funny thing is that CNN cut away from the Santorum speech to call it for Romney, and they haven't gone back to Santorum. It almost seems a little dismissive.

Ah, but Fox is sticking with Santorum, who by now is rambling. 

*****

Oh man, Santorum is now starting to quote the Declaration of Independence. Is he going to sing, too?

I think Santorum just spoke of the men and women who signed the Declaration of independence. What? Women?

*****

Okay, I now officially want Santorum to go away. Romney may be a douchebag, but Santorum is an idiot.

10:41 pm - Chuck Todd tweets: "Romney on MI: 'didn't win by a lot but we won by enough.' And the 'enough' = no major GOPers calling for new 'white knight' savior."

10:43 pm - What a horrible, horrible speech. Well done, Mitt. You have a great night, at least relative to expectations, and you blow it with your usual rhetorical bullshit. There's a reason no one likes you.

RKB on Romney's speech:

Ann Romney is at the mic doing the obligatory thank yous. She's not that bad. She should be running.

More jobs, less debt, and smaller government is what Romney is saying his campaign is all about.

My god, Romney is boring.

Still amazing that Romney and any Republican gets to blame Obama for not fixing Bush's economic mess fast enough.

Have to say that Romney looks relieved tonight. He knows he barely survived.

It does seem to be a more disciplined speech than is his norm. It's all silly cliches, but that's what he offers. Simple solutions for simple minds.

Ah yes, cutting taxes as a way out of the recession. That'll work.

As I said earlier, this victory should launch Romney and be the end of Santorum and the other pretenders. Romney is a disaster, but he's the one they've chosen.

Romney is also saying that Obama will not be restrained in a second term and will therefore be more dangerous.

Man, even Fox News seems unexcited about Romney. Funny.

10:53 pm - Romney basically begging for money from small-time donors after he just blew his massive load outspending everyone like mad is hilarious. 

11:55 pm - Took a break for Stewart and Colbert. Jon was especially hilarious tonight going after Romney's hypocrisy (over voting in Dem primaries) and Fox hosts spouting Republican talking points.

11:56 pm - So... what's the new narrative? Check out this ludicrous headline on the front page of CNN.com right now: "Home run for Romney" (linking to this). Really? Look, I'll admit, and I've written it here, it was a big night for Romney. But only because expectations for him were so low. Sure, he won Arizona easily, but he's only ahead in Michigan by three points. I get how this works. He spins it as a win and the media, which play right along with the expectations game, give him a push, telling us that he's back, baby, back! But while it's certainly true that he's the frontrunner and likely nominee and that these results serve to confirm him in that position, he's really no stronger than he was before these two votes today. It's pretty clear that any genuinely strong and credible conservative alternative would be beating him. Lucky for him there hasn't been one. And it's certainly not Santorum.

12:01 am - The results: In Michigan, with 93% reporting, it's Romney 41, Santorum 38, Paul 12, and Gingrich 7. Three points. Who predicted a three-point win for Mitt? (Hint: Go back up to the entry at 7:16 pm).

12:03 am - In Arizona, with 80% reporting, it's Romney 47, Santorum 26, Gingrich 16, and Paul 9. That's a 21-point margin. I predicted 17. Oh well.

12:05 am - One thing we haven't talking about tonight... Newt. What now? He's still in the race, or so he said in his speech earlier this evening, but he was noticeably downcast, not the egomanical Newt we've come to know and loathe. But can you blame him? Even he must see the writing on the wall.

In my live-blogging post of the Nevada caucuses on February 4, I speculated as to the over/under, or rather before/after, of Newt getting out of the race:

At his press conference, Gingrich said he's in the race all the way to the convention in Tampa. He may mean it tonight, but things change and one suspects that he'll eventually change his mind. Unless Romney stumbles badly, which hardly seems likely, or Newt can somehow resurrect his campaign a third time with big wins on Super Tuesday on March 6, which also hardly seems likely, he has no shot at the nomination and will only meet more intense resistance within the party the longer he stays in.

Let's put the over/under (before/after) on him getting out of the race at, yes, March 6. Do you take the before or after? I might still take the after.

But if it's March 8, I think it has to be the before. There's just no way he lasts beyond a day after Super Tuesday. The pressure on him to get out will be immense, and even with his massive egomania and loathing of Romney it's hard to see him fighting on beyond that. He is, after all, a hyper-partisan Republican. Ultimately, he'll do what the party needs him to do.

Which is to say, I thought he'd make it to Super Tuesday but then get out the next day. What do we say now? Will he make it to next week? I'll still say yes, because he wants to win Georgia at least. But that will be that. I say he gets out on March 7. Oh, how the temporarily mighty, then sort of mighty again, have fallen.

12:18 am - Okay, that's it for me tonight. We've gone on long enough. We'll be back in the morning with new posts, including two on the retirement of Olympia Snowe. (Oh, Romney's now up by just 20 in Arizona!)

Good night, everyone.

(photo)

Save the RINOs

By Mustang Bobby

David Brooks is horrified at the prospect of Republicans putting survival over principle and eating their own:

Politicians do what they must to get re-elected. So it's not unexpected that Republican senators like Richard Lugar and Orrin Hatch would swing sharply to the right to fend off primary challengers.

As Jonathan Weisman reported in The Times on Sunday, Hatch has a lifetime rating of 78 percent from the ultra-free market Club for Growth, but, in the past two years, he has miraculously jumped to 100 percent and 99 percent, respectively. Lugar has earned widespread respect for his thoughtful manner and independent ways. Now he's more of a reliable Republican foot soldier.

Still, it is worth pointing out that this behavior is not entirely honorable. It's not honorable to adjust your true nature in order to win re-election. It's not honorable to kowtow to the extremes so you can preserve your political career.

Oh, really? He's worried about honor in a party that re-elected a felon in 1972, sold weapons to a sworn enemy and used the proceeds to back Central American terrorists, impeached a Democratic president for getting an adulterous blowjob while at the same time the chief accuser was getting his own horn honked by a woman not yet his wife, elected a president by constitutional legerdemain that doesn't pass the laugh test, outed a CIA operative for political revenge, and cheered on a racially-tinged rabble of white patriarchal know-nothing moochers whose mantra of ignorance became a frothy mix of blind hatred and xenophobia against a centrist Democratic president who happened to be black. It's going to take five years for the light from Honor to catch up with this gang.

All across the nation, there are mainstream Republicans lamenting how the party has grown more and more insular, more and more rigid. This year, they have an excellent chance to defeat President Obama, yet the wingers have trashed the party's reputation by swinging from one embarrassing and unelectable option to the next: Bachmann, Trump, Cain, Perry, Gingrich, Santorum.

But where have these party leaders been over the past five years, when all the forces that distort the G.O.P. were metastasizing? Where were they during the rise of Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck? Where were they when Arizona passed its beyond-the-fringe immigration law? Where were they in the summer of 2011 when the House Republicans rejected even the possibility of budget compromise? They were lying low, hoping the unpleasantness would pass.

The wingers call their Republican opponents RINOs, or Republican In Name Only. But that's an insult to the rhino, which is a tough, noble beast. If RINOs were like rhinos, they'd stand up to those who seek to destroy them. Actually, what the country needs is some real Rhino Republicans. But the professional Republicans never do that. They're not rhinos. They're Opossum Republicans. They tremble for a few seconds then slip into an involuntary coma every time they're challenged aggressively from the right. 

Oh, so now Mr. Brooks finally decides to stand up for the mainstream. It's a little late, don't you think? Like perhaps three years? Or thirty? He's a mite young to have been shocked and saddened by the McCarthy era or Nixon's Southern Strategy, and he might have dismissed the gentle condescension and fluffy bigotry of Ronald Reagan's "welfare queens" as just the pendulum swinging back against the dirty hippies, but he might have gotten a clue that the rot was setting in when Larry Nichols went after the Clintons with the tales of drug-running and Rep. Dan Burton (R-IN) was shooting at a melon in his backyard to prove that Hillary Clinton murdered Vince Foster. So now he's telling Orrin Hatch and Richard Lugar to get in there and stand up to the bullies? Oh, yes, there's a winning strategy: "you and him fight and I'll watch."

Leaders of a party are supposed to educate the party, to police against its worst indulgences, to guard against insular information loops. They're supposed to define a creed and establish boundaries. Republican leaders haven't done that. Now the old pious cliché applies:

First they went after the Rockefeller Republicans, but I was not a Rockefeller Republican. Then they went after the compassionate conservatives, but I was not a compassionate conservative. Then they went after the mainstream conservatives, and there was no one left to speak for me.

Oh, very good: pull out the Martin Niemöller quote and go Godwin's Law -- evoking the Hitler era -- on them to put the cherry on top.

So you're finally worried about the RINOs, eh?  BTYFO ('Bout Time You Found Out), Bobo.

(Cross-posted from Bark Bark Woof Woof.)

Dem turnout way up in Michigan

By Michael J.W. Stickings 

Via twitter: 

MSNBC says early exit polls indicate Dem turnout 10% in Michigan, up 3% from 2008. #OperationHilarity 

-- Markos Moulitsas (@markos)

Hilarity indeed. Anything we can do to facilitate the crackup up the GOP we should do.

Vote Santorum! Go Santorum!

(Though I think Romney will win. By two or three.)

**********

Markos tweets further:

Per exit polls: 10% of turnout is Dem, 50% of that is Santo, 15% of that is Romney. So #OperationHilarity is worth 3.5% of Santo's #s.

Gotta love Santorum. 

**********

Romney's calling this "dirty tricks," with Santorum seeking Democratic votes, but he has admitted to doing the same thing (voting in Democratic primaries for "the person who I thought would be the weakest opponent for the Republican"). 

And, of course, Santorum is fine with what he's doing. He was against it, now he's for it.

Hypocrisy? You betcha.

The top mysteries surrounding The Beatles

Guest post by Marc McDonald

(Ed. note: Let's take a short break from our political coverage, with all the attention today on Michigan and Arizona, and delve into some the best music ever made, including a must-watch video... This is Marc's third guest post at The Reaction. His first, on how Steve Jobs represented much of what's wrong with the U.S. economy today, can be found here. His second, on how Ronald Reagan laid the groundwork for the death of capitalism, can be found here. For more of his writing, check out his great blog, Beggars Can Be Choosers. -- MJWS)

********** 

Marc McDonald is a Texas journalist who runs the progressive political blog Beggars Can Be Choosers. 

I've long been a fan of The Beatles. And I've long been fascinated by the topic of unexplained historical mysteries. So for this article, I thought I'd combine the two.

As one of the 20th century's biggest pop cultural phenomena, The Beatles have been endlessly analyzed and discussed in literally thousands of books over the years. But for all the analysis, there remain a few lingering mysteries about this band. And with the passing of the decades, it's unlikely a lot of these mysteries will ever be explained.

So, here, in my opinion, are the top mysteries surrounding The Beatles:

1. What was the origin of the song title "Eleanor Rigby"? Not long after this 1966 song was released, Paul discussed its origins in an interview. The title, he claimed came from two sources. "Eleanor" was the first name of an actress, Eleanor Bron, who'd worked with the band on the film, Help!. And the name "Rigby" came from a shop sign that Paul once spotted in Bristol. And for many years, that was the accepted explanation for the song's title.

Then, in the 1980s, fans discovered the grave of an "Eleanor Rigby" in the graveyard of St. Peter's Parish Church in Liverpool. Rigby, who'd died in 1939, was buried on a site close to where Paul had first met John in 1957. (In fact, as teenagers, both Paul and John had spent time sunbathing near the spot). The grave's discovery was an amazing, spooky coincidence, and Paul has since admitted that the name "Eleanor Rigby" may have stuck in his subconsciousness for years and inspired the title of his 1966 song. But if that's the case, then why in 1966 did Paul give interviews specifically citing other sources for the origin of the song's title? A definitive answer on this mystery remains elusive.

2. When The Beatles recorded their swansong album, Abbey Road in 1969, did they know at the time that it'd be their final studio album? This is a mystery that has long divided Beatles historians. The Beatles themselves in interviews over the years have given contradictory answers to this question---the answer to which has been lost in the haze of time. Note that The Beatles did record a few studio sessions in 1970 to put the finishing touches on the Let It Be album, which (although it was released after Abbey Road) was actually mostly recorded in January 1969, before the summer sessions that produced Abbey Road.

3. What was going on with all those wild and crazy studio sessions in 1967? The year 1967 was a tremendously productive period for The Beatles. The band generated an enormous amount of creativity during the sessions that produced the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album. And yet, if you look at the day-by-day studio logs (as has been noted by Lewisohn), there were a number of truly strange sessions in 1967 that never produced anything other than highly disorganized noise. During a number of these sessions, the band spent many hours doing endless takes of "You Know My Name (Look Up the Number)," a true oddity of a song. During other sessions, the band aimlessly jammed in lengthy sessions that produced nothing but unlistenable noise (often played on out-of-tune instruments). One of these sessions was on June 1, the very day the Pepper album was released. (One might have thought that after the exhausting marathon Pepper sessions, The Beatles would have taken a break from the studio).

What was going on at these wacky sessions? And what was the point? Why the strange obsession with the throwaway ditty, "You Know My Name?" It's odd how the band's 1967 sessions alternated between the extremes of tightly focused, disciplined sessions and other sessions that were anarchic, sloppy and totally unproductive.

4. What ever happened to The Beatles' infamous lost recording, Carnival of Light? Long considered the holy grail of unreleased Beatles recordings, Carnival of Light was recorded in 1967 during a session in which the band also worked on "Penny Lane." The existence of Carnival was brought to wide public attention in Lewisohn's Recording Sessions book. Supposedly the song is an experimental piece that lasts around 13 minutes. There have been repeated hints over the years that the piece is on the verge of release. But these never pan out. In 1996, Paul McCartney sought to include the piece on the band's "Anthology" set, but the other band members vetoed this decision. Then, in 2008, McCartney indicated that the piece was nearing release, but nothing further has been heard since.

5. Who was behind the cryptic voice that repeated the words, "Number 9," in John Lennon's "Revolution 9," the musique concrete piece that has baffled many a listener of the band's 1968 album, The Beatles (popularly known as "The White Album")? To get the various sounds used in the recording, Lennon and collaborator George Harrison rummaged through the sound effects vaults at Abbey Road studios. The most prominent sound fragment features a voice repeating the phrase, "Number 9." As Beatles author Mark Lewisohn noted in his The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions the identity of that mysterious voice has been lost to history.

6. Why, exactly, did The Beatles break up? Nobody seems to be able to fully agree on why the most popular and successful musical act of the 20th century broke up at the height of their commercial and creative success. Ask any Beatles expert (or member of the band, for that matter) and you'll get conflicting and contradictory answers. Was it because of Yoko? Or was it the usual "musical differences" clash that has driven many bands to split? Was it a desire to simply move on and do something different? Or was it money disputes? A case could be made for any and/or all of these reasons. But the definitive answer remains elusive. 

Whatever the reason for the breakup was, though, it was such a powerful reason that the band remained split forever. To get an idea of just how decisive the band's breakup was, consider this: not only did The Beatles never record together again, it's possible that all four members of the band never even met up once in all the years after 1970. The band's final publicity photos date from August 1969 and not one single photo has ever emerged that show the band members together after 1970. In the years since the split, two or three members would occasionally meet here and there, but never all four together at the same time. Band members collaborated on a few of Ringo's solo albums, but it appears unlikely that all four were ever together in the same spot at the same time. Sometime in August 1969, a photographer snapped a photo of the band, not knowing that this was literally the final photo that would be ever taken of The Beatles together. 

The answer to some of these mysteries may be cleared up in Lewisohn's upcoming official biography of the band, a book that Lewisohn has been working on for decades. This massive work will be released in three volumes, starting in summer 2012. In a recent interview, Lewisohn promised that the book will offer many new revelations and insights. The signs are good that Lewisohn can deliver on this promise. After all, his Recording Sessions book is one of the definitive works on The Beatles and itself was a fascinating source of new insights about the world's most famous band.

One thing Lewisohn's past work has revealed is that The Beatles' story is so rich that, the closer you look at their work, the more fascinating it becomes. It's the total opposite of the old saying, "If you like sausage, you should never watch how it is made." With The Beatles, the closer you look, the more intriguing their story is. Virtually every song has a fascinating behind-the-scenes story. But for all the books written about the band over the decades, Lewisohn has noted that The Beatles' story "has been told often, but rarely very well." Here's hoping that Lewisohn's labors will finally produce a biography worthy of the band. 

 

What Republicans have to fear

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Read Chait. Seriously, read this. In its entirety. Here's a taste:

The Republican Party is in the grips of many fever dreams. But this is not one of them. To be sure, the apocalyptic ideological analysis -- that "freedom" is incompatible with Clinton-era tax rates and Massachusetts-style health care -- is pure crazy. But the panicked strategic analysis, and the sense of urgency it gives rise to, is actually quite sound. The modern GOP -- the party of Nixon, Reagan, and both Bushes -- is staring down its own demographic extinction. Right-wing warnings of impending tyranny express, in hyperbolic form, well-grounded dread: that conservative America will soon come to be dominated, in a semi-permanent fashion, by an ascendant Democratic coalition hostile to its outlook and interests. And this impending doom has colored the party's frantic, fearful response to the Obama presidency.

That should put a huge smile on your face. Enjoy your day.

Privileged rich douchebaggery, Romney-style

By Michael J.W. Stickings

I've called Mitt a privileged rich douchebag numerous times. It's the Romney narrative for 2012. And he just keeps adding to it, whether it's saying his wife drives a couple of Cadillacs or this:

The Democratic National Committee is suggesting that Mitt Romney made another out of touch remark this morning during a tour at the Daytona 500 in which Romney said that while he does not "closely" follow racing he does "have great some friends who are NASCAR team owners."

The remark came during a tour of team owner Richard Childress' facilities, when Romney was asked by an Associated Press reporter whether he follows car racing.

"Not as closely as some of the most ardent fans, but I have some great friends who are NASCAR team owners," Romney responded.

More specifically, I've written this about Romney: "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."

Well, yes. And not almost. This is what he does. It's who Mitt Romney is. Or, rather, "Mitt Romney," the character Mitt Romney is playing, though the two are now one and the same.

But he often fails miserably, especially when he's relentlessly, desperately, pathetically trying to pander to the Republican Party's far-right base by presenting himself as some sort of ordinary redneck (when he's anything but).

There's a word for this: Romneying, a neologism coined by Dave Weigel.

What does it mean? "Accidentally bragging about your place high up in the economic stratosphere."

You know who's really good at it? Mitt Romney.

**********

For a helpful summary of Romney's various gaffes, see Steve Benen:

As we've seen repeatedly in recent months, Romney has a blind spot when it comes to wealth. Does he follow car racing? No, but he's tight with the millionaires who own the teams. The line came just two days after Romney boasted about his wife driving "a couple of Cadillacs."

Indeed, a theme emerges when we consider what connects so many of Romney's tone-deaf verbal missteps, including his recent explanation that he's "not concerned about the very poor," which came on the heels of Romney insisting that making over $374,000 in speaking fees in a year is "not very much" money. It followed Romney suggesting elected office is only for the rich, clumsily talking about his fondness for being able to fire people, demanding that talk of economic justice be limited to "quiet rooms," accusing those who care about income inequality of "envy," daring Rick Perry to accept a $10,000 bet, joking about being "unemployed," arguing that those who slip into poverty are still middle class, and suggesting that Americans should somehow feel sorry for poor banks.

There was also that "corporations are people, my friend" classic.

What do all of these lines have in common? When it comes to his wealth, Romney is a clumsy rich guy who hasn't learned how to talk about these issues in public.

Clumsy? Sure. But he's still a massive douchebag.

Attack Of The Swifties

 

By Carl

 

I see where Bob Kerrey has changed his mind and decided to run for Senator from Nebraska, a seat he has already held in his lifetime. A centrist Democrat (really, aren't they almost all?), Kerrey would stand a pretty good chance of protecting the seat held by fellow "Democrat" Ben Nelson.

 

This worries me.

 

No no! Not that the seat would be held, because goodness knows we need all the good news we can get. What scares me is that Kerrey has to be dragged out of retirement to run in a race.

 

See, it wasn't that long ago that the Democratic Party took a good long look at itself and decided that it needed to recruit politicians in states that are red, but not so red it would look impossible. The strategy was actually called The 50 State Strategy and produced the stunning upsets of the 2006 election, and helped sweep Obama into office in 2008.

 

Bob Kerrey was long out of office by the time that happened. The Democratic party he left behind is very different than the party he'll be running for.

 

Politics is different than the one he ran from. And there's where I'm not sure he's quite prepared enough.

 

Kerrey is a sassy, funny guy. He famously quipped about his relationship with actress Debra Winger, "She swept me off my foot," an allusion to the fact that, in the Vietnam war, Kerrey lost a leg in combat. He was a Navy SEAL, which clearly works in his favor in this year of Obama's re-election bid and the fact the SEALs have been front and center in American foreign policy.

 

He lost part of his leg in the battle of Nha Trang Bay, for which he received a Congressional Medal of Honor. But it's another incident that may play a role in this race: at the village of Thanh Phong.

On February 25, 1969, he led a Swift Boat raid on the isolated peasant village of Thanh Phong, Vietnam, targeting a Viet Cong leader that intelligence suggested would be present. The village was considered part of a free-fire zone by the U.S. military.

Kerrey's SEAL team first encountered a peasant house, or hooch, and killed the people inside with knives. While Kerrey says he did not go inside the hooch and did not participate in the killings, another member of the team, Gerhard Klann, said that the people killed there were an elderly man and woman and three children under 12, and that Kerrey helped kill the man. Despite the differing recollections about who actually stabbed these people, Kerrey accepts responsibility as the team leader for their deaths: "Standard operating procedure was to dispose of the people we made contact with," he told the New York Times Magazine. Later, according to Kerrey, the team was shot at from the village and returned fire, only to find after the battle that some of the deceased appeared to be under 18, clustered together in the center of the village. "The thing that I will remember until the day I die is walking in and finding, I don't know, 14 or so, I don't even know what the number was, women and children who were dead," Kerrey said in 1998. "I was expecting to find Vietcong soldiers with weapons, dead. Instead I found women and children."

Swift boats. A guy named Kerrey. Starting to get the picture? I foresee the rise of the Swift Boat Veterans and John Corsi.

Given what the Swifties did to a Presidential candidate just eight years ago and to Senator Max Cleland before that-- which in my book was even more abominable-- should give us pause and ask Bob Kerrey, "Are you really ready for this?" This narrative is not, so far as I know, under much attack and Kerrey's own recollections of the incident bear witness to his own anguish about it.

That's not going to stop the Rovians from gunning for Kerrey. And I suspect it will be even nastier this time, since the Senate is legitimately in play.

(crossposted to Simply Left Behind)

Dear Michigan Democrats... Vote Santorum!

By Michael J.W. Stickings

CNN:

It's no secret that most Democratic strategists consider Mitt Romney the GOP contender who poses the biggest threat to President Obama. It's also no secret that Michigan, the state where Romney grew up, is a must win for him.

Combine those two dynamics, add in the fact that any registered voter is allowed to vote in Michigan's open primary, and you get a recipe for Democrats to make mischief.

Then let there be mischief. Because it's not just Democrats, it's Santorum himself urging Democrats to vote for him.

It's possible, and perhaps even probable, that most of these Democrats propping up Santorum won't actually come out to vote for him (leaving Romney with a narrow win). But they should. It's a ridiculous system, to be sure, particularly with these open primaries, but there's no reason not to take advantage of it.

As crazy as Santorum is, he's an easy choice for Democrats at this point, not least because he's making life miserable for Romney. And also because he's helping tear the Republican Party apart.

The Obama-Santorum conspiracy

By Nicholas Wilbur 

Convinced that President Obama's contraception battle with the Catholic Church is not a "short-term tactical blunder" but yet another example of the president's "strategically shrewd" long game, conservative-turned-Dem-loving-ratiocinator Andrew Sullivan this week dabbled in a potentially promising career as a conspiracy theorist with a column at The Daily Beast that shocked Washington insiders and rubes, Democrats and Republicans, Obamabots and Birthers alike:

The more Machiavellian observer might even suspect this is actually an improved bait and switch by Obama to more firmly identify the religious right with opposition to contraception, its weakest issue by far, and to shore up support among independent women and his more liberal base... And if this was a trap, the religious right walked right into it.

Not only did the right-wing establishment walk right into it, their constituents turned out en masse to vote on it, handing three presidential primary victories to the rigidly conservative and proudly orthodox Catholic Rick Santorum.

Is it therefore impossible to assume that President Obama expected that such a hot-button issue would effect turnout among conservatives, and therefore timed the contraception ruling in order to boost Santorum's odds of besting the only candidate with even a remote chance of beating Obama in November, presumed nominee Mitt Romney?

That's a rhetorical question, of course.

Obviously, the president is going to capitalize on whatever means are available to him in his race for re-election.

It doesn't take a political genius to see that this contraception fight was a win-win-win for Obama. It riled his own base, pissed off the conservative wing of the Republican Party, and "reinforce[d] Obama's reputation as a man willing to compromise, one of his core strengths among independent voters."

As Sullivan observes, riling the "righteous" conservatives is especially important, if only because their extreme views on religious issues have done nothing to improve their popularity among the more moderate masses.

If the Catholic bishops and the religious right eventually reject the proposed Obama compromise, they will be digging themselves even deeper into a hole that is quickly losing traction. Citing the civil union-versus-marriage debate and the religious right's ongoing pursuit to criminalize abortion, Sullivan writes that, "[t]ime after time, they have rejected compromises on social issues because of fundamentalist rigidity, not Christian engagement with a changing world." And as the polling shows, they're losing ground on each of these aforementioned issues.

As this and other social issues come to the fore in an election pundits claim will be "focused almost entirely on jobs," the clear beneficiary is Santorum.

Given the Republican Party's lukewarm enthusiasm for Romney, Santorum's hard-line stances on abortion, gay marriage, and other hot-button issues very well may propel him toward the nomination.

Anything Obama can do to help that potentiality become a reality is just good politics (especially when the majority of Americans support the specific policies being used to divide Republicans, as they do in the case of contraception).

Such political gamesmanship may not land Santorum the nomination, but fracturing Republican voters between the unelectable true-blood conservative and the electable but unlikeable "milquetoast Massachusetts moderate" plays well for the incumbent no matter how you slice it.

In a not-so-subtle hint to the Santorum campaign on what ought to be the focus of their attacks in the coming months, Sullivan states that the contraception issue "could not be more tailor-made to benefit" Santorum.

It could finally unite the Christian fundamentalist right behind him -- especially since Romneycare contained exactly the same provisions on contraception that Obamacare did before last week's compromise was announced. That's right: Romneycare can now accurately be portrayed as falling to the left of Obamacare on the contraception issue.

"[This] could be the issue that wins him the nomination," Sullivan says.

Or it could not be. Santorum could fall short of winning the nomination and succeed only in postponing Romney's expected victory, bleeding the eventual nominee's campaign coffers, dividing the Republican Party along social lines, and riling socially liberal and moderate Americans behind the incumbent's less dogmatic, more pragmatic compromise.

Win or lose, Santorum's surge into the #1 slot in the GOP primary race may prove nothing more than what is already obvious: that Barack Obama is more than a "chess master." He's one BAD motherfucker!

(Also published at Angry Black Lady Chronicles.)