GDS Humor

I can't stand the screeching of the GDS (Gingrich Derangement Syndrome) crowd. But I do appreciate their humor when its well done.

(H/T American Digest)

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Lessons From South Carolina

. . . Newt Gingrich’s rise has a lot to do with Newt Gingrich’s debate performance. But it has just as much to do with a party base in revolt against its thought and party leaders in Washington, DC. The base is revolting because they swept the GOP back into relevance in Washington just under two years ago and they have been thanked with contempt ever since.

Adding insult to injury, the party and thought leaders now try to foist on the base a milquetoast moderate from Massachusetts. Newt Gingrich can thank Mitt Romney and more for the second look he is getting. Base hostility will now be exacerbated by Mitt Romney’s backers now undoubtedly making a conscious effort to prop up Rick Santorum to shut down Newt Gingrich. . . .

People are mad as hell they are about to be stuck with another boring, moderate, uninspiring choice that has at best a 50/50 shot at losing to the worst president since Carter. They are flocking to Newt not because they think he’s a great guy, but because right now, he’s the only one fighting for conservatism and GOP voters are looking for a vessel to channel their anger with Obama and their complete disappointment with the GOP establishment which is now embodied perfectly by Romney. They want a conservative fighter because most conservatives look back at Ford, Reagan, Bush, Dole, Bush, and McCain and see only the ones taking a conservative path against the Democrats actually winning.

Eric Erickson, Newt Gingrich Wins. What It Means. Red State, 21 Jan. 2012

Newt Gingrich just won the South Carolina primary running away, 40% to Romney's 28%. The exit polls explaining Gingrich's win are a gold mine of data for both Gingrich and Romney going forward.

Gingrich:

The exit polls, shown here and excerpted in relevant part in the post below, show that Newt won virtually every demographic and on virtually every major issue. He won across all income levels, including blue collar and white collar types. The numbers show what are Gingrich's winning messages.

Jobs and the Economy:

This was the big issue from the exit polls - critical to 63% of the voters, and Gingrich beat Romney among those voters by 8 points. I found that surprising. What it says is that the electorate responded to Newt's economic experience while in Congress more so than they trusted Romney to be able to translate his business experience into a successful economic plan.

Given the centrality of this issue and the success Gingrich has had with it, Gingrich needs to make this issue number one going forward, not just on the stump, but in a majority of advertisements. He needs to emphasize, at every opportunity, the fact that government does not create jobs, the private sector does. The mission of government is to create a positive playing field for business - and in that, he can legitimately claim that his incredibly successful experience at the federal level is far more significant than Romney's as governor, and of a different nature all together than Romney's private sector experience.

Budget Deficit:

This issue was central to 22% of the voters, and Gingrich crushed Romney among these voters, 45% to 23%. Obviously the fact that Gingrich actually balanced the federal budget during his Speakership weighed heavily on that issue. That said, Romney has pointed out that he balanced the budget as Governor of Massachusetts. What Romney neglects to say - and that Gingrich should be bringing up - is that Mass. law requires a balanced budget. Romney is taking credit for doing nothing more than complying with the law. Gingrich's achievement while as a Speaker was orders of magnitude tougher - a point Gingrich should emphasize.

On The Morality Issues:

Deeply religious and conservative South Carolina has put to rest any questions about whether Gingrich's past moral failings are going to be a drain on him. They aren't. Gingrich captured the vote of women generally (38% to 29%) and of married individuals (41% to 28%) in SC. Moreover, he captured as much of the evangelical vote (44%) as Gov. Huckabee did when he ran in SC in 2008.

Electability:

On the issue of electability, the 45% of SC voters who voted in light of that issue judged Gingrich more electable versus Obama than Romney by 51% to 37%. It seems clear that their decision was based on the debates and Gingrich's willingness to, one, eloquently and passionately burn the race card while defending conservative values (Juan Williams), and two, to take on the press for their bias (John King).

Listening to Fox News tonight, the talking heads who oppose a Gingrich nomination are taking the position that debate performances will matter very little in the general election. In essence, just because Newt is such an effective communicator and defender of conservative values, it has little to do with electability. That is patently false.

Gingrich needs to address this for two reasons. One, this is his single greatest strength. As Eric Erickson notes in the passage quoted at the top of the page, conservatives more than anything else are hungering for a person who can do what Gingrich does. Two, Newt needs to push back against this meme that his communication skills matter only a little. To the contrary, they matter tremendously.

John McCain lost the 2008 election because he ceded the major issues to the Obama narrative. Outrageously, over half the nation still thinks that the subprime crisis was caused by Wall St. greed. Bush failed to reform Social Security because the left was able to demagogue the issue. The Bush presidency was crippled because of Bush's failure to directly challenge the left's despicable campaign to loose the Iraq war. The base understands this. The ability to communicate may well be the single most important skill for any conservative nominee for President today. As Erickson says, look back at Ford, Reagan, Bush, Dole, Bush, and McCain, the only ones who have won have been those that unapologetically and vocally embraced conservativism. Newt needs to emphasize precisely that.

Independents

Self-identified independents broke for Gingrich 31% to 25%. It would seem that he doesn't have anywhere near the problem with independents that his critics would like us to believe. There is no real lesson here other than keep doing what he is doing.

Going Negative On Bain

The majority of voters in S.C., 64%, had a positive view of Romney's experience as a venture capitalist with Bain and, of those people, they broke almost evenly between between Gingrich and Romney. As to the 24% of Republicans that had a negative view of Romney's experience as a 'vulture capitalist,' 50% went for Gingrich, 3% went to Romney. Thus it would seem that Newt's going negative on Bain did make a real difference.

That said, I wonder how much of a backlash there may well be later in the campaign if Gingrich keeps up this attack on Bain and, by extension, capitalism. Gingrich has enough strengths, as mentioned above, that he really should lay off the Bain issue.

What Gingrich Can Expect Going Forward

Gingrich has been the subject of the most concerted internal effort to destroy a Republican candidate since Barry Goldwater in 1964. With this huge Gingrich win in SC, expect the floodgates to open, making the left's efforts to demonize and delegitimize Sarah Palin in 2008 look like a measured effort in intellectual honesty. This is going to get real ugly real quick. Let's hope that Newt can withstand the inferno in the kitchen.

There is still at least one area in which Newt has yet to be truly pressed and which he needs to be fully prepared to address - the fact that he lost his speakership to a coup after three years. He needs to be prepared to answer that in the upcoming weeks.

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Mitt Romney

Romney collapsed in South Carolina over two issues. One, his horrid answers when asked about releasing his tax returns. He became not merely defensive, but stuttering and rambling over the issue. Clearly he has some worries over this. But the old adage is true - bad news does not improve with age. He needs to release his tax documents immediately or this is an issue that is just going to haunt him.

Two, Romney's campaign can best be described as defend and coast. He has clearly failed to make the case for his candidacy. Claiming divine right to the nomination based on "electability," he has played a defense to this point - just say the right platitudes and bromides and avoid mistakes. For example, for months Romney refused to appear on television talk shows - at least until it became clear that he would face a real challenge from Gingrich.

In probably the most telling example, both Romney and Gingrich have been presented with what they thought were unfair questions from the press. When Bret Baer asked Romney a question he thought unfair, Romney answered it with a forced smile, then waited for the interview to end before coming back to Baer and expressing his displeasure. When Gingrich was asked an unfair question by John King, in full view of the public, he took out a knife, emasculated King and then nailed his testicles to the podium before asking for the next question. Romney needs to quickly figure out that his acts earned the scorn of the base, while Gingrich's earned him a standing ovation and 40% of the vote in South Carolina.

The Economy & Jobs

Romney has been relying on the bald fact of his experience in business to claim that he could best manage the economy. While that by itself might be a winning message against Obama, it did not work in SC against Gingrich, who was part of one of the biggest expansions of jobs in our nation's history. Romney needs to explain why his experience in business would at least make him the equal of Gingrich. A few anecdotes might do the trick. Regardless, if he can't win on this issue, he has deeply serious problems.

Budget Deficit:

Romney is loosing to Gingrich by 22% on this issue. Romney needs to do a much better job articulating how he will reduce the deficit than he is doing. The program he proposes on his website is far more complicated than what Gingrich has proposed, yet Mitt hasn't made a simple, convincing case as to why his plan is more likely to succeed.

Electability

Romney needs to stop claiming inevitability and electability and start concentrating on all of the issues that undergird such claims. Indeed, any such claims in the wake of South Carolina will just be engender laughter.

Going Negative On Gingrich

The problem with hitting somebody unfairly is that, when they can, they strike back. Gingrich didn't have the funding or time to withstand a multi-million dollar negative assault in Iowa. He did in South Carolina and, though he was outspent by Romney 2 to 1, ran away with the primary. Going negative did not work for Romney in 2008, it likely won't work now with Gingrich having the financial muscle to punch back. Romney is going to have to become much more aggressive in explaining why he would make the best President rather than concentrating on why Gingrich shouldn't be.

Going Forward

This election is still Romney's to lose. He has a superior organization built up over four years, he has the largest war chest, and he is not merely the favorite son of Republican elites, but these same elites suffer full blown Gingrich Derangement Syndrome. The next several contests are in areas favorable to Romney, from Florida to Nevada. Nonetheless, if he continues to play defense and expects the nomination to be handed to him, he could yet pull defeat from the jaws of victory. He needs to start earning the nomination.

As to Ron Paul, he came in last place with 13% of the vote.  He is staying in the race just so he can impact on the plank of the Republican Convention. Santorum, who earned 17% of the vote, is in the race at least through Florida, though another low showing will likely see him exiting the race just because of a lack of funds. That is, he would be forced out unless some of Romney's money men prop him up to keep in the race and draining votes from Gingrich. I would not be overly surprised to see that.

Linked:  Larwyn's Linx

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SC Debate 2.0

The two big moments of the debate belonged to Newt Gingrich. For a second time in two debates, Newt got a standing O. Tonight's was in response to the first question of the night, when the CNN moderator John King asked Newt to respond to his ex-wife's allegations that 14 years ago, he asked her to engage in an open marriage. It has got to be a candidate for the ultimate debate smackdown - perhaps now as pithy as "I knew Jack Kennedy, and you, sir, are no Jack Kennedy or as brilliantly humorous as "I will not hold my opponents youth and inexperience against him" - but equally as devastating.



The second big moment for Newt - probably in my eyes but few others' - was proof that he actually may know when to shut up. I don't have the video, but will post it when I can find it. The moderator asked Gingrich in essence to justify the charges in a recent mailing regarding Romney's weak kneed history on abortion. Gingrich did so, pointing out things that Romney had done that favored abortion after Romney's Paul of Tarsus moment on the issue. Romney responded in a huff, at which point the moderator went back to Gingrich for a counter rebuttal. Gingrich's response: "I cede my time to Governor Santorum." Heh. It was a pitch perfect moment, allowing Santorum to do all of the dirty work of really attacking Romney on the issue.

The candidates traded barbs all night, none of which I thought were too devestating. That said, the low point of the evening was yet another self inflicted wound by Romney, when he was heckled for trying to tap dance around why he didn't release his tax records in advance of the SC primary vote.



From Hot Air: "Exit quotation from Jonah Goldberg: “Romney can’t answer questions about his tax returns at all… He’s terrible at it and he needs to get better, quickly.”

The general feeling of the few sites I looked at was that Gingrich won the debate (here, here, here). We will see if SC agrees on Saturday.

I will say in conclusion that Newt was just ever so slightly off his game tonight, at least after the first question. In particular, he missed some real opportunities to make his case more forcefully. The one that struck me most was when Santorum accused Newt of grandiosity, implying that Newt would be too impractical to be President. Gingrich fended it off, but what he should have pointed out are that the problems facing the U.S. are themselves grand in stature today. Our regulatory bureaucracy - built up over 100 years - has become an anti-democratic nightmare that threatens the whole economy.  It needs to be reformed completely.  Our debt is about to choke us and the welfare state is going to bankrupt our country in the foreseeable future. Obamacare, Obama's war on energy, and the fact that the left has the keys to the courthouse on all environmental issues threaten the very foundation of our nation. The Arab Spring is turning into a nightmare throughout the Middle East, and there is Iran, playing the role of Germany circa 1937. Small solutions that move the bar just a bit are not going to solve these problems. But alas, Gingrich only alluded to that. It was one of several missed opportunities.

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The SC Debate

How many times in a 5 man debate do you see a standing ovation from the crowd. Newt got one, responding to charges of racism from Juan Williams.



The debate was Newts. As Frank Luntz said after the debate, he thinks Newt will get a bounce. Romney's performance was not his best - Santorum went after him hard. Ron Paul I just don't count and, for Rick Perry, it was a good performance, but one given too little, too late.

It is unfortunate that the conservative vote is being divided three ways, because that is what will give Romney the nomination. I see his prescription for healing America as timid and nothing more than palative care.

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The Virginia Republican Massacre - The Plot Thickens

I blogged here on the decision of the Virginia State Board of Elections to certify Ron Paul and Mitt Romney for the ballot in the Va. Republican Primary, but to exclude Rick Perry and Newt Gingrich on the grounds that their submissions, both of which were in excess of 11,000 raw signatures, did not meet the requirement of 10,000 valid signatures. Neither Ron Paul's submissions nor Mitt Romney's, both over 15,000, were subject to any review. Funny that. We learn more on this today from Moe Lane.

Prior to November, 2012, any Republican turning in over 10,000 raw signatures was considered to have met the Virginia state requirements for inclusion on the ballot. At some point in November, the State Board of Elections made a change to their internal rules. The minimum number of required signatures was kept at 10,000 but the Board decided that the cut-off for automatic qualification would be changed to 15,000. Ostensibly, this was done in response to a law suit against the Election Board that is unrelated to the Republican primary. Moe Lane adds:

As for the implications… well, I think that John Fund’s general comment is correct: this is going to go to the courts. John was not discussing this specific wrinkle, but his larger point that Virginia’s ballot access policies have systemic problems gets a big boost when it turns out that the state party can effectively increase by fifty percent thepractical threshold for ballot access – in a day, and in the middle of an existing campaign. The VA GOP still retains ultimate control over who gets on the ballot, of course. But then, they always have – and under the current system they could in fact brazen it out and certify Gingrich and Perry anyway. Of course, that would probably mean another lawsuit anyway; but then, there really isn’t a path out of here that doesn’t involve lawsuits.

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The Virginia Republican Massacre

Just what the hell is going on in Virgina? As it stands now, the ONLY people on the Republican ballots for the Super Tuesday primary will be Mitt Romney and Ron Paul. Both Rick Perry and Newt Gingrich have been disqualified from the Virginia primary ballot. This is the death of democracy by bureaucratic chainsaw massacre. "Virginia’s 49 delegates, handed out proportionally based on election results, make up more than 10 percent of the 475 delegates up for grabs on Super Tuesday." The ultimate effect of this could be to give Romney, who was not leading in Virginia polls, a huge and unfair boost towards winning the Republican nomination. This stinks like a cesspool in 100 degree heat.

Both Rick Perry and Newt Gingrich provided signed petitions of over 10,000 people in order to be included on the Virginia ballot. I will assume for this post that they complied with the additional specification that at least 400 of the petitions came from each of Virginia's 11 Congressional districts. Yet in the past 12 hours, the three member Virginia Board of Elections, chaired by Charles Judd, with Kimberly Bowers as Vice Chair and Don Palmer as Secretary, has ruled that neither Perry nor Gingrich presented enough valid petitions to qualify for the ballot. They have not announced any of the specifics underlying their decision.

None of the other third tier candidates, Huntsman, Bachman or Santorum, bothered to turn in petitions before the deadline. Thus their failure to be on the ballot is not at issue. But in the space of a few hours, reviewing the combined 23,000 plus petitions of Perry and Gingrich, both get the axe? This stinks to high heaven. It is time for some enterprising reporters to give a full rectal exam to Mssrs. Judd, Bowers and Palmer as well as taking an electron microscope to the reasoning behind the axing of both Perry and Gingrich. I want to see the hanging chads.

Update: So indeed it does appear that there is much more to this story. Moe Lane has the story here. Prior to November, any candidate who turned in 10,000 signatures on a petition was deemed to have met the requirements without further checking. An internal change to the rules in November kept the 10,000 signature requirement, but made the cut-off for checking the signatures for validity 15,000. Indeed, neither the Romney nor the Paul campaign were subject to any review of their signatures, nor have they requested such a review. As Moe comments:

I think that John Fund’s general comment is correct: this is going to go to the courts. John was not discussing this specific wrinkle, but his larger point that Virginia’s ballot access policies have systemic problems gets a big boost when it turns out that the state party can effectively increase by fifty percent the practical threshold for ballot access – in a day, and in the middle of an existing campaign.

I say again, this stinks like a cesspool in 100 degree heat.

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Those Who Forget History . . .

It is almost trite to trot out the quote "those who forget history are doomed to repeat it."  But I think it perfectly apropos as regards today's race for the Republican nomination for President.

What in the hell is wrong with the supposedly conservative pundit class? Their memory seems selective indeed, as they apparently have wholly forgotten WHY Ronald Reagan popularized the 11th Commandment:

"Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican."

The need for the 11th Commandment arose after the Republican party cannibalized itself in 1964, with vociferous demonization by many Republican's on their own eventual nominee, Barry Goldwater. Indeed, "Nelson Rockefeller labeled Goldwater an "extremist" for his conservative positions and declared him unfit to hold office." The attacks had a profound, and likely decisive effect. Goldwater lost to Lyndon Johnson, who then proceeded to put the welfare state on steroids with his "Great Society" program.

In subsequent years, the Republican Party began to do it again, this time to Reagan when he ran for governor of California. In his 1990 autobiography An American Life, Reagan explained that:.

. . . the personal attacks against me during the primary finally became so heavy that the state Republican chairman, Gaylord Parkinson, postulated what he called the Eleventh Commandment: Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican. It's a rule I followed during that campaign and have ever since.

Yet what we are seeing today seems a replay of 1964 all over again. Indeed, Dafydd at Big Lizards asked about a week ago, "Can somebody please explain to me why conservative bloggers are transcendentally driven to kill and eat their own candidates?" Apparently it is due to a recessive gene in Republican DNA. Jennifer Rubin has given a good portion of her columns over to savaging Newt Gingrich. Ramesh Ponnuru and Brian Bolduc at NRO and the ever mercurial Ann Coulter have all written hit pieces on Gingrich that have all the context and intellectual honesty of a rant from Alan Grayson.  Then there is George Will who seems to be on LSD.  According to him, the election of either Romney or, in particular, Gingrich will mean the end of conservatism - oh, and apparently, he has referred to Rush Limbaugh as a Marxist.  With crap like this from the Republican attack machine, the Independents may well be driven into Obama's arms before the general election campaign even begins.

Several pundits have weighed in on the issue of which candidate they prefer thoughtfully and respectfully - Krauthammer (Romney) and John Hawkins (Gingrich) come to mind.  And it is reasonable indeed to delve deeply into the character and background of all the candidates.  Indeed, that is what Republican primary voters need to see and hear.  But that is a far cry from what we are seeing in the demagougic and out of context, vicious attacks emanating from much of the right wing punditry.  Indeed, as Rush said in his monologue today:

It's like clockwork. It's becoming predictable. I don't care who it is, a Republican presidential candidate breaks out of the pack, gets close to Romney -- or even surpasses Romney in polling data in certain states -- and the Republican establishment goes after him. Today there is a coordinated -- well, I don't know that it's coordinated, but it sure appears to be. Regardless, no matter where you look in the Republican establishment media today, there looks to be a coordinated attack on Mr. Newt. I'm not gonna mention any names because you know when I do, all I do is elevate these people and the names don't matter here.
. . . So I'm just gonna tell you, there are -- count 'em, one, two, three, four -- there are five, not counting whatever's happened on television, there are five hit pieces on Newt Gingrich today that come from Republican establishment conservative media. It's amazing.

. . . I want to call these people and say, "Let me ask you a question. When this is all over, who would you rather have --" and, by the way, none of this is to defend Newt. I don't want to be misunderstood on this, folks. None of this is to defend. I mean this is pure, 100% commentary right now. But I feel like calling some of these people, . . . I would say, "Do you really at the end of the day prefer Obama to Newt? 'Cause that's what you're gonna bring off here if you keep this up." 

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