-For all intents and purposes, it's a two-man race at this point.
-Mitt Romney has been at or near the front for the entire race since he declared candidacy. He has won the two important early contests in Iowa and New Hampshire. He sits with a fairly comfortable lead. The conservative voting bloc, which reportedly has been shying away from the former Massachusetts governor because he is too "moderate", are now starting to provide support. The White House is already trying their hand at smear tactics, painting Romney to look like the "evil rich guy." It's his race to lose.
-But by no means does he have this thing locked up.
-The steady rise of Dr. Ron Paul is actually kind of enjoyable to watch. The Austrian from Galveston, "Dr. No", as he's been called, is really the one in the catbird seat. His third-place finish in Iowa was considered strong, and his second in New Hampshire was definitely strong. With the seemingly-ever-growing support of Americans who are weary of government regulation, weary of foreign war, and weary of heart-stopping debts and deficits, if Dr. Paul does not take enough delegates to take the lead in the quest for the nomination, at the very minimum, he will have enough to put Romney on the spot and to take precedence during the opening days of the convention in Tampa. With that open forum, Dr. Paul will be in a position to add legitimacy to his platform-and perhaps have Romney make some compromises with him and his campaign in order to secure the nomination. Which, as Dr. Paul has said before, is his real intention.
-With Herman Cain no longer running, having been hounded out by allegations of sexual misconduct-which, quite frankly I do not believe are true and are indicative of an attempt by the mainstream media at character assassination-I increasingly find myself liking Ron Paul. My only sticking point is that he still does not have the statistical edge over the President in hypothetical match-ups. But that margin has been shrinking steadily for weeks. And something tells me that if more than half of all campaign contributions from active duty military personnel are going to Dr. Paul, my battle buddies may be on to something.
-Could there still be room for a dark horse in the GOP race? Yes, and I give that space to Newt Gingrich. Why? Newt knows how to organize, for one. But above all, no other candidate besides our two front-runners seems to be able to say something that makes sense so well. The highlight of the debate for me was what Speaker Gingrich had to say about unemployment benefits and "child labor." Say what you will-deep down, we all know what he said about it was true. And he was completely straightforward about it. Once you acknowledge that, the massive amounts of applause he received make sense. So, why would I put him as a dark-horse rather than say it's a three-man race? Because it's been well-documented that Newt has a tendency to put his foot in his mouth at bad times-one such instance set him up for one of his brilliant statements at the debate, in fact.
-What about Rick Santorum? I like him-he's quite right when he says the core of most, if not all of America's ills are the weakening of the family. And remember that when Romney beat him in Iowa, it was by the skin of his teeth-eight votes. Santorum's a legitimate candidate, there's no doubt about that. But I think that his candidacy will last until late in the primary stage and that, ultimately, he will not be a factor in the nomination decision. And why? Too many voters will be turned off by his strong social conservatism and will back Romney, Paul, or Gingrich instead (Which I find odd-The other four Republican candidates are all pro-life, like Mr. Santorum. Romney, Perry, and Gingrich, to my knowledge, also support defending traditional marriage as well. So why will Mr. Santorum get singled out for it? Because that's what he's built his campaign on.).
-Rick Perry? I'll be blunt-I think he's screwed. Much as I admire his federalism, his economics, and his defense plan, Governor Perry has not been able to translate the hype into tangible results. There's another problem-the mainstream media have fished out their "All Republicans from Texas are Dumb" pickle from the jar and have pretty much beaten him to death with it. Unless Perry can pull a strong showing in South Carolina-which he has essentially bet the farm on-I do not think his campaign will survive through February.
-Jon Huntsman had an interesting idea: he would campaign heavily in one state to try and get a strong showing to inject himself into the heart of the campaign. He borrowed it from Rick Santorum. He made just one error: he picked the wrong state.
-No offense to the good people of the Granite State-the most free state in the Union, according to a recent report-but Huntsman should have taken Santorum's lead and focused on Iowa, which came first. Santorum's strategy worked because he put his focus on the first contest and used it to successively build. Huntsman chose New Hampshire thinking the same tactic would work there. Two problems with that: One, it's in the backyard of the front-runner, who was widely expected to (and did) win easily. Two, he didn't anticipate that voter and media attention might be focused on another candidate going into the primary-which was Santorum. Huntsman condemned himself to backmarker status the moment he decided to ignore Iowa. His exit from the race-and endorsement of Romney-was predictable and probably expected.
-Now, to focus on the other side for a little bit...
-If you ever wonder why so many of us on the Right cling to Fox News-even though, in my own opinion, it's rather too tabloidesqe and sensationalistic-cable TV's equivalent of theNew York Post (which happens to be a News Corp subsidiary, just like Fox)-just take a look at the recent issue of Newsweek that has been so successful in stirring up a mess. Right there on the cover:
"Why are Obama's Critics So Dumb?"
Maybe Andrew Sullivan (one of the writers of the article responsible for the offending headline) had a point. But the fact is almost all of us saw that as Newsweek saying: "You cannot criticize President Obama from the Right without being an idiot." Why? Is it because the mental picture we get of these critics is of a white, middle-aged, middle-class male from the Midwest? What else would you expect for such a condescending statement? The mainstream media is hopelessly in the tank with the American Left. They have the audacity to criticize News Corp for giving money to the Republicans and then whine when their ratings and subscription numbers drop while News Corp successfully weathers the storm. Now, I'll throw Newsweek a bone and acknowledge that the anti-Obama movement has attracted some of the wrong people for the wrong reasons. The Left has had instances of this, too. But you cannot expect people to stay with you or to trust you when you declare that you think you're better than your audience. That has a way of driving people off to find someone or something more relatable. Just a thought.
-I groaned a little at the Democrats' decision to hold the final night of their convention at Bank of America Stadium. I'll grant them they made a bold move deciding to piss off the unions and host the convention in Charlotte, a city in a right-leaning state-something akin to the Republicans convening in San Francisco (which they did, back in the Goldwater year of 1964). But this whole idea that they need to pack their mob into a football stadium as though Time Warner Center-which they will have free reign over for that week-wasn't good enough reminds me of President Obama's decision to hold his nomination acceptance speech at Invesco Field in Denver-it seemed bombastic and dopey and gave me the impression that Candidate and Committee were full of themselves. And it seems to me that they're just setting themselves up for that again.
-Perhaps they feel the need to, though-a report came out earlier this week that said that President Obama's poll numbers closely matched a pattern-those of presidential incumbents who went on to lose re-election.
-Lastly, I love a debate, but I don't like the debates being held for the Republican candidates. We've held entirely too many of them over the past year, and I don't like the fact that members of the mainstream media-rather than an independent party-are moderating them. The way I see it, no matter which candidate answers the question, the press will make him out to be a fool.
(Oh, one more thing-a plea to Mr. Rupert Murdoch and News Corp-I appreciate your efforts to make a cable news network that is friendly to the Right. But if you are looking for a newspaper to model your channel on, might I suggest switching from a New York Post-style of broadcasting to a Wall Street Journal style? I'll read the Post if I want a scandal or a smartass headline. I read the Journal when I want serious news-that's the style you should go for with television. You wouldn't lose your core audience at it would be a hell of a lot harder for the folks at MSNBC and CNN to paint your channel as "stupid." Just a thought.)
No comments:
Post a Comment