Republican Primary Megathread (poll now updated)

[Farnhamia]

I really do wonder what the hell happened to the price of books, though. When I worked in the bookselling trade, an expensive paperback was $1.95. Many of them were around a buck, or less (I was reading one over the weekend from the 50s, and it cost 35 cents).

You are not kidding. I remember years ago, my calc book costing about $40. Visited my old uni and just for grins was wandering the bookstore and saw it on the shelf. $160. Checked the revisions. None!

At least with text books; they have a trapped market. You really don't have a choice. Maybe the used but I am told they star limiting them so people will buy the new.

Paperbacks are a joke.

Now I am seeing the news papers are starting to shrink. They are smaller in size and less pages and the price is more.

Seeing that in food slowly as well. Less given priced higher.

I can see textbooks being expensive more than mass market paperbacks, but yeah. Publishers aren't making enough money? Back in the 18th and 19th centuries, booksellers were often publishers, and were a scourge to authors, always looking for ways to make more money and pay out less. At some banquet of authors in England during the Napoleonic Wars, a writer rose and toasted the Emperor Napoleon. This caused a great outcry, but the man silenced the others and said, "Yes, yes, gentlemen, Bonaparte is a great tyrant and the enemy of freedom, but never forget, he once shot a bookseller!" They all drank the Emperor's health.

[Ashmoria]

oops mitt romney's advisor spilled the beans a bit early on cnn:

"Fehrnstrom was asked on CNN Wednesday whether he was concerned that Romney’s prolonged fight with Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum would force him to “tack so far to the right it would hurt him with moderate voters in the general election.”

“Well, I think you hit a reset button for the fall campaign,” Fehrnstrom responded. “Everything changes. It’s almost like an Etch-A-Sketch. You can kind of shake it up and restart all of over again.” "

http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/ ... sketch.php

and rick santorum is very pleased that he did:

"Hogan Gidley, National Communications Director, said: "We all knew Mitt Romney didn't have any core convictions, but we appreciate his staff going on national television to affirm that point for anyone who had any doubts. With the two year anniversary of the signing of ObamaCare upon us, can voters really believe that the man who urged the President to use his healthcare plan in Massachusetts as a model would really repealObamaCare? Or is that promise just something they would 'shake up and restart' with when Romney hits the general election.



Voters can trust that Rick Santorum will say what he believes, and do what he says. They may not always agree with Rick Santorum, but they can trust him because they know he is a man of principle. Clearly, the same cannot be said of Governor Romney.""

http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/e ... ?ref=fpblg

[Farnhamia]

oops mitt romney's advisor spilled the beans a bit early on cnn:

"Fehrnstrom was asked on CNN Wednesday whether he was concerned that Romney’s prolonged fight with Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum would force him to “tack so far to the right it would hurt him with moderate voters in the general election.”

“Well, I think you hit a reset button for the fall campaign,” Fehrnstrom responded. “Everything changes. It’s almost like an Etch-A-Sketch. You can kind of shake it up and restart all of over again.” "

http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/ ... sketch.php

and rick santorum is very pleased that he did:

"Hogan Gidley, National Communications Director, said: "We all knew Mitt Romney didn't have any core convictions, but we appreciate his staff going on national television to affirm that point for anyone who had any doubts. With the two year anniversary of the signing of ObamaCare upon us, can voters really believe that the man who urged the President to use his healthcare plan in Massachusetts as a model would really repealObamaCare? Or is that promise just something they would 'shake up and restart' with when Romney hits the general election.



Voters can trust that Rick Santorum will say what he believes, and do what he says. They may not always agree with Rick Santorum, but they can trust him because they know he is a man of principle. Clearly, the same cannot be said of Governor Romney.""

http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/e ... ?ref=fpblg

Romney's staff thinks they get a do-over in the fall?

Tim Carvell, who identifies himself as a “writer of comedy jokes for the TV box” living in New York, wrote, “Right now, I’m guessing the Romney adviser who compared his candidate to an Etch a Sketch is being turned upside down and shaken vigorously.”

Here's what Ross Douthat wrote on the Romney Campaign: "Mistakes Were Made"

Mitt Romney has good reason to be exasperated with the way his slow progress to the Republican nomination has been covered in the press. Again and again, he’s won supposedly-decisive primary victories, only to have the press turn around and insist that actually, it’s the next big primary that is the crucial one, the make-or-break moment, the contest that could throw the whole race into chaos. First Florida was going to be decisive, then Michigan, then Ohio. Romney won all three, but the goal posts kept moving, and suddenly it was Illinois that threatened to cast his nomination into doubt.

Naturally, Romney won Illinois as well, cruising to a predictable victory on Tuesday. And for all the talk about how badly his campaign has been run, his partisans can credibly argue that he’s suffered more from the extended primary calendar and the press’s addiction to drama than from his own mistakes. As the Weekly Standard’s Jay Cost pointed out this week, if you compare results primary by primary, Romney is actually running “a pretty solid 4-6 percent” ahead of John McCain’s 2008 campaign — “not the sign of a particularly dominant front-runner,” Cost allows, “but also not the sign of a uniquely weak one, either.”

Still, no one doubts that the Romney team would have preferred to shorten the campaign and win the nomination sweepingly and graciously rather than gradually and with a bludgeon. The long grind has been hard on Romney’s campaign war chest, his general-election narrative and his favorability ratings. Even though the press has sometimes overhyped its weaknesses, his campaign did miss several opportunities to silence the doubters and put the race away earlier.

Looking back over the last few months of the campaign, three mistakes in particular loom large:

They didn’t know how to talk about Romney’s wealth.

In 2008, Romney ran as Mr. Conservative, which was an awkward fit given his moderate past and his none-too-ideological demeanor. In 2012, he’s been running as Mr. Private Sector, Mr. Fix-It and Mr. Turnaround Artist, which has played more to his strengths and to the particular challenges facing the country. But this narrative also guaranteed a higher level of scrutiny for Romney’s private equity past and present-day fortune, and when that scrutiny arrived – thanks to Newt Gingrich’s opportunistic attacks – the campaign’s response was blundering and tone-deaf rather than polished and rehearsed.

The problem wasn’t just that Romney kept putting his foot in his mouth with comments in the “I like to fire people” vein. It was that even when he wasn’t blundering, he didn’t have clear and fluent answers to entirely predictable questions about Bain Capital’s business practices, his own taxes and investments and other wealth-related subjects.

Presumably the Romney camp didn’t expect these kind of questions until the fall campaign, but that’s a poor excuse for a candidate who’s been effectively running for president since 2007.

They played a prevent defense in South Carolina.

His stumbles over the wealth issue set the stage for Romney’s first significant setback, but it was his debate strategy that really opened a path for Newt Gingrich’s South Carolina surge. Coming off an apparent Iowa victory and a clear win in New Hampshire and leading in the polls, the frontrunner behaved like his nomination was a foregone conclusion, and let Gingrich strut and fret unchallenged on the stage.

As my colleague Nate Silver noted at the time, Romney deliberately avoided “direct confrontation with his opponents,” gave “evasive answers on issues ranging from his tax returns to the role of ‘Super PACs,’ ” and even “explicitly invoked the idea that he wanted to be careful about his disclosures so as to minimize the potential general election fall-out.”

Obviously Team Romney couldn’t have anticipated the exact details of Gingrich’s attention-grabbing confrontations with Juan Williams and John King. But their evasive, calculating, play-it-safe approach left their candidate vulnerable to a full-throated challenge from the right. It was a strategy that reminded voters of everything they distrusted about Romney, which made it that much easier for the former speaker to instigate a right-wing revolt against the media and the slippery-seeming frontrunner alike.

They let up after Florida and let Rick Santorum back into the race.

The Gingrich revolt was temporary, but suppressing it came at a cost: Romney’s own negatives went up while his negative ads hammered Gingrich in Florida and Nevada, and pre-caucus polls showed Santorum gaining ground in the non-binding Minnesota and Missouri contests. Those results should have been offset by a Romney win in Colorado where the demographics and the initial polls both favored the frontrunner. But the Romney campaign was slow to pivot from demolishing Gingrich to fending off Santorum, and the former Pennsylvania senator pulled off an upset in Colorado as well.

It was this surprise victory, more than the Minnesota and Missouri results, that elevated Santorum’s profile headed into the Michigan and Super Tuesday primaries and gave the media another chance to call the race wide open. If Romney had eked out roughly 3,500 more votes (another 2.5 percent of Colorado’s Mormon population, for instance) in a state he won easily in 2008, the entire Santorum surge might have been preempted, and Romney’s general-election campaign could have begun in earnest in February instead of in the spring.

Even the most successful candidate inevitably makes significant mistakes. A grinding, delegate-accumulating march to the nomination counts just as much as any other kind of win. There are advantages in working through problems in the primary season so that you know when to go for the jugular and how not to talk about your money during the fall campaign.

These consolations notwithstanding, right now the toll of the long primary campaign looks more significant than its potential benefits. Romney has all but won despite his campaign’s blunders, but that doesn’t mean he wouldn’t like to have those blunders back.

[Ashmoria]

Romney's staff thinks they get a do-over in the fall?

and they think they have the nomination so sewn up that they can announce it NOW and no one can stop him from winning.

[Farnhamia]

Romney's staff thinks they get a do-over in the fall?

and they think they have the nomination so sewn up that they can announce it NOW and no one can stop him from winning.

I don't think anyone can but it never pays to be too confident.

[Ashmoria]

and they think they have the nomination so sewn up that they can announce it NOW and no one can stop him from winning.

I don't think anyone can but it never pays to be too confident.

i suppose that the truth is that for every 1 republican who howls in outrage that romney would admit that he is going to abadon his newly found ultraconservatism there are 2 who sigh in relief.

[Farnhamia]

I don't think anyone can but it never pays to be too confident.

i suppose that the truth is that for every 1 republican who howls in outrage that romney would admit that he is going to abadon his newly found ultraconservatism there are 2 who sigh in relief.

If that one-third of the Base stays home in November, the Republicans are screwed. If the Democrats take back the House and add to their Senate majority, Obama should take the leaders out behind the proverbial woodshed and "explain" to them how party loyalty works.

[Ashmoria]

i suppose that the truth is that for every 1 republican who howls in outrage that romney would admit that he is going to abadon his newly found ultraconservatism there are 2 who sigh in relief.

If that one-third of the Base stays home in November, the Republicans are screwed. If the Democrats take back the House and add to their Senate majority, Obama should take the leaders out behind the proverbial woodshed and "explain" to them how party loyalty works.

if romney sticks to his insane rightwingery he'll lose the sane republicans and the independents.

its not going to be an easy needle to thread.

the pundits say that there is no chance for the dems to take back the house but i dont see how it cant be up for grabs when the "jobs jobs jobs" new republican controllled congress did nothing.

[The Black Forrest]

i suppose that the truth is that for every 1 republican who howls in outrage that romney would admit that he is going to abadon his newly found ultraconservatism there are 2 who sigh in relief.

If that one-third of the Base stays home in November, the Republicans are screwed. If the Democrats take back the House and add to their Senate majority, Obama should take the leaders out behind the proverbial woodshed and "explain" to them how party loyalty works.

That's the part I don't like. When one party owns all; there is no oversight.......

[The Black Forrest]

If that one-third of the Base stays home in November, the Republicans are screwed. If the Democrats take back the House and add to their Senate majority, Obama should take the leaders out behind the proverbial woodshed and "explain" to them how party loyalty works.

if romney sticks to his insane rightwingery he'll lose the sane republicans and the independents.

its not going to be an easy needle to thread.

the pundits say that there is no chance for the dems to take back the house but i dont see how it cant be up for grabs when the "jobs jobs jobs" new republican controllled congress did nothing.

Oh come now. It's only because we did not eliminate taxes on the upperclass and abolish social programs.

[Farnhamia]

If that one-third of the Base stays home in November, the Republicans are screwed. If the Democrats take back the House and add to their Senate majority, Obama should take the leaders out behind the proverbial woodshed and "explain" to them how party loyalty works.

That's the part I don't like. When one party owns all; there is no oversight.......

I know, but did we have oversight in this Congress?

[The Black Forrest]

That's the part I don't like. When one party owns all; there is no oversight.......

I know, but did we have oversight in this Congress?

It worked in the days before the Repubs went wonko. You could count on arguments against pet projects but those days are gone. We almost need a "stalinist" purge to clean out all the ideologues.

[Farnhamia]

I know, but did we have oversight in this Congress?

It worked in the days before the Repubs went wonko. You could count on arguments against pet projects but those days are gone. We almost need a "stalinist" purge to clean out all the ideologues.

Back before 1995, when Gingrich and the "Contract On America" gang took over Congress. We almost do.

[Ashmoria]

if romney sticks to his insane rightwingery he'll lose the sane republicans and the independents.

its not going to be an easy needle to thread.

the pundits say that there is no chance for the dems to take back the house but i dont see how it cant be up for grabs when the "jobs jobs jobs" new republican controllled congress did nothing.

Oh come now. It's only because we did not eliminate taxes on the upperclass and abolish social programs.

who knew that restricting abortion creates jobs?

[Ashmoria]

I know, but did we have oversight in this Congress?

It worked in the days before the Repubs went wonko. You could count on arguments against pet projects but those days are gone. We almost need a "stalinist" purge to clean out all the ideologues.

y'all just HAD a purge. the tea party has taken over and has vowed to do nothing unless they get everything they want. none of which is good for the country

[Free Soviets]

If that one-third of the Base stays home in November, the Republicans are screwed. If the Democrats take back the House and add to their Senate majority, Obama should take the leaders out behind the proverbial woodshed and "explain" to them how party loyalty works.

That's the part I don't like. When one party owns all; there is no oversight.......

that's what elections are for. the problem we really face is that there is so much obfuscation and confusion about responsibility that people can't properly place blame. so when the economy sucks thanks to republican tampering and obstruction, but the democrats are in power, it helps the republicans massively.

bring on the single party rule. and turn the senate into a powerless debating society.

that way, when republicans follow through on their provably bad ideas, and the shit collapses, they can get all the blame they rightfully deserve.

[Mercurea]

I am not American, I am Colombian. If I were American my first presidential option would be Mitt Romney and my favorite party would be the Republican. However I don't like the religious extremism that has grown in the GOP, so if the conservatives chose Santorum or Gingrich as the republican candidate, I would rather vote for Obama.

Ron Paul is a good option for me, but maybe he is already too old to be a president for four years, and I agree more with Romney than with Paul on many issues.

[Farnhamia]

I am not American, I am Colombian. If I were American my first presidential option would be Mitt Romney and my favorite party would be the Republican. However I don't like the religious extremism that has grown in the GOP, so if the conservatives chose Santorum or Gingrich as the republican candidate, I would rather vote for Obama.

Ron Paul is a good option for me, but maybe he is already too old to be a president for four years, and I agree more with Romney than with Paul on many issues.

And why do you favor the Republicans?

[Kaeshar]

That's the part I don't like. When one party owns all; there is no oversight.......

that's what elections are for. the problem we really face is that there is so much obfuscation and confusion about responsibility that people can't properly place blame. so when the economy sucks thanks to republican tampering and obstruction, but the democrats are in power, it helps the republicans massively.

bring on the single party rule. and turn the senate into a powerless debating society.

that way, when republicans follow through on their provably bad ideas, and the shit collapses, they can get all the blame they rightfully deserve.

Its also that the republicans have gone nuts.

Anyways, the VP rumor mill has Romney and Jeb Bush as a possible ticket atm. Personally, I don't have anything against the Bush family, however I'm just womdering what people think about Jeb Bush as a VP? From the wiki, he certainly has business experience, but not sure if he comes off as one of the 1%. He did work for a bank early in his career, whether that amounts to anything, I have no idea.

[Alien Space Bats]

You know, I predicted this.

It will be the final nail in Mitt Romney's coffin, and it will all be self-inflicted.

“Well, I think you hit a reset button for the fall campaign,” Fehrnstrom responded. “Everything changes. It’s almost like an Etch-A-Sketch. You can kind of shake it up and restart all of over again.”

I've been predicting for weeks that Pander Bear will immediately tack back to the middle and try to pretend he didn't say all the whacked out ultra-conservative things he's said in this campaign.

When he does, the GOP's right wing will abandon him like the Titanic.

You've all heard me say this: The difference between Democrats and Republicans is that we Democrats vote for the lesser of two (or more) evils, while Republicans refuse to vote for anyone they don't truly believe in. Democrats may not like Obama's record of compromise with the GOP, but they'll vote for him because they don't like Mitt Romney any more than Republicans do.

But Republicans won't follow suit. They'll just close their legs and flip Mittens off.

No matter how much they hate Obama, when push comes to shove, they'd rather have Obama as President than soil themselves by voting for Romney. If he tacks back to the right, he'll lose the right - and without the right, he can't beat Obama.

Worse, he's gone too far to the Dark Side to be convincing as a moderate, either. Mitt Romney's reputation as a "well-oiled weather-vane" will not only make any claims of moderation seem as insincere as they actually are, they'll leave the American electorate with a foul, slimy taste in its mouth. Nobody likes a panderer; people will vote for a panderer (sometimes) if he's halfway good at lying (cf. Bill Clinton, who was a very artful liar), but it won't vote for a cheap liar - and Mittens is no Slick Willie.

No, Mittens' prevarication and constant positional adjustment is just outright revolting; he makes John Kerry look like a rock of fortitude. Add in the wealth, the aloofness, the insensitivity to hardship, the fact that he looks and acts like the guy who handed you your last pink slip:



Yeah, that guy, and I can't see Mittens surviving this race. He's a dead man walking if he tries to pull a left turn.

And in going down, he'll take his Party with him.

---

tl&dr: If Mittens tries to go back to the center, Obama could be caught with a dead girl and a live boy, and still win.

[Alien Space Bats]

Anyways, the VP rumor mill has Romney and Jeb Bush as a possible ticket atm. Personally, I don't have anything against the Bush family, however I'm just womdering what people think about Jeb Bush as a VP? From the wiki, he certainly has business experience, but not sure if he comes off as one of the 1%. He did work for a bank early in his career, whether that amounts to anything, I have no idea.

If Jeb has two brain cells to rub together, he will run - not walk- away from this ticket.

And Jeb is no dummy.

It ain't gonna be Jeb.

[Kaeshar]

Even if he doesn't survive the race, he has enough delegates to take this all the way to the convention.

Also, CNNs situation room earlier said about that the republicans have a rule saying that if you don't have at least five states, you're not eligible for the nomination, so unless Gingrich manages to grab a few more states, he'll be shut out of the nomination for sure.

Not like Gingrich isn't already shut out in the number of delegates and popular votes, he has polled in the votes behind or just ahead (but still way behind second place) Ron Paul so many times already....

Lol, now Romney says he will be running as a conservative but his 'positions and policies will be the same'. Yea, his positions and policies will still be weathervaney, so he is speaking the truth.

http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2012/03/2 ... od=WSJBlog

He's still running right isn't he?.....

[Mercurea]

I am not American, I am Colombian. If I were American my first presidential option would be Mitt Romney and my favorite party would be the Republican. However I don't like the religious extremism that has grown in the GOP, so if the conservatives chose Santorum or Gingrich as the republican candidate, I would rather vote for Obama.

Ron Paul is a good option for me, but maybe he is already too old to be a president for four years, and I agree more with Romney than with Paul on many issues.

And why do you favor the Republicans?

I am a conservative. I believe in individual liberties, in free markets, in free trade, in a State concerned with defense but not with controlling the economy. I have seen how the excess of powers for the State becomes a paradise for corrupt politicians (as it happened here). I believe in war against terrorism and I like the position of the Republican Party about defending universal rights like the right to elect and be elected in every corner of the world (Although I recognize they have betrayed that belief being friends of the Saudis).

As a Colombian, I have to thank the Republican Party for the support they have given to my country during the last years. Some democrats like Clinton have supported us too, but there are also Colombian haters like Pelosi in that party.

I also think that the US should have an agressive policy against illegal immigrants. If there exists a way to immigrate legally, you should follow it. I am anti-abortion (In all cases) but not because of religious reasons. My only big difference with the GOP (at least with the moderate faction) would be that I support drug legalization and same-sex marriage.

[Ashmoria]

that's what elections are for. the problem we really face is that there is so much obfuscation and confusion about responsibility that people can't properly place blame. so when the economy sucks thanks to republican tampering and obstruction, but the democrats are in power, it helps the republicans massively.

bring on the single party rule. and turn the senate into a powerless debating society.

that way, when republicans follow through on their provably bad ideas, and the shit collapses, they can get all the blame they rightfully deserve.

Its also that the republicans have gone nuts.

Anyways, the VP rumor mill has Romney and Jeb Bush as a possible ticket atm. Personally, I don't have anything against the Bush family, however I'm just womdering what people think about Jeb Bush as a VP? From the wiki, he certainly has business experience, but not sure if he comes off as one of the 1%. He did work for a bank early in his career, whether that amounts to anything, I have no idea.

jeb bush has prestige, no job and no way he will be president unless someone dies and leaves it to him. so he may as well take 2 months to run for the VP job he wont win. and he has as many home states as mitt romney does.

[The Black Forrest]

Its also that the republicans have gone nuts.

Anyways, the VP rumor mill has Romney and Jeb Bush as a possible ticket atm. Personally, I don't have anything against the Bush family, however I'm just womdering what people think about Jeb Bush as a VP? From the wiki, he certainly has business experience, but not sure if he comes off as one of the 1%. He did work for a bank early in his career, whether that amounts to anything, I have no idea.

jeb bush has prestige, no job and no way he will be president unless someone dies and leaves it to him. so he may as well take 2 months to run for the VP job he wont win. and he has as many home states as mitt romney does.

No no no no. It's part of the Bush family plans. The shrub messed up Jebs chances.

So Jeb becomes the VP for Mr. Opus Dei.

Mr. Opus Dei tries to start a new crusade and is removed. Jeb becomes President and the Bush family becomes the first family to have three Presidents.

The same for Mittwitt. He tries to become a democrat and is removed......