Category: political challengers

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national politics & policies political challengers

Sorry, Santorum

In Wednesday night’s GOP debate, Rick Santorum, the new frontrunner, found himself apologizing for much of his political record.

“Sure I had some votes. Look, I think we’ve all had votes that I look back on I — I wish I wouldn’t have voted — No Child Left Behind, you’re right,” Santorum stammered.

Unmoved by Santorum’s mea culpa, Rep. Ron Paul offered, “I find it really fascinating that, when people are running for office, they’re really fiscally conservative. When they’re in office, they do something different. And then when they explain themselves, they say, ‘Oh, I want to repeal that.’”

Santorum sought to explain a second time: “I supported No Child Left Behind. . . . I have to admit, I voted for that. It was against the principles I believed in, but, you know, when you’re part of the team, sometimes you take one for the team, for the leader, and I made a mistake.“

Former Sen. Santorum’s biggest stumble may have been acknowledging that he voted for federal funding of Planned Parenthood.

“I’ve always opposed Title X funding, but it’s included in a large appropriation bill that includes a whole host of other things,” Santorum began. “So while, yes, I — I admit I voted for large appropriation bills and there were things in there I didn’t like, things in there I did, but when it came to this issue, I proactively stepped forward and said that we need to do something at least to counterbalance it.”

Santorum’s counterbalancing act? Title 20 — yet more federal spending, this time for abstinence education.

How about abstinence on spending?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
insider corruption political challengers

As Goes Maine

On Monday I reported on the Ron Paul campaign’s “open secret” strategy: Gaining delegates in the caucus states, while letting the caucus-night straw poll numbers basically take care of themselves. The “popular” vote on caucus nights in states like Iowa and Minnesota and Maine may show Santorum or Romney as a winner, but the Ron Paul folks are picking up the actual, nomination-effective delegates.

Meanwhile, GOP insiders continue to work openly and sub rosa against the Paul candidacy, as is now pretty clear in Maine. Business Insider reports that

  • “Mitt Romney’s 194-vote victory over Ron Paul was prematurely announced, if not totally wrong”;
  • “Washington County canceled their caucus on Saturday on account of three inches of snow (hardly a blizzard by Maine standards), and other towns that scheduled their caucuses for this week have been left out of the vote count”;
  • “nearly all the towns in Waldo County — a Ron Paul stronghold — held their caucuses on Feb. 4, but the state GOP reported no results for those towns. In Waterville, a college town in Central Maine, results were reported but not included in the party vote count”;

. . . and on and on and on.

The open conspiracy of deliberately under-reporting Ron Paul votes may be more than matched, however, by the open secret of the Ron Paul delegate strategy, with the Paul campaign now believing “it has won the majority of Maine’s delegates.”

Real change is, apparently, a messy thing. And preventing it . . . even messier.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
incumbents political challengers

To America With Love

Congress’s approval rating just dipped to a mere ten percent — a new all-time low even lower than the all-time low set just months ago when their abysmal approval rating was even lower than the historic low hit a few months before that.

No, Congress, we don’t want to be your Valentine.

About now someone somewhere is saying that folks may not like Congress, but they do like their own member of Congress. Not so. A recent poll showed that voters don’t want their own so-called representative re-elected, either.

So, why do incumbents still get re-elected? Well, in most congressional districts, there is a dominant political party — either the Democrats or the Republicans. The winner of that party’s primary is a virtual shoo-in in the general election.

Most folks turn out to cast their votes in the general election, when in most districts it’s already been decided, but fail to show up in the all-important primary election, when they could actually make a difference.

What to do? Well, several patriots hopped into a phone booth and changed into a SuperPAC, called the Campaign for Primary Accountability. The group says, “We have two parties. Both are irresponsible. Both are unaccountable.”

And already the SuperPAC has raised $1.8 million to target, in their primaries, a number of supposedly safe House incumbents: Representatives Spencer Bachus (R-Ala), Bob Brady (D-Pa.), Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.), Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-Texas), Tim Johnson (R-Ill.), Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio), Don Manzullo (R-Ill.), Tim Murphy (R-Pa.), Silvestre Reyes (D-Texas), Jean Schmidt (R-Ohio).

There could be no better Valentine for our republic than seeing entrenched incumbents defeated. The primary is a smart place for that battle. You might even want to send your own heartfelt message.

This is Common sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
ballot access political challengers

Something Up His Sleeve

In 2008, Republican insiders in a number of states worked mightily to ensure that presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul met with no success. So, this time around, his campaign has trained supporters in the caucus states to act like insiders.

What’s the secret?

“There were no actual delegates rewarded in last Tuesday’s voting,” Greg Gutfeld clarified on Red Eye, his late-night Fox News show. The votes reported on caucus night are not the votes that count, the ones that elect delegates. Instead, the delegates — who go on to pick other delegates to go to the state convention and then the national convention, and ultimately choose the GOP candidate — are picked later, after many caucus attendees have gone home for the night.

Ron Paul’s supporters stick around. And vote themselves in as delegates.

“We do have to remember,” Ron Paul has gloated, that “the straw vote is one thing, but then there’s one other thing called delegates, yeah!”

News sources consistently report caucus night straw vote totals, but rarely mention that such caucus polling is relevant only for perceptions of “momentum.” The actual candidate selection mechanism? Something else again.

Indeed, it looks like a majority of Minnesota delegates, as well as surprisingly high percentages in Iowa, Colorado and Nevada, may actually end up supporting Ron Paul for President.

Un-democratic? Paul supporters are unashamed of their strategy, as campaign senior advisor Doug Wead happily explained to Rachel Maddow. As they see it, they are only acting according to the rules that usually serve to favor insiders in the GOP boys’ club.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
Accountability political challengers

The FUBAR State

Newt Gingrich came from behind for a smashing victory in South Carolina’s primary last Saturday. And yet a more interesting story may be emerging in Iowa: Rick Santorum, not Romney, is apparently the Republican caucus winner. Though that’s not counting the eight precincts whose official results forms went missing.Iowa counties

This could be just another typical screw-up. Democracy means “rule by the people,” and “the people” aren’t perfect.

Foul-ups happen.

On the other hand, the whole thing smacks of back-room manipulation. The fact that the official tabulations were moved away from the traditional site, GOP state party headquarters, to an undisclosed location — allegedly to “protect” the vote-counting from Occupy protest influence — makes the uncertain results all the more suspect.

And Republicans can’t blame this on Occupiers.

The winner may have been the biggest loser. Santorum got the proverbial bump from the initial Iowa results — losing by a mere handful, it was reported — but Romney received a bump from it too, simply by being declared a winner in the closest caucus race in American history. By “losing control” of the actual count, the Republican Party of Iowa skewed the national election.

Leading into the caucuses, Ron Paul’s supporters sniffed something conspiratorial in the vote count location switch, complaining that such a move could help “disenfranchise” Paul’s supporters, knowing that GOP caucus officials were not at all friendly toward his candidacy.

You’re probably familiar with Stalin’s most famous quote about democracy: “It’s not who votes that counts, but who counts the votes.”

In Iowa, Stalin’s shade sports a mischievous grin.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
free trade & free markets ideological culture political challengers

New Orbits for Old

A recent study using something called “gravitational microlensing” suggests that every star has at least one planet. There are a lot of planets out there. So there “must” be Earth-similar planets. And “therefore” life. Intelligent life. And, and, and . . .

Back on Earth, the search for intelligence amongst the Republican presidential candidates (not to mention the Democratic incumbent) is a more haphazard affair. We lack that crucial microlensing.
Mars, the red planet
Yesterday I noted a peculiar alignment: Ron Paul defending Mitt Romney, with the other Republican wannabes piling against Romney in a disgraceful showing of anti-capitalism. Rep. Paul defended Romney not out of Republican loyalty, but out of principle. Does this suggest an affinity between the two, heretofore unnoticed?

Maybe. On the face of it, Romney doesn’t seem all that dissimilar from Barack Obama – not in foreign policy, surely not in big government instincts (the purveyors of unconstitutional medical regulations, each) — but his work in business does suggest that Romney might be an improvement on Obama, if elected. Marginally moving towards Paul’s apogee.

But the country needs more than just a marginal improvement, right now. Another centrist — even one who understands the social utility of the hostile takeover — won’t balance budgets. Not when the Washington orbit remains retrograde, unable to stop spending and borrowing like tomorrow is somebody else’s problem.

Which is why Ron Paul’s candidacy will retain traction for many primaries to come. Since our problems are the mainstream, Paul fills the need for something extra-mainstream — and, to normal political folks, that will undoubtedly seem “extra-terrestrial.”

In Washington, all intelligent life lies beyond the usual orbits.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
media and media people political challengers

And the President Is . . .

Unless our elections are rigged, Congressman Ron Paul — like anyone else running for president — has a bona fide chance to win.

Because we regular people get to decide. It’s our votes; it’s our caucuses.

So, why does the news media keep telling us that Ron Paul has no shot?

A brand new Public Policy Polling survey shows Paul leading the pack in Iowa at 23 percent to Mitt Romney’s 20 percent, with Gingrich falling precipitously to 14 percent.

Queried about a possible Paul victory in Iowa, Fox News’s Chris Wallace responded, “Well, and the Ron Paul people aren’t going to like me saying this, but, to a certain degree, it will discredit the Iowa caucuses because, rightly or wrongly, I think most of the Republican establishment thinks he is not going to end up as the nominee.”

Hmmm. Ron Paul can’t win. So, if he does win, it discredits the process.

It’s déjà-vu all over again: GOP strategist Mike Murphy said back in August that had Congressman Paul received just 75 more votes and won the Iowa straw poll “it would have put the straw poll out of business forever.”

According to a Washington Times story, “Paul could be positioning himself as a spoiler or worse.”

A spoiler? Worse? Dr. Paul is positioning himself as the next president. Which I guess spoils things for Wallace, much of the media and the Washington establishment.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
media and media people political challengers

The Donkey in the Room

One hates to beat a dead horse. Or a living one. But by coming back to media bias in the coverage of the Republican presidential campaign I’m not so much whipping a recalcitrant equine as stabling a kicking, braying ass.

The most recent debate was hosted by CBS and the National Journal, and took place in South Carolina. The demonstrated bias? Ron Paul got only 90 seconds of coverage.

Yup: ninety seconds out of the hour. CBS summarized Rep. Paul’s short contribution by calling him a “serious longshot,” judging the congressman’s minute-and-a-half as “an unqualified success.”

Yes, CBS’s post-debate coverage was mostly spin — over its own criteria. Of Rick Santorum, the network calmly stated that the also-ran “didn’t get as many questions as the more popular candidates in the polls, but when he did get a chance to talk, his remarks sounded thoughtful and measured.”

Yeah. CBS was in control of the questions and time allotments, but its prose coverage neatly states it as reportage, covering up its own very active role.

A more honest account? “Barring a bomb in the Green Room taking out most if not all of the other candidates, Rick Santorum doesn’t have a chance at the nomination. Thankfully, it’s up to us to divvy up coverage. Tough luck, Rick.”

And: “Despite your amazing ten-percent-plus support, Dr. Paul, we don’t want you saying too much. If we allowed it, you might get more popular.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
ideological culture media and media people political challengers

The Interposeurs

Media people interpose themselves between current events and the news audience. They consider it their job to sort out “the issues” before news consumers even start thinking.

This is the source of media power.

Recent investigations into current media coverage of the GOP presidential race shows that the basic media bias may not be pro-liberal/anti-conservative, but, more generally, anti-libertarian. Ron Paul’s candidacy, though receiving an amazing amount of support from enthusiastic fans and generous donors (Rep. Paul has quite a kitty going into the campaign), has garnered (according to a recent Pew Research Center study) little news coverage to match his popular success: Less, even, than Santorum.

But is ideological bias at the root of the problem? After all, each candidate has a personality, and personality is obviously a big factor in show biz success. And politics, it has been said, is show biz for homely people. No wonder political coverage looks more like junior high and high school tribalism than a truly mature enterprise.

According to the irreverent H.L. Mencken, journalists like to play messiah. Thinking they can “save the day” every day, they tend to favor those politicians who treat the eternal rescue mission of government policy with a cheaply salable scenario. Paul, in identifying government more often as a problem than a solution, horns in on the public rescue biz.

Maybe this helps explain why “Ron Paul did markedly better in the blogosphere than in the press.” And why journalistic coverage swings more extremely than does blogosphere coverage.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
media and media people political challengers

The Big Christie Problem

The demands of media are not the demands of the American people. Everyone knows this.

Basically, journalists favor big, juicy stories. They like colorful characters and charisma. And they like puffing up some — inflating reputations as if they were balloons waiting for hot air — only to puncture them later on.

That’s what’s behind the continual discussion of Sarah Palin, the non-candidate.

She’s a media person herself. She’s the media’s No. 1 non-candidate.

The media’s No. 2 non-candidate? Gov. Chris Christie.

I’m a big fan of Christie, and I had positive things to say about Sarah Palin, very early in the last election cycle. But the attention given to these two, during the current campaign, has been mostly objectionable. It shows more what’s wrong with media folks than with the current slate of Republican presidential candidates.

Christie’s pluses — a no-nonsense limited government perspective from a successful state executive — are shared by at least one other candidate, former governor of New Mexico, Gary Johnson . . . who has been barred from most debates and virtually ignored by the media.

So why the fixation on Christie?

He makes for good story. He’s big. He fills the screen. And he’s more glib and polished than Johnson, or Paul or Bachmann or Perry.

In a perfect world, journalists would leave candidate selection to the parties and the people.

This is not a perfect world.

This, too, is not breaking news. But then, this is not reportage, either.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.