2012 Elections Pt II: Bachmann Turned Me Into a Newt! A Newt?

[Rover]

Re: 2012 Elections Pt II: Bachmann Turned Me Into a Newt! A Newt?

That wasn't the Huckabee problem. He looked good on paper but the moment he opened his mouth he was sunk. Hereafter to be known as the Rick Perry Problem.

Paul is scaring the party apparatus now. That's good. "First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win." The RNC is transitioning from stage one to stage two. They are going to get really, really nasty if they ever reach stage three.

Kepler your lust for Paul is admirable, but that doesn't make him any less of a crackpot. Calling out statements made in his own publication isn't out of bounds IMHO. He has as much chance of winning the GOP nomination as I do. What I will be interested in with him is if he goes Libertarian for the nomination. Usually they qualify for the ballot in most if not all states. The first couple of % he'd earn would be from fellow crackpots who wouldn't vote for either major party anyway. If he starts getting over that he's taking away from the GOP nominee.

Another thing I'm looking for is if he wins Iowa, its an utter rejection of the GOP field. Voting for Paul, outside of his core worshipers, is a throw away vote. He won't be the nominee, but you get to register your protest. If you can't get your own party excited about your candidacy (The Mittster, Newtie, etc) how do you turn that on in the general election?

 

[FadeToBlack&Gold]

Re: 2012 Elections Pt II: Bachmann Turned Me Into a Newt! A Newt?

What's really nauseating to read is this notion that Iowa is automatically more important in the nominating process than any other state, and should always go first. Then again, I guess this is Iowa's only way of being relevant in the national picture, outside of exporting field corn and the leanest, driest, blandest pork you'll ever eat.

 

[WeWantMore]

Re: 2012 Elections Pt II: Bachmann Turned Me Into a Newt! A Newt?

Disagree on the Huckabee thing. With a bit more funding he could have been the nominee. Ron Paul winning Iowa would be the equivalent of Lyndon Larouche winning for the Dems. If the Dem field couldn't out poll him in any given state, I'd be real worried about my choices for the nomination. Same concept applies here.

What's the utility in attacking Paul though? I don't think the vast majority of his voters can be persuaded to vote for someone else, they're either voting Paul or staying home. It makes no sense for Romney to waste time and money in Iowa. 2nd place to Paul suits him just fine.

 

[Rover]

Re: 2012 Elections Pt II: Bachmann Turned Me Into a Newt! A Newt?

What's the utility in attacking Paul though? I don't think the vast majority of his voters can be persuaded to vote for someone else, they're either voting Paul or staying home. It makes no sense for Romney to waste time and money in Iowa. 2nd place to Paul suits him just fine.

Good point. I don't think Romney should be attacking Paul. I do think Newtie, Perry, etc should be. They aren't going to get all of his votes but IMO anything about his usual 15% is up for grabs.

 

[Kepler]

Re: 2012 Elections Pt II: Bachmann Turned Me Into a Newt! A Newt?

Kepler your lust for Paul is admirable, but that doesn't make him any less of a crackpot. Calling out statements made in his own publication isn't out of bounds IMHO. He has as much chance of winning the GOP nomination as I do. What I will be interested in with him is if he goes Libertarian for the nomination. Usually they qualify for the ballot in most if not all states. The first couple of % he'd earn would be from fellow crackpots who wouldn't vote for either major party anyway. If he starts getting over that he's taking away from the GOP nominee.

Another thing I'm looking for is if he wins Iowa, its an utter rejection of the GOP field. Voting for Paul, outside of his core worshipers, is a throw away vote. He won't be the nominee, but you get to register your protest. If you can't get your own party excited about your candidacy (The Mittster, Newtie, etc) how do you turn that on in the general election?

Obvious Troll is Obvious so we might as well Fisk you:

Kepler your lust for Paul is admirable

And, we're out of the gate with an ad hom attack. You and Pio need to get together and decide which of these candidates I'm actually a secret agent for.

but that doesn't make him any less of a crackpot.

Nor did anyone say it does. The only legitimately "crackpotty" thing I know of about Paul is his take on the Federal Reserve, but that's also shared by most (all?) big "L" and many (most?) small "l" libertarians, and it was very common in last summer's Tea Party sloganeering. Those numbers start adding up, particularly when we are talking about a Republican caucus dominated by hardcore and activist Republicans not known for their stratospheric IQs.

Calling out statements made in his own publication isn't out of bounds IMHO.

Nor did anyone say it was. The Paul campaign probably has some sort of lame "nothing to see here, move along" dismissal of the newsletter issue, but everybody else I've read thinks it's legitimate to talk about it. Paul's name was on the newsletter, therefore he bears some level of responsibility.

He has as much chance of winning the GOP nomination as I do.

Silly rhetoric. Minus 5 points.

What I will be interested in with him is if he goes Libertarian for the nomination. Usually they qualify for the ballot in most if not all states. The first couple of % he'd earn would be from fellow crackpots who wouldn't vote for either major party anyway. If he starts getting over that he's taking away from the GOP nominee.

It would be very interesting if Paul accepted a Libertarian nomination (and they would be crazy -- no jokes now -- not to nominate him). The Libertarians are generally good for about around 0.5% of the vote. Paul as a Libertarian would (IMHO) raise that number to at bare minimum 5% -- about double Ralph Nader's 2000 total. If he was polling higher it would be very difficult to keep him out of the debates. Nobody this side of the ghost (?) of Ed Clark believe a Libertarian is going to carry a single state in 2012, but the more their anti-war, pro-civil liberties message is out there, the better for the Libertarians moving forward either as a third party (very unlikely) or as a movement to influence the existing parties (the bigger their %, the more likely).

The Libertarians after all have one enormous advantage over the Dems and Republicans -- they don't have to answer for a single unpopular Congressional vote.

Another thing I'm looking for is if he wins Iowa, its an utter rejection of the GOP field.

It's really not. For one thing, all sorts of daft people have won individual primaries. But even more to the point this is a caucus, so all it means is his fanatics were more fanatical than anybody else's fanatics.

If Paul completely destroyed the field in Iowa and wound up with some absurdly high percentage -- 50% or more -- than, yeah, you might have a point. But that won't happen.

Voting for Paul, outside of his core worshipers, is a throw away vote. He won't be the nominee, but you get to register your protest.

This is just plain old wrong. There are no "throw-away" votes in a caucus -- that's not how they work. If you want to vote for your dog at a caucus that's not a throw-away vote. The process is more strategic than a bridge tournament and every vote is a message according to their arcane insider rules that nobody understands except some 90-year-old parliamentarians.

If you can't get your own party excited about your candidacy (The Mittster, Newtie, etc) how do you turn that on in the general election?

At last. You have a point.

 

[Kepler]

Re: 2012 Elections Pt II: Bachmann Turned Me Into a Newt! A Newt?

Think of it this way: You make your first 4 states Iowa, NH, SC, and Nevada, and you get 4 different slices of the GOP. The Midwestern redneck, the new england libertarian, the southern bible-thumper, and the western individualist.

That is a good point. And behind all four, the only kind of Republican who really matters...

 

[Rover]

Re: 2012 Elections Pt II: Bachmann Turned Me Into a Newt! A Newt?

...lots of stuff...

Kep I'm not implying you have some sort of carnal attraction to Paul. What I'm saying is you're wayyyy too into this guy, as in you're overstating both his impact on the race and his chances. Not only does he have no chance of winning the nomination, he has no chance of influencing the nomination. His positions like most libertarians are unworkable and only appeal to people looking to make a statement with a vote that won't hurt them - again he has no chance at actually winning the nomination. If in Iowa or New Hampshire last election season Hillary and Obama got clipped by Ralph Nader, as in he finished in 1st place, I'd be horrified at the chances of those two. Ron Paul would be the most far right fringe lunatic to win a high profile primary in recent memory. Usually a guy like this may have a good showing (Pat Robertson in '88, Pat Buchanan in NH in '92). They rarely (if ever) win. Make no mistake about it, if a guy who's been running for President for 5 years, and a guy who's been a high profile public figure for 20+ years can't inspire voters to give them more votes than an obvious nut, how exactly do they take Obama down?

Yes, its refreshing when a politician speaks his mind and takes unpopular positions. However, when those positions are also insane, really, at that point him saying what he feels kinda loses all its positive impact.

 

[Bakunin]

Re: 2012 Elections Pt II: Bachmann Turned Me Into a Newt! A Newt?

If it's a three way race, then Obama wins hands down, because all Paul does is siphon off GOP votes creating an electoral vote landslide.

It'll be like a 2012 version of Perot (only with a lower percentage of the vote).

 

[joecct]

Re: 2012 Elections Pt II: Bachmann Turned Me Into a Newt! A Newt?

That is a good point. And behind all four, the only kind of Republican who really matters...

Hypocrite! If you think the moguls of the Democratic party are any different, you've graduated from an Ivy League college.

 

[Kepler]

Re: 2012 Elections Pt II: Bachmann Turned Me Into a Newt! A Newt?

His positions like most libertarians are unworkable

Which would be meaningful if this was another party, or even the same party but another time. But you're talking about the current GOP. Checks against empirical reality are not just irrelevant -- the party faithful would be offended by the idea that there's even a yardstick of rationality to measure their policy against. It all comes down to some sort of Received Wisdom, and Murray Rothbard's bizarre misreading of the Founders is as good a source of divinity as any other.

 

[busterman62]

Re: 2012 Elections Pt II: Bachmann Turned Me Into a Newt! A Newt?

Hypocrite! If you think the moguls of the Democratic party are any different, you've graduated from an Ivy League college.

Wrong. The Dem moguls don't smoke.

 

[TimP]

Re: 2012 Elections Pt II: Bachmann Turned Me Into a Newt! A Newt?

Hypocrite! If you think the moguls of the Democratic party are any different, you've graduated from an Ivy League college.

Wrong. There is a great article in Rolling Stone about how the GOP became the party of the rich. You should read it.

 

[FadeToBlack&Gold]

Re: 2012 Elections Pt II: Bachmann Turned Me Into a Newt! A Newt?

Oh please, there are plenty of 'limousine liberals' in this country, too.

 

[Kepler]

Re: 2012 Elections Pt II: Bachmann Turned Me Into a Newt! A Newt?

Wrong. The Dem moguls don't smoke.

 

[Twitch Boy]

Re: 2012 Elections Pt II: Bachmann Turned Me Into a Newt! A Newt?

I want to go to one of these town halls or GOP primary speeches, yell "MIC CHECK!" then look around at everyone freaking out and be like "Just kidding."

 

[Tundra]

Re: 2012 Elections Pt II: Bachmann Turned Me Into a Newt! A Newt?

One example: “A 1992 passage from the Ron Paul Political Report about the Los Angeles riots read, ‘Order was only restored in L.A. when it came time for the blacks to pick up their welfare checks.’”

What a comic (Chris Rock) would say? Racist jokes for 400 Alex.

Sounds like they are getting worried about Ron Paul. And yes we still have real discrimination in America. How about a question for Paul on civil rights and affirmative action? do we still need it? how long? etc...

http://www.statesman.com/business/bank-of-america-to-pay-335-million-to-2046577.html

According to the U.S. complaint, Countrywide charged more than 200,000 African American and Hispanic borrowers higher fees and interest rates than non-Hispanic white borrowers with a similar credit profile. The complaint says that these borrowers were charged higher fees and rates because of their race or national origin rather than any other objective criteria.

Bank of America agreed to pay $335 million to resolve allegations that its Countrywide unit engaged in a widespread pattern of discrimination against qualified African American and Hispanic borrowers on home loans.

 

[dxmnkd316]

Re: 2012 Elections Pt II: Bachmann Turned Me Into a Newt! A Newt?

Weird. Because when I got into college, they said that a black person who had a "similar education profile" would get in before me. Apparently that's NOT racism though...

 

[bueller]

Re: 2012 Elections Pt II: Bachmann Turned Me Into a Newt! A Newt?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cj1wcs7SZj0

That is a good point. And behind all four, the only kind of Republican who really matters...

 

[Tundra]

Re: 2012 Elections Pt II: Bachmann Turned Me Into a Newt! A Newt?

Weird. Because when I got into college, they said that a black person who had a "similar education profile" would get in before me. Apparently that's NOT racism though...

You can call it whatever you like. But it was to address and make reparations for prior racism and discrimination. It would be like Bank of America giving Blacks and Hispanics better housing loans than whites as penalty for prior discrimination in 2004-2007 period.

Personally I think it should be phased out, since it's a sore point for some people and a magnate for racist views. And after 40+ years it's probably done all it can to level the playing field and it's time to let it go.

A Temporary Measure to Level the Playing Field

Focusing in particular on education and jobs, affirmative action policies required that active measures be taken to ensure that blacks and other minorities enjoyed the same opportunities for promotions, salary increases, career advancement, school admissions, scholarships, and financial aid that had been the nearly exclusive province of whites

 

[Kepler]

Re: 2012 Elections Pt II: Bachmann Turned Me Into a Newt! A Newt?

The better way to do what affirmative action was supposed to do would have been by wealth. Our biggest problem for a long time has been widening wealth inequality. Insofar as race and inequality were institutionally linked that was a problem, but now that racism is just linked with derp the law shouldn't be trying to fight that headwind. You can't fix derp.

It's never too later to address the real problem. "America will always do the right thing after exhausting all other possibilities." -- Churchill.