GOP Undercard debate - let it be the last one

Here's my impression of the last two hours:

George Pataki:

:

Mike Huckabee:

Rick Santorum:

Lindsey Graham:

One of Huckabee's best moments on the CNBC debate

This came near the end. It was magnanimous and well done.

The CNN Republican Debate

A lot has already been said and analyzed concerning last nights Republican candidates' debate on CNN.  All I can add is my impression of who did well and who didn't.

I think pretty much everyone did a good job of representing themselves - even CNN did a good job, probably because it was Jake Tapper running things. 

I was most impressed with Fiorina, Carson, Rubio and Kasich (at least his list of accomplishments impressed), but others all represented themselves fairly well.  Trump did better than I expected, as did Bush.  Rand Paul defined his positions well and he will certainly appeal to a segment of Republican voters. He was of course well spoken and reasoned, but I find myself less inclined to consider supporting him than before.  Ted Cruz and Mike Huckabee both did well but while the former came across as almost too polished, Huckabee, who would not be in my top 5 choices, came across in a connected, approachable way.

This is still early on, and things will change, but it will be interesting to see how this changes the polling.

On the campaign trail today

Overpriced snark.

Some notes from the campaign trail today, with an appropriate amount of snark. It's early, there are a lot of contenders and it turns out, snark and cynicism are easy. And a bit fun.  There's plenty of snark to go around. I haven't decided on a horse to back, so don't take it personally if I offend your candidate of choice. There aren't enough Democrats in the race so I'm a little short on snark there. Not my fault - Hillary has frightened almost all comers away. Besides, my snark is Canadian snark - so snark light.

Bobby Jindal sounded off on Scott Walker's health care plan. Because, that's big news. Nothing like hitting someone at the bottom of the top tier to grab some headlines. Right?

On the lighter side, there was Marco Rubio's day, could a perfect spiral become a downward spiral? It's not a big deal, but it's not going to help him. Unless he wants to play for the Redskins Native Americans.

The Washington Post held  a pity party for Bernie Sanders and his run against big media outlets. Like..the...Washington...Post?

Is Rand Paul souring on Rand Paul? At least, is Rand Paul souring on Rand Paul for president? "Rand Paul endorses Rand Paul!" Rand Paul, Rand Paul, Rand Paul. Did I say Rand Paul enough? Somebody has to do it.

Rick Perry shared his true feelings on the band Metallica. It's about time he stopped ducking the issue.

Hillary Clinton doesn't think Black Lives Matter, changing hearts doesn't matter, only regulation matters. Stand back, there's an implosion in progress.

Jeb Bush feels America has under-empowered the NSA. No wonder Clinton wants to face him.

Mike Huckabee declared the West Bank is part of Israel. That solves that.

Rick Santorum...wait you're still reading?  Alright, he attacked Ben Carson's medical research.

Ben Carson looks like he might win (Arizona).

Democrat Martin O'Malley poised to debate himself.  He stands a good chance of winning too.

Donald Trump, the New York Times has officially declared him the devil. And Heidi Klum, declares him an idiot. Seems like a smart marketing ploy except if it were it would be obvious and therefore, not smart.

Carly Fiorina slipped up and praised some Muslims.  Back in 2001. Is Michele Bachmann just jealous?

Quick Grading GOP Convention Speeches - Day 2

Speech of the night.

A close second.

For comparison, here are my quick assessments from Day 1. 

Unfortunately I missed Rand Paul, so I'll have to update that here after watching a replay.

The speeches tonight were good and certainly from a generally higher profile group than the first night (Christie being the obvious exception yesterday as the keynote speaker, and Abbe Romney also).

John McCain - the speech was okay, but he seemed tired and quite uninspiring.  D

Rob Portman - some great parts and some dull parts, but overall - pretty good. B-

Tim Pawlenty - A lot of good one liners kept the crowd engaged but not on their feet. B

Mike Huckabee - His prior speaking experience showed.  On point, well spoken, and engaging.  B+

Condoleeza Rice - Resolute, stirring and focused on national security which has only been casually mentioned heretofore.  Included the topics of trade and energy and economy and tied it all back to conservative philosophy. Inspired the crowd, and me. Rousing. A+

Susana Martinez - I wouldn't have wanted to follow Condi Rice. But her family success story was inspiring and important.  I wonder if MSNBC showed her. B

Paul Ryan - He hit all the right notes but it was not moving the way Rice's speech was. If it had started a bit more energetically the way it was when it had built up, his would have been the speech of the night. Still, a forward moving speech that was very strong over the latter half.    A

Bizarro World GOP style

I missed the debate last night, so I'm still looking to see if anything went down out of sorts. Nonetheless, this morning South Carolina Governor, Nikki Hayley herself a recipient of Tea Party support has chosen to endorse - Mitt Romney?

What...how...huh?

Improbable Political Thriller

If I were writing a political drama something I'd consider writing about a political primary to keep it interesting would be to have a continuing series of headline grabbers one after the other that were worth a chapter and then fizzled out one by one.

Chapter 1: Mike Huckabee declines to run.

Chapter 2: Romney becomes the de facto poll leader of the GOP field. 

Chapter 3: Donald Trump decides he's a Republican, surges in the polls and runs doesn't run. 

Chapter 4: Michele Bachmann wins the Iowa straw poll.

Chapter 5: Rick Perry enters and Bachmann fades away.

Chapter 6: Perry falters in a few debates and looks like he's fading.

Chapter 7: Herman Cain surges.

Chapter 8: Chris Christie thinks about jumping in after flatly stating he's not running.

Chapter 9: Chris Christie surges and fades like Perry.

Chapter 10: Sarah Palin makes her decision to run. 

Chapter 11: Here's where I get stuck - I can't think of a logical ending.

Now that seems like a pretty improbable political thriller.  Implausible even.  Except that's what seems to have happened up to about Chapter 8.  It's been an improbably season but even the prologue is absurd.  Obama started with massive approval and blew it horrifically, even with a fawning press.

Politics is stranger than fiction.

Cain in, Daniels Out. Now what?

To catch everyone up on what's going on, Herman Cain is running in the GOP primaries.  Mitch Daniels another suspected candidate, surprisingly, is not.  Add Daniels' name to Huckabee and Trump, as a candidate who was a pretty safe bet to run and has dropped out before the race has begun.  Add to that the fact that Newt Gingrich, Jon Huntsman and Ron Paul have all said some pretty foolish things that make their nominations unlikely at best, as did Daniels' record for that matter. So far it seems like the GOP primary is starting off with a fizzle.  Romney has to be considered a clear front runner at this point.  Romney won't generate much enthusiasm in the primaries but with a disjointed field of relative unknowns, he has the easiest path to primary victory.  So far.

Quick Post: GOP Clearing the decks?

I was thinking initially that Newt Gingrich might be intentionally sabotaging his own chances to allow conservative voters to coalesce around another candidate to combat Romney.  But why not him?  And why would he enter the race just prior to doing that?  Why did both Mike Huckabee  and Donald Trump drop out so close together?  Why did Ron Paul say that going after Bin Laden was wrong?  Why did John Huntsman just declare that he believed the science behind global warming because 90% of scientist were behind it (wrong.  And there was a time 90% of scientists were behind the earth being flat).  

That's a lot of drop outs and flubs that seemingly make candidates unelectable, in a relatively short time.  Maybe the GOP establishment, including other candidates, are clearing the decks for Mitt Romney to walk through the primaries.  The thinking might be that a quick and easy primary leaves more time to marshal resources (money and volunteers) and efforts around a single candidate in order to combat the expected money machine.  I hope not.  It's a slap against a democratic process.  It's short-sighted too.  The GOP would be bypassing an opportunity and also leave the last man standing as a long term target for the mainstream media.

This might provide a perfect opportunity for Palin or Bachmann to step in as the Romney alternative.  And who knows, maybe that is the real motivation here.

Obama's Job Approval Bump Over - Gallup

According to Gaullup (via Drudge), Obama's Job Approval is back down to 48% approval versus 45% disapproval. That's worse for him than Mar 28 - March 30. Killing Bin Laden didn't do it for him. This President is still completely beatable by a solid GOP candidate.  The economy is to iffy, and killing Bin Laden isn't entirely owned by Obama, clearly.  The debt, Obamacare and big government in general are trumping the bump.

Speaking of trumping, the candidate won't be Trump. It definitely won't be Huckabee. But a decent candidate whomever it turns out to be, should be able to win in 2012.

HUCK NO!

Via Fox,

Mike Huckabee said Saturday there would be no sequel to his surprisingly strong 2008 White House bid, in which he won the Iowa Republican caucus and finished second in the primaries to Sen. John McCain. 

"All the factors say go, but my heart says no," Huckabee, who was considered the GOP frontrunner in several national polls, said on his Fox News Channel show.

I'm surprised. Really. I wasn't a Huckabee guy, despite thinking he is a good guy. Nevertheless, I'm surprised by this. My main concern is that it might be Mitt Romney who mosts benefits from this.

My conspiratorial side wonders if there's been a conversation between Huck and Sarah Palin - they both work at Fox - and one decided to stand aside for the other. Or even worse - what if that conversation took place between Mitt and Mike? Is it possible Huckabee was promised a VP slot?

This does shake up the race. The fallout has yet to be seen.

Well, Huck's Out.

If this story is accurate, I think Huckabee just blew his chance to win - the mainstream media will rip him up over it.  Given that possibility, I don't think he's going to run.  It was suspect anyway, now I'm convinced he's not running.  What does the story say about Huck?  This;

A possible Republican presidential candidate suggested in a radio interview that President Barack Obama's childhood in Kenya shaped his world-view – even though Mr Obama did not visit Kenya until he was in his 20s.

Minus some revealing new truth, Huckabee will be subjected to the kind of ridicule someone would should get if they said they had campaigned in 57 states or something equally ridiculous.

I can't get behind Huckabee

Not the guy.

I like Mike Huckabee.  He says a lot of good things about national security, taxes and business,  He seems like a decent guy.  But sometimes he says things that make me shake my head. Enough so that while I think he's right on a lot of issues, he's not the right guy for the Republicans to nominate for President in 2012.

I just finished a post about Michelle Obama's fight against childhood obesity.  Certainly it's something that can be rallied around by everyone.  Unhealthy children - who can support that?  Nobody wants unhealthy children.  But it's not simply enough to say that it's a bad thing for children to be unhealthy.  How you go about solving the problem shows whether you have bona fide conservative values or you are just paying lip service to the ideals and still going to be (or are) governing as a big government liberal.  

Palin sly as a Fox?

The New York Times is reporting that Sarah Palin has accepted a role as a Fox News analyst. Sly? Well, maybe or maybe not. It depends on what she's planning as the step after that. And only Sarah Palin knows that answer.

 Sarah Palin has done an excellent job of two things since her resignation as Governor of Alaska. (1) Slowly repairing her personal approval ratings, helped in large part by her book tour and a book that the best the left could come up with to skewer her over was a jovial jab or two from Captain Kirk, which Palin was able to respond to in kind. (2) Effectively dissect the health care debate and other issues (energy) through effective use of her Facebook page.

The former repair effort, is somewhat in line with a typical politician's efforts to foster a positive public image. Book tours, speaking engagements and chats with friendly media (at least less unfriendly, Oprah) all help longer term public perception. She's been able to overcome a large chunk of the unfair negative publicity she received as a VP candidate with John McCain.

The latter, her Facebook page, is an outside the box approach to marshaling public opinion and she's done a relatively masterful job in the relatively new medium. It's an unorthodox approach to politics, not unlike say the Obama campaign of 2008, which was clearly an effective new style of campaigning.

Is she in a better political position to day than she was during the 2008 campaign or immediately after her resignation as governor? Most certainly. Is she ready to run for President in 2012? I couldn't say objectively at this point either way. I doubt anyone could reasonably well.

However, a few key points seem relatively clear to me.

• Having mastered Facebook, there are two benefits to moving to Fox News. (1) She's not standing still.  Standing still in politics is an invitation to death. (2) Having found the setting of a web based monologue a successful megaphone, moving to the medium of TV, in a similar monologue type communication, is a logical next step.  It's the same idea with a bigger audience, more exposure, and more opportunity to build on her growing credibility.  I guess as a third it might give her an opportunity to practice debating for a while, prior to any further runs at office.
• Unfortunately there's a downside to it as well. (1) Any mistakes become that much more visible.  And make no mistake, critics will be looking for any infinitesimal mistake she makes. (2)  It seems a little less plausible as an outside-the-box political move because (a) Mike Huckabee has been there, done that already and (b) with the experience factor clearly hampering President Obama, the public might demand more experience in 2012.  The role of news analyst, with all apologies to the likes of Glenn Beck, is not going to give her more executive experience.  Then again, with the throw them out mentality of the Tea Parties, maybe it helps her retain that outsider feel.
• A failed role due to bad ratings (which are unlikely at first but could become an issue if she's not exciting as an analyst), are other possible area that critics could jump all over.

There's possible gain and there's also risk.  Whether this is a good move or not depends on a number of things. It depends primarily though on where she plans to go and how the timing jibes with the mood of the country.  Is she planning on a 2012 run?  If she is, her window at Fox can't go much beyond the end of 2010.  The logistics of starting a 2012 run for the Presidency is a two year full time job.  If that's the case, the Fox stint will be short indeed.  Critics will call her on it.  she has to bank on being able to say she's encouraged and spurred to action by the GOP victories in November 2010 to make that argument disappear.

On the other hand, she may be playing the slow grinding ground game, setting herself up for 2016 or 2020.  That may put her in a better position to do more in the interim and better establish her credibility.  But there could be a resurgent Bobby Jindal to contend with.  The iron is hot this year for conservatives.  She may be missing a golden opportunity by delaying.  Then again, maybe she sees it as too soon for herself.  Only Sarah Palin knows what's next for her at this point.  Like many others, I'm anxious to find out.

Temperature Check on GOP 2012 Candidates

Back in the spring I did an early analysis (premature, no doubt) on the likely GOP candidates for President in 2012.  I looked at the relative merits of Palin, Huckabee, Jindal, Sanford, Gingrich and Romney.  Things have, to say the least, changed.  It's about time for another premature temperature check.

Next week I'll take a look again at the possible candidates but I'd like to take this opportunity to point out some noticeable changes.  Gone will be Jindal and Sanford and Gingrich.  For various reasons, they are no longer viable candidates.  Of course that is arguable which I'll be discussing my rationale in this post today.  Added to the mix will be Tim Pawlenty and possibly Haley Barbour. Returing for re-evaluation will be Romney, Huckabee and Palin.

Why is Jindal out?  He delivered the Republican response to the first Obama State of the Union address.  It was flat and probably did a lot to torpedo his chances in 2012.  Jindal has a bright future in the GOP and in politics.  He's still young and will eventually surface as a candidate.  But I don't think it will be before 2016, and more importantly, I don't think he thinks so either.  Jindal may run in 2012, but if he does, he's a long shot at best.

Why is Sanford out? In case you missed it, an extra-marital affair in Argentina combined with a borderline missing person case when Sanford went missing for a few days to cheat on his wife.  I don't think that sort of thing will slip past the conservative base.  Unfortunately Sanford has some great conservative ideas and credentials, but he's doomed himself either to at least 2016 if he can repair his image over the long haul, or more likely, he's lost his chance permanently.

Why is Gingrich out? Scozzafava, plain and simple.  He backed not only the wrong horse, he backed a very liberal Democrat in Republican clothing despite the hue and cry from conservatives.  He stubbornly stuck to his I'm right on this attitude until Scozzafava, backed out of the race and then backed the Democrat.  That's not just egg on Newt's face, it's in his pockets, his shoes and all over his hair.  It doesn't seem on the surface like something that is as big as the right is making it out to be, but make no mistake in many quarters Newt is being pilloried for this.  Scozzafava is just the straw that broke the camel's back.  He's also hopped on board the global-warming-scare train.  He's cavorted with Hillary Clinton and in general, come to embody the watered down, beltway Republican that the party is looking to purge right now.  Centrist Republican or right wing Republican, civil war or not, no one wants a bunch of self-serving, unlistening representatives at any level of governement.  Newt, is toast.

Why is Tim Pawlenty in?  He seems serious about running.  He may fill the void vacated by Sanford and Jindal in terms of positioning.  Without Pawlenty and Palin in the race, we're left with Huckabee and Romney.  I don't think the base sees either of those as the second coming of Reagan.  Palin maybe could be. I know a lot of conservatives don't see that in her, but the question you have to ask yourself is why is CNN running polls on her viability for the Presidency and not on say Romney or Huckabee at this point?  But Pawlenty probably sees a real opening, especially if Palin is the favorite next time.

Why is Haley Barbour in? Just because he's been mentioned. I don't know if he would seriously consider running but he'd make another good alternative to have in the mix for the same reasons as Pawlenty.  But it's just speculation on him right now compared to the others who are likely candidates for a Presidential run.

Next Week - the assessments of Romney, Palin, Huckabee, Pawlenty and Barbour.

Survey: Your choice for GOP 2012?

This week Nonsensible Shoes published articles assessing 6 top conservative contenders for the GOP nomination in 2012.  The assessments are linked below.

Mitt Romney
Mark Sanford
Bobby Jindal
Sarah Palin
Mike Huckabee

Newt Gingrich

Now it's your turn to have your say.  Vote below for the candidate of your choice. 

[Update - survey layout changed, also, now using flash instead of Javascript]

Get This - Survey Results - GlowDay.com