My wife and I are at odds over the potential for Santorum winning the actual nomination (and then being a threat to Obama after that). He is too irrevocably clownified in my view to do much more than have his own feeble "not Romney" bubble even if it is well-timed with regard to Iowa. To her point, he is both a candidate who can reel in the crazies and also one who got elected to the Senate from a "blue" state. I'm right on this one, however.
the potential for Santorum winning
According to Intrade 3.3%-3.9% to win the nomination, 1.3%-1.9% to become President.
What makes Iowa fun is that it's a caucus, not a primary. It's not a simple measure of preference, but also a measure of intensity.
I would like to go on the record as being extremely annoyed about having this caucus so early. February was bad enough but on the first day back at work after the holidays is just horrible.
Santorum's plan seems to assume profit! national victory solely from a win in Iowa.
huhuh uhuh huhuh...you guys said santorum..uhuh
Excepting black swans, gonna be Romney and then Obama re-elected. Wake me for the lame duck.
6: Honestly, it's his best shot. He doesn't have much money, but there's a majority of voters out there who really don't want to vote for Romney. If he can win Iowa and become the living embodiment of Not Romney, then maybe he can win.
What makes Iowa fun is that it's a caucus, not a primary. It's not a simple measure of preference, but also a measure of intensity.
How's that? You can choose not to vote in the primaries just the same. Or is there some element of persuasion involved?
I guess it's farther from most people's homes than the polling place, but that just gives it a higher intensity cutoff for participation.
11: I think you have to sit around and listen to people talk for a caucus. It's a meeting with obnoxious people trying to wrangle you.
Excepting black swans, gonna be Romney and then Obama re-elected
A reminder of how much of Bob's output is actually very conventional.
Supposedly even Evangelicals are willing to hold their noses and vote for a Mormon. It is only the smaller subset of Dominionists who won't vote for a Mormon, who in their opinion is less bad than a Jew or a Muslim or a liberal or finally an atheist, but still not good - not good at all.
So, theater aside - Rommel it is.
11. 12 -- Takes a lot longer than just voting. The level of commitment is just completely different. And in Iowa, I understand there is persuasion.
Have you ever done a caucus?
How's that? You can choose not to vote in the primaries just the same. Or is there some element of persuasion involved?
From Wikipedia:
An Iowa caucus can last up around two hours, preventing people who must work, who are sick, or must take care of their children from casting their vote. Absentee voting is also barred, so active-duty Iowan soldiers lose the opportunity to participate, as do locally-registered college students who leave the state during winter holidays. The final criticism is the complexity of the rules in terms of how one's vote counts, as it is not a simple popular vote.[citation needed]
Arguments in favor of caucuses include the belief that they favor more motivated participants than simple ballots, and that supporters of non-viable candidates are able to realign with a more popular candidate and still make their vote count.[citation needed]
Additionally, many caucus-goers consider them more interesting due to how much more interactive they are than a primary. Lastly, one other argument in favor is that caucus-goers get more information before making their vote, so those voting will potentially be more educated about their candidate choices than primary-goers.
Each precinct's vote may be weighed differently due to its past voting record. Ties can be solved by picking a name out of a hat or a simple coin toss, leading to anger over the true democratic nature of these caucuses.[19] Additionally, the representation of the caucus has had a traditionally low turnout.[20] Others question the permanent feature of having caucuses in certain states, while perpetually ignoring the rest of the country.[21]
How is Obama re-elected not a black swan?
Have you ever done a caucus?
No, and thank God.
14: well, he's right, which is a good excuse for being conventional. Right about Romney at least. Which is unfortunate, because I would love to see a crazy or at least Gingrich nominated. But the Republicans are for the most part a well managed elite hierarchy that puts on the crazy as a way of managing their actually-crazy popular base.
Not so sure about Obama being reelected. Romney will run a good campaign, with a ton of outside money, and will tack hard to the center the moment he has the nomination locked up. Which could be by Florida the way things are going.
19 -- No, it's fun. I was in the 1984 caucus here.
Not that it would be any fun this year, of course.
Looking at the calendar, it's interesting to see that it'll be all caucuses in the four weeks between Florida and AZ/MI. Gives the also rans one more chance to whack away at Romney.
Still, I think the intensity requirement can be exaggerated. In 2008, there were 119,188 Republican caucus votes cast, and 576,000 registered Republicans, so a turnout rate of 20.6%, which compares favorably to normal primary turnout rates, and is only 6 points less than the overall 2008 Super Tuesday turnout. I suspect the time and inconvenience is offset by the knowledge of the potential impact.
The effect of persuasion and groupthink from public voting is probably much more significant, though.
I'm sure Obama's team are scouring Romney's long senate record to find things they can use against him. That happens to all senators who try to become president.
Romney's long senate record
All zero years of it?
Well, I'm sure Obama can use Romney's record on health care against him, right?
A somewhat intriguing aspect of Romney's Mormonism is that I do not recall that coming up at all with regard to his father back when he was maneuvering for the 1968 Republican nomination. It made me go back and confirm that George was in fact a Mormon at the time. It may just be that 1) I was 13 and may have missed some things, and 2) he imploded so early on his Vietnam "brainwashing" comment that it didn't matter. But I'm sure Nixon and his merry band were working on some way to exploit it if he had remained a threat.
He didn't show up for a single Senate vote! That seems pretty damning ad fodder to me.
Seriously, with all the grossly misleading ads out there, how awesome would it be to make an ad that is based on an entirely false premise? "Mitt Romney- he never completed gun safety training with the Massachusetts state troopers that all officers are required to take."
Apparently the R caucuses this year are a single round secret ballot, so not much of a commitment, just need to sit through some speeches before voting.
28: It might literally not have been exploitable back then -- I don't think the religious right was politically organized yet, and so you'd have to do too much openly ugly Mormon-bashing to get across why they were too scary to vote for.
31 -- Anti-Catholic sentiment was a big factor in the 1960 election, and there was certainly Protestant political mobilization around that. Maybe everyone was just too embarrassed by the failure of that effort in 1960 to try again in 1968, but that seems dubious.
Speculating, I think an element may have been that in 1968 Mormonism was just less familiar -- it was weird, but much more geographically constrained, and that George Romney had served as the totally establishment Republican governor of Michigan and had managed a completely non-Mormon state may have been sufficient inoculation. Or that the most likely matchup in 1968 appeared to be RFK (Catholic) vs. Mormon. Interesting question, though.
1968 Mormonism was just less familiar
Yeah, that was part of what I was trying to say. There wasn't the greased political machine that could get across the religious right line, so they would have had to really educate the people capable of anti-Mormon bigotry on what Mormons were that one should despise and fear them, and that's hard to do fast without looking disgusting. Anti-Catholic feeling already existed to be appealed to organically.
George Romney's family and early life was super interesting. From Wikipedia:
Romney's grandparents were polygamous Mormons who fled the United States with their children because of the federal government's opposition to polygamy.[1] His maternal grandfather was Helaman Pratt (1846-1909), who presided over the Mormon mission in Mexico City before moving to the state of Chihuahua and who was the son of original Mormon apostle Parley P. Pratt (1807-1857). Romney's uncle Rey L. Pratt (1878-1931) would in the 1920s play a major role in the preservation and expansion of the Mormon presence in Mexico and in its introduction to South America. A more distant kinsman was George Romney (1734-1802), a noted portrait painter in Britain during the last quarter of the 18th century.
George Wilcken Romney's parents were American citizens Gaskell Romney (1871-1955) and Anna Amelia Pratt (1876-1926); they married in 1895 in Mexico and lived in Colonia Dublán, Galeana, in the Mexican state of Chihuahua (one of the Mormon colonies in Mexico) where George was born on July 8, 1907. They practiced monogamy. George had three older brothers and would gain two more brothers and a sister.[7] Gaskell Romney was a successful carpenter, house builder, and farmer who headed the most prosperous family in the colony.
The Mexican Revolution broke out in 1910 and the Mormon colonies were endangered in 1911-1912 by raids from marauders,including "Red Flaggers" Pascual Orozco and José Inés Salazar.Young George heard the sound of distant gunfire and saw rebels walking through the village streets. The Romney family fled and returned to the United States in July 1912, leaving their home and almost all of their property behind. Romney would later say, "We were the first displaced persons of the 20th century."
I kind of hoped everyone would pepper their comments with links to the spreading santorum site.
I worry about that leading to a Google ban.
Mormon Anarchism in Mexico and America
Whoever wrote the United Order entry on Wikipedia sure is anxious to make sure everyone knows it wasn't socialist.
I get the sense that George Romney's Mormonism would have been an issue except that he shot himself in the foot before the other candidates got around to finding the right take on it.
Looking through the NYT Archive I think 32.2 has it mostly right (plus the early self-destruction on Vietnam). The item mentioned the most was the extreme bigotry of the Mormon church at the time towards blacks*. For instance, "Mormon Stand on Negroes Poses Problem for Romney if He Runs for Presidency" which is dated on several levels (not sure if the link will work for non-NYT online subscribers).
*Per Wikipedia, In 1978, church leaders ceased the racial restriction policy for black men, declaring that they had received a revelation instructing them to do so. They could be members but nothing really beyond that.
32: George Romney had served as the totally establishment Republican governor of Michigan and had managed a completely non-Mormon state
Yes, thinking about this brought home to me some of the similarities in their pursuit of the Presidency--both were relatively non-ideological governors of blue states. The circumstances of the Republican Party and competing candidates is wildly different, however.
Drum posted this just now(ish) on these "caucuses". I give up, Bob is right, burn shit down.
35: A worthy goal, but links in the comments don't get Google juice because of the rel=nofollow that gets appended to them anyway.
40 -- apparently, George Romney was one of the most progressive and pro-integration secretaries of HUD ever, when he worked under Nixon, and tried (and failed) to get some pretty dramatic integration programs through that the Nixon staffers rejected. An interesting reminder that through the mid-1970s the hard hat riot/northern white neighborhood protection groups were New Deal Democrats, and that a establishment business Republican could be very far to the left on race issues. Also interesting given the stance of the Mormon church at the time.
43: Ah, thanks. My links in the OP count though, right?
TNC on Ron Paul and Louis Farrakhan is excellent.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/01/the-messenger/250685/
The genesis of Iowa's role: the contingent institutional story (Ezra Klein) and the Johnny Apple story (Calbuzz).
Is it wrong that I'm terribly excited for the Iowa Republican primary?
I don't know if it's wrong, exactly. I am pretty curious about the eventual result.
Santorum talks good in informal settings, and is not a complete idiot,* as it turns out. I've happened to catch 10-minute portions of some of his Iowa town hall meetings on CSPAN radio recently, and was surprised.
* He explained in clear language to some questioner that the Chief Executive cannot simply repeal Obamacare, say by Executive Order: a law can only be overturned by passage of another law, and the means to repealing Obamacare was preferably by winning enough Senate seats to take control of the Senate (he walked through the exact numbers needed, and which states were viable), or alternatively, but less preferably, by defunding it. As I say, I was surprised.
That drive around in a pickup schtick worked for Janet Reno, too.
He explained in clear language to some questioner that the Chief Executive cannot simply repeal Obamacare
Surely all the candidates, except maybe Bachmann or Cain, know this, but wouldn't degrade their image by appearing to.
Exactly. Which is why I was surprised by Santorum's detailed response: my theory is that he's pulling a Gingrich by impressing people with smartness.
With 16% reporting, Ron Paul is at 24.1%, Romney at 23%, Santorum at 22.9%, Gingrinch at 13%, Perry at 9.9%, Bachmann at 6.2%, and the rest below 1%.
Oh, I see. Maybe he's decided the stupidity factor is facing diminishing returns.
54: That was my theory, anyway. I had thought he was actually stupid, but apparently not.
It's too bad the Iowa Republican caucuses don't do that 2nd choice, 3rd choice thing: this is basically a straight-up vote. I can understand why they're all having a hard time deciding, obviously.
Just for perspective, 2008 Iowa results:
Mike Huckabee 34.4%
Mitt Romney 25.2%
Fred Thompson 13.4%
John McCain 13.1%
Ron Paul 10.0%
Rudy Giuliani 3.5%
I like these results from Emmet County, on the Northern border, with 82% reporting:
Santorum - 13.4%
Romney - 8.6%
Perry - 8%
etc.
Other - 36.1%
No Preference - 14.1%
This county (unfortunately) appears to be one of a kind. I wonder what happened in that caucus?
Just noticed that as well--and actually I see Other as 56%.
According to TPM, the 100% reporting results for Emmet county: "other" is still at 36.1%, with "no preference" now at 12.4% and Michele Bachman now at 9.4%.
I had thought he was actually stupid, but apparently not.
A 10-minute discussion in which he explained in clear language to some questioner that the Chief Executive cannot simply repeal Obamacare seems pretty thin evidence for this conclusion. There are levels of stupid that are less stupid than a Cain or a Perry but that are still indisputably stupid.
60: It would be hard to determine once and for all, wouldn't it, whether Santorum is actually stupid. I suspect he's actually not, but I can't offer you any evidence, and it scarcely matters.
55: Parsimon! Don't you know that ranked-choice voting is socialistic and against the Constitution?!
57: I wonder what happened in that caucus?
Probably infiltrated by carpetbaggers from Minnesota.
59: Ah, the Times is only listing the top 4 and then groups everything else as Others. Lame. I'll bet the votes are for John Davis.
This past June 30, John Davis was the first candidate to bring his Presidential campaign to Estherville. A Republican hailing from Grand Junction, Colo., Davis is pro-business, anti-big government and pro-life.
63: It is?!?
Despite my curiosity about the outcome of all this hoohaw, I can't bear to actually check up on incoming results. I'll see if NPR is talking about it in anything less than a breathless way (earlier today their reporters on the ground seemed rather breathlessly excited, which was funny).
Davis is pro-business, anti-big government and pro-life.
And obviously not afraid to draw some clear lines in the sand to distinguish himself from the other Republican candidates.
||
(Blushing, discreetly.)
|>
Santorum 24.3%, Romney 23.7%, Paul 21.6%.
Good, but Romney needs to sink some more or Paul needs to move up.
max
['Needs more flaming political death.']
Is this worth staying up past 10 pm for? It is not.
(Blushing, discreetly.)
A picture, even!
(Blushing, discreetly.)
Being on the wrong thread is embarrassing.
Excellent. CBS just effectively wrote off Bachmann AND Perry! They only showed the top four. Everyone else is doing the same thing.
max
['So that's good.']
It's really kind of horrifying that people vote for Santorum. Some woman they interviewed explained, "I like him because I care about families. Because I have a family."
71: Wrong thread? I thought it was just a new thing to pause/play to mention Flickr photos. Nice pic, by the way.
67: And obviously not afraid to draw some clear lines in the sand to distinguish himself from the other Republican candidates.
Are they willing to walk around with a three-foot red, white & blue plumber's wrench?
... probably.
75: I meant that people had been talking about him on the other thread. Unless I'm horribly confused.
77: Talking about who? Davis? Mr. Blandings? Santorum?
Well, it's all a thread-meld, apparently.
Romney and Santorum down to the wire. From the Entrance Poll demographics--Santorum winning big w/the God Squad, Romney the more well off, and Ron Paul the young and confused. No surprises.
Unfogged walks into a Subway and says, "Make me one with everything".
Down to the wire with these numbers that, if I understand correctly, don't actually relate to what determines the eventual nominee?
81: Mmm, chicken-teriyaki-veggie-burger-italian-meatball-club-tuna-jalapeño-melt.
Rick Perry hanging just above the 10% relevancy threshold.
Black thread, white thread: As long as it has santorum in it, it's a good thread.
People are anxiously waiting for Romney to come out, to see if he sees his shadow.
82: No one gives a fuck who the delegates actually vote for in the end.
People give a fuck because this is the first indicator of... something? Not, based on the historical record, who will be the nominee.
With 88% reporting, Herman Cain leading Buddy Roemer 53 votes to 45.
This is much more important than that.
Are all those Cain's 'women supporters'?
Shit. Romney edging ahead. Dammit.
88: People give a fuck because this is the first indicator of... something? Not, based on the historical record, who will be the nominee.
As evidence to argue for which guy people should support because he might win because he has the support in Iowa of thousands of people who finally decided to vote him because he might win.
max
['Obviously, it's going to be all in for Romney at this point.']
The Mormon church was officially racist until the 1978 Official Declaration, and a probably large majority of Mormons were racist (and many, many still are), but there was a sizable, respectable group within the church that was anti-racist. It was even respectable to "regret" the official priesthood-exclusion policy, although you couldn't do so in an activist way or by attacking church leaders without violating Mormon taboos against challenging the leadership, who are presumed to have a more-or-less direct line to the Big Guy on important stuff.
It's so exciting to be a witness to history.
Just tuned in to NPR to hear "If we think this is exciting, we haven't heard anything yet." Will Ron Paul throw his son Rand Paul under the bus by declaring a third-party candidacy?
Jeez. I'd sort of hoped that Ron would win the Iowa caucus so that everyone would decide to ignore Iowa in the future. You know, going forward.
Frank Coniff tweet: Much is at stake! Results of tonight's Iowa caucus will determine who the Fox News commentators will be for years to come.
What in fuck's name does that woman have on her head?
max
['Is it a cheerleader pompom?']
Whoa. TPM currently has Romney up by 13 votes.
Come on you fucking goobers, count the votes. Don't let Stephen Bloom be tonight's big winner.
So it's basically another opinion poll with n=100,000, right? It seems to follow the exact same "cycle through non-Romneys until they self-destruct" pattern.
I realize this doesn't actually matter at all, but I still think it'll be hilarious if Santorum wins.
Well, if nothing else, this election gave us the Bad Lip Reading Michele Bachmann video, so that's something.
103: I couldn't agree more. Adding to the humorous hijinks: he'll probably come in second in NH and then maybe win SC. At which point Romney will still get the nomination, but he might have to tack further right in order to do it.
I'm trying to predict from demographics and partial results--no clear pattern, but Story County probably has the most votes left (only 7% counted) and it has Iowa State and I bet will be Romney/Paul heavy. Although others with more to count tend to be Santorum goober counties. Exciting.
The entire thing is hilarious. Nobody's going to drop out until New Hampshire and South Carolina play out.
NPR seems really concerned about Gingrich's fall.
NPR seems really concerned about Gingrich's fall.
What will tell the children?
Always true, I suppose, but it's still intriguing how in this bastion of crazy, the urban/rural split still holds. I colored in a county map scaled by delegates according to leads in the latest NYT results, and almost every denser county is going for Romney. (Exceptions: Black Hawk for Paul and Woodbury for Santorum.)
Robert Reich: Waiting for the results the #iacaucus is like waiting at the airport for someone you don't know, don't care about, and believe is deranged.
And what could be more exciting than that?
Gingrich's outrage over negative campaigning is hilarious. The MSNBC talking heads have interpreted his concession speech as endorsing Santorum, but staying in the race out of spite purely to inflict damage on Romney.
Perry's talking now.
I feel badly for Huntsman, though.
I don't. Dude had a perfect opening to run as "Voice of Reason", instead he went with "Pandering Wingnut Light."
I think Ricky's going to do it--hang on by less than a hundred.
Concession speech? Gingrich's concession speech?
Why isn't NPR playing Perry's talk?
I'm sort of curious to see if regional biases in SC will prove stronger than the crackers' natural tendency to embrace a gay-hating, life-loving, loonbag like Santorum. Given that he's Catholic, I'm thinking the answer is yes. Also, Nikki Haley is auditioning for the role of Newt's veep, right? It's too bad she turned her back on her parents' religion, because it could have been a fun election: the Mormon and the Sikh versus the Muslim and the [insert the religion of whoever will fill Biden's spot on the ticket after Biden decides to spend more time with his family].
Perry sounds like he's dropping out.
insert the religion of whoever will fill Biden's spot on the ticket after Biden decides to spend more time with his family
Christian.
120: Probably Clinton, so the Muslim and the Wiccan.
"Pandering Wingnut Light."
Lite, I think.
Why isn't NPR playing Perry's talk?
A last vestige of dignity? Respect for the English language? What's her name's husband is a playah in Obama for America (redux), and it's an anti-GOP conspiracy?
125: So you are predicting a Dem VP of the Antisemitic persuasion?
128: I just spent time with my (totally fucking insane and deeply ignorant (not to mention Canadian, so bear-fucking)) relatives who insist that Barack Obama is an antisemite. No, really, he positively hates Israel. And the American Jewish community. He's like a Hitler/Idi Amin/Louis Farrakhan/Charles Lindbergh/Neil McGinnis* mashup. But way, way worse. Anyway, I cannot tell you how much effort it took to politely leave the dinner table -- several times, actually -- rather than screaming at them to shut the fuck up. I guess leaving the dinner table wasn't all that polite, was it? Oh well. Compared to the alternative, it was like Emily Post.
* My next door neighbor growing up. He used to call me a kike all the time. Sweet kid.
That's a curious lattice of coincidence right there. A regular shrimp-plate of shrimp type situation.
My latest Stormcrow-o-matic predictor has Romney winning by 5 votes (assumes %counted are pretty accurate).
Stormcrow, it doesn't matter who actually wins first place. As long as it's that close, it doesn't matter.
'night all.
It seems to be stuck at 96% (down from 97). Bah.
Well, at least Rick Perry looked like somebody shot his dog, but unfortunately Bachmann did not kill and eat him to absorb his power and keep on trucking to SC.
And the vote count just went backwards on CNN. They're going to figure out who one right about the time Romney gives his victory speech in NH.
max
['And then it jumped up again! 62 ahead for Santorum.']
134: It always matters. This is America, you book-lover.
Perry has 12410 votes and he spent 4.5 million on advertising, so he spent roughly 362$ per vote.
max
['He could've spent less money by just running around buying free dinner for people and gotten more votes.']
They're going to figure out who one right
ALL ONE RIGHT. NO RIGHT BUT ONE RIGHT. ALL ONE.
137: I don;t think he's close to Rudy Gulliani's record in Florida (or the whole primary season) in 2008.
I bet $362 buys a hell of a nice dinner in Iowa. Someone should ask Steven Bloom.
One fucking vote! AGH! One vote...
No. Santorum surges ahead to a 4 vote lead!
max
['Village decorum has broken down on CNN.']
OK! Well, after that misadventure, Romney 30,015 (25%) over Santorum (25%) 30,007. Paul 26,219 (21%).
(The misadventure - CNN was stuck at 99% with Santorum up by 4. They get the feed from the state GOP. Well, at 2 AM or so they got on the phone with Edith and Carolyn, precinct chairwomen from Clinton county (the county with the supposed missing precinct) and after much back and forthing, Edith gave CNN the correct numbers for the county. They had already phoned those numbers in to the state GOP which apparently had lost them. With that, Mittens was up by 14 and then finally the state GOP guy came out and gave out the total above. This was after about two hours of the CNN people getting increasingly giddy. In particular, Anderson Cooper went over to talk to that Ali guy at the 'social media wall' and starting saying that he had been to the thing three times and he still didn't understand it. And then it got weirder.
So now Edith and Carolyn are very popular and I am sure the media will be all over them tomorrow. (They're already trending on Twitter.)
max
['Of such is the celebrity sausage made.']
Phew! If Santorum had won, the next thing you know, Iowans would be voting for dogs! Dogs!
(Actually, dogs would be an improvement.)
As long as they don't ask if they're hunting dogs.
40,44: George Romney wrote a long and wide-ranging letter to Goldwater about the 1964 convention. It was published in the New York Times in 1966 and it's paywalled, but if you can get access to it, read it.
Yes, the newspapers were right: santorum was general all over Iowa. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Ames and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Missouri River waves. It was falling, too, upon every part of the Presidential Library and Museum in West Branch where Herbert Hoover lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the santorum falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.
What will tell the children?
Something unspeakable from the dungeon dimensions.
The good folks at MPR felt it their duty to report heavily on Michelle Bachman, and it was a chore to listen to the same BS from her over and over again. Argh.
She was born in Blackhawk county, IA, and lost big there. She made a unique video for every single one of the 91(?) counties in IA, and barely made 5% overall. At this point I'd watch her and Marcus on Dancing with the Stars, but only to see if they were any good. I would so love for her to fade away into the aether, but I fear she will remain the face of the kookoo crowd for a long time to come.
Oh hey, an unreasonably close election. Precise electioneering or cheating?
Ian Welsh on Ron Paul
Obama is objectively awful. Paul is objectively awful. But unlike Romney, Paul is objectively awful in different ways than Obama. Romney would just be Obama, but slightly worse. If you're going to choose a lesser evil, you might as well choose Obama. But when it comes to Paul vs. Obama the equation changes.And that's why many progressives are attacking any other progressive who says anything good about Paul, because Paul threatens to split the left, and because Paul makes progressives decide what they value most.
What the white Santorum was to Ahab, has been hinted; what, at times, he was to me, as yet remains unsaid.
Aside from those more obvious considerations touching Santorum, which could not but occasionally awaken in any man's soul some alarm, there was another thought, or rather vague, nameless horror concerning him, which at times by its intensity completely overpowered all the rest; and yet so mystical and well nigh ineffable was it, that I almost despair of putting it in a comprehensible form. It was the whiteness of Santorum that above all things appalled me. But how can I hope to explain myself here; and yet, in some dim, random way, explain myself I must, else all these chapters might be naught.
Paul is objectively unelectable and a big chunk of his supporter are protest voters who would run away as soon as it looked like he might win. The rest are young or socially maladjusted.
Yes! Michelle Bachman drops out. Finally. She wants to continue, but can get no more money. Finally.