Todd Akin's Comments Symptomatic of Bigger Problems For GOP

GOP officials are trying their hardest to try and contain the fallout from the reprehensible comments made by Missouri Congressman Todd Akin who is seeking a US Senate seat in a race against Claire McCaskill. Even Presidential candidate Mitt Romney and his vice president nominee Paul Ryan called on Akin to quit the campaign. Akin has refused thus far, and he missed the deadline to withdraw without requiring court approval (or to pay the costs for redoing the ballots).

The problem for the GOP is that his comments weren't merely a misstatement or ill-conceived (as Akin himself put it on his own website - awkwardly at that). They are symptomatic of a much larger problem for the GOP. You've got Republicans who support restricting abortion to only those cases of forcible rape - or restricting federal funding for all abortions, including in cases of rape or incest.

Then, you've got social conservatives claiming that their claims that women can't get pregnant from rape and base it on research carried out by the Nazis during World War II (where they took prisoners and subjected them to gas chambers to see if stress affected ovulation).

The misogyny runs deep with Republicans. It's not just Akin. There's Kansas state Rep. Pete DeGraaf who suggested women should plan ahead for rape the way he keeps a spare tire. Indiana state Rep. Eric Turner said some women might fake being raped in order to get free abortions.

Then, there's the litany of attempts to impose onerous and invasive ultrasound procedures that would have the effect of reducing the number of abortions and abortion providers, including Virginia. Moreover, such requirements might constitute state-imposed rape on such women because the procedure isn't medically required or indicated.

Or the series of personhood amendments being propagated by Republicans across the nation that would give an embryo rights that would necessarily limit the rights of women to control their own bodies. Moreover, those same personhood amendments could seriously restrict access to in-vitro fertilization and other similar techniques, to say nothing of embroyonic stem cell research.

But perhaps the biggest sign that Akin isn't an isolated case is that Akin claims that the fallout from his comments has led to a big increase in campaign contributions although it should be noted that he bested his modest goal of $10,000:

“Donations are pouring in. Thank you for standing up against the liberal elite,” Mr. Akin wrote on Twitter last night.

A counted on Mr. Akin’s website said, as of this writing, Mr. Akin had raised $10,638 since beginning a “still standing” campaign following his remarks. On Twitter last night, Mr. Akin said his goal was hitting “$10k to fight the liberal elite.” He also posted a series of messages blaming the “liberal elite” for driving a “a lot of negativity” his way and for pushing around and otherwise intimidating those in the pro-life movement.

I'm not surprised by that.

The true tragedy is that the race for the Missouri Senate seat is as close as it is even with the furor about Akin's comments. Akin may still win the contest against McCaskill. That's troublesome in its own right and shows just how deep support for the belief system that Akin revealed in last Sunday's interview truly goes.

Nor am I surprised when Kirk Cameron comes out in support of Akin. Cameron went on CNN to defend Akin:

One defender? Kirk Cameron. The child-star-turned-evangelist was on CNN this morning discussing the remarks, and Cameron encouraged people to watch the whole video (which you can here) and then said, “[Akin] is clearly a pro-life advocate and I respect him. He said that he misspoke and that he misphrased something and that he apologized.”

Rep. Akin released a statement after the interview saying he “misspoke,” but hasn’t backed away from his remarks. Despite calls on Akin to get out of the Missouri Senate race, so far he’s staying in.

“I’m the kind of person that believes that I would like to be evaluated by my entire career and my entire life, not two words that I would misspeak and then later apologize for,” Cameron told CNN. “So he’s in a tough spot.”

The problem is that Akin didn't misspeak. He said exactly what he thought. He said precisely what his ultimate intentions are. He didn't misphrase anything. Akin said exactly what he thought. He believes that there is such a thing as legitimate rape - and his prior history about trying to impose restrictions for forcible rape are proof that this is part of what Akin actually believes. It goes to the belief that some women who are victims are rape deserved what they got - it's a combination of slut shaming, treating women as second class citizens who can't be trusted with control over their own bodies, and is misogynistic at its core.

Cameron's comments are echoed by other religious leaders, including Bryan Fischer.

In other words, if we go by what Akin has said and done over his entire political career - these words that Akin claims was a misspeak aren't. Akin meant exactly what he said. He cowrote legislation that would create the nonsensical category of forcible rape along with Ryan (but which didn't get passed because of the furor it created).

Cameron is right in one respect though- Akin is in a tough spot, along with the rest of the GOP that has wholly subsumed the social conservative agenda.

UPDATE:
Lest anyone think that I'm not sourcing my materials, here's links to the following as referenced above:

The link showing Ryan and Akin's attempt to create a category of forcible rape (and there's a new report indicating a separate attempt by Ryan to include forcible rape in a second piece of legislation).

Bryan Fischer said that Akin's comments were right.

And here's where Akin and others got that trope about how rape victims can't get pregnant (Seattle Post going into the history).

Here's where Gawker recorded Akin's awkward website attempts to try and generate campaign contributions from this mess.

Romney Chooses Paul Ryan For VP Slot

Mitt Romney has made his decision. He will go with Wisconsin Republican firebrand Paul Ryan as his Vice Presidental selection. It's somewhat odd to make that move on a Saturday morning, but it does mean he gets to dominate the Sunday talk shows, but it doesn't mean nearly as much press as if he held off until Monday - after the Olympics. People are still focusing on sports and not on politics at this point, but the Romney campaign must be feeling the heat and need to stem a tide of bad polling, and the fact that Romney essentially called for mercy to stop harping on Romney's tax and business records, and that Romney's own goals on health care reform and other assorted lies, misstatements, and gaffes.

Ryan will give Romney a short-lived bounce. It gives Romney a breather, but does it really benefit him in November?

Well, it improves his chances of holding on to the red-meat GOPers and right wingers, and could help with Wisconsin and Midwest, but that could be more than offset by the fact that Ryan's plan would gut the safety net - from Social Security to Medicare and Medicaid - programs that most Americans believe are good programs and are to their benefit (even if they may also think that some kind of incremental reforms are needed over time). After all, independents and moderates are going to have serious issues with what the GOP and the socons are looking to do. So, the overall effect will be negative since it reinforces everything that we already knew or expected from Romney.

Will States Drag Feet On Imposing Health Exchanges, and Other Thoughts

If the states don't have health care exchanges in place by 2014, when the individual mandate kicks in, they'll be cut out of the loop and the federal government will impose its own version of the exchanges, with the funding structures intact (the state will have to kick in its set percentage, regardless of whether it acts to impose its own exchange or not).

Some states are going to drag their heels, hoping that Congress reverses its decision to impose the individual mandate and that Romney wins the White House so that the White House doesn't repeal the measure.

Others are moving ahead, since the feds are providing funds to help get the exchanges going. Nearly $1 billion has been distributed thus far, so states that don't get with the program will find themselves shut out on the funds needed to get the exchanges rolling.

Perhaps some states think that this might get the feds to kick in a greater contribution towards the startup costs. They may have a point, but unless Congress pushes the IM deadline back, those states that aren't moving towards an exchange will find themselves in a mess.

Consumers in those states will be at a disadvantage if the states don't get their exchanges going since they'll be without the insurance coverage available to other states. In some places, like LA, TX, and FL, they have the highest rate of uninsureds, which means that a significant portion of the electorate would be voting against their own interest if the IM gets repealed (those states would benefit most from exchanges). But the GOP is trying to capitalize on fear-mongering that the IM is somehow stripping away freedoms, even as they were touting IM as a sign of personal responsibility just a few years ago before President Obama made it part of the health care reform package.

As it is, some states are likely to drag their feet on the Medicare expansion.

Why would states reject the expansion of Medicaid? For some, it might be that the expanded program means a larger chunk of funding that the state must provide to cover its share of Medicaid costs (Medicaid is only partially funded by the federal government; between 2014 and 2022, the federal government ends up paying for $931 billion and the states $73 billion toward the costs of the expanded Medicaid). For some others, we have to question a possible motivation that simply won’t countenance additional federal “welfare” to poor people—and believe you me, an income of 133 percent of the federal poverty level, roughly $30,700 for a family of four, is poverty no matter how you define it.  

So the court said the federal government couldn’t bully the states into participating in the expanded coverage by threatening all of their Medicaid funding. Republicans around the country are crowing that their states will opt out against, in the words of the governor of Alabama, Robert Bentley, “an overreach by the federal government that creates more regulation, bureaucracy, and a dramatic increase in costs to taxpayers.”

ProPublica hints at what we think will actually happen. Like the stimulus, when Republican governors huffed and puffed that they would turn down the federal moneys, in the end, nearly all of the stimulus refuseniks accepted the federal dollars, and those that didn’t were generally overruled by their legislatures, even one governor named Sarah Palin. Don’t bet on states telling poor families that middle class people can get coverage under the PPACA, but because of a governor’s ideological pique, they won’t.

Fact checking Obama and Romney on health care claims.

For those keeping score, the following claims were deemed false:
* Obama has stated some form of "if you're happy with your health insurance, you'll be able to keep it." Nothing in the law states that you will be able to keep your plan; employers can change plans as they see fit (that's no change to the existing system in place)
* Romney's claims that the ACA will add to the deficit are false; it's based on the CBO's worst case scenario, while the CBO middle range figures expect it to cut the deficit over time - assuming that the law doesn't change over time.

True:
* to a degree, Obama's claims that Americans will see rebates for costs already paid. It will be a modest amount for some of those affected by overpayments over time.
* Romney's claims that the ACA will mean $500 billion in tax hikes, though most of that amount falls on high income earners, including $200 billion from additional Medicare payroll tax.
* partially true that the provisions relating to dependents 26 and younger have meant millions have gotten insurance. The figure is probably closer to 3 million, though one study puts it above 6 million (the figure Obama cites).

I'd put this in the indeterminate range:
* Romney's claims that the ACA will kill jobs. It does mean people are more likely to leave the workforce, but not for reasons Romney states. People will no longer continue working because they'll have access to health insurance outside jobs. That potentially opens the door to new employees and more job movement - not necessarily a bad thing. It doesn't reflect that jobs will be destroyed because of the ACA.

Mitt Romney Takes Idiocy To New Level

At a campaign rally in Las Vegas yesterday, presumptive GOP nominee Mitt Romney proposed a constitutional amendment that would make anyone who does not have a business background as ineligible for the White House as if they had been born in Kenya.

“I was speaking with one of these business owners who owns a couple of restaurants in town,” Romney said. “And he said ‘You know I’d like to change the Constitution, I’m not sure I can do it,’ he said. ‘I’d like to have a provision in the Constitution that in addition to the age of the president and the citizenship of the president and the birthplace of the president being set by the Constitution, I’d like it also to say that the president has to spend at least three years working in business before he could become president of the United States.‘”

Romney continued: “You see then he or she would understand that the policies they’re putting in place have to encourage small business, make it easier for business to grow.

That's right folks, he'd make someone like Dwight Eisenhower, Teddy Roosevelt, or even recent GOP candidates like John McCain, Mike Huckabee, or Rick Santorum ineligible to run for President because they lack so-called business experience.

Of course, this comes on the heels of Romney's courting of birther Donald Trump, so this isn't all that surprising. He's pandering to the extremists and thinks this is a winning strategy to win in November. It might help solidify his base, but it wont help him sway moderates or independents on which this election will depend (as it always done).

Far from moderating his positions to pull votes from the center, it seems that Romney is sticking to the hard right.

Romney's pushing this nonsense in an attempt to sway people on the economic conditions facing the nation, but his business experience isn't exactly the most sterling example of job creation. Bain Capital - the venture capital firm where he worked - was interested in making money for the firm - not job creation. Jobs were frequently killed in acquisitions and consolidations made by the firm. Creative destruction to be sure - someone made money on the transactions, but it doesn't help create jobs by shuttering factories.

President Obama Comes Out In Favor of Gay Marriage

President Obama has announced that he now supports gay marriage. That's a huge turnaround from his prior stance on the issue, and he does so at a time when the civil rights of gays and lesbians are under assault from social conservatives who think that they should be imposing their religious views on others.

I think he saw the reaction garnered from what VP Joe Biden and Sec. Arne Duncan said in support of gay marriage.

It was the right thing to do because it goes towards equal rights and equal protections under the law.

However, this has political ramifications going into November's presidential elections. While it would reinforce his support, it can also serve to energize the GOP base to support Mitt Romney to thwart potential changes in federal law and policy that could help the GOP in rallying the so-cons against him in battleground states.

Delegate Math

The GOP seems to still have issues with Mitt Romney and conservatives continue splitting votes between Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich, but despite the lackluster performance by Romney, the math remains in his favor for an uncontested convention. He's going to be the nominee despite the protestations by Santorum and others.

Here's how it breaks down.

There are 2,286 delegates at stake and it takes 1,144 to win the nomination. Thus far, Romney has won 455 and Santorum has won 199 to Gingrich's 117. Ron Paul has won 64. That means that 1557 delegates remain to be divided up. Even if Rick Santorum wins 60% of the remaining delegates, he'd fall short by 11 (11.2) to capture the nomination. He'd only manage 1,133.2 if he wins 60%. He hasn't done that well in the popular vote overall, and he would have to do so much better than he has to date that it's inconceivable.

The math is even worse for Gingrich. He'd have to win more than 66% of the delegates remaining.

Not going to happen. Neither has any chance based on prior performance, and with Southern states splitting votes between Gingrich and Santorum, all Romney has to do is stay the course and he wins by default.

Super Tuesday Scorecard

I see that the media outlets are busy saying that Mitt Romney didn't score the knockout blow yesterday - even though he won 5 races and was the leader in two others. Rick Santorum won three (and close behind to Romney in Ohio), while Newt Gingrich could only manage to win his nominal home state of Georgia (though not in Virginia, where he currently lives because he couldn't be bothered to get sufficient petitions to get on the ballot in time).

Because of the way the GOP is apportioning votes in most of these states, a win matters, but if you come in 2d you can still pick up delegates. That's allowed Santorum to hang around as much as he has, but the numbers work against everyone but Romney at this point. Romney has racked up 2-3 times as many delegates as everyone else, and the ability to overcome that advantage is narrowing. While there are a bunch of winner-take-all primaries in April, the chances that Gingrich or Santorum could sweep those are slim and none - and slim left town.

Gingrich continues soldiering on claiming that he's going to stay in the race until the convention, but even he's got to know that he's toast. Even his win in Georgia comes with caveats - he might come away with less than half the delegates (because of the proportional delegation rules in effect). No chance at all. Santorum may think he's got a chance, but the statistics run against him as well.

He didn't do badly, but he didn't score enough points to claim any advantage over Romney going into upcoming primaries. It leaves Romney with the advantages of money and delegates pledged thus far. And that's more than sufficient to stay frontrunner and push towards the nomination.

The Repercussions of Rick Santorum's Comments About CPAC Straw Polls

Conservative Republicans held their annual CPAC conference over the weekend, and it was a motley crew of assorted extremist statements, racists, and wackjobs rubbing shoulders with the presidential candidates, including Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum.



The CPAC also held a straw poll, in which Mitt Romney won by a 38-31 margin over Santorum. Santorum's response to that is particularly enlightening and troubling all at once. Santorum claims that Romney bought the CPAC straw poll win by busing in voters.

“You have to talk to the Romney campaign on how many tickets they bought,” Santorum said on CNN’s “State of the Nation.” “We’ve heard all sorts of things.”

Santorum said it was within the rules for candidates to buy tickets for supporters and cart them in specifically to vote for their chosen candidate.

“We didn’t do that. We don’t do that. I don’t try to rig straw polls,” he said.

Santorum said his primary wins in Missouri, Minnesota and Colorado last week were the true tests of who the GOP electorate wants.

“Our people turned out. We didn’t have to pay them to turn out. . . . They are enthusiastic about our campaign,” Santorum said on CNN.

Team Romney said their candidate won three separate contests on Saturday, besting Santorum 38 to 31 in the conservative CPAC straw poll; placing first in Maine’s caucuses with 39% to Ron Paul’s second-place finish of 36%, and topping CPAC’s national survey of conservative voters.

“Rick Santorum has a history of making statements that aren’t grounded in the truth,” Romney spokeswoman Andrea Saul said in a statement to the Daily News.

Santorum needs to say and do anything to maintain any kind of momentum. CPAC chose Romney, who has been perceived as being more moderate by the media, and that's a shot at Santorum and the other GOP pretenders that they've got a chance at the nomination.

Did Romney buy votes and/or bus in voters to participate in the straw poll and is this something that candidates regularly do? Well, according to Santorum if the conservatives who showed up voted for Mitt, they were bought.

There is really nothing to substantiate Santorum's comments other than wishful thinking, but it also speaks to just how one shouldn't count straw polls here or even in the races that Santorum won over the prior weekend. They are as much about organization skills as they are about genuine preferences.

If you take the CPAC poll at face value, then there appears to be nothing standing in the way of a Romney nomination. He's got both Santorum and Newt Gingrich beat among conservatives, and he does better among moderates and other demographic sectors than his opponents. It shores up his numbers among conservatives and it becomes a self-fulfilling result; by winning the CPAC straw poll, it convinces other conservatives that voting for Romney is acceptable and palatable despite the protestations to the contrary by Gingrich or Santorum. That, in turn, leads to those conservatives voting for Romney going forward.

However, if the CPAC straw poll was nothing more than a popularity contest, the results of which were determined by who was able to bus in more supporters, then it doesn't particularly address whether there's a real groundswell of support or whether it's a manufactured result in favor of Romney. Why anyone would bother to give the CPAC straw poll any credence if it can be manipulated in such a fashion; but the answer to that is that candidates see the utility of a poll that can be bent to their own will and needs.

Either way, Santorum's sounding like he's got sour grapes and is up against a candidate who does a better job of campaigning than he does.

The State of the Race

Just when you begin to think that things will settle down and Mitt Romney will move on towards the nomination handily, along comes the Minnesota and Colorado caucuses and the nonbinding primary in Missouri to reveal just how fractured the GOP is right now.

Rick Santorum won all three races yesterday, and while the results were nonbinding, Santorum will use them as a repudiation of Romney's claims that he's the frontrunner.

The triple result amounted to a stinging denial of Mr. Romney’s candidacy from three states where Republicanism is defined by the evangelicals and Tea Party adherents he has struggled to court this year.

His disappointing night notwithstanding, Mr. Romney goes into the next round of primaries and caucuses much better financed than his opponents in what will be much more of a nationwide campaign, capped off by the 11 Super Tuesday competitions on March 6. But the enthusiasm in the race is no longer his alone; his front-runner’s label appears to have lost its shine.

Mr. Santorum’s victory in Missouri was symbolic. The vote will not affect the awarding of delegates, which will be decided at district and state conventions later this year. But more Republicans participated in the Missouri primary than in the Nevada caucuses. And his victory in Colorado was a genuine upset in a state that Mr. Romney easily carried in 2008.

Combined with the victory in Minnesota, it gave him an important lift that his campaign hoped would translate into an infusion of new donations and support from the conservative Republican voters — evangelicals and Tea Party adherents — who have told pollsters all year that they are searching for someone whom they view as a true conservative.

The victories were Mr. Santorum’s first since the Iowa caucuses on Jan. 3 — a victory awarded only after the fact. And he used them to reassert himself as the leading insurgent challenger to Mr. Romney, though he told cheering supporters at his headquarters in St. Charles, Mo., that he was setting his sights higher than that.

“I don’t stand here to claim to be the conservative alternative to Mitt Romney,” Mr. Santorum said after thanking God for getting him through the “dog days” of the campaign and the illness of his daughter Bella. “I stand here to be the conservative alternative to Barack Obama.”

Newt Gingrich was all but a footnote yesterday and appears that his shelf-life as the alternative to Romney is over. Once again, Gingrich was not on the ballot and will be setting his sights on Ohio during Super Tuesday next month. That's a long time to wait, and both Santorum and Romney will have added to their tallies in the meantime.

Mitt Romney Wins Decisively In Florida; Newt Gingrich Promises To Continue Campaign

Despite getting walloped by Mitt Romney in Florida by a decisive 46-32 margin (Ron Paul and Rick Santorum were barely evident and had already conceded the winner-take-all state and had moved on to Colorado and Nevada campaigning), Newt Gingrich is still hopeful that he can win the nomination.

Last night, he stood before a podium with "46 states" emblazoned on it all the while talking about how he's going to fight Romney straight through to the nomination across all 46 remaining states:



Problem for Newt is that there aren't 46 states left for him. He's only got 45.

Gingrich's campaign failed to get on the Virginia ballot, meaning he's going to be shut out there come Super Tuesday. While he thinks that he can make up for it by doing well in his former state of Georgia, that's a significant delegate swing in favor of Romney. In fact, it's a 100 point swing. That's nearly 10% of the delegates needed to win the nomination.

Add to that the fact that the seven states up for grabs in February aren't likely to support Gingrich over Romney. That includes Maine (24 delegates); Nevada (28 delegates); Colorado (36 delegates); Minnesota (40 delegates); Arizona (29 delegates); and Michigan (30 delegates).

It's conceivable that Romney takes above 75% of those delegates going into Super Tuesday (considering the possibility for proportional delegations). It would give Romney a commanding lead and one that would give him momentum and make it all but impossible for Gingrich to continue past Super Tuesday.

Spaced Out

Newt Gingrich gave a speech in Florida where he indicated that he would oversee the construction of a manned US space platform on the Moon by 2020.

He's hardly the first to consider a return to the moon and go beyond towards Mars and the outer planets. But because this is the Space Coast that has seen lost jobs due to the end of the space shuttle program, they're willing to grasp at straws in the hopes that some jobs could come back as a result of a renewed manned space program. It's also a political ploy in the hopes that he can gain votes over Mitt Romney.

Yet, it's a rather ambitious timeline considering the fact that President George W. Bush first indicated an intention to send a manned mission to Mars and unveiled the Constellation program. That program would provide the heavy-lift capabilities needed to send men to the Moon and then to Mars. President Obama likewise called for a return to the moon, but budgetary concerns have all but scrapped the Constellation program's manned components.

The Ares rocket system has undergone some tests, including the heavy rocket launch into Earth orbit, but no testing has been carried out for the systems designed to send men back to the moon. Even then, those systems were largely based on a combination of space shuttle and Apollo-type technologies (modern variations of the shuttle solid rocket boosters and a J-2X engine based on the engines that powered the Saturn boosters).

How can Gingrich claim that he can return the US to the moon in the number he claims when he's pulling the plug on all kinds of spending.

After all, this is the same Republican party that has called for reductions in spending that will saddle the NOAA with a diminished fleet of satellites critical for weather forecasting.

Indeed, Gingrich has repeatedly claimed that NASA has squandered billions of dollars over the years. His solution to the money crunch is to cut even more fat and to offer incentives to businesses to reach back to the Moon. Incentives still require money, and pose all kinds of questions over what incentives would be sufficient to draw businesses into such risky ventures.

The infrastructure and equipment costs for a project of this size are considerable. The costs for a manned moon mission would still be in the billions of dollars that the country can't seem to allocate for such purposes.

There's no timeline in place for a return of a US manned space program through NASA, though several private programs are in the process of testing equipment that could return Americans to space without having to hop aboard the Russian Soyuz rocket systems. The SpaceX and Dragon systems are undergoing testing, but they are incapable of the heavy-lift missions needed for a manned mission to the Moon.

Those are the two programs that are furthest along in returning Americans to space. Everything else is still on the drawing board.

South Carolina Prefers Ethically Challenged Gingrich Over Monied Romney

It's rather surprising how quickly voters in South Carolina have shifted preferences from Mitt Romney to Newt Gingrich. They're all too quick to ignore all of Gingrich's flaws - particularly the fact that his fellow Republicans essentially booted him from power as Speaker of the House over an ethical flap that resulted in a $300,000 fine. Since he left Congress, Gingrich has been a lobbyist and while he claims to be a historian, his fact-challenged rants and revisionist history over his own follies and foibles has actually won over South Carolina voters who once again found someone to vote for other than Mitt Romney.

Romney hasn't helped himself by several poor performances at the last two debates. Particularly, he hasn't answered key questions about his finances in a way that would silence the opposition. He's belatedly decided to release his tax returns, and also noted that his effective tax rate (the rate that he actually pays, rather than the rate that his tax would be computed under the statutory rate) is roughly around 15%. That's primarily because of his reliance on capital gains rather than wages.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with this from a legal standpoint; Romney worked for a venture capital firm, and his compensation was all legitimate (though one can question whether his position and company created or destroyed jobs through decisions made by Romney and his coworkers). But by obfuscating on his tax returns and how much money he made, he created a problem for himself that was exploited by the likes of Gingrich and others.

Romney could have thwarted this kind of attack by going on the offensive. He should have defused the situation by claiming that not only will he release the tax returns, but that there's absolutely nothing wrong with making money. Making money is what our nation does quite well most of the time and the job of a venture capitalist is to decide how to spend large sums of money on companies that may or may not pan out. Gingrich and the other candidates who were questioning Romney's taxes are showing anti-capitalistic tendencies by claiming that he didn't pay enough in taxes even as they all rail against high taxes.

The compensation for those decisions is quite often not in dollars, but in stock in the companies in which the venture capital firm invests in. Thus, the venture firm and its employees often get compensated in stock - capital gains, rather than wages.

Rick Perry Drops Out Of 2012 Race; Endorses Newt Gingrich

It shouldn't be all that surprising that Rick Perry is dropping out of the race for President.

The announcement from Mr. Perry was expected to inject fresh momentum into Mr. Gingrich’s efforts to emerge as the leading alternative to Mitt Romney. It was unclear whether Mr. Perry would campaign with Mr. Gingrich in the final two days of the primary campaign here.

Mr. Perry will not participate in the debate here on Thursday evening, an aide said, and will make the announcement to supporters and contributors in South Carolina at an 11 a.m. news conference. He had been aggressively campaigning across the state, hoping that the first Southern primary would revive his candidacy.

It was the second time that Mr. Perry had signaled that he would leave the race. After a poor showing in the Iowa caucuses two weeks ago, Mr. Perry said that he was returning to Texas to reassess his campaign, but he decided to press ahead in South Carolina.

Mr. Perry was in the single digits in recent polls here, but his withdrawal from the race could affect the outcome of the primary by giving conservative voters one fewer alternative. He had been appealing heavily to South Carolina’s evangelical voters.

The decision by Mr. Perry, which was first reported by CNN, narrows the Republican field to four candidates.

Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker who is competing with Rick Santorum to emerge as the conservative alternative to Mitt Romney, has urged Mr. Perry and Mr. Santorum to drop out of the race to coalesce support among conservatives.

He repeatedly failed to make a positive impact on voters despite having a major warchest. Perry's campaign never could figure out a ground game and Perry's repeated gaffes, most notably failing in a debate to remember the three cabinet departments that he would eliminate as President showed that he wasn't ready for prime time.

Perry says that he'll endorse Newt Gingrich for president, which will not come as much of a surprise since the social conservatives are all scrambling to find which candidate remaining can challenge Mitt Romney for the nomination. I don't think that Perry's endorsement will count for much, as Gingrich is still lagging behind Romney significantly in polls in the next round of states.

The candidates remaining in the campaign trying to topple Mitt Romney besides Gingrich are Rick Santorum and Ron Paul. Paul's support tops out at no more than 20% in any of the states where he's competitive, and Gingrich has pretty much signaled that he will stay in the race if only to smear Romney at every opportunity. Like Paul, Santorum's best showing was in Iowa and is expected to be nothing more than a footnote in upcoming primaries.

Thus, at this point, the idea of endorsements and shifting support among conservatives is all about jostling for the scraps and trying to force Romney to move even further to the right. That is a political maneuver that is fraught with danger particularly since candidates need to be able to tack to the center during the general election in the attempt to gain independents and moderates. If the GOP nominates a more conservative candidate (say Santorum or Gingrich), it would most assuredly result in an Obama landslide, precisely because the GOP extremist positions, on everything from global warming to creationism and religion in the classroom, is antithetical to what moderates and independents want in their candidates. It would marginalize the GOP in a way that hasn't been seen in generations. Paul's chances for a nomination are even lower, because his libertarian positions don't jibe with the GOP positions and appeal to an even smaller percentage of people - to say nothing of Paul's racist and anti Semitic past (those newsletters simply cannot be ignored).

Another Lagging GOP Candidate Drops Out

If you blinked, you might have noticed that Jon Huntsman was running for President. His GOP campaign never amounted to much, and it is now over. Huntsman simply couldn't get his message across to GOP voters who were far more conservative than Huntsman.

Huntsman will now throw his support to Mitt Romney, and GOP conservatives will continue looking for the anti-Romney to throw their support to stop the Romney steamroller from taking over. Neither Newt Gingrich nor Rick Santorum are lighting up the conservative votes and there isn't much excitement among voters generally. Everyone, including the candidates themselves, seem resigned to a Romney nomination and are simply going through the motions. However, Gingrich is looking to do all he can to smear Romney because of personal animus.

Newt Gets No Love From Fellow Republicans

Delusions of grandeur and an overly inflated ego are what Newt Gingrich is all about. That's not just my assessment, but those of Republican Peter King, who represents parts of Queens and Long Island. He was among the Republicans who came in the class of 1994 that led Newt to become Speaker of the House.

“What I don’t get is why anybody is surprised by anything this guy does,” Rep. Peter King was saying yesterday afternoon, on his way to a Fordham-St. Joseph’s basketball game. “All Newt ever cared about was Newt. He’s the single most narcissistic guy I’ve ever met in politics — and boy is that ever saying something.”

Pete King, a Republican out of the 3rd Congressional district, out of Nassau and Suffolk counties, and somebody who was right there when Gingrich was Speaker of the House, was just getting started.

“(Gingrich) puts himself in a different universe from everybody else,” King said. “He actually does compare himself to de Gaulle and Churchill, and Reagan. And Margaret Thatcher. I believe the guy is suffering from some messiah complex, one where he believes it’s his destiny to save America and lead America.

“I know the guy a long time, and I can tell you that he absolutely doesn’t care if bringing Romney down destroys his own party. And remember something about these attacks: They aren’t coming from the left, whatever liberal wing there is in our party. They’re coming from a right-wing conservative like Gingrich. It would be like Democrats attacking Obama on health care.

“But Romney’s campaign hits Newt in Iowa, and now he’s willing to pull the whole house down on top of Romney and everybody else to get back at him. So at least one thing about the guy never changes: He can’t take it. When he was Speaker, he’d say anything he wanted about Democrats, call them corrupt and evil. Then one of them would come back at him, and he’d cry.”

Gingrich is a smug phony. So are those just discovering his true character, what a political scrub he is and always has been, even as he wants you to think he is smarter than everybody else in the room. Rick Perry joins Gingrich in these attacks on Romney now, talking about “vulture capitalism.” But Perry is like some third goon in on a hockey fight. He didn’t have the guts or the brains to go after Romney this way until Gingrich did.

Gingrich is more than willing to damage what chances the Republican party has to win in November all because he thinks he is entitled to win the nomination over Romney and thinks that Romney has done him wrong. Newt can't manage to get ahead of even Ron Paul in the first two races, and yet thinks he's entitled to being a front-runner. His chances keep slipping further and further away, but that's not going to stop Gingrich from continuing his attacks on Romney's business experience while at Bain Capital.

Indeed, Gingrich is doing all he can to turn business experience (something that would ordinarily be considered a positive by Republicans who key in on such experience over political experience or ties) into a negative and making the Democrats' arguments for him.

We'll know more about Gingrich's already less-than-admirable character and judgment after he fails once again in South Carolina's primary. If he does poorly once again, will he pack it in and quit the race, or will he continue to stick around so as to be a thorn in Romney's side? I'm betting on the latter - since Gingrich's oversized ego will not allow him to do anything other than that. He can't admit to himself that he's got no chance to be president and the most he can do is hurt the ambitions of a fellow Republican.

Rounding Up the Iowa Caucus Results

Greets and saluts from the NYC metro area. I see that Santorum lost to Romney by all of eight votes. Not bad for a guy who was seen as too extreme for PA when he was booted by his constituents from the US Senate. Now, he's probably not extreme enough for the Iowa voters but will have his moment in the sun as the anyone but Romney candidate de jour. Meanwhile, Romney probably wasn't extreme enough for Iowa voters, who found themselves splitting their votes for everyone else, rather than giving a thumbs up for Romney who actually spent more money in 2012 than 2008 to lose votes over the 2008 numbers.

Still, all is not completely lost. Perry may have been battered into his senses and will likely drop out in the next few days. Bachmann, whose senses are extraterrestrial, wont have the good sense to drop out, even though her chances remain on the other side of nil (but will at least make for some entertainment value). Gingrich has vowed to stick around - and to stick it to Romney who he despises. That too will be for entertainment value, but Gingrich went from being a contender to also-ran in record time, if you don't count Herman Cain or Rick Perry.

And then there's the crazy uncle, Ron Paul, who will claim he got the youth vote and his 3d place showing will somehow be proof that he's got momentum. Alas, we've seen that from Paul before, and Iowa will be his high water mark (not counting VA, where only Romney and Paul are on the ballot).

The race is Romney's to lose, and he's done just enough to not lose so far. But he hasn't done enough to win either. There's little enthusiasm, and his negatives are starting to show in a big way. The extremists in the GOP are continuing to tout other candidates who are pushing the right wing extremist agenda envelope, and that works against Romney, who has struggled to stay consistent (I know, wild understatement there - he's flip flopping in the breeze) in the hopes of trying to peel off independents and moderates in the general election. But trying to appeal to moderates wont work when the GOP primaries is all about catering to the extremists in the party, and that works no where better than in places like Iowa.

Rick Perry Sues to Get On Virginia Ballot Despite Missing Deadline; Newt Attempting Write-In Campaign

Rick Perry's campaign is a clown circus and this latest episode shows why he doesn't deserve the GOP nomination. He couldn't even be bothered to get on the Virginia ballot. Perry now suing to try and get on the ballot. He claims that the VA election law is too restrictive (even though he's a state's right kind of guy - and Virginia is within its rights to demand that someone trying to get on the ballot must secure signatures from all districts).

Virginia requires that candidates must get 10,000 signatures statewide, including 400 signatures from each of the state's 11 districts. Perry claims that this restriction is unconstitutional, but that shows that Perry is thoroughly clueless.

"Virginia ballot access rules are among the most onerous and are particularly problematic in a multi-candidate election," Ray Sullivan, Perry's communications director, said in a statement.

"We believe that the Virginia provisions unconstitutionally restrict the rights of candidates and voters by severely restricting access to the ballot, and we hope to have those provisions overturned or modified to provide greater ballot access to Virginia voters and the candidates seeking to earn their support," Sullivan said.

What else is Perry's campaign supposed to say and do considering that they failed miserably to put together a ground game to secure the necessary signatures. Getting those signatures requires a ground game, and both Newt Gingrich and Perry failed miserably.

In Gingrich's case, he actually lives in Virginia and he missed the deadline as well. Instead of suing, he's trying to mount a write-in campaign, except that Virginia doesn't allow write-in ballots.

That leaves only Mitt Romney and the lamentable Ron Paul on the ballot in Virginia. Yes, you read that one correctly. Everyone else has ceded Virginia to these two candidates as flawed as they are. And considering that Mitt should win handily, these other numbskulls have given Mitt a 100 delegate advantage (50+ to Mitt, -50 to themselves right out of the gate).

These candidates have only themselves to blame for not getting their acts together - or revealing that they're not ready for prime time. Only Romney's campaign has put together a national campaign and secured spots on all state ballots - the minimum national ground game necessary to run for President. Everyone else trails badly, and the Virginia example shows why everyone else is trailing Romney where it counts.

Another Sign That Romney Will Win GOP Nomination

On the heels of the ongoing exposure of Ron Paul's racist and anti Semitic newsletters and vile connections to white supremacists, we're now seeing just how badly run the campaigns of Mitt Romney's opposition truly is.

Both Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry have both missed the deadline to get on the Virginia ballot. How insanely stupid is that? That's massive levels of fail all rolled up into a ball.

For Gingrich, the stupid/fail is compounded by the fact that this is the state in which he currently resides.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has failed to qualify for Virginia’s March 6 Republican primary, a development that complicates his bid to win the GOP presidential nomination.

“After verification, RPV has determined that Newt Gingrich did not submit required 10k signatures and has not qualified for the VA primary,” the Republican Party of Virginia announced early Saturday on its Twitter website.

That shows just how weak Newt's ground game truly is. He can't even manage to gain the necessary 10,000 signatures needed to get on the Virginia ballot. It's something we saw from Herman Cain as well. Despite how well they polled at various points, the ground game indicated just how incompetent and lacking the campaign operations were.

Rick Perry's in no different position. Not only are his polling figures in the dumps, but he couldn't get the necessary number of signatures either. That's despite all the campaign fundraising and warchest he had put together.

All this inures to Mitt Romney's benefit. Despite all of Mitt's own problems and flip flopping on a wide range of issues, to say nothing of the fact that he's more moderate than the conservatives that rule the roost in the primaries, he's at least managed his campaign better in that he's secured positions on the ballots, rather than letter major states pass him by.

One should know one thing - no ground game = no nomination. Yet, far too many candidates have shown that they don't understand that essential fact.

Romney "Suspends" His Campaign

He's calling it a suspension of his campaign, but he's done. Toast.

He couldn't outlast Mike Huckabee, who is nothing more than a stalking horse for John McCain and drew away conservative voters who might have gone for Romney. It also showed that Romney didn't have anywhere near the support necessary to carry the South (or anywhere else).

It also shows that the pundits had no clue as to what would happen this political season. Some were suggesting that the GOP would have a brokered convention and it would be smooth sailing for Hillary Clinton. That's not how it turned out.

Hillary is in a slugfest with Obama, and it looks like it may go down to the wire, while the GOP has a whole lot of time to figure out how to reorient his campaign to the general election. It gives the GOP valuable time to prepare for the general campaign.

Winners and Losers in New Hampshire

Well, the pundits and media are busy spinning the results from New Hampshire as comebacks for both Hillary Clinton and John McCain.

I think they've got it all wrong.

Let's start with the Democrats. Hillary Clinton didn't actually win the state outright, despite winning the popular vote (which is what the media is focusing on). She tied. The point of these primaries isn't to win the popular vote, but to win enough delegates to win the party's nomination. Take a good look at those results.

Both Obama and Hillary each won nine delegates in New Hampshire. The best way to describe this process is that the primaries are a series of Electoral College decisions, with the popular vote informing the delegates, but each state has its own rules on how the delegates are apportioned.

At this point, she's got more than double Barack Obama's pledged delegates either from the states already contested or those superdelegates who have already announced preferences.

This cuts against all the nonsense about how Hillary was on the ropes or was going to drop out of the race that was spewed immediately after Iowa where Obama won in a tight race.

It means that Obama did what he needs to do, which is keep picking up delegates and staying close to Hillary. However, it's the perception that Hillary was down and out that was broken - although it was a perception generated by a media that simply has been getting it wrong all along with respect to the primaries.

Now, let's get to the GOP race. For the media, John McCain's win is supposedly about a comeback. Nonsense. Utter bunk. New Hampshire has gone for McCain before, and it's done nothing to help McCain win the nominiation, let alone win the Presidency. McCain has a significant constituency in New Hampshire, but it doesn't translate to the rest of the country.

He still trails Mitt Romney and Huckabee badly in total delegates. Romney still has a lead over Huckabee despite not having won a state - he's winning delegates finishing second in each of the races thus far. The media also has been treating Romney in the same fashion as Hillary - as being on the ropes and reconsidering his position in the race, despite the fact that he's leading in total delegates pledged or won.

Now, some will say that the media influenced the races because they were getting polling data suggesting that Obama would win handily and McCain was in a tight race, but I think that's just 20-20 hindsight. The polls were wrong. I'm not sure why that was the case, but it's not like the polls haven't been wrong (and badly wrong at that) in the past. If your methodologies or selection samples aren't accurate, you're not going to get a representative sample that reflects the voters.

Then, there's the last minute vote switches based on breaking events. Did Hillary's emotional moment have an effect. Perhaps, but there's no real way to break that out.

This race will truly start to shake out after Super Tuesday, when a block of 20 states will get to vote and apportion their delegates. It's only after that point will the race clarify and see who reallyhas an advantage in delegates, strategy, and whether there is any momentum from these early races.

That said, there were some losers last night - John Edwards, who simply can't generate any traction, Fred Thompson, who barely registered with Republicans, and Rudy Giuliani who couldn't overcome the perception that he wasn't really going after New Hampshire voters despite having been to the state more than 40 times and spending more than $2 million on the state.

UPDATE:
Michelle Malkin is on the same page and ripping the spin and punditry that is focusing far too much on the popular vote and not spending nearly enough time on the delegate counts.

UPDATE:
This shouldn't come as a surprise. Bill Richardson has dropped out of the race. Expect him to try and angle for a VP slot for Hillary or Obama.