USNews and World Report.  Thomas Jefferson Street Blog. 3/12/2012

2012’s Super PAC Mania Is Just Getting Started

March 12, 2012 RSS Feed Print

http://www.myfoxdc.com/dpp/mornings/mitt-romney-wins-most-states-in-super-tuesday-race-030712

USNews Blog Post 3/9/2012

Barack Obama Should Worry About the Enthusiasm Gap

March 9, 2012 RSS Feed Print

USNews and World Report–Opinion–March 6, 2012

It seems strange that we are in 2012 and the Republicans believe it is in their best interests to rewage the culture wars of the 1960s.

It is true that we are in the midst of contested primaries where the Republican candidates are trying their best to get to the far right of each other. The decision to appeal to those jeering crowds in debates is far from appealing.

Former Sen. Rick Santorum questions women working outside the home and former Gov. Mitt Romney fights not to get outflanked by Santorum on contraception.

This is not a pretty picture: a joke about aspirin between the knees that was told before most of us were born; questioning a college education as “snobbish” (new phrase dictated by Mrs. Santorum); standing with Rush Limbaugh or, at least, not standing up to him when he delivers his vulgar, misogynist lines; taking on gays and lesbians in the military and elsewhere.

The Republicans are rapidly building the reputation as the intolerant party. The Republicans are fighting fights that are settled in law, settled culturally, settled, for sure, among women. They are infuriating younger voters, they are driving a wedge with suburban voters, they are seriously off message with Americans who are concerned about the economy and don’t want to hear candidates railing against “women’s lib.”

That is all so yesterday.

It is very clear that the economy is on the upswing, and if the Republicans are searching for another issue to go after Obama and the Democrats on, trying to ignite a new culture war is probably not their best idea. Barry Goldwater held that “extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice,” this Republican crowd seems to believe that “extremism to rid us of vice [as they define it] won’t deprive us of our liberty.” Goldwater would be appalled by the Santorums and Romneys of the world.

After all, what is next: hemlines? Long hair? Rock n’ Roll music? Freaking out over Mick Jagger at the White House?

The Hill Pundits’ Blog — 3/6/2012

Rush Limbaugh is ridiculous. He is appalling. He is not even close to being believable when he says he was “sincere” in apologizing to Sandra Fluke for calling her a “prostitute” and a “slut.”

Even in his apology, on top of his earlier apology, all he seems to focus on is that he used the wrong “words.” He is only semi-apologizing because his lawyers and his agent and his station manager told him to put it all behind him. They were nervous that more advertisers would continue to flee. Follow the money, folks. As of Monday, nine advertisers had pulled the plug.

My guess is that some of his Republican buddies who parrot his talking points told him to zip it — this is not exactly helping our cause in an election year, Rush! But, of course, they are now lashing out because Democrats are using his outlandish behavior to send out email appeals for political cash. Now, that is a real shocker!

Rush Limbaugh has been a source for division and hate and outrageous behavior in America for far too long. He is not an entertainer; there is nothing entertaining or enlightening about his program. It does not move the nation forward one iota. It does nothing to add clarity or coherence to the political discourse.

He is, of course, free to make his tens of millions doing what he’s been doing year after year. But if any of you believe that he is one bit sorry for his behavior, keep on searching for that Tooth Fairy out there.

OK, so a big sigh of relief was heard from the Republican establishment when Romney squeaked out his victory in Michigan.

Yes, he did it with big margins from the country-club Republicans who make over $100,000 a year in Bloomfield Hills; yes, he did it with his super-PAC and campaign running negative attacks 90 percent of the time and outspending Santorum by at least 2-1; yes, he did it as Santorum was eviscerating his own economic message in the horrendous debate performance and with his talk of “throwing up” over JFK and categorizing President Obama as a “snob” for pushing a college education.

Yes, and of course, Mitt did have that home-field advantage. They love the Romney name in Michigan, or at least the over-60 crowd who vote do!

But here is what the Detroit Free Press editorialized:

“Mitt Romney narrowly escaped humiliation in his home state, and Rick Santorum sustained, at least for another week, his claim to leadership of his fractured party’s Anybody-but-Mitt wing. But it’s hard to know how anyone who cares about the Republican Party’s future — or Michigan’s, for that matter — can distill anything positive from Michigan’s GOP primary verdict or the superficial, rhetorically overheated campaign that preceded it. Still, the duration and intensity of the past month’s intramural bloodletting, and the rhetorical extremes to which each of the leading candidates drove the other, will make it much harder for either to compete for the independent voters that will be decisive in November’s general election.”

The real question is whether the panic attack we have been witnessing these last several months as the primaries and caucuses have unfolded is over, or almost over. Or is it just starting as Romney seems to be gradually and excruciatingly inching toward the nomination?

First, there was Bachmann: a walking disaster as a possible candidate. Then there was Perry — boy, that shooting star burned out fast. Of course, Herman Cain, the non-traditional candidate, was non-traditional for a reason. And Newt Gingrich was electrifying in the sense that he would fry the Republicans. So we are left with Santorum as the alternative to Romney. Even though he wants to have his cake and eat it too on social issues as well as on religion and the culture wars, Republicans know that women and the suburbs would run from him in droves in a general election.

So the panic that all these candidates caused among establishment Republicans is coupled with the dislike that rank-and-file voters have of Romney. This is the “none of the above” factor we are seeing increasingly in polls as Republicans express their unhappiness with the entire field.

There is no question that the state of the economy will surely be a determinative factor in November. After all, if unemployment continues to drop, the economy grows at a faster pace, the stock market keeps going up, investors put money into more start-up businesses, housing continues to stabilize and Americans feel that the nation is getting back on track, Romney has no real argument for his candidacy.

If the verdict is more muddled, then you have a comparison between two candidates. You have a real fight for who stands up for the middle class, for working families, for those who have been hit the hardest by the recession. This is where many worry that Romney’s constant gaffes and tone-deaf responses will kill him (doesn’t care about the poor, likes to fire people, NASCAR owners, several Cadillacs, Bain Capital, not much in speaking fees at $375,000, 13.9 percent tax rate, etc., etc.).

The problem for many voters is that Mitt Romney’s blackboard is almost entirely written after six years of running for president and what they see, they don’t like. Sadly for Romney, there is no eraser that works and his propensity to keep writing on the blackboard is predominantly harmful. Romney’s negatives have skyrocketed and continue to rise; hence the panic.

The difficulty is that hysterical-panic may turn to resignation-panic after Super Tuesday. Assuming Romney wins or buys Ohio, he might be off the ropes. At this stage he has outspent Santorum by 7-1 in that state.

What we are hearing from many Republicans is that Romney is the best we are going to get and we better put a halt to the process now. After all, Romney and his super-PACs have spent over $60 million and he is spending money as fast as he can raise it now. Three more months of this will drain a lot of people dry, and Romney really has no small-donor base. Despite the huge super-PAC potential on the Republican side, Romney needs to have a war chest for November.

The resignation-panic might go up and down as Mitt Romney becomes the accepted candidate, but it is panic nonetheless and reinforces a long lost hope that the Republicans should have been smart enough to come up with a better candidate.

The 2012 Republican Debates Did the GOP More Harm Than Good – Peter Fenn (usnews.com).

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