President ’12

The GOP Three

By Marc Comtois | January 5, 2012 |

Mitt Romney, Ron Paul, Rick Santorum. In some order, they are the three front-runners for the GOP presidential nomination (it looks to me like Perry, Gingrich & Huntsman are just playing out the string or playing spoiler at this point). Here are a few “mixed bag” snippets about each as we set the stage for…

Watching the Iowa Caucus Results Come In

By Carroll Andrew Morse | January 3, 2012 |

I wasn’t going to do this, but I couldn’t help myself… [9:02] With 8% of precints reporting, according to the AP vote total (reported via ABC News) it’s a dead three-way tie Paul 24% Santorum 23% Romney 23%. [9:05] Up to 10% reporting: Paul 24% Romney 24% Santorum 23%. Perry (5th place) single digits at…

Re 3: GOP’s Circular Firing Squad: National (Newt Gingrich) Edition

By Carroll Andrew Morse | December 28, 2011 |

For over half a century now, the norm of American government has been autopilot increases in the size and cost of government. To stop this, before the country goes irreparably broke (if we aren’t there already), someone is going to have to successfully build a consensus around the idea that a different normal is possible.…

Re 2: GOP’s Circular Firing Squad: National (Ron Paul) Edition

By Carroll Andrew Morse | December 28, 2011 |

A key problem with Ron Paul‘s candidacy, indicative of all his others, was by made clear by the biggest unheralded gaffe in the December 15 Sioux City, Iowa Republican Presidential debate, specifically the mess of an answer that Rep. Paul gave on the earmarks he has requested for his district over his Congressional career…The real…

Re: GOP’s Circular Firing Squad: National (Mitt Romney) Edition

By Carroll Andrew Morse | December 28, 2011 |

In a response to Marc’s Presidential primary post from yesterday, commenter Brassband sums up the “electability” case being made for Mitt Romney…To be elected President, a Republican has to be able to appeal to the “persuadable middle” seven or so percent of voters in about seven or eight key states… Romney’s not perfect, but he’s…

GOP’s Circular Firing Squad: National Edition – None of these guys are beyond reproach

By Marc Comtois | December 27, 2011 |

I haven’t committed strongly to any of the GOP presidential hopefuls, mainly because they’re all different flavors of meh. But one of them is going to win and run against Obama. It’s up to the GOP to figure out who has the “best chance” of beating the President. The one thing that has annoyed me…

The Des Moines ABC/Yahoo GOP Presidential Debate, Part 3

By Carroll Andrew Morse | December 11, 2011 |

Here are the traditional liveblogging notes, formatted for readability, that I kept during the latter-half of Saturday night’s ABC News/Yahoo News debate co-sponsored by WOI-TV, The Des Moines Register and Drake University[9:48] George S asks Perry about his describing marital fidelity as an important issue to the Presidential campaign. [9:48] Marriage is a vow to…

The Des Moines ABC/Yahoo GOP Presidential Debate, Part 2

By Carroll Andrew Morse | December 11, 2011 |

The second question in Saturday night’s ABC News/Yahoo News debate co-sponsored by WOI-TV, The Des Moines Register and Drake University opened the most substantive section of the debate. George Stephanopoulos asked about which candidate was the best combination of consistent conservative and most electable. (The question itself was milquetoast. It’s the answers that were good.)…

The Des Moines ABC/Yahoo GOP Presidential Debate, Part 1

By Carroll Andrew Morse | December 11, 2011 |

The first question from last night’s ABC News/Yahoo News debate co-sponsored by WOI-TV, The Des Moines Register and Drake University. (Most of this I was able to upload to Twitter, up until the last two lines, when I succumbed to my technical difficulties). Diane Sawyer salutes all of the candidates’ commitment to Presidential race and…

Appropriate or Not, One Watcher’s Final Score on the Republican Debate

By Carroll Andrew Morse | December 10, 2011 |

I think Newt Gingrich came out ahead, and Ron Paul may have pulled a few people in his direction. People concerned that Mitt Romney and Rick Perry are lacking in something needed to successfully challenge President Obama probably were not terribly reassured, and Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum had some solid base-hits when they needed…