Jan 03 2012
GOP Blunder In Iowa
OK, so the Iowa caucuses are being held today and everyone is atwitter (literally) about who will win.
The short answer is no one. The result of Iowa will be as follows:
- Whoever wins will win by such a small margin it will be seen as the one who was most popular among all the bad alternatives. It hopefully will not be Romney (Obama-lite)
- Romney’s total support (win or lose) will be a third of the combined “anyone but Romney” vote, continuing to illustrate how little support the man has among conservatives.
- The GOP will look like a weak and possibly worthless alternative to Obama
These are unavoidable results, no matter what spin is applied by the GOP-establishment spinmeisters.
Worse yet, more and more voters will be looking at gridlock in DC as the best answer to a GOP field dominated by the same-old-same-old, life-long politicians. The answer to the DC conundrum is NO MORE DC insiders. Got a surplus of these.
The Tea Party movement wants a sea change in DC. And without an outsider running at all, the next option is to take more ground in the House and Senate and use Obama as a Pinata for 4 more years.
One thing that would be worthwhile is to let a GOP/Tea Party congress stymie Obama, Obamacare, Obama-deficits, and liberal dogma for 4 years. There is now a liberal administration with the following albatrosses to be put on display in congressional hearings:
- Obamacare debacles (numerous, from loss of current insurance to waivers to bankrupting Medicare/Medicaid)
- EPA’s high on CO2 fumes (including the Climategate claims by skeptics, the white wash investigation, the snake oil science, the story of the complete scientific record)
- Obama/Holder pulling back on terrorism threats (leaving us multiple attacks and near misses)
- Gun Runner debacle
- Solyndra/Green Energy scams
- Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac coverup
- Failure of Government Trickle-down stimulus
And there is much more. I am rapidly concluding that having the Obama administration basically on trial for the sins of liberal madness for four years will build the case for an outsider, business-type GOP run in 2014. We have a massive education process to enjoin (both for the voters and the DC Political Industrial Complex). A GOP Congress that begins by cutting our expenditures to fit within our revenues and then suspends all major actions until we review the overall role of government is in the best interest of this country.
The GOP either figures this out or is replaced.
AJ I am in Iowa. No delegtes are chosen today. This caucus serves to weed out the field and not much else. Our state constitution mandates we be first, but being first we are not really picking delegates just warming up the candidates.
As Rush said today the winner of the Iowa caucus was the eventual nominee three times since 1979.
Our caucus is controlled in large part by Evangelicals and their vote being split between three candidates guarantees that probably one will servive to continue on in the national process.
The TV ads are non stop as are the phone calls such that few Iowans even answered their phones in the last week unless like I, they are kind of a political junky.
Used to be the TV ads had to have a break between Political and non political, now the whole two minute commercial period are political ads.
Ron Paul and Mitt Romney account for 45% of them, all vicious attack ads against Newt.
Its obvious who the establishment backed candidate fears.
We cannot afford to NOT replace Obama.
WE ARE ONE SUPREME COURT APPOINTMENT AWAY FROM A LOSS OF OUR SECOND AMENDMENT RIGHTS and every other far left wet dream agenda item.
Too many voters conflate the primaries with the general election. Too many voters don’t realize that the primaries are when the party membership primarily influences party ideology, priorities and platform while the general election tests the strength of those settings in the republic. Ron Paul is providing a strengthening push for the libertarian principles that can and do still exist within the GOP. I am not sure what Romney and Newt stand for other than the continued (if perhaps somewhat attenuated) growth of leviathan. But the failure of Santorum and Bachman to gain much traction tends to suggest that the GOP is slowly (if not completely) breaking free of the fundamentalist take over of the late 60’s and dominance up until the turn of the century.
The GOP is self destroying.
There are reports that the votes will be counted tonight in a secret location.
This only will strengthen the perception that the GOP (establishment) is screwing the conservative base (again).
No secret location for my precinct. We were invited to watch the count.
8% of population turned out
300 caucus goers
Santorum 142
Mitt 57
Paul 44
Newt 40
Perry 14
Bachman 3
The evangelicals carried the day again and their talking points were to coalesce behind santorum rather than split the vote. Looks like it worked.
I thought Newt was the most electable but he will survive, Perry and Bachman need to save their money or give it back to the GOP and drop out.
it ain’t 2014, AJ, it’s 2016 before we get another shot at this. By that time the Supreme Court will have been hopelessly corrupted and it will be far too late for even the best President to make anything better.
In a nutshell, if Obama stays in power this time then it’s all over. No other elections after this will matter, since there will be no more choices to be made. All the choices will have been made, both for us and for all future generations.
in other news, how the hell can the Hokie’s outplay a shamefully bad Michigan team for an entire half and then hand them the lead with a total collapse in the last minute of the half? This shoulda been Virginia with a 21 – 0 lead, instead it’s Michigan, 10 – 6!
oh well I’m still smilin’ about my Baylor Bears putting up nearly 800 yards of offense in the Alamo Bowl!
WWS I agree about the Hokies game. They got screwed on that review of the TD in OT… I don’t even know why they have the officials review, they seem to get it wrong about as often as they get it right.
and that Baylor game, that was a real defensive showcase wasn’t it? on both sides of the field…I guess they just gave the defensive teams the night off.
[…] 8 vote winning margin means nothing in this non-binding caucus. What is important is how my predictions from yesterday proved to be accurate: Whoever wins will win by such a small margin it will be seen as the one who […]