re: South Carolina

[angryuser]

heh. As a right wing blogger put it:

SOUTH CAROLINA SATURDAY NIGHT: Where Conservatives Come Together to Answer the Burning Question...

"Is it possible to go from shooting ourselves in the foot to shooting ourselves in the roof of the mouth?"

And their answer is a resounding:
"YES WE CAN!"

My favorite take on it:


This primary season just got entertaining. 

[Mudd]

Obama is high-fiving himself.

[angryuser]

Obama is high-fiving himself.

unsure whether this is a PS job or not, but is probably not far off the truth regardless.

[Cap'n Ken]

Consider the options:

A vote for Romney is a vote for a completely boring general election campaign and maybe an 80% chance Obama is re-elected.

A vote for Gingrich is a vote for a fantastically awesome general election, the most engaging and contentious debates you've ever seen, a 99.5% chance of Obama getting re-elected ... and a 0.5% chance of seeing what the hell kind of fun shit would happen if somebody like Newt Gingrich became president.

I know which level I'd be pulling given that choice.

But I think what you're seeing with Gingrich's momentum is primary voters casting a "we're tired of this bullshit" vote. Ron Paul has been too far out there in Crazy Land (idea wise) to ever win anything with his same kind of message, but Gingrich is such a good salesman of that message that the fact he's completely unelectable gets put to the side and people vote for that message. That's quite a talent for oration right there.

It is, though, more than anything a reflection of the piss-poor slate of candidates the Republicans put forth this time.

[ManBearPig]

As someone who does not care for Obama this drives me nuts. On what freakin planet is Gingrich electable?  The GOP is so fucked there are no words.

[insan0]

Romney was never going to win SC, may as well not have even participated.  The mass voting population of SC would NEVER vote for a mormon.

[Cap'n Ken]

As someone who does not care for Obama this drives me nuts. On what freakin planet is Gingrich electable?  The GOP is so fucked there are no words.

I'm also not an Obama fan, but if the GOP is in such condition that the "best" candidate they can put forward is Romney, I'd rather see Obama get re-elected and have a hell of a lot of fun with Newt Gingrich throwing bombs during the general election debates.

[Mudd]

I heard some Gingrich stuff on the news this morning... he claims he's not a great debater, just much better at articulating what the American people want... and big cheers all around. Cracked me up. They all have monumental egos, but his is just ... well, can anyone describe it? I can't.

[Cap'n Ken]

I heard some Gingrich stuff on the news this morning... he claims he's not a great debater, just much better at articulating what the American people want... and big cheers all around. Cracked me up. They all have monumental egos, but his is just ... well, can anyone describe it? I can't.

He's a few things (with the disclaimer that I haven't actually watched much debate / campaign things this year; this is based largely on prior exposure to Newt):

- Very deeply familiar with policy, governmental operations and history as it relates to the federal government.
- Very skilled at forming positions and communicating them in easy-to-understand language and in a style that comes off as common sense.
- Not at all afraid to propose radical change.

Right now that gives him tremendous appeal (enough, it seems, to overcome being Newt Gingrich). He's speaking to and gaining the support of people who want to hear the things he is saying and apart from instances where he says something that gets re-framed as "Newt Gingrich wants poor black kids to be janitors", there's not a lot of challenge and questions coming back. None of the Republicans are going to challenge the concept of drastically reworking and downsizing the federal government.

In a general election, his ideas will be relentlessly picked apart by the Democratic opposition and most of the media. There would be legitimate questions and debate, but more than anything his ideas would be cast in the worst possible light - killing old people, starving children, etc. And when it comes right down to it, a whole lot of people benefit from and sort of like/need this giant federal government and probably really wouldn't want a radical change or downsizing.

But Newt's value might well lie in moving the needle on the idea that maybe we do need to back off of this concept of a giant federal government. That's why Newt in a general election would be so interesting. He wouldn't win, but he would challenge the hell out of Obama and his ideas and if he's hammering the concepts of government reform and right-sizing the federal government, maybe that would show the Republicans that a successful future lies in Newt-like governmental reform not the social crap the party has been mired in.

[georgian]

I know I am ODD and I admit this openly and without shame. BUT...the sngle issue that will win my vote is someone who will abolishe the current income tax system and replace it with a national sales tax. Sure, that will make the unemployment rate spike temporarily as those dead-wood IRS workers will no longer have the entitlement of feeding from the government trough. However, that will mean that every honest worker, government worker, millionaire, pimp and whore will have to pay the same percentage of This will mean a lower dollar coming out of your paycheck that the un-informed lends to the government interest-free for a year just to get that "big" refund check each spring.  At first blush, the detractors of this will say that it will stifle growth and spending. But look what happens with tax refunds and what happened with that mass tax rebate we received a couple of years ago. Most people spend money if they have it in their pocket.

[The Lord of the Jungle]

Saw something from Ezra Klein this morning, talking about how Newt is railing against the Washington elites.  This is a guy who's been inside the Beltway for over 30 years.  That kind of rhetoric will fly in a primary, but not in the general.
 
Still, I see SC as a hiccup (remember, Jesse Jackson once won that state), and Romney as inevitable.

[Cap'n Ken]

Saw something from Ezra Klein this morning, talking about how Newt is railing against the Washington elites.  This is a guy who's been inside the Beltway for over 30 years.  That kind of rhetoric will fly in a primary, but not in the general.
 
Still, I see SC as a hiccup (remember, Jesse Jackson once won that state), and Romney as inevitable.

Newt's not a Washington Insider; he has a lifetime of experience fighting Washington ... often from the inside.

[Gmoney]

Saw something from Ezra Klein this morning, talking about how Newt is railing against the Washington elites.  This is a guy who's been inside the Beltway for over 30 years.  That kind of rhetoric will fly in a primary, but not in the general.
 
Still, I see SC as a hiccup (remember, Jesse Jackson once won that state), and Romney as inevitable.

I dunno - I think Romney's looking a lot less inevitable than he once did.  If the movement conservatives can get over themselves and unite behind a single not-Mitt (which looks like its starting to happen.  Largely depends on how stubborn Santorum wants to be), this whole thing could get interesting...

[Gmoney]

I know I am ODD and I admit this openly and without shame. BUT...the sngle issue that will win my vote is someone who will abolishe the current income tax system and replace it with a national sales tax. Sure, that will make the unemployment rate spike temporarily as those dead-wood IRS workers will no longer have the entitlement of feeding from the government trough. However, that will mean that every honest worker, government worker, millionaire, pimp and whore will have to pay the same percentage of This will mean a lower dollar coming out of your paycheck that the un-informed lends to the government interest-free for a year just to get that "big" refund check each spring.  At first blush, the detractors of this will say that it will stifle growth and spending. But look what happens with tax refunds and what happened with that mass tax rebate we received a couple of years ago. Most people spend money if they have it in their pocket.

I'd be very happy with some kind of tax reform, but just about every proposal for revising the tax code seems to result with the lower incomes shouldering a greater portion of the tax burden than under the current system, and to me, that's a deal breaker.  I might sign on to something like the fair tax if I was convinced it was actually fair.

[Cap'n Ken]

I know I am ODD and I admit this openly and without shame. BUT...the sngle issue that will win my vote is someone who will abolishe the current income tax system and replace it with a national sales tax. Sure, that will make the unemployment rate spike temporarily as those dead-wood IRS workers will no longer have the entitlement of feeding from the government trough. However, that will mean that every honest worker, government worker, millionaire, pimp and whore will have to pay the same percentage of This will mean a lower dollar coming out of your paycheck that the un-informed lends to the government interest-free for a year just to get that "big" refund check each spring.  At first blush, the detractors of this will say that it will stifle growth and spending. But look what happens with tax refunds and what happened with that mass tax rebate we received a couple of years ago. Most people spend money if they have it in their pocket.

I'd be very happy with some kind of tax reform, but just about every proposal for revising the tax code seems to result with the lower incomes shouldering a greater portion of the tax burden than under the current system, and to me, that's a deal breaker.  I might sign on to something like the fair tax if I was convinced it was actually fair.

I don't know that I support sales tax as an alternative, but the "Fair Tax" does, indeed, relieve the tax burden on lower-income people through that "prebate" concept. In concept, whatever a family of whatever size would have to pay in sales taxes on the "essentials" of life would be given back to you. Thus in concept taxes would only arise from discretionary spending.