Quote of the Day
Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see.
Arthur Schopenhauer
Congratulations to the Alabama Crimson Tide:
2012 NCAA Football Champs!
I'm still smarting from Alabama's knocking Texas franchise quarterback Colt McCoy out of action early in the NCAA football title game 2 years ago, but I have to give props to the Crimson Tide for shutting out LSU with only one intrusion into its own territory (midway through the fourth quarter) in probably the most dominant defensive effort I've seen in a long time, 21-0.
New Hampshire Primary Eve
There's something charming about the Dixville Notch ritual of casting the first votes of the New Hampshire primary every four years. The poll consensus has Mitt Romney at nearly 40%, nearly 2-1 over likely runner-up Ron Paul, with Huntsman, Santorum, Gingrich, and Perry. (Note that New Hampshire voters have an independent streak and like to confound the pundits.)
What the polls continually show is that only two GOP candidates show as competitive right now against Obama: Romney and Paul. For example, CBS News has Romney with a 2-point lead and Paul at a 1-point deficit. The others show at roughly a 7-point deficit. Gallup tracking shows Romney breaking to 30%, roughly 12 points over a virtually tied Gingrich and Santorum. What is rather interesting is that Gingrich has seemed to level off his correction near 20%; Bachmann, Cain, and Perry found themselves dropping back to roughly half that level.
Playing the pundit here, I think Huntsman's NH is like 2008 Giuliani's Florida. Huntsman has put all his eggs in one basket. I think he needs to pull above an expected third-place to build any chance of momentum going in South Carolina and Florida. The problem he is having trying to position himself to the left of Romney is that his appeal to moderates and independents is not pulling him any closer to Obama than the remaining conservatives in the race. If you don't have the conservative activists at your back and you don't win the electability point, I think you're done. He's got to have a Santorum-like buzz following Iowa to have any shot at placing in the money in South Carolina. The problem is that Romney and Gingrich will likely place the first two places in South Carolina no matter what happens tomorrow, and I expect Santorum or Paul to finish third. Perry will also likely make his last stand in South Carolina.
If Huntsman finishes out of the money, he's likely out. If he eclipses Ron Paul for runner-up, I think he'll probably hold out until Florida. I think a lot depends on the nature of any third-place finish and how much of the vote Romney gets. If Romney wins pulling away (say, 40% or better), Huntsman will probably pack it in. If Romney wins by less than 10 points over the runner up, it'll probably keep the other candidates' hopes alive.
Romney As Ruthless Ax Man?
I have to make a few comments about Gingrich's scorched-earth policy towards Romney (and other GOP candidates have picked up the same theme), painting Romney from his Bain Capital days as the ruthless job killer, hacking away at firms like a "Chainsaw" Al Dunlap. Romney should not be surprised; I believe that John McCain made a similar point during the 2008 California debate, to Romney's audible disgust. Mitt Romney's response to Gingrich's populist attack--that Gingrich seems to have a problem with the free market system--is on target, but I think when you've had 4 years of recession and jobless recovery to ponder a response, you should be able to knock that fastball down the middle into the upper deck of the ballpark.
I have mixed feelings over the raising of this issue, although you can bet your life Obama will repeatedly raise it this fall campaign (and so Romney should be prepared). Primary election controversies often spill over into the general campaign: remember Gore's use of the Massachusetts prison furlough program issue (and, indirectly, Willie Horton, whom notoriously engaged in vicious crimes while on furlough)?
If you think Barack "Class Warfare" Obama isn't lusting over the chance to debate a multi-millionaire whom allegedly has made a fortune from cutting labor costs from companies, you underestimate the Chicago School of Politics.(Still, you have to admire how the product of the Chicago political machine was able to fool an entire generation of young people to believe that one of the most partisan politicians around would usher them into a "hope and change" post-partisan political world; as Dr. Phil would say, how's that working for you? Oh, there may still be the true believers out there whom sincerely buy into Obama's long list of excuses, including finger-pointing the GOP for failing to rubber-stamp Democratic partisan bills: go figure!)
Doctors often have to make difficult decisions like amputating life-threatening damaged limbs; it's not because they derive some sadistic pleasure out of it, but the priority is to save the life of a patient. When Mitt Romney was involved in turnaround stories, he made tough decisions to save companies that otherwise would have gone out of business--meaning EVERYONE'S job would have been lost. When you have a failing business model, you have to deal with expenses, and for better or worse, one of the biggest expenses for many, if not most companies is worker compensation. Nobody likes doing it; if he made money in the process of saving a business and the remaining jobs that went along with it, so be it: it's a small price to be paid for success. But I seem to recall when Romney turned around parent company Bain & Company (and tossed the founder out of firm management), he accepted a token $1 salary.
But I despise Gingrich for raising the issue. While griping that Romney is a "Massachusetts moderate" and "didn't change anything in Massachusetts" (while Romney vetoed hundreds of expenditures), Gingrich seems to indicate that Romney was anything but moderate in terms of how he conducted his business at Bain. It's rich: the same career politician who cut deals with Bill Clinton is claiming that one-term governor Romney is a failed career politician wannabe. Let's point out that Gingrich wasn't successful in either stopping or in rolling back Bill Clinton's class warfare tax hike, for all the credit he wants to take for balancing the budget that had more to do with Fed easy money policy and the Internet stock market bubble (remember Greenspan's "irrational exuberance"?)
Romney needs to avoid headline-making sound bites like wanting to bet Perry $10K or use the terminology of wanting to "fire" a health insurance vendor; in a struggling economy, the last thing he wants is Obama painting him as a Cadillac-driving, country-club Republican telling the folks they should eat cake. (Just in case: you know those hush-hush Alice in Wonderland parties, the estimate that the cost of private school for the two Obama daughters is almost $60,000 a year, Obama's penchant for playing golf during crises, endless vacations in Martha's Vineyard and Hawaii, and raising campaign funds on taxpayer-underwritten trips? You know what to do with those and related points, right?)
Political Humor
"Romney doesn't talk about it much but his great-grandfather in the 1800s moved his family to Mexico to avoid being prosecuted for polygamy. And for the chimichangas." - Jimmy Kimmel
[You know what that means. I'll bet you $10,000 that Rick Perry will still let the Romney sons enroll in Texas state universities, just like everyone else's great-great-grandfather whom also lived in Mexico: because Perry has a heart...]
"Jewelry from the Titanic will be auctioned off here in New York to mark the Titanic’s 100th anniversary. Yeah, it’ll be weird when your wife’s like, “Honey, these earrings are beautiful, where’d you get them?” “Some dead woman who drowned!”" - Jimmy Fallon
[Next week marks Obama's third anniversary as President. It's the leather anniversary; you know what that means: Obama would prefer your wallet.]
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Groups
Styx, "Fooling Yourself"
