Maturity begins
when we're content to feel we're right about something,
without feeling the necessity to prove someone else is wrong.
Sydney J. Harris
Santorum, As Expected, Wins Louisiana
Too little, too late. Santorum did better than polls suggested, but it appears to have come at Gingrich's expense. With 99% of the vote counted, Santorum ended up with 49%, Romney was a distant second with 27%, Gingrich had 16%, and Paul 6%. I believe there were 10 delegates at stake, and it appears 9 of them will go to Santorum, whom still trails Romney by better than 2-1 in the delegate hunt.
Although there may be some speculation about a possible Gingrich withdrawal (I think he wants to stay through the Texas primary at the end of May), Santorum's victory is mostly empty: the GOP candidate will easily hold serve this fall in the Deep South, especially Romney. It is unlikely that Santorum would win any of the states that Romney has carried to date. This is not to say Romney would carry all of his states this fall (particularly Obama's home state of Illinois; Massachusetts and Vermont are also unlikely), but pairwise polls repeatedly show Romney doing better than Santorum against Obama.
What this contest really means is that Gingirch has been all but eliminated from the race, and Santorum gets effectively his long-sought one-on-one with Romney. The problem for Santroum is that his social conservative strength now heads into less favorable waters: the social conservatives are strong in the Kansas region and Deep South, but those cards have now played out; most Republicans realize that Santorum's social conservatism is a net loser with moderates and independents--and they want to win.
I've been pointing out for some time that Santorum is the poster child for big spending Republicanism under George Bush (and I've been arguing that Romney should throw George Bush under the bus given Obama's continuation of Bush policies, the Obama campaign's single biggest fear of the Romney candidacy). It is no accident that Santorum lost his Senate reelection by a landslide in 2006, and by any objective standpoint, a vote for Santorum is a vote for the reelection of Barack Obama: there is nothing that he would like better than to rerun the 2006 and 2008 campaigns all over again. Every time Rick Santorum speaks on ANY social issue, it convinces a boatload of suburban Moms and other centrists to give Obama a second chance at the White House. I mean, it's bad enough he's an unprincipled populist conservative, but Santorum has no legitimate administrative experience. I don't understand why Romney campaign hasn't put this guy away by now.
It should be interesting how Gingrich's fellow historians in future years review the quixotic Gingrich run for the White House (and the Romney campaign's puzzling failure to put away a weak field). It's not just the way his initial campaign imploded, but his opponents didn't even seem to make it an issue several months later when Gingrich inherited the swing anti-Romney vote by default from a collapsing Cain candidacy (of course, the Obama campaign noticed and was licking its lips). I thought that Gingrich had largely disqualified himself by his hyperbolic personal reaction to the collapse of his Iowa campaign. Any reasonably intelligent person knew that Gingrich was desperate when he started accusing the Romney campaign of being dishonest for running fairly obvious attacks against him on the House ethics probe and his lucrative consulting agreement with Freddie Mac concluded just before the economic tsunami in 2008.
Gingrich even started misleadingly referencing a column from the (liberal/mainstream) Washington Post critical of the Romney PAC ads--mostly for nitpicking, not substantive reasons. The PAC had used a published estimate of Gingrich's hourly take from the context of his retainer agreement with Freddie Mac. Details of retainers can vary, but basically Freddie Mac was guaranteed access to Gingrich and paid a generous flat fee every month, whether or not he did any work for them. Retainers are probably more common in the legal profession; most professionals charge by the hour--so some reporters sought to estimate if Gingrich's charges were on a hourly invoice vs. retainer agreement. (I don't know how they estimated Gingrich's hours.) But here's the critical point: the Romney PAC didn't make up the number: it was using a published estimate. And certainly Gingrich could have corrected the published estimates on the record at any time and fault the PAC for failing to reference his response. But in fact, the big issue was that Gingrich never contradicted the fact of the relationship or the total amount of retainer fees, and most Republicans do not approve of his prior relationship with Freddie Mac. So Gingrich's real objection was quibbling over the details of payment, but the ad would have worked even if they had simply used the monthly retainer fee. It is useful to note Gingrich's response; instead of answering directly, he's using a liberal newspaper column, hoping that voters would infer that the ad invented a relationship between Freddie Mac and him.
But going further, Gingrich failed to put away Santorum after Santorum's fluke upset win in Iowa. There were plenty of chances as Santorum was unable to follow-up his paper-thin Iowa victory from New Hampshire through Nevada, even after Iowa announced the recount put Santorum over the top. It wasn't until Michigan or so when Gingrich started talking about how the GOP had lost its way on federal spending after he resigned from Congress and noted Santorum's pro-labor votes. It's not clear why Gingrich hadn't done so earlier; perhaps it was a concern that Romney would win by default without a viable non-Romney candidate while Gingrich regrouped his campaign. I don't think Gingrich expected Santorum's hat trick in early February. At that point Santorum led Gingrich 4-1 in non-Romney state wins; even though Gingrich got his home state win on Super Tuesday, Santorum won the other 3 non-Romney states, and then rubbed it in by carrying Alabama and Mississippi, embarrassing Gingrich in his own regional area of strength. Louisiana's drubbing put the nails in the coffin of Gingrich's hopes as the anti-Romney.
With Gingrich hopelessly behind in delegates, Romney and Santorum between them already controlling nearly three-quarters of the delegates needed for the nomination, Gingrich will be mathematically eliminated by the end of April. It's possible that he could hope to stick around just in case one of the front runners was unexpectedly sidelined and forced to withdraw (highly unlikely) or use his delegates to become kingmaker, argue for a plumb speaking role at the convention, influence the party platform and/or negotiate for a VP spot or Cabinet-level position in the new administration.
Jeb Bush's endorsement of Romney is a big deal. I have seen no recent polls in Maryland and DC, but I feel these should be easy pickups for Romney. I'll be interested in seeing any Wisconsin polls in the wake of the Louisiana victory for Santorum, but if the Rasmussen poll (putting Romney up by double-digits) is sustained over the next week or so, I think Romney has a good chance to pull a hat trick a week from Tuesday.
After All, Those Northern European
White Guys All Look Alike...
The Weekly Standard quotes Danish TV host Thomas Buch-Andersen, whom noticed the originality of Obama's rhetoric in the introduction of European leaders:
- Danish prime minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt: "Danes have punched above their weight in international affairs"
- Norwegian prime minister Jens Stoltenberg: "Norway punches above its weight."
- Dutch leader Mark Rutte: "The Netherlands consistently punch above their weight."
Hmmm. Apparently not only do all middle-aged northern European leaders look alike, but they are aggressive trim former middleweight boxers, willing to go up a weight class to take on bigger guys...
I wonder what Cyrano de Bergerac wrote for Obama to say to the ladies during his courtship days... (No teleprompters back then: they probably had to use poster board...)
Shedding Light on American Economic Policy Hypocrisy:
Obama's Lipstick on a Pig: 'Investment' = 'Protectionism'
I need to publish a piece on Obama political spin-to-plain English. There are recurring patterns in Obama's rhetoric that are easily recognized. For example, he'll often deny that he's saying something before actually saying it. He's tacitly assume what is to be proven. He'll co-opt the terminology of his political opposition and then engage in policy bait-and-switch: weakened, innocuous policies inoculating against serious, overdue fiscal and regulatory reform.
It takes chutzpah to argue given public "investment" (i.e., protectionist measure meant to shield domestic market players from their global competition)--including subsidies (including over $2B a year just from the Department of Energy), discounted loan rates and loan guarantees (like those given to Solyndra), various industry-friendly sweetheart deals in environmentally-conscious states (e.g., California), that the US solar industry and its government sponsors have any moral standing to complain about Chinese competition. And just to point out a few inconvenient truths to the Hypocrite-in-Chief:
- the American solar industry (with various policy perks) is actually a net exporter (about $2B) of solar technology: do its foreign customers have an actionable trade complaint?
- Chinese banks have loaned at higher rates, and solar panels sell domestically at lower prices than in the US market (re: "dumping" allegations)
The real issue the solar energy industry faces is that despite huge price drops in solar panels over the past few years and massive government subsidies, costs are still not competitive, say, with plentiful natural gas. Do I really need to point out that the giveaways to crony Big Solar pushes the tax burden to other businesses and individuals, which hurts their own growth strategies and employee hiring? And punitive tariffs do little beyond protect unsustainable margins and paradoxically make the purchases of solar panels even more expensive to target consumers....
The Food Police, They Come Into the Shelter
The Food Police, They Clear the Dinner Table
The Food Police, They Took the Salt Shaker
The Food Police, They Went Into the Kitchen
The Food Police, They've Raided the Pantry
The Food Police, They're Going to Arrest the Cook: Oh No!
I Try to Eat, They're Watching Me, They Won't Leave Me Alone
They Don't Get Paid to Mind Their Own Business, or Let Me Alone
They Stare, I Try to Hide My Plate, They Won't Let Me Alone
They're Stalking Me, They're the Judge and the Jury All in One.
Mayor Bloomberg has decided that since city bureaucrats haven't put their imprimatur on donated food to homeless shelters, because of insufficient data on various nutritional aspects (fat, fiber, and salt), donations are no longer accepted. What about the homeless then without food donations? No doubt Bloomberg would say, "Let them eat (bland, city-sanctioned) cake..."
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Groups
Little River Band, "Lady"
