Wow, do they ever hate Mittens. Yet they can’t seem to get rid of him. Brent Budowsky writes,
Mitt Romney is having great trouble winning the loyalty of Republican voters above the 25 percent level. About 75 percent of Republicans do not support Romney as their first choice. In fact, for many of these GOP voters Romney is their fourth, sixth or even eighth choice behind the conservatives now running and the conservatives who chose not to run.
Mittens is like the zombie candidate who won’t die. The only reason he has stayed near the top of the polls, Budowsky says, is that Republican voters are divided amongst the remainder of the candidates. And the remainder of the candidates are such losers that they wilt almost as soon as a spotlight hits them. Herman Cain has given it about as good a run as anyone has, but now his popularity is sagging under the weight of sexual allegations.
(BTW, righties, do pay attention and notice that “liberals” are not the primary force behind dragging those old allegations into the light. We are not the ones interested in undermining Herman Cain’s campaign at this point.)
(Also too, this is one of the dumbest things I’ve read yet about the matter.)
Budowsky wants conservatives to rally behind one not-Mittens candidate, or else take steps to drag the selection out so that it can be brokered at the convention. Jeb! Jeb! Jeb!
But John Batchelor at Daily Beast says Mittens will win the Iowa caucus, because Mittens is the only one whose got the money in the game to get people to the caucus.
“It’s gonna be Romney, and the party is miserable,†observed a Republican agent just back from the presidential contest in Iowa. “One day Bachmann, the next day Perry, then another day Cain, now Newt. The flavor of the day will pass. Why do many Fox contributors become candidates? It gets you in the debates and polls. But it doesn’t stick. Iowa is about paying an organization to show up. They are used to it. It’s an entitlement to Iowa. First in the nation means mercenaries, buying up the talent, then bringing the people you paid for to the caucus.â€
Is he saying that caucus participants are being paid to vote? Or am I misreading something?
Nate Silver says that both Mittens and Cain are slumping a bit in the polls, but Newt is surging. Will Newt maintain flavor of the month status going into the early primaries (for which everyone says he lacks the organization on the ground to do that well), or will it be Rick Santorum’s turn by then?
I beg to differ with Brent. There are NO conservatives running as Republicans for President. (At least not in their public utterances).
The base sure don’t loves them any Mitt!
But the money boys will continue to pour money into Mitt – not because they love him, but because they don’t see another choice.
I hate to say this, but maybe it’s because the Conservative money boys aren’t THAT displeased with Obama, and that’s why they didn’t move Heaven and Earth to find someone besides Mitt and the 7 Deadly Sins to run against him?
I mean, I know they bitch and moan and groan about him, but, being who he is, and for obvious reasons, Obama isn’t a class traitor like FDR, changing financial horses in mid-stream after the prior party pretty much drowned the damn horse. Or a powerful Southern politician who turned against the advantages of his own race like LBJ. People may criticize him for it, but President Obama did avert an epic Depression, and the collapse of the auto industry. The some of those same people would be singing a different tune if that had happened. But not on the TV, the radio, or the internet. They’d be whistling that tune in the dark, alone, or with their family, out on the streets.
And maybe, there were/are really few legitimate Conservative options right now other than Mitt, who, until recently seemed like a serial flip-flopper, but now appears to be more like a rotary engine! But, now they’re stuck with him…
And maybe it’s that they may want to better position themselves for 2016 Presidential race? And thus, Mitt’s good enough for them this go-round.
They may be keeping their powder dry on the Presidential front until 2016, when they can wage a full-on Conservative onslaught on the nation?
In the meantime, what I think it is that they’ve decided on instead is that they’ll spend a ton of money working on Senate and House seats, because if they can get a Republican Senate and House, they’ll tie Obama up vetoing things left and right – or crazy right and batshit-crazy right. And it’ll give them 2 to 4 more years to firm up voter suppression laws on a national scale – with the support of the Supreme Court, of course.
And if Mitt wins in 2012 – hey, that’s gravy! But the Senate and House are more important.
But if he doesn’t win, they’re looking to groom two people so they can control the Executive branch for at least 8, but hopefully 12 to 16 years. I keep coming back to it, but Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio or Paul Ryan may be what they’re aiming at. Or, a ticket similar to that. Jeb, even in this election, has a name that still far too tainted for him to put himself forward – but he would gladly pull a ‘Reverse-Sherman’ – if nominated Jeb would run, and if elected, Jeb will serve!
2008 was crucial. 2012 is no less critical.
Obama may be fortunate in the opponents running against him, and it looks like he has a good chance to win. But we need to remember that we’ll need to spend just as much time holding, and regaining, the number of Democrats in the Senate and House. Or keep at least one house. Otherwise, Obama’s 2nd term will be remembered as ‘The Veto Years.” And I’m not talking about Corleone.
And if there is an epic disaster, and Republicans get full control, we as a nation will be, for all practical purposes, done – we will continue our death spiral into a Banana Republic unimpeded. But, that’s what “Citizens United” was designed to do, wasn’t it?
Interesting times, indeed…
Who would they get? Name one prominent Republican who isn’t a clown.
if nominated Jeb would run, and if elected, Jeb will serve!
Yeah, the reluctant American…Duty over self!
Barbara. thanks for reminding me not ever to read The New Republic ever again.
“Who would they get? Name one prominent Republican who isn’t a clown.”
I don’t agree with many of his positions and he’s old, but he’s decidedly not a clown.
Olympia Snowe. Moderate, smart and female.
Huntsman– smart, talented– and despised worse than Mittens, it would seem.
Olympia Snowe — OK, she’s not a clown. Of course, in rightie circles she is usually referred to as “RINO Traitor Olympia Snowe,” or sometimes just “traitor.” I think they’ve decided John Huntsman is a space alien.
maha,
Well, there’s that, too! 🙂
I can’t think of a single one!
If one’s not stupid, then he/she’s evil.
And if one’s not evil, then he/she’s stupid.
And then there are those that are both stupid AND evil. And that’s most of them!
Now, add a healthy dollop of misogyny, xenophobia, homophobia, and other issues, and we can see why all of their candidates look like they just got out of John Wayne Gacy’s evil clown car.
Unfortunately, there are a lot of people in the MSM who get paid a lot of money, by people with even more money, to polish these pestilential turds, and make them seem like serious people with serious ideas, so that they don’t have to share a penny that they aren’t forced to with the rest of us rabble.
Acknowledging that one of the two parties in the US is comprised of Zombie Bozo’s determined to kill you and eat your brains would hurt their ratings/readership.
Because, after you admit that, where do you go except that you, me, and everyone else whose brain hasn’t yet been consumed sauteed, steamed, boiled, broiled, stewed, fricasseed, or sushi-style, would either force that party to change and become more human, or try to eliminate it from the face of the Earth, and salt poured on the remains and burial grounds?
But wait, look over there! Isn’t that two gay kids making out on “Glee!”
And look, there some young buck washing his T-bone down with malt liquor, and you can’t afford either.
And I pay MY taxes!
SHARIA LAW!
SHARIA UNIONS!!
AND SHARIA UNION LAWS!!!
AAAAAARRRRHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!
And the (not so) merry-go-round takes another spin…
I guess they’ve decided John Huntsman won’t draw enough votes? He seems like the only sensible person in the group.
Forget the sex thing, the brain-freeze problem, the flip-flopper – how about the debaters challenging the ‘platforms’ of their fellow debaters. Like, Perry’s advocating abolishing the Dept of Commerce. Really? No more National Weather Service, no more Patent Office, no more issuing of trademarks, no more economic and demographic data available to American business…
I’m afraid that all we’ve learned from the ‘debates’ is how woefully stupid, uninformed, uneducated, and inferior in mind and morals the candidates for the Republican nomination are. (We really need a “none of the above” on our ballots.)
Felicity,
“‘m afraid that all we’ve learned from the ‘debates’ is how woefully stupid, uninformed, uneducated, and inferior in mind and morals the candidates for the Republican nomination are.”
And those are their STRONG points!!!
Maha, that article by McWhorter Is one of the dumbest things I’ve seen in a while.
The righty guys at work have shifted to Newt, though some lament the absence of Huckabee as a candidate.
Bachmann’s run is about over.
Herman will soon be out.
Ron Paul is too anti war (code, anti troops), and wants to cut foreign aid, even to Israel, so he’s not going to win.
Huntsman is too smart, and speaks Chinese. That’s WAY scary for the right.
Perry is Bush but dumber, which will win the red neck vote, but the country clubbers and big money will run from him.
Newt; well he likes Tiffany jewelry, cheated on his wife when leading the charge against Clinton’s infidelity, is a Washington insider, is said to be smart. None of which has much righty appeal.
Romney; not exactly Christian, not exactly conservative. He kind of reminds me of a motorcycle that’s not quite a dirt bike, but not a street full highway machine either.I’d put my money on Romney.
As far as Jeb or Rubio , I hope Jeb is still afraid to run due to Bush fatigue; I couldn’t care less about Rubio.Christie Kreme defended a Muslim guy he appointed to some position (I don’t recall exactly what), but that pissed of the righties, Christie may actually want Sharia law or something.
Who knows where this will go? It’s like spiking the water supply of a large city with LSD, then trying to figure what will happen.
Could anyone have seen the possibility of a black man named Barak Hussein Obama winning the presidency so soon after 9/11 in a nation filled with Islamophobia and racism?
The drums of war are getting louder, today’s Orlando Sentinel featured a story about Israel’s options about going against Iran alone or not; Robert Kagan was beating the war drums at NPR last Thursday. This, along with the Euro debt crisis may be the wild cards.