Hey, Look at That. Pretty Cool, Huh?

Long-time readers know that I've sometimes been rough on Ron Paul (on e.g. "states' rights," the "paleo strategy," etc.). No apologies, all that is what it is, but it's also enormously flattering that Paul (and host Daniel McAdams) chose my latest Garrison Center column to riff on in yesterday's episode of The Ron Paul Liberty Report.

The Case for Trump as a Libertarian Hero

I think there is one, and I think it's to be found by reading between the lines of this piece by Daniel Greenfield at FrontPageMag.

Most of the piece is nonsense on stilts, of course, but its central point -- that Donald Trump's candidacy has put paid to any libertarian influence in the Republican Party -- is, if true, worthy of celebration.

Greenfield's position, in a nutshell (paraphrased to accentuate the truthiness lamp he hides under a bushel when using his own words):

"Those mean old libertarians were more trouble than they were worth. Sure, they made for a good fig leaf to hide the Republican Party's authoritarian big-government essence, but dammit, they kept trying to make the GOP actually be libertarian. Good riddance to them, thanks to Trump. Now we can stop pretending to favor smaller government, more freedom, less regulation, etc., and just be our big, bad, ugly, fascist selves. 'MURKA!"

If he's right, I think that's a good thing. And if Trump is responsible, libertarians owe him our thanks.

There have always been libertarians who fall for the "libertarian Republican" guff, but the last two presidential cycles really drained lots of libertarian energy into that cesspool thanks to lots of activists falling for Ron Paul's doomed and pointless candidacies.

Coming into 2016 it looked like Rand Paul might have the same effect. Fortunately, he went out of his way to shed any libertarian cachet he might have been counting on before the cycle really got going. Libertarians were abandoning the Party of Big Government (R-Label Edition) even before Trump announced.

But I can buy the notion that Trump really sealed the deal. Thanks to Trump, we are virtually guaranteed that in next year's presidential election, neither major party will put up a candidate who even bothers to pretend he or she doesn't hate our freedoms.

Whether or not the Libertarian Party can bring itself to exploit that gift by offering a real alternative is another question entirely. But hey, we can always hope, right?

Yeah, I've slacked off on the blogging ...

... but I hope to be back soon. I got busy with various things, and have spent the last 3-4 days sick as a dog.

But, I do want to get one set of predictions in:

• Super Tuesday won't settle the GOP's presidential nomination race.
• Gingrich will do better than most people expect.
• Santorum will continue to go toe to toe with Romney and do pretty well.
• Paul will continue getting significant vote totals.
• Romney will not emerge as "inevitable."

As always, don't go betting large amounts of cash on the basis of my predictions. That's just how I'm calling it. I've been wrong before and certainly will be again.

I Really Have Only One Comment ...

... on tonight's Republican presidential debate, and that's on foreign policy, which the candidates are discussing right now.

There are two possibilities:

• Santorum, Romney and Gingrich are just typical political gangsters who want to continue seizing as much of your money as possible and funneling it to their benefactors in the military-industrial complex and who would, as presidents, continue the fairly disastrous Bush-Obama policies, in which case it really makes no difference whether one of them, or Obama, wins in November; or
  
  
• They actually believe the bizarre things they're saying, in which case they all three need to be fitted for straitjackets, stuck in rubber rooms, and fed Thorazine until they hopefully eventually become mentally stable enough to make themselves useful at one of those workshops where the mentally handicapped eke out livings by making pencil cups and other handicrafts, with the proviso that the nuclear "football" never, ever, ever be allowed within, say, 500 miles of said workshops.

Jesus ... 300 million Americans to choose from, and somehow the Republicans manage to narrow their field to four people, three of whom are, to all appearances, world-class sociopaths who sniffed too much fucking glue as teenagers, and the fourth of whom is in fourth place.

Update: Heh ... I figured it out! Newt was doing the whole debate in character, a moving homage to Peter Lorre! Bravissimo!

Remember the Maine (Caucus Results)

Another typical Mitt Romney "win."

Romney, the northeastern moderate Republican, got 39% in a northeastern moderate state.

61% of Maine Republicans voted against him.

Ron Friggin' Paul came within three points of beating him.

And this, write Rosalind S. Helderman and Felicia Sonmez of the Washington Post, is something that Romney "hopes will put his campaign back on track and help him regain momentum."

He's like the Leonard Lawrence of presidential candidates.

A Clean Sweep for Santorum

Those who follow KN@PPSTER closely will recall that I didn't do a "Missouri, Minnesota, Colorado prediction" post. If I had done such a post, no, I would not have predicted that Rick Santorum would win all three states.

Frankly, this GOP primary cycle has me feeling a little bit like Blackie in my favorite clip from Where the Buffalo Roam:




Robert Stacy McCain is deservingly exultant.

And me? How do I feel? Well, my Youtube search for that video clip above brought up another one too:



Manson makes about as much sense as this ball game.

OGNAAP!

Image via WikipediaIt stands for "Oh God, Not Another Abortion Post!" Although a little Googling says that I've only mentioned abortion in passing here on KN@PPSTER. And the title acronym explains why. I friggin' hate arguing about abortion. Nobody ever convinces anyone of anything, and everyone goes away mad, and nothing really changes.

But, once more ... or at least once ... into the breach, due to my friend Nila Thompson pointing out this bit on Rachel Maddow's blog about ... you guessed it ... Ron Paul.

Short version: Paul makes an exception to his opposition to abortion for rape ... but only "honest rape."

"Honest," as ascertained by whom? Presumably Dr. Ron Paul, MD, OB/GYN. At least that's how it comes off, and I can't blame hordes of women for being insulted at the idea of it being their doctor's prerogative to decide whether or not what they say happened to them did, in fact, happen to them.

But what bugs the hell out of me is not that in particular, but what got Paul to the point of even being asked that particular question: The "rape or incest exception" argument. That is a complete dead-end street when it comes to the abortion debate. Here's why:

Most self-identified "pro-choicers" consider abortion a woman's medical decision to make, period, end of story. They either don't think that a fetus is a "person" with rights, or they believe that if the rights of mother and fetus come into conflict, the mother's rights trump the fetus's. So when they pose the question  "but what about in cases of rape or incest?" to self-identified "pro-lifers," they're being disingenuous.  It's not like they'd turn around and say "oh, well, okay then, I'm fine with banning abortion otherwise" if they got the answer they're fishing for, is it?

Most self-identified "pro-lifers" consider the fetus a "person" with rights, including the right to life. And I don't think there's any dispute that if that's the case, this "person" is an innocent who is in the position he or she is in (developing in the womb) through no fault of his or her own and entirely due to the actions of others. So making an exception for rape or incest is effectively saying "well, if a crime was committed against the mother, the mother gets a free pass to commit homicide -- not against the perpetrator of the crime, but against a second innocent victim." That's entirely inconsistent with the principle which motivates the "pro-life" position in the first place.

Now, I know I'm painting with a fairly broad brush above, and that there are as many variations of opinion on abortion as there are people to hold said opinions. So let me be clear here: I have no ax to grind with you whether you call yourself "pro-choice" or "pro-life." I have my own opinions on the subject of abortion, but I gave up sharing them (apart from in personal situations where they are immediately relevant -- in which case I've emphasized being a supportive friend instead of trying to be "the judge") a long time ago for the reasons I mention in the first paragraph.

Or, to put it a different way,  I am not posting this because I want to argue about abortion. I'm posting it because I'm interested in where a particular aspect of arguments about abortion leads, politically.

Paul let himself get routed onto that "rape or incest exception" street, and then tried to get himself turned around in a pretty weird and creepy driveway. "Honest rape" doesn't cut any ice with anyone on any side of the question. It just makes you look unprincipled to pro-lifers, like a too-eager-to-please hair-splitter to pro-choicers, and like a misogynist to everyone. I can't imagine that Paul won a single new supporter, or a single vote, with that answer ... and he probably lost some.

Related articles

• Ron Paul tells Piers Morgan only 'honest rape' merits abortion (David Ferguson/The Raw Story) (memeorandum.com)

Ron Paul: Traveling Man

Image by Getty Images via @daylifeAs someone who doesn't support Ron Paul's presidential campaign, I find myself coming to his defense far more often than I'd like.

One reason for that, aside from basic respect for fact -- if Paul's going to get slammed, I prefer that it be for things he deserves to get slammed on -- is that his supporters tend to "defend" him by pasting the word "smear" (with some random number of exclamation marks appended) into a blog post 50 times or so, then surrounding said word with other invective. Which, outside the most cultish precincts of Paul's following, isn't very effective.

So anyway, the latest, via Roll Call:

Rep. Ron Paul appears to have been paid twice for flights between Washington, D.C., and his Congressional district, receiving reimbursement from taxpayers and also from a network of political and nonprofit organizations he controlled, according to public records and documents obtained by Roll Call.

The story's pretty long, mostly by way of throwing in the kitchen sink to hide the fact that there's really no "there" there. Near the bottom, for those who bother to read that far, is the money quote:

Public records show hundreds of flight payments between 1999 and 2009 in which both the House and Paul's campaign paid for plane tickets of the same price and about the same date. Given the limitations of publicly reported data, in many of those cases it's not possible to conclude that the matching flight payments represent duplicate reimbursements, because the possibility of an alternate traveler cannot be disproved. Paul has not been accused of wrongdoing by any authorities.

Paul is notorious for -- or at least self-promotes on the basis of -- running a lean operation when it comes to billing taxpayers. He returns much of his permitted office budget to the US Treasury each year. So I don't find it at all surprising that when he flies back to Houston from DC, and takes a staffer (or his wife) with him, he might pick up the latter bill personally and have his campaign, rather than the taxpayers, reimburse him.

That's actually quite a good "ballpark" method of accounting for the fact that on any given trip, some of his business may be "official" (stuff he does as a congresscritter) and some of it may be "political" (stuff he does by way of campaigning to remain a congresscritter).

Another "ballpark" method at play here, along the lines of "per diem" allowances, may be a practice I've heard of, but can't attest to the pervasiveness of:

Someone is taking a trip, and there are different kinds of expenses to be reimbursed by one or more parties. Instead of having the person keep (and the reimbursing entity keep track of) receipts for hotel, cab fare, meals, Starbucks, whatever, the reimbursing entity just uses the cost of the plane ticket as the basis for a flat reimbursement, and it's your job to either keep those additional expenses to that amount, or pay the difference out of your pocket.

If the plane ticket costs $350, you get reimbursed $350 for all that other stuff as well. If you stay at Motel 6 and eat at McDonald's, you pocket some extra cash. If you book a room at the Ritz-Carlton and take your kid's Little League team out to dinner at Ruth's Chris Steak House, it's on you.

I could see Paul letting the Treasury reimburse his flight costs, and then handing the same amount over to his campaign as a basis for his expense reimbursements.

I can think of other possibilities, too, but the one possibility that doesn't strike me as plausible is run-of-the-mill corruption. If Paul just wanted more money, he could easily find perfectly "legitimate" ways to milk his congressional position or his campaign committees, PACs, etc. for it. I just can't see him running some kind of complicated "double books" operation to embezzle a few hundred dollars here and there.

Addendum: I'm not big on "good government reform" type stuff, but here's one I could get behind: The US Treasury will reimburse a congresscritter for one plane ticket from back home to Washington at the beginning of each Congress, and one plane ticket from Washington to back home at the end of each Congress. If he wants to go home during that two-year period, he does so at his own expense.

Related articles

• Records Show Ron Paul Trips Paid Twice (Jonathan Strong/Roll Call) (memeorandum.com)
• Paul Reimbursed Twice for Many Flights (politicalwire.com)

A Difference in Narrative ...

Their version:

Los Angeles Times: "Romney is on a roll after big win in Nevada" ... "commanding victory" ... "a strong marker" ... "The only question was whether Romney on Saturday would top the 51% he received four years ago" ...


Wall Street Journal: "Romney handily won" ... 


New York Times: "Romney handily won" (same opening clause, different article, different authors, different paper) ... "solidifying his status as the front-runner and increasing his momentum" ...

My version:

So far as I know, nobody (with the possible exception of an over-enthusiastic Ron Paul supporter or three) has ever predicted anything but a Mitt Romney win in Nevada.

And so far as I know, nobody (with the same exception) predicted what an anemic win it would be. What I don't understand is why the media is shying away from discussing what an anemic win it is.

Four years ago, Romney won Nevada with 51%, despite not being the "inevitable front-runner" (he'd won Michigan, which went earlier then than this year, but had lost Iowa, New Hampshire and Florida), and carried every county in the state except Nye (which Ron Paul took).

This year, as "inevitable front-runner," he only managed 42%, and lost three counties (Nye again, to Paul again; Esmeralda to Paul; and Mineral to Newt Gingrich).

In three primary/caucus wins of five contests so far, Romney has yet to break 50%. More than half of -- usually closer to, and sometimes more than, six out of 10 -- Republicans are still saying "no, not Mitt."

This thing isn't over by a damn sight.


Update: The final vote counts took awhile, but it looks like Romney managed 50% after all.

Initial Thoughts on Anonymous's Hack of "American Third Position"

Image via Wikipedia

Background: Persons purporting to represent Anonymous claim to have hacked the web site of the American Third Position Party, a "white separatist" group, and have published a dump of forum messages, emails, etc. For the details, see Independent Political Report's report.

The primary area of interest in all this to libertarians is the following, from the Anonymous communique on the operation:

In addition to finding the usual racist rants and interactions with other white power groups, we also found a disturbingly high amount of members who are also involved in campaigning for Ron Paul. According to these messages, Ron Paul has regularly met with many A3P members, even engaging in conference calls with their board of directors.

A couple of disclaimers:

•  I don't think anyone is going to mistake me for a Ron Paul apologist. I've been critical of Paul for various reasons, including but not limited to the issues raised by "the newsletter controversy." Believe this: If I find anything credible anywhere directly connecting Paul to A3P and organizations of its type, I'll shout it from the rooftops.
• I've only spent a few hours researching the dump, running searches on strings I would expect to shed light on the claims above.  There's a lot of data to sift through, so what I've found so far may very well not be the final word on the subject.

Those two things said, I've found nothing really substantiating the two claims in the communique quote above. To wit:

1. A "disturbingly high amount of members" of A3P "are also involved in campaigning for Ron Paul."
   
   This is a pretty fuzzy claim in the first place, insofar as "disturbingly high" is a subjective evaluation and "involved in campaigning for" can mean a lot of things.
   
   What I found were several references to A3P members attending Paul campaign events; a couple of references to A3P members talking with low-level Paul volunteers whom the A3P people perceived as "with us" or "pro-White;" and one suggestion that a film/video guy who had done work for the Paul campaign be approached about doing the same kind of work for A3P.
   
   None of the campaign events mentioned were portrayed as Paul intentionally addressing A3P-type audiences -- it was stuff like "we went to see Paul speak at CPAC" and "we went to Paul's GOP convention rally in Minneapolis" and so on.
   
   
2. "Ron Paul has regularly met with many A3P members, even engaging in conference calls with their board of directors."
   
   The closest thing I found to Paul "meeting" with A3P members were references like "managed to get my picture taken with Paul when I attended the Minneapolis convention rally."
   
   I found references to A3P's board of directors, and I found references to conference calls, but I found no references to Paul or his campaign being involved in said conference calls.

Does this mean those two claims are false? NO, it doesn't. I may have missed something. Like I said, it's a lot of stuff and I've only spent a little time sifting through it.

But those claims are strong enough that the burden of proving them falls on those making them. If the material to substantiate the claims is there, someone who can find it needs to highlight it and point it out instead of just leaving it buried down in the pile of garbage it's embedded in.

Here's the picture I get from my limited swim through the A3P sewer:

The A3P types consider the Paul movement, and the wider “paleo” movement (other referenced people, pubs and groups in the dump included Pat Buchanan, Thomas diLorenzo, The American Conservative magazine, the John Birch Society, et. al), to be “implicitly pro-White” (their terminology) and are attempting to build a “bridge” (their terminology) between those movements and “explicitly pro-White” (their terminology) groups including (named in the dump) A3P, White News Network, Stormfront, et. al.

I don’t think that belief on the part of A3P types is entirely unreasonable, given that the Rothbard/Rockwell “paleo strategy” which Paul used to raise money in the 80s and 90s was intended to specifically cater to such tendencies.

On the other hand, I think the A3P types are probably:

1. Under-estimating the extent to which Rothbard, Rockwell and Paul were using the “paleo strategy” to cynically exploit them — suckering them for political “seed money” and so forth — as opposed to genuinely make common cause with them; and
   
2. Seriously over-estimating the extent to which the now-existing Paul movement, which is not, for the most part,  a product of the “paleo strategy,” is composed of people likely to be sympathetic to the A3P-type fringe.

So far, I'm not seeing anything that constitutes a serious indictment of Paul, his campaign, or the movement surrounding his campaign -- or at least nothing above and beyond other long-known plausible indictments of any or all of the three.

But, once again, this is just my initial impression, based on limited time and limited skills for digging through the dump. If anyone else is finding or seeing anything I'm missing or mis-interpreting, by all means let me know in comments, via contact form, etc.

As a side note, while I consider myself a member of Anonymous (expect us!) and while I'm happy to see A3P exposed, I was not involved in this operation nor did I have any foreknowledge of it.

Related articles

• Anonymous hacks A3P website (independentpoliticalreport.com)
• Anonymous Hacks White Supremacist Site, Finds Direct Links to Ron Paul (littlegreenfootballs.com)
• Paulitics 101 (KN@PPSTER)
• I Do Not Think It Means What You Think It Means (KN@PPSTER)
• About Peckerwood Populism, part 1 (KN@PPSTER)
• About Peckerwood Populism, part 2 (KN@PPSTER)

The Sticking Point

Image via Wikipedia

Eric Dondero over at Libertarian [sic] Republican thinks I'm crazy for still predicting a Newt Gingrich win in tomorrow's Florida primary.

Maybe he's right. I do have a bad habit of over-estimating the aggregate intelligence of the Republican Party. I'm betting that Republican primary voters have enough gray matter between them to have figured out that Gingrich is the only candidate for their nomination who stands a chance in hell of both getting that nomination and beating Barack Obama in November.

A small chance, true, but a chance nonetheless. And he's the only one who even might manage both.

Ron Paul could conceivably beat Obama, but he can't sell the GOP on foreign policy sanity and get the nomination.

Mitt Romney or even Rick Santorum (just barely plausibly) could get the nomination, but neither one  has a chance in hell of hitting 270 electoral votes for the win. In fact, either one would be over-performing at 100 electoral votes.

So the question is: Are the Republicans interested, or are they not interested, in at least a slim possibility of taking the White House for the 2013-2017 presidential term? If yes, Gingrich is the nominee. If no, he isn't. It's really just that simple.

I'm sticking with my earlier prediction: Gingrich by 9 points, plus or minus 2, tomorrow, for the simple reason that any GOP primary electorate dumb enough to return a different result is arguably also too damn dumb to work those complicated knobs on their doors and get out of their houses to the polling places to vote any other way.

But I could be wrong. Perhaps the Democratic Party has an "Open Those Complicated Door Thingies for Romney Voters and Drive Them to the Polls" effort set up.

And just to be clear here, no, I'm not a Gingrich fan. I don't really care one way or another whom the Republicans nominate, or who wins in November, except from the "horse race" angle.  There's just no real betting to be done on Obama versus Romney or Santorum. That would be like an exhibition football game between the New England Patriots and your local Mighty Mite champions. Obama versus Gingrich would at least be more akin to the Patriots versus the Kansas City Chiefs' second string or something.

"Dead heat in Florida ahead of debate"

Image via Wikipedia

That's not the headline you want to see if you're Mitt Romney and guy you're within the margin of error of and about to debate is Newt Gingrich.

A lot of people, especially pundits, have been giving themselves whiplash from watching the polls jump around this campaign season.

Rest that neck. Put on a cervical collar and stick with me here. I predicted Newt would be the nominee right after Iowa. I predicted his performance, and Romney's, in South Carolina to within 2 points each. And I'm sticking by my Florida prediction:

Gingrich: 42%
Romney: 33%
Santorum: 13%
Paul 12%

And frankly I think I may be over-predicting Santorum at Gingrich's expense, and under-estimating Paul a bit.

Here's why Gingrich is going to pull off a clear win in Florida:

• The debate: When Romney comes under attack, he falls to pieces. He stutters, he stammers, he looks evasive, he comes off as distinctly un-"presidential." When Gingrich comes under attack, he goes on the offensive and doesn't ease up until the floor is soaked in his opponents' blood. Romney will take a 5-10% hit from tomorrow's debate. Gingrich will get a 5-10% bump.
• Another Adelson soft money check is fueling a $6 million Newt SuperPAC media offensive between now and the primary. That's not as much money as Mitt's spending, but it's enough.
• Romney is not as belligerently pro-Israel as Gingrich (Florida has the largest Jewish community of any southern state, and it is politically organized).
• Romney is not as belligerently anti-Castro as Gingrich (Florida has the largest Cuban exile community of any state, and it is politically organized).
• Florida has a large population of immigrants and first-generation Americans. Gingrich has aggressively positioned himself as the least insanely anti-freedom Republican candidate on immigration policy.
• The top two religious demographics in Florida are Roman Catholics (Gingrich and Santorum are Catholic) and evangelical Christians (many, if not most, of whom distrust Romney's religion, Mormonism).

The worse news for Romney is that even if I'm wrong, he's still probably screwed. He doesn't just need to win Florida, he needs to break out a major ass-whipping.

He entered the GOP nomination race as the prohibitive front-runner. He's now won only one of three primaries/caucuses, and that one the smallest, and he only pulled 40% of the vote there when he should have easily cruised past 50%. He's limping. He's bleeding. Barely squeaking by is not going to be enough to get him back in this race for real.

Gingrich, on the other hand, came from double digits back to win in South Carolina, and has now pulled up by double digits to contest a state that was supposed to be a Romney cakewalk. He's got the momentum of a runaway truck. As everyone who's contested an election with him since 1976 can attest, he is not someone you want to see bearing down on you in this kind of fight.

So, I still say Gingrich by nine points, give or take two. But, as always, I could be wrong.

Related articles

• CNN/Time Poll: Dead heat in Florida ahead of debate (Kevinliptak/CNN) (memeorandum.com)
• Beware of Early Florida Polls (theothermccain.com)
• New poll suggests Gingrich surging in Florida (politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com)
• Newt Gingrich Gets Key Endorsement Ahead of Florida Primary [Video] (inquisitr.com)
• 'Remain Calm! All Is Well!' (theothermccain.com)

Quote of the Day

Image via Wikipedia

In a comment on an RRND blurb that links to a Downsize DC article about Ron Paul being booed by a (presumably largely evangelical Christian) South Carolina debate audience after invoking the Golden Rule, my friend Rocky Frisco quotes his friend Beth:

What do you expect from people whose whole way of life depends on letting somebody else pay for their mistakes?

The whole comment is worth a thorough read, but that part in particular really makes me think of the popular American edit of Christianity in a way I never have before.

Post-South Carolina Primary Thoughts

Fortified by a few Old Crow and RC nightcaps, my take on what's happened and what's next in the GOP nomination race:

Mitt Romney's chief strength going into this race was his putative front-runner status and the attendant "inevitability" of that status. So, three contests in ... he's won one of the three. The smallest of the three. The one in a state where he maintains a home. The one in the state next to the state he used to govern. The one where he should have easily exceeded 50%, but instead barely managed to notch up 40%.

Rick Santorum earned his Iowa victory with hard, dedicated, on-the-ground campaigning. But in addition to earning it, he had the advantage of being a pro-life Catholic running in a state with a large (23%) Catholic population and a large evangelical pro-life population. If that evangelical support had stuck with him, he might have a shot at the nomination ... but it didn't stick with him in South Carolina. Apparently Tarheel voters are more interested in actually winning the White House than they are in making a strong statement.

Ron Paul's supporters are more enthusiastic and dedicated than any, bar none. That makes a huge difference in states with small populations. But the populations of the primary states are growing as we go, and the bulk of the GOP base just isn't ready to give up on the Bushevik foreign policy line. He's not going to be the nominee.

Perry's out. Huntsman's out. Bachmann's out. Cain's out.

That leaves Gingrich.

Two weeks ago, I had people telling me I was crazy for saying he'd win South Carolina. Even as little as a day ago, I had people saying I was way high on my 9-point win prediction for him. As it turns out, I was low -- he won by 12%.

Ten days until Florida. That means eight or nine days of people telling me I'm crazy when I say Gingrich will win there, and one or two days of people telling me I'm over-predicting the margin of his win. Here's my initial prediction:

Gingrich: 42%
Romney: 33%
Santorum: 13%
Paul 12%

And frankly I think I may be over-predicting Santorum at Gingrich's expense, and under-estimating Paul a bit.

Paul, of course, will hold out to the end and use what support he garners to advance his agenda rather than his personal ambition. Good on him for that.

My guess is that Santorum exits the race after Florida. As much as I disagree with him on pretty much everything, he strikes me as a reasonably honest and honorable man who wants his party to succeed. He took his best shot. He did well in Iowa. He tried to parlay that into further successes. Once he's sure that didn't work, he'll cut bait and get behind the party's choice.

Romney will probably hold on until Super Tuesday. After Gingrich humiliates him, winning at least eight of the ten primaries that day, the GOP will move forward into the general election cycle with a clear nominee apparent.

That's how I'm seeing it, anyway. But you know, I'm a little tipsy at the moment.

Related articles

• Final South Carolina Predictions (knappster.blogspot.com)
• Why I Keep Telling You to Expect Newt (knappster.blogspot.com)
• South Carolina Primary Results (theothermccain.com)
• Coming Soon: The Second Ascent of Newt Gingrich (knappster.blogspot.com)
• It's Way Too Early to Say I Told You So ... (knappster.blogspot.com)

Final South Carolina Predictions

The recent polls have Gingrich up on Romney by anywhere from 2% (in other words, tied within the margin of error) to 9%.

I'm leaning toward the higher number, not because of where it comes from (PPP -- not the most reliable polling service), but because Gingrich and Paul's supporters are energized and Romney's aren't.

Prediction as South Carolinians head to the real polls, +/- 2% on each candidate:

Gingrich: 38%
Romney: 29%
Paul: 18%
Santorum: 15%

Actual Outcome:

Gingrich: 40%
Romney: 28%
Santorum: 17%
Paul: 13%

Hey, I predicted three of the four candidates to within 2% of their actual performance! I'm surprised Paul didn't make third place.

Liveblog, GOP Debate

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The usual -- comment when I feel like it, quit when I get bored.

Sticking the wrap-up here, for those who don't want the blow-by-blow. I'm pretty sure Gingrich won. I'm absolutely sure Romney lost. But the whole thing was pretty ugly and boring.

[7:05 CST] Candidates introduced. All of them stand and smile except for Santorum, who waves and grins like he's on "Hee Haw." Someone probably fed him amphetamines this afternoon.

[7:06] National anthem, debate rules, opening "if you don't know who I am yet" statements.

[7:09] Gingrich is appalled at being asked if he's a swingin' dude as the opener to a presidential debate.

[7:12] This is why Gingrich will be the nominee. He's got his blood up and is ready to fight any sumbitch what gets in his way.

[7:13] Santorum calms it down with a pretty positive statement about forgiveness, etc. Romney: Let's get on to the real issues. Paul: Too often we're all on the receiving ends of personal attacks, etc.

Why I Keep Telling You to Expect Newt

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We're three days and change from learning the results of the 2012 South Carolina Republican presidential primary.

As I write this, Texas governor Rick Perry is taking his final bow, withdrawing from the campaign and endorsing Newt Gingrich.

Yesterday, Sarah Palin came as close as she's probably going to get to endorsing a candidate until the outcome is absolutely certain: "If I had to vote in South Carolina, in order to keep this thing going, I'd vote for Newt ..."

Why do I keep pointing to Gingrich as the obvious GOP nominee? It's certainly not because I prefer him or support him. Even if I voted, and even if I voted Republican, I wouldn't vote for Newt.

But, here's the thing: This is a street fight, and Gingrich is a street fightin' man. There's no attack he won't use if he thinks it will work, and there's no blow he can't absorb standing up. That's how he's going to beat Romney, and that's how he's going to try to beat Obama.

Mitt Romney is the kind of candidate who does quite well, as long as he's floating forward on a carefully crafted narrative of "inevitability." He sounds plausible to everyone, as long as the problems of governance are presented as simple matters of managerial tweaking. But he falls right to pieces when it comes time to take the gloves off and throw down.

Ron Paul is certainly a fighter. If the GOP -- Establishment and rank-and-file alike -- hadn't let themselves get so entrenched and besieged in their crackpipe post-9/11 foreign policy errors, he'd stand a chance. Unfortunately, mistakes of that size and scope tend to self-reinforce; they're so big, ugly and stupid that people can't bring themselves to admit they were mistakes at all. And most of them just won't support a candidate who's urging them to get their heads out of their asses instead of patting them on the back and telling them they're smart.

That leaves Rick Santorum, whose positions on virtually everything are simply too extremely opposed to virtually every majority voting constituency for him to be elected president, and who failed of re-election to the US Senate in 2006 with less than 42% of the Pennsylvania vote; and Newt, who hasn't lost an election since the mid-1970s.

I'm confident in my prediction that Gingrich will at least de facto tie, and probably beat, Romney on Saturday in South Carolina.

Furthermore, I think that he will win, and probably comfortably, in Florida on the 31st. Yes, he's behind Romney in Florida right now, but South Carolina will give him momentum, and he will spend 10 days hammering Romney in ways that maximize the Latino vote. Remember, now that Perry's out, Gingrich is the GOP's voice of nominal sanity on immigration.

If he can maul Romney in Florida and South Carolina, he will be running the table by Super Tuesday.

Related articles

• It's All in the Crosstabs (knappster.blogspot.com)
• Coming Soon: The Second Ascent of Newt Gingrich (knappster.blogspot.com)
• It's Way Too Early to Say I Told You So ... (knappster.blogspot.com)
• Newt the Inevitable (knappster.blogspot.com) 
• The Republican Electoral Trap (Dispatches from Heck)

How to Vote (If You Must)

Yes, I am on record as having arrived at the conclusion that voting changes not much at all and nothing for the better.

But I'm also aware that some of my readers disagree, and that they will, after some ritualistic hand-wringing, choose to once again reprise their participation in the perennial performances of Democracy®.

OK, fine ... but if you're going to do that, please do it right. Vote for what you want, not just against what you fear.

The Republicans are already playing that tedious old game again -- "a vote for anyone but X is a vote for Y" -- with respect to both their primaries ("a vote for anyone but Gingrich is a vote for Romney") and the general election ("a vote for anyone other than the GOP nominee is a vote for Obama").

Horseapples.

It does not follow from your friend's insistence that Candidate X is better than Candidate Y, that your vote for Candidate Z helps Y at the expense of X. Your vote doesn't belong to any of those candidates, nor does it belong to your friend. It belongs to you, and it is owed to no one.

There's a very good chance that Mitt Romney will receive the Republican presidential nomination this year, even though he has yet to demonstrate the support of more than 40% of his party -- and that much only in his de facto home state.

In South Carolina, somewhere in the neighborhood of 2/3 to 3/4 of the Republican primary electorate wants no part of Romney.

I've suggested jokingly (mainly because this is a meaningless horse race to me), and others seriously (mainly because they've hypnotized themselves with that "Obama's is the most left-wing administration EVAH and the NUMBER ONE PRIORITY is to get rid of him" crap) that Rick Santorum and/or Rick Perry and/or Newt Gingrich should drop out and unify behind one of the three to swamp Romney.

But why should they?

And why should any voter engage in the same calculus?

If you really think that Rick Santorum is Da Bomb ... well, okay, you should probably seek psychiatric treatment ... but you probably think so for specific reasons, and don't believe that Perry or Gingrich measure up to those reasons any better than Romney does.

Compromising in support of the "lesser evil" -- voting for someone you despise just because that candidate's supporters claim you should despise him less than a common opponent -- gains you nothing. It merely sets you up for more demands to continue doing so in perpetuity. The people who make such demands never reciprocate. It's all downhill from the first surrender. Ron Paul's main strength is that his supporters understand that, deep down in their guts where it counts.

Ditto in the general election. If R. Lee Wrights, or whomever Americans Elect saddles up, are more to your liking than the major party horses, why should you sacrifice your values in order to ensure victory for the "possibly slightly less objectionable" Republican or Democrat?

The only way (if there is any way) to get what you actually want in electoral politics is to vote for it, not against the least nauseating alternative to it. Sure, you may not win this time, but if you surrender this time the demands will just be more strident, and the alternatives you're presented with more nauseating, next time.

If I Trotted Out an Internet Poll ...

... showing Ron Paul eight, nine or 14 points up from where "regular" polling says he is over the same period, and 25 points up on where "regular" polling says his nearest opponent is relative to him, I'd get laughed out of the room.

But when Reuters does that, well, it must be news.

I guess Reuters/Ipsos could be right, but my money's on the traditional polls being a truer picture of reality.

Related articles

• Ridiculous Reuters/Ipsos Poll Gives MittWits Romnegasms (riehlworldview.com)
• Romney Expanding Lead in South Carolina (politicalwire.com)
• Romney Leads by 21 Points in S.C.? (theothermccain.com)

It's All in the Crosstabs

Image via WikipediaA new South Carolina GOP primary poll has Mitt Romney performing better than in the last one -- but with Newt Gingrich still within the margin of error, albeit a little less close. The top line is Romney 29%, Gingrich 25%.

And remember, the top line only tells us so much. It's Romney 29%, Gingrich 25% among "likely GOP primary voters," but take a look at the crosstabs:

• Among self-described Tea Party supporters, Gingrich leads Romney 28-24.
• Among self-described evangelical Christians, Gingrich leads Romney 40-13.
• Even among self-described Republicans, as opposed to independents, it's 29-29 (and among independents, Ron Paul leads Romney 29-27).

Among the groups very likely to vote next Saturday, Gingrich is either even with, or ahead of, Romney.

Rasmussen has new data, too, but they're only showing the top line to non-subscribers.

Related articles

• It's Way Too Early to Say I Told You So ... (knappster.blogspot.com)
• New poll in S.C. indicates tight race for top spot (politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com)