Tag Archives: primary

Michigan, Arizona – Sigh.

BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com

All over big cities across this great nation of ours Establishment Republicans (ERs) are breathing again because Mitt Romney won both Michigan and Arizona. And Michigan.

Establishment Democrats (EDs – I know, I know) had been breaking out the kazoos and confetti to celebrate running against Rick Santorum in the Fall had he won in Michigan.

There was some serious (a Mary Matalin-ism) projectile sweat from the ERs through yesterday afternoon that Rick Santorum might actually win Michigan, one of Romney’s many home states. What would they do?

Santorum? Anti-Satan Santorum? Anti-Contraception Santorum? Pro-Theocracy Santorum? Senator Santorum who lost his seat by 134 percentage points? THAT Santorum was going to be the GOP nominee?

omg. OMG. O*M*G! Continue reading →

Newt Must Trade Hope for a Miracle

BY RON BONJEAN
Reprinted from U.S. News

As the primary contest goes on to Nevada, one has to wonder what former House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s campaign must do to stop former Gov. Mitt Romney’s momentum after his overwhelming victory in Florida. If the Gingrich campaign has an effective fundraising plan, solid organizational structures in Super Tuesday states, and reconfigures his message to appeal to voters, then he should remain in the race. However, if he simply chooses to remain in the race because he wants to needle the Romney campaign until the convention, most GOP voters will not have the stomach for it. Romney allies took Gingrich down in Iowa and Gingrich returned the favor in South Carolina. Both waged an extremely negative campaign in Florida and Romney won. Continue reading →

Gingrich Gets Hot Endorsement

BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com

The New Hampshire Union-Leader (neé Manchester Union-Leader) endorsed Speaker Newt Gingrich for President in the Republican primary which will be held there on January 10, 2012.

This is no small deal for Gingrich because it is a legitimate endorsement from the daily newspaper of the largest city in the state.

As I tweeted yesterday (follow me at @richgalen): Newspaper endorsements are like polls & poker: Winners whoop & holler. Losers say “Shut up and deal.”

Endorsements, polls and poker hands are generally not determinative but in each case it is better to win it than to lose it. I don’t read the Union-Leader with any regularity, but I had to tip my hat to the lead (spelled “lede” in news-speak) in the front page editorial written by publisher Joseph W. McQuaid: This newspaper endorses Newt Gingrich in the New Hampshire Presidential Primary.

In support of this simple, but strong, declarative sentence Mr. McQuaid encapsulated his reasoning by pointing to the Contract with America in 1994 and the resultant take-over of the U.S. House of Representatives in the elections that year; as well as “forging balanced budgets despite the challenge of dealing with a Democratic President.” Continue reading →

Perry, Paul, & Romney

BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com & Townhall.com

I was in Las Vegas Friday night as the guest of the conservative Citizen Outreach organization. We got to talking about the importance which may be visited upon the Nevada caucuses this year which, on the GOP side of the ledger has never been that big a deal.

A couple of weeks ago Florida decided to move its GOP primary up by about a month to January 31. That set all the other early states into a frenzy trying to figure out when they should hold their caucuses (Iowa and Nevada) or primaries (New Hampshire and South Carolina).

As of this writing the guessing is, Iowa will move its caucuses up to January 3; New Hampshire to January 7; Nevada to the 14th; and, South Carolina to January 21.

That means, the week between Christmas and New Year will be spent in places like Red Oak and Clear Lake, Iowa; and Claremont and Gottstown, New Hampshire.

As Mullfave Ed Rollins pointed out last week, “you can’t live off the land in Florida like you can in the other early states.”

Nevada’s population is centered around Clark County (Las Vegas and its environs) and Washoe County (Reno) so you can organize there pretty easily. South Carolina’s population is more than four million and spread out throughout the state, but SC is geographically the 10th smallest state so driving from point A to point M (or wherever) is not much of a challenge.

Florida is a different kettle of alligators. Continue reading →

Perry Leads on All Fronts

BY RICH GALEN

Reprinted from Mullings.com

National polls measuring support during the primary season are suspect because we don’t have national primaries. We have state-by-state primaries and caucuses. A national poll measuring support five months ahead of the first caucus is beyond suspect. It is meaningless.

Having started out with that warning let me make another assertion: No matter how suspect, meaningless, pointless, or futile a poll might be it is still better to be in first place than it is to be way back in the pack. Continue reading →