BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com
Mark Sanford is the worst example of what passes for a political professional in the United States.
He will, in the next few days, be sworn in as the Member of Congress from the First District of South Carolina having won a special election against a woman whose only reason for running is that she is the sister of comedian Stephen Colbert.
What a choice. Continue reading
BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com
No campaign for President is a straight line upward. Some campaigns are a flat line; some are a straight line down, but no Republican in a contested cycle has ever run the table.
Didn’t happen in 2012, either.
There is a theory in politics that the proper time to judge a campaign isn’t when everything is going well. The time to judge a campaign is how they recover from a stumble.
Ok. That’s not really a widely held theory, but I say it all the time and I think it’s true.
Last week Mitt Romney got skunked in South Carolina by Newt Gingrich. Over the course of five days and two debates Gingrich returned a punt, a fumble, and an interception, scored on a safety and pinned Obama deep in his own territory – everything an opposing candidate could have done within the football metaphors of Superbowl week. Continue reading
BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com
If only these debates were important, or moved votes, or caused some changes in the race, I might not mind that they come about every 18 hours.
You know what happened in South Carolina: In five days, including two debates, the race turned upside down and what appeared to have been a easy, if surprising, win for Mitt Romney turned into a huge, if surprising win, for Newt Gingrich.
The moderator of this debate was NBC’s Brian Williams. I am prepared to institute a law that says no one may moderate a political debate whose name is not Brian Williams or Wolf Blitzer.
Unlike the audiences in South Carolina which sounded like they were watching a World Wrestling Federation steel-cage death match; the audience last night was mostly silent, allowing the candidates to answer the questions and not vie against each other for the best applause line.
BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com and Townhall.com
When political professionals get together to discuss things like ads, campaign tactics, and debates they know the only thing that matters in the end is: “Did it move votes?”
That’s the question I was asking myself as I watched the five-man Fox debate last night from Myrtle Beach, South Carolina: Did it move votes?
Let’s look at the individual candidates. Continue reading
BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com
This is the first of an occasional series of what I am calling “Obama’s America.”
While the political elite are focused on the Republican primary fight, the rest of America is focused on looking for (or keeping) a job; hoping the kids are actually learning something at school; despairing over, while staring at, their evaporating retirement accounts; and wondering, while they watch geniuses like me verbally spar with other geniuses on cable talk shows who, if anyone is actually watching the store.
I started thinking about this while contemplating the Was-Bain-Capital-The-Bane-Of-The-American-Economy action in South Carolina. Mitt Romney is a big boy and has a good campaign. They opened the door to the attacks by Newt Gingrich by attacking Gingrich in Iowa. Continue reading
BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com
A political campaign is like a wedding or the launch of a space vehicle in that the planning and activity starts sometimes years in advance, reaches a frenzied pitch in the last days before the event, then it all stops with “I do,” the “The vehicles has cleared the tower,” or, “We’re reassessing.”
We assume, if none of the parties to the marriage are named Kardashian, the happy couple will settle down to years of house holding and child rearing while the florists, caterers, drivers, and bride’s maids go back to their regular lives.
Having handed control of a space launch over to mission control in Houston, the launch planners likewise turn in their three-ring binders and start the count-down clock for the next mission.
A political campaign that ends, often ends suddenly, and completely.
In the case of Rep. Michele Bachmann, there will be a few weeks of winding down; collecting cell phones and matching rental car records to states in which staffers were supposed to have been working but, that will be handled by the back office staff. Continue reading
BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from mullings.com
We’re probably within a week of the first Republican candidate to file papers opening an exploratory committee to “test the waters” in the 2012 Presidential campaign.