Tag Archives: Rick Santorum

The Elephant and the Denatured Donkey in the Room

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As the New Hampshire presidential primary approaches (February 9), the national political press is consumed with speculation over Donald Trump’s lead in the GOP. Secondarily, it is speculating over how well Sen. Bernie Sanders’ lead on the Democratic side will hold up. The corollary re the GOP is that establishment candidates must be ‘winnowed’, so that Republicans can ‘coalesce’ around an alternative to Trump or Ted Cruz. The corollary re the Democrats is that loaded-with-minuses Hillary Clinton is in for the long haul, on her way to her still-inevitable nomination. Commentators do not always put it that way, but that’s the gist.

Not too ironically, one of the more interesting aspects of the 2016 race is what the national political press is not discussing. This has happened before. An avalanche of commentary in 2014 failed to disclose that the GOP ‘wave’ had a key cause: in state after state, the GOP saw to it that, while tea party candidates proliferated, party-establishment candidates had a clear path to nomination. Thus the arithmetic of the field virtually always prevailed, and in favor of the party’s preferred candidate. The relatively plausible candidate then went on, in most races, to win–especially against Blue-Dog, Clinton-like, triangulating-type Dems. More on that later.

The insurgent types seem to have learned a lesson from 2014, by the way. Trump may be a human cue ball, but most of the ‘winnowing’ this time has occurred in the non-establishment lane, as it’s now being called. Dropouts so far Bobby Jindal, Rand Paul, Mike Huckabee, and Rick Santorum would all be competing for the insurgent vote, if they were still in; Rick Perry and Scott Walker somewhat; only George Pataki and Lindsey Graham perhaps not. Thus with nine presidential candidates remaining, the GOP now has six candidates competing for establishment support–Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, Carly Fiorina, Jim Gilmore, John Kasich, and Marco Rubio. Only two are competing for the tea party-evangelical vote–Ben Carson and Ted Cruz. Trump is running sui generis, salesman that he is.

I do not pretend to have a forecast for the New Hampshire primary. In the interest of full disclosure–to make my own position clear–if I lived in NH I would be voting for Senator Sanders. My own guess is that if Trump were to drop out of the GOP race or to do so poorly as to become irrelevant, his supporters would scatter or drop out, too. Pretty dreary prospect.

Sanders 2016

Back to what’s not being reported. First, the Republicans.

Whatever the outcome in New Hampshire, for anyone who can do arithmetic, the GOP candidate with the best chance long-term is still Jeb Bush–IF he chooses to stay in the race. Christie is ghastly. Fiorina is being sidelined pretty emphatically, in spite of her efforts to out-ugly the uglies. She would probably be sidelined more explicitly, except that the party is trying (sort of) to keep some women voters. Gilmore is being thoroughly ignored. Kasich is under none-too-subtle pressure to make like Scott Walker and bow out; that happens to GOP candidates who occasionally pay lip service to working people. The focus of commentary at the moment is on the GOP candidate most like Bush–Rubio. A few weeks of voting should answer some questions. Bush has the backing to survive not being voted for; Rubio may not. The big question is whether Bush and his backers stay in.

Jeb Bush

Meanwhile, in the tea party-ish lane, Ben Carson is facing an onslaught from Cruz, whom nobody can out-ugly. If insurgent voters were to turn on Cruz in revulsion, that whole wing of the GOP would change in a heartbeat. With Cruz hypothetically not a factor, his supporters would probably split among Carson, Trump, the multiple-candidate lane, and dropping out or voting Democratic. It will be interesting to see how they vote in New Hampshire.

So, back to the non-reported: what no esteemed commentator says about Jeb Bush is that the invasion of Iraq cost the United States dearly. No pundits bring up the statistical facts–the Iraqi civilians killed in the invasion and afterward; the assassinations of Iraqi college professors under the Coalition Provisional Authority; the deaths and injuries in American troops. No commentators point that Team Bush has never apologized for the harm done to fellow human beings, or even for the harm done to America around the globe. No mention of Iraqi children, or babies, killed; no reminder of the horrors of the Bush years–Fallujah, collateral damage, sexual assaults in the military and out of it.

Few commentators on the GOP candidates remind the public that George W. Bush used the attacks of September 11, 2001, as a pretext for invading Iraq. Not one major media figure has pointed out what I pointed out in 2002-2003, the luminously simple statement of fact that every American can understand: “The Iraqis didn’t do it.” There were no Iraqis among the hijackers. Nor do commentators tend to bring up ‘weapons of mass destruction’. (Neither do the Clintons; see below.)

Instead, we get commentary-lite, on the Jeb Bush ‘baggage’ in narrowly political terms. Two recent examples come from the pro-GOP Roll Call. One piece refers to “the family legacy” as a blessing and a curse, and to concerns about the effect on the candidate’s electability. The fact that the family has not expressed responsibility, let alone contrition, for our situation in the Middle East is omitted. Indeed, Jeb Bush says that people concerned about the actions of his father and brother need to “get therapy”–to the applause of his audience.

A succinct summary of the ethics-lite perspective is provided in the other piece:

“Bush has plenty of credentials, but they are less valuable this year. The Bush brand, once strong, was severely damaged by his brother, and Jeb himself doesn’t fit the times, when long political bloodlines and deep establishment connections are liabilities, not assets. He is, to put it bluntly, old news at a time when Republicans are looking for something new and different. For many Republicans, his name told them everything they needed to know about him and his candidacy.”

This is the way to acknowledge the biggest foreign-policy mistake in fifty years? Even Donald Trump does a better analysis of the Iraq War. Incidentally, Trump also provided a pretty good thumbnail of the effect (on the GOP) in political terms: “Lincoln couldn’t have gotten elected.” (Of course, Trump like all the GOPers blames President Obama. In my view, this is a cynical ploy to take advantage of voters too illiterate to understand that the invasion of Iraq happened before Obama’s watch, and over his opposition to the war.)

Needless to say, the same utter lack of contrition and the same failure to take responsibility extend to the Wall Street debacle in subprime lending. And the national political media tend to fall in line here, too. Too seldom is Jeb Bush, or any Republican candidate, held to account for his/her sympathy or collusion with the giant perpetrators. Meanwhile, the GOP gets to rail unchecked against the president even while unemployment falls, wages rise, prices stay level, the real estate market recovers, housing ownership revives, and coverage for health care expands. You’d think some of these gains were the capture of Osama bin Laden or the release of captured Americans all over again, they are so thoroughly ignored by big-time Republicans. Give credit to President Obama, the man who risks his life daily? Not on your bippy.

Now to the Democratic side.

As with GOP candidates, what is missing from commentary on the Democrats is exactly the information voters need. Hillary Clinton would be a disastrous nominee for Dems, but she has lined up segments of the media establishment along with her ‘Super Delegates’ and other connections.

Clinton is running basically on four planks, one semi-hidden–her electability; her inevitability (behind the scenes); her being a Democrat; and her “experience,” with the claim that she gets things done. Each claim is spurious. Setting aside longer examination for now, do they stand up to quick scrutiny? In order —

If Clinton is electable, why is she struggling so much for the nomination that she and her donors did their best to sew up beforehand? If Bill Clinton is ‘one of the best politicians of his generation’, then why did the Clintons leave the Democratic Party in shambles in Arkansas? Why was Arkansas a blue state when the Clintons began there, and a red state after their thirty-plus years? Why didn’t Hillary Clinton run for the senate from Arkansas? Speaking of New York, has there been a wave of Blue wins since the Clintons relocated there? Why did Marjorie Margolies (Mezvinsky), mother of the Clintons’ son-in-law, lose resoundingly in her New York district? The simple fact is that the Clintons are not beloved, and their coattails are nonexistent. Much of MSNBC in the tank for the Clintons. How are MSNBC’s ratings nowadays? Virginia results in 2015 were disappointing for Dems. Governor McAuliffe, widely billed as a chief Clinton ally, is not deeply beloved. Neither are the Clintons. After Clinton campaigned in Virginia in 2013, McAuliffe barely squeaked out a victory–and that was over Ken ‘Kook’ Cucinelli.

If Clinton was inevitable, why did her supporters do so much behind the scenes to keep other candidates from running? Do these machinations express confidence in their candidate?

Democrats? The Clintons are triangulators. They may be liberal on social issues, but as their track record shows, they have a pattern of shafting labor–even after receiving generous donations and support from labor, and from working people. Before she started sounding like Elizabeth Warren a few months ago, when was Clinton ever forceful on economic justice? In the senate, she voted for the resolution enabling GWBush to invade Iraq. Before that, as first lady she partnered in Bill Clinton’s anti-populist path. Before that, as wife of the candidate she stood by while Bill Clinton flew back to Arkansas to endorse personally the state’s execution of a mentally disabled African-American man.

What has Clinton ‘gotten done’? Did she work to reduce the backlog of rape kits? She now talks the game on student debt, etc., but did she ever work with her donors who are lenders to help with it before? Did she do anything beforehand to impede the coming subprime-derivatives meltdown? Did she support policies to rein in Wall Street (or the good ol’ boys in the C of C), either in Arkansas or later? Did she support gun control, before this past fall? Does her track record include support for clemency, for anyone besides Marc Rich?

These are character questions as well as economic-policy questions. Hillary Clinton is not Elizabeth Warren, and should not pretend to be. She is not someone who ‘fights for’ people outside her immediate circle. That’s not who she is. Clinton herself touts misogynistic and sexist attacks against her–but she has never stepped outside her comfort zone to defend other women, in her life. She is no Ann Richards–who endured savage and misogynistic attacks but without selling out. Clinton’s State Department emails show no consideration for President Obama, let alone for Vice President Biden. Clinton and her people, inside and outside her office, kept a wary eye out for any signs that anyone else (good) might be popular. She did the same in Arkansas, for decades. So did her husband.

One of the main problems analyzing the Clinton candidacy is that too much is deemed off-limits as ‘personal’. There is an unstated definition of ‘personal’ as ‘private’, even when the person is running for the White House. For obvious reasons, the Clintons themselves try to bat away every question of character, and many questions of policy, as mere gossip. But this strategy misconstrues the concept of the personal. Clinton has been married for decades to a man whose degrading treatment of her and of many other women is amply documented. This is not ‘right-wing conspiracy’. It is fact. It is also spousal bullying. (No, it’s not romance. It’s not intrigue. It’s not titillation. It was probably barely even sex. It’s spousal bullying–aimed at one’s own partner, while also demeaning the numerous other women involved.)

She shows the symptoms, by the way–that weird lack of judgment, that weirdly dehumanized Stay- Puft complacency, the perpetual calculatedness, the inability to empathize with any woman not ‘successful’ or established, etc.

And how did Clinton herself ‘stand up’ to the spousal bullying? –By working for the spouse’s political career, by helping the spouse advance up the ladder, by helping him into the White House. For my money, there is no way Bill Clinton could have won in 1992 if his wife had not stoutly denied every (true) accusation against him. As a result, Hillary Clinton became rich and famous; her husband became rich and famous; Arkansas was left behind. Reminding the public of this track record is not the same as gossiping about a neighbor. To remember the over-all track record of dishonesty, humiliation, and other forms of bullying is not the same as criticizing some poor woman for failing to take exactly the right course of action against an abuser. Clinton is now running for the White House, and now has all the resources in the world–entirely because of her long-term partnership with Bill Clinton. And she’s talking about the man with a credible accusation of sexual assault against him as “First Dude.”

There is not enough space here to discuss the problems with the ‘having it all’ version of feminism. Careerism is not feminism.

But the problems with the GOP and the Democratic races have one hideous parallel–that signature lack of shame. No matter what mistakes they make, no matter what harm they have caused–no shame, no remorse, no contrition. No amends. And the political media establishment is playing along on both sides.

Trump, birtherism and the GOP race 2012: The more things don’t change, part 3

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The more things don’t change, part 3

2012 from primary to election

 

The dynamic that shaped the Republican primaries is now shaping the Republican campaign for the White House: Future nominee Mitt Romney is continuing the Rick Santorum strategy of going for the leftovers.

 

Romney supporters in Tennessee

As we know, the GOP primary season from summer 2011 to May 2012 shaped up as a contest dividing the voters from more populous counties, in general, from the voters of less populous counties. The GOP primary race was never between ‘moderate’ and ‘conservative’; all the candidates except in some ways Ron Paul support the same rapacious policies. The primary race was between Romney, Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul on one hand and Santorum on the other, the fault line being metropolitan/suburban appeal versus rural appeal. Santorum took most of the less populated counties, and he took states where rural and small-town counties and congressional districts outweigh metropolitan areas and suburbs. In this metric, as previously written, Santorum had the advantage of a divided field among his opponents and the leftovers to himself. Romney, Gingrich and Paul divided the more populated areas.

 

Romney with Nikki Haley

Now Romney has the Republican electorate all to himself—an electorate dependent on voters in regions where population density is not high, where communications are not good, where newspapers are not strong, and where per capita wealth and computer literacy are most lopsidedly divided between highest and lowest. Meth lab country. ‘Safe states’? The only respectably safe state for Romney is Utah. Romney is inordinately dependent on states that gave Rick Santorum victories—Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Tennessee—or that would have boosted Santorum if he could have lasted longer or if he had gotten his electors/delegates on the ballot—Arkansas, Kentucky, Missouri, Texas, West Virginia.

Of the states just mentioned, Texas comes closest to being Romney territory. (Texas also comes closest of these to being Obama territory, but so far the Dems have successfully kept that secret.) As written last week, however, out-of-the-race candidates Michele Bachmann, Rick Santorum and others pulled several thousand votes in the May 29 Texas primary won by Romney. So did “Uncommitted,” on the GOP ballot: More than sixty thousand voters turned out, in an uncontested Republican primary, to vote NOT for their party’s overwhelming favorite and frontrunner, rejecting even the cachet of putting the nominee over the top.

 

Trump

Enter Donald Trump, with his version of support for Romney.

Trump’s support is hardly intended for ‘swing states’. There is no evidence that Trump has wide popular appeal in Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, or Wisconsin. Even in Missouri he looks iffy. Trump’s ‘birth certificate’ ploy is not part of a grand strategy to soften antagonism to Romney among people who work in the automobile industry in Michigan or even in Indiana. No, Trump’s support, his ghastly pitch for birtherism, is a straight-out invitation to the most ignorant counties in the U.S. Grabbing headlines big enough to reach people who don’t read and who distrust the ‘liberal media’ so intensely they refuse to read newspapers or to watch any television news except Fox, Trump is going openly for the voters in the 91 of 95 Tennessee counties won by Santorum.

 

The brighter side of factories closing

Regrettably, automobile workers in Tennessee, Georgia and South Carolina are seldom allowed to know about Romney’s policy positions. If you want another trillion-dollar war and another trillion-dollar tax cut for speculators and hedge fund managers, Romney’s your man—video clips widely available. But the dearth of newspapers in places that need them most seals up policy discussion as though it were national secrets. The result is ongoing harm to U.S. manufacturing and to working families.

 

Back to the birthers—

Theoretically Romney came out of the Texas primary as undisputed top dog and all-round GOP winner, safely in a position to train effective opposition against the Democrats and the president for the next five months. No more press hype boosting minor opponents like Tim Pawlenty (see here and here and here). No more unappealing candidates like Bachmann, Gingrich and Santorum trying ham-handedly to swipe at Romney. Right? No more para-candidates like Rudy Giuliani, Sarah Palin and Trump to distract attention from the nominee. Uh. No more specter-candidates like Chris Christie and Jeb Bush as embarrassing reminders of how many GOPers hoped for more latecomers in the race—at least, not yet this week. No more speculation in the political press as to whether Romney will be downed by a much-hyped ‘Christian right’, Tea Party, and ‘rebellion’ in the ranks. Hm.

Theoretically Romney has massive advantages.

  • He was a primary candidate who did not flunk the one-look-from-across-a-crowded-room test.
  • He presumably has political infrastructure intact at the state level, remaining from a front-loaded primary schedule, copious early money and longstanding organization.
  • He will have unprecedented funding from everyone from Karl Rove to the Koch brothers and the Chamber of Commerce in between.
  • His campaign has five months to benefit from expensive and misleading television ads.
  • He can count on intransigence from Republicans in Congress, to prevent any legislation that would improve the condition of ordinary Americans.

And yet, and yet—he still faces, as previously written, the prospect of some voter sectors not finding a ‘top-tier’ candidate ugly enough for their tastes, and wishing they could have replaced him with someone more transparently unsavory. These are the Manchurian-candidate voters to whom Trump appeals.

If an obvious falsehood triumphs anywhere, it is most liable to triumph in wide-open stretches where mass communications are poor, where former farms produce hay and timber if they’re lucky, and where meth labs start looking like a good way to make a living. Even the most declined neighborhoods in the large industrial states do not tend to be hotbeds of birtherism. Susceptibility to Romney’s claim of being an effective manager is still found more in suburbs than in cities.

Perhaps by now we should all be used to wild claims, and used to the political press reporting wild claims as though they were substantive. Look at the way quintessential Washington insiders and career politicians typically claim to be outsiders, a new start, a fresh face—like Herman Cain, and Santorum with his lobbying career, and Gingrich with his contract with Freddie Mac. To some extent the discrepancies are aired by the national political press, though not as much as they should be and too often as though they are equally endemic to both sides in a national election.

Worse, such factual reporting as survives the filter of the national political press is jeopardized by continuous undertow from the business press. All the major GOP candidates, regardless of stylistic differences, are essentially corporate mouthpieces. Personality differences notwithstanding, the core fiscal trickle-down policy remains intact: it’s rich-get-richer. It’s always there.

They don’t put it that way, of course. The obfuscation is protected by the business press—the same commentators, analysts and journalists who failed to notice the impending mortgage-derivatives crisis and who almost unanimously supported ‘deregulation’. Still do.

It’s the same gang that keeps giving us Orwellianisms about ‘austerity’, ‘debt’, ‘energy’ and ‘jobs’ while doing everything it can to siphon off value from the many and convey it to the few, and a highly unqualified few at that.

Once again, a recent example—U.S. Treasury bills last week sold at a remarkably low rate of interest, yield, meaning that 1) U.S. Treasuries are regarded as rock-solid investment, and 2) their sale saddles the Treasury with little to no debt. But in all the hoopla about ‘the budget’, when was the last time you heard a GOPer in Congress mention the fiscal benefit of issuing U.S. Treasuries at a lower interest rate, to pay off bonds with a higher rate?

Once again, there is an analogy here to refinancing your mortgage. Most people understand the value of refinancing their mortgages if they can get a significantly lower interest rate. It would be illuminating to know which members of Congress have refinanced their houses, just to check on which members understand the same idea. Unfortunately, that information is not publicly available. Residences of congress members are exempted from financial disclosure.

Publicly, in any case, they all go the pro-corporate line of harping on ‘debt’ and ‘deficit’ anyway—except when it comes to discussing corporate debt.

 

More on Trump’s version of birtherism later

Big state, soft support–Primary results in Texas

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Texas Primary Results 2012: Big state, soft support

 

Unofficial results are in for the Texas primary, and on the Republican side Mitt Romney wins with 71 percent of the vote. Not that victory wasn’t pretty certain, since all the other major candidates have already dropped out—but there are a few interesting details.

1)      Rick Santorum got more than 114,000 votes, notwithstanding the fact that he is no longer in the race, suggesting that indeed he might have done pretty well in Texas if he had been able to stay in the contest long enough to make it to the long-belated primary. Thus the state GOP apparatus in Texas delivered yet another state to Romney, one way or another, this one putting him over the top in delegates as it happens. Not as blatant as the measures taken in Virginia, perhaps, but effective nonetheless.

2)      Newt Gingrich, likewise no longer in the race, got more than 67,000 votes—enough to dent Romney’s lead among urbanites, had the major candidates all still been in.

3)      Ron Paul got his usual stalwarts, for a vote total unofficially of almost 172,000, more than 11 percent of votes cast—again, without having remained in the race.

4)      In other drop-out news, Michele Bachmann and Jon Huntsman got 21,800 votes between them. Repeating for clarity: Bachmann and Huntsman are no longer in the race.

5)      The two least-known candidates, Buddy Roehmer and John Davis, got 9,361 votes.

6)      “Uncommitted” got 61,071 votes.

Thus the well-funded Romney, the presumptive nominee and overwhelming establishment favorite, managed to lose more than 445,000 votes in the Republican presidential primary in Texas, give or take.

 

Romney, endorsed by Donald Trump

No wonder Romney is cementing ties with a) big money and b) birthers. As previously written, this guy needs all the help he can get. No wonder the GOP establishment in Florida is doing its level best to eliminate voters from the rolls. No wonder the Secretary of State in Arizona is threatening to take President Obama off the ballot.

 

Arizona SoS Ken Bennett

By the way, if even one state in the union can actually take Obama off its official ballot using the birther pretext, then that whole birther thing is not just nut stuff. It joins other well-funded tactics in the ongoing assault on the middle class, such as

  • crushing labor—wages and benefits—by destroying labor unions including public-sector unions
  • lobbying state governments—legislators and regulators—to undermine public health and public safety protections
  • major advertising campaigns opposing environmental regulation in oil and gas.

None of the state birther challenges will be upheld in court, at least not beyond the appellate level. But any delay in printing and mailing out official ballots, at the state level, would take additional time to correct. A persistent birther challenge not nipped in the bud could conceivably interfere with early voting. Some of the more sincere whack jobs—I say this with love—may actually believe they can keep the president off the ballot in their state. Their backers, more realistic, probably just hope that they can at least divert public resources away from clean and efficient elections. And, of course, entice small donations from pitifully ignorant but hysterical supporters.

 

Cruz on cover

Back to Texas—in the U.S. Senate race, Latino candidate Ted Cruz garners 30 percent of the vote, forcing Lieutenant Gov. David Dewhurst into a run-off for the GOP nomination. Last-minute smarmy attacks on Cruz, implying that he supports illegal immigration, probably helped Dewhurst get his almost 48 percent. No doubt it’s deeply disappointing to party honchos that they didn’t hoist him to the over-50-percent mark.

 

Texas GOP senate front-runner Dewhurst

In the GOP U.S. House races, all incumbents won; open seats with multiple contenders will mostly require run-offs July 31.

 

On the Democratic side there will also be a run-off for the senate nomination, between Paul Sadler and Grady Yarbrough. A new face would be a godsend for the public compared to the solons that the Texas GOP has been electing to the senate. It’s like the old joke about the decadent Romans electing a horse to their senate: At least the Romans had the decency to send the whole horse. In narrowly political terms, the Gulf Coast including Texas is the soft underbelly of red-state strength as Winston Churchill would put it. Too bad the national Democratic party has been slow on the uptake. The national party too often heels at the beck of the national political press, which is reluctant to recalculate and slow to correct its own political misjudgments.

 

Pity about that.

 

In the U.S. House races among Dems, Rep. Silvestre Reyes is the only incumbent who lost, defeated by Beto O’Rourke, son of a late El Paso county judge, Pat O’Rourke. As with the Repubs, some of the open seats will involve primary run-offs July 31.

 

Back to the thought up top: The big news from Texas’ primary is how soft Romney’s support in Texas has proven. The Romney camp doesn’t seem too concerned to counter the perception, even. So far, they’re manning the barricades—money, hysteria—rather than spinning.

Presumably the state party establishment will kick in with a big get-together at some point.

The 2012 GOP primaries and the politics of neglect

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2012 GOP primaries–Santorum wins most Wisconsin counties but loses Wisconsin

More primary results, mostly predictable, in the GOP primary season, and another reminder of the importance of being able to do math and to reason. Case in point, Wisconsin, carried by Mitt Romney along with Maryland and D.C.

Romney in Wisconsin

As previously written, former Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell pointed out that Rick Santorum has a track record in 2012 of almost winning the large industrial states—Ohio, Michigan. Santorum maintained the same pattern in Wisconsin on April 3. Once again in Wisconsin, Santorum won among non-suburbanites and non-urbanites, but not with enough to carry the state.

 

Santorum in Wisconsin

Wisconsin has 72 counties, of which Santorum carried 46—yet another state where wide swaths of rural land area went mostly for Santorum. This is a point touted by Santorum himself, on the campaign trail.

 

The pattern in Michigan

The Santorum campaign seems not to have picked up on the difference between counties and congressional districts. In the GOP primary process, Wisconsin’s delegates are awarded on the basis of congressional districts won, not counties won. Those wide tracts of low population density amount to maybe six or nine Wisconsin delegates awarded to Santorum.

Let’s skip the least interesting and enlightening aspects of current reporting, namely the suspense over whether, or how, Santorum will be pressured to ‘step aside’ from the GOP primary contests to benefit Mitt Romney.

Romney with friends

More significance lies in how candidates like Santorum score in our ‘country’ areas in the first place—lack of information—and how we as a nation treat our ‘country’—with neglect. Santorum has not been shy about using the politics of resentment. His entire campaign has boiled down essentially to two claims:

1) I’m one of you, and

2) We’re under attack

That these claims are false has not deterred the campaign. The grain of truth lies in the second—not in Santorum’s ridiculous and near-blasphemous pretense that he is being criticized for his ‘faith’, but in the fact that any disadvantaged region is vulnerable, and world history teaches us that vulnerable means a possibility of being preyed upon.  In other words, relatively easy picking for Rick Santorum and his ilk.

Our country areas need broadband; they need good schools; they need safe potable water, clean air and viable soil. They need access to health care and medical attention, to responsible media and good communications, to safe air travel and to useful freight and passenger rail. They do not need maximum-security prison complexes, nuclear waste dumps, mountain-top open mines, toxic waste dumps and the so-called ‘oil pipeline’ from Canada, a ground conduit for toxic waste.

But the latter are what they get.

And—of course–candidates like Santorum who facilitate this set-up, which is also broadly facilitated by the GOP. Does anyone believe that that stuff about “burdensome regulations” is actually about ‘creating jobs’?

Back to the South, to the ‘country’, and to our country. There is a difference between quote-country and real country, just as there is a difference between quote-religion and genuine faith, between quote-jobs and a genuinely viable economy, between quote-debt and real deficit reduction. On all these topics, people with the least access to information get jawboned by exactly the officeholders and candidates most devoted to taking advantage of their audiences. Nice work if you can get it.

Our rightwing media personalities provide some blatant examples. Glenn Beck is out there hysterically pitching gold—at a time when gold prices are sky-high. Rush Limbaugh himself reads an advertising pitch for some company that supposedly deals with the IRS for you.

There is a broad question of why, exactly, this nation so neglects some of its most valuable resources. We are used to raising this question, at least sometimes, in regard to our land and water, but the question applies to ‘country’ people as well. Why is it a given that our rural population in the U.S. is to be handed over like meat on the hoof to some of the sleaziest and most venal practitioners of either politics or communications seen since David Duke?

 

Back to the GOP primaries

At least there has been some improved clarity in the national political press, now able to look at GOP primary voters in terms of greater population density versus less. As previously written, Santorum has taken most of the less populous counties, and he has taken states where rural and small-town counties and congressional districts outweigh metropolitan areas and suburbs–Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi. In this metric, as said, Santorum has been facing a divided field of Romney, Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul dividing the more populated areas. It will be mildly interesting to see how many more delegates Santorum picks up, as more people get hip to the demographic pattern. So far, the metric has held up (green highlighting below)—except for Wisconsin (red).

 

*Run-down of remaining contests by metro-versus-rural metric, re-posted

  • Missouri March 17 Santorum, 52 delegates
  • Puerto Rico March 18 Romney, 23 delegates Winner-take-all statewide
  • Illinois March 20 Romney, 69 delegates
  • Louisiana March 24 Close three-way race, one of Santorum’s better hopes, 46 delegates Proportional
  • DC April 3 Romney, 19 delegates Winner-take-all statewide [Santorum not on ballot]
  • Maryland April 3 Romney, 37 delegates Winner-take-all combined
  • Wisconsin April 3 Maybe Santorum, 42 delegates Winner-take-all combined
  • Connecticut April 24 Romney, 28 delegates Winner-take-all at 50%+
  • Delaware April 24 Romney, 17 delegates Winner-take-all statewide
  • New York April 24 Romney, 95 delegates Winner-take-all at 50%+
  • Pennsylvania April 24 Romney, 72 delegates
  • Rhode Island April 24 Romney, 19 delegates Proportional
  • Indiana May 8 Santorum, 46 delegates Winner-take-all combined
  • North Carolina May 8 Close three-way, something for Santorum, 55 delegates Proportional
  • West Virginia May 8 Santorum, 31 delegates Proportional
  • Nebraska May 15 Santorum, 35 delegates
  • Oregon May 15 Maybe Santorum, 28 delegates Proportional
  • Arkansas May 22 Santorum, 36 delegates Proportional/mixed
  • Kentucky May 22 Santorum, 45 delegates Proportional
  • Texas May 29 Romney/Gingrich, 155 delegates Proportional
  • California June 5 Romney, 172 delegates Winner-take-all combined
  • Montana June 5 Maybe Santorum, 26 delegates
  • New Jersey June 5 Romney, 50 delegates Winner-take-all statewide
  • New Mexico June 5 Romney, 23 delegates Proportional
  • South Dakota June 5 Maybe Santorum, 28 delegates Proportional
  • Utah June 26 Romney, 40 delegates Winner-take-all statewide

The Big Ho-Hum from Louisiana

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From Louisiana, a big ho-hum for the primary fight

SHREVEPORT-BOSSIER  As was predictable,* Rick Santorum won Louisiana’s presidential primary Saturday. Also predictable, the word ‘evangelicals’ has been all over the air waves. Again predictable, almost all of the commentary has come from people who have not lived in Louisiana, not stayed here for any length of time, not come from any place near here.

I say ‘here’, because I happen to be in the western part of Louisiana this week. What I saw, in the lead-up to the GOP primary March 24, was no sign of political activity. None. Virtually no campaign signs/posters, even. No discussion, unless you count a couple of Limbaugh-listening cab drivers. No movement on the street–any street–or indoors, regarding any candidate. Newspaper reporting was decorous to the verge of tepid. Interest, in short? –Scant. Virtually the only sign of life, outside communities who gratefully turned out to give President Obama their endorsement, has been the Etch-a-Sketch. And even that has been touched on from a different angle than that on air, at least in my hearing. Where the news media  reported that stock in the company manufacturing the Etch-a-Sketch went up, in the wake of the breathtakingly candid comment, locals note that sales of Etch-a-Sketches in stores went up.

So much for all those hordes of bible-waving frothing-at-the-mouth evangelicals, running amuck down the main streets in a grand stampede to vote for the man of their choice–the ‘devout’ Santorum.

There is one thing the topics of religion, the South, Christianity, ‘evangelicals’, the ‘Bible Belt’ and kindred terms all have in common, much more strongly than any other objective (actual) common denominator including demographics: These are all topics on which commentators feel it legitimate to speak without knowing anything about them.

Someone who talks about basketball on television knows at least something about basketball. Someone who talks about fashion knows something about clothes. Someone who reports on the economy, health issues, commerce–you name it–usually knows at least something about the topic, in spite of flaming gaffes like overlooking the mortgage-derivatives debacle.

But someone on air who uses the term ‘evangelical’? With rare exceptions, you could safely bet your mortgage balance–if anyone offered to take the bet–that the speaker has never even met an actual evangelical. Ditto most of the speakers who sweepingly characterize the South, etc.

One simple point, kept short: Genuine evangelicals spend a lot of time trying to convert other people to their faith. In these parts, their interest in voting for either Santorum or Newt Gingrich–the two Catholics in the race–or in Mitt Romney has been consistently tepid, and getting more so.

Try to believe me when I say that most true believers, the overwhelming majority of same, are not parading an eagerness to vote for any of the GOP candidates above as a hallmark of faith, nor are they exacting a promise to vote for Santorum as proof of faith in their neighbors.

Media analysts are obsessed with ‘evangelicals’. It may be a form of xenophobia in our major media hubs.

Back to the prevailing commentary–It’s good that media analysts have waked up to the demographics separating Santorum supporters, by and large, from Romney/Gingrich/Ron Paul voters. But the logical step that should come next has not yet come–the question why far-flung unreached voters would be more willing to go for Santorum. This logical step is being blocked by the ‘evangelicals’ dodge, a fig leaf for journalism not informing.

The answer is not religion. There are plenty of devout African-Americans, Latinos, Caucasians and others not lining up to vote for Santorum. The same holds for income level, occupation and industry.

The answer has to do with level of information. The local newspapers try hard, sometimes, but are withering on the vine. USA Today, read more often than the local paper, is beating the drum for the co-called ‘oil pipeline’. Not all three traditional television networks even air a national evening news program in the Shreveport-Bossier City metro area. Bookstores are few and far between, found mostly in large malls–chain stores. Internet access is more limited than in larger, healthier metro areas. Rush Limbaugh dominates the radio, feeding his audience false stories–that Canadians have to wait “four months” for health care, for example.

In regard to the limited topic of the GOP primary race, there is just about no information on Santorum’s lobbying in D.C. over recent years. There is no detailed evaluation of what Santorum’s policies, including the Paul Ryan budget and more global bellicosity, would do to the average Santorum voter. Santorum goes out and feeds his limited audiences the line they want to hear–I’m one of you, and we are under attack. That’s his campaign, in a nutshell. And people who would be unduly influenced by this thin line are people suffering a dearth of information on the issues that affect their lives.

Take this simple question on health care: How many Americans would be able to pay a high-six-figure medical bill? How many, or what proportion of the U.S. population, would be able to foot big hospital bills for themselves, even if they have insurance (or think they have)? Regardless of income level–how many people could count on being able to keep paying their mortgages, keep their kids in college, take care of their older relatives, meet any of the other demands of ordinary middle-class life, if they abruptly faced hospitalization for serious illness or injury?

And yet we have exactly the people who would be very sadly off, in such a situation–among the millions of people, probably the overwhelming majority of the population–reluctant to have single-payer health care. Why? Because they see it as ‘paying for other people’. What would THEY do, themselves, if faced with medical necessity?

Uh.

btw these untapped reservoirs of obliviousness to the basic question on health care–What would you do–also tend to be people resistant to keeping their own health. These are not, by and large, your joggers, your soccer coaches, your non-smokers. Remember the ‘Thank you for smoking’ line being pushed by a youngish rightwing writer? Them. Driving without a seatbelt? Them. Fast-food junkies? Them.

And these are the people we’re all supposed to listen to, as salt-of-the-earth, backbone-of-America types? People who think they’re showing independence and self-reliance by not buckling up?

Back to the topics above: These people are not evangelicals. They are not born-agains. They are not ‘the base’. They are GOP voters, largely staying home from the primaries because they don’t care too much who wins and just don’t want to know too much about the candidates. And the candidates are pandering to them with all their might, with the exception of Paul.

Granted, most of us are not actuaries. But given the proven shortfalls when an insurance policy has to be relied on, the number of people who don’t even have insurance ‘coverage’ in the first place, the likelihood of hospitalization in the ordinary lifespan–you would think that the concept of sharing the risk, or spreading the risk, would be viable.

As to the remaining contests, so far everything looks going by the metric below. I thought Gingrich and Romney might pull more votes out of Louisiana, but the lack of interest is fierce here, far more fierce than the commitment to any candidate. Former Governor Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania has said he thinks Santorum will pull Pennsylvania; he should know. If it’s only the most abjectly ill-informed voters who go to the polls, the outcome is predictable in a low-turnout vote.  

*Run-down of contests by metro-versus-rural metric, re-posted

  • Missouri March 17 Santorum, 52 delegates
  • Puerto Rico March 18 Romney, 23 delegates Winner-take-all statewide
  • Illinois March 20 Romney, 69 delegates
  • Louisiana March 24 Close three-way race, one of Santorum’s better hopes, 46 delegates Proportional
  • DC April 3 Romney, 19 delegates Winner-take-all statewide
  • Maryland April 3 Romney, 37 delegates Winner-take-all combined
  • Wisconsin April 3 Maybe Santorum, 42 delegates Winner-take-all combined
  • Connecticut April 24 Romney, 28 delegates Winner-take-all at 50%+
  • Delaware April 24 Romney, 17 delegates Winner-take-all statewide
  • New York April 24 Romney, 95 delegates Winner-take-all at 50%+
  • Pennsylvania April 24 Romney, 72 delegates
  • Rhode Island April 24 Romney, 19 delegates Proportional
  • Indiana May 8 Santorum, 46 delegates Winner-take-all combined
  • North Carolina May 8 Close three-way, something for Santorum, 55 delegates Proportional
  • West Virginia May 8 Santorum, 31 delegates Proportional
  • Nebraska May 15 Santorum, 35 delegates
  • Oregon May 15 Santorum, 28 delegates Proportional
  • Arkansas May 22 Santorum, 36 delegates Proportional/mixed
  • Kentucky May 22 Santorum, 45 delegates Proportional
  • Texas May 29 Romney/Gingrich, 155 delegates Proportional
  • California June 5 Romney, 172 delegates Winner-take-all combined
  • Montana June 5 Santorum, 26 delegates
  • New Jersey June 5 Romney, 50 delegates Winner-take-all statewide
  • New Mexico June 5 Romney, 23 delegates Proportional
  • South Dakota June 5 Santorum, 28 delegates Proportional
  • Utah June 26 Romney, 40 delegates Winner-take-all statewide

The 2012 GOP primary race; Illinois today

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2012 GOP primary race–today, Illinois

 

Romney in Chicago

Today, the Illinois primary. Puerto Rico went as expected for Mitt Romney, or better—since he won all the delegates there—and Missouri results are held in a murk, not to be clarified until April. The prevalent question surrounding the Illinois primary is how well Romney will do. Illinois has abundant metropolitan and suburban areas, with enough population to allow some division among Romney, Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul without putting Rick Santorum over the top in the state. As to campaign tactics, the primary will reflect whether the Romney team has drafted an appeal sufficient to cut into Santorum’s predictable success among down-staters and non-suburbanites.

Santorum

Actually, Illinois delegates are supposed to be allocated according to a mixed formula, too, so Missouri may not be the last question mark leading to the GOP convention in Tampa.

 

Report on PACs 2012

Reminder from the previous post–this ruling by the U.S. District Court in Northern Illinois last week allows more room to spend for some PACs. The court ruled March 13 that two provisions of the Campaign Disclosure Act do not apply to PACs formed for the sole purpose of making independent contributions.

Recapping, from the Illinois State Board of Elections:

“This ruling has no effect on any political committee other than one formed SOLELY for making independent expenditures.
Contribution limits are still in effect for Candidate Political Committees, Political Party Committees, and Political Action Committees which make coordinated expenditures or direct contributions to candidates or committees. The ruling allows an entity formed for the purpose of making independent expenditures ONLY, to create a Political Action Committee that is not bound by contribution limits . . .”

This ruling allows an entity to have more than one Political Action Committee, provided the second committee is an Independent-Expenditure-Only PAC created only to make independent expenditures . . . The committee created to make independent expenditures only, is not subject to contribution limits . . .”

Disclosure of substantial contributions is still required, but within 30 days. Since that 30 days (since the ruling) have not elapsed, the public does not know at election time which candidates if any have benefited from PAC contributions since the recent ruling.

 

*Run-down of contests by metro-versus-rural metric, re-posted

  • Missouri March 17 Santorum, 52 delegates
  • Puerto Rico March 18 Romney, 23 delegates Winner-take-all statewide
  • Illinois March 20 Romney, 69 delegates
  • Louisiana March 24 Close three-way race, one of Santorum’s better hopes, 46 delegates Proportional
  • DC April 3 Romney, 19 delegates Winner-take-all statewide
  • Maryland April 3 Romney, 37 delegates Winner-take-all combined
  • Wisconsin April 3 Maybe Santorum, 42 delegates Winner-take-all combined
  • Connecticut April 24 Romney, 28 delegates Winner-take-all at 50%+
  • Delaware April 24 Romney, 17 delegates Winner-take-all statewide
  • New York April 24 Romney, 95 delegates Winner-take-all at 50%+
  • Pennsylvania April 24 Romney, 72 delegates
  • Rhode Island April 24 Romney, 19 delegates Proportional
  • Indiana May 8 Santorum, 46 delegates Winner-take-all combined
  • North Carolina May 8 Close three-way, something for Santorum, 55 delegates Proportional
  • West Virginia May 8 Santorum, 31 delegates Proportional
  • Nebraska May 15 Santorum, 35 delegates
  • Oregon May 15 Maybe Santorum, 28 delegates Proportional
  • Arkansas May 22 Santorum, 36 delegates Proportional/mixed
  • Kentucky May 22 Santorum, 45 delegates Proportional
  • Texas May 29 Romney/Gingrich, 155 delegates Proportional
  • California June 5 Romney, 172 delegates Winner-take-all combined
  • Montana June 5 Maybe Santorum, 26 delegates
  • New Jersey June 5 Romney, 50 delegates Winner-take-all statewide
  • New Mexico June 5 Romney, 23 delegates Proportional
  • South Dakota June 5 Maybe Santorum, 28 delegates Proportional
  • Utah June 26 Romney, 40 delegates Winner-take-all statewide

 

more later

Update primary election night:

It was looking awfully good for Mitt Romney for an hour and a half after polls closed in Illinois at 8:00 ET. Romney had a two-to-one lead over Rick Santorum for a while; Fox News called the state for Romney by 8:37. Other networks and channels followed suit soon after. Wisely, Romney came out and gave his victory speech rather early. Good thing for him he did; when he signed off with a farewell wave and another hug to his wife at 9:31, he was down to 50 percent.

The question now is how much below 50 percent Romney will sag in Illinois, as down-state results favoring Santorum continue to come in. At 9:36 he was down to 49 percent.  Santorum entered to begin his speech soon after, in Pennsylvania, where he is campaigning instead of in Louisiana, Newt Gingrich’s current venue.

Another question, of course, is exactly how Illinois’s delegates will be apportioned.

Weekend further shaping the 2012 primaries

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2012, and how the GOP primary race has been shaped

The weekend has brought its partial results. With the vote from Puerto Rico in Sunday, Romney gets the delegates there.* Missouri held caucuses on Saturday, reportedly to a mix of amusement and anger, but results will not be announced until April. The New York Daily News reported Rick Santorum ahead. Ron Paul supporters, au contraire, are claiming that Paul won 48 of 53 delegates at stake.

 

Santorum at podium

Apparently the Show-Me State is not to be shown, at least not if the state GOP maintains its hold over procedure. By all accounts, Paul’s people and Romney’s people shared the field, both having spent serious time and effort organizing rather than on campaigning. What happens to Santorum’s earlier victory in the non-binding primary remains to be seen. (Paul said at the time that it was meaningless.)

 

Ron Paul

The weekend also brought some clarity in the national political press, now not claiming with one voice that the GOP primary race is between a ‘moderate’ and a ‘conservative’. More sensibly, GOP primary voters are defined according to a contest of greater population density versus less. As previously written, the GOP primaries have divided Romney-Santorum-Gingrich-Paul voters so far according to rural appeal versus metropolitan/suburban appeal. Santorum has taken most of the less populated counties, and he has taken states where rural and small-town counties and congressional districts outweigh metropolitan areas and suburbs. In this metric, as said, Santorum has been facing a divided field, because he has the left-overs all to himself. Romney, Gingrich and Paul have been dividing the more populated areas.

 

Illinois countryside

Up next: Illinois.

 

Illinois has its wide-open stretches, but former Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell has pointed out that Santorum has a track record (this year) of almost winning the large industrial states—Ohio, Michigan. If Santorum maintains the same pattern in Illinois, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, he will continue to pick up delegates but not states won. Tomorrow’s primary will show whether Romney has begun to cut into Santorum’s predictable success among the non-suburbanites in Illinois, whether Santorum is able to generate enough outrage is get out the Romney/Gingrich vote, whether Santorum can convey enough despair to convert more GOPers to Dems, etc.

 

A few of the Illinois suburbs

It is theoretically possible that Santorum might get about a third of Illinois’s 69 delegates. That gets a little harder to see, following this ruling by the U.S. District Court there last week, which helpfully allows more leverage than ever for some PACs. On March 13, the court ruled that two provisions of the Campaign Disclosure Act do not apply to PACs formed for the sole purpose of making independent contributions.

 

I like that word ‘independent’.

From the Illinois State Board of Elections:

“This ruling has no effect on any political committee other than one formed SOLELY for making independent expenditures.

Contribution limits are still in effect for Candidate Political Committees, Political Party Committees, and Political Action Committees which make coordinated expenditures or direct contributions to candidates or committees. The ruling allows an entity formed for the purpose of making independent expenditures ONLY, to create a Political Action Committee that is not bound by contribution limits. That Political Action Committee, which will be designated as an Independent-Expenditure-Only PAC, must still register with the SBE and must file all required disclosure documents when it reaches the $3000 filing threshold. It must report all receipts and expenditures and itemize those in excess of $150 on its quarterly reports. It must file a Schedule A-1 within 5 or 2 business days, (depending on when the contribution is received) whenever it receives a contribution of $1000 or more. It must also file a Schedule B-1 within 5 business days when it makes an aggregate of $1000 in independent expenditures within the 30 days prior to an election.”

This ruling allows an entity to have more than one Political Action Committee, provided the second committee is an Independent-Expenditure-Only PAC created only to make independent expenditures. Such committee may NOT make direct contributions or coordinated expenditures. The committee created to make independent expenditures only, is not subject to contribution limits; the Political Action Committee making direct contributions IS STILL subject to contribution limits. A Political Action Committee making direct contributions may also make independent expenditures without forming a second PAC, but it must still abide by the contribution limits.”

 

So if your political purpose, or strategy, is only to spend money on behalf of [whatever], you are free of two more modest limitations.

Not yet known how many candidates RomneyRomneyRomney have benefited from PACs formed since this ruling, which happens to come just one week before the Illinois primary.

 

Onward

 

Up March 24: Louisiana.

The Louisiana primary will be interesting. We’ll see Saturday whether Romney, Gingrich and Paul have made enough inroads around New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Bossier City, etc., to offset Santorum’s advantage in the places where newspapers don’t get. Santorum’s policies would be devastating to small towns, rural areas and the Gulf Coast in general. But Santorum–whose lobbying clients have not spared those regions—is on the campaign trail blaming everything bad on lack of development, euphemized as ‘jobs’, and on President Obama. It’s dismal to see, but it works, especially in combination with the factor of race.

 

My next post on Louisiana will be from there.

 

 

*Run-down of the remaining contests by metro-versus-rural metric, re-posted

  • Missouri March 17 Santorum, 52 delegates
  • Puerto Rico March 18 Romney, 23 delegates Winner-take-all statewide
  • Illinois March 20 Romney, 69 delegates
  • Louisiana March 24 Close three-way race, one of Santorum’s better hopes, 46 delegates Proportional
  • DC April 3 Romney, 19 delegates Winner-take-all statewide
  • Maryland April 3 Romney, 37 delegates Winner-take-all combined
  • Wisconsin April 3 Maybe Santorum, 42 delegates Winner-take-all combined
  • Connecticut April 24 Romney, 28 delegates Winner-take-all at 50%+
  • Delaware April 24 Romney, 17 delegates Winner-take-all statewide
  • New York April 24 Romney, 95 delegates Winner-take-all at 50%+
  • Pennsylvania April 24 Romney, 72 delegates
  • Rhode Island April 24 Romney, 19 delegates Proportional
  • Indiana May 8 Santorum, 46 delegates Winner-take-all combined
  • North Carolina May 8 Close three-way, something for Santorum, 55 delegates Proportional
  • West Virginia May 8 Santorum, 31 delegates Proportional
  • Nebraska May 15 Santorum, 35 delegates
  • Oregon May 15 Maybe Santorum, 28 delegates Proportional
  • Arkansas May 22 Santorum, 36 delegates Proportional/mixed
  • Kentucky May 22 Santorum, 45 delegates Proportional
  • Texas May 29 Romney/Gingrich, 155 delegates Proportional
  • California June 5 Romney, 172 delegates Winner-take-all combined
  • Montana June 5 Maybe Santorum, 26 delegates
  • New Jersey June 5 Romney, 50 delegates Winner-take-all statewide
  • New Mexico June 5 Romney, 23 delegates Proportional
  • South Dakota June 5 Maybe Santorum, 28 delegates Proportional
  • Utah June 26 Romney, 40 delegates Winner-take-all statewide

Target demographics and the 2012 GOP race

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Target demographics in 2012–How the GOP primary race has been shaped

Reluctant as I am to post on a beautiful Saturday morning in March Madness (the wearing o’ the green worked its magic a day early this year)–still, a new Gallup poll out yesterday reinforces the previous post.

So, following up–

Recapping, the argument for pushing Newt Gingrich out of the GOP primary race has been that eliminating Gingrich would set up a one-on-one, disregarding Ron Paul, between a ‘moderate’ and a ‘genuine conservative’. Some who voice this think that Rick Santorum would then beat Mitt Romney.

The first part of that rationale—that anyone could seriously represent Romney as moderate–is the more fundamental problem. Romney, Gingrich and Santorum all represent trickle-down. Some slight variation on social issues, if any, affects only their ability to represent their counter-constructive rich-get-richer economic/monetary policy. It does not affect the policy itself.

Trickle-down theory explained

But this post continues to address the second part—the idea that Santorum would beat Romney one-on-one. As previously written, with or without Gingrich, the GOP contest would still be a contest of greater population density versus less population density, for the most part. The GOP primaries have established that the dividing line for the Romney-Santorum-Gingrich-Paul foursome is rural appeal versus metropolitan/suburban appeal. Santorum has taken more of the less populated counties, and he has taken states where rural and small-town counties and congressional districts outweigh metropolitan areas and suburbs, the most prominent example being Alabama and Mississippi.

Thus in this metric it is Santorum, not Romney, who has been contending against a divided field. Romney, Gingrich and Paul have been dividing the more populated areas.

The candidates

Sure enough—and I consider my view vindicated, here—a new Gallup poll of Gingrich voters released Friday shows that Santorum would not get a majority of them. If the poll is accurate, he would not get even a plurality. The poll, reported here and here and here and here among other places, is pretty definitive. In fact, most of the reporting thus far softens the result a bit. If Gingrich left the race, according to this snapshot, a hefty majority of his supporters would not go to Santorum: Santorum 39 percent, anyone else or no opinion 61 percent. Among named candidates, Romney would get according to the same poll 40 percent.  In other words, Santorum would get a minority of Gingrich voters.

Why would anyone be surprised at this?

GOP candidates explained

Back to the primary campaign

As previously written, there are more people in areas of greater population density than in areas of less population density. The race is not equal, and not only because of Romney’s vast financing and organization.

 

Romney's position on the auto industry bailout explained

Here is my previous thumbnail of the remaining contests, re-posted, with top finisher using the metric of population, and delegate allocation:

  • Missouri March 17 Santorum, 52 delegates
  • Puerto Rico March 18 Romney, 23 delegates Winner-take-all statewide
  • Illinois March 20 Romney, 69 delegates
  • Louisiana March 24 Close three-way race, one of Santorum’s better hopes, 46 delegates Proportional
  • DC April 3 Romney, 19 delegates Winner-take-all statewide
  • Maryland April 3 Romney, 37 delegates Winner-take-all combined
  • Wisconsin April 3 Maybe Santorum, 42 delegates Winner-take-all combined
  • Connecticut April 24 Romney, 28 delegates Winner-take-all at 50%+
  • Delaware April 24 Romney, 17 delegates Winner-take-all statewide
  • New York April 24 Romney, 95 delegates Winner-take-all at 50%+
  • Pennsylvania April 24 Romney, 72 delegates
  • Rhode Island April 24 Romney, 19 delegates Proportional
  • Indiana May 8 Santorum, 46 delegates Winner-take-all combined
  • North Carolina May 8 Close three-way, something for Santorum, 55 delegates Proportional
  • West Virginia May 8 Santorum, 31 delegates Proportional
  • Nebraska May 15 Santorum, 35 delegates
  • Oregon May 15 Maybe Santorum, 28 delegates Proportional
  • Arkansas May 22 Santorum, 36 delegates Proportional/mixed
  • Kentucky May 22 Santorum, 45 delegates Proportional
  • Texas May 29 Romney/Gingrich, 155 delegates Proportional
  • California June 5 Romney, 172 delegates Winner-take-all combined
  • Montana June 5 Maybe Santorum, 26 delegates
  • New Jersey June 5 Romney, 50 delegates Winner-take-all statewide
  • New Mexico June 5 Romney, 23 delegates Proportional
  •  South Dakota June 5 Maybe Santorum, 28 delegates Proportional
  • Utah June 26 Romney, 40 delegates Winner-take-all statewide

 

In my view, Santorum’s best shot for the rest of the season comes in today’s Missouri caucuses. Much of Missouri is his kind of population, and Santorum won the non-binding primary there. It remains to be seen whether the organization of the caucuses will produce an outcome different from that of the primary, and if so by how much. His next best shot comes in Louisiana March 24. He is not doing well in Puerto Rico, where he traveled but immediately made English-first comments. The comments may set him up well for a good lobbying/circuit-speaking job after the campaign, in the K Street sector that sees a business opportunity in English-only resentments.

 

Santorum also has a chance, by the metric above, in other states including Indiana, West Virginia, Kentucky and maybe Wisconsin. But those states come later, the pattern dividing the GOP voting population will be more than apparent to the Romney campaign, and there is always some chance that the Romney people could adapt to it. They could try to reach the most scattered and isolated areas more effectively—Santorum’s policies would be at least as devastating to small towns, farms and rural areas as Romney’s, and his lobbying clients have not served those populations. Or they could more effectively turn out people who were going to vote for Romney/Gingrich anyway.

However, barring the unforeseen, at this point it still looks impossible for any candidate to win a majority of Republican delegates—1144—before the GOP national convention, even by effectively adapting to demographics. With proportional representation, all the candidates can pick up more delegates.

 

Note:

The foregoing aims only to assess outcomes, partially, by metrics. It should not be construed as supporting the aim of getting people to vote against their own interest, the basic drive of the GOP ticket in a national election. I oppose policies that harm this country and the world.

That said, I’m only human. It is impossible not to gawk at primaries devolving into a contest between man-on-dog and dog-on-van.

The 2012 GOP primaries–Delegate math and stupid ridicule

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Math wins, numbers of voters still count in elections–open convention coming?

 

GOP candidates 2012

Another cluster of primaries, a new current argument about the GOP primary season. Now the question hovering over the political reporting is whether Newt Gingrich can be pummeled into getting out of the race. His sister suggests not. Candace Gingrich-Jones, in an excellent performance of The Accidental Activist, by Rebecca Gingrich-Jones, suggested that Gingrich is likely to stay in as long as he likes, which would be until Tampa. Q&A following the play did nothing to dispel the suggestion. Gingrich himself repeated yesterday, following the Mississippi and Alabama primaries, that he will stay in until the convention—“trying to make sure we have an open convention.” Gingrich Super PAC advisor Rick Tyler, reprising an appearance on MSNBC’s The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell, backed him up. “We’ll just have it out at the convention.”

Candace Gingrich-Jones

Nonetheless, at the moment pushing Newt out of the race seems to be a first objective among the chattering classes, and they make no bones about overt displays of intent. The rationale remains oddly vague. The clearest version of an argument yet presented for muscling Gingrich out by commentary—or by ignoring him, which isn’t happening yet–seems to be that eliminating Gingrich would set up a one-on-one race (Ron Paul disregarded) between a more ‘moderate’ candidate and a ‘genuine conservative’. This line of thought is voiced explicitly by some arch-rightwing strategists on air and in print—who seem to think it follows as the night the day that Santorum will then beat Romney.

 

Santorum, family

There is something nasty about bullying and gang-ridiculing (even) Newt Gingrich, because he came in a close second in two southern states. The same gut response sets up when the same nominally intelligent people ridicule Mitt Romney for coming in a close third after trying out the local food and the local dialect in the South. Ridicule should be used against tyranny, against the powerful—not at the moment when you think you have the upper hand. Furthermore, you should ridicule as an individual, exercising skepticism as part of independent judgment. Lemmings don’t ridicule effectively. Neither do weathervanes. Furthermore again, ridicule should be used as a weapon on behalf of the defenseless. Ridicule candidates when they go along with torture and talk tough about bombing campaigns, not for superficialities.

Speaking of talking tough, does anyone ever ask Santorum about his military service?

But back to that Gingrich question, i.e. whether he can be pushed out of the primary contest by collective pressure from on-air and print commentators and political strategists—

 

And back to that rationale—

First, anyone who calls Romney a moderate, now, must be ignoring everything the candidate has said in the entire 2012 election cycle.* A contest between Romney and Santorum would not be a contest of moderate versus conservative.

With or without Gingrich, the GOP contest would still be a contest of greater population density versus less population density, for the most part. Vermont was an exception, and Utah is likely to be another; this is not an all-or-nothing picture. But the GOP primaries have established that the dividing line for the Romney-Santorum-Gingrich-Paul foursome is rural appeal versus metropolitan/suburban appeal.

As previously written, Santorum has had the less populated counties almost to himself, in most states, while the other candidates have been battling it out for more populated areas. Again, if the pattern holds, then Santorum should have an edge in states where sparsely populated congressional districts outweigh metropolitan districts.

That doesn’t mean an equal race. The number of votes is key in elections, even in these cynical times. Population is key, and—follow me closely here—population is greater in areas of greater population density than in areas of less population density. Let me repeat that, for the benefit of commentators and others (including Santorum) currently ridiculing the word “math”: there are more people in areas of greater population density than in areas of less population density. That comparison knocks out Texas, California and New York for Santorum, while possibly leaving in Missouri, Indiana and Nebraska. Doesn’t seem like an equal race.

Side note:

Why on earth doesn’t the Romney campaign just run a television ad with that clip of Santorum inveighing against birth control? Voice-over: “You really think this guy can beat President Obama?”

 

But back to the remaining 2012 primary season. Admittedly, the comparison of more populous regions to less is softened by proportional representation—which was intended partly to give rural counties and districts more of a say, as in the senate side of our bicameral legislature. In a number of the remaining contests, delegates are awarded according to proportions drawn up by the states. But several of the remaining states where Romney can be expected to win are winner-take-all, including California, New Mexico and New Jersey. Almost all of the states where Santorum can realistically hope to finish ahead are proportional-representation, Indiana being an exception and Wisconsin possibly. Even the New York primary is only modified proportional, though it is hard to see how any anti-birth-control candidate could do well there.

Here again is a run-down of the remaining contests, picking the top finisher using the metric of population, with their delegate allocation defined where feasible:

  • Missouri March 17  Santorum, 52 delegates
  • Puerto Rico March 18  Romney, 23 delegates  Winner-take-all statewide
  • Illinois March 20  Romney, 69 delegates
  • Louisiana March 24  Close three-way race, one of Santorum’s better hopes, 46 delegates  Proportional
  • DC April 3  Romney, 19 delegates  Winner-take-all statewide
  • Maryland April 3  Romney, 37 delegates  Winner-take-all combined
  • Wisconsin April 3  Maybe Santorum, 42 delegates  Winner-take-all combined
  • Connecticut April 24  Romney, 28 delegates  Winner-take-all at 50%+
  • Delaware April 24  Romney, 17 delegates  Winner-take-all statewide
  • New York April 24  Romney, 95 delegates  Winner-take-all at 50%+
  • Pennsylvania April 24  Romney, 72 delegates
  • Rhode Island April 24  Romney, 19 delegates  Proportional
  • Indiana May 8  Santorum, 46 delegates  Winner-take-all combined
  • North Carolina May 8  Close three-way, something for Santorum, 55 delegates  Proportional
  • West Virginia May 8  Santorum, 31 delegates  Proportional
  • Nebraska May 15  Santorum, 35 delegates
  • Oregon May 15  Maybe Santorum, 28 delegates  Proportional
  • Arkansas May 22  Santorum, 36 delegates  Proportional/mixed
  • Kentucky May 22  Santorum, 45 delegates  Proportional
  • Texas May 29  Romney/Gingrich, 155 delegates  Proportional
  • California June 5  Romney, 172 delegates  Winner-take-all combined
  • Montana June 5  Maybe Santorum, 26 delegates
  • New Jersey June 5  Romney, 50 delegates Winner-take-all statewide
  • New Mexico June 5  Romney, 23 delegates  Proportional
  • South Dakota June  5  Maybe Santorum, 28 delegates Proportional
  • Utah June 26  Romney, 40 delegates Winner-take-all statewide

A lucid and simple statement: “It is virtually impossible for a candidate to win a majority of the Republican delegates before June 2012.”

 

Once again: Santorum has shown an advantage in rural areas, Romney/Gingrich in metro areas. Anyone who hypothesizes that Santorum could pick up another 800 to 900 delegates in the remaining states, with Gingrich out, is welcome to demonstrate how.

 

Sometimes it is difficult to understand how any analyst more concerned with ‘narrative’ than with accuracy got on television in the first place. On the other hand, maybe that’s how.

 

But even on their own terms, the narrative guys are being more than a tad inconsistent. There could be few more compelling stories in the GOP primary season than an open convention coming in Tampa—and that’s the one they choose to omit? By ridiculing ‘math’ and ‘delegate count’? What’s next—ridiculing spelling and grammar?

 

Former GOP Chairman Michael Steele, by the way, is  now talking openly about a “contested convention.”

 

 

 

* These are the same people who also assert that Romney will ‘tack to the middle’ in a general election campaign, if he gets the nomination, and that the American people will not listen until then anyway, and that he might well get away with it if he does, etc. They have a vested interest in a ‘close’ election, however contrary to the best interests of the public another close election would be. They tend to have the same vested interest every election. That’s why, throughout the eighties and nineties, we seldom got substantive issues raised in presidential election campaigns—and when they did get raised, the discussion typically conduced to an outcome at variance with the public interest.

The 2012 primaries have finally defined Santorum territory and Romney territory

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The 2012 southern primaries yesterday marked a clear dividing line–finally

Santorum

If the GOP primaries have established a consistent pattern, it is that the dividing line for the Romney-Santorum-Gingrich threesome is rural appeal versus metropolitan/suburban appeal. Santorum has the less populated counties almost all to himself, in most states; Romney and Gingrich battle it out for the more populated areas. This pattern has been partly defined on the helpful late-election-night maps projected on CNN’s wall: in state after state, wide swaths of rural counties have gone to Santorum, often ultimately outnumbered by Romney’s pull in the suburbs of big cities. Mississippi and Alabama went Santorum’s way last night, less because they are ultra-conservative—after all, South Carolina and Georgia are the same–than because they lack the large populous areas that offset the less densely populated districts.

 

Gingrich

If the pattern holds for the upcoming primaries, then Santorum should have an edge in those states where the sparsely populated congressional districts outweigh metropolitan areas.

That knocks out Texas, California and New York.

 

Missouri countryside

But let’s try a quick run-down to guess the remaining 2012 primary season.

  • Missouri March 17. Next comes Missouri, where miles of beautiful green fields line the highways that get you through the state, the cities are not megalopoli, and caucuses take place Saturday. Missouri is Santorum terrain even aside from the fact that Santorum won the non-binding ‘beauty contest’ primary there. (52 delegates)
  • Puerto Rico March 18. The Puerto Rico primary involves large, bustling urban areas. Santorum announced that he is going there, but it still looks Romney. (23 delegates)
  • Illinois March 20. The state has its rural regions, but Chicago is huge, has expansive suburbs, and is not the only sizable city in the state. Illinois, using this thumb-nail look exclusively, should be for Romney. (69 delegates)
  • Louisiana March 24. The state has New Orleans, Shreveport, Bossier City and Baton Rouge, with three out of those four going to Romney or Gingrich, with some for Ron Paul. Bossier City is working hard to revitalize, partly through gaming revenues from casinos on the Red River; Shreveport is Santorum-type territory. Louisiana, another close three-way race, is one of Santorum’s better hopes. (46 delegates)
  • DC, Maryland, Wisconsin April 3. DC (19), Maryland (37), Wisconsin (42). The first two for Romney; the third a good shot for Santorum, but tight, since Wisconsin does have large cities and suburbs. (56 for the mid-Atlantic, 42 possible for Santorum)
  • Connecticut, Delaware, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island April 24. A total 231 delegates—another Super Tuesday, except that traditionally they don’t use that term about April primaries—and the only state that looks conceivable for Santorum is Pennsylvania, where he served as a senator until booted out. Nor does it look likely that Gingrich will tie Romney in any of these.
  • Indiana, North Carolina, West Virginia May 8. Total delegates 132, with a shot for Santorum in Indiana and West Virginia (using the rural-versus-urban metric), and a tight three-way race in North Carolina.
  • Nebraska, Oregon primaries May 15. Both conceivable for Santorum, with their wide swaths of radio-listening counties. (63 delegates)
  • Arkansas, Kentucky May 22. Ditto, and you can add impoverished school systems and some lack of newspapers. (81 delegates)
  • Texas May 29. The Sunbelt cities of Texas are overpowering. If Gingrich and Romney make any good effort there at all, Santorum should be a very poor third at best. Dallas is the exceptional big city that might be Santorum-friendly, but the counties of East Texas are dwindling relative to the metropolitan part of the state. (155)
  • California, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico and South Dakota June 5. With a whopping 299 delegates, yet another Super Tuesday. They’re going to have to start using Roman numerals for these supers. Of the five, Santorum has a theoretical chance in two—Montana and South Dakota—though his chances might be undercut by his continuing insistence on talking about people’s private lives. The other three states add up to 268 delegates.
  • Utah June 26. Maybe Santorum can get some of Utah’s 40 delegates, but the state tends to be as well organized, politically speaking, as one big suburb.

 

To clarify: The foregoing run-down is done on one basis and one only—the preponderance state by state of rural areas versus metro areas. Santorum has an advantage in rural areas, Romney or Gingrich in metro areas. This rural-metro division is deeper, more consistent and more fundamental (in these primaries) than divisions by region, income, or education—with which it substantially overlaps.

The national political press’s obsession with “The South” and with the ‘narrative’ of the weakened front-runner, etc., apparently prevents its taking these demographics into account.

Setting the horse race aside, the more important point about the 2012 GOP primary contest of Romney, Gingrich and Santorum is that it was never moderate versus conservative. The characterization is false. Romney is not a moderate. On grounds of conscience, a moderate would not be able to bring himself to run as what is now being called ‘conservative’:

—opposed to abortion even in cases of rape, incest and mortality for the mother

–opposed to any regulation whatsoever of the giant financial sector, even after the mortgage-derivatives meltdown, and even to prevent fraud

–opposed to any progressive taxation whatever of Big Oil, even just removing the gratuitous tax subsidies, or of large corporations, even of multinationals.

 

As to what this pattern entails, more later