Month: November 2011

Yes, it's come to this. I can't play myself because I have to live-blog and although it might be amusing to see one disintegrate through inebriation in real time (I'm almost persuading myself here), it's probably best I leave it to you. A shot every time Newt Gingrich uses a variation of the following words:

total/totally

profound/profoundly

frank/frankly

utter/utterly

complete/completely

We'll try to come up with a definitive score by the end. Frankly, we'll totally count the profoundly complete Newt playbook. Plus: extra shots for every major, historic and total institution he wants to figuratively blow up. "Total reform" counts as blowing up.

An analysis of Gingrich's support:

The surveys have been consistent about the kinds of voters gravitating to Gingrich. His support "skews way old," as Gallup's Frank Newport puts it, and is greater among self-described conservatives and Tea Party supporters. Both the Gallup and Quinnipiac polls show Gingrich with roughly twice as much support among conservative Republicans as among moderate and liberal Republicans. And Gallup shows him winning 34 percent of the vote from Republicans over age 65, but just 4 percent among Republicans between the ages of 18 and 29.

His "I'm smart" schtick appears to be appealing to the same demographic that wants to read Glenn Beck on George Washington and Bill O'Reilly on Lincoln.

Greg Scoblete is asking:

[I]t seems like there are three broad choices: 1. continue to send American tax dollars to Egypt's military, even (or perhaps, especially) if they maintain their grip over Egypt's political and economic institutions – the better to keep the Muslim Brotherhood out; 2. refuse to send American tax dollars to Egypt's military rulers until they release their grip on those institutions; 3. refuse to send American tax dollars to Egypt irrespective of what they do.

Tonight the GOP nominees are holding a debate on U.S. foreign policy and it will be interesting to see what position, if any, they'd endorse. 

Does Greg think that any of them save Huntsman has a clue? The whole notion of making prudential judgments like this in changing circumstances and unknowable futures is alien to the current crop. If they cannot fit it into an ideological structure, they are at a loss. But let's see, shall we? In my view, this is Huntsman's last chance to really demonstrate his chops.

(Photo: Crowds gather in Tahrir Square on November 22, 2011 in Cairo, Egypt. Thousands of Egyptians have been gathering in Tahrir Square after three days of deadly clashes with security forces despite a promise from Egypt's interim ruling Military council to bring forward presidential elections. By Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images)

"Given the shape we’re in, defense spending needs a very hard look — not with an axe, but at least with a scalpel. If we do not come to grips with that fact, it is hard to see how there will ever be the political will to take an axe to the spending and programs that should be no part of the federal government’s business and that are bankrupting us. I concur that it was extremely foolish for Republicans to agree to single out defense as a target for spending reductions in the very likely event that the super committee failed. But the problem is that entitlements and everything else should have been slated for much deeper cuts, not that military spending has to be pared somewhat. And to brand as a catastrophe what we are actually talking about — not a cut but a more modest spending increase that will still leave us, by leaps and bounds, the most powerful nation in the history of the world — is ridiculous," – Andrew McCarthy, NRO.

I'm not holding my breath tonight to see if the GOP candidates agree.

Nathan Mitchell, right, of Deltona, boyfriend of missing woman, Michelle Parker, receives a hug in Pine Castle, Florida, on November 18, 2011. Dozens of friends and family members of the 33-year-old mother of three, who disappeared in Orlando, passed out flyers, hoping to find anyone with information that could lead to her safe return. Parker vanished almost a week ago after appearing on a taped episode of 'The People's Court." By Red Huber/Orlando Sentinel/MCT via Getty Images.

Walter Russell Mead tallies the recent successes of the president's East Asia policy:

The cascade of statements, deployments, agreements and announcements from the United States and its regional associates in the last week has to be one of the most unpleasant shocks for China’s leadership — ever.  The US is moving forces to Australia, Australia is selling uranium to India, Japan is stepping up military actions and coordinating more closely with the Philippines and Vietnam in the South China Sea, Myanmar is slipping out of China’s column and seeking to reintegrate itself into the region, Indonesia and the Philippines are deepening military ties with the the US: and all that in just one week.

If that wasn’t enough, a critical mass of the region’s countries have agreed to work out a new trade group that does not include China, while the US, to applause, has proposed that China’s territorial disputes with its neighbors be settled at a forum like the East Asia Summit — rather than in the bilateral talks with its smaller, weaker neighbors that China prefers. … In the field of foreign policy, this was a coming of age of the Obama administration and it was conceived and executed about as flawlessly as these things ever can be.

Judah Grunstein is skeptical. Dan Drezner steps back:

[I]t's an interesting moment to highlight some macro trends that are relatively favorable to the United States.  In comparison to, say, China or Europe, the United States looks to be in decent shape.  Over the longer term, trends in both energy and manufacturing suggest that the United States will continue a time-honored tradition and emerge from a crisis of its own making in a stronger relative position than before.  If the administration is smart, it will marry its recent successes to these longer-term trends as a way of constructing a more optimistic strategic narrative.

Now see tonight if any of the GOP candidates understand anything of what Obama has just done, and has been doing in shoring up support for the US in the Pacific arena.

Yes, the campaign has started. And Obama's getting very Truman:

Laying out his proposal in deliberately simple and stark terms, the president told an audience here that if Republicans in Congress vote no, middle-class families will have to pay an additional $1,000 in taxes next year when the temporary break ends.

“Next week, they’ll get a simple vote,” Mr. Obama said. “No, your taxes go up. Yes, you get a tax cut. Which way do you think Congress should vote?”

Run ads like this:

Video via William Jacobson, who revisits the successful campaigns by Ted Kennedy and John McCain against Mitt: 

You can pretty much disregard current polling showing Romney the most competitive with Obama. Romney has not survived these lines of attack in the past, so we should be suspicious that he can do so this time around. If Romney is the nominee, expect these themes to be hammered relentlessly. And expect his negatives to be as high as any other Republican contender.

Michael Walsh explains that, unlike Obama, Mitt lacks a solid base of support: 

Head-to-head with Romney next year, Obama will sink him handily. … What can be done at this late date, I have no idea. And neither do the Republicans.

Meanwhile, Politifact has scored Romney's first anti-Obama ad as "pants on fire" mendacious.

Andrew Sprung applauds Obama's vow to enforce the spending cut trigger. He ponders the president's next move:

[I]f Republicans hold the Norquist Line on taxes, will Obama let all the Bush tax cuts expire? And if Republicans deal, will Obama hold out for an adequate amount of new revenue — say, the $1.5 trillion over ten years outlined in his September plan — or settle for the measly $800 billion he was headed for in the busted deal with Boehner, or worse? After listening to Obama last night, I'm more sanguine than I've been for a long time.  He sprang a masterful trap on multiple levels. Maybe he really is playing multidimensional chess.

Think Progress responds to Romney's first ad with some selective editing of their own:

Ryan Lizza wants the media to call Romney a liar:

This is one of those cases where a candidate has put out something that is demonstrably false. If a journalist or writer quoted someone in such an intellectually dishonest way, you would never trust the person’s writing again. And yet this episode is being reported by some as a clever tactic by the Romney camp to spark a debate about the ad’s accuracy that will serve to highlight its overall message that Obama has been a failure.