Month: January 2012

Today on the Dish, Andrew liveblogged that crazy (Newt!) GOP debate (reax here), followed Perry’s withdrawal and endorsement of Newt, marvelled at Newt’s surge to the top of the SC polls,  decided Gingrich’s open marriage was a non-story, and hammered home his conviction that Romney could still lose. Andrew also offered the Newsweek article as an antidote to Romney’s lies, chatted with Tina Brown about the piece, examined his debate with a Romney strategist on Anderson Cooper, kept the heat up on the epistemic closure machine called Fox News, fit the Keystone XL decision into his broader theory of Obama, got angry at Bibi’s media antics, and wouldn’t give a spot of credibility to advocates for Iran war.

Bloggers wondered if Gingrich’s ex would kill his campaign, reexamined their SC predictions, found poor evangelical strategy in the state, wrote postmortems for Perry’s campaign, thought the Bain issue would haunt Romney, guessed at whether President Romney would repeal Obamacare, clashed over Ron Paul’s foreign policy, and were astonished by the candidates’ many debate fails. Obama opened up to Fareed Zakaria, drug wars varied, defense overspending threatened US security, SOPA Day changed the political landscape on the terrible bill, the economy looked up, and people (bizarrely) loved corporations. Tumbleweeds came from Eurasia, building stuff made us like it more, dumpster diving was tough, and the Christian right got old (or not?)

Ad War Update here, VFYW here, AAA here, Von Hoffman here, Tweet of the Day here, Hathos Alert here, MHB here, and Face of the Day here.

– Z.B.

The moment from the debate everyone is talking about:

Josh Marshall focuses on the exchange:

I think Newt basically won this debate and maybe the primary with the opening fusilade against John King about the Marianne tell-all interview. Shameless, hubris, chutzpah, whatever. It was pitch perfect for his intended audience. He took control of the debate and drew down all the tension about when the debate would turn to the open marriage stuff.

Will Wilkinson counters:

Newt's desperate opening attack on the media for daring to listen to what his ex-wife has to say about him was enthusiastically received by the crowd, but I thought made him look like a snarling, cornered dog.

Andrew Sprung:

Newt's little show of high moral dudgeon when asked at the opening gun about his ex-wife's allegations of cruel, self-serving betrayal is getting rave reviews as performance art. And it was an astounding display of the Audacity of Hubris. In the space of a minute or two, Gingrich managed to blame or condemn questioner John King, the news media, his ex-wife and Barack Obama for his being forced to address the consequences of his serial adultery.

PM Carpenter:

Gingrich's opening Joe McCarthy offensive — he reveled in assaulting Bill Clinton's personal transgressions, but his are unfairly targeted by the vindictive media — was perhaps the most despicable display of grotesque demagoguery I have ever witnessed. 

Another debate highlight getting a lot of attention:

Dave Weigel:

The tax return question was totally predictable, and Mitt Romney blew it. He "may" release more returns for other years. Will he release as many years as possible, as his father did? "Maybe." Maybe! There are justifiable boos from the cheap seats.

E.D. Kain thinks there's "something fishy about these tax returns and Romney’s inability to just release them to the public":

The difference between Romney and Gingrich is that we’re all pretty sure we know all about Gingrich’s dirty laundry. Even his ex-wife’s tell-all interview isn’t going to shine any new light on the former speaker. But Romney remains something of a closed book and I bet that makes some voters nervous.

Jonathan Cohn:

What is in Mitt Romney’s tax returns? I have no idea, but I’m starting to wonder if it’s even more damning than speculation has suggested. Romney’s answers on the tax questions were rambling and unclear, which is remarkable for a candidate who is so intellectually sharp, who prides himself on careful preparation, and who had to know the question was coming. This issue has rattled him, obviously, and I’m eager to find out why.

Adam Serwer explains why the Democrats want Romney to release his returns:

The Obama administration offered a tax proposal last year that would have made the wealthy pay a larger share of their income. The proposal was dubbed "The Buffet Rule," after wealthy investor Warren Buffett, who said that some of his employees pay lower tax rates than he does. At the time, Democrats salivated at the possiblity that Romney might also be paying a lower effective tax rate than people who don't own more than one house, even as he's proposing even larger tax cuts for the well-off.

In the video above, Romney claims that he didn't get any inheritance. Nick Baumann points out that Romney did get money from his parents but chose to give it to charity and his children:

Passing your inheritance on to your children is not the same as not inheriting money at all. And it actually makes me a bit curious: a common estate-tax reduction strategy known as a dynasty trust relies on skipping generations. Did Romney pass on his inheritance to his kids for tax reasons? It's hard to know without seeing his tax returns—and that's another reason why he should release them.

 Santorum's strongest attack against Gingrich:

Allahpundit asks:

Santorum didn’t do well enough tonight to win South Carolina, but did he do well enough to keep some of those would-be Newt voters from defecting? 

Michelle Cottle shakes her head:

Michael Medved thought Santorum underperformed:

The big loser: Rick Santorum, whose insufferably sanctimonious demeanor answered all questions about why social conservatives have begun to coalesce around Newt Gingrich rather than the former Pennsylvania senator. His decision to issue smug, full-bore attacks on every one of his rivals backfired badly.

Dreher says both Gingrich and Santorum did well:

 Romney lost badly. But because Santorum and Gingrich were equally good, it might well have meant a Romney win on election day — this, if it divides the anti-Romney vote. Because Gingrich has the momentum, I have to think he helped himself the most tonight. I think he did a terrific job insulating himself with GOP voters against the Marianne bombshell — and that’s going to be the biggest talking point of the next news cycle.

Joe Gandelman agrees:

There were some sharp exchanges, angry moments. But in general? I did NOT see a knockout. If someone wants red meat they will vote for Newt Gingrich who threw the most of it to GOPers. … If Gingrich is surging and not hurt by his ex-wife’s interview the debate will allow surge to continue. Santorum: a good Gingrich alternative but Gingrich is better at hurling the red meat (such as his predictable debate attack on the media).

John Hinderaker is nearly alone declaring Romney the victor:

Mitt Romney … was just as effective as Gingrich, at times more so, as when he accepted responsibility for being successful. My guess is that Romney won the South Carolina primary tonight.

And Jennifer Rubin, voicing another minority opinion, gives Gingrich's performance relatively low marks:

In short, Gingrich had a great five minutes, but did not carry the rest of the debate.

10.01 pm. A Gingrich triumph. His only concern must be how well Santorum did tonight. Paul performed well, but remains peripheral to the struggle for the orthodox "conservative" candidate. I think Romney is in serious trouble now, and the bottom fell out tonight. He died with that glib response – "maybe" – to the question of whether he'd follow his father's example.

It could well be that this could come down to Romney-Gingrich-Paul. That trio is the end of Republican fusionism.

9.57 pm. Paul's summary: freedom is awesome! Gingrich: Obama is a dangerous Alinsky Manchurian candidate who can only be stopped by my world-historical genius. Romney: Obama is turning us into Europe. Santorum: I'm the real purist right-winger who can defeat Democratic incumbents – and then lose by the biggest margin in history.

9.55 pm. A reader writes:

The thing I noticed about about that exchange about tax returns was Romney's response to the jeering he received from the audience following his ridiculously coy response — "maybe". After being jeered, I noticed Romney smugly raising his eyebrows toward the audience along with a smug grin that seemed to say, "Whatcha gonna do about it?"  

That, to me, is the essence of all of Romney's electoral problems. He seems to believe that he is above criticism, that others have no right to question him. This is why he lies so reflexively and why he acts so petulant during debates when there is any criticism or scrutiny of his ideas or proposals.

9.51 pm. Romney's evasions on his tax returns befuddle me, because if there's nothing wrong in them, except huge amounts of money and a low 15 percent tax, it's a blow in a populist time, but not exactly fatal. A reader writes:

Romney's campaign has been extremely careful when questioned about his Cayman-based, Bain-related assets. If his tax returns show no foreign capital gains on his 1040 and he has tens of millions of dollars in foreign assets, it will look terrible. More important than avoiding taxes, it's evidence that he's not willing to invest in America and bring his money back home.

Hadn't thought of that but I'm not an expert in these matters.

9.40 pm. And now the last brutal death throe as Newt savages Romney on abortion. Mitt responds by using the phrase "scintilla of truth." And then he has to get in the weeds of his abortion record. Every minute he speaks about this in this forum he loses votes.

Then he says this: "Now is not the time to question someone's words."

Really? In a presidential primary? When on earth would be the right time to question someone's words. Tha arrogance there is striking. "I'm not used to defending myself against attacks on my character." Again: really? Hasn't that been the continuing thread of his entire career?

Then Santorum picks Romney's Christianist carcass clean. Romney does his best to defend himself – but this was a very very rough patch.

9.37 pm. The way Ron Paul moved from the Af-Pak border to the Mexican border – and used his anti-war position to buttress a strong case for controlling illegal immigration – was very very deft. And this time, it worked with the crowd.

9.30 pm. Gingrich is in the zone now: a soliloquy of fresh-sounding ideas which would probably be disastrous, woven in with dog whistles of anti-illegal-immigrant sentiment. Speeding up deportations is never going to lose votes among non-Hispanic South Carolinians. One in 20 South Carolinians is Latino. One in three is black. Did you get that impression from watching this debate?

9.26 pm. An actually quite sweet break in the segment of mistakes. Santorum was close to moving; Romney actually pulled off a successful, self-deprecatory joke. Paul basically conceded that he can be too quirky and bubbly. He shouldn't change a thing.

9.20 pm. A reader writes:

Am I nuts, or did Romney provide a perfect defense of Obamacare? It’s popular in Massachusetts, it hasn’t increased their costs and it’s given more people coverage? And he wants to repeal the same bill that would do that at the national level?

You're not nuts. Romney will simply say anything. And tonight he gave a great defense of the core moderation, private sector emphasis and free market exchanges in Obama's law.

9.17 pm. I love Ron Paul. Of course he was opposed to SOPA before any of the others.

9.15 pm. Gingrich works the anti-Hollywood line into the SOPA debate. He is so on tonight, as he was Tuesday. That was the perfect way to milk that question for maximal political punch. I agree with him as well.

9.12 pm. A reader writes:

You know, in the end, Santorum just doesn’t have the balls to duke it out with Gingrich and Romney. He gets out there and throws that big first shots and they’re good ones, but when he gets hit back, he starts to falter a little. You can see it in his body language. Newt and Romney throw their usual bullshit at him and it’s bullshit, but they do it with their usual arrogance and ego and it starts to overwhelm Santorum. He’s not long for this race.

I think he's had a great night, but when he's good, he's even less likable. Another reader counters:

Watching the last two debates, during which Santorum has had more substantial airtime than he had earlier in the campaign, I am left with this thought:  Were I watching these debates with no knowledge of the Santorum Google problem or of any candidate's supposed policy stances, I would see Santorum as the obvious candidate of choice.  He's working the "compassionate conservative" angle pretty well, I think, and his assholishness comes across as energy, vs. Gingrich who seems like a dick every time he opens his mouth, or Romney who is so very, very plastic.

I think it might be time to take the Santorum surge more seriously.

9.03 pm. Ron Paul says he doesn't want to release his tax returns because he'd be embarrassed over his low earnings. Rommey then just uses desperate anti-Obama rhetoric as a way to distract. When challenged to provide full information now he balks. Man he's having a bad night.

The reason he won't release his taxes is because he's paying 15 percent on income, or because he has so arranged his income to shield a huge amount of it from taxation. It's not as if it's about the sheer money involved – we already know it's about $26 million a year for doing nothing.

Romney then completely flounders in response to John King's brilliant citation of George Romney's position on the matter. And that word – "maybe" – in answer to a direct and simple question is devastating.It not only makes him look shifty; it makes him look as if he doesn't respect his own father's honorable example. Just a dreadful few minutes for Romney.

I may be crazy but I think Romney loses South Carolina after tonight. And that means this thing blows wide open again.

9 pm. Why can't Romney once – just once – directly answer the question asked, instead of insisting on saying what he wants to say first? It's deeply irritating and underlines his too-polished, too arrogant affect. And then he forgets even what the actual question was in the first place. Then he segues into a bizarre attack on Newt's relationship with Reagan. He lost it back there. It's his worst performance yet – at the very moment he needs to deliver his best.

8.55 pm. A truly inspired response from Santorum on the dangers of being led by a man who could say and do anything any time any day. Too risky, in other words. But Gingrich's response was just as effective – reminding everyone of his long history in the movement. Then Santorum gets in the weeds on the politics of 1994 and loses his way in the debate. But he's made a very strong case against Gingrich tonight. Romney and Paul seem side-lined a little right now in this battle for th "conservative" mantle against a fast-sinking Romney.

Funny how this exchange really does show where the new energy is in this campaign.

8.49 pm. A Book of Mormon ad! Yay.

8.48 pm. Buzzfeed says that Newt won the debate in the first five minutes. Theres still some time to go but that's my impression as well. Romney is being flattened tonight. Santorum's brutal, relentless attacks, Newt's ccontempt, Paul's jocular indifference … they all contrast with classic, mindless robo-speak from Mr Plastic. Now Gingrich has ambushed him on his tax returns.

This is what South Carolina always does. It's sometimes necessary to look away before the feeding frenzy ends. But the result is always bloody.

Romney's sinking. He's sinking.

8.44 pm. A classic Gingrich phrase: "Mildly amazing." Classic passive aggression from the "shy boy" who's now so angry he explodes spontaneously. Then Newt tickles the Southern g-spot, by saying that his debating Obama will be a battle between "knowledge" and a "TelePrompTer." I don't think Newt realizes how his contempt and condescension toward Obama is riddled with racism.

8.39 pm. Santorum goes after Romney's jugular on healthcare and his ability to debate Obama on the subject this fall. He's extremely unlikable but his points against Romney's and Gingrich's previous endorsement of the individual mandate.

Then Romney makes the argument that Obamacare is a private-based program – not a big government scheme. It too allows people to keep their insurance if they choose to. Which kinda proves Santorum's point, right?

8.36 pm. Romney hasn't yet told us what would happen when he throws 2.5 million young adults off their parents' insurance. Romney then says that he wants market forces in healthcare, like he did in Massachusetts, and which Obama has adopted in his healthcare proposal. Note that Romney would prevent anyone without insurance who has a pre-existing condition from getting a policy.

Gingrich then rouses the crowd – by attacking the president for wanting to keep young people dependent on their parents.

8.31 pm. Santorum issues a disgusting charge that the commander-in-chief chose to slash defense spending because he doesn't care about veterans. Have there been cuts in the VA? But the depth with which they hate the president is truly striking. Romney's stark lies about defense spending in the last debate have become more generalized then. By the way: here's what's happened to defense spending over the last few decades:

This is how divorced from reality these people are. Their premises are lies.

8.30 pm. Santorum hones his manufacturing working class economic chops in a very deft and indrect criticism of Romney's kind of capitalism. A very effective performance. They're all on tonight, it seems. But Gingrich's spirited, angry, anti-media rant at the start towers over the rest.

8.20 pm. Gingrich is on a roll – rattling off a list of South Carolina issues, including the port of Charleston. Then he quickly and effectively summarizes a core case against the dodgy practices of Bain Capital. Romney then tries to avoid answering the direct question about Bain and seems to conflate "crony capitalism" with Democrats' relationships with the union.

He does not address the core issue of how you make millions off bankrupting companies. It's good though to recognize, as he does, that he was working not for the employees, but for his wealthy investors.

8.12 pm. Newt's response to the open marriage is turned into a tour de force against the media. He calls John King's questions "as close to despicable as I can imagine." The crowd loves it. The first response as to whether he wanted to talk about it: "No, but I will." Perfect. Then he rounds on King and gets another standing ovation. I think he may have won the primary tonight with that response.

Romney essentially says: me too. Paul attacks media corporations. Santorum squirms. Advantage: Gingrich. But one might recall that Gingrich was the person behind pursuing issues in Bill Clinton's private life and marital problems. He showed no pity then.

8.11 pm. Santorum plugs his Iowa victory; And Paul plugs his military service – the last ex serviceman on the stage.

8.06 pm. A terrific, crisp, moving military rendering of the national anthem.

8.05 pm Paul meanders onto the stage; Newt waddles; Romney strides; Santorum struts.

8.04 pm. Another rowdy crowd. Woohoo! Irritating bullshit intros. Groan.

(Photo: Win McNamee/Getty.)

Douthat points to his debate performances:

[Perry] was fundamentally incapable of exercising the office of the presidency. We don’t elect a debater-in-chief, but the idea, floated by George Will of all people, that debates “test nothing pertinent to presidential duties” is equally false. They establish a minimal threshold that any politician seeking an office whose chief weapon is often the bully pulpit needs to be able to clear.

Buzzfeed Politics says, simply enough, that "running for president is hard":

Perry could have spent a couple of years as Barack Obama did: Using his elected office to conduct rolling seminars with policy experts; developing a years-long plan for national office; carefully picking the national issues with which to engage. Instead, Perry got into the race on what amounts to a lark. He leaves it badly damaged, limping home to Texas where he'll struggle to regain the clout and swagger he projected six months ago.

James Antle III partially blames campaign staff:

 At times Perry's team appeared divided between people who were loyal to him but didn't know how to run a national, as opposed to statewide, campaign and those with a better feel for national politics who were less invested in Perry personally. The end result was that the Texas governor who once looked like the likely Republican nominee ended up underperforming Fred Thompson at every juncture.

Larison concentrates on Perry's foreign policy flubs: 

What hardly anyone anticipated was that Perry’s candidacy would make George W. Bush look good by comparison. No one would have confused the original candidate Bush with a foreign affairs expert, but even Bush at his most ridiculous in the 2000 campaign never blundered so badly on foreign policy questions

Jonathan Bernstein wonders whether Perry reminded voters too much of Bush:

Perhaps it was the memory of George W. Bush — before Perry entered, a lot of pundits (but not me) said that there was no way another Texas governor would be nominated so soon after Bush, and perhaps there was something to that. Perhaps Perry's gaffes would have been excused a little more easily if they didn't remind people, somehow, of what happened the last time Republicans decided that policy knowledge was irrelevant and nominated Bush.

And Alex Koppelman thinks Perry underestimated the GOP base:

[H]is failure can be taken, in some way, as a positive sign for the country. As soon as he started his campaign, it was clear Perry couldn’t win by trying to seem Presidential, much less intellectual. So instead he ran as the pure Republican id: the simplistic proposals (part-time Congress!); the silly rhetoric (“I’m not ashamed to admit that I’m a Christian, but you don’t need to be in the pew every Sunday to know there’s something wrong in this country when gays can serve openly in the military but our kids can’t openly celebrate Christmas or pray in school”); the full-bore Texan shtick.

Scott Galupo doesn't see the story fading before November: 

[W]hat matters is that conservatives are still looking for any reason not to rally around Romney. And if the symbolic thrust of Romney's campaign—that he's a private-sector wizard and turnaround artist—fails to excite GOP primary voters now, what's that going to mean for him in November? For a solid week, Romney pitched himself as the very embodiment of free enterprise. The doyens of market fundamentalism, from Rush Limbaugh to the Club for Growth, cursed Gingrich for his apostasy. And yet, if Rasmussen's data is right, Republicans are still signaling that they're unmoved. And if they're unmoved, imagine how the rest of the electorate will react to Obama's tweaking of Romney's master-of-the-universe status. Indeed, recent Pew data from the week of Jan. 11-16 show Romney's favorability ratings having taken a dip among all voters.

Quite a bit actually:

-4.5 million people signed Google's anti-SOPA/PIPA petition, according to the Los Angeles Times

-25 Senators now oppose PIPA (the Senate version of SOPA), according to OpenCongress

-Twitter saw more than 2.4 million SOPA-related tweets between midnight and 4 p.m. Eastern on Wednesday

–Two SOPA co-sponsors and several others dropped support for the House bill.

Matt Peckham has more, including a rundown of some of the specific congressional members who announced their opposition yesterday.

(Image from Lifestyle Pod Network)

Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich stands with his wife, Callista Gingrich, during a campaign stop at the Low Country Sportsmen BBQ for Newt event on January 19, 2012 in Walterboro, South Carolina. By Joe Raedle/Getty Images.

Ed Kilgore complicates Michael Kazin's claim that the Christian Right is growing old and irrelevant:

It is true that [the religious right] have been less conspicuous in this campaign, and less united in candidate preferences. But if they haven’t been able to pull their muscle behind a single candidate, that’s not a sign that they are on the wane—it’s a sign that, as far as the Republican Party is concerned, they have already won.

Look at the potential nominees: Unlike 2008, no candidate in the field is pro-choice by any definition. Only Ron Paul seems reluctant to enact a national ban on same-sex marriage. Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry, Rick Santorum. and Herman Cain have been vocal in fanning the flames of Islamophobia; again, only Paul has bothered to dissent to any significant degree.

Obama is finally fighting back himself:

Meanwhile, Andrew Romano gives Mitt's stump speech low marks:

[I]s there anything at all in Romney’s stump speech that’s true? It’s all based on attacking Obama for apologizing for America, which he didn’t, on making deep cuts in defense, which he also didn’t, and on being a radical redistributionist who wants equality of outcomes, which he isn’t. When the issue turns to jobs, Romney makes false assertions both about Obama’s record and about his own. I can’t find a single true assertion anywhere.

Let's make sure this time that the lies are always challenged not with rhetoric or bomb-throwing, but facts. They're what Fox News is scared of: facts they can't use to advance propaganda.

Michael Barone is asking: 

The most visible case of unpreparedness in South Carolina this week was Mitt Romney in Monday night's debate, when he was pressed to disclose his income tax returns — an issue he should have seen coming. But Romney hemmed and hawed, visibly uncomfortable, and finally came out with a new commitment to disclose them some time in April. He compounded his problem after the debate by volunteering that his tax rate "is probably closer to 15 percent than anything" and characterizing his income from speeches as "not very much" when, according to disclosures he has made, it was $374,328 between February 2010 and February 2011. These are answers that would have been shouted down in any genuine practice session. One can only conclude that Romney's advisers didn't press him on the issue and that he didn't press them to press him.

He follows up here.