Month: January 2012

The cheers of Ron Paul's supporters:

Brian Doherty celebrates Paul:

The giddy spirit of the Paulistas will march on; every single one of the youth volunteers I spoke to, whether the ones put up by the campaign in hotels or sleeping on Free Staters floors, said they were quite confident they'd be moving on to work for Ron Paul's victory in South Carolina, in Nevada, in Maine, in Massachusetts, in New York, in Florida. As I moved through the Paul fans' resolute and well-earned good cheer and joys and in-jokes of weary gangs who have been through the wringer together, I started thinking: how will the significance of what's going on here with the Paul movement continue to be misread or ignored?

Jim Fallows compares Paul's and Huntsman's speeches:

The difference between the Ron Paul and Jon Huntsman "victory" speeches just now is the difference between someone (Paul) who didn't actually expect to win the nomination and was mainly advancing a cause, and someone (Huntsman) who must have entertained dreams not simply of an upset in New Hampshire but of going all the way.

Alex Massie ponders the inevitability of Romney:

Sure, something could happen to defeat Romney. Sure, he's not a compelling front-runner. Sure, there are reasons to be worried that turnout in the GOP contests thus far has been lower than might have been predicted a year ago. And, yeah, you look at Romney and you think that, well, even if he's not wholly underwhelming he sure ain't greatly whelming either. But who else is there? Asking the question reveals the gaping horror at the heart of this process: there is no-one else.

Jonathan Bernstein thinks the race is almost over:

Nate Silver calculates Romney's odds in South Carolina:

I’m not quite ready to say that Mr. Romney has the nomination locked up, but when you evaluate the known unknowns, they don’t seem that threatening to him. We may be nearing the point where an unknown unknown — a heretofore unexposed scandal, a major gaffe, an “oops” moment in a debate — is what it would take to trip Mr. Romney up.

Bill Kristol hasn't given up:

Now it's on to South Carolina, where the ball is in Rick Santorum's court. Can he leave Gingrich behind and become the conservative alternative to Romney? And can he actually beat Romney there? I think that's more possible than does almost everyone else I've spoken to tonight. But I'll grant that lots of things that are possible don't actually happen.

John Hood differs:

I enjoy political spin. I practice political spin. I helped create and work on a 14-year-old TV show with “Spin” in the title. But there are limits to spin. It has to have some connection to facts that readers and viewers can readily see for themselves. Downplaying the significance of Romney’s early victories is foolish.

Daniel Horowitz is furious that Romney is likely to win:

After three years of campaigning against Obamacare, we are on the verge of elevating the Thomas Edison of anti-free-market healthcare to the party’s highest honor. With the presidential election going downhill, it is probably time to apply our Tea Party energy to the congressional elections.  In the coming days we will redouble our efforts here at Red State to elect conservative members to the Senate and House.

Peter Beinart analyzes Romney's misguided attacks against Obama in his victory speech:

First Read looks at turnout:

For the second-straight contest, GOP turnout was pretty pedestrian, especially given the party’s supposed enthusiasm about defeating Obama in November. With 95% of precincts in, turnout in last night’s Republican primary in New Hampshire was slightly under 240,000, which is about the same as it was it was in 2000 and 2008. While turnout will increase once the other 5% comes in — setting a record just like it did in Iowa — it won’t be a WOW figure like we saw on the Democratic side in ’08.

Dave Weigel has a case of deja vu:

I'm thinking of a Republican primary. It starts with a candidate (John McCain/Mitt Romney) who ran once before, came in second place, and won over the party's elite class without winning over its base. Other candidates, understandably unwilling to accept this, line up: An under-funded social conservative (Mike Huckabee/Rick Santorum), an elder statesman who's walked to the altar three times (Rudy Giuliani/Newt Gingrich), a libertarian who wants to bring back the gold standard (Ron Paul/Ron Paul).

Jonathan Chait sees the same parallel:

Conservatives came out of 2008 haunted by their failure to coalesce around a single candidate, allowing the candidate they least trusted to gain early victories against a divided field and win unstoppable momentum before they could gain their footing. They are living their nightmare again.

Michelle Malkin is more succinct:

Who wants nose plugs?

Ross Douthat considers the also-rans:

If Romney loses to Barack Obama, the Republican Party is not going to nominate Rick Santorum in 2016 when it could nominate Chris Christie or Jeb Bush. Nor will it reconsider Newt Gingrich or Rick Perry when it could fall in love with Marco Rubio or Bobby Jindal. In the end, there’s only one potential second-placer in this field who can plausibly claim to be making a down payment on the future. And that future’s name is Rand Paul.

Jim Burroway notes that the most anti-gay candidates flopped:

[T]wo of the three top finishers have kept the National Organization for Marriage at arm’s length. Yes, Romney signed and won the primary, but 40% of the the GOP’s own voters backed candidates who didn’t. What’s more, audiences openly booed Santorum’s making The Gays a central talking point of his campaign, making that the most visible indication of how Granite Staters feel about anti-gay politics.

Ezra Klein believes that moderation is winning the Republican primary:

[Romney] is, of the Republicans running for president, the least extreme in his policy proposals, and also the most likely to capture the nomination. If Huntsman counts as a moderate, then so does Romney — and so, in their presidential preferences so far, do a plurality of Republican primary voters. They have, after all, not only backed Romney, but they have decisively rejected Rick Perry and Michelle Bachmann, the candidates aimed most squarely at Tea Party wing of the GOP.

Matt Yglesias counters:

[W]e should be clear that one of the main reasons Romney is in a commanding position is that his conservative critics have had difficulty identifying any concrete ways in which a non-Romney in the White House would lead to more conservative outcomes than a Romney administration.

Amy Davidson asks why so many candidates are still running:

Is what’s keeping at least some of the candidates in the race—or “the hunt,” as Huntsman called it—not the illusion of victory but the sheer joy of knocking things down? Grown men don’t have as many opportunities as they might to act like toddlers. This isn’t a train going to South Carolina or to anywhere in particular. It’s a set of careening bumper cars. The question, and not just for the Republican Party, is when it becomes a demolition derby. 

Ed Kilgore is focused on negative ads:

The big question now is whether conservative opinion-leaders, who have basically resigned themselves to Romney as nominee, begin to denounce Gingrich for his anti-Romney nastygrams in SC. If they fail to do that, it might tempt the struggling survivors of the competition so far–not only Newt, but Paul, Santorum and perhaps even Rick Perry, who desperately needs a southern breakthrough fast–to go collectively nuclear on Mitt.

And Matt Steinglass implores journalists to break with tradition:

How about we spend a few months trying to find out what Mitt Romney would actually do as president, and whether his policies would be beneficial? I think it would be especially worthwhile to devote some effort to this because it's unusually difficult to figure out what side of various issues Mr Romney is on, or what side he's on at the moment, or what side he'll be on by the time the general election really gets rolling this summer. 

Weed – 1, cigarettes – 0:

Smoking a joint a week for up to seven years doesn't hurt lung function, according to researchers at the University of California, San Francisco. They came up with that number after following more than 5,000 people for 20 years. The results were just published in JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Association.

In fact, those occasional pot smokers actually had improvements in some measurements of lung function. That may be due in part to the stretching involved in the deep tokes typical of marijuana use. By contrast, both past and present cigarette smokers had impaired lung function.

A reader writes:

The libertarians finally have their Adlai Stevenson. Sadly, it's the conservatives who need one.

Question? askandrew@thedailybeast.com Video archive here.

Jesse Benton – nimble as ever – makes the case the media and Republican establishment won't:

Ron Paul has won more votes in Iowa and New Hampshire than any candidate but Mitt Romney. Ron Paul and Mitt Romney have been shown in national polls to be the only two candidates who can defeat Barack Obama. And Ron Paul and Mitt Romney are the only two candidates who can run a full, national campaign, competing in state after state over the coming weeks and months. Ron Paul's fundraising numbers — over $13 million this quarter — also prove he will be able to compete with Mitt Romney. No other candidate can do all of these things.

Ron Paul is clearly the conservative alternative to Mitt Romney as the campaign goes forward. We urge Ron Paul’s opponents who have been unsuccessfully trying to be the conservative alternative to Mitt Romney to unite by getting out of the race and uniting behind Paul’s candidacy.

One small thing yesterday worth noting. Paul aggressively defended Romney against the Bain attacks from Gingrich and Perry and the rest. Again, he put principle before short-term political gain, and revealed he isn't like other pols. He has character. Notice how his speeches almost never talk about himself, unlike the others. Gingrich rarely talks about anything without puffing himself up in some way. Mitt has the character of a private equity investor: a constant, reptilian assessment of self interest and opportunity. Beneath the sweater vests, Santorum is an angry, polarizing man. Perry is a bully and a bigot. Huntsman seems to me to have character too, and finally found his voice with his outburst at Romney Sunday morning defending putting his country before party. Too late, alas. But New Hamphirites get it: when asked to name the candidate with the most moral character, 40 percent chose Paul – more than Perry, Santorum and Gingrich combined.

Paul has the argument to counter Romney, especially on foreign policy. I suspect that, at some point down the line, it really will come down to Romney and Paul, simply because Paul has no incentive to quit, is in it for the message, and has enough of a money and organizational base to keep going.

Keep going, Ron. The debate matters.

(Photo: Republican presidential candidate, U.S. Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX), speaks to supporters at his primary night campaign rally on January 10, 2012 in Manchester, New Hampshire. According to early results, Paul finished second behind former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney in the first in the nation primary. By Andrew Burton/Getty Images.)

John Ellis advises Mitt to go all in in South Carolina:

Having won the New Hampshire primary decisively, Boston must now decide how much fire-power to focus on the South Carolina primary. If Lee Atwater were alive, he would answer with three words: "All of it."

"I think the intellectual revolution that’s going on now to restore liberty in this country is well on its way, and there’s no way they’re going to stop the momentum that we have started. And that is the victory that you have brought about, because you have been the ones that have done the works … We don’t always get the coverage or the interest shown on what is going on, because if they did, they wouldn’t be ignoring so much of what we’re doing.

But, you know, I find it sort of fascinating when they finally get around — and this is different people, it could be in the media, could be our opponents, or whatever — but I sort of have to chuckle when they describe you and me as being 'dangerous.' That’s one thing they are telling the truth, because we are dangerous to the status quo of this country," – Ron Paul, last night, in a soaring, fun speech, almost the direct opposite of Romney's canned, harsh, ugly attacks on the president.

A reader writes:

Both Patrick Deneen and Rod Dreher miss the point in responding to George Will’s column cheerleading the rise of hydraulic fracturing. Conservatism as once defined simply doesn’t exist anymore, and it has been replaced by a reactionary ideology that is no longer for things but explicitly against things. Chiefly, liberal things, or even things that Republicans used to support but now that they are advanced by Democrats and liberals, they must be renounced. Hence the personal vitriol against Michelle Obama and her campaign to reduce childhood obesity (really, who in their right mind is against that?), the insertion of the Keystone Pipeline provision in the payroll tax bill (take that, tree huggers!), the reflexive opposition to solar and alternative energy, and on and on. As you’re fond of noting, it’s a party in advanced stage of degeneracy.

Another writes:

I was hoping you'd get in on the anti-fracking side. If any issue is tailor-made for a true conservative defense, this is.

I am from a small town in upstate New York that sits on top of the Marcellus Shale. The fracking debate has thrown it into upheaval and has divided the community more than any issue in memory. These gas companies are buying the state government – through millions in lobbying – to mandate drilling against the wishes of local town boards. I feel for the poor dairy farmers in the region, who are jumping to cash in on royalties from leasing their land. But their plight stems from a decades-long agriculture policy controlled by big agribusiness and bureaucrats that has abused the land and squelched small farmers' ingenuity. A further assault, in the form of free license to frack, on the ability of ordinary citizens to control their fate only would only compound this long cycle of decline. It is the enemy of conservatism.