Iowa Straw Poll: Let The Fight For The Right Begin
Technically, the margin of victory for Michele Bachmann at Saturday’s Iowa straw poll was slight, with second-place finisher Ron Paul falling just 152 votes (or 0.9 percentage points) short of her tally.
But everyone knows that Paul is a niche candidate. The 27.65 percent that he earned on Saturday is impressive, in that it speaks to the sizable and devoted following he has built, but it’s also probably the same share he would have received if there’d only been two candidates on the ballot, instead of nine.
Bachmann’s real competition was Tim Pawlenty, the former Minnesota governor who had poured massive time and energy into the straw poll, hoping to post a breakthrough victory — and to stave off an early elimination from the GOP race. As the stakes had crystallized for Pawlenty in the days leading up to the straw poll, he’d even gone on the attack against Bachmann in a desperate effort to peel support from her. Saturday’s results demonstrated forcefully just how futile Pawlenty’s strategy was: He finished a very distant third, with just 13.57 percent, winning fewer than half as many votes as Bachmann.
In other words, this was a very big win for Bachmann. She crushed her biggest mainstream competitor and she avoided the indignity of finishing behind Paul. In the run-up to the straw poll, there was talk that she might be a victim of her own early success — that by making so much noise this spring and summer and moving up so quickly in polling she had set the bar too high for herself. Finishing behind Pawlenty (and Paul, for that matter) would have encouraged this view, raising questions about whether Bachmann really had the staying power and organization to win the Iowa caucuses this winter. But now she’ll leave Ames with the political world taking her more seriously, not less.
And her victory was doubly significant in light of the day’s other major political development: Rick Perry’s formal entry into the GOP race. The Texas governor made his long-expected announcement early in the afternoon at a conservative blogger conference in South Carolina. Perry is a heavyweight candidate, to be sure, and enters with considerable momentum. But he would have even more momentum right now if his announcement had been followed hours later by news of an unexpectedly weak straw poll showing for Bachmann — a development that would have created the immediate possibility of defections of Bachmann supporters to Perry’s side. Perry, after all, is supposedly Bachmann’s worst nightmare — someone who appeals to the same rigidly conservative base she does, but who is far more acceptable to the party’s establishment. Perry may yet end up taking the wind out of Bachmann’s sails, but the straw poll outcome suggests that she’ll put up a whale of a fight.
Thus, the stage is a set for a fascinating battle for the loyalties of the “purist” wing of the party between Perry and Bachmann. Which is very good news for the other major candidate in the race, Mitt Romney, who has also stood to lose by Perry’s emergence. The threat to Romney is that Perry might marginalize Bachmann and gobble up most of her support and that the GOP establishment will then rally around him, judging him to be a safe enough choice and more acceptable to the base than Romney. So the longer Perry is tied down in a fight with Bachmann for the true believer vote, the better Romney has to feel.
And no doubt Perry himself would much rather focus his attention on Romney, whose ideological credentials have long been in doubt and who would be relatively easy to run against from the right. But trying to convince Bachmann supporters to abandon her is far trickier — especially now that the straw poll results have lifted their spirits to the stratosphere.
So if you’re keeping score at home, Saturday was a very good day for Bachmann, and a decent one for Romney. And it wasn’t bad for Perry, either, although he would have preferred to see Bachmann lose the straw poll. It was, however, a dreadful day for Pawlenty, who’s now pretty much run out of time to demonstrate that a candidacy that makes sense on paper is remotely interesting to Republican activists.
By: Steve Kornacki, Salon War Room, August 13, 2011
Questions About Michele Bachmann’s Migraines Aren’t Sexist
Questions about whether Michele Bachmann’s headaches should disqualify her for office may be of dubious validity, but are they sexist? I don’t think so.
In case you’ve missed the media storm du jour, the Daily Caller reported Monday night that Bachmann suffers from incapacitating migraines, and engages in “heavy pill use” to combat them. This has spurred, among other things, cries of sexism.
Fox News Channel host Martha MacCallum, for example, said that “it does feel sexist … Has anyone asked this of the male candidates out there? Do you have any medical issues that you think we should know about?” (As a side note, asking candidates such questions about medical issues is, I think, fairly routine and legitimate.)
Monica Crowley, a conservative talk show host appearing with MacCallum, chimed in, “This does smack of that old school ‘Woman As Hysteric’ kind of thing.”
Well not so fast. Here’s what the Caller reported:
The Minnesota Republican frequently suffers from stress-induced medical episodes that she has characterized as severe headaches. These episodes, say witnesses, occur once a week on average and can “incapacitate” her for days at time.’
Here’s a simple sexism test. Replace reference to Bachmann with references to, say, Mitt Romney. Would a story saying that Romney “frequently suffers from stress-induced medical episodes” that “incapacitate” him for “days at a time” get the same attention? I should think so.
Now, does that mean that the Caller story has merit? That’s trickier. It’s legitimate … if it’s legitimate. In other words if she really is “frequently … incapacitated” for days at a time then, yes, that’s a legitimate line of inquiry. But if it’s a case of occasional migraines getting blown out of proportion by anonymous, embittered former staffers, that’s something else entirely.
Then there are the pills. “The migraines are so bad and so intense, she carries and takes all sorts of pills,” a source tells the Caller. “Prevention pills. Pills during the migraine. Pills after the migraine, to keep them under control. She has to take these pills wherever she goes.”
Well. “Pills” could be anything from aspirins to greenies. Lots of people take pills on a regular basis—taking pills is not in and of itself disqualifying or even troubling. If there were any evidence to suggest that these pills could affect her judgment that would be a different question, but the Caller story doesn’t have it.
One final issue here that the Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza notes, that this isn’t the first time former Bachmann aides have badmouthed her to the press:
A cavalcade of disgruntled former aides (are there ever “gruntled” former aides?) willing to go public with questions and criticisms of Bachmann is decidedly problematic for her presidential candidacy.
After all, if those who know (or knew) her best lack faith in her ability to do the job effectively, it will almost certainly force voters to re-examine their first, generally positive impressions of her.
Indeed, with friends like that, who needs migraines?
By: Robert Schlesinger, U. S. News and World Report, July 20, 2011
Cut Cap & Balance And The New Frontiers of Kookery
A scant few months after the Paul Ryan budget redefined the boundaries of conservative fanaticism, the Republican Party’s new “Cut, Cap, and Balance” Constitutional Amendment makes that document seem quaintly reasonable. Ezra Klein sums up the policy:
Ronald Reagan’s entire presidency would’ve been unconstitutional under CC&B. Same for George W. Bush’s. Paul Ryan’s budget wouldn’t pass muster. The only budget that might work for this policy — if you could implement it — would be the proposal produced by the ultra-conservative Republican Study Committee. But that proposal was so extreme and unworkable that a majority of Republicans voted it down.
37 House Republicans and 12 Senate Republicans have pledged not to support a debt ceiling increase unless the CC&B Constitutional Amendment passes. Mitt Romney has signed this insane pledge. Ramesh Ponnuru has some gentle questions:
Representative Mick Mulvaney, a freshman Republican from South Carolina who is a leading supporter of the amendment, said in an interview that if “the president wants this debt-ceiling increase, he’s going to help us get the votes.” He argued that Obama should deliver 50 Democratic votes in the House and 20 to 30 in the Senate. “That’s a good compromise for both sides.”
Does the congressman think that 50 Republicans would vote for a constitutional amendment that contradicts everything they stand for if President Romney asked them to?
What a congressman who pledges to increase the debt limit only if a spending-limit amendment passes is really saying is that he opposes increasing the debt limit. Because there is no way that two-thirds of Congress is going to pass this amendment now, or ever.
Perhaps the most remarkable thing about the CC&B amendment is the casual way in which it attempts to enshrine specific spending levels and to freeze current taxes into the Constitution. I would like to see its advocates explain why it is necessary for the Constitution to require their agenda. What is keeping the public from electing officials who will enact this agenda? If people want to enact policies like this, why not just let them do it? And if they don’t, why force these policies upon them?
By: Jonathan Chait, The New Republic, July 19, 2011
Getting to Crazy: The Culmination Of A GOP Process
There aren’t many positive aspects to the looming possibility of a U.S. debt default. But there has been, I have to admit, an element of comic relief — of the black-humor variety — in the spectacle of so many people who have been in denial suddenly waking up and smelling the crazy.
A number of commentators seem shocked at how unreasonable Republicans are being. “Has the G.O.P. gone insane?” they ask.
Why, yes, it has. But this isn’t something that just happened, it’s the culmination of a process that has been going on for decades. Anyone surprised by the extremism and irresponsibility now on display either hasn’t been paying attention, or has been deliberately turning a blind eye.
And may I say to those suddenly agonizing over the mental health of one of our two major parties: People like you bear some responsibility for that party’s current state.
Let’s talk for a minute about what Republican leaders are rejecting.
President Obama has made it clear that he’s willing to sign on to a deficit-reduction deal that consists overwhelmingly of spending cuts, and includes draconian cuts in key social programs, up to and including a rise in the age of Medicare eligibility. These are extraordinary concessions. As The Times’s Nate Silver points out, the president has offered deals that are far to the right of what the average American voter prefers — in fact, if anything, they’re a bit to the right of what the average Republican voter prefers!
Yet Republicans are saying no. Indeed, they’re threatening to force a U.S. default, and create an economic crisis, unless they get a completely one-sided deal. And this was entirely predictable.
First of all, the modern G.O.P. fundamentally does not accept the legitimacy of a Democratic presidency — any Democratic presidency. We saw that under Bill Clinton, and we saw it again as soon as Mr. Obama took office.
As a result, Republicans are automatically against anything the president wants, even if they have supported similar proposals in the past. Mitt Romney’s health care plan became a tyrannical assault on American freedom when put in place by that man in the White House. And the same logic applies to the proposed debt deals.
Put it this way: If a Republican president had managed to extract the kind of concessions on Medicare and Social Security that Mr. Obama is offering, it would have been considered a conservative triumph. But when those concessions come attached to minor increases in revenue, and more important, when they come from a Democratic president, the proposals become unacceptable plans to tax the life out of the U.S. economy.
Beyond that, voodoo economics has taken over the G.O.P.
Supply-side voodoo — which claims that tax cuts pay for themselves and/or that any rise in taxes would lead to economic collapse — has been a powerful force within the G.O.P. ever since Ronald Reagan embraced the concept of the Laffer curve. But the voodoo used to be contained. Reagan himself enacted significant tax increases, offsetting to a considerable extent his initial cuts.
And even the administration of former President George W. Bush refrained from making extravagant claims about tax-cut magic, at least in part for fear that making such claims would raise questions about the administration’s seriousness.
Recently, however, all restraint has vanished — indeed, it has been driven out of the party. Last year Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, asserted that the Bush tax cuts actually increased revenue — a claim completely at odds with the evidence — and also declared that this was “the view of virtually every Republican on that subject.” And it’s true: even Mr. Romney, widely regarded as the most sensible of the contenders for the 2012 presidential nomination, has endorsed the view that tax cuts can actually reduce the deficit.
Which brings me to the culpability of those who are only now facing up to the G.O.P.’s craziness.
Here’s the point: those within the G.O.P. who had misgivings about the embrace of tax-cut fanaticism might have made a stronger stand if there had been any indication that such fanaticism came with a price, if outsiders had been willing to condemn those who took irresponsible positions.
But there has been no such price. Mr. Bush squandered the surplus of the late Clinton years, yet prominent pundits pretend that the two parties share equal blame for our debt problems. Paul Ryan, the chairman of the House Budget Committee, proposed a supposed deficit-reduction plan that included huge tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy, then received an award for fiscal responsibility.
So there has been no pressure on the G.O.P. to show any kind of responsibility, or even rationality — and sure enough, it has gone off the deep end. If you’re surprised, that means that you were part of the problem.
By: Paul Krugman, Op-Ed Writer, The New York Times, July 14, 2011
Republican Preachers: Believing What You Know Ain’t True
In Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain makes a stinging observation on the overtly religious. “Faith is when you believe something you know ain’t true.” This is a perfect description of the religious asylum that is now the Republican Party and the tortured gospel they are spreading all over the country. Virtually the entire barnyard of their presidential candidates are preaching a mix of born again religious revivalism and brutal 19th century industrial capitalism, that they “know ain’t even remotely true.”
By and large these are not genetically stupid people. But the political trash talking they feel obligated to serve up to the Tea Party Gods–Rush Limbaugh and the inquisitors at Fox–has degenerated into a competition of who can do the best impression of an absolute lunatic. Rick Perry is preaching virtual secession from the union, while holding prayer vigils for God to solve our problems. By what twisted logic does contempt for the federal government and even secession equate to patriotism? Someone please show me where the founding fathers advocated prayer as the vehicle for solving a national debt crisis?
Mitt Romney and Tim Pawlenty have flip flopped on virtually every position they ever espoused so that their insanity titers can match Michelle Bachmann’s. I’ve met with Jon Huntsman on more than one occasion regarding environmental issues in Utah. He was a reasonable moderate Republican as my state’s governor and appeared on TV ads three years ago exhorting the entire country to act on the climate crisis. He did that because he respected the warnings of our climate scientists. Now he says we can’t deal with global warming in a depressed economy. He knows perfectly well that those same scientists are warning that if we don’t act on it right now, we condemn our children to a brutal, dangerous and likely unlivable world. Newt Gingrich? He appeared on national TV ads with Nancy Pelosi saying that he agreed on the urgency to deal with the climate crisis. Now he looks like a Keystone Cop, tripping over his own feet in full speed reverse.
Sarah Palin? Oh, never mind. Rick Santorum? According to him the world’s scientists are all in on a conspiracy with Al Gore. Really Rick? That conspiracy would have to have started in 1824 when the greenhouse gas phenomenon was first described by the French scientist Joseph Fourier. It would have to have involved scores of scientists in the 1800s like John Tyndall of the Royal Institute of Great Britain, George Marsh, the founder of the Smithsonian Institute, and hundreds of scientists in the 1900s like 1903 Nobel Prize winner Svante Arrhenius. The conspiracy would now have to involve virtually the entire world’s scientific community. That makes sense to you, Rick? Really?
Almost as irritating is the chorus sung over and over by Eric Cantor, John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, Paul Ryan and 99% of Republican Congressmen proudly declaring their Huckleberry Finn type faith that an unfettered free market is the only way to create to millions of new jobs. “Stop choking businesses with excessive regulations!” they chant. All businesses, all regulations. Really, Mitch? Never mind that it was precisely the elimination of, inadequacy of, or lack of enforcement of federal regulation that allowed Wall St. to drag the economy to the edge of the apocalypse and the very reason why there are no jobs. Never mind that it was poor regulation and free market cost cutting that brought us the Deep Water Horizon, Kalamazoo River, and now Yellowstone River oil spills. 1,800 oil spills have occurred in this country in the last five years totaling 16 million gallons of oil contaminating our land and water. And Mitt, you want regulators to get off the backs of the oil companies? Really?
Never mind that it was inadequate federal oversight and greedy, unfettered capitalism on steroids that allowed Massey Energy to commit manslaughter on 29 coal miners last year. Hey, Eric just what jobs are created by paring down our already bare bones federal food inspection? Will even more outbreaks of e-coli and salmonella in peanut butter, spinach, eggs, cantaloupe, sprouts and hamburger be counted as just collateral blessings from unleashing the free market? We certainly don’t want to pay for inspection of imported sea food from Japan because a little radioactivity in your tuna fish and scallops would probably just make it taste a little more crunchy.
Hey Newt, what jobs will be created by eviscerating the EPA and their enforcement of the Clean Air Act besides morticians and health care providers? Michelle, so you’re comfortable with eliminating money for bridge inspectors from the National Transportation Safety Board because the one that collapsed in your home state in 2007 only killed 13 people, and that’s a small price to pay for that warm, orgasmic tingle only the free market can give?
Lets certainly get regulators off the backs of the pharmaceutical industry because other than the millions of people who have been killed or injured by Phen-Fen, Vioxx, Avandia, Bextra, Cylert, Baycol, Palladone, Trasylol, Tylenol, Darvocet, Heparin and all the drugs now made with ingredients from China without any real standards or controls–i.e. most of them–there’s no reason to think an unregulated free market won’t work out just fine. Really, Sarah? So if defective and tainted drugs weed out the weak among us, that’s just the beauty of the Ayn Rand/Milton Friedman world view?
The entire middle class is struggling with unemployment, under employment, mounting debt, lost pensions, mortgages foreclosed or underwater, and you want to undo even the pathetic protections of the 2010 Consumer Protection Act and put Elizabeth Warren’s head on a platter? Really, Speaker Boehner? That’s the job elixir the middle class so desperately need?
As with most religions the Church of Unfettered Capitalism doesn’t have to make sense in order to thrive. But it does need preachers at the pulpit exhorting us to “believe in things that we know ain’t true” and the Republican Party can’t get enough of them. Huckleberry Finn would be so proud.
By: Brian Moench, CommonDreams.org, July 9, 2011
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