Who will take on Obama in 2012?

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Perry is not running.
Probably not, but for every "I won't run" we have those "aides are privately putting out feelers" rumor articles. It's unlikely, but it's not a fact. And guys who had once decided not to run may certainly reconsider when they see how little competition they're ending up with, compared to the dozen or so candidates people were speculating about just 7 or 8 months ago.

These are your candidates.
Clinton didn't get in until October. I'd bet against any heavyweight jumping in late, but it's just not a foregone conclusion.

I'm sure I'm starting to sound like a broken record, but I see no value in feigning confidence about things that are currently unknowable.



I guess I am just tired of the same old Republican rhetoric. The guy just spews all of the same phrases and he even has that one thing he does with his thumb and pointer finger. I honestly don't know much about the guys politics, but he is just one of those guys that I listen to and watch while becoming extremely irritated and I start rolling my eyes a lot.

He just really seems extra puppety to me. Like he will give all the blank statements in the world to make people happy, but really he doesn't stand for much at all. It's people like Pawlenty that really makes me want to give Ron Paul all of my support, because at least the guy stands for something. I can forgive his flaws because he has been one of the most consistent and non-sheit-taking politicians out there.
I'm the opposite: I can forgive things like tone or energy a lot more than just being flat-out wrong about an issue, or taking a stance for the wrong reason.

I dunno, I don't particularly disagree with what you're saying about Pawlenty, but isn't this all surface, speculative stuff? If anything, his biography leads me to believe that he's one of the more genuine candidates, at least out of the apparently viable ones. I am skeptical of our collective ability (this includes myself) to discern which guys are politicking and which are saying what they mean. They have to act like a politician whether they resemble a typical one in all the negative ways, anyway. Bill Clinton always sounded genuine to me early on, but that's the idea: by valuing someone who just "seems" genuine, you're really just deciding to support the best actor.

Anyway, this is one of the reasons I focus on policy. Far less guesswork.



I'm the opposite: I can forgive things like tone or energy a lot more than just being flat-out wrong about an issue, or taking a stance for the wrong reason.

I dunno, I don't particularly disagree with what you're saying about Pawlenty, but isn't this all surface, speculative stuff? If anything, his biography leads me to believe that he's one of the more genuine candidates, at least out of the apparently viable ones. I am skeptical of our collective ability (this includes myself) to discern which guys are politicking and which are saying what they mean. They have to act like a politician whether they resemble a typical one in all the negative ways, anyway. Bill Clinton always sounded genuine to me early on, but that's the idea: by valuing someone who just "seems" genuine, you're really just deciding to support the best actor.

Anyway, this is one of the reasons I focus on policy. Far less guesswork.
Oh, it definitely is surface, speculative stuff. I can't help it though. It's terrible, but I really just don't like the way he looks or talks.

You are correct though, it isn't right for me to say these things without really looking at his politics, but this one just urks me man. Him and Palin both. And Santorum. (my wife says I hate way too many people, it's a problem )
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Heh. I dig.

By the by, here's his little announcement video.



Obviously a lot of it's standard (the music, the "action" shots, etc.) The only real meaningful takeaway from it, though, is the tack he's taking: "Time for Truth." He's trying to establish himself as the guy who's going to level with you about the problems we face, as opposed to the "we can do anything" types. I think that's probably pretty smart. If nothing else, it's the natural opposite of Obama's '08 campaign.

Pawlenty needs to find something he can own a bit more, and I think the "I'm not going to sugarcoat our problems or tell you it's going to be easy" thing is one that could work for him. Whether or not he'll be able to do this, or whether or not it'll work, I'm not sure, but I think it's among the better options out of all the choices he could have made on this front.



Check this out: Pawlenty's calling for a phase out of ethanol subsidies, despite the fact that by all accounts he needs to do well in Iowa. It's really gutsy and, more importantly, it's right. As a conservative who, like most others, has been plenty underwhelmed by my apparent options, this is very encouraging. I'll have no problem getting excited about Pawlenty's candidacy if he keeps doing stuff like this.

He's also planning on going to Florida tomorrow to talk about the necessity of raising the retirement age. Wow.



Just back from Obama giving a speech in Dublin as part of his Irish visit. Great speech dedicated to the ties that between the USA and "a nation so small inspired so much in another" Ireland, and how inspiring Ireland is.

Just a short clip of his speech.

&feature=youtu.be

A picture of him drinking a pint of the black stuff in a pub in Moneygall Co Offaly where he has ancestoral roots.

Overall an electric experience, his speech of hope echoed around the crowd. He ended with an affirmation that if anyone says of the Irish that they cannot achieve greatness to reply Is feidir linn
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will.15's Avatar
Semper Fooey
Here is why Republicans are going to lose a lot of seats in November.

http://www.aolnews.com/story/ap-gfk-...to-be/1817131/

Tim Pawlenty is taking a big gamble if the economy starts to pick up because negative campaigns (America is in trouble with the inference we need radical changes) has never been a winning strategy. His commercials are very slickly produced, but he is not very slick and that disconnect is going to create a problem at some point.
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Here is why Republicans are going to lose a lot of seats in November.

http://www.aolnews.com/story/ap-gfk-...to-be/1817131/
I think there are two flaws in this claim, the first of which I've mentioned before:

1) You're assuming that Republicans are just going to sit there and absorb accusations, rather than point out that ObamaCare guts Medicare AND Medicaid, and thus the accusations to this effect from Democrats are about as egregious and selective as political accusations can get. Let's see what public opinion looks like when both parties settle on positions and have made their arguments.

2) Republicans are not entirely united behind the Ryan plan. Boehner calls it a road map (or something of the sort), Ryan has implied a willingness to use it as a starting point (even if he'd like it as-is), Scott Brown has condemned it outright, and Pawlenty is advancing an alternative plan. And that last point carries as much weight as all the others. The public perception of the opinion of each party on this issue is going to be mostly tied to what each nominee (Obama and whoever) proposes. Both parties will fall in behind that, and that's what each will be judged on.

By the by, if you're still truly adamant in this belief, you can make yourself a lot of money: InTrade.com currently has the Republicans as a 57% favorite to retain control of the House. To lose control they'd have to lose just 25 seats, which I'm pretty sure is well within the cyclical norm. So if you think they're going to lose "a lot," that'd have to be significantly more. So...45-50?

Tim Pawlenty is taking a big gamble if the economy starts to pick up because negative campaigns (America is in trouble with the inference we need radical changes) has never been a winning strategy. His commercials are very slickly produced, but he is not very slick and that disconnect is going to create a problem at some point.
Campaigning against a weak economy in no way necessitates that Pawlenty (or any other candidate) make their campaign largely negative. Reagan didn't. Clinton didn't. Obama didn't.



will.15's Avatar
Semper Fooey
Obamacare replaces Medicare with something else, the Ryan plan just guts it with a flat rate subsidy, which means Medicare in any form whatsoever disappears. That makes it a lot more scarier to voters. If it is national health care versus medicare voters prefer what they are used to, Medicare, because they are not crazy about change. But if the choice becomes national health plan versus the Ryan Plan, Ryan loses big time and takes Republicans with them because it is currently the plan they are endorsing and no Republican has articulated an alternative. It will not have a major impact on Senate races at this point because they have not embraced it, but the House is going to lose a lot of seats. I never said they would lose the House, but think they might, and would consider twenty-five seats to be a lot. I do think at the very least they will lose nineteen or twenty seats and that to me is a lot also because it will marginalize the Tea Party as that is where most of the losses will come from.

If Pawlenty actually articulates an alternative plan significantly different from the Ryan Plan he will piss off the Tea Party people.

That video you released looks like a negative campaign in the making when you he gets to specific proposals. "America is in serious trouble, a lot of personal sacrifices," etc. Reagan campaigned against a weak economy, he never said anything about personal sacrifices. He didn't talk about making "painful' decisions.

Watch that New York congressional district. If the Repub loses as is being predicted, it will be more of the same in House elections next year. The only reason she will lose is the Ryan Plan which she endorsed. It is kryptonite for your party, the Ryan Plan.



Obamacare replaces Medicare with something else, the Ryan plan just guts it with a flat rate subsidy
...which is replacing it with something else. Seeing as how Medicare is essentially a subsidy, I don't understand the logic in saying that replacing it with a different type of subsidy is a gutting, whereas ObamaCare is not.

There simply is no defense on this point. The Democratic talking points on Medicare and the Ryan plan are blatantly and demonstrably hypocritical. And you know how politicians are always accusing each other of using "scare tactics"? Well, this is what it looks like when it actually happens.

which means Medicare in any form whatsoever disappears.
Even Democrats don't take this stance; they carefully phrase their accusations to say that Medicare "as we know it" will be gone.

That makes it a lot more scarier to voters. If it is national health care versus medicare voters prefer what they are used to, Medicare, because they are not crazy about change. But if the choice becomes national health plan versus the Ryan Plan, Ryan loses big time and takes Republicans with them because it is currently the plan they are endorsing and no Republican has articulated an alternative. It will not have a major impact on Senate races at this point because they have not embraced it, but the House is going to lose a lot of seats. I never said they would lose the House, but think they might, and would consider twenty-five seats to be a lot. I do think at the very least they will lose nineteen or twenty seats and that to me is a lot also because it will marginalize the Tea Party as that is where most of the losses will come from.
You can, of course, use whatever personal, highly nuanced definition of "a lot" that you like. But historically, what you're talking about is average losses.

As for alternatives to the Ryan plan: it was voted on just five weeks ago.

If Pawlenty actually articulates an alternative plan significantly different from the Ryan Plan he will piss off the Tea Party people.
Again: it was voted on a grand total of five weeks ago, so I'm not sure how you've come to believe that it's even had enough time to become part of Tea Party canon. I don't know how many Tea Partiers you know, or how representative of the whole you've decided they are, but it's not my experience that the Ryan plan represents a sacred cow for many of them.

I also think the idea that Pawlenty will "piss off the Tea Party people" is kind of bizarre. We both know any alternative he offers is still going to be heavy on free market principles and low on state control, and it's hard to imagine Tea Partiers being "pissed" about such a proposal.

That video you released looks like a negative campaign in the making when you he gets to specific proposals. "America is in serious trouble, a lot of personal sacrifices," etc. Reagan campaigned against a weak economy, he never said anything about personal sacrifices. He didn't talk about making "painful' decisions.
Well, first off, he said "tough" decisions. Second, it was followed with the obligatory uptick in music and hopeful talk about how we can overcome our problems. And third, you're taking what is essentially a sentence or two in one video and extrapolating an entire 18-month campaign out of it.

Sure, if he spends all his time on the campaign trail saying "everything sucks," he'll lose. He might lose even if he doesn't do this; most challengers do. But at this point there's no good reason to think he will. Every challenger has to walk that line between condemnation of current policies and optimism that they can be rolled back and the tide can be turned. Pawlenty is no different, and I see no reason to believe he's going to shirk the conventional wisdom on this front.

Watch that New York congressional district. If the Repub loses as is being predicted, it will be more of the same in House elections next year. The only reason she will lose is the Ryan Plan which she endorsed.
You've said this before, and it just isn't true. First, the Republican incumbent (Chris Lee) resigned in disgrace. Second, though Lee won handily in 2010, the percentage of the vote for Republicans before that in recent elections was far from resounding: 55%, 52%, 55%. And third -- and most importantly -- there's essentially nothing to suggest that the 26th district is some magical bellwether.

People said the exact same sort of thing about the special election in the 23rd; Republicans had held the seat for almost 20 years, lost it, and I heard any number of Democratic commenters use it to disabuse people of the notion that the '10 midterms would be painful for the Democratic party. I have specific memories of them wildly mocking conservatives who had talked about a "wave" election. Obviously, they couldn't have been more wrong. They were clinging to a positive result because they merely wanted it to be predictive of all the others.

The takeaway is that special elections are just that -- special. Single elections turn on many things, and there's simply no valid reason for ascribing one of them with a special predictive power at any point, let alone a year and a half before the other elections.

I'm tempted to suggest that pretty much everything in your post that I disagree with stems from the same error: extrapolating and speculating based on precious little data. The Ryan plan is brand new, yet you've already declared it Tea Party canon and Republican gospel. Pawlenty has one sentence in a lone campaign video, and already he's apparently running a "negative" campaign. A Democrat might win in a special election in the 26th, and suddenly that's supposed to be indicative of a massive nationwide trend 18 months from now.

I know nobody likes to say they don't know things, but: we don't know these things. You, me, or anyone else. The fact that we have little information should not be used as an excuse to magnify the importance of what little information we have.



will.15's Avatar
Semper Fooey
The Ryan Plan has become Tea Party canon. Look at how they ganged up on Gingrich because he criticized it. And of course the Ryan Plan guts Medicare except temporarily for retirees of a certain age. The direct subsidy, which is a flat amount which never goes up and can be used only to buy private insurance is not Medicare.

I thought you were going to make a more logical criticism why the current special election in New York is unique, but since you didn't I won't mention it. But this time it will be a predictor unlike the previous SE because the focus was on a national issue, it wasn't local. The polls show it was all about Medicare.



The Ryan Plan has become Tea Party canon. Look at how they ganged up on Gingrich because he criticized it.
Please explain how it is "they" that did this, rather than conservatives in general, for example. Also, Gingrich wasn't ganged up on for merely criticizing it; he savaged it. He called it "right wing social engineering." When a Republican presidential candidate eviscerates a Republican budget proposal, yes, there is outrage. That isn't indicative of a special level of allegiance (let alone to Tea Partiers, specifically, which is what you're claiming, remember), it's indicative of a perfectly common level of allegiance.

And of course the Ryan Plan guts Medicare except temporarily for retirees of a certain age. The direct subsidy, which is a flat amount which never goes up and can be used only to buy private insurance is not Medicare.
Nothing is Medicare but Medicare. The point is that both parties are advocating the replacement of it. If anything, the Republican replacement is far more like the current system, because it's still a subsidy, whereas ObamaCare is a complete overhaul. Also, the Ryan plan doesn't even effect those near retirement, which makes the scaremongering even less intellectually defensible.

I thought you were going to make a more logical criticism why the current special election in New York is unique, but since you didn't I won't mention it.
I did, actually. I offered four reasons why its importance was being exaggerated: the first two were explicitly about why the 23rd is unique, and the other two were general principles. They were: 1) the Republican incumbent resigned in disgrace, 2) Republicans have not dominated the district in recent years, 3) special elections haven't acted as a reliable bellwethers in past elections, and 4) the 2012 elections are 18 months away, during which anything can (and will) happen. Which of these reasons do you not find logical?

But this time it will be a predictor unlike the previous SE because the focus was on a national issue, it wasn't local. The polls show it was all about Medicare.
To my memory the election in the 23rd was very much about ObamaCare, but I find the idea that any Congressional election is not local to be dubious. Many have a national component, but it's usually one factor of many. There were, of course, some very unusual extenuating circumstances to explain why Hoffman lost, but that's the entire point: there are a great number of variables in every individual race that make using any one of them as a nationwide predictor pretty foolhardy.

I'm also rather confused by your use of tense: you're suggesting that the polls will show it was all about Medicare, not that it "was," right?



will.15's Avatar
Semper Fooey
You didn't mention this one: the Tea Party split the vote with a third part candidate. She probably would have narrowly held on without that joker. It also shows the great mischief they can do. Ryan Plan wouldn't exist without Tea Party support. It's their plan. Republicans have nothing else. They can't straddle the fence. It passed the House. It is not just something they are thinking about. They have endorsed it (the House).

Polls are showing if she loses she is going down strictly because of Medicare. It is the sole issue that is affecting her numbers dropping.



You didn't mention this one: the Tea Party split the vote with a third part candidate. She probably would have narrowly held on without that joker.
Sure, that works, too. Though you keep slipping into the past tense, and it keeps confusing the crap out of me. I literally had to re-read this paragraph several times to figure out whether or not you were talking about the 23rd or 26th.

It also shows the great mischief they can do.
Well, do you think there'll be lots of third party candidacies all over the nation in 2012, then? Because if not, the 26th wouldn't seem to be a good bellwether election. I mean, I advanced four reasons it isn't, and you just advanced another, so...why should all those reasons be ignored?

Ryan Plan wouldn't exist without Tea Party support. It's their plan. Republicans have nothing else. They can't straddle the fence. It passed the House. It is not just something they are thinking about. They have endorsed it (the House).
They have "nothing else" because it's been five weeks, but Pawlenty's already announced an alternative, and we're 18 months out. The majority of conservatives will line up behind the eventual 2012 nominee's proposal, which will almost certainly be somewhat different from the Ryan plan, but based on similar market principles.

Polls are showing if she loses she is going down strictly because of Medicare. It is the sole issue that is affecting her numbers dropping.
Except for Davis, the third party candidate you mentioned. He's got something like 10-15% of the vote and Corwin trails by just 4-5 points in multiple polls, so it seems pretty clear that's as much to blame as Medicare, even without going into all the other reasons this is not necessarily indicative of a nationwide trend.



will.15's Avatar
Semper Fooey
The Davis support comes almost entirely from dissaffected Republicans because of Corwin's support of Medicare. He is their protest vote instead of voting for a Democrat.



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I have no idea what part of that article is supposed to demonstrate that the Tea Party is not good for Republicans.

But, again: they helped Republicans win 63 freaking seats in November. They would have to do an unbelievable amount of damage to ever get to the point at which they won't have been a net positive for Republicans.
Will doesn't like the Tea Party period. I'm sure he has good reasons. But the question remains, will the mainstream Republicans and the Tea Party waste time fighting each other or will they remember their common enemy is Obama and concentrate on defeating him?

The thing to recall is that a lot of people including a whole slew of independents who don't think the sun rises on either the Republicans or the Tea Party voted for them and against Obama last year. And in the last few days Obama has ticked off a whole bunch of pro-Israel Democrats and Independents. Odds now are the economy likely will get worse within the next year; certainly crude supplies are likely to be thinner and pump prices higher a year from now with the Obamatorium against offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. This could be the one time--despite the Republicans' tendancy to snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory--that the Democrat incumbent will self-destruct with his continued bad calls.



The Davis support comes almost entirely from dissaffected Republicans because of Corwin's support of Medicare. He is their protest vote instead of voting for a Democrat.
Then you have to pick which of your statements you're going to undermine, no? You're trying to simultaneously claim that Tea Partiers adore the Ryan plan AND that Davis, the Tea Party candidate who's against the Ryan plan, is siphoning votes away because the voters don't want it.

And if your reconciliation involves the fact that Davis isn't really a Tea Partier, then that goes right to my point about how this race is unique, unless you think we'll have all sorts of self-funded fake stealth Tea Party candidates throughout the country in 2012.



Will doesn't like the Tea Party period. I'm sure he has good reasons. But the question remains, will the mainstream Republicans and the Tea Party waste time fighting each other or will they remember their common enemy is Obama and concentrate on defeating him?
I think mostly the latter, but some of the former, sure. The Tea Party enthusiasm helped Republicans tremendously in 2010, even if it also led to a few nominees who were not half as electable as the establishment Republicans they defeated in the primaries. A welcome trade on net, though, which has paid dramatically more than it has cost them.



Tim Pawlenty is taking a big gamble if the economy starts to pick up . . .
That's a big "if." The economy hasn't exactly took off like a sky-rocket in spite of the Fed's "stimulus" program that expires in June. It hasn't made a big enough dent in unemployment, businesses are afraid to invest, and the Democrats want to spend more.

. . . because negative campaigns (America is in trouble with the inference we need radical changes) has never been a winning strategy.
Maybe. But people still talk about how the Lyndon Johnson ad of the little girl picking flowers with an atomic missile countdown in the background blew Goldwater out of the running. And that ad was pulled after only a few showings.