Michele Bachmann spent plenty of time Monday letting everyone know that she was born in Waterloo, Iowa, a small industrial town she credits with instilling within her many of her conservative ideals.
But in one interview surrounding her formal campaign rollout, the Tea Party favorite seems to have gotten a little confused about some of the finer points of the Hawkeye State’s history.
Speaking to Fox News, Bachmann said that she had the same spirit as Waterloo’s own John Wayne. One can only assume that she was referring to the movie star, who was born in Winterset, Iowa, roughly a three-hour drive from Waterloo. The problem, however, is that Waterloo appears to have much closer ties to serial killer John Wayne Gacy, the “killer clown” who had his first criminal conviction there.
OK, I was kidding about that. I have only Denis Leary to go by on the Duke being frozen. But I do have a question — didn’t she launch her campaign a couple of weeks ago? She announced it at the debate…
I spoke with Chad over at the party HQ this morning. Since this was my first sit-down with him, I wanted to cover the bases — ask him to talk a bit about his background, etc. So we did.
But the hot topic — and if you can’t wait to get to it, it starts at 4:15 on the clip — was Gov. Nikki Haley’s threatened veto of funding for the SC GOP presidential primary in January.
Some highlights of that discussion:
He said there will be a presidential primary here, “no matter what.”
He said presidential primaries are so important that next time the Democrats have one, he’d be the first to support their bid for similar funding.
Total cost is a million dollars. Or maybe 1.5 million.
He expects to speak with the governor about it, and try to impress upon her the importance of the funding, this week. He’ll also be talking with legislative leaders.
Can General Assembly override a veto? “Yes,” he said.
Enjoy the show. This one is actually a bit shorter than most, which I hope you will appreciate. I asked about as many question as usual, but Mr. Connelly is a very focused speaker, which I guess adds up since that is his profession. It’s not that his answers were so short. It’s just that he said what he had to say to answer me, and stopped. Not many people do that.
I remember speaking to Kelly Payne when I was standing with Sen. John Courson at the Huntsman event the other day, but I had forgotten she was holding a camera at the time, until she tagged me on this photo on Facebook.
No, I don’t know what we were laughing at at the time. But I like the picture. See how jolly we were. People almost never catch me like this in pictures. I don’t let them, if I can help it.
Remember how I complained about how hot it was at this event. Well, as you can see, I did everything I could in terms of dressing for the weather. There are, I realize, some people who would suggest taking of one’s coat, but what is one to say about such jacobins?
Having noted that Dick Harpootlian had singled him out for abuse, I thought I’d check out one of Jon Huntsman’s appearances in Columbia today. (Here’s what he said at an earlier appearance.) I thought, “I hear the Republicans have this nice new building, and that would be better than going to a barbecue.” I had reckoned without the event being outside the building. In case you wondered, a seersucker suit does not keep you cool standing in the sun on a day like today. The things I put up with for y’all…
This was my first actual official 2012 presidential event. I’m hoping they don’t have any more until October. Or have them inside. Or in England.
Anyway, I’m uploading some video to YouTube now, which may or may not be ready by the time I finish typing this.
When it’s up, you will see the following people standing up with Huntsman and his wife and (some of their) kids: Mike Campbell, John Courson, and the inimitable Henry McMaster. Henry played master of ceremonies, as he did so often four years ago for John McCain. That got me to thinking about something. I asked Henry, after the Huntsman speech, how many of the presidential candidates he had personally backed had won their SC primaries. I said I couldn’t remember him NOT having backed the eventual winner. He thought for moment, standing there sweltering, and said he wasn’t sure, but he wouldn’t to my saying that. So I just did.
This provides an interesting perspective. Jon Huntsman may seem to some like a bit of an outlier in the GOP — at least at the moment. But here we had him with the GOP establishment in SC, just about anyway you slice it. A Campbell. Two of South Carolina’s most ardent Reaganites, McMaster and Courson. He’s got Richard Quinn in his corner, too.
Now you may say that those guys are the OLD establishment, that not it’s about the Nikki Haleys (who swamped Henry and every other establishment type back in the Year of the Tea Party) and the Mark Sanfords. Well, Huntsman has Joel Sawyer running his campaign. And I thought I saw Rob Godfrey posing for a picture with the candidate, but I could have been mistaken.
And indeed, many of the folks there were just there out of curiosity, or to be polite because they were invited — such as Eric Davis, who as chair of the Richland County GOP was sort of there ex-officio. Among those I spotted, but did not get around to asking why they were there, were Frank Barron, Katrina Shealy, Kelly Payne, Mike Green, Adam Piper, Andrew Williams and our own sometime commenter Walter Durst. You may see others on the video. I did not look at it closely because I was in a hurry to upload it. It’s raw, and unedited. Enjoy.
JERSEY CITY, N.J. — Jon M. Huntsman Jr. officially launched his White House bid here Tuesday morning, setting up a campaign for the GOP nomination that, if successful, would lead to a matchup against his former boss.
“I’ve been a governor … I’ve been a businessman and a I’ve been a diplomat. I’m the husband of the love of my life … and the father of seven terrific kids,” Huntsman told a crowd of supporters at Liberty State Park, the Statue of Liberty rising just behind him. “I’m from the American West, where the view of America is limitless with lots of blue sky.”…
I look at it this way: Jon Huntsman has a reference that is almost as good as having the UnParty seal of approval — Barack Obama. The president hired him for a job of considerable responsibility, ambassador to China. You know, that big place across the water that owns all that U.S. debt. The place where all that stuff at Walmart comes from.
So if Obama thought enough of him to hire him, and now he’s turned in his notice in order to run against Obama — well, that’s a guy who might have something to say worth listening to. He might be a credible, informed critic.
So I’m going to listen.
Speaking of listening, I listened in to a conference call Dick Harpootlian had today with media types to talk about Huntsman, after which he put out this release:
Harpootlian welcomes “ambassador, governor, Democrat, Republican Jon Huntsman to South Carolina”
Columbia, S.C. – South Carolina Democratic Party Chair Dick Harpootilan held a conference call today to welcome Jon Huntsman to South Carolina.
While Huntsman travels to our state to kick off his Presidential campaign Harpootlian welcomes him by saying, “we always welcome Obama administration officials in South Carolina.” Harpootlian called Huntsman a political “schizophrenic” who’s “very similar to Mitt Romney” in his flip-flopping on key issues such as the Recovery Act.
“Between Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman, we have, actually, four candidates rather than two,” said Harpootlian.
That’s pretty much what he said to us on the phone. Afterwards, I asked him whether he was more worried about Huntsman than he was the other Republicans. He said he wasn’t. But I think he should be.
Yeah, Huntsman has a challenge before him getting the nomination with his party momentarily in the thrall of the Tea Party. But from what little I’ve seen so far, he seems like he could have a better chance in the general if he could get that far.
But as I say, that’s how it looks so far. I’ll keep watching.
Paul: “Get the government out” of marriage? What? What? What does he think marriage is? A secret agreement between 2 people? It’s a CONTRACT!
(Are you proud of me that I went with the more traditional “What? What?” rather than resorting to “WTF?” I am.)
To elaborate — and I fear I must elaborate, because for whatever reason this seems counterintuitive to a lot of folks — it is instructive to think for a few minutes about why we have marriage. Yeah, I get what Ron Paul thinks — that it’s some sort of private and/or religious thing. And yes, for us Catholics, it is indeed a sacrament.
But we had marriage long before there were Catholics. We had it before the Hebrews discovered monotheism. We had something like it, anyway, if it involved no more than jumping over a stick, or living together openly in the eyes of the whole community (thereby inviting its censure or assent). Because when humans are gathered into tribes or clans or whatever, it’s an important institution. It has to do with the fact that human offspring are so difficult to raise from the time they are born — no clinging to the mother from birth while she goes about her business the way apes do.
It is in society’s interest to have the male responsible be bound in some way to the female he impregnated. Yep, we’re still struggling to accomplish that today. (And much of the social dysfunction we struggle with today arises from our failure to get it right, as a society. Which only underlines the stakes in continuing to try to get it right.) But bottom line, that is the legitimate motivation of the full society in having such an institution. It gives the whole village somebody to yell at when there are all these kids underfoot: “Hey, you! Can’t you control your kids?” The village was wise to come up with this practice, to protect itself. And then, gradually, to develop the idea that it’s wisest to keep males and females apart, or turn hoses on them or something, until you have arrived at this society-protecting contract. (Something we’ve sort of forgotten in the past generation, but some in the more culturally conservative halls of academia are rediscovering it.)
So we started the institution, and developed all sorts of rules and regulations and codicils and rituals around it, such as the rehearsal dinner, and bridezillas. In a time when there was no notion of separation of religion and civil authority, it was perfectly natural that religious rituals and practices would become intertwined with the civil expectations and obligations. We should not, as a result of that, make the mistake of thinking it is “merely” a religious arrangement.
Of course, as well as “What does he think marriage is?” I could ask “What does he think government is?” Well, it’s nothing if it’s not simply the arrangements we come up with among ourselves for living together in a crowded society. I realize that libertarians think it’s some THING “out there” that’s menacing them, but it’s just us. Particularly in this country, the one with the longest-running experiment in self-government, it’s just us.
Anyway, to recap: We have marriage because long, long ago, it was noticed that if you left a man and a woman alone together, there was a tendency to have all these kids running around in short order. Primitive societies realized they needed to mitigate the potential ill effects of that explosive situation, and invented marriage. Put another way, we don’t have marriage for the couple, or for their priest or whatever. We have it for the kids, and the village they have to grow up in.
New poll: Which presidential candidate would you want to have lunch with?http://pwire.at/mJNvAf
Turns out that far more Americans polled — 53 percent — would rather have lunch with Barack Obama than any of the GOP candidates. Sarah Palin came in at a “distant second” with 16 percent.
Last election cycle, all the talk was about who you wanted to have a beer with. Asking the question this way is going to foul up our stats, for comparison purposes.
But it may be a better, more rigorous question. Most of us are probably less picky who we have a beer with. Although it depends on who’s buying.
To elaborate on my theme that smart Republicans know that unseating Barack Obama will be a tall order (something that the fringe people, such as those who think the Tea Party is the “voice of the people,” completely miss), I point you to this piece by Daniel Henninger.
He blames, interesting enough, new media. He says GOP candidates who start this early will be cut down to nothing by the time the campaign is over by the constant drip of criticism on Twitter. It’s related to what we spoke of four years ago as Romney’s YouTube problem.
Strangely, he doesn’t see this as a problem for Obama, and his explanation of that is odd:
Meanwhile, it’s good to be president. With his opponents determined to spend a year and a half telling each other why “no one” is worth supporting, turning off contributors and independent voters, Barack Obama floats below the radar vacuuming up campaign cash at fund raisers.
He does make a legitimate point in the next sentence, however:
Every GOP candidate’s utterance is wholly political, but the Obama fundraisers and “policy speeches” are submerged in the presidency.
But he got the metaphor wrong. A president doesn’t fly BELOW the radar, but in a way above it. He’s fully visible, but can cloak his political statements in doing the job. Yep, that’s an advantage of incumbency. And always has been.
What Henninger ignores is that Obama has been thoroughly tested by new media, and not found wanting. There is nothing that can be thrown at a candidate via Tweets that hasn’t been hurled at him millions of times. And he sort of dropped the Big One on those flak sites a couple of weeks ago with the long form of his birth certificate, and his well-tempered scorn at his most imaginative critics. And, you know, by killing bin Laden. And, more substantially, by not being the extremist that his most extreme critics would paint him as.
If the GOP wants to prevail, it needs to come up with a candidate who can likewise endure the thousand slings and arrows. But the ones with that kind of substance are increasingly reluctant to get in.
In the end, Henninger rightly assesses the situation thusly, given the field as it stands:
A Republican candidate committed to running this gauntlet has to believe that come November 2012, the party will have nowhere else to go but to the polls to pull the lever for the last one standing. This assumes that the messaging power of electronic networks will magnify them. I believe the opposite: Given this much time, the medium eventually will melt them. The president, head ever up, will hold his ground.
The message in this for Republicans is that they need to come up with a candidate who, after being whittled at for 18 months, still has some substance left.
Oh, and by the way. I don’t know how Henninger votes. But if he isn’t a Republican, he missed a good chance.
There was little surprise in Mike Huckabee’s decision to stay out of the 2012 presidential contest. He was one of the first to come out and speak of how hard it would be to beat Barack Obama, back in the fall. He said it again during the winter. And probably plenty of other times when I didn’t notice it.
And as hard as it might be for some Republicans to believe, he was not immediately struck dead by a lightning bolt on any of these occasions.
Yes, anything can happen between now and next year, but serious candidates have to get rolling NOW, and right now, things don’t look good for anyone seeking to go up against the incumbent.
The other day I exchanged email with a prominent South Carolina Republican who — when I brought up the subject of Jon Huntsman — said he doubted he had the traction to win the nomination. I responded,
Traction is the issue. Because unfortunately, these things tend to boil down to whom the party faithful want — which isn’t what wins elections.
Personally, I’m convinced that, given most scenarios, Obama wins this one. The GOP’s best chance is to come up with someone who appeals to people who might otherwise go for the incumbent. Who better to win over independents than someone who actually served in the Obama administration, then decided to oppose the president? THAT’S a story that works with independents, whereas the “Obama is and always has been the devil” people don’t get anywhere with swing voters.
The amazing thing was that in 2008, both parties went with the candidate most likely to appeal to swing voters. It doesn’t seem likely that the GOP will do that this time, on account of the Tea Party and such. Which means I wouldn’t give much for Republican chances this time (at this point, of course, which must always be our caveat).
To which my unnamed (for his own good) Republican said, “Unfortunately, I tend to agree with your analysis…”
I think a lot of smart Republicans are thinking along the same lines, if not saying it. Which is why these days we hear mostly from the yahoos who don’t get what’s going on… (Or the sad cases like poor Mitt Romney, a guy with an actual accomplishment under his belt who has to run AWAY from said accomplishment.) The smart ones are quieter, understanding the situation better.
So, how does Donald Trump’s announcement today fit with my “smart guy” theory… well, um, not so well… I know! He is the exception who proves the rule! I mean, if Huckabee is Tessio under my theory, then… well, there was nobody in “The Godfather” like Trump, unless it was Moe Green. Trump is like… Crazy Joey Gallo.
Seriously, I don’t care why he dropped out, since I never thought he was worth speaking of seriously. I guess he found another shiny toy to play with.
“With the Iowa straw poll a mere 90 days away, the absence of an obvious leader in the GOP race for the presidency, or even an obvious lineup, has left Republicans in a state of unease — but the uncertainty has also heightened anticipation,” the Des Moines Register reports.
First, I don’t care all that much about the Iowa caucuses themselves. That is to say, I don’t believe they should have the impact they have had for the last few decades. I wrote about that in a column several years ago.
Second, I can’t think of when I was ever impressed by a “straw poll” — anytime, anywhere. If I did, it was a moment of weakness in which my sense of perspective was badly diminished, perhaps by a nutritional deficiency of some sort.
But the idea of anybody being so a-quiver about such things as to write the phrase, “With the Iowa straw poll a mere 90 days away…” causes me to think that somebody needs to get a life…
… Haley was asked Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” whether the debt ceiling should be raised.
“Absolutely not,” she said. “We are seeing total chaos in D.C. right now. The very first thing they need to do is make sure that they stop raising the debt.”
However, the federal government finances itself partly by selling debt to investors and other countries through Treasury bills that must be paid back, Obama said in a town hall style meeting shown on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”
“If they thought that we might renege on our IOUs, it could unravel the entire financial system,” he said, and the result would be a recession worse than the last one.
“So we can’t even get close to not raising the debt ceiling,” Obama said.
Asked about the possibility of damaging America’s credibility, Haley said, “Government is notorious for saying the sky is falling.”…
And remember, our gov knows about money stuff like this. She is a way skillful accountant. Just ask her; she’ll tell you.
Also, she never makes mistakes. Ever. We are in such good hands…
And if you read further in that same story, you encounter this:
“I find it silly,” Haley said about talk of her joining a Republican presidential ticket in 2012.
Right again, governor! Nothing sillier… Told you she was awesome.
Of course, there is a downside to this good news:
Haley said she is committed to serving out her term as governor.
“The people of South Carolina took a chance on electing me,” she said. “It is my job and my family’s job to prove to them that they made a good decision.”
How weird has it gotten in the GOP presidential field this year? This weird:
Mitt Romney is making it official. No, not that he’s officially running for the White House. (That will come soon enough.) That he really, really doesn’t like the health care reforms President Obama signed into law last year.
“If I am elected president, I will issue on my first day in office an executive order paving the way for waivers from ObamaCare for all 50 states,” Romney writes in an op-ed in Thursday’s USA Today. “Subsequently, I will call on Congress to fully repeal ObamaCare.”
The former Massachusetts governor will take his show on the road later Thursday, when he lays out his five-part health care alternative in person at an afternoon speech at the University of Michigan’s Cardiovascular Center.
The event is Romney’s most direct attempt yet to address what is widely seen as his biggest political liability: his work as governor to establish universal health-care coverage in Massachusetts…
Poor Romney. His chief virtue is that he tried, way out ahead of most of the country, to address our chief domestic challenge. And he showed that he understood one of the fundamentals of ANY reform with a chance of doing any good, that a mandate would have to be part of it. And now, to remain viable in a party that has charged over a cliff into an irrational vacuum on the issue, he has to run from that achievement.
OK, this is getting ridiculous. I knew that Michele Bachmann throwing around Web ad money in SC, but multiple ads per page on thestate.com? (On one page, I saw THE SAME AD twice, with one copy of it stacked on top of the other, the way those two slightly different ones are below. But when I tried to call it up like that again to grab a screen shot, I couldn’t get it to refresh quite that way.)
And not a single ad on bradwarthen.com. Which would probably give her a better deal.
At least, not yet.
Is this right? Is this fair? Is this the way the world should be? To quote the guy in the movie that came out today, “I say thee nay!”
If this pattern keeps up, I’m going to start seriously questioning this lady’s judgment…
As I mentioned before, I didn’t go. To the GOP debate in Greenville, that is. And I didn’t even think to watch it on TV last night (was it even on live? I wouldn’t know). When I got home from the Five Points event, the fam was watching a 1944 musical comedy called “Bathing Beauty,” starring Red Skelton, Esther Williams, Basil Rathbone, Xavier Cugat and Harry James and his orchestra. Which caused me to realize something: When he was young, Red Skelton looked a lot like Conan O’Brien.
Anyway, I read the stories about the debate in The State today — this one and this one — and didn’t get the sense that I missed anything at all.
But perhaps some of my readers DID see it, and were impressed by something or other. If so, this would be a good time to share.
In the original, a mom leaves her kids with a babysitter for three months, but after the babysitter dies of a heart attack, the children fend for themselves for the summer.
The GOP nominating contest so far follows a very similar plot. With the grown-ups (played by Jeb Bush and Mitch Daniels) out of town, the field has been left in the custody of caretakers (played by Mitt Romney, Donald Trump and Newt Gingrich). When even the babysitters fail to show up at the first debate of the season, the juveniles run the thing themselves.
At Thursday night’s debate in South Carolina, Libertarian Rep. Ron Paul explained why heroin and prostitution should be legal and why the Department of Homeland Security should be eliminated…
As I said, I’m pretty sure it wasn’t that bad. But… I don’t seem to have missed anything. There IS quite a bit of excitement among Ron Paul fans, partly because they’re always excited (which is why I put him in the headline — that’s always good for about 1,000 page views), and partly because apparently no one at the debate offered him any competition in attention-grabbing.
Bottom line, what’s going on here is… nothing. You might see some activity at some point in the future among some Republicans who, if they gain the nomination, just might have a chance of giving Barack “Hey, I Just Killed bin Laden” Obama a run for his money, but none of them were going to poke their heads out this week.
And I’m not going to bet that this ever gets competitive, with serious candidates really running hard. At least, not soon. (Which is a shame because, you know, I’d like to get some of those ad bucks here on the blog.)
The contrast to four years ago is palpable. In May 2007, there was a GOP presidential debate here in Columbia, and while I didn’t actually go to that one, either, I did watch it on TV. I watched it in a bar with Bob McAlister. The reason we were in the bar was that John McCain was supposed to show up there after. He did, and that’s when I shot my most popular candidate video ever — the one that has been viewed 62,671 times on YouTube — the one in which McCain refers to Lindsey Graham as “that little jerk.”
There were enough actual contenders for the nomination there that Ron Paul, while he attracted attention, was regarded as a curiosity, as the outlier he is. Not this time. Did you see that Rep. Paul had again raised a boatload of money? Don’t know exactly what he plans to do with it. Surely not even he believes he is ever likely to be president of the United States. I suppose it will be like last time — lots of posters and such, not all that many voters beyond the passionate core, who are sort of doing their own thing. Perhaps Doug can explain it to us…
The Associated Press announced Wednesday night that it’s not going to cover tomorrow night’s Republican presidential debate, citing “restrictions placed on media access.”
“The debate sponsors, Fox News Channel and the South Carolina Republican Party, will only allow photos to be taken in the moments ahead of the debate and not during the event itself,” the AP said in an advisory to editors.
“These are restrictions that violate basic demands of news-gathering and differ from other debates where more access was granted. Accordingly, the AP will not staff the event in any format nor will the AP disseminate any pool photos taken by another outlet.”
The AP said the decision was “consistent with longstanding policy” in coverage of events like these, and would be reassessed “should access conditions change.”
Reuters confirmed that it would not be covering the event photographically, because it shared concerns about access. However, Reuters did not confirm whether it would be going as far as AP and not filing text either.
While I suppose he won’t be there covering it, The AP’s Jim Davenport DID do an advance story, which you can find here.
I told you over the weekend that Dick Harpootlian said he was going to run right out and start raising money.
It seems he’s already spending it. The above video was just released. Not sure why NOW exactly, except that Dick couldn’t wait. Maybe it’s timed for the GOP debate tonight, or the convention this weekend. Regarding that debate, Harpootlian said,
The only candidates Republicans can get to show up for their debate tonight are a bunch of no-names and crazies.
Not so sure about THAT. But it’s definitely a B-team lineup. Maybe C-team. But hey, there will be a big crowd. After all, Ron Paul will be there, and you know how his fans are…
And no, I’m not going. I intend to go to the convention this weekend, though.
Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour (R) announced today that he will not run for president. The decision comes as something of a surprise — the Associated Press reported just Sunday that Barbour could launch his campaign as early as this week. He had been making moves toward a campaign, including a recent visit to New Hampshire.
“A candidate for president today is embracing a ten-year commitment to an all-consuming effort, to the virtual exclusion of all else,” Barbour said in a statement. “His (or her) supporters expect and deserve no less than absolute fire in the belly from their candidate. I cannot offer that with certainty, and total certainty is required.”
Barbour had previously voiced concerns about the time commitment involved in running for president, and both his wife and son had expressed reservations about the campaign.
So what does it mean? I like that Aaron Blake of The Fix says that “Barbour already had obstacles as a southern governor with a thick accent…” Huh. And we-uns down heuh thought that was one of his strengths…
The Post speculates that this promotes Barbour buddy Mitch Daniels. Maybe so. Or maybe Pawlenty. I would imagine it would make the aforementioned Huntsman a little more sanguine about his chances in SC.
Something it just might indicate — and the slowness of the GOP field is getting rolling this cycle tends to back this up — is that Republicans who know what they’re about don’t think they can beat Obama. And it’s hard to get, as Barbour says, a “fire in the belly” for a long, hard campaign that would in the end be unsuccessful.
We hear so much from the Obama-hating fringe of the GOP that it’s easy to remember that fringes do not constitute majorities. The people who’ve been involved in politics a bit longer than the Tea Party’s been around know that…
Tim Miller, who introduced himself to me via email a few days ago as the guy “likely to be doing the media work should Jon Huntsman decide to run for President when he returns from Beijing,” wanted to make sure I saw these two pieces.
COLUMBIA, S.C. — He may be the presumed national frontrunner, but when he launches his all-but-certain presidential campaign, Mitt Romney figures to be a heavy underdog in the historically decisive South Carolina presidential primary.
During his 2008 run, Romney competed fiercely to win the first-in-the-South primary state, which has voted for the eventual GOP nominee in every contest since 1980. But after more than a year of pouring significant time and money into the state, Romney pulled out his South Carolina resources with 10 days to go before primary day in order to focus on friendlier ground in Michigan and Nevada.
This time around, his South Carolina prospects are not looking much better.
“He finished fourth here last time, and if he hasn’t really done a lot of groundwork, it might be an uphill battle,” said South Carolina State Rep. Nathan Ballentine, who endorsed Romney’s last campaign. “So maybe you focus on New Hampshire and then head up to Nevada and Florida — things like that.”
Ballentine, who is one of South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley’s closest allies in the state legislature, described himself as a “loyal guy” who was inclined to endorse Romney again but had not yet made up his mind. Ballentine was frank in his assessment that the former Massachusetts governor, who tried to convince South Carolinians throughout 2007 that he was a “Yankee governor” with “southern values,” might again have a difficult time connecting with voters here….
The second piece, by our old buddy Peter Hamby, portrays Jon Huntsman as the Mormon more likely to do well here — not to mention, a guy likely to gain the support of those looking for someone who might actually have a chance against President Obama with us swing voters:
Columbia, South Carolina (CNN) – If ambassador to China Jon Huntsman does decide to run for president after returning to the United States in early May, his advisers are planning to make a serious play for South Carolina, the early primary state that traditionally propels Republican candidates to the presidential nomination.
The conservative-leaning state might seem like a curious place to make a stand for a Mormon ex-Obama administration official who supports same-sex civil unions, but his team is confident that South Carolina Republicans are hungry for a fresh face in a lackluster 2012 field. “If he gets in the race, from everything I’ve heard, his plan would be to plant a flag in South Carolina,” said longtime Columbia-based strategist Richard Quinn, who helped John McCain win the state’s primary in 2008. “I really think we can win here.”
Quinn is working for Horizon PAC, Huntsman’s campaign-in-waiting, and will steer his presidential bid in South Carolina should the ambassador officially enter the race after his China post concludes on April 30.
He said New Hampshire and South Carolina – two of the four early states that allow independents to participate in their presidential primaries – “are ready for the arrival of a major new player.”
“I think moving from New Hampshire to South Carolina, that’s the traditional path,” Quinn said, mapping out Huntsman’s potential path to the nomination. “No disrespect to Iowa, but New Hampshire and South Carolina are two parts of a three part rocket, along with Florida.”
Huntsman, also a former Utah governor, will return to the United States just before the South Carolina Republican Party sponsors the first Republican presidential debate in Greenville on May 5, but his advisers are doubtful that he will participate.
He will, however, have an opportunity to introduce himself to the state when he delivers a May 7 commencement speech at the University of South Carolina.
Make of that what you will.
Meanwhile, Huntsman’s last day on the job in Beijing is Saturday.
To which I responded, “Yeah, and I could conceivably WIN – anything can happen – but what are the odds?”
ANYTHING can happen over the last 19 months (things that would turn this assessment around 180 degrees), but watching the sluggish “race” for the nomination to run against him — and seeing some of the characters getting the most attention (here’s a question for you conspiracy fans: Is the “liberal media” deliberately overplaying the likes of Michele Bachmann, Donald Trump and Sarah Palin in order to undermine conservative chances?) — it seems extremely dubious.
Dubious to the point that I’d really, really appreciate it if the opposition would stop acting like he’s somehow illegitimate, and seeking to undermine everything he tries to do (like the health care reform the nation so badly needs, as inadequate as his efforts in that regard may be). Because folks, not only did he win the last election, but he’s probably going to win the next one. And I think the stronger potential GOP candidates know that, which is why we’re not seeing much activity from anyone but the extremists.
By the way, did you follow the link on that Tweet, which quoted a Salon article asserting that, if the economy doesn’t get better, “the GOP will be well-positioned to oust Obama in 2012, provided the party doesn’t nominate a fringe candidate.”
Run that by again: “…provided the party doesn’t nominate a fringe candidate.” Right now, that looks kind of like a big IF.
In 08, we were blessed by having both parties’ nominees being the less partisan options. It seems unlikely that we’ll be thus blessed in ’12. Unlike Democrats, who are cheering for the GOP extremists because they want to run against them, I hope the GOP does come up with a mainstream, sensible nominee because… as I say, ANYTHING can happen, and I’d like to reduce the chance of a having a nut job in the White House. But will that happen? I actually suspect it will. But I do worry.
For those of you who may have missed Michele Bachman when she was in SC the last few days, here are some things she has said in the past, which a colleague sent to me today:
“Carbon dioxide is portrayed as harmful. But there isn’t even one study that can be produced that shows that carbon dioxide is a harmful gas.” -Rep. Michelle Bachmann, April, 2009
“Take this into consideration. If we look at American history, between 1942 and 1947, the data that was collected by the Census Bureau was handed over to the FBI and other organizations at the request of President Roosevelt, and that’s how the Japanese were rounded up and put into the internment camps. I’m not saying that that’s what the Administration is planning to do, but I am saying that private personal information that was given to the Census Bureau in the 1940s was used against Americans to round them up, in a violation of their constitutional rights, and put the Japanese in internment camps.” -Rep. Michele Bachmann, June 2009
“I find it interesting that it was back in the 1970s that the swine flu broke out under another, then under another Democrat president, Jimmy Carter. I’m not blaming this on President Obama, I just think it’s an interesting coincidence.” -Rep. Michele Bachmann, on the 1976 Swine Flu outbreak that happened when Gerald Ford, a Republican, was president, April 28, 2009
Hmmm. Wait a sec. This post may not be in my interest. Rep. Bachman has already been throwing around advertising money in SC, way out ahead of other prospective candidates. If she sees this, she’s likely to think, a) I’m glad to see that Brad Warthen is spreading my ideas for free, so I don’t need to send HIM any ad bucks; or b) That Brad Warthen is holding me up to ridicule, I’m not about to spend any ad bucks with HIM. Either way, I lose.
This is one reason why not many people, admire me as they might, see me as a good businessman.
Of course, I could have just shared with you what she said while she was here:
BLUFFTON, S.C. — Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann told a packed tea party gathering she doesn’t think President Barack Obama is “on our side anymore” as she blamed him for a “foolish” war in Libya and high gasoline prices…
Oh, and here’s what she said on the State House steps today:
You recognize that in Washington D.C., your rights are being taken away from you…
