Post Super Tuesday Predictions

It has been a long three months since the Iowa caucuses, and the GOP has been subject to one of the most bloody battles in my lifetime. With four candidates duking it out today for regional, delegate, and potentially total contest dominance, I am left pondering the expected results, the coming contests, and the oddities that I have seen heading into this political milestone.

There are a few things that could make or break these predictions, namely how well Gingrich performs outside of the south, and how well Santorum performs in general against Romney.

Gingrich will win in his home state of Georgia. There is no doubt there. If Gingrich wins any state outside of Georgia, he will stay in the race, gobbling up delegates in the south. Watch for Newt in Tennessee. However, if Newt cannot win in TN, he will not have the momentum going forward into Alabama and Mississippi in one week... save a collapse by Santorum, which could be cause for another Gingrich rise. If he loses, and loses hard, and if Santorum turns around his misfortunes of the past week and a half, I have this feeling that Gingrich drops the bid and endorses......... Ron Paul.

Wait... did I just say Ron Paul?

I did. For two reasons. Watch Gingrich's performance in the last debate. He gave an unusual amount of praise to Paul. Read any article ro listen to any interview with Gingrich of late, and he finds a way to incorporate Paul or Paul's message... this includes Paul's foreign policy. I ignored it at first, but then found it odd that he seemed to be massaging his position to align with Paul. It is a long shot... and as long as Gingrich sees a weakness in Santorum he will stay in... but IF he does drop, I would bet $5 that it is a drop in favor of the non-Santorum anti-Romney candidate.

Santorum... who's numbers are falling, needs to survive Super Tuesday. He does that by a win in Ohio. Romney may have weakened him enough in that state, pummelling him with money. Santorum needs Ohio, he neesd Alaska, he needs Oklahoma and North Dakota. He needs his regional mid-west wins... but more importantly he needs a win in the Rust Belt. If he cannot beat Romney in Ohio, it is my prediction that Santorum begins lobbying Romney for VP or a high ranking cabinet position prior to dropping and endorsing Romney.

Happy Super Tuesday!

Lurking in the Shadows

After the 20th 2012 GOP Presidential debate it became obviously clear that there was blood in the water. Romney, who has been the consistent “One to Beat” was rather low-energy, but he provided a standard performance that would neither hurt nor help him. Newt Gingrich seemed distant to the contest, and attempted to give another rebirth to his run by focusing on the energy issue (gas prices) – which I must make note of his “Americans will be happy with $2.50 a gallon under my presidency”... Newt, I am not happy with anything over $2.00. 16 short years ago when I started driving, I could get ARCO/AMPM gas for $0.69 a gallon. You’re asking me to be happy with a 250% increase in gas prices because it is better than a 550% increase? I remember the outrage when gas hit $2 a gallon... I want to get THAT wrong corrected first... but I digress. Ron Paul had a great night, where he delivered two points. First, Santorum is a “Go along to Get along” kind of politician, and that Paul’s biggest hurdle has been the misconception that he is not electable when matched with Obama. But Paul is still fighting for a state to pick him, and struggling with the media to get fair attention. This leads to the source of the blood in the water: Rick Santorum, who was the center of attention of the other candidates, yet let the moment pass without a defining example of why or how he is rightly the person to lead this nation. Four candidates making their 20th appearance before the voters; four candidates, none of whom stands poised to gain the required delegates to clinch the nomination.

Just months ago the mere mention of a brokered convention, suggesting that Romney could not clinch the nomination, was tantamount to GOP heresy. Heading into March, however, you are hard pressed to go one day without a new article discussing the looming brokered convention. Journalists and pundits have their delegate scorecards and their calculators in hand, and as each contest comes and goes, the resounding chorus is one raising the speculation of a brokered convention. But what is really making their mouths water is the speculation of who may be lurking in the shadows, waiting to step into the light and unify the party and the nation... the great savior of the 2012 election.

The speculation of the brokered convention comes down to Arizona and Michigan. Romney is in the fight of his political life after losing three states to Santorum, one being the Romney “gimme” state of Colorado. If he loses in Michigan, he could still win the nomination but would be so damaged that he would have no chance to win the general election. Once the results of Michigan and Arizona are read on Tuesday night, after the calculators come out, after the delegate scorecards are updated, we have to look at the facts:
1. Gingrich is still poised to clean up in the South, and will hold on until the bitter end hoping to gain enough delegates to be a force in the party convention. He has been waiting patiently for Super Tuesday, and a run on the southern states. He is at such odds with Romney and Santorum that he will not support one of them. So long as he has a delegate to his name, he will ride on to Tampa.
2. Ron Paul’s strategy has always been to lock up loyal delegates who may not vote with their state’s results, in hopes of being a force at the convention. If Ron Paul gets out of the race before the convention it would only be to do so as a third party candidate, focusing his attention on the general election. Based on the strength of his delegate strategy, however, I feel that Paul could enter Tampa stronger than delegate scorecards would lead you to believe.
3. Romney and Santorum are both Northeastern candidates, but Santorum does not fare as well in that region. He is clearly the favorite in the Midwest and Mountain states, where evangelicals win the day. Santorum may falter heading into the next contests due to his “cover my butt” performance at the debate, but without a chance for Newt to surge, Santorum is going to be at least neck-in-neck with Romney, splitting delegates and emboldening both candidates moving forward to Tampa.
4. If Mitt Romney can hold on in Michigan, he is strong in the west, and could pick up a large number of delegates. If Romney loses in Michigan, he may suspend his campaign. If he loses in Arizona and Michigan he will no longer be the GOP front-runner and may hold on through the convention hoping to at least be a delegate leader heading into Tampa.
If this continues to be a four horse party after Super Tuesday, we can count on a brokered convention. Period. But what is likely to happen leading up to the Convention in Tampa? Chances are slim that we will have our savior waiting in the wings until the convention.

Look for a possible draft movement to arise if Romney loses in Michigan and Arizona. Santorum is off the ballot in enough states, and is not a national contender (see Gingrich in the Southern States). If Santorum can beat Romney but not clinch the nomination, Romney will not be able to beat Obama, leaving a huge source of anxiety for the Republican Party. Look for a stronger one if he wins one or both; the people are looking for the anti-Romney and if Santorum is not that guy they will keep looking.

Who is lurking? Who is waiting? Chris Christie? Sarah Palin? Donald Trump? What about true dark horses, like Luis Fortuno (Gov. Puerto Rico)?

More importantly... What if there is a deadlock? One can assume that Ron Paul’s delegates are 100% loyal, and without his endorsement they will keep voting for him. Gingrich and Santorum delegates are more likely to swing without endorsement – they are not loyal so much as appointed by the state to vote one way or another. Romney has an army, though less loyal than Ron Paul’s... but would they be inclined to support a dark horse nominated from the floor?

There are 48 more contests (including territories and districts)... How the delegates are selected is key to how a brokered convention may play out. How Romney fares in Michigan and Arizona is key to the potential for a brokered convention. The strength of the remaining four heading into Super Tuesday is key to determining if there is an open door for a late-comer to step in and save the GOP from itself in 2012.

How the Elephants Died - an Essay on the Broken Republican Party

In 2008, after eight years of George W. Bush, after having lost the House and the Senate, after having lost many State houses and Governorships, the Republican Party teetered on the edge of becoming a long term minority party in the United States. It was not because the Democratic Party had necessarily done anything special to change themselves, nor had they damaged the GOP in some manner as to deal a death blow. Quite the opposite, actually. It was the Republican Party that had been faltering from within.

After the crushing losses of 2008 the pundits began to ask the question, “What now for the GOP?” What they were asking had less to do with strategy and more to do with message. What did the GOP stand for? Who were the GOP leaders? The horrible primary set-up a GOP ticket which fronted a liberal Arizona Senator and a half-term unknown Governor from the 3rd least populated State. The GOP was deeply divided after the primary, and there was a large lack of enthusiasm for McCain as the leader of the party, or the nation. During the election, the GOP ticket seemed to be splitting as well, with the Governor of Alaska “Going Rogue” in defiance of the leadership of the Arizona Senator. After the election the depth and breadth of the divide was so obvious that to ask the question about the future of the GOP was not uncalled for.

The state of the Party at that time was one where the party leader and outgoing President, backed by the Party itself, had drastically veered from the “small government/limited government” doctrine which defined its surging success in recent years. No, the Party had lurched so far to the left that figure heads within the party defended the constant erosion of liberties and the perpetual borrowing and bail-outs as staples to the values of the party itself. Perpetual war, Patriot Act, wireless taps, bail-outs, federal healthcare/prescription drugs, No Child Left Behind. The party of limited government was responsible for the largest growth of the (non-essential) government in the history of the United States. After losing power in the executive and legislative branches, the party was at war with itself for what it had done, suffering from a crisis of identity.

During this crisis, however, there was a splinter group within the party which had laid the groundwork for the coming election cycle. The energetic and overly enthusiastic supporters of Ron Paul in 2008 had effected a tone within the party discussion, raising the issue of liberty. The big government GOP leaders were so put off by this message that Paul and his supporters were actually blocked from the national GOP convention. This group of the small Libertarian wing of the ‘Big Tent Party’ splintered from the GOP, holding their own Liberty Convention, where they put in place a long term strategy to retake the Republican Party.

As the Republican establishment selected new leadership and tried to scrape together a message, there was a movement already underfoot, planning Liberty Rallies on Tax day. The general message of the rallies was Liberty, low taxes, and a change to the monetary system. It was the Tea Party. The newly elected left was so afraid of the quick organization and the multitude of rallies across the nation that they immediately went into panic mode, claiming that the Liberty minded rallies were racist or terrorist in nature. The GOP establishment was so disconnected that they did not claim affiliation with the organizations spreading their message across America on Tax Day. This “radical element” was the organization of the Libertarian movement, the Campaign for Liberty. The success of the ‘Tax Day Tea Parties’ did not belong to the established GOP, however, after the movement began to swell in numbers the GOP began to approach the rag-tag leadership with an offer to take the Liberty movement under the wing of the Republican Establishment. As such, the GOP rested its momentum heading into the 2010 elections on the Tea Party. The strength of the Tea Party was brought into question on primary election day, and overwhelmingly the GOP establishment candidates were ousted in favor of the Libertarian Tea Party Conservatives. The narrative of 2010 was, then, that the GOP was now being led by the Tea Party, and as such the Republican Party could only retain the established leadership under the banner of this liberty movement.

After the unprecedented resurgence of the once dead GOP in 2010, the strategy of the established Republican leadership was to retain the talking points of the movement while dismantling the structure and ability of the Tea Party to splinter from the ‘Big Tent’. It was, after all, floated as an idea that the Tea Party itself could actually become a formidable third party, challenging the Republicans for top-tier status against a unified Democratic Party. Such a move, of course, would have ensured Democratic majority in 2012 and beyond. So the GOP establishment took the Tea Party congressmen and senators into their fold, and moved quickly to marginalize the Tea Party movement itself. By mid-2011 it was clear that the Tea Party had been so over-run by the mainstream GOP that the movement was dead under the moniker “Tea Party”. What began as a liberty movement quickly became a social conservative movement with no clear message of opposition. The message of small government, lower taxes, and individual liberty which defined the Tea Party became talking points for established moderate Republicans. The waters were so muddied that the mention of the Tea Party no longer represents a sect of the GOP, rather some ambiguous affiliation from within the Republican Party. You no longer hear about Tea Party candidates heading into the 2012 election cycle, rather you hear about whether voters identify with the Tea party. But I ask you, what does it mean to identify with the Tea Party in 2012? What is the party’s message? You are unable to answer because the GOP successfully dismantled the movement while simultaneously absorbing their talking points. The movement was no longer deemed a threat.

The fractures of 2008 began to reappear in the GOP during the selection of the presidential candidates in 2011. As the party began the process of identifying the next generation of leadership, so returned the animosity of the 2008 election cycle. The media scrambled to identify the leader of the Tea Party movement while the GOP establishment held their breath hoping none would arise. Sarah Palin was the media darling, mostly because of her atypical moves after losing the election in 2008. Michelle Bachmann was a very vocal member of the Tea Party, but lacked the excitement of Sarah Palin, and who could not get her endorsement for the ‘female amongst the males’ spot in the 2012 run. Other first term names were favored by the media, such as Marco Rubio and Rand Paul. It was becoming clear that the incorporation of the Tea party into the GOP had so diluted the movement that when the time came for the Tea Party to front their leader as a challenger to the GOP establishment candidate, the movement found it had been so love-struck with the recognition of the GOP that it was no longer a movement unto itself. It had no leadership. It had no message.

Seeing a sign of weakness from the Tea Party movement, who had developed into an active staging ground for the social conservative wing of the GOP and less of a true liberty movement, the Conservatives began their quest to identify and run a “True Conservative” candidate. Large bands of Conservative Republicans attempted grassroots draft campaigns for Governors from Indiana, Texas, New Jersey, as well as a fleet of Senators and Congressmen. Each draft campaign attempted to sway opinion in favor of their candidate as the Truest “True Conservative”. As the field winnowed, however, even the definition of a “True Conservative” was sullied, tarnished by conservative talking points that do not actually resemble the left-moderate actions which they were being used to describe. The Conservatives, as well, had been marginalized.

Then there are the 2008 hold-overs. Most notably Mitt Romney, who made a calculated decision to yield the 2008 race to McCain after South Carolina, and go directly into 2012 campaign mode. Mitt Romney, who maintained the campaign presence in the early voting states, was identified as one of those who was expected to run and was identified as an early front-runner. His campaign represents the ideas of the moderate-left lurch of the established GOP, and a continuation of those ideals of the ‘Neo Conservative’ era of the Republican Party.

The second hold-over is Texas Congressman Ron Paul, the Libertarian who was blacklisted from the GOP in 2008. Paul’s brand of Republicanism is the Goldwater/Jeffersonian Libertarianism. His strategy was much the same as Romney’s: stay in the early voting states and build a movement with which to roll through them in 2012. He was hated by GOP establishment and feared by the media. His followers were branded, as he was, as being out of touch. But then came the economic collapse. Then came the continued wars under Obama. Then came the financial disasters of the fiat currency system. And the media turned to the one man who had not only predicted the downfall, but was actively building a movement of educating the public to the extent of the failings. His movement, the Campaign for Liberty, gave life to the Tea Party and the GOP wins in 2010. Paul’s decision to enter the Presidential race gave the Liberty Movement a validated and tested leader, and this put fear back into the heart of the GOP. Paul’s early numbers and successes were dismissed as ‘Paul-bot anomalies’, and he was written off as a candidate out-of-touch (again) and unelectable. He was targeted by the media for blacklisting, and painted as outside of the party norm by the GOP. But Paul’s numbers continue to grow, his Campaign for Liberty continues to reach the voting bloc in charge of the future of the party – the youth vote. Where the Tea party movement failed, the original campaign for liberty strategy devised by Paul in 2008 had succeeded, and the Libertarian’s have a movement underway within the GOP.

We turned the calendar to 2012, the election year. We are under the thumb of an unpopular President, a Democrat who is easily beaten should an organized opposition show itself. Herein lies the rub. The fractures made visible in 2008 were never truly fixed, and now we see a Republican party so broken that it is becoming ever impossible to repair, re-establish, and retake the battlefield. The GOP is not organized. It has no leadership. The Tea Party has failed, and the message marginalized. The Social Conservative movement has failed, and the message marginalized. So what is left is a bloody power struggle between the Neo-Conservative elements of the establishment, both sides fighting so viciously to implement their brand of moderate leftism under the brand “Republican”. We see a Republican battle in which the majority has been fooled by the talking points, by the stolen message of the Liberty movement and the Conservative movement. The leaders of the GOP promote a continued growing of the government, increased erosion of liberties (such as the NDAA, SOPA, etc), increased spending, and perpetual war while at the same time using talking points about increasing liberty, reducing debt, cutting spending, and securing Americans by not backing down from saber rattling. The message is unorganized, it does not make sense. The Republican brand has somehow become no different from the Democratic brand, save a few minor means to the ends – but in both cases the end is the same.

When Republicans act like Republicans we win. When we act like Democrats, they win.

As the infighting intensifies, all eyes are on Ron Paul and his growing Campaign for Liberty. There is daily talk about Paul’s brand of Libertarianism splintering from the GOP. With it, Paul will take a national 10-15% of the GOP – those who learned the lesson from his movement and those who are simply tired of the heated divide in the Party. A Ron Paul third party run is the Tea Party splinter nightmare held by the GOP after the 2010 groundswell. But this time the GOP has no control. The movement has a leader. The leader has a brand. The brand has a following that transcends party lines, drawing support from the fiscal right and the anti-war left as well as liberty minded independents. The big story of the 2012 election is going to be the political landscape left behind by the Ron Paul Campaign for Liberty and the lasting effects of a movement within the GOP or established as a third party.

The GOP cannot contain the core of this movement, the Libertarians.The atmosphere is ripe for a fracture of the party. The stress of an undefined party to define itself, a party who is historically on the conservative-right but who has recently lurched moderate-left, a party who has largely gone without a notable figurehead, without any true leadership for too long is the stress that continue to fracture the party from within. The squelching of the conservative right and the ignoring of the libertarian movement threaten a party so divided against itself that it will not beat this sitting President nor will it retain control of the either chamber of congress, no matter which Moderate-Leftist you prop up on Election Day. What we are witnessing may be the end of the ‘Big Tent’ GOP, where libertarians and social conservatives need not apply, where they are catered to during elections but ignored while in power. The minority blocs of the GOP are growing wise to the new Republican brand. They are growing less patient with the lurch and less tolerant of the lip-service. The Party has moved past the crossroads and is heading full-speed toward the political cliff. This may very well be the narrative on how the mighty elephant died.