Barack Obama’s new Chief of Staff made millions betting that Americans would lose their homes
We learned today that Barack Obama’s Chief of Staff has tendered his resignation and is going to be replaced with Jack Lew, an interesting choice to say the least.
We all remember that the “middle class warrior” once quipped that “at some point you have made enough money” and he railed against CEOs who took bonuses while their companies faltered and accepted bailout money, in fact he called this “shameful.”
So you can imagine my surprise when I learned this about Barack Obama’s newest–the third in three years–Chief of Staff: Read more…
New Hampshire primary: What to watch for and my predictions
Many political websites like to do a “what to watch for” article before the individual primaries and I thought it would be fun to do the same so here goes.
Mitt Romney’s final vote count and margin of victory
As I have written in the past, I feel that Mitt Romney has the New Hampshire primary wrapped up, the only questions will be; what percentage of the vote does he win and how close does the second place candidate come to Mitt Romney?
If Mitt Romney wins by the large margin expected it will solidify his position moving forward and he could be well on his way to the nomination. However, if he slips and the race ends up much closer than expected we could see a long drawn out primary season with a legitimate alternative to Mitt Romney in the making.
With Mitt Romney’s close victory in Iowa (and when the vote is certified there is a chance that Rick Santorum will actually be declared the winner due to a typo) and a closer than expected vote tally in New Hampshire we could see a vulnerable Mitt Romney headed to South Carolina where his support is much less than in the North East.
The undeclared and independent turnout
In the New Hampshire primary people who are independent or undeclared on the day of the primary are allowed to take a Republican ballot and vote in the Republican primary. This also means that registered Democrats can go to their respective town halls and undeclare before primary day and then declare themselves Republicans on primary day and vote in the election as Republicans.
We saw this happen in 2008 and that is one of the biggest reasons why New Hampshire voted for John McCain. Could this happen again? I think it is probable that it will. I have no doubt that registered Republicans will turn out on January 10th and I feel the outcome is dependent on how many undeclared voters and Democrats who undeclare–with no Democrat primary to vote in–will participate in the Republican primary. If this happens we could see some interesting results tomorrow.
Jon Huntsman is the wildcard
Jon Huntsman has staked his whole campaign on the results of the New Hampshire primary; practically living in the state while trying to appeal to the undeclared voters. How successful he is could go a long way in determining the fates of all the other candidates in the race.
Now onto my predictions, hopefully I don’t embarrass myself:
Mitt Romney wins with 35% of the vote.
All of the polls have shown Mitt Romney’s support firmly between 40-42% of the vote. I am predicting he will do slightly worse based on two reasons–wishful thinking on my part that 40% of New Hampshirites do not really support Mitt Romney, and the fact that the independent, undeclared, and undecided voters are not going to break towards Romney. If most of these voters supported Romney they would already be voicing their support. The fact that they don’t yet support Romney tells me they are never going to support Romney. As votes come in from the undeclared and the undecided Mitt Romney’s number has to come down in accordance.
Ron Paul takes second place with 22%
New Hampshire voters have a strong independent, anti-nanny state sentiment and this plays toward Ron Paul’s advantage. This coupled with Ron Paul winning about 15% of the New Hampshire votes in 2008 would normally persuade me to put Ron Paul’s final percentage at 25% or above, but as I stated in “what to watch for” above Jon Huntsman is the wildcard and in the end I think he will syphon votes which would normally go to Ron Paul.
Jon Huntsman in third with 15%
Jon Huntsman’s persistence in New Hampshire will have a modest return on his investment, giving him an okay showing and vaulting him into third place, but not nearly the surprise that Rick Santorum pulled off in Iowa.
Newt Gingrich 12%
Newt Gingrich’s solid debate performances, coupled with his framing of himself as a “bold Reagan conservative” while framing Mitt Romney as a “timid Massachusetts moderate” will propel him ahead of Rick Santorum and give him a fourth place finish. He will then head south where he should enjoy more support.
Rick Santorum 10%
For most of the campaign Rick Santorum has been mired in the low single digits in New Hampshire, but he will receive a small bounce from his showing in Iowa. Enough to gain him double digits, but his strict social views will not allow him to make anywhere near the showing he made in Iowa, partly due to the libertarian mindset of many New Hampshire voters.
Rick Perry 2%
After the Iowa caucus Rick Perry decided to forego New Hampshire–with the exception of the debates–and make his stand in South Carolina where he should be poised to do better than in New Hampshire. This may be the proper move in the long run for Rick Perry but it will hurt him in New Hampshire.
The remaining 4% of the votes will be split up between the other 24 people on the New Hampshire ballot. You read that right, there are 30 people on the ballot including Michelle Bachman, Hermain Cain, Gary Johnson, and many others you have never heard of.
Thoughts on the New Hampshire debates
The two New Hampshire debates are over and there were no groundbreaking moments, which of course helps Mitt Romney hold onto his huge lead in the Granite state because he was left virtually unscathed.
The candidates appeared to be resigned to the fact this is a race for second place and as such they spent more time bickering with each other and bashing Barack Obama than they did going after Mitt Romney, and I feel this was a mistake because if Mitt Romney can be brought down a few points in the polls and a closer than predicted second place finish is obtained it will help whoever that second place finisher is. It is possible the candidates realized this after the first debate because they seemed more willing to go after Mitt Romney in the second debate, but still didn’t really land a glove on him as far as I am concerned.
I did enjoy the fact the moderators allowed the candidates leeway in regards to the one minute rule, the candidates were often allowed to continue well passed the time limit and they did. I think you can learn so much more about a candidate when they are not relegated to giving stock one minute sound bite answers to questions–you learn more about their policies, why they believe in their policies, and also you learn more about their personalities.
I think that this benefitted all the candidates and all of them performed well in my opinion; it was good to hear more from Rick Santorum than we had in past debates, and I think that Rick Perry is getting stronger as the debates move on. If he had performed like this in the beginning he might be showing better in the polls. He had one of the funniest moments when he used the debate on Sunday to make fun of his “oops” moment, it made him seem more personable. If he does well in South Carolina perhaps we have written him off too soon.
But I feel as if the person who benefitted the most from the lax time limit rules was actually Ron Paul. With a strict time limit in place I feel Ron Paul gets flustered because he has so much he is trying to say in such a short time period, but with more time to speak Ron Paul appeared calm and on point and I think he fared well in the debates. In fact I think he may have shored up his second place finish–only time will tell.
Newt Gingrich performed well as usual and it will be interesting to see if he gets a bump in the polls because of it. Jon Huntsman also did well and some polls have him in third place right now. Gingrich, Santorum, and Huntsman may be battling it out for third place and it will be interesting to see who comes out on top. Jon Huntsman used the same strategy in New Hampshire that Rick Santorum used in Iowa–he went all in–and to this point he hasn’t had the same success as did Santorum in Iowa and it is critical for him that he have a least a strong third place finish.
Tomorrow I will write a “What to watch for” post and will include my predictions, it should be fun.
Latest New Hampshire Republican primary poll (01/06/12)
The latest Rasmussen New Hampshire Republican primary poll–the first since the Iowa Caucus–has been released and it confirms that Mitt Romney is the clear frontrunner and the real race in this state is for second place.
Mitt Romney is holding strong with 42% of the vote and Ron Paul remains in second place and his poll numbers remain about the same. The good news for Rick Santorum is that he has seen a boost in his numbers since the Iowa Caucus, but the bad news is he is only receiving 13% of the vote at this time. This is up from 4% so he has made gains and with Ron Paul at 18% he has a chance to catch Ron Paul for second place.
Jon Huntsman is just behind Rick Santorum at 12% and this could be the wildcard in the New Hampshire primary’s second place race. Jon Huntsman skipped Iowa and decided to make his stand in New Hampshire; he has basically been living here for a month so the 12% number should be a disappointment to him, but in New Hampshire independents can vote in the primary and it will be interesting to see if Jon Huntsman will be able to siphon independent votes away from who I feel many independents would have turned to otherwise–Ron Paul.
If this happens we could see a three way race between Huntsman, Santorum, and Paul for second place and if that weren’t interesting enough we have two debates this weekend and Newt Gingrich always performs well in the debates so we could see his numbers rise on Monday as well.
While the outcome of the New Hampshire primary doesn’t seem to be in doubt it is critical for the other candidates to either place or show in New Hampshire if any of them hope to be a serious challenge to Mitt Romney in South Carolina and moving forward.
While all eyes have been turned on the Republican primary in New Hampshire and I have been focused on covering the event as it unfolds, Barack Obama made national news with his recent recess appointment of Richard Cordray to head the CFPB as well as three other appointments to the NLRB and I feel obligated to write about this story.
The constitution grants the president the power to make such appointments when the Congress is in recess, and in fact John Bolton was a recess appointee by President Bush, so there would be nothing new or newsworthy here but for the fact that the Congress technically is not in recess.
The Congress has used a political gimmick known as pro forma; the Congress adjourned but they held the Congress open so the Congress is not in recess and the president does not have the authority to name an appointee to these positions because some members of the Congress meet every few days to conduct “business.”
As I said, this is a political gimmick designed to ensure the president does not appoint people without the consent of the Congress but it is not without precedent and in fact this was a tool which was used against President Bush by the Democrats when Barack Obama was in the Senate. Harry Reid stated that he supported Barack Obama’s decision even though while he was the Senate majority leader he bragged about using pro forma to block President Bush from making recess appointments: Read more…
Rick Santorum’s Town hall meeting in Brentwood New Hampshire
I have just returned from one of Rick Santorum’s first New Hampshire events since last night’s Iowa Caucus. He held a Town hall meeting in Brentwood New Hampshire, which is about ten minutes from my house, so I decided to go listen to him. I had received a automated telephone invitation on Saturday and had planned on going anyway, but with the Iowa results I was curious as to how the turnout would be.
The turnout was great, the room was packed with both voters and media outlets and I think it isn’t a stretch of the imagination to believe the media wouldn’t have shown up if it weren’t for his Iowa surprise. The people were excited to hear him speak and he did not disappoint. It is interesting to note how different a feeling there is, and how refreshing it is, in listening to a candidate answer a question when there is no one minute time limit imposed, (and believe me, Rick Santorum had no problem talking) as there is in the debates.
Rick Santorum displayed a wit about him that had the people in attendance laughing at times. One example of this was when he answered a question from a younger voter about how he could stay uncorrupted by special interests who might donate to his campaign; he answered that he wasn’t raising much money, nevermind money from special interests. (He did mention that he raised something like 50% more money today online than he had to that point in total.) A second example of his humor was in regards to Iran and the recent reelection of Ahmadinejad; he stated that everyone knew this was a fraudulent election yet Barack Obama stated that the election seemed legitimate to him, he quipped that Barack Obama was a “Chicago politician, so naturally it seemed legitimate to him.”
I am not going to go into the specific answers to specific questions because as I stated above there were no short answers and I think by this time most people know where he stands on the issues–to use Rick Santorum’s words tonight, ” you may not agree with me on every issue, but I agree with me on every issue.” This was a veiled attack on the duplicity of Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich for not always believing what they believe on issues.
At one point Rick Santorum stated that Barack Obama was ruining the country by getting people addicted to the narcotic of government dependency and claimed that while Barack Obama said “you can believe in me” Americans want a president who believes in you, and in closing he called on the people of New Hampshire not to believe the hype about Mitt Romney’s huge lead and asked the people not to let the media influence their votes or claim that we had to settle for who we are told is the most electable candidate.
Iowa Caucuses are over, its on to New Hampshire
Just some quick thoughts before I head to work this morning:
What an interesting night is was in Iowa. It became clear early on that there were three candidates vying for the win–Mitt Romney, Ron Paul, and Rick Santorum–while the other candidates were fighting for fourth place. All throughout the night the top three candidates bounced from first to third place, separated by just one hundred votes or so.
As the night wore on Ron Paul settled into third place, far ahead of the fourth place winner, Newt Gingrich, but it wasn’t known until early this morning that Mitt Romney edged out Rick Santorum by just eight votes to win the Iowa caucuses.
Here is what I took out of the caucuses last night. Mitt Romney is probably going to hover around the 25% mark in all the states as long as multiple candidates remain in the race, once candidates begin to drop out it will be interesting to see which candidate benefits the most. Ron Paul had a very good showing last night, although I thought going in that he would come in either first or second and Santorum would finish a strong third.
Rick Perry sounded like a man who is thinking about dropping out of the race, but he may be going to Texas to come up with a new strategy in his quest for the nomination, and Michele Bachmann should be considering dropping out of the race.
So now its on to New Hampshire and it will be interesting to see what kind of bump Rick Santorum gets, or if he gets a bump at all. Rick Santorum has basically spent all his time in Iowa and it paid off, but he has remained in single digits in the polls here and it is unlikely he will be able to pull off the same type of surge he did in Iowa. And then there is Jon Huntsman, who has staked everything on New Hampshire, as the wildcard.
The latest New Hampshire polls show Mitt Romney with a huge lead over Ron Paul, with the other candidates well behind and in single digits. It looks as if Mitt Romney is going to win New Hampshire easily and Ron Paul should expect poll numbers which resemble his finish in Iowa–around 21%, so the battle is going to be for third place between Jon Huntsman, Rick Santorum, and Newt Gingrich. Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry have already given up on New Hampshire and are moving on to South Carolina if they do indeed stay in the race.
It will be interesting to see if Rick Santorum can ride the momentum from Iowa into New Hampshire and capture third place, or whether Jon Huntsman’s New Hampshire strategy pays off. And then there is always Newt Gingrich, who has promised to turn the heat up on Mitt Romney. This is going to be an interesting week.
The Federal Government is rubber stamping visa requests despite legitimate conserns about some of the applicants
A report by Homeland Security, as well as some internal documents, show us that someone in the Federal Government is pressuring agents to fast track and rubber stamp some visa applications against their will. One quarter of the agents in the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Department have claimed they were forced to grant people with either questionably backgrounds or questionable documents with a visa:
Higher-ups within U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services are pressuring rank-and-file officers to rubber-stamp immigrants’ visa applications, sometimes against the officers’ will, according to a Homeland Security report and internal documents exclusively obtained by The Daily.
A 40-page report, drafted by the Office of Inspector General in September but not publicly released, details the immense pressure immigration service officers are under to approve visa applications quickly, sometimes while overlooking concerns about fraud, eligibility or security
In essence these agents were told not to worry about the laws on the books and do what they were told: Read more…
Is anyone else getting tired of listening to Newt Gingrich whine about the negative campaign being run against him? I know I am getting tired of listening to him complain about being “Romney-Boated,” and I feel others must be as well. Here is my message to Newt Gingrich:
Dear Mr. Gingrich,
Either stop whining about the negative campaign being run against you or drop out of the race. Mitt Romney, Ron Paul, and Rick Perry have seen you as a threat to their prospects of winning the election and as such they have decided to highlight the differences between you and themselves.
During this process they have given reasons to vote for them while informing the people of reasons why they feel the people should vote against you. During this process they have highlighted some of your past positions, and these are positions which you would rather the American people ignore. But these positions are part of who you are and part of what you believe in, so in my opinion these are legitimate points which are being made. It will be up to the people to decide if they can forgive these conservative transgressions, and they are many.
But you don’t see it that way, so you? You have not come out in defense of these positions, and you have not stated that what is being said about you is false. On the contrary, you have ridiculed those that speak out against you because you cannot defend these positions. You are trying to kill the messenger because you do not like the message and I find it to be unbecoming to say the least.
What Mitt Romney, Ron Paul, and Rick Perry have said about you carries some weight and that is what really bothers you, isn’t it? If you cannot handle the heat then it is time to get out of the fire because the criticism you face from your GOP rivals is nothing compared to the heat you will face if you become the nominee and have to go up against Barack Obama. Your real problem with this is based in the fact that Mitt Romney, Ron Paul, and Rick Perry have more money than you do and they can afford to run these ads while you cannot. Suffice it to say that if you were as well funded as any of these candidates you would be doing the same. But you are not so you feel it is unfair for these candidate to attack you, perhaps you feel the electorate should spread the wealth around in the interest of fairness.
I fully understand that you have the right to defend yourself against these accusations but you are not doing so because you cannot, so instead you try to diffuse the argument by complaining about negative campaigning. I have news for you which you should understand from your days as Speaker of the House; politics is dirty business and nobody is your friend, you are on your own and it is time to stop whining about your rivals and meet them head-on. If you are not up to this task I shudder to think what will happen to you when Barack Obama unleashes $1 billion in negative ads against you.
Rick Santorum continues to surge in Iowa
With one day to go before Iowans begin to caucus, and as conservatives continue to look for a candidate who has been “ideologically consistent” over his career, they are looking more and more towards Rick Santorum. Rick Santorum has been surging in Iowa’s polls for about a week now and according to this latest PPP poll the surge continues.
Ron Paul is at 20%, Mitt Romney at 19%, and Rick Santorum at 18%.
Rick Santorum has closed to within two points of the lead and you have to think that his timing couldn’t have been better. With the exception of Ron Paul, whose support seems to be consistent, other candidates who appeared to be an option to those who do not plan on voting for Mitt Romney have come and they have gone, but at this point in the game it would appear as if Rick Santorum is poised to shake up the GOP race in Iowa and beyond.
America's Watchtower 