Mitt Romney is on track to wrap up the GOP nomination with a win on Tuesday in Florida. He had a strong performance in Thursday’s debate and polls out today show him up anywhere between eight and 11 points over Newt Gingrich.
This turnaround demonstrates that he can get the job down, something that will serve him well going into a General Election against President Obama.
As Gingrich enjoyed his surge and win in South Carolina, political observers speculated that he would eventually implode. What worried most GOP operatives was that the implosion would come after he secured the Republican nomination. As if on cue, he promptly began to sink, and Romney again surged just in time for the Florida primary.
While it has been messy, the process has made Romney a better candidate and better prepared to face the onslaught that awaits him from the Democrats.
After Romney wins Florida, it will be nearly impossible for Santorum or Gingrich to make the case to stay in the race. Ron Paul will stay in, because he continues to raise enough money to plod along, and he may even do pretty well in some of the upcoming caucuses (Maine, Nevada, Colorado and Minnesota) but Romney will more than likely win the Arizona and Michigan primaries, and he will be an unstoppable force going into Super Tuesday.
It’s been a wild ride – and it’s not quite over, but there are likely very few surprises that can happen now.
Heading into the Florida Presidential Primary, the soap opera that is the GOP nominating process is becoming a full-on hurricane.
Newt Gingrich’s polling line looks like a heart monitor, Ron Paul is wandering in the sugar cane fields looking for relevance, Rick Santorum can’t think of a place he will actually win and Mitt Romney is starting to get that terrified look in his eye as he realizes this isn’t his just for the taking.
That is one of the more interesting aspects of the last week. We actually get to see Romney express some emotion, because nothing makes you more emotional than fear.
And guess what? Newt Gingrich getting the nomination scares the crap out of me.
That’s kind of the story for the last day or two: conservatives realizing “Oh my gosh, Newt might win this!” And that isn’t a happy exclamation point.
Thursday’s debate didn’t really change the make up of the race, so let’s get Tuesday over with and move on.
Bob Robb, one of the best political commentators in Arizona, wrote a very insightful column yesterday headlined “Gingrich anti-establishment?”
Exactly.
There are some real gems worth repeating here:
Sometimes politics is staged as farce, as in the narrative in the Republican presidential primary that Newt Gingrich is the anti-establishment candidate.
The guy is a former speaker of the House of Representatives, for goodness sake. You know, third in line to be president.
Since being ousted as speaker, Gingrich has made himself wealthy as a political entrepreneur and operator. In fact, he got ousted in part because he starting doing too much of that while he was speaker.
***
Gingrich was as responsible as anyone for turning the Republican Party into the party of pork. Under his speakership, earmarks as a re-election tool proliferated.
In fact, virtually everything the tea party doesn’t like about the Republican establishment can be traced to Gingrich and his Majority Whip, later Majority Leader, Tom DeLay.
I remember the frustration of some of the true believers of the Class of ’94 when Gingrich and DeLay were advising the freshmen that the best way to win re-election was to send the bacon home. Guys like my former boss John Shadegg and a his cohorts like Tom Coburn and Mark Sanford fought those guys every day.
Gingrich is no conservative.
Words don’t matter here.
Obama visits the Phoenix area today, and according to this report, thousands of workers involved in the expansion of the Intel facility the President is visiting are taking a forced, non-paid day off.
This was an interesting part of the story:
But some workers — who put in six, ten-hour days every week — disagree. Several expressed their frustration over losing out on 20 percent of their paycheck.
“[The president] is here to talk about jobs and the economy and yet he’s forcing middle-class people right out of work for a day,” said a worker who contacted KTAR. “We’re losing an overtime day. It hurts.”
Consider that, President Obama… it hurts.
Obama told some real whoppers in is State of the Union address. Here are just a few:
This country needs an all-out, all-of-the-above strategy that develops every available source of American energy – a strategy that’s cleaner, cheaper, and full of new jobs.
C’mon, do you really expect us to believe that you support an “all of the above” strategy less than a week after you strike down the Keystone pipeline? Get serious.
On clean energy – in particular, Solyndra, he said this:
Some technologies don’t pan out; some companies fail. But I will not walk away from the promise of clean energy. I will not walk away from workers like Bryan. I will not cede the wind or solar or battery industry to China or Germany because we refuse to make the same commitment here. We have subsidized oil companies for a century. That’s long enough. It’s time to end the taxpayer giveaways to an industry that’s rarely been more profitable, and double-down on a clean energy industry that’s never been more promising. Pass clean energy tax credits and create these jobs.
Really? There are already more tax credits for “clean” energy than any other form of energy. To ask Congress to pass MORE tax credits and incentives – while billions of tax-payer dollars have been wasted, is irresponsible.
Speaking of taxes:
Right now, we’re poised to spend nearly $1 trillion more on what was supposed to be a temporary tax break for the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans. Right now, because of loopholes and shelters in the tax code, a quarter of all millionaires pay lower tax rates than millions of middle-class households. Right now, Warren Buffett pays a lower tax rate than his secretary.
First off, does he really argue that the government SPENDS money on tax breaks? That is a typical Democrat talking point, as if it’s THEIR money to begin with. Secondly, Obama is purposely trying to confuse the American people by not acknowledging the difference between “earned” income and “unearned” income. Warren Buffet doesn’t take a salary – so he doesn’t have “earned” income. He has enough wealth that he can live on his investments and interest. Those are called capital gains. The capital gains tax rate is 15%, for good reason – because it is capital gains that fund new businesses, which in turn grow the economy. If Obama actually doubles the tax rate on capital gains, economic growth will grind to a halt. This is a cynical attempt to engage in class warfare, while trying to claim that it isn’t class warfare.
Obama continues:
But in return, we need to change our tax code so that people like me, and an awful lot of Members of Congress, pay our fair share of taxes. Tax reform should follow the Buffett rule: If you make more than $1 million a year, you should not pay less than 30 percent in taxes. And my Republican friend Tom Coburn is right: Washington should stop subsidizing millionaires. In fact, if you’re earning a million dollars a year, you shouldn’t get special tax subsidies or deductions. On the other hand, if you make under $250,000 a year, like 98 percent of American families, your taxes shouldn’t go up. You’re the ones struggling with rising costs and stagnant wages. You’re the ones who need relief.
Notice his crafty addition of the word “earning” when he is talking about people who are millionaires? He knows, as well as anyone, that people who are “earning” millions are paying a much higher rate than the 15% of unearned income. They don’t get special subsidies or deductions – it just may be that their deductions are higher because they give more to charity, etc.
Obama continues again:
Now, you can call this class warfare all you want. But asking a billionaire to pay at least as much as his secretary in taxes? Most Americans would call that common sense.
They only call that common sense when you confuse earned income with unearned income.
And here is the biggest whopper of the night:
We don’t begrudge financial success in this country. We admire it. When Americans talk about folks like me paying my fair share of taxes, it’s not because they envy the rich. It’s because they understand that when I get tax breaks I don’t need and the country can’t afford, it either adds to the deficit, or somebody else has to make up the difference – like a senior on a fixed income; or a student trying to get through school; or a family trying to make ends meet. That’s not right.
What’s not right, Mr. President, is for you to demagogue taxes in a way that is cynical and anti-productivity.
It’s sad that the President of the United States cannot be honest with the American people.
This is an interesting take on tonight’s State of the Union. A group called American Future Fund owns the domain: TheRealStateOfTheUnion.com . Interestingly, TheRealStateOfTheUnion.org is owned by the Democrat Congressional Campaign Committee.
Here is a new ad from American Future Fund:
Everyone knows that State of the Union speeches are mostly for show. Still, the news that Warren Buffet’s secretary is going to be Michelle Obama’s guest in the First Lady’s box takes this speech from ridiculous to absurd.
Typically, the guest of the First Lady is a hero of some sort. Nancy Reagan was the first First Lady to have guests at the State of the Union. Her first State of the Union guest, in 1982, was Lenny Skutnik, a Congressional Budget Office employee who had jumped into the icy waters of the Potomac River to help rescue survivors after Air Florida Flight 90 crashed into the Potomac River in 1982.
Reagan said Skutnik demonstrated “the spirit of American heroism at its finest.” He then said, “We saw the heroism of one of our young government employees, Lenny Skutnik, who, when he saw a woman lose her grip on the helicopter line, dived into the water and dragged her to safety.”
Other guests have included: Alma Powell and Brenda Schwarzkopf, the wives of Gens. Colin Powell and Norman Schwarzkopf, who were leading military operations in Iraq; Richard Dean, a Social Security Administration employee, who helped rescue victims of the Oklahoma City bombing; flight attendants Christina Jones and Hermis Moutardier who helped thwart an attempted bombing by Richard Reid, the so-called “Shoe Bomber.”
The other guest tonight with Michelle Obama is Mark Kelly, husband of Gabby Giffords. It is pathetic that someone who has demonstrated incredible courage and persistence in helping with the recovery of Giffords is sharing space with Warren Buffet’s secretary, who is merely a prop for more arguments for class warfare.
Warren Buffet pays a lower rate than his secretary because he does not have any “earned” income. All of his income comes from his investments so it is passive income – or capital gains – and taxed at the 15% rate.
This is why Mitt Romney pays the same rate. He doesn’t have earned income – it’s all investment income.
So we’ll get to see Obama demagogue wealth creators tonight, using a (well-paid) secretary as a prop.
This is a great newspaper editorial cartoon. When you actually look at the reforms Gov. Scott Walker proposed in Wisconsin last year, and then compare that to the reaction from the public employee unions and Democrat legislators – union members occupying the State Capital, and Democrat legislators fleeing to Illinois.
Anyway, this made me laugh out loud.
This is an incredibly touching video. Gabby has shown true courage and poise, and that is on display here. Knowing that politics is the worst place for keeping things quiet, kudos to her husband and staff for managing this roll out under her own terms. Well done. Obviously, this will create a mad rush of political activity in Tucson, but for now, it’s Gabby’s time.
God speed, Gabby. We continue to pray for your complete recovery.
