February 04, 2012
Mitt Romney decisively won the Nevada GOP caucuses.
Las Vegas Sun: "It would been hard to imagine a more favorable day for Romney: According to various projections, overall turnout for the Nevada GOP caucuses was low, Mormon turnout was high and his ground game was in full force, giving him the endorsement of over half the state's voting Republicans -- as he did four years ago."
Washington Post: "As Romney celebrated his third victory in five contests, his rivals vowed to continue fighting. But the upcoming calendar provides those chasing Romney with significant few opportunities for victory in coming weeks. Gingrich and Santorum each would like to take on Romney without the other draining off conservative votes but neither has shown any interest in bowing to the other. Paul demonstrated again in Nevada that he can do well in caucus states with limited turnout but has yet to show real strength in a big state."
New York Times: "Nevada offers only a sliver of the delegates needed to win the Republican nomination, making it more of a symbolic triumph than a practical one. But it gave Mr. Romney an important opportunity to make a more assertive case that the party is finally coming together behind him."
Sheldon Adelson, "the billionaire casino executive keeping Newt Gingrich's presidential hopes alive, has relayed assurances to Mitt Romney that he will provide even more generous support to his candidacy if he becomes the Republican nominee," the
New York Times reports.
As Mitt Romney consolidates his lead and stands as the presumptive
Republican presidential nominee,
The Hill asks "What do the anti-Romney
Republicans do now?"
"Those who continue to believe that Romney can be stopped are focused -- as is the campaign of Newt Gingrich -- on the possibility of a long delegate fight. They have largely given up hope of anyone winning a knockout victory over Romney... Other figures in the media firmament are not so sure. Rush Limbaugh, for instance, has been harshly critical of Romney for years but is now urging his listeners to concentrate on the imperative, as he sees it, of defeating President Obama."
BuzzFeed: "The secret to the grassroots success lies, in part, in the unique national structure and scrupulous record-keeping of the Utah-headquartered Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. While the church itself is politically neutral, it contains the structural groundwork for one of the most organized and effective voting blocs in the country -- something Romney is poised to capitalize on."
"In contrast with most other religions in the country, the Mormon Church is nationally organized in a strict, top-down fashion, like a corporation. Every congregation in the U.S. reports back to church headquarters in Salt Lake. Whenever an individual is baptized -- either as a child or as a convert -- local ministers take down the person's name, address, phone number, and e-mail address... The church expressly forbids using these directories for non-religious
purposes, but that doesn't deter many politically active Mormons from
working their ward lists to get out the vote. Reports abound of members
blasting out congregational e-mails soliciting support for partisan
causes and candidates."
"Osama bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive."
-- Vice President Joe Biden, quoted by
Maureen Dowd, repeating a line he'd heard to sum up what his party should campaign on.
Instead of the traditional election night party, Newt Gingrich will hold a press conference after the Nevada caucuses tonight "raising new speculation about his future in the race,"
National Journal reports.
The press conference is scheduled for 11 p.m. ET.
A new
WMUR Granite State Poll shows that the improving economy has also raised President Obama's standing in New Hampshire.
Key findings: 38% of New Hampshire adults think the country is headed in the right direction, while 50% say it's on the wrong track. That doesn't seem optimistic, but it represent a big jump from October, when 70% thought the country was on the wrong track.
Obama's approval rate is now 51% and he beats Mitt Romney in a possible general election match up, 50% to 40%.
February 03, 2012
Brett O'Donnell, a Republican operative "who won plaudits for bolstering Mitt Romney's recent debate performances is not being retained by the frontrunner's campaign, an apparent victim of internal tensions over staff receiving too much credit for the candidate's comeback,"
Politico reports.
"After O'Donnell was
identified last week as advising Romney and then highlighted in subsequent news accounts as being one of the reasons behind the former Massachusetts governor's improved debate performances, Romney campaign officials grew uneasy. O'Donnell received phone calls late last week from two Romney advisers... where it was made clear that there was severe discomfort about how his role was being portrayed in the media and that he ought to tread lightly."
Newt Gingrich tells
CNN why he didn't call Mitt Romney to congratulate him on his Florida primary victory.
Said Gingrich: "They then out spent me five to one to quote, 'destroy Newt Gingrich.' You know, I think that that doesn't deserve congratulations. I think that's reprehensible. I think it's dishonest and I think it's shameful."
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"I don't know why the government owns so much of this land."
-- Mitt Romney, in an interview with the
Reno Gazette-Journal, on whether he would sell land owned by the federal government in Western states.
From a new research paper in
PS: Political Science & Politics:
"Many reformers continue to argue for a de-politicization of the redistricting process, claiming that partisan redistricting is responsible for declining electoral competition and increasing legislative polarization. Our analysis of evidence from state legislatures during the last decade suggests that the effects of partisan redistricting on competition and polarization are small, considerably more nuanced than reformers would suggest, and overwhelmed by other aspects of the political environment."
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) will be meeting with prosecutors about the secret investigation into his current and former aides, the
Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reports.
Walker said that he has hired two attorneys to represent him but he will not use any public money to pay for them.
Mark Blumenthal says we will see fewer polls of the next few Republican presidential contents "because of constrained budgets."
"National media and polling organizations knew that attention would focus on the first four primary and caucus states in January and spent their money accordingly. A few invested in the expensive task of surveying Iowa's likely caucus-goers using live interviewers, but in an era when many media organizations have cut back on polling, these upcoming caucus states are simply a lower priority. As with other aspects of campaign coverage, polling in the February caucus states will be no match for what we saw last month."
Newt Gingrich released a new
web video accusing Mitt Romney of being too much like President Obama and linking him to liberal billionaire George Soros.
See more...
Rep. Phil Gingrey's (R-GA) office confirmed to the
Atlanta Journal Constitution that the lawmaker walked out of President Obama's address at the annual National Prayer Breakfast, "offended by what the congressman said was an injection of
political rhetoric into an occasion of non-partisan reflection."
Just published:
The End of Race?: Obama, 2008, and Racial Politics in America by Donald R. Kinder and Allison Dale-Riddle.
The authors assert that racism was in fact an important factor in the 2008 presidential election, and that if not for racism, Barack Obama would have won in a landslide.
Roseanne Barr is "running for the Green Party's presidential nomination -- and it's no joke," the
AP reports.
"The actress-comedian said in a statement that she's a longtime supporter of the party and looks forward to working with people who share her values. She said the two major parties aren't serving the American people."
A new
Public Policy Polling survey in Ohio shows Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) leading challenger Josh Mandel (R) by 11 points, 47% to 36%.
That said, Brown's approval rating is just 42% and "an incumbent with an approval rating in the lows 40s is never totally out of the woods but this continues to look like a decidedly second tier pick up opportunity for the GOP."
Jonathan Chait: "The biggest victim of today's
blowout jobs report -- aside from the millions of Americans who still lack jobs, of course -- is Mitt Romney's presidential campaign. Romney has rested his entire case for election on the sluggish economy... Romney's campaign seems to have been stunned into silence, taking an unusually long time to come up with any reaction at all. But I think going all-in on economic pessimism remains Romney's strongest chance."
"In any case, it's all Romney has. Obama remains personally well-liked. Romney is personally unpopular. The Republican Party is extremely unpopular. Obama has had no major scandals, and his foreign policy has been highly successful to date... He simply has to keep plugging away at his theme, because his only real winning scenario involves winning on the back of a bad economy."
When Mitt Romney cast a vote for Sen. Paul Tsongas (D-MA) in 1992, he formally enrolled in the Democratic Party,
BuzzFeed reports.
"Romney registered to vote in 1976 as what Massachusetts authorities now call an 'unenrolled' voter -- a member of neither party. Under state law, primaries are open, and unenrolled citizens may participate in either primary. But under the law as it stood in 1992 -- it was changed in 2004 -- 'essentially enrolled unenrolled voters (commonly referred to as independent) into the political party based on the ballot they chose at the presidential primary... After voting, a voter would have had to 'unenroll' by completing additional paperwork to go back to their 'independent' status.'"
The Obama campaign is fundraising off of Donald Trump's endorsement of Mitt Romney,
Politico reports.
Said the email solicitation: "Yesterday, Mitt Romney said he was 'humbled' to accept Donald Trump's endorsement. Seriously. Yes, Donald Trump -- birth certificate conspiracy leader -- has decided that Mitt Romney's his guy, and Romney has embraced him without reservation. He made a speech and even sent out a press release welcoming him."
As a result of the dissatisfaction with the GOP presidential field,
CBS News notes that voters "are waiting until the last minute to determine for whom to award their ballot."
"In Iowa, nearly half of caucus-goers decided in the last few days. Of those voters, two in 10 made their decision on Election Day. In New Hampshire, 46 percent of Republican primary voters decided in the last few days, of which 21 percent made up their mind on the last day. In South Carolina, roughly half of Republican primary voters settled on a choice in the last few days before the election, while in the Florida, a quarter of Republican voters were late deciders."
Though
Walter Shapiro admits "by every conventional calculation, the Republican race is kaput" he still won't accept that it's over.
"Maybe it's pure stubbornness, maybe it's a reluctance to listen to Romney recite the lyrics from "America the Beautiful" from now until November, or maybe it's a small child's refusal to believe that the circus is leaving town -- but I keep wondering whether the fat lady truly has sung... I keep picking up small signs that Romney may still be a little less inevitable than he seems."
Sen. Scott Brown's (R-MA) re-election campaign has spent $9,500 since December 2010 to pay his daughter to sing at three campaign events, the
Boston Globe reports.
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