Iowa Presidential Caucus

[earthJoker]

Relevent information in bold.

But honestly that is another issue to me, why do married people have at all more rights than singles? That is the core question to me.

[Enoch the Red]

But honestly that is another issue to me, why do married people have at all more rights than singles? That is the core question to me.

It's not - or rather - it shouldn't be that they have more individual rights, it's that they assume some secondary rights and responsibilities of their spouse. That is an important, and often necessary component, of healthy, long-term relationships, and I find nothing inherently wrong with it. What I do however take issue with is the usurpation of the terms of the agreement from the individuals involved to the government. Instead of it being the right of the individual to determine the framework and particulars of who they share this intimate covenant with, it's instead the state that determines the suitability of your choice. That is a blatant appropriation of individual rights with few tangible societal benefits that I can see.

[Loki]

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epo...tion-1452.html Crap. Look at the most recent poll.

[RandBlade]

I think Santorum may get the candidacy. He hasn't just won states that would never go to Mitt, while Santorum got 3/3 states in the last round of voting ... Romney won 2 of those 4 years ago. For Romney to win less states now than he did 4 years ago kind of takes the gloss off his "inevitability". I expect so much mud to get thrown at Santorum now that Romney'll still get it, but I wouldn't be surprised.

Don't think it matters much. Expected Obama to be re-elected all along, not seen anything to change my mind.

[Nessus]

Santorum is now completely dominating with several key segments of the electorate, especially the most right leaning parts of the party. With those describing themselves as 'very conservative,' he's now winning a majority of voters at 53% to 20% for Gingrich and 15% for Romney. Santorum gets a majority with Tea Party voters as well at 51% to 24% for Gingrich and 12% for Romney. And with Evangelicals he falls just short of a majority with 45% to 21% for Gingrich and 18% for Romney.

The best thing Romney might have going for him right now is Gingrich's continued presence in the race. If Gingrich dropped out 58% of his supporters say they would move to Santorum, while 22% would go to Romney and 17% to Paul. Santorum gets to 50% in the Newt free field to 28% for Romney and 15% for Paul.

Yes, yes,yes, smear it on yourself some more, oh yes, you're a dirty girl, yes you are

[Loki]

There are only 2 more primaries this month, which both tend to favor Romney. If he wins them, the race will go on because everyone expects him to win them. If he loses them, he'll be in big trouble. Assuming Romney does win those primaries, the race will go on until March. There are 10 primaries/caucuses from March 3 to March 6. Three of those strongly favor Romney, three favor Gingrich (unless his campaign implodes by then), and one favors Santorum (assuming the south hasn't swung in his direction already). If there are no clear winner that week, the race will go on at least until mid-June.

[Nessus]

Fecal matter and lube, Low-key

You've got 30 seconds

Chug chug chug!

[GGT]

There are only 2 more primaries this month, which both tend to favor Romney. If he wins them, the race will go on because everyone expects him to win them. If he loses them, he'll be in big trouble. Assuming Romney does win those primaries, the race will go on until March. There are 10 primaries/caucuses from March 3 to March 6. Three of those strongly favor Romney, three favor Gingrich (unless his campaign implodes by then), and one favors Santorum (assuming the south hasn't swung in his direction already). If there are no clear winner that week, the race will go on at least until mid-June.

Then there's the delegate strategy that seems to be doing quite well for Ron Paul.

[Loki]

Doing quite well? I doubt he'll get more than 10% of the delegates. All his delegate count will give him is a chance to speak at the convention. Finishing third or fourth in most primaries won't help you win.

[RandBlade]

There are only 2 more primaries this month, which both tend to favor Romney. If he wins them, the race will go on because everyone expects him to win them. If he loses them, he'll be in big trouble. Assuming Romney does win those primaries, the race will go on until March. There are 10 primaries/caucuses from March 3 to March 6. Three of those strongly favor Romney, three favor Gingrich (unless his campaign implodes by then), and one favors Santorum (assuming the south hasn't swung in his direction already). If there are no clear winner that week, the race will go on at least until mid-June.

And if Santorum wins all of his and Gingrich's states? Gingrich's campaign is dead.

[Loki]

And if Santorum wins all of his and Gingrich's states? Gingrich's campaign is dead.

Santorum isn't winning Georgia (Gingrich is up by 9% in a poll from 3 days ago). But yes, it would look really bad for Gingrich if he lost Tennessee and Oklahoma to Santorum (both on March 6).

[Loki]

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2...er-remarks/?hp Now Santorum is trying to throw his wife under the bus. Stay classy, Rick.

[Aimless]

He's right though, people need to spend more quality time with their kids

[Nessus]

Mitt Romney has a gift for words — self-destructive words. On Friday he did it again, telling the Conservative Political Action Conference that he was a “severely conservative governor.” As Molly Ball of The Atlantic pointed out, Mr. Romney “described conservatism as if it were a disease.” Indeed. Mark Liberman, a linguistics professor at the University of Pennsylvania, provided a list of words that most commonly follow the adverb “severely”; the top five, in frequency of use, are disabled, depressed, ill, limited and injured.
That’s clearly not what Mr. Romney meant to convey. Yet if you look at the race for the G.O.P. presidential nomination, you have to wonder whether it was a Freudian slip. For something has clearly gone very wrong with modern American conservatism.
Start with Rick Santorum, who, according to Public Policy Polling, is the clear current favorite among usual Republican primary voters, running 15 points ahead of Mr. Romney. Anyone with an Internet connection is aware that Mr. Santorum is best known for 2003 remarks about homosexuality, incest and bestiality. But his strangeness runs deeper than that.
For example, last year Mr. Santorum made a point of defending the medieval Crusades against the “American left who hates Christendom.” Historical issues aside (hey, what are a few massacres of infidels and Jews among friends?), what was this doing in a 21st-century campaign?
Nor is this only about sex and religion: he has also declared that climate change is a hoax, part of a “beautifully concocted scheme” on the part of “the left” to provide “an excuse for more government control of your life.” You may say that such conspiracy-theorizing is hardly unique to Mr. Santorum, but that’s the point: tinfoil hats have become a common, if not mandatory, G.O.P. fashion accessory.
Then there’s Ron Paul, who came in a strong second in Maine’s caucuses despite widespread publicity over such matters as the racist (and conspiracy-minded) newsletters published under his name in the 1990s and his declarations that both the Civil War and the Civil Rights Act were mistakes. Clearly, a large segment of his party’s base is comfortable with views one might have thought were on the extreme fringe.
Finally, there’s Mr. Romney, who will probably get the nomination despite his evident failure to make an emotional connection with, well, anyone. The truth, of course, is that he was not a “severely conservative” governor. His signature achievement was a health reform identical in all important respects to the national reform signed into law by President Obama four years later. And in a rational political world, his campaign would be centered on that achievement.
But Mr. Romney is seeking the Republican presidential nomination, and whatever his personal beliefs may really be — if, indeed, he believes anything other than that he should be president — he needs to win over primary voters who really are severely conservative in both his intended and unintended senses.
So he can’t run on his record in office. Nor was he trying very hard to run on his business career even before people began asking hard (and appropriate) questions about the nature of that career.
Instead, his stump speeches rely almost entirely on fantasies and fabrications designed to appeal to the delusions of the conservative base. No, President Obama isn’t someone who “began his presidency by apologizing for America,” as Mr. Romney declared, yet again, a week ago. But this “Four-Pinocchio Falsehood,” as the Washington Post Fact Checker puts it, is at the heart of the Romney campaign.
How did American conservatism end up so detached from, indeed at odds with, facts and rationality? For it was not always thus. After all, that health reform Mr. Romney wants us to forget followed a blueprint originally laid out at the Heritage Foundation!
My short answer is that the long-running con game of economic conservatives and the wealthy supporters they serve finally went bad. For decades the G.O.P. has won elections by appealing to social and racial divisions, only to turn after each victory to deregulation and tax cuts for the wealthy — a process that reached its epitome when George W. Bush won re-election by posing as America’s defender against gay married terrorists, then announced that he had a mandate to privatize Social Security.
Over time, however, this strategy created a base that really believed in all the hokum — and now the party elite has lost control.
The point is that today’s dismal G.O.P. field — is there anyone who doesn’t consider it dismal? — is no accident. Economic conservatives played a cynical game, and now they’re facing the blowback, a party that suffers from “severe” conservatism in the worst way. And the malady may take many years to cure.

[Loki]

Krugman calling someone else severely ill is amusing to say the least. Are you going to cite Chomsky next?

[Nessus]

After Fecal Matter and Lube called it a "two man race", you're gonna have a real hard time arguing from credulity

[Lewkowski]

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2...er-remarks/?hp Now Santorum is trying to throw his wife under the bus. Stay classy, Rick.

Erm... I'm failing to see the money quote that was so bad.

"
“Sadly, the propaganda campaign launched in the 1960s has taken root,” Mr. Santorum (or his wife) wrote in the book. “The radical feminists succeeded in undermining the traditional family and convincing women that professional accomplishments are the key to happiness.”
"

Eh? Most people would probably not list "professional accomplishments" as *the* key to happiness. Plenty of women enjoy staying home and raising a family. Men do to though its not as common due to cultural norms. And more than likely his wife DID have input on it. She obviously made a choice and seems happy with it.

[Loki]

My problem is less with the statement than with Santorum attempting to deflect blame by claiming his wife wrote it (despite not saying anything of the sort when asked about this years ago).

[RandBlade]

More polls showing Santorum surging in states he had no chance in a week ago. There finally seems to be a contender with "the big mo".

[Ziggy Stardust]

So I went looking for some info on the big S

"One of the things I will talk about, that no president has talked about before, is I think the dangers of contraception in this country.... Many of the Christian faith have said, well, that's okay, contraception is okay. It's not okay. It's a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be."

"The question is — and this is what Barack Obama didn't want to answer — is that human life a person under the Constitution? And Barack Obama says no. Well if that person — human life is not a person, then — I find it almost remarkable for a black man to say, 'We're going to decide who are people and who are not people.'"

"Is anyone saying same-sex couples can't love each other? I love my children. I love my friends, my brother. Heck, I even love my mother-in-law. Should we call these relationships marriage, too?"

And I think this already came up

"If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual [gay] sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything. Does that undermine the fabric of our society? I would argue yes, it does. ... That's not to pick on homosexuality. It's not, you know, man on child, man on dog, or whatever the case may be. It is one thing."

What a charming feller.

[Loki]

The latest poll has Gingrich in fourth place with 10% of the vote.

[Nessus]

"If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual [gay] sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything. Does that undermine the fabric of our society? I would argue yes, it does. ... That's not to pick on homosexuality. It's not, you know, man on child, man on dog, or whatever the case may be. It is one thing."

I think it was this particular quote that got his name to signify a mixture of fecal matter and lube.

[GGT]

Santorum is the severely Conservative candidate. Those radical feminists from the 60's who wanted to be in charge of their own bodies and take birth control pills! Also acceptance of no-fault divorces, pre-marital sex, non-traditional families, and gay sex! Gays in the military! Now women want to be on the front lines in combat zones too! This is all very disturbing to heterosexual mens' identities, especially if they're Catholic.

[Loki]

http://www.cnn.com/video/?hpt=hp_c2#...natal-care.cnn

[RandBlade]

That was a video so I can't see it now, what was that?

[Flixy]

http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/3017...h-backlash.htm

The guy really seems disconnected from reality. Why aren't politicians fact checked, and burned when they are wrong, again?

[Loki]

That was a video so I can't see it now, what was that?

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...MN6O1N9SNV.DTL

[Nessus]

[Loki]

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2012...chmann.html?hp Might as well post this here. Poor Bachmann.

[RandBlade]

Don't see it makes much difference for her whatsoever. Nobodies going to challenge her for the 6th are they and its even more GOP now than it was so seems like she's got a job-for-life (or at least until 2022) if she wants it.