So Newt's in Freefall

Cleon said:
How sad is it when the guys who believe the Indians are descended from ancient Christians and that God lives on a planet called Kolob are the least kooky candidates?
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Well, come on, the others believe in a magical zombie, talking snakes, unicorns, invisible man in the sky, etc. Hell, even Obama believes that. Mormons just have more kooky beliefs.
 
RandFan said:
Oddly enough I agree. And I would say Huntsman also. I say "oddly" because being former Mormon I was decidedly against a Mormon for president. But if I had to choose a GOP candidate it would be one of the two. Probably Huntsman. At least he accepts evolution and global warming.
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Didn't he try to walk back the global warming thing, or was that Romney?

I'm mixing up my Mormons.

And I had forgotten Huntsman in my accounting of the non-kooks. Not exactly surprising since most everyone else has forgotten him too!
 
jcp said:
Didn't he try to walk back the global warming thing, or was that Romney?

I'm mixing up my Mormons.

And I had forgotten Huntsman in my accounting of the non-kooks. Not exactly surprising since most everyone else has forgotten him too!
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It could be that he did try to backpedal. I don't remember.
 
Bri said:
You're right, Iowa is a caucus and not a primary, but both caucuses and primaries are part of the primary process. Some states have caucuses and some have primaries. The difference is that in primaries, voters vote directly for the candidates, whereas in caucuses voters select delegates for nominating conventions. FactCheck.org has an article on the differences between a caucus and a primary.

The Iowa caucus is January 3rd, the New Hampshire primary is January 10th. Here's the full 2012 Primary Schedule if you're interested.
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Thank you for doing my googling for me! :)

As it doesn't appear to have changed much, I doubt any recent polling in Iowa indicates a 'free fall' in national support, though there are no doubt those who'd like to say it enough times to make it so. That works sometimes in politics....in the short term. It probably suggests soft support deteriorating due to a concentration of negative ads which will probably have little effect outside Iowa.

Bri said:
I think (and someone can correct me if I'm wrong) the main reason that Iowa doesn't generally determine the outcome of an election is that Iowa has a stronger tendency than most states to select the most conservative candidate, which isn't always the strongest candidate to compete in the primaries.

-Bri
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The caucus system often reinforces that natural primary tendency. You get the partisans on steroids, not just the typical primary true believers. In Dem politics that generally means institutional support from labor unions and civil rights groups which can sometimes be more indicative of national support; in GOP caucus events such as Iowa it is (or was) just ethanol farmers and more localized social conservative groups which doesn't translate as well out of state, which is why sometimes it was (is?) basically skipped.

It takes a damned committed person to find out where to go and spend all night listening to people yammer about fringe candidates, thus it attracts a different sort of supporter than a state-wide primary at the usual voting location where one can vote in peace and in secret!

Did Newt even make anything more than a token effort there outside the debate, which I would assume he'd attend?
 
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Flipping through teh radio today while driving, I encountered the dulcet tones of Rush Limbaugh. He was talking about a book by Newt, in which a chapter on climate change was written by a scientist who has written in the past about global warming, specifically anthropogenic global warming.

Rush was very pointedly NOT commenting any opinion on the matter, just sayin'....

He may have said something after the commercial break. I tuned away as I'd hit my safe Limbaugh limit of 15 seconds.

It seemed to me he was being cagey, leading the audience to reach "their own conclusions" while not offending any Gingrich fans in the listenership.
 
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ApolloGnomon said:
Flipping through teh radio today while driving, I encountered the dulcet tones of Rush Limbaugh. He was talking about a book by Newt, in which a chapter on climate change was written by a scientist who has written in the past about global warming, specifically anthropogenic global warming.

Rush was very pointedly NOT commenting any opinion on the matter, just sayin'....

He may have said something after the commercial break. I tuned away as I'd hit my safe Limbaugh limit of 15 seconds.
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Last time I listened to Rush he was claiming the email climate gate had "proven" that AGW was a scam cooked up to generate money for the scientists working to understand and mitigate the harm of GW.
 
RandFan said:
Last time I listened to Rush he was claiming the email climate gate had "proven" that AGW was a scam cooked up to generate money for the scientists working to understand and mitigate the harm of GW.
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Exactly. It seemed he was walking the fine line of sneering sideways at AGW while not offending the Mormon-fearing members of the audience who might vote for Newt despite his many flaws.

I continue to find it very alarming that Newt continues to look like the least irrational candidate.
 
Cleon said:
How sad is it when the guys who believe the Indians are descended from ancient Christians and that God lives on a planet called Kolob are the least kooky candidates?
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Don't forget the magic underwear. That's it, folks... magic... underwear.

ETA: That said, I'm actually glad to see Newt flaming out. He's been saying some pretty scary things of late (like basically eviscerating the judiciary), and the mere thought of him wielding presidential power is frightening. I just wish Romney weren't kowtowing so much to the Tea Party crowd these days.
 
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I'm sorry to see Newt flame out this soon. It would have been nice to see some actual give and take on Romney before the GOP goes lock-step in support of the guy they've always hated.
 
RandFan said:
Oddly enough I agree. And I would say Huntsman also. I say "oddly" because being former Mormon I was decidedly against a Mormon for president. But if I had to choose a GOP candidate it would be one of the two. Probably Huntsman. At least he accepts evolution and global warming.
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I think it says something about the field that I now consider Ron Paul relatively sane.
 
I arrived a bit early at owrk last night and found myself forced to wait in an area in which some dork was watching Fox Boobs on the TV. From the little I could translate into normal Terran syntax, it appears that the teabaggers still love the fat white haired git from Georgia.

Teabaggers make a lot of noise, and this is often what carries caucuses.

God spare us all from uneducable fanatics.
 
ApolloGnomon said:
I continue to find it very alarming that Newt continues to look like the least irrational candidate.
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The rational women who have dumped the pizza dude don't like horn dogs.

Soldiers will probably not get very excited about him after the confusion he showed over the Libyan action. Active duty military seem less enthralled with the GOP these days any way.

Going Catholic will not win many Hispanic voters. Most of the Hispanic republicons are Miami Cubanos, probably in some way tied to the real estate business. They have something to gain from a Romney win in terms of an increased number of foreclosed homes to buy up and rent out "until the market recovers." The dude needs to grab some numbers somewhere. Why not try to steal some of the batcrapcrazy vote from Bachmann?
 
Undesired Walrus said:
I think it says something about the field that I now consider Ron Paul relatively sane.
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"Relatively" being the operative word. A 5 minute well argued position for why Paul should fail for skeptics can be found in the following video.

 
As I've said before you Americans are really trying to prove that you have a uniquely incompetent group of politicians!
 
Darat said:
As I've said before you Americans are really trying to prove that you have a uniquely incompetent group of politicians!
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Please identify the nation(s) which you feel lacks incompetent political parties.
(I'm just trying to figure out the comparison group).
 
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