Iowa Primary

Leo

Well-known member
@leo - don't think gop loss ensures sharp backlash. also palin has too much baggage. won't beat someone like christie.

yeah, i think the reference was palin off, but i do think the backlash is very possible. if either GOP nominee gets handily beaten by a president with 8+% unemployment and almost $4 gas prices, the GOP has got to face the cold reality.

the other issue is the ripple effect: if voters get turned off to the hard-right turn of santorum and romney's general romneyness, that could very well drag down GOP senate and house candidates as well. they ride the coattails of presidential races during good times but also get tarred during the bad times. with olympia snowe not running for reelection, it's harder for the GOP to gain in the senate and they could lose some house seats.
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
^sure it's possible. the guy in your quote was saying it's a certainty tho. really what's going in is a battle for the soul of the gop, the hardline/evangelical/tea party etc v. the intellectuals/fiscal conservatives who are socially liberal/moderate, and it's happening very messily + publicly. there was always going to be a price to pay for pandering to tea party bullshit. the republican party is largely white + aging. it struggles to attract blacks, latinos, or women outside its base. those are generalities but largely true. that's not to say it will descend into irrelevance or cease to win elections but there are, as you say, cold realities to be faced.

snowe stepping down is not a good look for them either, tho evan bayh did the same it 2010 + was replaced by a republican.
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
his real mission anyway was to move his views closer to the mainstream, which he's certainly accomplished. now he can pass the torch to his son.
 

Bangpuss

Well-known member
his real mission anyway was to move his views closer to the mainstream, which he's certainly accomplished. now he can pass the torch to his son.

His son isn't half the principled politician he is though. After riding the wave of Tea Party activism into the Senate, he has since folded over the toilet paper and begun wiping his ass on the other side, keen to be buttered up by the GOP establishment. From running a campaign that basically wouldn't wipe its ass on a Mitch McConnell or Karl Rove endorsement, to practically asking them to come wipe his ass for him.
 

Bangpuss

Well-known member
Turns out Romney didn't win Michigan after all. He tied with Santorum, so they get equal delegates. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/mar/01/romney-santorum-half-michigan-delegates

When are Americans going to learn to stop announcing election results before they're through counting?! It's happened twice in the GOP primaries already where they've declared a winner, only to backtrack. And then there was the famous 2000 incident where Fox News decided the winner by blurting it out on air before the votes had been recounted properly...
 

crackerjack

Well-known member
Turns out Romney didn't win Michigan after all. He tied with Santorum, so they get equal delegates. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/mar/01/romney-santorum-half-michigan-delegates
.

BBC news was still talking about Romney as the winner an hour after I read about the equal delegate score on Twitter. Not only is it poor to keep pre-calling elections, they should be explaining the difference between winner-takes-all primaries and those that allocate delegates proportionately.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
Wow, that's bad isn't it?
I took this (along with what I've read elsewhere) to mean that Michigan was a winner takes all primary.

The legendary football manager Bill Shankly once summed up what Mitt Romney must have felt after Tuesday's watershed Republican primary contest in Michigan. "If you are first you are first," Shankly reflected. "If you are second you are nothing."
But it's actually just a load of bollocks.
 

Bangpuss

Well-known member
I have made a Guardian comments profile just so I could vent spleen about this. But after posting my comment, I quickly realised why I don't do this sort of thing. Even on the Guardian, you are communicating with idiots, as this response to my initial comment identifies (my original comment is in inverted commas):

Flawedlogic
1 March 2012 11:18AM
Response to LGParker, 1 March 2012 10:39AM

"Could the Guardian please stop repeating the mistakes of other news organisations, such as the BBC, which claim that Romney 'won' Michigan. He received more of the popular vote, but he and Santorum receive an equal amount of delegates. This makes it a tie."

If we follow the same reasoning than Mr Obama should not be President as he received less of the popular vote than Hillary Clinton. Should we advise all news organisations, such as the BBC, which claimed that Obama "won" the Democratic nomination that it was all a mistake and that Hillary Clinton should be President?
 

Leo

Well-known member
didn't think this was worth a new thread so sticking it here...andrew breitbart's father-in-law is (was) orson bean??
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
@Bangpuss - not quite a tie. MI awards most delegates by congressional district, similar to states' electoral votes in gen election. santorum actually won slightly more districts - basically everything outside detroit - but romney got more delegates, I believe b/c his average margin of victory was much higher (many of santorum's wins were very narrow). there are some at-large delegates awarded proportionally to the popular vote but for some reason only 2 of them can vote at the national convention so the rest are worthless. MI is also being penalized by the national GOP for moving it's primary date up w/o permission so some of the district delegates can't vote either + are thus worthless. + yes, primaries in this country are hopelessly overcomplicated. here's a concise explanation. also here is a map of who won where + by how much.
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
even a virtual tie is a romney victory tho. santorum has little hope of winning in the west coast or SW (except maybe NV) or NE so he has to decisively win big heartland states like MI, OH, IL (as well as the south). he also must keep winning to maintain his viability (+ thus $). we'll know after Super Tues if he can drag it out to august.
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
His son isn't half the principled politician he is

you could also view that as the infiltration of libertarianism into the GOP. 15 or 20 years ago it would've been inconceivable for RP to run + pick up a slew of 2nd + 3rd place finishes. he's gone from a Larouche-style fringe character to basically a mainstream politician. true his son doesn't have his stature, but he doesn't have his baggage either. + the time is ripe. the GOP has not had this many crazy people in its ranks since the peak of john birch society cold war hysteria. they've basically hijacked mainstream party leadership + flown it into a cliff.
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
the irony is that William F. Buckley spent his whole life trying to disassociate the GOP from the fringe, kooks, extremists, racists etc, so successfully that it took them nearly 40 years to sneak back in.
 
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