Category: Politics

Santorum Surge: New Poll Shows Gains in Iowa, Closing in on Perry, Bachmann

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The Public Policy Polling article about their latest Iowa survey doesn’t even mention Rick Santorum — instead focusing on the closing gap between Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul — but when you look closer at the numbers, something else becomes apparent:

CANDIDATE ……… Dec. 3-5 … Dec. 11-13
Newt Gingrich ………………. 27% ……. 22%
Ron Paul ……………………… 18% ……. 21%
Mitt Romney ……………….. 16% ……. 16%
Michele Bachmann ……….. 13% ……. 11%
Rick Perry ……………………  9% …….  9%
Rick Santorum ……………..  6% …….  8%
Jon Huntsman ……………..  4% …….  5%
Gary Johnson ………………  1% …….  1%

Gingrich and Bachmann have lost support in the past week, Romney and Perry are flat, and Paul and Santorum have gained ground. Santorum’s 2-point gain — 6% to 8% — may not seem like much, but consider that Perry has piled on $1 million in TV ads without any apparent effect, while Santorum is neck-and-neck without spending a dime on TV.

If the current trend continues another week, Santorum will be in fourth place, ahead of both Perry and Bachmann. And guess what?

RICK SANTORUM
‘NO SURRENDER’
MONEY BOMB

 

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Santorum: The ‘Least Worst’ Candidate?

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Lisa Graas makes an interesting argument about the way voters are manipulated with news about polling. Read the headline and first two paragraph of a NewsMax article Monday:

Rasmussen Poll: Gingrich, Romney
Strongest to Beat Obama
Voters are evenly divided over whether Newt Gingrich or Mitt Romney would provide President Barack Obama with the strongest GOP challenge next November, according to a new Rasmussen Reports poll.
But twice as many Republican voters feel that the former House speaker would have a better chance of beating Obama in the race for the White House. . . .

My own criticism of such a story is this: It is absurd to allow your vote in a primary to be influenced by poll data about “electability” in surveys conducted many months in advance of the election. Such polls will almost always favor the candidate with the biggest “name ID” and, in this year’s Flavor-of-the-Month GOP campaign, we’ve seen front-runners rise and fall. For a few weeks in late August and early September, Rick Perry’s numbers were very encouraging and now — as the Iowa caucuses approach — Perry looks like an also-ran.

Campaigns matter. Hypothetical poll match-ups between candidates cannot predict the events of a campaign, and those unforeseen events will ultimately matter more than the shallow perceptions reflected in polls done in advance of an actual campaign.

That’s my general criticism of reporting polls as facts, as if today’s barometer of public opinion reflected a solid and permanent reality.

Lisa Graas, however, finds something surprising buried deep in that NewsMax article:

Voters were also asked which of the seven leading GOP candidates would do worst against Obama. In that poll, Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann was considered the weakest candidate by 30 percent of respondents, scoring more than double over the next-worst, Texas Gov. Rick Perry. Women gave Bachmann, the only female in the race, an even lower rating than men did. Romney at 4 percent and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum at 7 percent were considered the least-worst candidates.

Of course, Lisa has other arguments in favor of Santorum, but it is interesting to discover — in the seventh paragraph of this article — that Santorum’s low-budget candidacy rivals a big-money contender like Romney in what might be a crucial factor for those GOP voters who place a premium on “electability.”

SANTORUM EXPRESS UPDATE: Pulls Even With Bachmann in New Iowa Poll, Gains Endorsement by Influential Pastor

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Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum moved into a tie for fifth place with Michele Bachmann in the latest survey of Iowa voters, the first poll to indicate an increase in the former Pennsylvania senator’s support with three weeks to go before the Jan. 3 caucuses.

The poll by American Research Group, conducted Dec. 8-11, showed GOP front-runner Newt Gingrich’s support decrease to 22% from 27% a month earlier, while Ron Paul and Mitt Romney are now tied for second at 17% and Rick Perry is fourth with 13%. Santorum and Bachmann were tied for fifth at 7%.

“The ARG poll . . . at least partially reflects Saturday’s Republican presidential debate in Des Moines, Iowa,” The Hill newspaper reported. “The Republican candidates went after Gingrich hard at the debate, criticizing him as a lifelong politician and for his multiple marriages.”

Santorum also added an important endorsement Monday from Rev. Terry Amann said, a pastor at Walnut Creek Community Church in the Des Moines suburb of Windsor Heights. Amann is a member of the board of an influential Iowa social conservative group, the Family Leader.

In a statement released by the Santorum campaign (see full text below), Amman said: “By visiting all 99 counties in our state, Rick Santorum has proven that he will do whatever it takes to get the job done. He will be a refreshing change in Washington.”

Amman called Santorum “a powerful advocate for the unborn, and he has been a strong voice and excellent example for traditional marriage,” and praised his foreign-policy experience. “He understands the nuances and complexities of the Middle East, and of the threats posed by Islamic Jihad.”

The endorsement by Amman follows endorsements Santorum has recently received by Sioux City pastor Cary Gordon, conservative philanthropist Foster Friess and by Iowa Secretary of State Matt Schultz.


* * SANTORUM CAMPAIGN PRESS RELEASE * *

INFLUENTIAL DES MOINES-AREA MINISTER
JOINS THE FIGHT WITH SANTORUM

Urbandale, IA – Republican Presidential Candidate Rick Santorum announced that he has received the endorsement of influential Des Moines-area minister, Rev. Terry Amann.
Rev. Terry Amann said: “I am a pastor at Walnut Creek Community Church in Windsor Heights. I also serve as a pastor to the board of directors of the Family Leader. I do not speak on behalf of these two organizations, but as a private and concerned citizen.
I have been involved in politics for several years, having worked with the Mike Huckabee presidential campaign during the 2008 election cycle, and with the Tim Pawlenty campaign earlier this year.
Today, I am enthusiastically endorsing Senator Rick Santorum for President of the United States.
Rick Santorum is a humble person of solid character and integrity. He has been a powerful advocate for the unborn, and he has been a strong voice and excellent example for traditional marriage. On all points, Rick Santorum is a solid conservative — both socially and fiscally — and he has the political record to prove it. He also knows that we need to cut spending, cut taxes, and create jobs in order to stimulate the American economy. Senator Santorum is also well-versed in foreign policy. He understands the nuances and complexities of the Middle East, and of the threats posed by Islamic Jihad.
By visiting all 99 counties in our state, Rick Santorum has proven that he will do whatever it takes to get the job done. He will be a refreshing change in Washington. He is exactly what we need in a president. I urge all Iowans to carefully consider giving your support to Rick Santorum.”
Senator Santorum said: “I am honored to receive the endorsement of Rev. Amann. Terry is a true leader for traditional American family values not just in Des Moines, but throughout Iowa. I am blessed to receive his vote of confidence today and look forward to working with him as we drive toward victory in the Iowa caucuses.”
Rev. Terry Amann came to the Walnut Creek Community Church in 2007 and was recognized as a pastor in 2008. Rev. Amann has served as pastor in three denominational churches prior to Walnut Creek, as well as serving as a jail and prison chaplain for several years. Terry and his wife, Susan, are the proud parents of three daughters: Sarah, Rachel, and Samanthya.

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Problem Perry’s Campaign Denied in September, Confirmed in December

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Nobody seems to remember who first raised this issue:

Does Pain Explain Perry’s
Poor Debate Performances?

That was Sept. 23, the day after the Orlando debate, and I’d gotten an e-mail tip from blogger Brian Ledbetter that Rick Perry had undergone back surgery in July. The next day, a top Perry adviser denied to Jennifer Rubin that the governor’s back was causing any problem. But now, in an interview with the Des Moines Register, Perry says it was a problem:

I think part of the reason you have seen a somewhat different candidate on the debates is my health, and (I’m) both physically and mentally just back in the game. You have fusion on your back, and it takes you a while to get back on your game. . . . I would suggest to you that I was pretty fatigued.

So today — now that the story is at Memeorandum, Hot Air and PJ Tatler — I’ve got another question:

Why did Perry’s advisers deny the problem in September, if Perry evidently was willing to admit it?

It doesn’t make sense.

UPDATE: Some people on Twitter have decided this as an occasion to renew their ax-grinding against Jennifer Rubin who, as I mentioned Saturday, has been accused of being in the tank for Mitt Romney — and not without reason. But why the ax-grinding on a story that has nothing to do with Romney?

Rubin did due diligence in asking Perry’s people about this story in September, and got a denial that now appears to have been misleading. Rubin’s alleged bias aside, she did valuable work in reporting that story. It would seem that the real disservice to Perry was done by the aides who tried to cover up a problem which — had they been willing to admit it at the time — might have put Perry’s troubles in a more sympathetic light.

Iowa State University ‘Sexuality’ Professor Heckles Rick Perry at Campaign Event

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Warren Blumenfeld, associate professor of “Multicultural & International Curriculum Studies,” academic heckler:

A packed coffee house where Rick Perry spoke this afternoon turned into a bit of a ruckus that left the candidate heading out the back door and straight to his vehicle after several Iowans screamed questions about his views on gays.
“Why do you hate gay people so much,” someone in the audience screamed as Perry wrapped up a campaign stop without taking questions from the audience.
“Go back to Texas” another screamed from the back of Cafe Diem coffee shop in Ames.
Iowa State University associate professor Warren Blumenfeld was one who shouted questions to Perry, asking him why he was marginalizing and demonizing non-Christians.
“The implication is if you’re gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgendered, you’re not a real American,” said Blumenfeld, who teaches studies about sexuality. “He is marginalizing people and dividing this country, and he’s demonizing proud Americans who just don’t have the social identities as he has.”

A quick glance at Blumenfeld’s c.v. indicates he isn’t exactly the sharpest tool in the shed: He got his B.A. in sociology at San Jose State in 1969 and waited some 30 years before getting an Ed.D., which is one of those “junk” degrees that public-school bureaucrats get if they’re an assistant principal who wants to get promoted. Professor Blumenfeld’s “research interests” include:

Multicultural education, queer studies, special education, educational psychology, social identities (race, ethnicity, gender, sexual identity, socioeconomic class, religion, physical and mental abilities) and the ways in which they affect educational outcomes; lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender issues in education; gender fair education; intergroup relations; school bullying; cyberbullying; Christian privilege; African American and Jewish American relations.

Professor Blumenfeld’s academic publications include such prestigious works as Butler Matters: Judith Butler’s Impact on Feminist and Queer Studies and Homophobia: How we all pay the Price.

  • Question One: In tough economic times, how does the state of Iowa justify employing such a professor of useless trivia?
  • Question Two: Doesn’t Professor Blumenfeld read the news? Rick Perry loves gays so much he hired one as his pollster.
  • Question Three: Can’t somebody persuade Professor Blumenfeld to heckle Rick Santorum? He needs the publicity more.

Santorum: Election ‘About Obama’

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“I think we need — and I think the Tea Party people are going to realize we need a clean, clear contrast. We need this race to be about Barack Obama and his record, not with Republicans agreeing with that record. I mean, that would be the last thing we should be nominating is someone who has a bad record on some of the most important issues that we’re going to be dealing with, like bailing out Wall Street, like climate change, like the Obamacare. . . . Three years into [Newt Gingrich’s] speakership there was a conservative revolution to try to get rid of him as speaker. . . . I think that should tell you something.”
— Rick Santorum, on CNN’s “State of the Union“

If you watch the whole video — The Lonely Conservative has posted the full transcript — notice how Candy Crowley begins by dissing her guest:

“Let me talk to you about the topic of the day and get your take on why you think at this point Newt Gingrich is doing so well.”

Translation: “We couldn’t get Newt himself on the show, but we want to talk about Newt anyway, because we all know he’s going to win, right?”

Why “the topic of the day”? Why not come up with your own topics? Why allow yourself to be hemmed in by other people’s conceptions of what’s important and/or interesting? This media herd instinct is annoying.

Via Memeorandum.

 

BOOM! Hot Gay Mess Suddenly Explodes Over Rick Perry’s Iowa Campaign Ad

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Welcome to the point in the campaign when the copy desk starts using words like “embattled” in headlines on stories that include phrases like “mired in controversy” about the “struggling” candidate:

Backlash over a TV ad by Texas Gov. Rick Perry has exploded into public accusations and recriminations, with the leader of a gay Republican group declaring that a longtime GOP pollster is secretly homosexual. . . .
There were reports that some of Perry’s campaign staff — including pollster Tony Fabrizio — opposed the ad’s message. Jimmy LaSalvia, co-founder of the gay Republican group GOProud, gave an interview to the Huffington Post and published Twitter messages in which he used a slur to identify Fabrizio as homosexual.  GOProud subsequently issued a statement declaring: “Rick Perry should be embarrassed and the people around him who are the architects of this strategy, particularly people like Tony Fabrizio, should be ashamed.” . . .

Read the rest of that story — a fine specimen of Neutral Objective Journalism — and ask yourself: What is the obvious consequence of this?

Yeah: Perry’s toast in Iowa. Because as Jazz Shaw notes, Tony Fabrizio’s secret wasn’t really much of a secret:

Tony was apparently actively involved in Outgiving, a strong supporter of LGBT causes, and also did a lot of work for the Log Cabin Republicans.

Imagine how that’s going to play in Sioux City.

On the one hand, Perry can fire Fabrizio and look like a hateful bigot. On the other hand, he can keep Fabrizio and lose the crucial “hateful bigot” vote in Iowa that this TV ad was intended to win over:

He’s trapped, with no good options, and you have to wonder whether Perry will be asked about this “mired in controversy” angle during tonight’s “pivotal” debate. If such a question is asked, of course, there’s no need to wonder what Perry will do: He’ll make a complete fool of himself again.

Ace of Spades didn’t mention the likely political fallout:

I’m tired of Stalinists and blackmailers, personally  But if GOProud’s sick of “faggots,” that’s their deal.

Ace did, however, mention that Andrew Breitbart resigned from the GOProud board. That’s going to pour a few gallons of highly flammable publicity on the sparks of what is destined to become known as the “Perry Campaign Gay Scandal,” which will almost certainly burn down what’s left of Perry’s poll numbers in Iowa.

Imagine what they’ll be saying Monday on Morning Joe. Imagine what Lawrence O’Donnell and Rachel Maddow will do with this story. Imagine how the entire NY/DC liberal media establishment will hop on this story and ride it all week long. It doesn’t take too much imagination, does it? And so now we ask . . .

Cui bono?

That’s Italian. Maybe you can ask an Italian guy what it means.

Rick Santorum Will Score Upset Win in Tonight’s ‘Pivotal’ ABC Debate in Iowa

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That’s not the headline on the ABC News story, of course:

Only three weeks from the Iowa caucuses, the top Republican candidates will square off tonight at a pivotal debate in the state capital. The debate, hosted by ABC News and moderated by Diane Sawyer and George Stephanopoulos, starts at 9pm ET, live from Drake University.
The prime-time debate comes as the GOP race has started to reach a boiling point. With Newt Gingrich surging to the top of the pack, former front-runner Mitt Romney has launched scathing attacks from all sides, from his key surrogates to a political action committee that, while not affiliated with the campaign, is funded by many Romney donors.

We should recognize this as what it is: Hype, of the same sort of stuff Hunter S. Thompson used to write when he was moonlighting as a publicist for a Florida wrestling promoter:

“The entire Fort Walton Beach police force is gripped in a state of fear this week; all leaves have been cancelled and Chief Bloor is said to be drilling his men for an Emergency Alert situation on Friday and Saturday night — because those are the nights when ‘Kazika, The Mad Jap,’ a 440-pound sadist from the vile slums of Hiroshima, is scheduled to make his first — and no doubt his last — appearance in Fish-head Auditorium. Local wrestling impressario Lionel Olay is known to have spoken privately with Chief Bloor, urging him to have ‘every available officer’ on duty at ringside this weekend, because of the Mad Jap’s legendary temper and his invariably savage reaction to racial insults. Last week, in Detroit, Kazika ran amok and tore the spleens out of three spectators, one of whom allegedly called him a ‘yellow devil’ . . .”
— from Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail ’72

The TV network publicists want to hype up this “pivotal” debate as a cage match between Newt and Mitt, so that viewers tune in to see these two Mad Jap stranglers go at one another. The multimillionaire ABC celebrity superstar anchors Diane and George want to burnish their reputations as Important Journalists by presiding over an event of historic consequence and, for that very reason, Rick Santorum might finally catch a break.

What better “news” for ABC than to have their cage-match debate destroy both of the Mad Jap stranglers? And what better dramatic turn in the saga of Campaign 2012 than for the upset winner to be the scrappy underdog now polling in single digits? Can’t you just hear Diane and George in the post-debate analysis segment, “I was surprisingly impressed with Rick Santorum”?

This is predictable, you see. It’s about the narrative arc, because TV news is show business, and show business requires a story that captures the public imagination. The people who run TV news are, to a greater extent than most viewers understand, deliberately controlling the story, deciding what is and is not “news.”

Our perceptions are being manipulated by these people, as I argued last month in my American Spectator column, “Debating the Deciders”:

During the third debate — Aug. 11 in Ames, Iowa, televised by Fox — the moderators clearly were trying to incite clashes between Bachmann and former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, who both were going all-out to win that week’s Iowa Republican Party straw poll. Pawlenty came out the loser in both the Thursday debate and the Saturday straw poll, and by Sunday quit the race. Meanwhile, the race had been transformed by the entrance of Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who quickly rose to become the front-runner. Perry seemed an unstoppable juggernaut until his performance in three June debates derailed his bandwagon. While most of Perry’s debate damage resulted from self-inflicted wounds, this is not to say that the manipulations of moderators were without effect. Howard Kurtz watched as the Fox News team planned for the Sept. 22 debate in Orlando, Florida, aiming to “get some fireworks going,” as Fox managing editor Bill Sammon put it.

Political bias isn’t the only bias of which news media are guilty, although they’re guilty as hell of that. Even those in the media who are conservative tend to have their own prejudices, including the prejudice for inciting “fireworks” in debates — and beating other networks.

That’s why I’ve got a gut hunch about tonight’s debate: The ABC moderators aren’t willing to let Fox News play the “pivotal” role with the Dec. 15 debate. If this race is going to pivot, by God, Diane and George will do the pivoting. I’ve called Santorum a “brutal counter-puncher” in debates (he got some heavy body blows in on Perry during that Orlando debate), and if my hunch is right, the ABC moderators will let him use those skills. Here’s what to look for: Controversial “gotcha” question to either Mitt or Newt and then, after they’ve attempted to evade the question, the moderators call on Santorum to respond, at which point he hammers on the front-runner, who then gets 30 seconds to respond and this back-and-forth then turns into a shouting match — “fireworks!” — with the two candidates interrupting each other.

Let’s face it: The media view Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann as yesterday’s news. Wouldn’t they relish their role as Deciders and Gatekeepers in picking Santorum as the new “Flavor of the Month”?

Should this happen — and it’s just a gut hunch, so I can’t guarantee it will happen — those of my readers who don’t like Santorum are going to be screaming bloody murder about these liberal network celebrities deliberately maniupulating the GOP presidential race. And my response will be, “You just now noticed this? They’ve been doing it all year, and it took you 12 months to catch onto it?”

The problem with some people is that they’re insufficiently cynical. No matter how many times they get played for suckers, they’re still suckers. And the carnies who run TV news have a professional obligation never to give a sucker an even break.