What Does This Sentence Mean?

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“Base hostility will now be exacerbated by Mitt Romney’s backers now undoubtedly making a conscious effort to prop up Rick Santorum to shut down Newt Gingrich.”
— Erick Erickson, Red State

Last night I found myself talking to Caleb Howe, who said how much he hated the argument that a vote for Candidate X is actually a vote for Candidate Y. You see how Erickson deploys exactly that argument in claiming that supporters of Rick Santorum are closet Romneyites.

This would have been news to the Santorum supporters who gathered last night at the Citadel to hear the man they think should be the next president of the United States. There were a lot of home-schoolers and pro-lifers and national security hawks at the Santorum event, and I wonder what they would have made of arguments like this:

“People are mad as hell they are about to be stuck with another boring, moderate, uninspiring choice that has at best a 50/50 shot at losing to the worst president since Carter. They are flocking to Newt not because they think he’s a great guy, but because right now, he’s the only one fighting for conservatism . . .”
— Erick Erickson, Red State

Really? “The only one fighting for conservatism”? Somebody needs to tell this to Newt Gingrich, who praised Rick Santorum in his victory speech Saturday night. And somebody also needs to tell Rick Santorum, who released his Sunday and Monday campaign schedule for Florida a half-hour after the polls closed in South Carolina:

Sunday, January 22:

2:00pm ET:  Senator Santorum will hold a campaign rally at Wings Plus in Coral Springs, FL.
Location: Wings Plus
9880 West Sample Road
Coral Springs, FL

8:00pm ET: Senator Santorum will appear on “Huckabee” on FOX News.

Monday, January 23:

1:30pm ET: Senator Santorum will hold a “Faith, Family and Freedom” Town Hall in Lady Lake, FL.
Location: American Legion Hall
699 East Lady Lake Road
Lady Lake, FL

9:00pm ET:  Senator Santorum will participate in the NBC News/National Journal debate in Tampa, FL.
Location: University of South Florida
Tampa, FL

While nobody has appointed me the Omniscient Arbiter, authorized to write articles titled “What It Means,” I can summarize what one of Santorum’s supporters told me last night about what he expects: Newt and Mitt are going to attempt to destroy each other, and all the while Santorum will keep on campaigning, arguing that he is the “conviction conservative,” steadily accruing support from those conservatives who don’t like either Newt or Mitt.

The Santorum supporter who told me that is a fine young Christian man, and so I did not bluntly express to him what I see as the basic problem with the Gingrich campaign: Sooner or later, people will figure out that Newt is a selfish, arrogant asshole.

And people don’t like selfish, arrogant assholes.

BHO SOU: “Building An Economy `That’s Built To Last` [Until 07 November, 2012]”

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by Smitty

The Hill relays, with some help in brackets by me, the news that #OccupyResoluteDesk used the weekly address to sound even more ominous, this time about

asing tourist visa rules to attract more foreign tourists, as the latest example he has taken to boost the U.S. economy.
It was also the latest example where Obama acted without Congress as part of the White House’s “We can’t Wait [to sieze more power]” campaign.
“As I’ve said before, I will continue to work with Congress, states, and leaders in the private sector to find ways to move this country forward [past the cliff edge],” Obama said. “But where they can’t act or won’t act, I will [deftly shifting from a Nicholson Joker to a Ledger Joker in my inimitable fashion].

Rep. Jeb Hensarling of Texas throws down a gauntlet in advance:I hope that Rep. Alan West gives the GOP response to the SOU, and I hope that West goes completely medieval.
Hot Air notes that BHO’s 2011 Gallup numbers really suck some pond water.

We’ll know more about that as this year unwinds, but unless there is a dramatic economic improvement, those numbers aren’t coming up.

I don’t know about actual economic improvement, but I certainly expect to have something quantitatively eased in the back door of Wall Street, to pump up the Dow like a shot of Botox in Nancy Pelosi, in time for maximum November benefit.

‘Churchill’ Gingrich?

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by Smitty

IBD:

A great debater. Politically polarizing. Prone to great error, but also prone to spectacular success. Steeped in history. Politically brilliant. Unorthodox. Audacious.
All these qualities were once used to describe Winston Churchill. Today, you might use the same words to describe Newt Gingrich. Sound absurd? Not when you think about it.

Read the whole thing. The two points unmade in the article are that NY-23 would be Newt’s Gallipoli, and a tough pill for Tea Party types to swallow in supporting him.

The real humor would be in the presidential debates, when Newt starts quoting Churchill at length to the blatantly anti-British #OccupyResoluteDesk. The thought of watching BHO’s eyes narrow and jaw tighten makes one smile.

via Lucianne

Update: if Newt is Churchill, does that turn BHO into Chamberlain?

Update II: linked at Nice Deb.

Update III: linked by Don Surber.

Charleston Afterthoughts

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CHARLESTON, S.C.
We left the Citadel a little after 10 p.m. and came down to the Courtyard by Marriott on Calhoun Street, where everybody was hanging out. After a while, it was decided that we should go get burgets at Big Guns.

Will Upton of Americans for Tax Reform checks his Twitter feed while we wait for our burgers.

Saul Anuzis chills out with his laptop. Saul is all about Romney, but don’t hate him for it.

Althouse Mis-understimates Newt

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by Smitty

Ann:

Perhaps if Gingrich is the candidate, Obama won’t debate him. Why give him a chance to shine? Here’s why. Obama will predict that the majority of Americans will prefer the nice man who is President over the strange and brash man who is attempting to crush him.

and:

All Obama will need to do is stand his ground and be the normal person, and Gingrich will look like a jackass. Do not fear the Newt. He is self-limiting.

Barack, with his reputation for being such an eloquent speaker (as true as anything else said of BHO) will have to step up to the plate and debate, or be taunted mercilessly with variations on the theme of ‘nutless’.
And Newt isn’t a fool. He’ll understand that, if he comes out with exclamation points, then Ann’s argument holds true. Audience sympathy among fools will fall toward Barack. Which is why Newt will serve up a simple fact, and follow with a question. Sure, as the incumbent, Barack wins by hiding behind the podium. So the clear rhetorical move is draw Barack out past his ring of teleprompters and reveal him for the vastly over-rated bucket of hooey that he is.

SOUTH CAROLINA PRIMARY RESULTS: Newt Gingrich Stops Mitt Romney’s ‘Inevitability’; Rick Santorum Places Third

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CHARLESTON, S.C.
The polls just closed and we are at Mark Clark Hall on the campus of the Citadel, where Rick Santorum will have his Primary Night celebration. Santorum today said he would be pleased with a third-place finish and would definitely stay in the race through the Jan. 31 Florida primary.

Fox News declared Newt Gingrich the winner here the minute the polls at 7 p.m. and apparently, the questions now are (a) what Gingrich’s margin of victory will be, and (c) whether Santorum will beat Ron Paul for third place.

UPDATE: CBS News on the South Carolina exit polls:

Sixty-four percent said the debates were an important factor for them; just 34 percent said they were not. Gingrich won standing ovations in both debates while Romney often struggled — and at one point received a smattering of boos for equivocating over how many years of his tax returns he would release.
A majority of voters — 53 percent — said they made up their mind about who to back within the last few days.

UPDATE II: Just talked to Santorum campaign communications director Hogan Gidley, who referred to this week’s late-breaking news that Santorum won the Iowa caucuses. Romney “was going to 3-and-0 three days ago.” The subtraction of Iowa from Romney’s win column and his weak performance in two debates this week has “blown a hole in his inevitability,” Gidley said. Now each candidate has one win — Santorum in Iowa, Romney in New Hampshire and, apparently, Gingrich in South Carolina — Gidley said: “We’re starting over fresh in Florida.”

Santorum is already advertising in Florida and will unveil a new ad there Sunday.

UPDATE III: The world’s most famous homeschooling dad:

UPDATE IV: Ron Paul was ridiculously long-winded in his speech, forcing the crowd here to wait interminably for Rick Santorum’s turn. During his speech, he was cheerful and smiling, and concluded by saying, “Join the fight!”

One “Occupy” heckler was started shouting during the speech, and then another half-dozen of the “Occupiers” erupted after the speech ended. They were escorted out by security, and then police arrived to escort them off campus. The results, with 67 percent of precincts reporting:

Gingrich ……….. 41%
Romney ………… 26%
Santorum ………. 18%
Paul ……………… 13%

Notice that Gingrich’s margin over Romney (15 points) is greater than Romney’s margin over Santorum (8 points). Romney’s campaign made a strategic miscalculation. There were 11 days between the Jan. 10 New Hampshire primary and today’s primary in South Carolina. And until Monday, Romney’s mix of TV ads here still included attacks on Santorum. Once they realized  that Gingrich was gaining ground, they switch to nonstop attacks on Newt, but the weight of Romney’s ad attacks was less than the impact of Newt’s strong debates.

But Mitt’s “inevitable” mojo spell is now decisively broken, and the questions now are multiple: Can Mitt get his mojo back? Will Newt be able to avoid further “drama”? Can Santorum get the financial resources to stay in the race, hoping to be the last man standing if Newt auto-destructs? Also, given Newt’s decisive margin, was it really necessary for Perry to drop out before the primary in order to stop Mitt?

Discuss among yourselves. I’ve got a deadline tonight for the American Spectator, so that’s all the blogging I’ll be doing for a while.

‘Family’ Is As Important As ‘Marriage’

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by Smitty

VA State Senator Adam Ebbin is wrong, and not just because ‘Gentleman’ Jim Moran is a buddy of his.
Via the Puffington Host:

Senator Adam Ebbin has introduced legislation which would not allow Virginia to fund or contract adoption agencies who discriminate against prospective parents on the basis of ‘race, religion, national origin, sex, age, family status, disability, sexual orientation or gender identity.’

I was quite pleased to vote for a VA constitutional amendment that says ‘marriage’ means what you think it does. And I hope that this Postmodern attempt by Ebbin to conflate the notion of ‘family’ with the Left’s usual nihilistic nonsense fails as utterly as the European societies that follow these ideas.

What people get up to in private is their own business. But if their activities cannot bear fruit, then attempting to use legislation to overcome fruitless personal choices, and tearing up the traditional father (XY) and mother (XX) definition of ‘family’ is absolutely not the answer.

May this attack on core American values fail.

Aside: go, Patrick Murray!

South Carolina Primary Day: Before My Saturday Afternoon Nap in Charleston

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The National Affairs Desk, 8 p.m. Friday, Jan. 20, 2012.
Squinting at my computer screen while blogging about Will Folks.

NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C.
Last night I lost my temper and blew up at Ben Howe, who was defending Erick Erickson’s pro-Perry bias as if it were an inconsequential thing to be shrugged off, despite its disastrous impact on the Republican primary campaign. There was a bit of back-and-forth and obviously, I recognized that Ben was arguing as a special pleader, obligated by the duties of loyalty to defend his Red State boss. But I was also personally invested, having predicted the failure of the “Phantom Menace” — and the likely consequences of that failure — before the fateful launch of the Perry bandwagon.

“What I fear will happen is that Perry will spend several months sucking up media oxygen and burning through GOP donor cash, only to collapse early next year. This will have the effect of suffocating other conservative candidates, and thereby lead to … Romney 2012.”
— Robert Stacy McCain, Aug. 9, 2011

My argument Friday night with Howe was one of those situations where wisdom would have advised, “Drop it. It’s not worth arguing about. Agree to disagree.” But sleep deprivation and too much coffee had made me irritable, and Howe seemed to me to be disingenuously dismissive of Red State’s complicity in the Perry debacle.

On the one hand, you see, Red State constantly boasts of its enormous influence among the conservative grassroots. But on the other hand, having spent many months trying to convince the grassroots that the Smilin’ Texan was The Only Man Who Can Beat Romney, now Howe was trying to pretend that this catastrophic misuse of Red State’s influence was something trivial, and that Erickson should not be held accountable for it. Tired of Howe’s refusal to acknowledge the importance of Erickson’s role, and the enormous responsibility thus borne by Perry’s leading New Media advocates, I finally blew my top when Ben mockingly asked why Erickson should ‘fess up to his error.

“BECAUSE HE WAS F–KING WRONG, AND I WAS F–KING RIGHT, AND HE WON’T F–KING ADMIT IT, THAT’S WHY!”

And then I walked out to have a cigarette and regain my composure. My sudden outburst of rage was embarrassing, despite my own certainty about the essential point: Being right should count for something in the realm of political punditry.

Perry’s botched candidacy had enormous consequences: It discouraged other candidates (including Sarah Palin) from entering the race, it encouraged Tim Pawlenty to quit the race, it robbed Michele Bachmann of the boost she otherwise would have gained for winning the Ames Straw Poll and it prevented anyone from noticing the surprisingly strong fourth-place finish at Ames by Santorum’s low-budget campaign.

Well, I could write a book about all that, but I felt like an idiot for blowing up at Ben Howe, erupting in a fury like Hitler in a Downfall parody.  I should have just walked away and let the topic drop, but didn’t. So I mention it here only as a “colorful highlight” and will drop it now to give you some of the latest headlines via Memeorandum:

Gingrich Is Well-Positioned
as South Carolina Votes
— New York Times

Doubts creep in as an awkward Mitt Romney
tries not to lose the GOP nod
— The Hill

Poll shows big swing as S.C. votes
— CBS News

Mitt Romney Campaign Begins Preparing
For Possible South Carolina Loss
— Huffington Post

America hates Newt Gingrich
— The Washington Examiner

Here’s video of Craig Robinson interviewing Rick Santorum last night:

Santorum’s party tonight will be at the Citadel in Charleston, while the other candidates will all be having their Primary Night events in Columbia. If Perry’s supporters are in a mood to celebrate tonight, they should go to the party thrown by the Romney campaign, to which they unwittingly lent such valuable assistance.

“Howdy. Thank you, Erick.”

Now I’ve got to take a nap, so I don’t get irritable again. I’m so tired I almost forgot the Five Most Important Words in the English Language: Hit the freaking tip jar!




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