Michigan In The Spotlight

One of our faithful readers and dependable commenters wrote:

"I would like to hear your opinions about Michigan. Romney is running more than $1 million in ads against Santorum in Michigan. Is it working? How much will Michigan affect Super Tuesday? What will Gingrich do with the new $10 million donation he just got from his billionaire? He should save it for the southern primaries. The last thing he should do is advertise just enough in Michigan to split the conservative vote again and allow Romney to win it."


Michigan definitely is in the spotlight for the next week leading up to the November 28 primary.  The candidates have been crisscrossing the state making appearances and trumpeting their talking points. Millions are being spent on television ads both pro and con each candidate.  Rommey and Santorum seem to be spending the most. Ron Paul and Gingrich are barely tipping the meter.


 Last Thursday evening we attended the Oakland County (SE Michigan) Republican Party Lincoln Day Dinner.  Usually these events attract 400 or so, however, this one had 1400. The main speakers were Ann Romney (wife of Mitt), Governor Rick Snyder (who has endorsed Mitt), L Brooks Patterson (Republican County Exec), C. L . Bryant (a black conservative film maker) and Rick Santorum. We wondered, does the attendance indicate that Republicans are invigorated or was it the speakers? Obviously having Santorum come to your county meeting is a strong attraction, however, we do believe that the Republicans, Tea Party members and independents are very interested in making Obama a one term President.


As far as speakers go, in our mind, C.L. Bryant stole the show. He had the attendees standing in the aisles with his very strong Republican, personal and religious freedom and anti-Obama speech. His eloquent rhetoric struck the notes that we wish other candidates would have. We are going to see if we can find a copy of the speech and if so, we will post it. It was very memorable.


Ann Romney told us about her illnesses  and how Mitt had stood by her through thick and thin (an anti Gingrich comment?) and how he was a businessman who had been tested in turnaround situations and how he could solve the nation's problems.  It was a good candidate's wife's speech.


We were  unimpressed with Santorum's delivery. Although the speech hit all the right notes, it seemed that when he was making a point, he seemed unable to strongly drive it home.  He seemed tired although his speech hit the right subjects  (ObamaCare, the budget, foreign affairs, his social conservative views), it did not get the rousing appeal of Bryant's.  It was at the end of a long day of campaigning so we will give him a break. 


As far as the Michigan vote goes, it appears as if Santorum has opened up a double digit lead over Mitt in a couple polls.  This would hurt Romney badly as the state was his home and his father, George,  was a former governor. Before we vote, we believe the margin will decrease to the 1-5% range but with a Santorum edge. Newt will be a far third place with Paul in single digits.  


Romney is being hurt here with his stand on the GM and Chrysler bailouts to which he was not in favor. We agree with his stand but many in the state do not. They do not want to have their ox gored.  


Another reason that Romney is lagging is that Michigan is an open primary which means anyone can vote in it.  The unions have in the past and probably will this time,  encourage their members to vote for Santorum as they feel he would be the weakest candidate to go up against Obama. The exit polls will tell us the impact of this strategy.


We do not see much Gingrich advertising, however, the Super Pacs, do not have to disclose who they are supporting so detecting who is paying for the anti-Romney and anti-Santorum ads are hard to detect. The billionaire supporter of Gingrich might be paying for some of the ads, but we have not seen any evidence of it.


As far as visiting, Gingrich was in Michigan in November, but we do not know of another visit lately.  His campaign says he will be in the state before the November 28 primary. We will see.


Gingrich should be paying attention to the State of Georgia  after his comment on the Sunday shows. His statement said that if he loses Georgia, Romney doesn't carry Michigan or Santorum is defeated in Pennsylvania, those respective campaigns will be severely damaged. 


As far as Super Tuesday goes, Michigan is the setup act for this major election day.  Who ever wins Michigan will take that advantage into this multi-state contest. It will not guarantee a win, but it will definitely set the tone.


Will any of the four remaining candidates bow out before the election? If we were to guess, the answer would be, no. However, should anyone of them suffer devastating losses in the upcoming weeks, it would be a possibility. As long as they all stay competitive, continue racking up delegates, they will stay in the race all the way to the convention.  


Could we get a deadlocked convention? Probably, if they all stay competitive, we could see the first convention in recent history with more than one vote for President.  After the first vote, there will be movement among the candidates and if not on the second but by the third vote, we will have our candidate.  From a political junkie standpoint, that would be great, however, the party would probably be scared to death on how the news media would report it.


That is the report from Michigan. If you have any additional questions, please post them and we will respond.


Conservative Tom

Santorum Wins Big

What do yesterday's three wins mean for Santorum?  Nothing.  It might be the high point in his campaign or just the start.  Anyone who says any different is going to be wrong. This season, more than anytime before,  we have seen Perry, Bachman, Cain and others peak then retreat into oblivion.  

The great thing about the win is that it brings a new breath of life into a campaign that looked like was Romney's to lose and for Newt to throw bombs. Whether the former Massachusetts governor is the eventual winner, a lot will depend upon Super Tuesday which 

come up in early March.

By the way, Santorum is coming to the Detroit area next week and we are going to see him. We will report our impressions after the meeting.

Congratulations to Santorum, welcome to the race and now lets see how you withstand the scrutiny!

Conservative Tom

We Felt It Coming,' Santorum Says After Triple Win

By Susan Jones

February 8, 2012

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Republican presidential candidate former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum gives a thumbs up before speaking during a primary night watch party Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2012, in St. Charles, Mo. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)

(CNSNews.com) - Former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum, on the morning after his triple win in Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri, said he "felt it coming."

"The last few weeks, while we weren't doing particularly well in the polls in Florida and Nevada, we were doing great in getting the kind of support that we needed to keep this campaign going. Our fundraising was maybe our best two weeks, the last two weeks," Santorum told Fox & Friends on Wednesday.

"So we felt it -- we felt it coming, we felt people understanding that we have the best record and the best vision to go up against President Obama. We will make him the issue in this race."

Santorum indicated that the nasty exchanges between Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich may have helped him.

"[W]e saw the bickering between two candidates who weren't that different on the issues. Unfortunately, they're not that different from President Obama on a lot of the issues, and I think people are beginning to realize that now."

Santorum said the Americans "are looking for someone who has a positive, uplifting vision for the country."

Asked about Romney now going negative  on Santorum -- it's already happening: The negative mailings and robo-calls already have started, he said.

"But the bottom line is -- their attacks on me -- Mitt Romney is saying that I'm not a conservative. I mean, that's just -- that's almost laughable for a moderate Massachusetts governor who has been for big government programs."

Santorum laughed off Romney's charge that Santorum likes earmarks. Santorum said Romney supported "the biggest earmark in the history of the country" -- the Wall Street bailout.

"Look we've got the best record, and he's going to just have to live with that record, and we're going to make it part of this campaign."

Santorum also repeated his criticism of the Obama administration's requirement that Catholic-affiliated institutions offer their employees health plans that include contraceptive coverage.

"The issues I've been stressing are Obama care, the Wall Street bailout and cap and trade -- three issues where Barack Obama and unfortunately, Mitt Romney are right on the same position where they believe in the government managing the energy, manufacturing, health care and financial services sector of the economy -- that's what got us going across this country, and it's going to keep us going all the way to the fall."

An Object Lesson In Politics

If you are a political junkie like we are, the following article by Dick Morris is a lesson in successful, smart campaigning.  Read the article. It is amazing. We would hope that the same smart tactics could be used against Obama by whomever is the Republican candidate.

Conservative Tom

 

How Mitt Suckered Newt

 

By Dick Morris
01.31.2012

 

 

Published on TheHill.com on January 31, 2012

For students of American politics, following the way the Romney campaign played Newt Gingrich in Florida is a lesson to learn and to keep. Romney’s people must have realized that Newt does best when he is positive. His bold ideas, clear vision, revolutionary insights and extraordinary perspectives resonate with voters and win him millions of supporters.

Romney, less compelling but more consistent, doesn’t need stellar debate performances or bold vision to win. The case for the former Massachusetts governor is more circumstantial: He can reach out to independents by virtue of his past apostasies on healthcare and abortion. He looks, talks and acts like a president. His record of job creation is exemplary.

But Newt needs the bold sally, the breathtaking moment of rhetorical clarity, to prevail.

So Romney’s people set out to mire Newt in negatives so he couldn’t and wouldn’t get out the positive message he needed to project to prevail. They tormented him with negative ads in Iowa. While the ads were generally accurate — the allegation about backing China’s forced-abortion policy aside — they presented only one side of the story and were stinging in their impact. Without funds, Gingrich couldn’t answer the negative ads. He fumed but watched, in impotence, as his vote share fell away.

In Spanish bullfights, the picadors torment the bull by sticking darts into his shoulders. Enraged, bleeding, frustrated and in pain, he lowers his head, snorts, paws the ground and charges straight at the matador, oblivious to the sword awaiting him behind the red cape. That’s about what Romney did to Gingrich in the January primaries.

Enter Sheldon Adelson, a Vegas billionaire who loves Newt. His affection runs so deep that he gave Gingrich the funds to destroy himself. With Adelson’s reported contribution of $5 million-plus, Newt had the weapons to fight back with his own negative ads. In a rage, he put them on TV and devoted his time in the debates to throwing accusations. RomneyCare. Abortion. Gay rights. The taxes Romney paid and the ones he advocated. Massachusetts moderate. No, make that Massachusetts liberal. They tripped off his tongue and his super-PAC put them on the air. Sheldon paid the bill. But Newt paid the price.

No longer was he Newt the visionary, the leader, the intellect. He was a Nixonian caricature of himself, wallowing in negatives, forsaking the chance to explain himself and his ideas for the chance to jab with attacks.

Newt needed to rebut. Newt needed to go positive. Newt did not need to go negative. He should have used Adelson’s funds to reply to Romney’s attacks and then to articulate his bold plans for his first day in office. He did not need to exchange punches with Mitt.

As Newt lost his aura, Romney surged. At times, it seemed that Gingrich was motivated more by fury — like the Spanish bull — than by ambition or strategic sense. He had lost his cool, and all could see it.

In the end, his foray into negatives raised again the specter of Newt the loose cannon, firing any negative that came to hand. Newt the destroyer who shut down the government and handed Clinton the election in 1996.

Romney pulled Newt off his game. Late on the Monday night before the primary, we had a vision of what could have been. Newt went on the “The Sean Hannity Show” and laid out a sweeping plan for his first month in office. His obvious grasp of the legislative process and the potential reach of executive action was vintage Gingrich. Where had he been all campaign? Wallowing in negative campaigning, courtesy of Romney’s strategy in playing him.

Prediction: Obama Gets Second Term

We are sure that some of you reading this headline are wondering form where we are coming.  We are very concerned with the mealy mouthed, lily-livered leadership that we have in the House and Senate. They cave at the earliest convenience and hand the opposition the fire power to take the issue and make it theirs.  Where are our leaders?

How can we expect to implement corrective actions that will save this country, if our leaders cannot even make their points in cogent, concise statements?  Or are they really just statists of another political stripe? They have no guts and are not willing to make the hard decisions that is needed in the rumble-tumble of politics. It is not a gentleman's sport and we seem to have people who think it is! 

In politics, those leaders who got things done (ala LBJ or Pilosi) were hard charging, get the H out of the way, we are doing it my way. They took no prisoners and when they talked, everyone listened.  The opposition might not agree but they knew that somehow these men and woman would get it accomplished. Why do we not have a Republican of this ilk?

With our current leadership in the House and Senate along with the weak crop of candidates that we have fielded, we can expect that Obama will be re-elected with the distinct possibility that the Democrats will regain the House and maintain the Senate. If this disaster were to occur, it would mean the end of the United States as the country in which we have grown up. Spending controls would go out the window and every socialist program that could be created, would be. 

Obama would have the opportunity to appoint several new Supreme Court Justices which would mean the end of the Second Amendment and other rights. Lower Federal Courts would be packed with liberal leaning jurists. Programs like "Fast and Furious" would be the rule of the day. Illegal immigration would be legalized.

In other words, the once great United States would be reduced to a third world country.

Will we stand for it? Probably, we would be so busy trying to feed our families that striking or protesting would hurt them.

However, we cannot allow this to happen. Obama and his legions must be defeated.  Are you going to do your part? We cannot depend on the leadership of the Republican party to do its share of the heavy lifting. It must be individuals, ground level activists that make the difference. Are you one of them?  I am and so was Derek Mothershead in the following story as was Joe the Plumber. We need you, are you with us?

Unless we all come together, Obama will get a second term. Do you want that?

Conservative Tom

America's Big Loser in 2011: Americans

By Ben Shapiro

December 29, 2011

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In North Carolina this week, a young man named Mostafa Kamel Hendi hit upon a plan to make ends meet in this rotten economy: He decided to knock over a local gold store. Tape shows this determined and enterprising flower of American youth strolling into the store, hoodie over his head, and then gesturing to the clerk, Derek Mothershead, to shove some money in a plastic bag.

Mothershead, however, not being a member of the liberal effete class who believe that all robbery is a noble redistributionist impulse, had an unexpected reaction. He handed Hendi some money — and then, as Hendi bent to put the money in the bag, Mothershead clocked him with a tremendous left. Hendi went down, bleeding profusely. "There was just an opportunity there where I thought that I could actually do something and justice could be served," said Mothershead, "and I thought that's what needed to be done." This tough Mother then forced Hendi to clean up his own blood with paper towels and cleaning solution. "If he wants money," Mothershead added, "get a job. Work like everybody else in this world."

Poor Hendi. If only he had worked for the government, none of this would have ever happened. Unfortunately, it seems there's simply no way to fight back against a government full of Hendis hell bent on taking our money at the point of a gun — for our own good, of course.

When 2011 dawned, it seemed a year of hope and change. After all, at the end of 2010, we elected Republicans in a Congressional landslide. President Obama was on the rocks thanks to charting a committed course of spending, spending and more spending. Most of all, the voting populace seemed to understand for the first time in 60 years that not only is there no such thing as a free lunch, but the man who offers the free lunch expects your firstborn child in return. Government, we realized, was Rumpelstiltskin rather than Santa Claus.

As the year progressed, however, it became clear that no matter who we elected, they were unwilling to say Rumpelstiltskin and make the greedy monster disappear. Republicans collapsed not once but twice on the spending issue. First, led by hack Speaker John Boehner, they imploded in April when, to avoid the dreaded "government shutdown" — a shutdown which, by the way, would essentially impact nobody except those on government benefits — Republicans agreed to cut a mere $38 billion from the 2010 baseline budget and keep funding to Planned Parenthood flowing. As it turned out, that $38 billion wasn't $38 billion at all but actually $352 million.

Obama's plans to move forward. And, to top that off, Obama got to push the debt crisis down the road past the election so that he wouldn't have to discuss his shopaholic problem until after his re-election. Oh, yes, we were also downgraded, to boot, on our national credit by Standard & Poors. So that worked out well.

The Republican Party has responded to all of this chicken-heartedness by feting Boehner as a great leader and proposing that conservatives nominate one Mitt Romney, former governor of Massachusetts. Romney is clearly to the GOPs liking — he fits the profile of the tough-talking scalpel-wielder and the in-office wimp. And we've been told that he's inevitable, like death and taxes. Meanwhile, Iowa Republicans, in the apparent grip of rabies, are now considering nominating Congressman Ron Paul, who is a real scalpel-wielder on domestic policy but has his cannon fixed on self-slaughter on the foreign front.

To no one's surprise, with the GOP offering a contrast like this, many Americans are content to settle for the real thing: a second Obama term. Despite a list of scandals that would have sunk any Republican president, despite leading America to the worst economic performance since Franklin Delano Roosevelt, despite crippling American influence in the Middle East for the next two generations, Obama rides high with a 44 percent approval rating. All he needs is to split the independent vote evenly to win re-election.

So what will 2012 be like? It depends on whether Americans are willing to punch back — not just at Democrats but at Republicans as well. It depends on whether they are willing to tell their fellow citizens to stop leeching off of the 1 percent and start working for themselves rather than the great collective.

When Mothershead investigated Hendi's gun after K.O.-ing him, he found that it wasn't genuine — it was a pellet gun. The truth is that if we stand up to it, our government is armed with pellet guns, too. Let them shut down the government, other than essential services. Good riddance. Let them warn of dire economic consequences if they're unable to send billion-dollar checks to abortion clinics. Somehow, we'll deal with it.

If we want 2012 to be a year of freedom, we'll have to stand up for it rather than settling for an agenda of half-freedom. Half-freedom is no freedom at all, no matter who is in office.

    

Ron Paul Post #1

Today I am posting two Ron Paul commentaries.  The first follows and the second will be posted in a couple minutes.
We are doing this as a service to our readers. Ron Paul seems to be gaining traction and running a very good campaign.  Will he eventually be the candidate, no one can say so at this time, but he definitely will be one of the last in the field.
The main reason is that his followers are believers. They love the man and what he stands for.  My major concern is will they vote for someone else should he not get the nomination. Again, a question that has no answer at the time.
We will be watching and want your input.Conservative Tom

Ron Paul's brilliant Iowa campaign

By Brent Budowsky - 12/21/11 10:21 AM ET

I try to be a little ahead of the media curve, especially regarding Ron Paul. For today I want to make one major point, which is that his campaign in Iowa is one of the most brilliantly run campaigns I can remember.

I have emphasized his organizational ability to identify and get out the vote as well as the strong loyalty among his supporters. I would add a very significant dimension, which is that Ron Paul has a first-rate staff that has organized a first-rate campaign on multiple levels.

I do not know his staff, but the result is clear. The quality and timing of his television ads, his multi-dimensional message, his targeting of voters outside normal political channels, his sequencing of various aspects of the campaign simultaneously and the high level of professionalism of his campaign structure are all exceptional.

I will have more about this soon. I suspect that ultimately the way the Paul campaign in Iowa is being run will be compared to the way Obama's Iowa campaign was run in 2008 in terms of the pure mechanisms of running a caucus campaign. It would not shock me if the results in 2012 compared to 2008 have Paul playing the role of Obama, Mitt Romney playing the role of Hillary and mostly likely Gingrich but possibly one of the other conservatives instead playing the role of Edwards (from a purely results point of view).

I tip my hat to the professionalism of the Ron Paul campaign organization.