American politics
The 2012 Republican primary
Will Ron Paul win Iowa?
Dec 21st 2011, 13:16 by W.W. | IOWA CITY
NATE SILVER, the New York Times' whiz horse-race handicapper, says Ron Paul is more likely than not to clinch the upcoming Iowa caucus. And here is a pretty picture for Mr Paul: it shows polling trends for Republican presidential candidates in Iowa between June and December. Michele Bachmann is omitted, but it's a good summary of the story in Iowa so far. A series of candidates enjoyed fleeting seasons of glory, then tanked disastrously. (You flew too close to the sun, Rick Perry. You flew too close to the sun!) Mitt Romney's support dipped slightly as each flavour of the week hastened toward his peak, then he more or less recovered with each precipitous fall. All the while Ron Paul chuffed steadily along, slowly but surely picking up support. Mr Paul's numbers have only ever gone up, and if the trend continues, he's got it in the bag. But don't bet the farm on him just yet.
It's highly unlikely Mr Paul will suffer a Bachmann-Perry-Cain-Gingrich-style flame-out, but I suspect he is now at or near his peak, and will experience a steady erosion of support heading toward the January 3rd caucus. Though Mr Paul is not burdened with anything resembling Mr Gingrich's doorless, walk-in closet full of skeletons, he has profound problems that will only become clearer in the coming weeks. He's already taking heavy fire from mainstream conservative pundits. Rich Lowry of National Review calls Mr Paul a paranoid "blame-America-first libertarian". Mr Paul's anti-war streak surely accounts for much of his popularity with younger voters, but his taste for "blowback" explanations of anti-American terrorism, and his sanguinity toward the prospect of Iranian nukes, do not go down well with hawkish mainstream Republicans. This will be easy for Mr Romney to exploit. Ramesh Ponnuru, another National Reviewer, argues persuasively that Mr Paul's lonely opposition to the overwhelmingly popular 1964 Civil Rights Act is also likely to hurt him, especially in light of his history of publishing bigoted screeds in an eponymous newsletter, about which Matt Welch of Reason offers a helpfully comprehensive round-up of commentary. How many of Mr Paul's collegiate enthusiasts know about his links to dodgy race-baiters? Fewer than will in two weeks.
Meanwhile, Mr Romney is doing pretty well considering that he's been mostly absent from Iowa. Mr Paul has been running savvy TV ads here for months and months; Mr Romney has only just begun airing slick spots about a handsome, conservative man of faith and unimpeachable moral character who understands how the economy works, once saved the Olympics, and will never, ever apologise for the United States of America. I can't imagine these will hurt him. Mr Paul has money to burn, and can go negative on Mr Romney, if need be. But Mr Romney has already weathered months of front-runner heat, and has much less to lose from an exchange of negative ads than does Mr Paul, whose image in Iowa so far has been shaped almost exclusively by his own campaign.
That said, as a politics blogger, I hope Mr Paul pulls off a photo-finish here. If Mr Romney sweeps the early states, the most ridiculously enjoyable primary season in recent memory will turn dreadfully dull.
In this blog, our correspondents share their thoughts and opinions on America's kinetic brand of politics and the policy it produces. The blog is named after the study of American politics and society written by Alexis de Tocqueville, a French political scientist, in the 1830s
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Ah tol´ya before.. your arguing does not make waves..
I just shut you up easily... Haven´t you noticed ?? Donah..//
It is amazing that someone like Donah can make offensive and racist remarks and then take offense so easily at being called on it. If you aren't willing to be called a racist, don't make racist comments.
I could legitimately claim descent from Brian Boru, High King of Ireland, and that would not give my opinions any weight whatsoever. Might as well argue the value of Royalty using the Nazi-sympathizing King of England who might well have been deposed for that if he hadn't abdicated first.
As to Native Americans, who have continued to suffer from racist slurs, I can't imagine a real one slandering others in that way. The Hodenosaunee had villages as well developed as the illegal immigrants', and were strong enough to keep their land until they abandoned neutrality and divided between both sides in the American Revolution. They have had to put up with years of false stories about their inferiority or violent attacks on poor white women.
Other tribes have been blamed for attacks that were just self-defense against encroachments. So Donah can go right ahead and play the same game of slander and scape-goating. and trying to defend it by everything except real evidence.
Nuh wah doe he yaw duh! [Hodenosaunee = Peace!]
You are SICK.... !! Donah..//
It's unfortunate that you didn't label the 'hawkish' Republican pundits for what they are, Military Industrial Complex Media Shills.
The war in Iraq was supposed to make America safer, instead all it has done is bankrupt America, remove our Freedoms, and give the Terrorists even MORE power all while we continue to send over $100 Billion in oil money to them each year.
Mitt Romney is a Wall-Street insider, if he or Perry are elected we will have another 4 years of George Bush, and Obama is turning out to be as two-faced as his predecessor George Bush. Instead of ending the war, he is trying to start another, instead of closing the Foreign Prisons he has signed a bill that expands it and allows AMERICAN CITIZENS to be sent there.
My grandfather and father are SICKENED by what this country is becoming, one who gave part of his right hand and the other who gave his right eye for this country. What can I say? The Founding Fathers would be sickened to see the unconstitutional mis-treatment of American citizens by the police state.
The US government spends more and more on the police state and ENDLESS laws attempting to control the behavior of US citizens, while our roads and infrastructure ROT.
The EU and CN spend 20% of GDP on their infrastructure expansion. I could continue for hours listing the ways that the US is falling behind. In almost every category the US is falling behind the rest of the world, except ONE, and that is Income Inequality.
Welcome to America, the USSA, go Mitt RObama!
I Love Ron Paul. The only candidate that speaks the truth; wants us out of the wars, focus on the economy, slow to stop government spending, etc.
now if he could only remember who wrote those nasty racist articles
published in those little newsletters he put out ...
´All well ´n dandy.. but GI... them pretenders have been yelling the same issues for the last 9 terms... that´s at least 36 years !!... I don´t believe them -- nor hear them anymore... reason why I look "thru".. X-Ray them and see their messed-up noodles... in negative reality..
Paul, Romney.. no doubt are decent family men...there are more.. but that´s not the point.. we can´t use decent godfearing family men... (reason?:- God does not give them the power to clear up our American mess... GOD DOES NOT EXIST... IF he ever did.. HE WOULD HAVE SENT "HIS ONLY SON" BACK INTO THE ARENA.. (that´s what you wanna believe in) AND WE WOULD HAVE BEEN SOME OTHER SORT OF HOMOS.. DIFFRENT FROM THE SORT WE ARE NOW.... It didn´t happen... in 2000 years.... Got it...??
(Either God does not exist.. OR ...HE isn´t listening to your pleas..... !! (I´m a total non-believer)
You´ve been "had" by your mega preachers. You paid them! Are you so much better off like them ???
You just wanna hear what you wanna hear... Crap !!..
Sure.. Newt has been of the same system.. the one we all grew up in .. but we need something else which is still the big Q:-will we be able to get what we are after.. what we´re talking about ??
I sure do hope so.. but I have my practical doubts.... We´re bucking a system created and sickened by fake religion, fake Jew and fake niggahs.. ´Face it.....
Newt.. the Clintons, Roosevelt.. Ronnie Reagan.. Ike..the Bushes never were any near to God...
You must be out of your fucking cradle to believe th shit..
But that´s not the point...
The point is - How do we get out of this American created mess..??
I give Newt a shot... and the Clintons.. and Sarah Palin... WITH THE RIGHT STAFF AND BACK UP....
Donah..//
You wanna know..?? Go find your own thumb tacks at low water... or put your own commas behind any period... Donah..//
This is why big states don't want to go first. It's the job of Iowa and the early primaries to weed out the pretenders and acquaint the voters with the rest of the field still in the race. It's not a house of cards. One victory doesn't follow a previous one. This is shaping up to be the first political convention in years that may demand more than one ballot for the nomination. First and foremost it concerns who controls the Republican Party. So who controls the tea party faction? Once leadership is settled Romney will be brushed aside.
wOOOOOO I wish I was rON PauL COS theN i COULD LIve IN iOWA! wOOOOOOO
Any presidential candidate who doesn't have hallucinations of weapons of mass destruction is crazy.
Ron Paul a racist??? Because of how he voted in 1964? I don't think that will scare off many people, raising it smacks of despair, though it does make me wonder if he is not too old to be president if he could vote for something important 47 years ago!
Strange times indeed when "sane" is defined as agitating for another war about nothing in the Middle East with the global economy teetering on the precipice of economic depression and "crazy" is refusing to be caught up in War Hysteria 2.0.
John F. Kennedy said something like: if non-violent revolution is not allowed, then violent revolution will become inevitable.....
Ron Paul has not changed his voting records in 30 years, always honest and consistent, he is a decent man....
If the main stream media keep on giving biased report on people like Ron Paul... when the whole economic system collapsed some day, the riot may happen in the street......
Our gaudy spectacle once again works given Gingrich's failure in Virginia, for in the smoking ruin of reputation, the last two men standing (Romney and Paul) are the best of a pretty bad lot. William Blake was the theory, we are the practice, "and Los smil'd with joy".
The Citizens United decision did enable wealthy fools to buy elections but as it has happened, buying elections is like buying a yacht, only worse. A wag has said that to simulate the experience of boat ownership, stand in a cold shower tearing up 100 dollar bills.
To simulate the experience of buying an American election, stand in a cold shower spraying raw sewage, and make those bills, 1000 dollar bills.
Buying an election? Like buying a boat,
Which as you can well imagine will cost rather more than a groat,
No, if buying a boat is as has a wag said,
Something for the wealthy man who has gone completely off his head,
And stands in a cold shower, tearing up one hundred dollar bills,
Resulting in nothing but an Ague with the chills,
Then buying an election under Citizens United
Is only for someone even more benighted:
Stand in said shower but set it to something unmentionable in polite company
That starts with an S and ends with a T
And don't tear up mere Franklins:
Rather tear up some engraved portraits of Grover Cleveland
Eponymous as he is of that somewhat faded city on Lake Erie's fair strand:
Only one thousand dollar bills
Will truly simulate the experience of plutocrats who buy elections, with money and shills.
I spport Dr. Ron Paul.
How can printing more fiat money to bailout banks solve anything? It creates inflation and banks keep on paying themself hundreds billions bonus? privatize profits? socialize losses? inflation is a tax to the poor, that is why the poor getting poorer and rich getting richer.......
Just like all the other GOP/TP candidates Ron Paul wants to cut taxes for the wealthy (e.g. by Amending the Constitution to repeal the federal income tax paid primarily by the better off). Like them he also wants to eliminate critically important federal programs, rules and regulations that protect workers, consumers, women minorities and the environment including social security and medicare which he believes are akin to "slavery." But he would go much further. Far from a "libertarian" at the state level he is an authoritarian and a religious extremist. He wants to dismantle the federal government and create a New Confederacy where the separate states would be free to criminalize abortion, mandate prayer in public schools and require the teaching of creationism. He does not believe in evolution, global warming or the importance of the separation of church and state. He is also opposed to campaign finance and lobby reform. While it is unlikely he will be able to accomplish much of his agenda without the help of congress as president he just might get the opportunity to nominate judges willing to strike strike down a woman's right to choose. That he is even being considered as a viable candidate shows what desperate straights we are in as a nation.
When feces found in the U.S. Capital was determined to be Ron Paul’s, his supporters were quick to hail it the best idea, anywhere, ever and also delicious!
Did Christmas steal the Gingrich?
Ron Paul for presisent 2012
US does not need another politician, a medical doctor is better.....
Where the Candidates stand:
.....................Obama.....Gingrich....Romney....Perry.....Paul
Big $ Influence.......YES........YES.........YES.......YES......NO
Wars..................YES........YES.........YES.......YES......NO
Bail outs.............YES........YES.........YES.......YES......NO
Illegal aliens........YES........YES.........YES........YES......NO
Big government........YES........YES.........YES........YES.....NO
War on drugs..........YES........YES.........YES.......YES.. ..NO
Deficit spending......YES........YES..........YES.......YES.....NO
Foreign aid...........YES........YES..........YES.......YES.....NO
Balanced Budget.......NO..........NO..........NO........NO.....YES
End the ED............NO..........NO..........NO.........NO.....YES
Follow Constitution...NO..........NO..........NO.........NO.....YES
Truthful..............NO..........NO..........NO.........NO.....YES
Protect Liberty........NO.........NO.............NO.........NO.....YES
Nothing personal, but Ron Paul would be the Sarah Palin of the Republican party, and help them snatch defeat from the jaw of victory.
I must agree with the Economist here - these Republican primaries are political nuts but a great show.