Glass Jaw

Apparently, Newt Gingrich is already on the wane. Herman Cain suspended his campaign all of 10 days ago. The polls that came out in the middle of the next week, otherwise known as a week ago, put Gingrich in a much better position. Now, after a debate and a few more days of polling, a 4 point drop in one poll has made him another shooting star. Ron Paul is about half as popular and he’s still in the running. The media is actually running a news cycle faster than the actual news now.

I don’t know any people of such cool intelligence that they can plan some complicated scheme where every piece has to work just right. It’s why I have a hard time getting on board conspiracies. It’s probably why I can’t stand Ron Paul. There are people out to destroy our way of life, but most of them fall into 2 categories. There are the ones who are reaching their goals through crude, ham-handed force and there are the ones who are destroying America as a byproduct of gaining either money or power.

It may be Gingrich or Paul or Romney who gets the nomination. Even if it’s Bachmann, Santorum, Christie or even Palin, one thing is clear. Someone needs to take the fight to Obama. The media and the administration have their dials set to 11. They’re ready to call you a racist if you call Obama a “dark horse candidate.” You might as well go all in and call him the food stamp president, too.

I have one lousy character trait I share with Barack Obama. I hate being told I’m wrong. I have blown up a lot more than I should have in situations where it’s happened. I’m usually better about it when I am wrong, but that isn’t always the case. I say this because making Obama look dumb is the key to taking him out. It’s his glass jaw. Hit it in the right spot and he’ll go freaking insane.

Palin tried to do it before she got shut down by McCain’s terrible campaign staff. Netanyahu did it to Obama in public. From what I hear, he exploded at his staff as soon as he got behind closed doors. From everything I’ve seen, Newt Gingrich can do it, too. Perry’s ad team can do it. Romney would need a lot of work to be able to do it.

The disadvantage of a sycophantic media is that Obama has some thin skin for a terrible president of an under-performing economy. He’s a sore winner and an angry loser. Break him and you break the campaign.

The Klown Theory of Winning Super Bowls

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Here’s my two-step theory of how to win Super Bowls:

Step 1: Make the playoffs.

Step 2: Win the last game.

Every year 12 NFL teams make the playoffs. 11 of those teams will lose their last game. The playoff team that wins their last game wins the Super Bowl. Sometimes the best team wins, sometimes the lowest seed takes home the trophy instead.

But this post isn’t really about football.

I don’t know who will win the presidential election next year. But I do know this: The winner will be a Democrat or a Republican.

Barack Obama will be the Democratic candidate. If the election is a referendum on Obama’s first term, the Republican will win.

Lately we keep seeing lots of people on both sides saying things like “There is no way Soandso could beat Obama.” That is wrong.

Don’t forget – Bush won.

Twice.

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Time POTY – Mike Check

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You can’t make this stuff up:

Really? The most influential and newsworthy person of the year currently occupies space in urban downtown areas, unless you’re on the West Coast, where you can find them hanging out at the docks, blocking traffic and making your cost of goods needlessly increase. At least that’s how Time Magazine sees it, and they get there by conflating the Arab Spring protests with the labor-driven Occupy “movement,” which is collapsing from its own meaninglessness

[...]

In 2009, Time had the same opportunity to pick “the protester” when the protests were the Tea Party and Iran’s Green Revolution, which followed from Ukraine’s Orange Revolution, and so on. Who did they pick? Ben Bernanke. When the Tea Party movement actually delivered results at the ballot box in 2010 in a historic midterm drubbing of Barack Obama’s Democrats — they lost 68 seats, the worst outing since 1938 — they could have hailed The Protester then, too. Who did they pick? Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.

So they’re a little late to “the protester” story in terms of real impact. And what impact has “the protester” actually had in 2011? Has the Occupy Movement, such as it is, had any kind of ground-breaking impact on politics in the way the Tea Party did in 2010 and still does in this cycle? Not even close, and even people on the Left have begun washing their hands of the literally pointless display. The Arab Spring protesters have had somewhat more impact, but the two dictators they overthrew in Tunisia and Egypt look to be replaced by Muslim Brotherhood theocrats. In Libya, Moammar Qaddafi didn’t get taken down by “protesters,” but by an armed insurrection that combined several militia forces with NATO’s air power dropping bombs on the capital for several months. In Syria, the Assad regime is mowing down the protesters while the US and Europe stand idly by. In that sense, it’s exactly like Iran in 2009 — when Time passed on the opportunity to name the martyred Neda as their person of the year.

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If I was Tim Tebow I’d be pissed. Occupy Denver is gone. The Denver Broncos are in first place.

For now anyway.

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Nomentum is Mittmentum

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I really don’t like obsessing over the latest polls but the one above illustrates Mitt Romney’s basic problem. While other candidates rise and fall, he’s stuck in the same place.

The good news for Mitt – his base appears solid. The bad news for Mitt – his base is all he’s got and could be all he ever gets. When the field narrows next month if all the Not-Romney votes settle on one candidate he’s toast.

Meanwhile:

Oh my: Ron Paul within one point of Gingrich in Iowa?

I’ll bet Romney’s kicking himself now for not having abandoned Iowa early on. If he had done that, he could have sent his supporters out to caucus for Paul, thereby detonating Newt’s chances; if he tried that now, having competed in earnest in the state, the headlines would be all about Romney’s shockingly poor finish in Iowa, which would actually help Gingrich in New Hampshire even if he finished second to Paul in the caucuses. (On the other hand, per Rasmussen, Paul’s just four points back of Gingrich for second place in New Hampshire too.) Two exit questions for you, then. One: As chances of a Paul upset grow, will Iowa’s Republican leaders swing behind Newt or Mitt? They want the caucuses to remain relevant to choosing the eventual nominee, and if Paul wins, that’ll be two elections in a row where the Iowa winner realistically had no chance. Two: Could a Paul victory achieve a real “none of the above” outcome for the nomination? A brokered convention is unlikely – but, as Sean Trende explains, not impossible if Paul fares well.

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I don’t know about Romney but Tim Pawlenty should feel pretty stupid right now.

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