It’s official. Michele Bachmann has won the straw poll by a landslide. That should make her the Republican candidate to take on the Prez, right? No. There are miles to go before Republicans can sleep. The Iowa dust up is but one of many.
New faces will emerge on the scene. Governor Rick Perry of Texas announced his candidacy Saturday afternoon. Sarah Palin is still teasing her audiences. Some of the folks in Iowa didn’t participate in the straw vote.
Then there is the question of Bachmann as a mainstream candidate in a general election. Could enough Republicans get behind Michele “Default is Ok” Bachmann to carry the standard for her party? I can’t see the business Republicans thinking her notions about default and the economy are valid for any candidate.
The one thing I will defend Bachmann on, even though I think she is weird, is that she works hard and has done her homework. People like Perry and maybe Palin will try to jump in line without doing all the work that Bachmann has done. No one likes a line cutter. Hopefully Bachmann will renounce those who haven’t put in the time, energy and hard work she has if they try to cut in front of her.
If Perry cuts in at this point (which he has as of Saturday), Bachmann will just have to deal with it primary by primary without complaint. Watch where the corporate donations flow after the results of the first two primaries in N. Hampshire and S. Carolina, with Romney as the strong third party in the mix. Just a guess here; but, if Bachmann continues to hold her own against these guys, I don’t think Palin will step in all. Big difference between going after these two male candidates with their own particular sets of baggage and kneecapping another conservative Republican woman who has been fighting like a tigress for her chance.
I am trying to figure out Romney’s baggage. While I might not agree with him on some issues, he seems fairly free of baggage. Fill me in, por favor.
Romneycare in Massachusetts vs Obamacare in Washington. How does Romney effectively parse out the difference between himself and Obama on this key issue and make his argument believable to conservatives? And, if he wins the nomination, how does he debate Obama on that issue when he had his own finger in a similar pie at the state level? Romney, in my opinion, has his work cut out for him in this regard. It will be interesting to watch him go at this issue.
I hope Bachmann is the Republican nominee. Obama will win by a landslide!
@Starryflights I wish I could live in an oblivious little bubble where:
30 troops weren’t killed in a single day in Afghanistan;
The US credit rating wasn’t downgraded for the first time in history;
The President didn’t focus on a wildly expensive and borrowed healthcare reform early on, rather than jobs and the economy;
The administration didn’t uphold even the most egregious aspects of the Patriot Act– you remember the ones that had the left screaming to have Bush/Cheney tried for war crimes?
We didn’t enter into a THIRD war against a non-aggressor, with no end in sight;
We didn’t get a “stimulus,” where the end result was even greater unemployment, not the 8.5% we were solemnly promised;
The EPA power grab didn’t result in a net loss of jobs and growth.
My only hope is that by the time I reach Starry’s level of la-la-land, the drugs needed to maintain it will be free under Obamacare.
I think Bachmann spent a LOT of resources ensuring that she had a good showing in this straw poll. From what I heard, it’s a level of effort (and money) she could never come close to matching unless her funds get a serious boost. I honestly can’t see this “win” any other way than a “hail mary” pass. They had to do something to keep her alive in the race. So this may have bought her an extra week in the game over T-Paw, but that’s about it. Oh, and the whole “OK to default” thing is BS. We would not have defaulted (we have a money-printing machine). So far with car company bailouts, TARP, and debt ceiling, all that has happened is the government has prolonged the agony. It’s akin to having your head cut off is a slow sawing motion instead of one quick chop.
@Emma, I sure wouldn’t use some of those if I were trying to make an inarguable point.
30 troops killed in a single day– That is just about the cheapest shot a person could make. That is sort of Code Pink quality.
US credit rating–any Republican candidate would be on the thinnest of ice trying to hang that on Democrats. Which party again was saying NO? And Bachmann is going to suck in those words about the USA going in to default?
healthcare- the main reason was the cost. That one might erroneously help you.
Patriot Act? this one escapes me. Send colored illustrations.
Third War- perhaps. Helping out those helping us in Iraq might wash that one away. But maybe.
Stimulus- Throw a little math in there and that one doesn’t work. I can’t do it but probably the pres could. Even Republican economists tell us that it worked, it just wasn’t enough.
EPA -maybe.
I wouldn’t put any money on most of these. Starry might end up walking away with the cash pot.
@Slowpoke Rodriguez
re default– yea but it was an incredibly stupid thing to say. Get her out of Iowa and that bit of mouth-flashing becomes deadly.
Do you think T-paw will stay in the game?
I would like to put Santorum out of his misery. I guess I have to hand it to the guy for tenaciousness. Geez.
Bachmann will be good for rallying her base and getting them involved in the election. After that, the big boys will roll her over. As much as I dislike her politics there is a part of me that admires her spunk and enthusiasm.
I can’t wait to see Texas just roll over her like a Sherman tank. It’s about ready to get ugly. Mitt is going to come out being the sympathetic figure.
@Wolverine
I thought most people in MA liked Romney’s health care plan. Health care was killing the state.
Here is the big question–if health care is bankrupting the states now, what are Republicans going to do to stop the bleeding? What if not HCR? Do we accept that you can’t allow people to die on the sidewalks? It’s great to say you wont do anything until the courts rule that someone has to pay for it. That is what will happen.
Its great to say what we don’t do. You guys need to offer up some solution. No one saw any solutions to a rapidly growing problem during the 8 years Bush was in office. it’s one thing to keep saying NO but you have to have a solution to something that is obviously a problem–a HUGE problem. 45 million Americans without health care is a HUGE problem, regardless of how much you want to deny it. That’s about 14% of the population.
@Moon-howler Don’t get me wrong–I would not vote for Bachmann, and I agree with someone who said here earlier this month that Obama would eat her lunch in a debate, too. It’s just that where Starry sees four more years of Obama nirvana, I see no-holds-barred, lame-duck liberalism unleashed upon us.
BTW, is anyone uncomfortable with this deficit “supercommittee”? Newt’s an idiot, but he makes a good point:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/new-deficit-panel-in-congress-under-public-pressure-to-get-something-done/2011/08/12/gIQANBhkDJ_story_1.html
Smoke and mirrors. Just don’t pay attention to the guy behind the curtain.
Yep, I’m loaded with metaphors today. Must be the rain.
@Emma, there are several things that make me ill at east with the super 12. Thing 1: All the R’s have GN stench of them with that pledge. Thing 2: The democrats seems to have demographic representation as the key factor rather than expertise.
GN = Grover Norquest. I think all the R’s should be disqualified because of prior commitment to pledges. There is no negotiation. They have already made promises.
Sounds like the system working.
These Iowa straw polls are not very good at predicting eventual winners.
Pat Robertson actually won it in 1987. Yikes! The only person to have won the Iowa straw poll and then win the presidency was W Bush. That octopus in Germany has a better record of predicting winners than the Iowa straw poll
@Moon-howler
Agree with you re Grover Norquist. Anybody signing a pledge, especially to someone like Norquist, should have his head examined. That man is dangerous IMHO!
Hate to agree with Newt, but he has a point.
Could someone please tell me HOW Obama is a liberal? I keep seeing that banided about – but looking at the various fascists-theorcrats scrambling for the GOP nomination, nearly everyone except trhe most hardcore reactionary falls into that category.
Can we please level the playing field here? The right is gone into the stratosphere, and the so-called “left” of the democrats is hovering just a few hundred feet below that.
Show me a liberal, because when I look at who is running Washington I see GOP and GOP-lite.
I don’t disagree with you, Bubba.
Actually, Democrats and those Independents who support Obama need to step up to the plate and support the president who is battling the deepest recession since the Great Depression and many in congress who feel that a credit default would be just ducky. They need to ask themselves how the name President Perry feels flowing across their lips. Reality check.
@Not Me, Bubba
Ohhhh, I don’t think explaining it would help here.
@Not Me, Bubba
Darn it, I can’t resist.
Obama’s crowning achievement is a new entitlement the country can’t afford. That’s liberal street cred, right there.
I mean, what more proof do you need? How do you know a liberal is running the country? Unemployment over 9% for like 2 years. More people on food stamps than any other time in the nation’s history.
Pokie, you are an educated man. Do you think that just maybe the Recession has something to do with the unemployment rate? Huh Huh Huh?? Ya think?
I doubt if it would be a bit different if McCain were in the White House. The kind of economic breakdown we had in 2008 is not something for which there is a quick recovery.
Hey, Hey, show some respect…Paul the Octopus is dead…..and he moved to Spain after the World Cup.
Moon — Same key point currently being argued in the courts with regard to Obamacare: governmental coercion of individuals into acquiring health insurance whether they want to or not or suffering a penalty imposed by that government. Also problems with rising health care costs when the system promised lower costs. Despite assurances that everyone would have to pay something for health insurance, half of the newly insured still pay nothing and are subsidized by the taxpayers. Not enough primary-care physicians to meet the increased demand. Complaints that phsyicians treating the newly insured are overworked and inadequately compensated, thereby making it difficult to attract new doctors. 56% of internal medicine specialists refusing to take new patients. The problem becomes one of having insurance but no doctor. Very long waiting periods just to get in to see a doctor, causing many people to flock to the hospital ER’s and putting some of those hospitals on the road to bankruptcy.
Those are issues in the debate. I am not versed on the business and I am not a resident of Massachusetts, so I cannot argue the pros or cons. But these seem to be the things Romney has to address in debates with more conservative opponents, including the fact that POTUS has pointed to Romneycare as one of the main inspirations for the Federal program. Taken together, all of that sort of puts Romney between a rock and a hardplace in debates with conservative opponents and also in any future debate with Obama.
What do you KNOW about the entitlement? All it says is people MUST buy insurance, people MUST have coverage. Did you know that after Obama was innagurated and began the whole healthcare thingy he invited the TOP insurance company executives in the nation to help him draft it? Did you also know that in making all Americans buy it – it does NOT mean coverage for the people who do?
Let me explain, Slow, the coverage we all must buy – even high-risk people – does not guarantee claims will be covered uinder the reform. So you have the flu. You need some medicine and that is covered. You’re having a baby. Coverage. You have a car accident and break your leg. Covered….
BUT…..
You get cancer, you need chemo and invasive surgery….. not covered. You have a child with severe developmental disabilities and health problems as well….not covered.
What Obama, the Dems and GOP did NOT do was repeal a little act called the McCarran-=Ferguson act (1953) that LEGALLY exempts insurance companies from being sued or held liable from denial of claims/coverage. Oh yes…it is true. So while we may have to buy insurance, and children are covered…any BIG medical problems that the insurers deem “too expensive, experimental or erroneous” can DENY. This is a bi-partisan effort to make sure those insurance behemoths can rake in more premiums, and still have the freedom to deny the truly sick and dying. As a mother of a child who has developmental delays and medical problems this affects US directly.
And if you don’t believe me on this, just ask Mr. Trent Lott why his vacation home destroyed in Katrina wasn’t rebuilt with insurance company and Mr. Lott could shit in his hand faster than get a dime out of State Farm.
If this “great expenditure” is so “Liberal” you will have to show me where giving more $$$$$ to the insurance industry with the freedom to still denyt those most in need is a “Liberal” policy. A liberal policy would have been for a single payer system – and all coverage all around.
So nice try, but no good. This President is more in line with Reagan economic policy than any so-called “liberal” who does not exist in the national political arena today.
@Not Me, Bubba
OK, I read your post twice. I would like to concede to point to you……I’m pretty sure you know more about this than I do. And I will grant you that the true left is not terribly happy with Obama for many reasons. And we on the right considered Bush to be Dem-lite, so you are totally entitled to see Obama as GOP-lite. So if it’s OK with you……you win.
Let me put it this way….in the few places where I can keep up with Not Me, Bubba in post 22, I know he’s right. My problem is, by the time I get to the end, I forget what the original argument was. That’s what I call beat.
Slow – YOu should read Griftopia. GOP Dem – both the SAME party, just how you want your rear pounding to happen, fast or slow. The only things that differentaiate the two are some social policies -and even that is dissappearing.
I mention Griftopia to start. A lot more books, neither left nor right leaning – just FACTUAL the-way-it-is-and-how-some-want-it-to-be information every American should know. I don’t read DEM or GOP stroke pieces for it serves no good. Both parties are staffed and heralded by imbiciles who easily publish puff pieces. To go down the non-bipartisan rabbit hole, start out at your local library and head straight to non-fiction, current relseases or political science. The best books deal with how both sides phuck us all.
Griftopia is a start – and plenty of punches to pull on both sides of the proverbial “aisle”
We’re all doomed no matter what skin puppet (draped in the cross or in the name of the people) holds office as we currently know it. Plutarchy, globalism…here we come unless the people DO something about it.
Folks said the same thing about Ronald Reagan, and that didn’t turn out so well for Jimmy Carter now, did it?
@Steve,
You know, I have kicked around a long time, I have relatives closely connected with Jimmy Carter, but I never heard that one. We always knew Reagan was formidable. I don’t remember why other than all sorts of people liked him…sort of across the board liked.
All you folks in favor of Michele–do you realize she has NEVER written one piece of legislation? She even admits it here: http://blogs.citypages.com/blotter/2010/02/michele_bachman_41.php
And even this she screwed up–she is not a “freshman” –she is in her second term. Duh!
@George S. Harris
If only she can get the half-baked Alaskan to be her running mate.