The Republican Nomination For President: The Race For The Race For The White House

I took the time to peek ahead to the March 6th Super Tuesday primaries and caucuses*. Do you think that Gingrich can still be in contention after these 466 delegates are awarded?
Alaska (27 delegates); Georgia (76); Idaho (32); Massachusetts (41); North Dakota (28*); Ohio (66); Oklahoma (43); Tennessee (58); Vermont (17), Virginia (49); Wyoming (29*).

Ameritopia

Posted by Erick Erickson (Diary)

Tuesday, January 17th at 10:54AM EST
13 Comments

Ameritopia Perhaps the coolest part of my job is getting embargoed copies of best sellers and getting to read them well in advance of release.

Around Christmas this year, I received a small package in the mail and out came Ameritopia with a great big sticker on the front. “Pre-Publication Copy. EMBARGOED until January 16, 2012.” Well, the problem was that it was Christmas time and I had no time to sit down and read a book. I put it on my desk and there it sat.

As luck would have it, I fell under the weather and started traveling all about the same time. In and out of airports, in and out of the doctor’s office, in and out of bed — I had a little down time and I picked it up and started reading.

Let me first say that the cool thing about reading a Mark Levin book or an Ann Coulter book is that if you are in a crowded place you occasionally notice people who notice what you are reading getting up and moving away from you and others moving closer — the books alone are crowd control items and have also served to get me off jury duty.

As for the contents of the book? Fantastic. And I don’t just say that because Mark is a friend.

Regular listeners of my radio show know I constantly refer back to to Men in Black when legal issues arise on the show. Mark has a unique ability to take complex subjects and boil them down to their essentials, which he then conveys in an accessible, easy to understand manner.

This time is no different.

Mark’s subject is left wing utopia versus what America is actually. It’s a breakdown of the typical view of what a utopia is and is not and what America is. Mark succinctly explains how the evolution of the concept of a utopia has built the intellectual framework for statism, how it does not work, and how the American founders broke with that intellectual framework with new ideas from the enlightenment to pursue a nation where the state did not control man’s destiny into a utopian fantasy, but rather, as Lincoln said, let each man make himself.

Over time, of course, we know how the story goes. The checks and balances broke down, the constitution “evolved” under liberal jurisprudence, and the state has grown not just in budgetary size, but creeping more and more into our lives and personal decision making processes.

Part 2 of Mark’s book should be read by every high school student. It is a great breakdown of the ideas that influenced our founders and how they applied them. From Locke to Montesquieu, Mark takes what could be difficult concepts and makes them so even a public school grad can understand them.

I really, really enjoyed the book and fully suspect you will too. Yet again, Mark Levin has another best seller. In all honesty, I have told Rush Limbaugh several times it is time for him to write another book. But, and no offense Rush if you read this, Mark has filled the void ably and, unlike a lot of talk radio hosts in America, fills that void with intellectual fire power, not pablum and crap.

Ameritopia: The Unmaking of America's Freedoms

In my almost perfect world, Jesus Christ would return to Earth and run for President. His platform would be straight from the Sermon On The Mount....The Beatitudes.... Tea Partiers, evangelicals, "Conservative Christians".... would **** their pants. I say ALMOST PERFECT because they would find a way to spin Jesus into a socialist and they STILL wouldn't STFU.

Could Jesus defeat Obama?

The Senate requires 60 votes to pass anything since every vote for legislation can be subject to cloture. After the 60 votes are achieved then it only requires a simple majority for the legislation itself. Boortz is ignorant of the rules of the Senate.

You are an idiot, go back a read the point again.

The earliest Jesus could run would be in 2016 since he won't make it on the ballot in 2012. That means he can't run against Obama.

Were you referring to his red herring? I figured you would fall for that one.

Santorum released his tax returns for the last four years, with the first one being for 2007 when he left the Senate. For 2008 through 2010, he had income of $952K, $1.1M and $923K, respectively. His effective tax rate was around 28%. Romney, by comparison, had a rate of around 14% on much higher income.
Some people find that telling.
What raised a few eyebrows was the disclosure that charitable contributions were around 2% annually for Santorum (or $20K) vs an average of 3% for people in his income bracket. That compares to around 14% for Romney, as I recall.

I guess Romney counts "tithing" as required by the LDS's. Then on top of that he gave an additional 4%

If Santorum wins Michigan, all bets are off for Romney


On the GOP primary calendar, Michigan ranked as a slam dunk for Mitt Romney – until now.

Suddenly all eyes in the political world are fixed on the fascinating, fast-changing forces at work in Michigan ahead of the state's Republican presidential primary on February 28.

New polling shows that former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum can beat Romney in Michigan -- the state where Romney was born and his father, George Romney, served three terms as governor.

This movement toward Santorum in Michigan tracks with movement in the national polls of Republicans. A CBS/New York Times poll has Santorum leading Romney, 30 percent to 27 percent. If Santorum edges out Mitt Romney in Michigan, all bets are off in the GOP contest. Remember that while Santorum has won just as many states as Romney, it is Romney who leads in the critical delegate count. A Santorum victory in Michigan, however, will give the former senator all the momentum he needs to counter Romney’s advantage in campaign money and staff and claim the bonanza of delegates at stake in the Super Tuesday primaries.

If that scenario plays out it will be hard to revive Romney’s political life.

In many ways Michigan is a microcosm for the whole country in this election. The economy has been the defining political issue there. The unemployment rate in Michigan is 9.3 percent, one full point above the national average of 8.3 percent. According to “RealtyTrac,” Michigan ranked sixth out of the fifty states last year for the highest home foreclosure rate. In Wayne Country, where Detroit is located, one out of every 231 homes is being foreclosed.

But Michigan's economy has been gradually improving over the past two years along with the rest of the country. Unemployment has fallen slightly and the real estate market is not as bleak as it once was.

There is a long way to go, but the bleeding inflicted by the 2008 financial crisis appears to have stopped and the economic indicators are moving up. Home sales in Detroit have been increasing for seven months straight. Financial experts agree that reviving the real estate market is essential to improving the whole economy because the most valuable asset for most families is the equity in their home.

This week a New York Times/CBS poll finds Santorum tied with Romney as the candidate best able to improve the economy. And Santorum leads Romney on the critical question of which candidate is best able to help the middle-class. Romney is seen as helping the rich. Similarly, Santorum leads Romney on the question of who “best represents” their values, 39 percent to 23 percent.

There is no ignoring that the improvement in Michigan’s economy is due in large part to President Obama's decision to rescue the American auto industry in 2008. The industry is the lifeblood of the state's economy. Iconic American car companies -- Ford, Chrysler and General Motors -- were in imminent danger of bankruptcy. If they had been allowed to go under, Michigan's economy would have been decimated and their unemployment rate would have skyrocketed.

The auto rescue championed by the president was vigorously opposed by the Republicans as a "bailout" and a case of government "picking winners and losers."

Now the car companies have begun to get their financial house in order. General Motors was back on top as the No. 1 car company in the world last year. This was the message behind Clint Eastwood’s “Half-time in America” commercial for Chrysler during the Super Bowl.

This is also why Vice President Joe Biden tells people in private that his shorthand for the 2012 campaign will be "Bin Laden is Dead, General Motors is Alive." President Obama took the political risk and saved the industry and he is starting to get credit from the voters.

That improving economic picture in Michigan undercuts Romney's national political message – that he is a businessman who is running to fix the economy. If the campaign is not about an ailing economy then what is the Romney message?

Santorum is currently running an ad in Michigan that asks, “Who has the best chance to beat Obama?” The answer in the ad is the social values candidate – Santorum.

Pay close attention to what happens in the Michigan primary at the end of this month. The new political climate creating difficulties for Romney suggest a very different political year than anyone predicted.

Juan Williams is a writer, author and Fox News political analyst. His most recent book "Muzzled: The Assault On Honest Debate" (Crown/Random House) was released in July.

Which suggests that Mr Romney is smarter and we want the smartest guy in the White House dealing with Vlad the Lad and sundry other world leaders.

Gee, let's repeat that. Even Fox News is giving credit to Obama for turning the economy around. Looks like Fox is selling you down the river, H2O.

It's worth repeating




MJackoff, you are the one who is spewing lies here.

You have a really bad case of projectile diarrhea.