Super Tuesday Blues Ahead For Santorum?

The impressive showing of Mitt Romney in Arizona and
Michigan will now be followed in a few days by several
primaries on Super Tuesday. The liberal media narrative
(echoed by some conservative media pundits) before the
Michigan vote was that the former Massachusetts governor
(who had been born in Michigan) "faced defeat in his home
state" from "surging Rick Santorum." While it was no
landslide, a 32,000 vote margin for Romney (it would have
been 60,000 to 75,000 vote margin without the crossover
Democratic votes intended to sabotage Romney) was not
really a "narrow" margin. The difference between Romney
and Santorum was less than 50 votes in Iowa. THAT was
close!

The surge for Santorum lasted a few weeks, and was based on
three insignificant events, two small caucuses and a non-binding
primary in which one major candidate was not even on the
ballot. Suddenly, Mr. Santorum was leading by double digits
almost everywhere, including the respected Gallup Poll. Of
course, we had seen this "bubble" phenomenon frequently in
previous months with virtually every challenger to Mr. Romney.
Knowing Mr. Santorum's record as congressman and senator
from Pennsylvania, I immediately suggested his surge would
be brief.

Even before the Michigan vote, the air was escaping Mr.
Santorum's bubble as he was finally being vetted by the media
and his opponents. A poor debate performance and a number of
controversial statements by him were also hastening his decline,
and the last straw seemed to be his open invitation to liberal
Democrats (who would not vote for him in November) to come
into the Republican primary and sabotage Mr. Romney.

The Gallup Poll now has Mr. Romney back on top and rising
while Mr. Santorum is falling. Mr. Gingrich is not far behind, and
is also rising. Ads in Super Tuesday states where Democrats
cannot vote in Republican primaries, and where unions are not
popular, will likely show Mr. Santorum attempted cozying up to
union members in Michigan. Mr. Gingrich, almost tied by Mr.
Santorum in Georgia only a few days ago, has now opened up a
double digit lead in his "home" state (Mr. Gingrich was born and
grew up in Pennsylvania, but no one is suggesting that he "must"
win the Keystone State), and Mr. Romney is poised to overtake Mr.
Santorum for second place there. Mr. Santorum had been doing
well in several Super Tuesday states before Arizona and Michigan,
but, as in the national Gallup Poll, that was then. With limited
cash resources, a hastily assembled organization in most Super
Tuesday states (and beyond), and his surge rapidly deflating, how
is Mr. Santorum going to perform now with less than a week to go?

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Copyright (c) 2012 by Barry Casselman
All rights reserved.

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Too Much Polling Too Early: Caveat Lector!

I notice a chronic difficulty for many political analysts this
election cycle that is becoming particularly misleading about
probable outcomes in November. As in the 2010 cycle, political
writers and commentators are relying too much on a plethora
of polls, many of them defective in the way they pose their
questions, or their size, or most critically, the increasing
arbitrariness with which they weight their raw data before
publishing their results. The consequence is that discussions
which anticipate future results are becoming more and more
poll-oriented, and I suggest, as happened in 2010, more plainly
wrong.

The volatility of the 2012 Republican presidential nomination
contest with its historically unprecedented swings in poll numbers
should be a warning not only to political analysts, but to all who
read about this cycle's political outcomes.

"What is the alternative?" some might ask. There is an alternative,
and it is more substantive examination of the candidates,
demographics, economic and political trends, and most importantly,
facts on the ground.

Two cases in point: 1. The recent poll bubble for Rick Santorum in
the GOP contest; and 2. The current discussion about control of
the U.S. senate after 2012.

A cursory look at Mr. Santorum's record as a congressman and
senator, a simple review of his controversial views on social issues,
and an examination of his performance in the 2011-12 pre-primary
campaign should have led to a great deal of skepticism about his
ability to succeed this year, even after his inconclusive three-state
primary/caucus victories recently. But this did not happen.
Instead, there was a mostly uncritical wave accepting him as a serious
candidate to win the GOP nomination.

The inescapable facts are that there are about twice as many
Democratic U.S. senate seats than Republican seats up for
re-election this year. Of the Republican-held seats only two could
be described as vulnerable, but of the Democratic seats, about a
dozen are vulnerable, many of them VERY vulnerable. Not only
that, the Republicans have recruited in most cases, strong
candidates for Democratic seats held by incumbents (in contrast
to 2010 when they did pick up six seats, but also nominated
several weak candidates who could have also won). Finally,
nothing has happened substantially which has altered the fact
that the Democratic Obama administration and the Democratic-
controlled U.S. senate are on the defensive on most hot-button
issues facing the nation, including health care, taxes, federal
spending, the over-reaching of the judiciary, government
intrusion on the private sector, conduct of foreign policy in the
Middle East, Asia, and South America, and the weakening of
the military. Of course, no one knows precisely how many net
seats the Republicans will pick up. I think it could be as few as
five or as many as eleven, but even if it were only four, that would
give the GOP control. Yet many commentators are suggesting,
based on current and very early polling, that Republican control
is in doubt.

It goes without saying that we don't know about all the events
and circumstances that might appear between now and November.
Historically, there are usually one or more major surprises, any of
which can affect the outcome of a presidential election or of some
congressional elections. In 2008, it was the mortgage banking
crisis which doomed Mr. McCain's bid for the presidency. No doubt
there will be one or more this year, affecting either Democratic or
Republican candidates. It was mathematically possible for Mr.
Santorum to win his party's nomination (although it is now
meaningfully very unlikely). It is mathematically possible for
Democrats to retain control of the U.S. senate, but barring some
extraordinary circumstance, it won't even be close.

Polling and well-run polls can be useful, especially close to the
actual voting when they are often reasonably accurate. But
excessive speculation based on a grab-bag plethora of polls is
not responsible discussion and journalism.

Caveat lector!

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Copyright (c) 2012 by Barry Casselman
All rights reserved.

THE PRAIRIE EDITOR: Another Day, Another Bubble

Readers of this column know that The Prairie Editor said right after
it filled with hot air that the poll bubble of Rick Santorum would not last
long. Nevertheless, the former senator from Pennsylvania has enjoyed
several heady days of leading in many state and national polls, and of
shaking up the Republican establishment which had anticipated Mitt
Romney winning his party's nomination for president. As the last of
more than six or seven persons mentioned for the top GOP spot on the
2012 ticket, and to have "bubbles" showing them briefly ahead of the
long-time frontrunner, it was probably inevitable that Mr. Santorum
would have his moment in the political sun. But there was a reason he
did not emerge earlier, and had to wait until everyone else had their
turn in the spotlight.

That reason was telegraphed in 2006 when Mr. Santorum, after two
terms in the U.S. house and two in the U.S. senate, was defeated by 18
points for re-election in Pennsylvania. Although Mr. Santorum worked
hard and persistently in Iowa to gain attention and votes, and ultimately
did win the Iowa caucus, he was not vetted until very late in the process.
That vetting has revealed someone who held contrary views on social
issues when he entered politics to the ones he now so passionately
espouses, and who behaved as a typical politician throughout most of his
time in the nation's capital. In regard to the views he now holds, many of
them are expressed in such absolutist terms that, while they may please
some in the Republican "anybody-but-Romney" base, they are almost
certain to turn away most in the political center that is the vital component
of victory every U.S. presidential election.

Predictions are always a risky endeavor in politics, but it now appears that
Mr Santorum's bubble is bursting in advance of the Arizona and Michigan
primaries, and Mr. Romney will win both. If this happens, the media, so
sensitive to its own opportunities to create melodramatic news environments,
will proclaim Mr. Romney "back on track" until Super Tuesday when, like
a "ghost of Christmas past," Newt Gingrich will likely arise one more time
from the media-created political ashes to be that "last" obstacle to Mr.
Romney's nomination in Tampa.

In fact, Charles Dickens could have not written a better script for this cycle
of the presidential election. Mr. Obama says it is "the best of times," and
the Republicans contend it is "the worst of times." The Prairie Editor does
not have to labor with difficulty to suggest that the latter argument will
likely prevail in voters' minds on election day.

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Copyright (c) 2012 by Barry Casselman
All rights reserved.

Greek Ruins

The latest "bail out" of the Greek economy should fool no one.
The agreement is a band aid on top of a band aid, and only delays
an eventual collapse of the Greek situation and further deterioration
of the whole European economic crisis.

The seeds of this financial disaster in Athens were sown at the very
beginning of the European unity experiment when, soon after World
War II, the visionary dream of Jean Monnet and others was to create
an economic structure that would be followed by a political structure,
each step that would unify the continent and eliminate a millenium of
violent conflicts between the nations originally created by the various
barbarian tribes which lived in the region.

As Euroskeptics have warned throughout the many decades of the
development of the European Common Market to the present
European Union, the strategy at the outset, however well-meaning,
was flawed. It was understandable that, after two unspeakably violent
and murderous wars in the 20th century, following countless brutal
conflicts over many centuries in the region, there was a desire to
restructure the continent so that instead of jealousy and revenge,
religious persecution and totalitarianism in many forms, there would
be commercial cooperation, tolerance, mutual respect and democracy.

M. Monnet and his colleagues, however, proceeded to construct a
top-down structure of the New Europe. Perhaps knowing that modern
democratic forms were mostly unknown to the populations of the
various surviving nations of Europe, they did not have confidence in the
European masses, and assumed a paternalistic attitude of recreating the
region without building what we Americans call "grass roots" support.
It is probably true that the only major European nation which resisted
this, and only gradually found its way fully into the Union (minus
accepting the Euro, the new currency of most of the continent) was Great
Britain which had been the mother (albeit a reluctant one) of the
American democracy. (Most Americans, for whatever shortcomings U.S.
democratic structures have, would find the political process which Europe
has taken to be unthinkable and unworkable.)

I am not suggesting that Mr. Monnet's impulse and goals were not good
ones, even necessary ones. After so much human slaughter and suffering,
there had to be a better way to conduct the affairs of this large and
important part of the world. Democratic capitalism, a child of the
Industrial Revolution of the 18th and 19th centuries, in fact was born in
the cities of northern Europe. But another child of Europe, socialism,
had greater influence on the new nations of the continent, and a new
form, the social welfare state, emerged as the dominant economic
model. In this model, the needs of the populace were relegated more and
more to the central government of each national state, particularly in
providing unemployment insurance, education, health care, industrial
controls, taxation, old age pensions, etc. Prominent economic theories in
this period asserted that these costs and services could be provided
indefinitely by postponing growing debt resulting from them into the
future. (The same theories were temporarily put in practice on the other
side of the Atlantic, but soon after the Viet Nam War were primarily
rejected as destructive to an ongoing healthy economy.)

In Europe, however, the economic model was increasingly imposed on
the intranational structure that was becoming more and more political
as well as financial. But two main factors were working against this
process. First, of course, the economic model was fundamentally
flawed. At some point, the accumulated national debts would be
confronted by the "Piper" who would demand to be paid. The notion
that debt could be put off indefinitely was a fantasy. Second, although
it was an obvious improvement to eliminate passports, tariffs and other
impediments to free trade and passage between the European nations,
the top-down structure did not accommodate over time the different
languages, traditions and customs, and self-interests of each component
of the New Europe, the former nations developed over centuries from
the original barbarian tribes. One major reason this happened, I have
suggested, was that the "visionaries" who created the New Europe had
done so without building and receiving a slow and careful approval from
the populations of each nation. As long as the New Europe was bringing
apparent prosperity, of course, objections were relatively few and isolated.
But as the original group of nations, most of them recovering nicely from
the catastrophes of world wars (thanks in part to long-term economic and
military aid from the U.S.), were expanded to poorer nations, economic
crisis became inevitable. Large waves of immigration from outside Europe
to provide labor for the post-war European boom profoundly has
complicated this crisis, as Europe evolved from its traditional Catholic and
Protestant constituencies to much more secular ones whose traditions were
challenged by the immigrants.

In short, there is now an economic and political crisis in Europe which
cannot be resolved by "bail outs" and other economic sleights of hand.
The problems are not only endemic in the newer "Euro" nations of Greece,
Portugal and Spain, they now reach farther and farther into Germany,
France and The Netherlands, some of the more successful economies,
as well as Italy, chronically one of the financial and political "trouble
spots" of Europe.

Whether now or at some "postponed" date, the "Piper" will have to be
paid. Those who will have to pay include most of the citizens of Europe,
i.e., the pensioners, the shareholders, the small businesses and those
dependent on public welfare. These are most of the voters in Europe,
and thus we understand why the politicians continue to delay resolving
the crisis.

The United States is not immune from many of these problems, nor
more immediately, would it be unaffected by a worsening of the
European crisis. Americans hold European debt and American
business depend on European trade. This is why the Obama
administration acts in ways that resemble European administrations.

Behind the "bail outs" is a massive deception, that is, that everything
will turn out all right if only we can postpone dealing with the Piper
who wants to be paid. Greece is the focus of today, but the crisis
will emigrate quickly wherever it can, like a river exceeding its banks,
like a volcano emitting merciless lava in all directions.

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Copyright (c) 2012 by Barry Casselman
All rights reserved.

Romney's Problem, Romney's Opportunity

If Mitt Romney has what it takes to be president, and I suspect he does,
he will use his present predicament to overcome his greatest vulnerability
in the presidential contest for his party’s nomination, that is, his failure
so far to connect emotionally with voters.

That does not mean that the former governor of Massachusetts will
suddenly say he “feels our pain,” or that he will make teenage girls and
grown men swoon with incendiary rhetoric. Mr Romney’s personality
is not naturally outwardly warm or empathetic; that is not going to change
overnight or suddenly, as if by a political consultant’s wand. But where is it
written in American political history that the nation’s chief executive is
supposed to be the First Therapist or the National Teddy Bear?

In fact, few presidents have been like Bill Clinton. Yet most presidents did
have the knack to relate to voters, that is, voters have found them ultimately
likable. Mitt Romney is a rich man, but he is a self-made rich man. He is
a problem-solving businessman. His greatest problem now is restoring his
campaign for president, subjected for months to “bubble” assaults in the
polls from rivals. He has recuperated from each of these, but the
Republican nomination is now in its decisive stage, i.e. , delegates are
being chosen, voters are finally making up their minds.

Although I have written for months, without endorsing him, that I
thought that Romney would ultimately win his party’s nomination,
nowhere have I suggested that his victory was absolutely inevitable.
In politics, nothing is absolutely inevitable.

What is Mr. Romney’s problem? It is a lack of connection. It is not that
voters cannot “like” him, but they are having difficulty “connecting” to
him. His remoteness is the distance he appears to place (intentional or
not) between himself and voters. Does it come from his personality, his
wealth, his upbringing, and his political circumstances? Yes, all of these.
He can’t change his wealth, nor his upbringing, and his political
circumstances have been thrust on him. But he can share with voters his
obvious dilemma, and invite them to help him solve his problem.

This probably cannot be done alone with massive political advertising by
his own campaign (nor by the SuperPac he does not control), nor by
pretending he does not have a problem. It cannot be solved alone by
superior organization. It cannot be solved simply with his resume.

Mitt Romney needs to get a large number voters to be part of solving
his political problem, and that begins with a simple heartfelt appeal directly
to voters. Voters, I have observed over many presidential cycles, are not
looking for perfect candidates. They look for candidates who agree with
them, but they also like candidates who can admit mistakes, who ask
forgiveness for their personal shortcomings, and most of all, voters
in America like candidates who acknowledge, simply and humbly, that
they, the politicians, ultimately need them, the voters.

I do not presume to say what Mr. Romney should say, and how he should
say it, to accomplish this, but at some point he will, if he is to prevail, have
to do this. If he does not, Mr. Gingrich may yet overcome his own problems
and win this nomination. If neither of them do it, there may yet be a
so-called “brokered” convention, and no one now in the contest may
suddenly emerge.

This election is bigger than personalities, and someone who can do the
job, even if he or she is not now on the ballot, will contend to be
commander-in-chief this November. Mr. Romney earned his fortune,
as they say, ”the old-fashioned way.” If he is to be president, he must
find his way to do this again.

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Copyright (c) 2012 by Barry Casselman
All rights reserved.

Mood Swings

Poll numbers in the Republican presidential nomination contest
have become no more than mood swings of conservatives who have
allowed political emotion to supercede political common sense.

How else to explain the huge swings in poll numbers in the form of
"bubbles" that have now culminated in a surge for the weakest possible
candidate to oppose President Obama in November?

Let me remind anyone who is interested in the outcome of this year's
presidential election that the vote in November when an incumbent
is running for a second term is always a judgment by the voters on the
record of the incumbent. The only time that is not true is when the
opposition party nominates someone so weak and inappropriate that
he or she becomes the focus of the election, and the incumbent's
campaign can successfully transform their own candidate's weakness
to voter alarm over the challenger.

As the vetting of Rick Santorum's legislative record is now revealing,
this record does not resemble the persona that he has put forward in
his presidential campaign. His voting record is replete with
inconsistencies, from the conservative point of view. His justification
so far is that, hey, he was a senator from Pennsylvania and he was only
representing his constituents. But wait a minute, conservatives, haven't
you already rejected that alibi from Mitt Romney who has argued that
his apparent past moderate record was because he was governor of
Massachusetts, arguably the most liberal state? At least, Mr. Romney
has a valid point, Massachusetts IS the most liberal state. I'm originally
from Pennsylvania, and I can testify to the fact that the Keystone State
is one of the least liberal in the eastern U.S. If Mr. Santorum's alibi had
any validity, how can he explain losing he 2006 re-election by 18 points?

There was a reason that Mr Santorum was so lightly regarded at the
outset on the 2012 campaign, He had been in Washington, DC for almost
two decades, and was known as a political lightweight who took extreme
views on controversial subjects.

I would agree to the point, made by many, that some of the best GOP
candidates this cycle (including Mitch Daniels, Chris Christie, Bobby
Jindal, Jeb Bush, et al) chose not to run. But that point is moot now.
There are only four candidates for the GOP nomination left. One of them,
Ron Paul, is totally unelectable. Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich have
each political warts and shortcomings. But they at least have both
the stature and a political history which makes them serious candidates
for president.

To his credit, Rick Santorum has worked hard, and unlike some of his
2012 colleagues, did not abandon the race because his poll numbers were
low. Unfortunately his current political personality does not resemble his
own record, a fact that would make him a mortally weak opponent to
Mr. Obama who would easily make Mr. Santorum the issue in November,
especially to independent voters, the ones who ALWAYS make the difference
in a presidential election.

Unless they are suddenly suicidal and timid, the campaigns of Mr. Romney
and Mr. Gingrich will not fail to point our Mr. Santorum's huge
vulnerabilities. Mr. Paul has already said "it is time to take the cover off"
the former senator from Pennsylvania. If he is nothing else, Mr. Paul is a
man of his word.

As I have pointed out time and again in the past year, no bubble against Mr.
Romney has lasted for than a few days. Far more substantive candidates
than Mr. Santorum learned this the hard way. Both the liberal and the
conservative media have lots of motives to promote this latest bubble.
But I remember when Mr. Cain, Mr. Perry and Mr. Gingrich were each
ahead of Mr. Romney suddenly by double digits, and everyone seemed to
ooh and ah over this remarkable circumstance.

Lest they become intoxicated by this phenomenon one more time, may I
suggest to those who read this that we are now only days away from when
the calendar will produce large numbers of actual delegates for one
candidate or another. Like anyone being wooed, voters understandably
are subject to wild mood swings just before they have to make a decision.
But the time comes when a decision must be made.

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Copyright (c) 2012 by Barry Casselman
All rights reserved.