For many, many weeks, we've been told the same old story: no matter who joins the GOP field, no matter how many different varieties of candidate there are on offer, it's never been good enough for anyone.
This was the story in April, in May, in June, and in August. (We're guessing it was the same way in July, while we were on vacation.) "The field of candidates suck, send us someone new, and, no, Tim Pawlenty, we're not interested."
Mostly, voters were paying attention to the pundits, and the pundits had arranged the field into three piles of undesirables: fringies that no one should pay attention to, the unelectable and "people named Mitt Romney." Had some sort of savior candidate jumped into the race this week, you can imagine the frantic headlines: "Paul Ryan Shakes Up The Field Like An Earthquake!" Or, "Chris Christie Enters Race Like A Hurricane!" That the political press would gravitate toward metaphors reflecting the disasters du jour would be a matter of little notice.
But a funny thing started to happen this week. As the possibilities of future entrants diminished, and as the GOP base and conservative-leaning independent voters started to get more and more personally engaged with the race, the view of the field from street level changed: "An Associated Press-GfK poll released Friday found that two-thirds of Republicans and GOP-leaning independents are pleased with the party's presidential field, compared with just half in June." Could it be that the weak field was just a media contrivance? Is it possible that all the real pissing and moaning over the need for a Jeb Bush or a Marco Rubio in the mix was just an obsession of elite, establishment pundits?
Yes, and yes.
Anyway, here's where this story is going. Pretty soon, the settled field will be campaigning against each other. Voters will pick sides, become invested. A few straggling pundits will keep moaning, but pretty soon, they'll all come around to the consensus that the clear frontrunners are strong candidates. Come June of next year, no one will remember that anyone thought the field was weak. Unless, of course, the eventual nominee loses the election. Then, every Republican Party bigwig, in an effort to explain away their own failings, or the failure of the policies they advocated, will say, "Oh, well, let's remember, it was a pretty weak field."
And that's the Story Of The Weak 2012 Field, decoded for you.
What else happened in the week that brought America to the brink of a George Pataki candidacy? Rick Perry decided that the book he wrote and has been touting all year had to disappear. Depending on your point of view, Mitt Romney became either excitingly emotional or rattled under the stress of running, at a town hall meeting. Ron Paul finally got some coverage -- not all of it was good. Jon Huntsman tried to distinguish himself as the Jon Huntmaniest candidate in the race. Michele Bachmann was declared over, Barack Obama's polls continued to take on water, Herman Cain went to the Holy Land, Fred Karger got some access, and Buddy Roemer's campaign manager? That dude just went OFF. Learn the details on all of this and more by entering the Speculatron for the week of August 26, 2011.
The 2012 Speculatron Weekly Roundup, August 26
Gary Johnson(01 of07)
Gary Johnson has placed all of his hopes in New Hampshire, and so he spent this week traversing the state, chatting up voters in every venue he could. At a meeting of the Concord Rotary Club, Johnson talked up his remarkable career as a sometime-thrill seeker ("People say, 'Wow, you conquered Mount Everest,' and I say, 'No, she lifted her skirt and she gave me a peak and it was really cool, I gotta tell you,'") and as a full-time "penny pincher." He laid out his platform: fair tax, balanced budget, eliminating HUD and the Department of Education, and an end to foreign wars and interventions -- fairly straight stuff from the libertarian hymnal.Courting Tea Party types, Johnson apparently amped up all of his talk of anger:
"I'm finding myself really angry over spending and the deficit," he said in an interview with POLITICO. "I'm finding myself really angry over what's happening in the Middle East, the decision to stay in Afghanistan indefinitely. I'm angry about cap and trade. And I've been on record for a long time on the failed war on drugs."And at the New Hampshire Technical Institute, he extended that anger to airports, which to his mind have become "Constitution free zones" under the Transportation Security Agency. He went on to talk about Liberty, and how he loves Liberty, and about how "America has a date with Liberty," which means that Johnson has some kind of "open relationship" with Liberty, and that's pretty libertarian, you know, to share intimacy with Liberty and whatnot.But Johnson's larger problem is that he's having trouble reaching a certain level of intimacy with voters, because he keeps getting denied the opportunity to make a bigger name for himself through debates. As Dave Weigel reports, more and more, the officials behind these debates keep moving the goalposts for participation in a way that continues to exclude candidates like Johnson, using shifting standards based in national poll results. And national polls don't really matter:
But, OK, fine, we're using a national poll. By this standard, Michele Bachmann, Mitt Romney, Rick Perry, Herman Cain, and Ron Paul should all make it in -- they regularly poll higher than 4 percent. The Reagan Library debate also includes Newt Gingrich, Jon Huntsman, and Rick Santorum, while excluding Gary Johnson, Buddy Roemer, and Thaddeus McCotter. That's odd: According to the last Gallup poll, none of those candidates break 4 percent. Aha -- NBC doesn't say they have to be recent! So Gingrich, who's collapsed, and who no reporter would say "in a credible position to be a principal competitor," can count the recent polls that have him over 4 percent. Santorum can count a Gallup poll from two months and three weeks ago, even though that poll didn't include Perry and did include Tim Pawlenty -- it took a snapshot of a fundamentally different election, one in which Santorum had more of a dark horse's shot in Iowa. Huntsman can count the CNN poll from earlier this month that put him at 4 percent, even though that poll included Giuliani and Palin, who aren't actually in the race.The effect of all this: Johnson and Roemer, both former governors, and McCotter, a fairly interesting gadfly candidate, are denied free media coverage. They're saddled with an extra fringe burden -- surely, the undecided voter thinks, this candidate must be a little nuts if he's never in debates. Hey, he's not in the debates because he didn't score high enough in a poll of an electorate that isn't actually going to pick the nominee!We, of course, would like to see debate access more fully extended. Yes, there's a chance that more people will create chaos, and interfere with set narratives, and potentially make a hash of things. But again, these are debates that are taking place in August and September of 2011! Their very existence makes a hash of things. It's just sad that people think their many-months-too-early debate is some precious sacred game-changing event in the life of the Republic. So we may as well go all in.
Fred Karger(02 of07)
Fred Karger's story continues to be one of a struggle to gain access to the larger campaign conversation. When we last left off, he was still passionately arguing against his exclusion from the most recent debate. Of course, the next war sets an even higher bar for candidates -- the MSNBC debate is calling for a 4 percent polling threshold, and at the moment, they aren't being particular about the current standings -- if you were ever doing well, like Newt Gingrich was for a time, the fact that you've cratered makes no difference. It exacerbates the age-old catch-22 -- sometimes, you need the exposure of a debate to get a rise in the polls, but you need a rise in the polls to get the exposure.Which isn't to say Karger hasn't had some success getting exposure -- his Fox debate fight earned him a spate of press, and now that he's camped out in New Hampshire, it's a net gain for his campaign that he got a profile in the Nashua Telegraph. Karger gets another round of biography, and gets to discuss his historic bid as the first openly gay candidate for president, with a dose of non-triumphalism:
"It's funny. Republicans don't like me because I'm gay, and the gay population doesn't like me because I'm Republican," he said, seated comfortably in the living room of his rental home in Manchester, which doubles as a campaign headquarters. "It's an interesting place to be."As interesting as it may be, people are starting to speculate that it's playing a role in his overall exclusion. Zack Ford took up the issue this week:
But as conservatives argue that his exclusion has nothing to do with his sexuality, they manage to prove the very opposite. Jimmy LaSalvia of the gay Republican group GOProud epitomized this point as he tried to downplay Karger's legitimacy as a candidate:LASALVIA: Fred Karger is not a credible candidate. I would love for there to be an openly gay, credible candidate for president who was out there making a case for why they would be better than Barack Obama. Unfortunately, Fred Karger is playing a stunt, and his stunt has run its course. His whole schtick is ... running around the country with a rainbow flag, saying 'I'm the gay guy.' But he hasn't made a case about why he should be president of the United States.This is a catch-22 for the tokenized Karger: being "the gay Republican presidential candidate" has helped him gain notoriety, but now it seems to be the only aspect of his campaign conservatives are willing to mention. They dismiss him as "just the gay guy," but simultaneously deny him any opportunity to engage with the other candidates about other issues in his platform. It's political homophobia in action. Conservatives say they aren't discriminating against him -- he's just not a "credible" candidate. But they don't hesitate to say they think he's not credible because he's gay. If that's not the reason he continually has to fight to be included in debates and conventions, what is?Of course, the counterargument is that Thad McCotter and Gary Johnson and Buddy Roemer are similarly excluded, and they're not gay. But maybe they are excluded for reasons that are just as insidious, like they are pro-union (McCotter), or nobody wants a second anti-war libertarian (Johnson), or nobody wants someone railing against lobbying and the influence of corporate money (Roemer).In any event, such speculation will continue. And, beleaguered as it may be, so shall the Karger campaign. And this week, they enjoyed a minor breakthrough in the quest for inclusion: after being initially denied access, Karger will speak at the California GOP convention in September. There, he'll have a chance to demonstrate that he's more than just the candidate with the rainbow flag. And if he gives the lie to that perception, what's the next excuse?
Thaddeus McCotter(03 of07)
Thad McCotter finished last in the Ames Straw Poll. But did you know that he's finished third in a straw poll since then? It's true! Why hasn't this gotten all sorts of heavy-breathing or panic or attention? Well, we don't know why ANY straw poll gets that sort of treatment. "Holy crap! A handful of people got in a room and had opinions and we counted them up and one opinion 'won,' stop the presses!" But if you must know, it was a New Hampshire straw poll that no one cared about, because there will probably be about 38 other New Hampshire straw polls between now and the middle of next month, and, oh yeah, there's this:
The campaign's release said McCotter tied with Texas Gov. Rick Perry and finished ahead of Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann and Georgia's Herman Cain in the straw poll of 302 people among 11 candidates.The release omitted that the weekend poll was dominated by Texas Rep. Ron Paul at 45 percent followed by Michigan native and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney at 35 percent.So, Ron Paul won another straw poll, beating out the people in the room who knew that Mitt Romney is running for president, and Thad McCotter got the best of the leftovers.McCotter's taking it in stride, however, telling a Tea Party conclave in Oglesby, Ill., "Right now I revel in my obscurity because look how the country acts about the people they do know." Why is he campaigning in Illinois?? Hell if we know. Just go with it.Lest you think that McCotter's running some sort of quiet operation, look at the way he laid the wood to Standard and Poor's!
When Standard & Poor's downgraded the U.S. credit rating, they weren't just making a doubtful statement about America's debt, but about democracy in today's world, said GOP presidential candidate Thad McCotter to The Des Moines Register."[T]hey criticized our process and used it as a rationale for downgrading the United States," said the Michigan congressman. "Now, we might not have enjoyed the process, but the strength of the United States is that you have people who passionately believe something on either side. They go into a heavy, heated discourse, but eventually a resolution is found. That's called free speech. It's called the political process."For Standard & Poor's to use that as a rationale, to me, was telling me that they believe that a government that does not allow that type of free and full and fair debate to get to a broadly bipartisan resolution, is the preferred model of government - there's communist China."Wow. Just ... okay, wow. S&P is a straight Maoist, or something! And speaking of cultural revolutions, McCotter will tell you that Rick Perry and Mitt Romney weren't present at the one most important to him:
"I think if you look at Mr. Perry or Mr. Romney and me, they're 20 years older than me, but there's an interesting dichotomy at work here," McCotter said. "I have something that I can say that they can't: I was a Republican during the Reagan administration. Neither one of them was. My question is why? Why was I at the age of 21 able to join the Republican party as a precinct delegate? And yet there was something about the Reagan agenda that they found to be particularly off-putting, so they didn't bother to join that party that they now seek to be the standard-bearer of."
Ron Paul(04 of07)
The story with Ron Paul was that he wasn't getting much coverage, except in terms of people covering the fact he wasn't getting covered. And then people thought: "Well, there you go, he's now been covered!" But Paul presses resolutely onward, and he continues to do the sorts of things that entitle one to coverage. For instance: he remains a top tier, double-digit candidate. And he's making gains at the same time many of the other also-rans are having their support absorbed by Rick Perry. In those periodically-taken match-up polls, Paul is one of those GOP candidates that ends up in a dead heat with President Obama. No, these polls don't mean very much in August. But to whatever limited extent that they do, Paul is in the mix. And, of course, the Ron Paul community is always good for a money-bomb. At the grassroots level, in fact, there may be no one better:
Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) raised $1.8 million in 24 hours between Saturday and Sunday, a major online "money bomb" timed to coincide with his 76th birthday. This is the fourth time Paul has raised more than $1 million in a day this campaign cycle, and a signal that he will have the money to compete as long as he wishes for the Republican presidential nomination.Of course, if you want coverage, it comes at a cost, and that's critical coverage. This week, Alex Pareene engaged in a thought exercise about what a Paul presidency would look like. His conclusions aren't that controversial -- Paul would be generically good on civil liberties and would reign in America's ever-expanding international misadventures. But he'd spend most of the time in a stalemate: "A Ron Paul presidency would really not get very much done, at all, actually. That is by design, because Ron Paul does not much like the government he seeks to sit at the top of, and by necessity, because the things Ron Paul will want to do will be opposed by the legislature."And that's the good part:
Basically, a Paul presidency would be very, very bad for millions of Americans, especially ones reliant on government assistance (state or federal). And the dysfunction would, I imagine, be so bad for the economy that I'm not sure the American working and middle classes would ever recover (not that I'm sure now anyone will ever recover, with our current situation). I mean, if you think "uncertainty" is what's stopping business from hiring now, can you imagine how "uncertain" things would be with President Paul wielding a veto pen and controlling the U.S. Department of the Treasury? And can you imagine Paul dealing with a 2008-style financial crisis? I am guessing he'd let all the banks fail -- which has its good points and its very terrifying points.Matt Yglesias questioned whether you could call Paul an actual libertarian:
After looking at his positions and statements, the most remarkable thing is that if it weren't for his loud fanbase of self-proclaimed libertarians you wouldn't really think this is the platform of a libertarian. He's loudly trumpeting his plan to impose criminal penalties on women who terminate their pregnancies and he makes it clear that his interest in freedom doesn't extend to the freedom of anyone unfortunate enough to have been born in a foreign country. His campaign slogan of "RESTORE AMERICA NOW" is strongly suggestive of conservative impulses and nostalgia for the much-less-free America John Boehner grew up in. The mainstay of his economic thinking is the ridiculous proposition that "[t]here is no greater threat to the security and prosperity of the United States today than the out-of-control, secretive Federal Reserve." Not only is Paul's goldbuggery nutty on the merits, like his affection for forced pregnancy and severe restrictions on human freedom of movement it's difficult to see what it has to do with freedom. The freedom of the government to set a fixed dollar price of gold? America's current monetary policy--a fiat currency that's freely exchangeable for other currencies and commodities--is the free market position.Paul's views, in short, seem much closer to the isolationist nationalism of Pat Buchanan (complete with some good points about foreign policy) than to the libertarianism of Milton Friedman.One thing you can definitely dig out of both critiques and then re-emphasize is that Paul's version of liberty will never be a genuine extension because he believes that woman are chattel.And now, Ron Paul supporters will spend their weekend yelling at your Speculatron. And that's OK!
Rick Perry(05 of07)
One week into the Rick Perry boomlet, and the consensus is in: Rick Perry is "dominating the race!" He's the greatest thing since soft ice-cream! Michele Bachmann is toast! Mitt Romney is in trouble! All must tremble before Rick Perry, for some reason!And, look, we get it. Perry is going to be the last really big deal candidate into the race, after all, so this is our last chance, as a nation of media people, to get swept up in the pageantry of newness. He's suddenly surged atop many a poll. He's signing pledges. And he's stacking up endorsements and support. Like Sen. Jim Inhofe, who loves the climate denialism. And, Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad, who loves Iowa, and the fact that Perry came to Iowa. Don't forget Haley Barbour, who's helping his fellow Southern governor. And Dean Cannon! Whoever that is!Here's Bruce Bartlett, chief domestic policy adviser to Ronald Reagan:
"Rick Perry's an idiot, and I don't think anyone would disagree with that."Okay, okay, so not all of the endorsements are glowing. But it's an important inclusion all the same, because it reminds us that no one is guaranteed smooth sailing. As Paul Waldman notes, Perry has "not yet begun to squirm," and sooner or later, he might encounter a reporter who's up to the task of interviewing him with a critical eye. You know...maybe. Stranger things have happened!As Greg Sargent points out, Perry's problem is that he actually took all of his weird, extreme positions on how the country should be run (into the ground, after dismantling all of its institutions) and put them in books, which everyone can read. Which is why in this first week of his presidential campaign, Rick Perry is disowning his last campaign -- the campaign to promote his book, "Fed Up!" Campaign spokesman Ray Sullivan is basically telling reporters that the book was a "look back" and "not a path forward." Oh, ha ha, you think that Rick Perry imagined that he'd be running on this as a platform for a future campaign? Heavens no! Still, you should definitely go out and read it, like Perry constantly urges people! Allow Perry to flip-flop on repealing the 16th Amendment, and privatizing Social Security. (Granted, this still puts Romney ahead on flip-flops by about 7,000.)Beyond that, we keep finding new things to cherish about Rick Perry. He thinks gays are like alcoholics. He's got no desire to see Social Security and Medicare continue. He will defund Planned Parenthood. He believes that corporations are currently in need of a civil rights movement of their very own. He hates climate science. He wanted to allow Wall Street to make mad green speculating on how long it would take teachers in Texas to die. Of course, all of these positions only make him more attractive to the GOP base, and enhance his prospects of winning the race. Did Mitt Romney have the balls to allow Wall Street speculation on teacher corpse futures? No sirree.And none of these positions take away from Perry's ability to line up corporate cronies, their itchy palms extended for the phatty-boombatty government contracts. Those types of dudes flock to Rick Perry. Only this week, Perry encountered some creepy Bank Of America executive, who brushed by Perry, offering only: "Bank of America. We will help you out." (With what? Mistakenly foreclosing on thousands of people? These days, Bank Of America really needs to set some more achievable goals for itself.)At any rate, if this doesn't end up working out for Rick Perry, he will have many, many gifts from well-wishers on which to fall back. (For some reason, many of those gifts are "medical tests.")
Rick Santorum(06 of07)
Rick Santorum thinks that Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann don't hate gays enough, though no one hates the LGBT community as much as Rick Santorum, so there's no point in even trying to compete. He doesn't think Perry's done enough to defend the border. He's mad at Jim DeMint for excluding him from the meeting of the Special Jim DeMint club, which was determined by "silly rules." Did we mention that he hates the gays? Even his "friends" that are gay? Who don't respect him enough? Oh, well, he does. So, yeah, that about sums up the week in Santorum stuff.
The Obama Primary(07 of07)
President Barack Obama had another week of staring at poll numbers that offered mixed reviews and a cloudy future. His Gallup drag continued -- approvals hit a new low this week, alongside head-to-heads that put him on even footing nationally with many of the GOP's top-tier candidates. Swing state polls, which are of more utility in gauging presidential elections, shone more brightly. But the numbers aren't ideal, by any stretch of the imagination. Of course, polls, especially the ones conducted in August, aren't worth a hill of beans. It's the fundamentals that count, and the fundamentals...well, they're bad. This week, the CBO "projected the unemployment rate, now 9.1%, will decline to a still-high 8.5% by the end of next year and will remain above 8% until 2014." That's not an environment that suits an incumbent president. Obama will have to run on the argument that he kept the economy from sliding into a hole. The fortunate thing is that after an exhaustive study by Dylan Matthews, the prevailing consensus is that the stimulus package did exactly that. Still, you'd much rather prove you fixed something in plain sight, rather than prevented something that could have happened. We tend to lionize firefighters because we see them putting out fires and rescuing kittens from burning buildings. The same isn't the case for the engineers and inspectors and bureaucrats who develop the safety standards and codes that keep buildings from catching fire in the first place.Of course, the other critical fundamental is voter enthusiasm. Obama will, of course, benefit from those generic Democrats who generically vote for Democrats. In poll after poll, it's indicated that those votes are staying with him. But Obama didn't win in the first place because he simply had the support of generic Dems. He won because he got over with other voting blocs.At the moment, Obama will have a decent amount of die-hard supporters. They're out there, and ready to lend the campaign, manning the phone banks, going door-to-door, helping to persuade neighbors and friends. But the rift remains between the White House and another large group that can manufacture some enthusiasm -- the activist left, who have been historically picked on by this administration. There's plenty of time to heal that rift, of course. There's maybe no better prescription than the thought of President Rick Perry. But when the Obama administration is seen doing things like trying to pulverize New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, who's maybe the last honest man in Christendom when it comes to reining in the Wall Street scofflaws of 2011, that divide grows wider. Can Obama win re-election in a terrible economy without energy from both the Obama-fans and the activist left? I suspect we are going to find out!
[Would you like to follow me on Twitter? Because why not? Also, please send tips to tv@huffingtonpost.com -- learn more about our media monitoring project here.]
Our 2024 Coverage Needs You
As Americans head to the polls in 2024, the very future of our country is at stake. At HuffPost, we believe that a free press is critical to creating well-informed voters. That's why our journalism is free for everyone, even though other newsrooms retreat behind expensive paywalls.
Our journalists will continue to cover the twists and turns during this historic presidential election. With your help, we'll bring you hard-hitting investigations, well-researched analysis and timely takes you can't find elsewhere. Reporting in this current political climate is a responsibility we do not take lightly, and we thank you for your support.
Contribute as little as $2 to keep our news free for all.
Can't afford to donate? Support HuffPost by creating a free account and log in while you read.
Already contributed? Log in to hide these messages.