let them eat cake.

Contraception: Some Belated Thoughts

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 12:38:17 -0800

So I have no clue how to feel about this contraception controversy that’s happening in Washington between Obama and Catholic Bishops, Republicans and Democrats, Democrats and Democrats.

Basically, the way I understand it, Obamacare (Affordable Care Act), that was signed into law in 2010, promised that women’s health services (including contraception) would have to be provided by all insurance plans. The basis was that contraception is medically necessary to ensure the health of women. The Department of Health and Human Services just finalized the regulation on who would or would not have to provide contraception. Under this regulation, religious places of worship and institutions would be exempt from providing contraception to its employees if it violated their beliefs. However, places like religious-sponsored schools, hospitals, and food banks, would have to provide contraception to its employees even if it violated the beliefs of the religion.

Cue the uproar caused by religious groups (mostly Catholic) after this new regulation was announced. The Republican candidates also pounced on this, Republican congressmen threatened to repeal the rule by attaching it to key legislation, and even some Democrats are opposed to the rules.

So a few days ago, President Obama announced that the new, new regulation would ease the criteria for religious exemptions and also put the onus on insurance providers to provide contraception, not on the organizations themselves.

I know next to nothing about what contraception is, to be honest. All I know is that there is a certain pill a woman takes and then, BAM! no baby (or something like that). And if that is all that contraception is, then I fully support it. And also, in general, I happen to support Obama on a lot of his stance on issues and his policies. Maybe I still have Obamamania, or whatever.

However, this is really a fundamentally different issue. After thinking about this new regulation for a long time, it is my humble opinion that this policy is just not sound at all. The regulation blatantly ignores religious liberty.

One of the reasons I oppose this contraceptive rule is in some ways just to spite those who support it. I find it humorous that the same group of people (like the ACLU) that is always vehemently opposed to the violation of religious liberties seems to be fully supportive of measures like these that are pleasing to liberals but still constitutionally questionable.

Another reason is that I can not buy into the notion that this is not ‘forcing’ anyone to change their beliefs. One of the arguments made by supporters of this regulation is that any employee can choose not to receive contraception, it is merely there as a choice. However, Catholic employers and Catholic employees would still have to pay the premium that provides contraception to non-Catholic employees and thus they would still be engaging in what they believe is morally wrong.

My last reason for opposition is probably the most questionable and I am not sure it even works as an argument but here goes. Under the ACA, by 2014, every American needs to have health insurance or pay a fine. Of course there are exemptions. If you are of low income, you won’t have to pay the fine. If you are Native American, you don’t have to buy health insurance. If you have a religious objection you need not buy health insurance. Wait, what? Now, granted, I have no idea how rigorous the process is to show that I have a religious objection to buying health insurance but still, the exemption is there. Shouldn’t religion-sponsored organizations and institutions be allowed to exempt themselves? An individual can cite his ~~bogus~~ religious beliefs and remove himself from the ENTIRE health insurance system but a Catholic-owned school cannot remove itself from one, small provision of the health insurance system? From my perspective that seems slightly contradictory.

Now here’s a cat dancing to Soulja Boy to ease the tension.

2012 Republican Presidential Race: A Self-Created Experiment.

Sat, 11 Feb 2012 23:18:28 -0800

[I literally just spent the last four hours going over election data for the last 9 primary contests because I have the time and I can.]

So let’s recap who’s won what so far in this race:

Romney wins Iowa then wins New Hampshire. True winner of Iowa declared to be Santorum. Gingrich wins South Carolina. Romney surges back with wins in Florida and Nevada. Santorum stuns with 3 wins in one day: Colorado, Minnesota, and Missouri. Romney ekes out a win in Maine.

Good news and Bad news for each candidate:

Romney

Pro: Has the most delegates, still considered front-runner, won the last race (Maine) before next election
Con: Tied for total number of states won (with Santorum), every state he wins has lower turnout than 2008

Santorum

Pro: Tied with current front-runner in number of states won, won 1-on-1 race against Romney in Missouri
Con: None of the states he won actually has assigned delegates yet, still doesn’t have enough money, has the name ‘Santorum’

Gingrich

Pro: Has a decent amount of money, good debater
Con: Has only won one state, everything else

Paul

Pro: There will always be people supporting him
Con: Has not won a single state

Opinions and Predictions Time:

Like I mentioned earlier, I had too much time on my hands today. So I decided to make a hypothesis about the Republican primary and run an extremely crude experiment to prove or disprove it…here it is:

-Hypothesis: There is a correlation between how liberal/conservative a state is and the percentage support for each individual candidate.

-The measure of the ideology of each state was determined using two different metrics. One was the margin of victory of Obama in the 2008 elections. Another was the Cook Partisan Voting Index created by the Cook Political Report. Only the four remaining candidates were analyzed. Three different metrics were created to determine support for each Republican candidate. The first two are obvious: margin of victory/loss @ each state and popular vote percentage @ each state. The third metric was determined by finding the margin between a candidate’s popular percentage and the average popular percentage not received by the candidate (e.g. If candidate A receives 40%, candidate B receives 30%, candidate C receives 25%, and candidate D receives 5% of the votes, then this metric for candidate A would be 20 = 40 - (30+25+5)/3). This metric was created by me for the simple reason that a candidate winning 40% of the vote or a 10-point margin in a four man field is substantially less significant than a candidate that wins 40% of the vote or a 10-point margin in a six man field (e.g. If the metric was ran again with 6 instead of 4 people running, then the metric for candidate A would increase to 28 = 40 - (30+10+10+5+5)/5)

-The bad news: The correlation between percentage earned by candidates Romney and Santorum to the political ideology of the states that voted so far is .0329 and .0081 respectively (r-squared value). I am pretty sure this means that there is no correlation whatsoever. But…

-The good news: The correlation between percentage popular vote earned by Gingrich to the political ideology of the states is… 0.8559. Yay! I am pretty sure this means that there is some sort of positive correlation between how conservative a state is and the percentage of votes earned by Newt Gingrich. So my four hours compiling data weren’t for naught. Maybe it is true that Gingrich claims that he’s the most conservative man in the race…he seems to be getting more votes in conservative states.

-Applications of this result to future events (because apparently that’s what scientists have to try to do): Arizona and Michigan vote on 2/28, and a week later is Super Tuesday. Romney needs two wins here to firmly reinstate his front-runner status. Santorum needs these two wins so he can surpass Romney going into Super Tuesday. Gingrich needs these two wins so he can be viable (and talked about) again. Paul never needed these two wins but it wouldn’t hurt. However, all I have to work with is predictions of how Gingrich will do. According to my experiment, conservative Arizona can expect to give 36% of its support to Gingrich and Gingrich can expect to receive a mere 7% support from Michigan. If my model is true, then Arizona is the state that is crucial for Gingrich. That is the state that will be most friendly towards him. He also should pray for a Santorum win in Michigan so Romney cannot fully rise into front-runner status. If Gingrich is strong in Arizona and Santorum wins Michigan, look for a LONG primary process. And your next president will probably be Obama.

2012 Republican Presidential Race: South Carolina

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 20:57:32 -0800

This race has become so entertaining to follow, I don’t remember 2008 being this enjoyable and interesting! Of the 6 Republicans that competed in New Hampshire, only 4 remain going into South Carolina. Despite my predictions that Huntsman would likely stay on, he bowed out and endorsed Romney while yesterday, Rick Perry dropped out (for real this time) and endorsed Newt Gingrich. A margin of 14 points separated Romney and Gingrich on the 16th; Gingrich is now leading by 6 points. Let’s look at each candidate as we go into tomorrow…

Rick Santorum.

I feel sorry for this dude. I really do. This man got three of the best pieces of news that he could have EVER gotten and his support is down from 24 percent to about 10 percent. First, the conservative Evangelical Christian leaders, the same leaders that said they wouldn’t endorse a candidate after South Carolina, gave their blessings to Santorum in a series of three votes. The Gingrich-Santorum tie in New Hampshire that I predicted would force the leaders not to choose anyone decided to back Santorum. Second, he had one of his BEST debates last night. He went after Romney, he went after Gingrich, he did everything right. Finally, yesterday morning something miraculous happened, HE ACTUALLY WON THE IOWA CAUCUSES. All this and he’s set to come in last tomorrow. Here comes his lack of luck: The backing by the Evangelical leaders was barely reported by the press. Santorum had a great debate but Gingrich was the one that had the single moment that everyone was talking about today, Santorum was barely recognized. Santorum’s win in Iowa is too close to election day to make any difference in voters’ mind. The same day the news broke, Rick Perry drops out and endorses Newt Gingrich. What would have been the headline of the day became a news article on the 4th page. Santorum is basically dead after Florida, there is no path out unless Santorum comes in second tomorrow in South Carolina and that seems unlikely.

Ron Paul.

There’s not much to say about this guy, he’s doing worse here than any other state so far, as the field has started to narrow, it’s as if people are starting to care about him less. Nevertheless, the only thing Paul has to do to be viable is to keep third place and that seems easy right now as Santorum stumbles.

Mitt Romney.

Offshore accounts in the Cayman Islands. 15% tax rate (because most of his money are from investments). But the 375,000 he made from speeches last year is ‘not very much’. He refuses to release his tax forms. Then he agrees to release them…in April. There’s not much else to be said, Romney has been having a crappy week. It’s not about to look that brighter tomorrow though. However, the only way Romney could be derailed is if he comes in last tomorrow and that’s just not happening. Romney will come in second tomorrow, declare that he probably would not have won whatever he did and then go down to Florida.

Newt Gingrich.

I sort of want to have this guy win. Only because it would make for ‘sick’ debates between him and Obama. Both are ‘professorial’, one has charisma, the other has a whole lot of anger. Monday’s debate saved Gingrich, it brought him from the grave. Yesterdaynight’s debate sealed the deal for him. The one piece of bad coverage he got about his ex-wife accusing him of asking her for an open marriage was somehow turned by Gingrich into a positive by giving him an opportunity to attack the news media. Everyone loved it. Manipulator-in-chief. Gingrich wins tomorrow. This race will go until March. It’s going to be Gingrich v Romney at the end.

To close.

Life changes quickly, so do campaigns.
I have spent a great deal of time these past few weeks reading up on political and electoral news because I really enjoy the horse race, I really enjoy the tit-for-tat fights between candidates and politicians. And I think it’s important for people my age to be engaged into things like this. No offense to older people but, most of their future is done with, our future is imminent. We should have a greater say in the people who get elected to the presidency, his policies will directly affect my present and my future, our present and our future.

Now, to actually close.

I predict Romney will still win the whole thing. Gingrich will have power after he leaves South Carolina but not enough to propel him to victory at the convention. One thing to point out though, if the pundits are correct and South Carolina goes Newt tomorrow, all three states will have gone for a different nominee, which I believe has not happened since Iowa, NH, and SC started to be the first three states in 1980. So there’s some food for thought there.

2012 Republican Presidential Race: Rick Perry and the Aftermath of

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 19:17:59 -0800

New Hampshire happened yesterday and I suppose the big news is that Buddy Roemer almost beat Rick Perry if he could have garnered 800 or so more votes. Poor Buddy. Or actually probably more apt to say: Poor Rick.

All joking aside, the results came out exactly the way people said it was going to turn out: Romney, Paul, Hunstman in that order. Big whoop. Like I said in my previous post, this will be the most inconsequential result other than the fact that Romney won. Paul will continue to get the support of people who like him (about 22% of the party). Romney will ride into South Carolina as the front runner, as he was for almost the entire race now.

An interesting tidbit I did point out two days ago is the Gingrich-Santorum result and how that would affect who the ‘anti-Romney’ candidate is. Now, both candidates did poorly yesterday, their support combined could barely beat Huntsman’s support. However, the point is that they had a virtual tie, Gingrich winning by a margin of 49 votes. Now going into conservative South Carolina, things are going to be tricky for people meeting at that ‘evangelical leaders’ summit/retreat thingy to decide on a candidate. If Santorum beat Gingrich yesterday, it would be easy, they would probably pick Santorum. However, now that Gingrich and Santorum are ‘tied’, the evangelical leaders will fail to choose between Santorum or Gingrich.

The most IMPORTANT reason I wrote this blog post is to highlight something that I was excited to figure out but I’m sure in the grand scheme of things, doesn’t really matter. (I shall assume that this discovery is wholly original, I did not consult any sources outright discussing this):

I was watching the returns last night on CNN and reading some articles being written about the candidates. I don’t exactly remember where but someone wrote something about ‘this is a delegates race’, the percentage vote doesn’t matter. And so I was curious about the delegates and how they would be affected by New Hampshire results and also by Iowa results. In terms of Iowa, the delegate totals are widely different for most news organizations because the caucus results have almost no say in how many delegates each candidate gets. I decided to go with the totals from the green papers, whose rustic yet seemingly up-to-date website attracted me. Romney, Santorum, and Paul 6 each; Gingrich 4; Perry 3.

Now for the delegate totals for New Hampshire. This primary directly relates to who will get delegates. Now when I was checking for delegate totals for New Hampshire, news organizations did not have them yet, only 12% of the votes had been counted at the time. So I checked the above website again, to see if they had any information on HOW the state allocates delegates…:
‘National Convention delegates are to be bound proportionally…A 10% threshold is required in order for a presidential contender to be allocated National Convention delegates…Any delegate positions that remain open are awarded to the candidate with the highest statewide vote total’

So here’s my point. I didn’t just title this post Rick Perry just to make fun of him for getting so close to Roemer’s vote total. No, Rick Perry factors in HUGELY in my observation. In fact, I will say here right now: with 0.71% of the vote total, Rick Perry was the MOST influential candidate in affecting the New Hampshire delegate totals.

But, *insert blog author here*, how could that be? Perry couldn’t have gotten any delegates anyway, New Hampshire has only 12 delegates! Of course, *insert name of hypothetical questioner here*, Rick Perry wouldn’t have gained any delegates. That doesn’t mean his 1,767 votes is inconsequential.

Consider this. Gingrich got 9.42% of the vote. Santorum got 9.40% of the vote. So doing a little bit of math, proportionally, they would each get 1 delegate. NOPE. Under NH GOP rules, a candidate must get at least 10% of the vote to qualify for delegate allocation. Therefore, calculating it proportionally, Romney gets 5 delegates, Paul gets 3 delegates, Huntsman gets 2 delegates. The 2 remaining delegates that doesn’t get allocated, goes to Romney for getting the plurality of the votes in NH. Total: 7 for Romney, 3 for Paul, 2 for Huntsman.

Now consider this. Rick Perry drops out in 1/3/2012 like everyone thought he would. He doesn’t show up to the debates, thus giving Santorum and Gingrich more debate time. He doesn’t get 0.71% of the vote in New Hampshire. Let’s just make things simple and say Rick Perry’s 0.71% gets added to Gingrich and Santorum equally. Gingrich now has 9.78% and Santorum now has 9.76%. Say that the extra debate time convinced more voters to vote for Gingrich and Santorum, particularly the ones like Bachmann (who got 352 votes) and Cain (who got 162 votes). This would put both Gingrich and Santorum just over 10% of the vote. And what’s the threshold for delegate allocation? 10%! With just a slight push in Gingrich and Santorum’s vote, Romney’s delegate allocation goes from 7 to 5.

Now 2 delegates is largely inconsequential, amounting to about .17% of the total delegates needed to win. However, if this is TRULY a delegate race, Rick Perry’s 1,767 supporters just delivered 2 of them to Mitt Romney. Bravo, bravo.

2012 Republican Presidential Race: New Hampshire

Mon, 09 Jan 2012 19:35:08 -0800

I guess let’s review what happened in Iowa last Tuesday. It was an exciting night (if elections and stuff excite you) to say the least, and the CNN commentary made it all the more better. The result was extraordinary, both Romney and Santorum did better than expected, leading to an eight-vote margin ‘win’ for Romney. The results left Ron Paul hanging at third, Gingrich at fourth, Perry at fifth, Bachmann at sixth, and a decisive trumping of Buddy Roemer by candidate-no-more Herman Cain (which the media is choosing to ignore but this blog isn’t afraid to expound upon).
[[As a person with absolutely no experience in these matters, I will attempt to explain the effects of the results, what we will see out of New Hampshire, and if any of this will change the state of play of the rest of the campaign. After all, McCain’s experience didn’t help him win the presidency. It was Obama’s youthfulness, a youthfulness that I will attempt to channel. AnalysisYouCanBelieveIn2012! (If you want serious analysis I suggest you check out Nate Silver or Larry Sabato, otherwise stay on the line)]]

The effects.

This is actually quite simple. One doesn’t have to look past the candidate’s speeches after the caucuses to realize what the effects were. Romney is feeling more confident, he finally won the state of Iowa which he’s been wanting to win since 2007. Santorum is feeling SUPER confident, unlike the other surges (here, there, here, there, here and everywhere), he’s actually shown that he can compete with the front-runner. Yeah Mitt Romney won, but by eight votes? Eight votes is a lot in the Senate but not in Iowa, Santorum is selling and totally will sell that as a victory considering he was up against the election ‘machine’ created by Romney and groups-for-Romney-but-uncoordinated-with-Romney, aka his Super PACs. Ron Paul will continue to be Ron Paul. He did as well as was expected, nothing changes for him. Newt Gingrich: BOY is he mad! My gosh, he’s going to go down to South Carolina and rip apart Romney for those ads made against Gingrich in Iowa. Rick Perry looked like he was going to drop out and then he didn’t. Michelle Bachmann dropped out. Now I won’t say I predicted this but in an earlier version of my last post, I wrote that going into South Carolina, things were going to look brighter for Rick Perry and Satorum because ‘hopefully Michelle Bachmann makes the right choice and drops out after Iowa.’ Now I feel like I should have kept it considering that I don’t think anyone else was saying that [[Youthfulness trumps experience people, get it in your heads!]].
But that’s all old news, you can read all of this in the facts. What does Iowa mean for tomorrow?

New Hampshire.

The people of New Hampshire will go to the polls tomorrow to choose the person to go against Obama. I stand by my ~~bold~~ prediction from last week that Romney will win tomorrow. Again, like last week it would be much more effective to look at who will finish second. Starting with least likely:

Newt Gringrich comes in 2nd. This result would probably be the holy grail for political pundits and election analysts. For political pundits because it would set up an epic Romney v. Gingrich fight in South Carolina which will last a good 11 days. For election analysts because it would have to be an 8% uptick in support, more than half the number that supports him today. He would be going from fifth to second. The reason this is the least likely scenario is in the numbers. Gingrich has been trending down since, well he peaked. His surge is going downhill like Perry’s did and Cain’s did. But hey, this is New Hampshire where anything could happen and voters buck the trends.
Santorum comes in 2nd. This result is only slightly more likely than the Gingrich situation. Santorum has basically zero momentum now in New Hampshire, he got a 7% bump and that’s about it. He essentially got the 3% bump that I discussed last week that comes with winning the Iowa caucuses and then he got the 4% of voters who wanted to vote for Bachmann. There’s no where he can go. If he does pull it off, he becomes the presumptive anti-Romney candidate going into South Carolina, more in-tune with his social conservative stance.
Huntsman comes in 2nd. This is what Huntsman wanted all along. He knew he wasn’t going to win New Hampshire, he wanted this 2nd place in order to become legitimate. This 2nd place finish would not be surprising, he’s slowly inching up on the polls. What this finish would mean for Huntsman in the long run is a little bit more complicated. He seems too liberal for South Carolina. He hasn’t been tested outside of New Hampshire, really. So this result could really throw a wrench in everything. My view is that he survive until the Nevada caucuses and he drop out.
Ron Paul comes in 2nd. This is what I want to see, the Ron Paul 2nd place that was supposed to happen in Iowa. At this point, I think the media is beginning to take him more seriously and this 2nd place finish would give him a portion of the delegates he needs to influence the race. This result would also possibly be the most inconsequential of the four discussed here. Mitt Romney wins, some obscure third place finish by another candidate, New Hampshire effectively ignored.

Why is Rick Perry not mentioned? Here’s why.

Beyond.

One important thing I did not mention is this conservative contingent of the GOP that apparently trying to rise up and pick an anti-Romney and then throwing the rest out. I really don’t think this element of the GOP will come to a consensus over Santorum, Gingrich, or Perry. However, I do feel it important to discuss who WILL be the anti-Romney coming out of New Hampshire. Things can go three ways in NH: 1) Newt Gingrich beats Santorum. 2) Santorum beats Gingrich. 3) Santorum and Gingrich largely tie. 1 and 3 will be boons for Romney going into South Carolina and Florida. In case 1, now both Gingrich and Santorum can claim to be the ‘anti-Romney’ candidate, effectively cancelling each other out. In case 3, Santorum can claim to be the ‘anti-Romney’ candidate, but Gingrich can say, ‘but look here, we performed about the same’. In case 2, however, anti-Romney, anti-Hunstman, anti-Paul people might say, hey look here, Santorum is doing well in Iowa AND NH, we should throw support behind him!

And the moment in which all this becomes pointless. Romney still wins the nomination. No matter what anyone says. Unless Romney’s tax records show that he’s been paying negative taxes his whole life or he becomes the butt of a joke (haha, punny) or he is shown to have had divorced twice and had affairs or he can’t name things he’ll be leading and nominating as President or he has a series of newsletters that are incendiary…he’ll be fine and he’ll win the nomination. So this analysis crap is all moot. Don’t read this. DON’T READ THIS.

2012 Republican Presidential Race

Mon, 02 Jan 2012 14:31:00 -0800

I am supremely bored at the moment, trying to entertain guests for the holiday season, guests who quite frankly don’t seem to understand that the holiday season has PASSED at the world has moved on. So I decided to write this, revive this failed age old blog, which will fail again due to lack of effort. I also realize that ~~most~~ all of my audience and the audience of my personal blog (which will shamelessly reblog this one) does not care for politics like I do, but whatever, I do this for my own pleasure.

As I’m writing this, I realize how long it’s going to be, I’ll add a “read more break” so you can just easily scroll through this and it won’t clutter your dashboard. *Edit* Seems like I’m having trouble with the break function, prepare for clutter.

Anyways…Why does anyone still think a non-Romney candidate will get the nomination? He WILL be the Republican nominee to battle against Obama.

Let’s ~~agonizingly~~ look at this state by state:

Iowa.

Tomorrow, Iowans go to cast their vote (which actually doesn’t directly lead to delegates at the party convention but, who cares about that right?). I guess this state could go several ways, let’s start with the least likely:

Rick Santorum wins. This is starting to look like a real possibility with Santorum gaining super momentum in the last stretch before Iowans start voting. The problem for Santorum is two-fold: 1) Romney can just say that he was never trying to win Iowa -sorry can’t find the link but trust me- 2) Santorum has little to gain outside of Iowa. One can look no further than the 2008 results to see this as true. After Huckabee’s sizable victory over Romney in Iowa four years ago, one would assume that he received a bump in the polls. Well he did, except it was more like a meager 3% increase from 9% to 12% and McCain - a 4th place finisher in Iowa - went on to win New Hampshire. Santorum sits at around 3% in the polls right now, a 3% bounce would double his current support but not enough to take down Huntsman and GIngrich, let alone Romney who sits comfortably in the low-40s.
So Santorum’s best bet is to win South Carolina, a bit more conservative for Santorum’s liking. However, the problem is, if Santorum doesn’t make a good impression in New Hampshire, he’s likely to lose South Carolina because people will have forgotten about his Iowa win…
Ron Paul wins. It will likely be a squeaker if Paul manages to pull out a win, mostly because of all the negative press he’s been having and Rick Santorum’s rise in the polls. However, he does have the lead in some polls going in and he has an excellent base of support so this win is more probable than improbable. However, Ron Paul will get no recognition for it whatsoever like when he came in second to Michelle Bachmann at the Ames Straw Poll and some other occasions. Whoever comes in second will get all the credit. Ron Paul might possibly get a boost in New Hampshire, but that won’t hamper Romney’s support unless Romney gets less than 3rd tomorrow.
Romney wins. It won’t matter who comes in second or third if Romney pulls this one off. This will result in significant power for Romney going into New Hampshire against his three biggest rivals: 1) His win will stave off any last minute Ron Paul surge in New Hampshire, 2) Gingrich’s campaign will be frozen until S. Carolina and Florida, 3) Huntsman’s shaving off of Romney’s left side support will be less effective since Romney will inevitably add some support to his right side.

There will be blood in Iowa tomorrow, considering there are 3 candidates effectively tied for first place and also because of those Occupy people attempting to reassert themselves tomorrow. Whichever the three candidates win Iowa, things are looking mighty good for Mitt Romney.

New Hampshire.

New Hampshire votes a week after Iowa and that’s enough time for candidates to regroup and reassert themselves after a loss or a win in Iowa. However, my opinion is that Mitt Romney wins NH, whomever wins Iowa, so it would be much more effective to look at the second place finishers:

Ron Paul comes in 2nd. This is likely but again, this will be ignored by the media. The press will declare that Romney scored a whopping win over the third place finisher, effectively ignoring the poor voters that keep voting for Ron Paul.
Gingrich comes in close 2nd. This is highly unlikely considering Gingrich’s numbers are on a downward trajectory and nothing in Iowa looks good for Gingrich either. This 2nd place will, however, put him in good spot going into the southern states like South Carolina and Florida. Gingrich could argue that he was able to at least be winnable against Mitt Romney.
Gingrich comes in far 2nd. Gingrich will become an interesting footnote whenever the 2012 elections are discussed, like Fred Thompson in 2008
Huntsman comes in far 2nd. Bye-bye Jon Huntsman. There’s no way he can recover from a far 2nd place finish when he’s effectively running as if New Hampshire was the only state in the United States, declining to participate in an Iowa debate and campaigning in New Hampshire only, even up to the date of the Iowa caucuses. But what if he comes…
…in a close 2nd finish. The only thing after that is going for Huntsman is maybe Nevada a month later or Colorado, attempting to scrape up Mormon voters from Mitt Romney but that’s about it, he’s still a goner either way. Although there is a second opinion: here.

Whoever comes in second in New Hampshire, things are looking bright for Romney still.

The rest of the states are too far out to predict or postulate. But it might not be too far off to say that Mitt Romney will be riding on some great momentum going into South Carolina and Florida. And even if he loses both those states, he has Nevada a few days after Florida, Colorado a few days after Nevada. At the end of February he has his “home” state of Michigan and that should be enough momentum going into Super Tuesday in March to wrap things up.

As the race has played out in the last few days, in my opinion, all signs point to a Romney victory. Of course there might be a few surprises here and there: maybe a blowout win by Santorum tomorrow, a Huntsman victory in New Hampshire, Rick Perry’s ascendance in South Carolina, Gingrich’s campaign back from life support with a win in Florida. The problem is, all those surprises come from four different candidates; there is no path for one single candidate to serve as the anti-Romney at this moment.

My arm is starting to hurt. Happy reading! :D

Today's news in 20 words.

Sun, 25 Jul 2010 21:19:20 -0700

BP CEO fired. Gov. thinks Jersey Shore = no-no. secret documents revealed about Afghanistan War. Apple still thinks they rule world.

so true….

Sun, 25 Jul 2010 21:08:54 -0700

so true….

North Korea Threatens U.S. before War Games

Fri, 23 Jul 2010 09:08:47 -0700

North Korea Threatens U.S. before War Games:

1. ITS THE EFFIN EAST SEA NOT THE SEA OF JAPAN

2. I can’t help but feel sorry for the S. Koreans. They have so little political clout that U.S. has to do all the negotiating for them and since the U.S. usually goes for their own interest, S. Korea=screwed.

3. To North Korea: What’s more threatening, getting a ship blown up by your enemy? (what N. Korea did to S. Korea) or your enemy doing some “war game” in the ocean? (what S. Korea is going to do to N. Korea) -____-

Ken Buck: Vote for Me Because I Am Not A Woman (via...

Thu, 22 Jul 2010 07:36:25 -0700

Ken Buck: Vote for Me Because I Am Not A Woman (via wayne2br)

WTF.

delightfullsonny: fuckyeahpoliticalcartoons: inothernews: Joe...

Wed, 21 Jul 2010 20:22:47 -0700

delightfullsonny:

fuckyeahpoliticalcartoons:

inothernews:

Joe Heller / The Green Bay Press-Gazette

First Asian American Head Justice of California!!

Wed, 21 Jul 2010 16:22:12 -0700

First Asian American Head Justice of California!!:

But I don’t know why this hasn’t happened earlier in California’s history……

So the owner of Facebook is...?

Wed, 21 Jul 2010 07:31:00 -0700

So the owner of Facebook is...?:

moral of the story…~~be careful where you sign~~ be careful what you give to others to sign!

Today's news in 20 words.

Tue, 20 Jul 2010 18:27:37 -0700

Lohan starts jail. USDA official firing controversy. Glenn Beck blind = one year. Senate v. unemployment benefits over. Mel Gibson still crazy.

First Post.

Tue, 20 Jul 2010 17:50:17 -0700

Hey people, my name is Steven and I live in San Bernardino. I’m a high school student, going to be a junior in a couple of weeks.

My family is from the middle-class and I’ve been a self-described liberal ever since I’ve been interested in politics.

This blog is not anything professional, just a way for me to share my political and social thoughts to the public. With that said, if anything I say on this blog comes off as offensive, I apologize in advance and urge you to contact me about it if possible.

Well enjoy my postings Tumblrians!