Sarah Palin’s Main CPAC Speech Points: Did She Sell Out?

-By Warner Todd Huston

I am just now back home from CPAC and I thought I’d wrap up my CPAC reports with the main points from Sarah Palin’s CPAC speech. I will have video of a dozen or so GOP candidates for Senate and the House over the ensuing days as well as a short video interview with Daniel Hannan, the Member of European Parliament that made himself beloved to Americans for his impassioned speeches in favor of freedom and liberty.

Those videos will come later, but now, on to Sarah’s speech. As expected, Sarah Palin was met with the most adulatory applause of any CPAC speaker. When she came out onto the stage the house went wild. She had the longest sustained standing ovation of the entire event. Obviously, Sarah Palin is still a rock star to these conservatives.

I live tweeted her speech and following this introduction I’ll repost those live tweets here so that you can see her main points as she delivered them and as I tweeted them. But first my over all impressions.

Palin spent a lot of time smacking President Obama over the head with his smashing failures over the last three years. She made no effort to be coy about it but attacked him head on. As in all her speeches — and I’ve been in the audience for a few of them, myself — she made many allusions to the founders, citing them often. And she ended up with an urgent plea to those watching to fall in behind who ever becomes the GOP nominee “for the sake of our country.” This ending might have surprised, maybe even dismayed her more ideological fans because perhaps she just proved to be just another party woman instead of the ideologically pure representative they’d hoped for.
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Sarah Palin’s Main CPAC Speech Points: Did She Sell Out?”


CPAC Straw Poll: It’s Mitt!

-By Warner Todd Huston

3,408 CPAC attendees participated in this year’s straw poll, the poll’s second highest number of participants, and they picked Mitt Romney as their man.

With a pool of voters that said at 63% that slashing big government was a main concern for 2012, a 97% disapproval rating for President Obama, and even a 28% disapproval rate the job Republicans in Congress are doing, voters picked Romney over Santorum by only 7 percentage points.

  • Romney 38%
  • Santorum 31%
  • Newt 15%
  • Paul 12%

Paul dominated the CPAC polling over the last two years, but this year he placed a distant fourth place. Paul did not attend CPAC this year and his followers were absent as well. Unless a few of them were out protesting with the Occupiers, of course.

The CPAC poll has no official standing Party-wise, to be sure, but as ACU Chairman Al Cardenas notes it is a good barometer of a nice large slice of the conservative movement.

This result does show the surging Santorum candidacy, though. It is clear that Rick Santorum has at last gotten his chance to be the non-Romney candidate. I think if CPAC were to have been held three or four months ago, Rick would not have achieved this close finish with Romney here at this conservative gathering.

I must say, I had imagined that Mitt might lose to Santorum considering his surging poll numbers out and about in the rest of the country outside CPAC, but I also must say that Mitt’s speech was competent and free of any unforced errors, if you will.

So, there you have it. Mitt barely edges out Rick Santorum as king of CPAC.
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CPAC Straw Poll: It’s Mitt!”


CPAC Speeches: Contrasting Santorum, Gingrich, Romney

-By Warner Todd Huston

CPAC 2012 featured appearances by the three top GOP contenders who came to ask for the support of the conservatives gathered there. First came former Penn. Senator Rick Santorum, then Governor Mitt Romney, and finally former Speaker of the House of Representatives Newt Gingrich, all came to sell their ideas and candidacy.

Rick Santorum

Santorum came out to the most applause of the three, for sure. As he and his family mounted the stage the crowd was obviously eager to hear what the candidate had to say.

“Conservatism did not fail this country,” began the meat of the former Pennsylvania Senator’s remarks, “conservatives failed conservatism.”

Santorum said that in the past we, “listened to the voices that said we had to abandon our principles and our values to get things done, to win.” But no more compromise, he said. “The lesson we’ve learned is that we will no longer abandon and apologize for the policies and principles that made this country great for a hollow victory in November.”

Santorum went on to say that Obamacare was a “game changer” and with it, as the British found with their system, we will never be free again. “It’s about government control of our lives and it’s gotta stop,” he asserted to great applause.
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CPAC Speeches: Contrasting Santorum, Gingrich, Romney”


Ohio: Self-Proclaimed ‘Tea Party’ Candidate Doesn’t Know Who Andrew Breitbart Is?

-By Warner Todd Huston

Is it possible these days to be a new, active conservative running for Congress for the first time and not know who Andrew Breitbart is? Me, I’d reckon that an in the know, new candidate that claims to be conservative and a spokesman for Tea Partiers could not possibly be so isolated that he is unaware of conservative media-crusader Andrew Breitbart. But there is a candidate in Ohio who displayed right on his own campaign website just such a display of ignorance on Breitbartania, Breitbartism, or Breitbartness… whatever you want to call it, it just appears that this guy is stone-cold out of touch with the current conservative movement not to know thing one about Andrew Breitbart.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I am sure there are plenty of 90-year-old, Brahmin conservatives who get flummoxed at “the Facebookings.” I am sure there still exist out-of-touch, elder statesmen of the movement that just haven’t caught up with those newfangled Internet tubes that our friend Al Gore created. I am sure that there are more than a handful of aged establishment types shaking their fist at the Fox News and those darn websheets positive that they’ll never catch on, just as they were sure rock-n-roll was a passing fad. But can you be an up and comer in the conservative movement and be wholly unaware of one of the newest icons of conservatives everywhere?

I am here at CPAC this week and just ran into Joe “Joe the Plumber” Wurzelbacher who was telling me about his run for Congress in the 9th Congressional District. Joe made me aware of a hilarious little example of the abject cluelessness of his opponent. So let me introduce to you one Mr. Steve Kruas. Professional auctioneer actually licensed with the Ohio State Ag Department with well over 300 “successful” auctions under his belt. I guess you don’t need the Internets, talk radio and TV news shows to sell used farm equipment.
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Ohio: Self-Proclaimed ‘Tea Party’ Candidate Doesn’t Know Who Andrew Breitbart Is?”


CPAC Hair Doo Disaster

-By Warner Todd Huston

Being the king of sartorial splendor and a noted expert in haute couture (is it sad that I could spell that Frechified word without spell check?) it falls to me to dish about the worst hairdo at CPAC. That doo disaster belongs to Michelle Duggar of the famed doubling Duggars from TV. Call it a Garridoo Disaster.

Let’s leave ideology aside, as I find many of her ideas personally appealing, and let’s just talk hair, shall we, girlfriends? The Duggar doo was a disaster, plain and simple.

The whole thing seems to be a melange of styles. The poodle cut, the front flip, the long and straight, the perm, the mullet, even. All may work separately but together it is a hiarifying experience.
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CPAC Hair Doo Disaster”


Occupy Wall Street Comes to CPAC, Unions in Command

-By Warner Todd Huston


The police had the Occupiers well in hand. Notice they had their ever-present tents, too!

A sizable group of Occupy Wall Street protesters assembled Friday late morning to protest CPAC. Naturally this group was buoyed by big labor because, as we all know, the OWSers aren’t really any sort of grassroots anything but are a wholly manufactured, left-wing, anti-American concern funded and organized by hard core left-wingers.

I decided not to bother engaging with them as I’ve done in the past because I’ve learned that dialog is not what they are interested in. They have their rote and often infantile talking points, slogans, and chants and that is usually all they have to offer.
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Occupy Wall Street Comes to CPAC, Unions in Command”


Rick Santorum at CPAC

-By Warner Todd Huston

This morning former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum appeared at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) and gave a very solid speech. Mounting the stage with his whole family, he was energetic and in good spirits.

The following are the main points from his address if you’d rather read than watch the video.
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Rick Santorum at CPAC”


Cleta Mitchell: GOP Super-Lawyer

-By Warner Todd Huston

Without question Tea Partiers are unhappy with the elites of Washington D.C. Yet Cleta Mitchell is one Washingtonian that has became a welcome addition to the campaigns of some high profile Tea Party candidates.

Mrs. Mitchell, you see, is the in-demand, bulldog election law attorney that many Tea Party candidates go to when things began to get heated as they did during the 2010 elections.

Last October the Wall Street Journal noted that Mitchell’s clients included Joe Miller of Alaska, Christine O’Donnell of Delaware, Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, South Carolina’s Senator Jim DeMint, Sharron Angle of Nevada, Marco Rubio of Florida and many others.

Mitchell’s latest high profile client is Florida legislator Adam Hasner who is expected to run for the Senate in 2012. The conservative Hasner is a close associate of newly minted Senator Marco Rubio. Between 2007 and 2010 Hasner served as Rubio’s deputy majority leader in the Florida House.

With such high profile clientele, it is no wonder that Mitchell is called the “Republican super lawyer.”
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Cleta Mitchell: GOP Super-Lawyer”


A Few Moments With Senator Jim DeMint

-By Warner Todd Huston

Senator Jim DeMint (R, SC) is well known as the most conservative man in the upper chamber. He gave a rousing speech here at CPAC and afterward told a small gathering of us that many of the points he made will appear in his forthcoming book, Now or Never, Saving America From Economic Collapse. That message is, he said, that we have only a short time to turn this mess around and get this country back on track.

DeMint said that we need to remind our people — or in too many cases teach them from scratch — about America’s exceptionalism, but we also need to learn what changed from the days when our exceptionalism was better understood by the people. DeMint also noted that one of the problems we have to over come is that the Democrats agenda now prevents them from working in any way with the GOP and because their agenda is so extreme we just can’t compromise with them any more.

“Something’s gotta give,” DeMint said, “We have about a year before its too late
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A Few Moments With Senator Jim DeMint”


Breitbart Editor, Dana Loesch Receives Accuracy In Media Award at CPAC

-By Warner Todd Huston

(Note: The Wardman Marriott lost all Internet connection half way through the event on Thursday and it never came back so no one in the entire building had any connection unless they had their own Internet aircard. I apologize for not getting these up earlier today, but there was no help for it!)

Long-time media watchdog group Accuracy in Media bestowed its Grassroots Journalism Award to the editor-in-chief of BigJournalism.com, one of Andrew Breitbart’s suite of conservative websites on Thursday evening at CPAC.

Of the award and Miss Loesch, Don Irvine, Chairman of AIM, said:
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Breitbart Editor, Dana Loesch Receives Accuracy In Media Award at CPAC”


Truing the Voter Rolls, Voter Integrity Project: Many States have More Voters Registered Than Voting-Age Population

-By Warner Todd Huston

True the Vote is proud to announce that it is teaming with Judicial Watch on an election integrity project to pressure the states to clean up voter registration rolls to satisfy Section 8 of the National Voting Rights Act (NVRA), a law that all too many states have been violating for years.

Judicial Watch and True The Vote have sent letters to California, Ohio, Indiana, and Florida — others are also being considered — demanding that they satisfy the law or face lawsuits to attempt to force them to obey the law.

Section 8 of the NVRA requires that each state makes “a reasonable effort” to assure that voter rolls are current and correct but for years many states haven’t purged their voting rolls of people that have passed away, left the state, or are otherwise no longer legitimately enrolled. The result is that many states have more voters on the rolls than they have in voting-age population.
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Truing the Voter Rolls, Voter Integrity Project: Many States have More Voters Registered Than Voting-Age Population”


CPAC 2012 Begins

-By Warner Todd Huston

I am here at the beautiful Wardman Marriott in Washington DC this week for the Conservative Political Action Conference or CPAC. We will be seeing a whole host of conservative icons coming to speak… and the presidential candidates will be here too (Sarcasm? What sarcasm?). I’ll be covering as much as I can but there is no way to see, hear, do, and talk to it all, for sure.

The Chairman of the Conservative Action Union (ACU), the host organization for CPAC, is Al Cardenas and in his appearance before the press this morning he promised an exciting event.

Cardenas also noted that this year it seems that the contest for supporters being waged by the four remaining presidential candidates is wide open.
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CPAC 2012 Begins”


Rick Santorum’s Romneycare Smack Down

-By Warner Todd Huston

I think I am an inch away from endorsing Rick Santorum if he keeps this up. I am sure my endorsement will put him over the top, but that aside Santorum has really been standing as the only actual conservative left in the race at this point. His latest triumph occurred in Minnesota where he raked Romney over the coals for Romneycare — something that not enough people are doing.

Santorum’s charge is simple. How can a guy that still to this day defends Romneycare be the one to take the fight over Obamacare to the President? I’ve been saying for three years that Romney is simply unable to be the candidate to refute Obamacare and I am thrilled to see Santorum saying the same.

At his appearance in Rochester, Santorum said, “Gov. Romney is absolutely incapable of making the case against Obamacare successfully.”

“The problem is, we have a candidate who is running and seen by the media as the prohibitive favorite, who is the worst possible person in the field to put up on this most fundamental issue in this campaign, and that is Gov. Romney,” Santorum said. “The plan he put together in Massachusetts is in fact ‘ObamaCare’ on the state level.”

Santorum’s exactly right, too. How can we believe a word Romney says on repealing Obamacre when he still to this day is a huge supporter of Romneycare and its individual mandate? Especially since early in his campaigning for the presidency Romney said that Romneycare was a model for the nation. Especially since one of his chief advisors says that they really aren’t going to repeal Obamacare despite what Romney says on the stump.
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Rick Santorum’s Romneycare Smack Down”


Dear Romneyites, Reagan Was NOT an Abortion Supporter!

-By Warner Todd Huston

One of the things that many Romney supporters are using to explain away their decision to ignore Romney’s many flip flops is Ronald Reagan’s one-time support for abortion and his signing of the Therapeutic Abortion Act as governor of California in 1967. But this comparison is a non sequitur. Reagan’s support of that abortion bill and his subsequent turn against it is less like a flip flop than Romney’s about face on the issue. In fact, a review of the two men’s record on abortion makes Romney look worse for the effort, not at all “just like Reagan.”

The first thing to realize about Reagan’s 1967 signing of the California abortion bill was that the whole national debate on abortion was, if you will, in its infancy. It was then not much of a national issue. The arguments for and against abortion had not crystallized into the well-worn positions we now know so well. After all, Roe v Wade wasn’t to catapult the issue to national prominence until 1973.

When this bill came before him in 1967, Reagan was admittedly unsure of what to do with the thing. He dithered for a long time before finally signing the bill because he simply had never given much thought to the issue. He quickly regretted placing his signature on the bill and firmly decided that hence forth he would be pro-life. He never supported an outright pro-abortion measure again.
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Dear Romneyites, Reagan Was NOT an Abortion Supporter!”


Can’t We All Just Get Along? Is All This Primary Fighting Good?

-By Warner Todd Huston

The campaign for the GOP nomination is really getting hot in Florida. The hard campaigning has caused a lot of bemoaning over the attacks going on between Mitt Romney, his ads and the ads sponsored by his super PAC, and Newt Gingrich’s own attacks. Everyone is concerned that this mudslinging and in fighting may be hurting the GOP. But is it?

Well, relax, everyone. There is nothing unusual going on here. What we are witnessing is really nothing different than we’ve ever seen in this country. In fact, some may recall the viciousness between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in 2007. But memories fade all too quickly and too many jump to this momentary feeling that things are worse now, that today’s political climate pales in comparison to vague, past golden ages that never existed.

All this fighting is a good thing. From it we get to see issues debated in immediate and passionate ways that mere, dispassionate debate will not show us. Sure it’s raucous, loud, maybe a bit unseemly, even. But compared to what our nation’s enemies want to do to us, this is weak brew and if we have candidates that can’t stand up to a few TV ads, then how badly will the wilt in the face of real challenge when in office?
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Can’t We All Just Get Along? Is All This Primary Fighting Good?”


So What About that Pre-Florida Republican Debate?

-By Warner Todd Huston

Instead of rehashing the whole January 26 Republican debate, I think it would be easier for me to post here all my Tweets from my live tweet of the debate. Some were fun, some serious and at the end I pass my judgment of how well the participants did. Below you’ll see my tweets, some with comments in parenthesis to put the tweet in context.

  • Aaaand here we go…

Opening Statements

  • I hear that Mitt Romney’s Super PAC said that Newt attacked the National Anthem in Reagan’s era!
  • (Rick says his mother lives in Florida) Uh oh, Rick’s Mommy is a carpetbagging snowbird. Now I cannot vote for him!
  • I’m Ron Paul… now GET OFFA MY LAWN YOU KIDS.
  • CNN’s first question:”Mr. Santorum, if you were a tree, what sort of tree would you be you racist creep?” OK, jess joking

Immigration Questions

  • (On the immigration ad about Romney) Didn’t Newt have that ad axed? Now he’s supporting it? Odd.
  • (Mitt’s Solution)It’s a little late to just “follow the law,” Mitt. We’ve already made a mess of that.
  • Mitt: “Our problem isn’t 11 million grandmothers.” Applause. That was a good one, Mitt!
  • (Questions back and forth between Newt and Mitt for quite some time) I think Santorum and Paul are now in the green room having a snack. Its the Mitt Newtny show!
  • (CNN goes to the Hispanic conference for a question) CNN gives Hispanics their own debate watching room? El separata but equalo?
  • Paul: “Cuba should be our buddies!” To heck with worrying over gulags and political prisoners. So last century, right Ronnie?
  • Does Ron Paul realize that supporting Castro in Miami is probably a bad political move?

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So What About that Pre-Florida Republican Debate?”


Rep. Walsh Schools National Park Service Director About Occupy DC

-By Warner Todd Huston

Why does the National Park Service think they should treat Occupy DC with kid gloves? Because they have “occupy” in their name… er… something. At least that is according to the head of the National Park Service, Jonathan B. Jarvis.

8th District Congressman Joe Walsh (R, ILL) wonders why Park Service personnel are not just tolerating the OWSers but actively assisting them and giving them aid for their protests!

Are we paying our taxes so that the Park Service can become part of an anti-American protest movement? Apparently we are.

Congressman Walsh did a great job showing that these OWSers are not something to be coddled.

(H/T Marathon Pundit)


Come On, People! Poor Men Do Not Become President

-By Warner Todd Huston

I have to say, I am getting a bit sick and tired of this nonsensical lament about how rotten it is that those running for president are “rich” people. Stop it right now, America. The fact is that we’ve never really had a poor man as president so talking about it as if it is news that rich people often seek the presidency is stupid. Not only that, but today it is impossible for a poor or even middle class man to run for president anyway, so get this populist silliness out of your minds right this instant.

The latest in this onslaught of populist foolishness is the New York Times (unsurprisingly) with an article full of serious tones on how hard it is going to be for two Harvard educated, Richie-Riches like Obama and Romney to win over those “blue collar Americans.”

“Both are Harvard-educated millionaires,” The Times begins sonorously. “Both have been criticized as elitist and technocratic. Both have struggled to handle the populist anger coursing through politics.”

Of course, much of that anger is fostered by the Old Media constantly harping on that “anger” by writing daily stories indulging themes of class warfare as if it is some sort of legitimate political discussion in this, a capitalist-based society.
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Come On, People! Poor Men Do Not Become President”


Are You a Conservative? Welcome to the Majority!

-By Warner Todd Huston

There has been a lot of lament by the far left in America that the Tea Party has somehow driven the Republican Party to conservative extremes. This, however, is untrue. The truth is, the American public has been trending toward conservative views for more than a decade before the Tea Party even came about.

According to Gallup, for the last three years more Americans have self-proclaimed themselves as conservatives than have claimed the moniker of moderate.

Political ideology in the U.S. held steady in 2011, with 40% of Americans continuing to describe their views as conservative, 35% as moderate, and 21% as liberal. This marks the third straight year that conservatives have outnumbered moderates, after more than a decade in which moderates mainly tied or outnumbered conservatives.

But think about this for a minute. This means that fully 75% of America is more conservative than the Democrat Party, a party that decades ago stopped being a party of centrism becoming instead a European-like, liberal party.

Gallup’s several decades of polling finds that “moderates” have been in slow decline since 1992 with Americans calling themselves “liberal” now only measuring at 21 percent. With this we see a nation that is not just center-right as many political pundits have for years claimed, but is actually trending conservative.
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Are You a Conservative? Welcome to the Majority!”


Illinois GOP Follies: Establishment vs Reform in Champagne County

-By Warner Todd Huston

Illinois is drowning in debt and corruption. The state ranks as the worst state in nearly every category vying only with California for the worst-of rankings. The biggest factor in its downfall is the corrupt Democrat Party. So one would think that the state GOP could make good headway against this corruption. Unfortunately, the establishment GOP is in utter disarray. Worse, the establishment GOP fights to deep six any candidate from its own ranks that might offer reform and we have yet another story illustrating this fact in the 52nd District State Senate race in Champaign County.

The primary race in the 52nd is between the early announced John Bambenek(photo left), a long-time reform advocate, and establishment GOP candidate Alan Nudo, both of Champaign.

Bambenek is a well-known reform advocate and even wrote a book titled, “Illinois Deserves Better.”

For his part, Mr. Nudo, a 63-year-old Champaign County Board member, has in the past supported local tax hikes. He also was keen on securing stimulus spending for big government-style construction projects in his district.

But that isn’t all. Mr. Nudo has also had a hand in donating the single largest non-PAC donation to the incumbent Democrat Senator in the 52nd District!
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Illinois GOP Follies: Establishment vs Reform in Champagne County”


The Most Superficial Political Analysis Ever: The Candidates Ranked by Their T-Shirt Designs

-By Warner Todd Huston

For months, now, we have all been involved up to our ears in policy debates, discussions of the candidate’s records, and general mud slinging in this Republican primary season. There’s more to come, too. So, let’s take time out to be completely shallow, shall we?

Let’s judge the six remaining candidates by the most substantive measure we can muster: their t-shirt designs.

That’s enough yackity yak… on with the contest.

The Winner And Runner Up

Newt Gingrich wins the shirt wars, for sure. His campaign t-shirt has to rank as the best of the remaining six candidate’s designs. It sits just right on the shirt, it holds together well as a logo, and it is quickly recognizable from a distance. My only qualm is that the color red is a bit darker than I’d have picked. But none of this should be a surprise, right? Who knows branding and salesmanship better than Newt Gingrich?

Mitt Romney comes in second in this t-shirt contest. His has a fairly good logo, but the design is unbalanced by the line, “Believe in America.” It is it is just too long and makes the logo look less important than it should be. Worse the design is wrecked by the stupid website on the front. The website should be on the back, not the front.

The Boring

Ron Paul just fails in t-shirt design. Befitting his aged status as the cranky old uncle of the GOP, Ron Paul’s shirt stands as a boring one. Not much style to it, for sure. All the little type on the shirt doesn’t help, either. No one wants to get that close to a Paul supporter to read all that.

The Rick Perry shirt is a big miss and is the most boring one of the bunch. It looks like he just took the design off his political yard sign circa 1998 and slapped it on a t-shirt. It’s like his team didn’t put any thought at all into this thing. Ugh. At least it is fully visible at a distance, though, unlike Paul’s.

The Total Fail

Jon Huntsman has had the hardest time trying to convince everyone that he is a real Republican and his t-shirt design sure as heck isn’t helping him. Look at that thing! First of all who can tell that those white stripes are supposed to represent the letter “H”? But even worse, this looks like the bad design of a European soccer team shirt, not that of an American political candidate! Finally, it is not easily recognizable from a distance at all. It just looks like a bunch of white bars. This thing is horrible.

So, there you have it. If we were going to elect based on a t-short design, the Newtster is the winnah!

(Note: Santorum does not have a store on his campaign website. I can only assume that he is still having his campaign sweatervests produced.)
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The Most Superficial Political Analysis Ever: The Candidates Ranked by Their T-Shirt Designs”


Mia Love for Utah!

-By Warner Todd Huston

A new candidate is hitting the scene in Utah. Her name is Mia Love, an African American running for the fourth Congressional District.

Mia’s Bio

Mrs. Love was born into a family of Haitian immigrants, she has deeply rooted values, love for this country, and guiding conservative principles.

Mia’s personal and professional life experiences, and her commitment to changing the reckless culture in Washington, have driven her to run for Congress. If elected, Love will become the first Republican black woman to serve in the United States House of Representatives.
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Mia Love for Utah!”


No, Daily Caller, Rush Will Not Back a Candidate in the Primary

-By Warner Todd Huston

The Daily Caller posted an Op Ed calling on Rush Limbaugh to save the GOP by offering a clinching endorsement of one of the non-Romney candidates. The writer was full of reasons and praise for the most listened-to radio talker, but for all the importuning, Rush will never back a primary candidate. The truth is, there just isn’t anything in it for him.

The writer, Yates Walker, says that short of some action by Rush, Romney will be the GOP nominee. Romney’s big money and ubiquitous support among the ignoratti of the GOP elites will be too much for any candidate to overcome unless Rush plays the wild card, he says.

Walker fears that if Rush doesn’t speak, it will all be over.

If Rush doesn’t make a move, recent history will repeat itself. Romney’s multimillion-dollar ad buys and the mainstream media will destroy Rick Santorum before the end of January. Though he is an excellent conservative candidate and could beat Obama in 2012, Rick will be called “unelectable” by so many pundits over the next three weeks that it will become conventional wisdom. The conservative vote will split between Santorum, Gingrich, Perry and Huntsman. Ron Paul will take his customary 12-20%. And Romney’s quarter of the GOP vote will be good enough to win … unless Mr. Limbaugh decides to intervene.

Walker goes on to say that Rush has been “toying” with crushing Mitt for months and that Rush must be “chomping at the bit” to do so.
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No, Daily Caller, Rush Will Not Back a Candidate in the Primary”


Dear Voters, Vote For Romney, You Idiots. Love, the Establishment GOP

-By Warner Todd Huston

Apparently, Mitt Romney and his surrogates want you to know that you should not vote your conscience or your principles this primary election. You should vote for Mitt Romney, instead. That is the message from Romney surrogate State Senator Gary Lambert in New Hampshire, anyway.

“This is not about picking your favorite, it’s not about picking someone you like. It’s not about picking someone even with your own beliefs and principles. This is about picking a person that can beat Barack Obama, period,” Lambert said at the Nashua New Hampshire Republican City Committee meeting on Friday.

We shouldn’t be voting for candidates with whom we agree on the issues? We shouldn’t be picking our “favorite”? What about principle? What about important policy issues? Aw, fergit it all. Never mind Romney’s long liberal political record. Never mind his near daily flip flops on the issues. Never mind his disdain for Reagan and the Tea Party movement. Never mind his claim that he’ really a “progressive” politician. Just vote Mitt, you dolts!
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Dear Voters, Vote For Romney, You Idiots. Love, the Establishment GOP”


Hmmmm, Typo Hypothesis Claims Santorum Actually Won in Iowa?

-By Warner Todd Huston

Did Mitt Romney accidentally get 20 extra votes because of a typo made in Appanoose County?

Ed True, a 28-year-old caucus goer in the town of Moulton, Iowa, says that he was at the caucus and on his notes Romney only got two votes in his precinct. Yet when he checked reported totals later it showed that Romney got 22 votes! He thinks it was a typo. Someone accidentally entered “22” when they meant to type only one “2.”

The Iowa GOP says that Mr. True is not a party official and it will stand by its numbers as the full, final counting is underway. The certified count won’t be official for a week or two.

Still, it really won’t matter a whole lot. Whether Santorum lost by eight votes or won by ten or twelve is not really that relevant. The result is so close that it is nearly the same in delegate counts and what not.
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Hmmmm, Typo Hypothesis Claims Santorum Actually Won in Iowa?”


Santorum/Romney/Paul: So What Did Iowa Prove?

-By Warner Todd Huston

The 2012 Iowa Caucuses are now over and in a nail biting ending the two highest vote getters were separated by only eight votes. So, what did this caucus prove? It proved that organization matters, personal contact matters, and finally big money spent on TV might not matter as much.

The biggest news was that Rick Santorum came from the back of the pack — his numbers had been so bad that he almost got excluded from some of the many debates — almost taking first place in Iowa. He was, in fact, leading for most of the night until that final count showed him in second place losing only by eight votes. This was fantastic showing was due to one thing: Santorum’s hard work at retail politics.

Santorum spent much of his campaign treasury and much time in Iowa. He visited all 99 counties in the state and was for weeks on Iowa radio and TV morning noon and night. He pressed a lot of flesh and kissed a lot of babies. Santorum invested his campaign and himself in Iowa in a last ditch effort to keep his campaign alive. If he hadn’t it is likely that today he would be announcing the end of his campaign for the White House.
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Santorum/Romney/Paul: So What Did Iowa Prove?”


How Ron Paul Might Win Iowa and STILL Get No Hawkeye Delegates

-By Warner Todd Huston

My friend Michael Bates has raised some interesting — if technical — points. He notes that Ron Paul could very will win Iowa but still come away with few or even no Iowa delegates. After looking over Bates’ points, I think he has it right. But one thing he said is really trenchant when he noted that journalists don’t bother to read the party rules of correlate past history to see if Paul’s win in Iowa would really mean anything at all.

But first, we should note that the winner of the Iowa Republican caucus rarely becomes president. Many others have noted that the Iowa caucuses don’t pick winners. In fact, over the last six GOP presidential contests, only one Iowa winner became president (George W. Bush). Two others won the caucuses in Iowa but did not win the White House (Bob Dole and Gerald Ford).

That aside, Bates makes some important points in the delegates process. He finds that Ron Paul might win a plurality in Iowa and still come away with no delegates. The most important point he makes is to remind us all that the Iowa Caucus is not a primary election. It is only a straw poll and what happens there is not binding. This is a point that the media almost never make.

As the popularity polls are telling us, Ron Paul is neck-and-neck with Mitt Romney with Santorum have a last minute surge. But this shows that Paul will not be running away with it all, here. This also means that his support will be spread all over the state in numbers that will not commandingly control too many districts. This leaves the door open for the other candidates to band together to prevent Paul delegates from getting any traction and just might result on Paul have few or even no delegates at the state convention.

As Bates has it:
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How Ron Paul Might Win Iowa and STILL Get No Hawkeye Delegates”


Mitt Romney: My Mass. Healthcare Plan Is ‘Fundamentally Conservative’

-By Warner Todd Huston


Romney did it again. On Fox News he linked Romneycare to conservative principles, an outrageous act in the eyes of any conservative. But hold the boat, people, because Romney didn’t exactly say that Romneycare itself is a conservative policy. And therein lies the weasel words that Romney has used to describe the Massachusetts healthcare plan he was so proud to pass when he was the Governor of the state.

To the video…

Transcript:

I’m happy to stand by the things I believe. I’m not going to change my positions by virtue of being in a presidential campaign. What we did was right for the people of Massachusetts. The plan is still favored there by 3:1 and it is fundamentally a conservative principle because the people take personal responsibility rather than turning to the government for free care.

Now, let’s look at what Romney said here. He didn’t exactly say that Romneycare itself is “fundamentally conservative.” He said the concept that people should take responsibility for their own healthcare is a fundamentally conservative idea.

Such as it is, he’s right. That IS a fundamentally conservative idea.

But as Romney has repeatedly done since he signed that disastrous, socialist, far from conservative piece of legislation, he has weasel worded his description of that law. As he’s done before, in this clip he illicitly linked conservative principles to Romneycare by focusing at a micro level on the single idea that we should take care of our own healthcare and linking that real conservative principle to his actions as if conservative principles are the guiding forces behind Romneycare. The problem with Romney’s characterization of the issue is that his legislation is fundamentally not conservative. It is big government, socialist, authoritarian nonsense. It’s not conservative at all. Romney tries to us that one tiny conservative idea buried under miles of socialist ideas as misdirection for the ills that Romneycare forces on the people of the Bay State.
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Mitt Romney: My Mass. Healthcare Plan Is ‘Fundamentally Conservative’”