The South Carolina Plot Thickens
Byron York reports:
Pollster Scott Rasmussen has just released a new survey showing small gains for Newt Gingrich in South Carolina in the last week. In the new poll, Mitt Romney still leads the race with 28 percent, up from 27 percent in a Rasmussen poll a week ago, while Gingrich is in second place at 21 percent, up from 18 percent a week ago.
Rick Santorum and Ron Paul are tied at 16 percent, but each reached that point in different ways. Santorum is down eight points from the 24 percent he scored immediately after his near-win in the Iowa caucuses, while Paul is up five points from 11 percent in the last poll.
I'm somewhat surprised that Santorum is declining and Paul is rising in the polls. Also, the convention wisdom here is that Gingrich's anti-Romney message is only winning him the E.J. Dionne vote. But it doesn't seem to be hurting him in South Carolina, does it?
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Jun '10
Re: The South Carolina Plot Thickens
Doesn't Rasmussen always poll "likely voters" as opposed to "registered voters"?
Rasmussen's Obama disapproval rating (50%+) is always six or seven points higher than Gallup. Is that the reason?
Back to SC: The anti-free enterprise ads don't seem to be hurting Romney all that much.They certainly didn't in NH. I agree with Mona Charen and Larry Kudlow that Newt and Perry have done Romney a favor. They've exposed one of Romney's weak points (at least to those susceptible to populist appeals) and given him a chance to hone his response before Obama gets to. When Obama does it, it will be old news. Romney's NH speech holds the kernels of an effective response.
Edited on Jan 13 at 8:06amAug '11
Re: The South Carolina Plot Thickens
There's so much weirdness going on with the Mitt Romney campaign right now.
Take, for example, this weird "threat" from Romney surrogate John Sununu.
Then there's this bit in Salon about Romney essentially buying his endorsements.
I think I'll just go over here in the corner and rock back and forth slowly until the Primary Season passes.
Jun '10
Re: The South Carolina Plot Thickens
Drew: Not to change the subject or hijack this thread (but let me briefly change the subject): Is the Scott Walker recall gaining any traction? Prediction?
Jun '10
Re: The South Carolina Plot Thickens
I live in South Carolina. I am voting for somebody other than Mitt here. Not that I have that much against him (although I don't have much for him either), I just want some more leaning to the right economically than I expect Mitt to be. There are tons of Newt signs in Greenville and Ron Paul is showing up in strange places.
Apr '11
Re: The South Carolina Plot Thickens
Paul increased more than only other candidate. Interesting.
May '10
Re: The South Carolina Plot Thickens
DrewInWisconsin:
................Then there's this bit in Salon about Romney essentially buying his endorsements.
I think I'll just go over here in the corner and rock back and forth slowly until the Primary Season passes. · Jan 13 at 8:06am
Drew, I agree about the primary season and long for its end.
But you don't seem to be very aware of standard politics, based on the highlighted comment. Are you aware that donating to other candidates from your PAC and campaign funds has been standard practice by every Federal or national politician for decades? Every member of Congress with a "safe seat" has raised and spent campaign funds this way since I can remember.
Among political pros, that's known as "smart".
Aug '11
Re: The South Carolina Plot Thickens
tabula rasa
Drew: Not to change the subject or hijack this thread (but let me briefly change the subject): Is the Scott Walker recall gaining any traction? Prediction?
Today is the final day to turn in signed petitions for the recall; next Tuesday they'll be submitted to the government accountability board. Which means they'll probably be out this weekend collecting signatures, even though they will be past the deadline.
The Democrats stopped giving updates on the numbers they've collected a few weeks ago, probably so that only they will know how short they are of required signatures (ergo, they'll know exactly how many signatures they'll have to fake).
The government accountability board has already stated they will not throw out obviously fake signatures, like "Mickey Mouse" or "Adolf Hitler" as long as they have valid addresses. So Republicans are looking for volunteers to help verify signatures.
I've always assumed they'd find enough signatures somehow. When it comes to hanging on to power, the unions don't screw around.
My prediction? It comes to a vote (that is, they'll create enough signatures), but Walker still won't get recalled.
Aug '11
Re: The South Carolina Plot Thickens
Duane Oyen
DrewInWisconsin:
................Then there's this bit in Salon about Romney essentially buying his endorsements.
I think I'll just go over here in the corner and rock back and forth slowly until the Primary Season passes. · Jan 13 at 8:06am
Drew, I agree about the primary season and long for its end.
But you don't seem to be very aware of standard politics, based on the highlighted comment. Are you aware that donating to other candidates from your PAC and campaign funds has been standard practice by every Federal or national politician for decades? Every member of Congress with a "safe seat" has raised and spent campaign funds this way since I can remember.
Among political pros, that's known as "smart".
I'm just aware that it's unseemly, particularly given how the current administration is bought and paid for by Goldman-Sachs. The lefties I know on Facebook are talking about this right now.
Dec '10
Re: The South Carolina Plot Thickens
DrewInWisconsin
Duane Oyen
DrewInWisconsin:
................Then there's this bit in Salon about Romney essentially buying his endorsements.
I think I'll just go over here in the corner and rock back and forth slowly until the Primary Season passes. · Jan 13 at 8:06am
Drew, I agree about the primary season and long for its end.
But you don't seem to be very aware of standard politics, based on the highlighted comment. Are you aware that donating to other candidates from your PAC and campaign funds has been standard practice by every Federal or national politician for decades? Every member of Congress with a "safe seat" has raised and spent campaign funds this way since I can remember.
Among political pros, that's known as "smart".
I'm just aware that it's unseemly, particularly given how the current administration is bought and paid for by Goldman-Sachs. The lefties I know on Facebook are talking about this right now. · Jan 13 at 8:49am
There aren't numbers up for this cycle, but for 2010 Romney's PAC looks like a Goldman-Sachs political fund.
Aug '11
Re: The South Carolina Plot Thickens
Granted, Obama can't really criticize Romney for being bought and paid for by Goldman-Sachs when his entire administration seems to have come directly from Goldman-Sachs. But then Romney can't criticize Obama either. Works both ways, obviously, but then that just means no matter who wins we'll still have "President Goldman-Sachs in office."
I'm so depressed.
Jun '11
Re: The South Carolina Plot Thickens
My two cents from SC: Romney always was going to have a rough go here and much of the support he's garnered in the past month or so has been based on the "he's the one that can beat Obama" meme-- a shallow base of support.
Gingrich's ersatz populist assault is causing some re-thinking of Romney's ability to win the general. It isn't that people are buying Newt's anti-capitalist argument as much as they are now concerned that the Democrat machine will thrash Romney on this issue next fall. The natural beneficiary of this would have been Rick Perry but he peaked the day he announced in Charleston as we know and has slip-streamed onto the Gingrich attack.
BTW, Perry is retail campaigning like crazy here. His schedule's far busier than the others. Santorum is the only other one running at the pace we've seen in the past here. The national press compares him to Huckabee, but Mike was a Southern Governor. Big difference.
Watch for a slight rise in Ron Paul's numbers in a sort of "pox on all y'all" vote.
Still a week to go.
Mar '11
Re: The South Carolina Plot Thickens
Paul is attracting this weird coalition, and it's undeniably growing. One friend of mine is a very liberal atheist in the computer science field, and he just donated to Paul and will vote for him. When I asked him why, he said that Paul will reduce the military budget that we use to maintain our "oil empire". This guy would usually be all over the Democratic candidates. That tells me that a lot of leftists are moving to Paul because they see him being more in line with liberalism than Barack Obama. But it also may mean that a lot of people are seeing what they want to in Paul, and not necessarily what's really there. They like him because he'd "stick it to the man", in the left wing sense.Ron Paul has become another Ralph Nader. He's attracting the same kind of people.
Sep '10
Re: The South Carolina Plot Thickens
I don't have the foggiest notion of what will happen. But it seems to me that Newt rose in the polls because of the debates and when there were no debates for 2 weeks in Iowa the negative adds brought him down. Next week there are 2 debates in SC. The last one is only 2 days before the vote. If Romney cannot do a better job defending himself in these debates things could radically change. The polls at this point don't mean much.
Dec '10
Re: The South Carolina Plot Thickens
The trend lines for the RealClearPolitics poll averages in South Carolina suggest that Newt's line of attack is indeed hurting him in South Carolina, and that both Romney and Santorum are benefitting.
Sep '10
Re: The South Carolina Plot Thickens
tabula rasa: I agree with Mona Charen and Larry Kudlow that Newt and Perry have done Romney a favor. They've exposed one of Romney's weak points (at least to those susceptible to populist appeals) and given him a chance to hone his response before Obama gets to. When Obama does it, it will be old news. Romney's NH speech holds the kernels of an effective response. · Jan 13 at 8:02am
Edited on Jan 13 at 08:06 am
Sort of like how playing New Orleans in the regular season helped Detroit take them on in the playoffs.
Knowing something is coming at you and being able to stop it are two different things.
Jun '10
Re: The South Carolina Plot Thickens
K T Cat
tabula rasa: I agree with Mona Charen and Larry Kudlow that Newt and Perry have done Romney a favor. They've exposed one of Romney's weak points (at least to those susceptible to populist appeals) and given him a chance to hone his response before Obama gets to. When Obama does it, it will be old news. Romney's NH speech holds the kernels of an effective response. · Jan 13 at 8:02am
Edited on Jan 13 at 08:06 am
Sort of like how playing New Orleans in the regular season helped Detroit take them on in the playoffs.
Knowing something is coming at you and being able to stop it are two different things. · Jan 13 at 11:01am
A good analogy, as far as it goes. But playing the Saints right now is lot harder than running for president. Brees is as "in the zone" as any QB I've ever seen.
Dec '10
Re: The South Carolina Plot Thickens
SC is the place where Gingrich very publically began his walk-back on the anti-capitalist tirade, in a much-publicized response to a polite, if indignant, question from a reserve military officer. He has called for WOF, the PAC, to clean-up any discrepancies in their ads. The ads haven't been cleaned up (and are running here, in Florida, constantly), but he is distancing himself from them and I suspect Rasmussen's "Likely Voter" respondees would be most aware of his walk-back.
Apr '11
Re: The South Carolina Plot Thickens
Santorum and Newt are both speaking at weekend services at my church in North Charleston. Surprisingly, when this fact is mentioned on the church's Facebook page, they are being overrun with people angry that Ron Paul was not asked to speak (and a couple of yahoos who think we're violating 501-C3 statutes). My understanding is that all the candidates were asked to speak, and only Newt and Santorum took them up on it.
I don't know a single person who says they plan to vote for Romney in the primary. Most people I know are still undecided, as am I. It's frustrating that there's no one to feel strongly about. Sigh.
Jan '11
Re: The South Carolina Plot Thickens
Interesting, indeed, Jeff Younger.
Prof. Rahe's "nasty piece of business," the "insane," "racist" "homophobe" Ron Paul is picking up strength in Red State South Carolina, the famed "conservative firewall." That surprises Mollie.
Douglas concludes that Rep. Paul is attracting liberals who are disappointed with Mr Obama, and folks who just like to "stick it to the man," which somehow doesn't explain his strong support in the armed forces, does it.
A strange coalition to be sure - crazy bigoted nonconformist liberal military Ralph Nader types.
Keep twisting yourselves into pretzels, friends. Keep repeating that Liberty and smaller government constrained by the bonds of the Constitution have nothing to do with Paul's appeal.
Oh, yes, and a balanced budget in three (3) years. Nobody in South Carolina could ever find that compelling, not when they have models of consistency and fiscal probity like Mitt and Newt from whom to choose.
Edited on Jan 13 at 8:01pmDec '11
Re: The South Carolina Plot Thickens
I think Paul is picking up the fed up vote. All the people who were supporting a different candidate that has been 'disqualified' are probably getting fed up with the hole business, and supporting the arsonist candidate.