The 2012 Speculatron Weekly Roundup For December 30, 2011

This is our last Speculatron Slideshow of the calendar year, everyone. When we next have the opportunity to relate all of the week's campaign highlights, the Iowa caucuses will have happened, actual primary voting will have commenced, and delegates will have been assigned to a few lucky GOP contenders. Some will "have their ticket punched" to New Hampshire. Some will lay claim to [ENTER LAST NAME HERE]-mentum. And one or more will have called it quits and said some awfully nice things to the frontrunner, hoping to perhaps be considered for the V.P. slot, or have some campaign debt offset in return for an endorsement.

But most importantly, we will finally be discussing the "2012 race" in a year that's not actually "2011." This has always been a little strange, we know! So, in the spirit of the New Year, we'll leave you with an ever so brief recap of what's already happened.

When you get right down to it, the 2012 race pretty much began the morning after the 2010 elections ended, but the real action didn't get started until mid-spring, when Fox News scheduled the first of what would turn out to be several thousand candidate debates, some of which looked as if they might end in actual bloodshed or something akin to that scene in Scanners where that guy's head explodes. The candidates present at the contest were Ron Paul, Rick Santorum, Tim Pawlenty, Herman Cain, and Gary Johnson. Slim pickings, but more than a few pundits imagined that they might be looking at a future winner of the Iowa Caucus. (None likely realized at the time that the candidate they had in mind was Ron Paul, however.)

Eventually the field of candidates began to swell. Michele Bachmann joined the fray, gunning for an Iowa win. Mitt Romney jumped into the race, and eventually proved impossible for Tim Pawlenty to confront, face-to-face. Newt Gingrich ended his interminable dithering with the idea of running for president, and, after many false starts, finally got a handle on it and jumped in. He then went on vacation, and his entire staff quit on him. Also, Jon Huntsman decided that he, too, would run for president, for some reason.

But the people who seemed to matter the most in the early part of the campaign season were often those who were opting to not run for president. Mike Huckabee, who was considered a heavy favorite, opted to stay on at his Fox News show. The appealing Mitch Daniels declined a run after getting a taste of what the grueling slog might do to his family. John Thune bowed out, because of the book "Game Change," and its sexism. And the oddest non-candidate of all was New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. He kept telling reporters "No," and those reporters, like date-rapists, kept hearing "Yes." Eventually, Christie had to hold a press conference in which he repeated his intention to not run for a solid hour, until everyone in the room was weeping.

Donald Trump ran a fake campaign for president! Remember that? Mark Halperin, long after the rest of the world was laughing at this fake campaign, said things like "I think he’s much more serious about running," and "I don’t know why he would have gone through hours and hours of meetings if it were all just a charade," and, in an example of what low self-awareness gets you, "if you’ve got the ability to manipulate the media ... you could imagine a scenario of getting in late and riding a populist wave to the Republican nomination." Ha, ha, ha, people should remember these things that Mark Halperin said.

Sarah Palin also, famously and predictably, did not run for president. Though she did successfully stage a fake campaign bus tour that ... uhm ... took "hours and hours" of planning and "manipulated the media." Heh. She eventually bowed out on Mark Levin's radio show, earning her a scolding from Roger Ailes, who hired her as a Fox News contributor for the precise reason that he wanted her to do her in-or-out routine as an exclusive to his cable network.

The Ames Straw Poll happened! People rode buses to a parking lot at Iowa State University and ate deep-fried, fully be-sticked food items. Tim Pawlenty finished third, quit, and became a Mitt Romney surrogate who walked around lamenting leaving the race so soon, which is not very surrogate-y! Michele Bachmann won the straw poll, edging out Ron Paul, and immediately took a dive in the polls, because that's when Rick Perry entered the race. Then Rick Perry took a dive in the polls when everyone learned that he couldn't count and had the propensity to make odd noises when he was supposed to be forming sentences.

Then Herman Cain rose to front-runner status, on the strength of his basso profundo profundities and his ability to say the word "nine" over and over again, whenever he was stuck for needing to have something to say. Eventually, however, he took a dive, due to a combination of his handsy-lady problems and "Uhh, Libya, what is that now? I know this! Uhhh. Ummm. Freeen."

And so Newt Gingrich became the belle of the ball, despite all of his vacations and his lack of campaign staff or infrastructure, and this time we all thought, "Okay, this is maybe the guy who will rise as the challenger to Romney." That was before the entire conservative establishment unleashed the hot flames of Hell upon Gingrich, and Romney and Paul used their actual campaigns and their actual money to mount a slew of negative attacks on him, driving his poll numbers back from whence they came.

So now it's looking more like Mitt Romney -- the robot who had all the luck -- and Ron Paul, who is again surviving a flap over old crazysauce newsletters that went out into the world under his name, and maybe ... just maybe ... Rick Santorum, who gets to start his own upward climb into the boom-and-bust cycle at the precise moment he needs to. And at the margins, we still have various excluded candidates, like Gary Johnson, Buddy Roemer, and Fred Karger, who are switching parties, building movements, and/or making their last stand.

Also, Jon Huntsman. Still doin' some stuff somewhere, probably.

That's where we leave things at the end of this year. One of these people -- or more! -- will challenge the incumbent, President Barack Obama, for the White House in 2012. The Obama reelect team is clearly betting on Romney. Will they be right? For the non-Romneys, there are still obstacles to surmount. This week, the Bachmann campaign suffered another round of quit-fits. Newt Gingrich compared his ballot access woes to an American tragedy. Buddy Roemer finally got added to some polls. Huntsman mocked some corn-pickers, Perry got lost on the 45th parallel, Santorum's wardrobe choices got a moment in the sun, and one of our lucky contenders received the coveted "my life would suck without you" endorsement from an unlikely source. To find out who, please enter the Speculatron for the week of December 30, 2011, and we'll see you next year!

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Mitt Romney

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Lord knows that the volatile fortunes of the 2012ers hasn't always made it possible to use the term, but it's pretty clear that on the eve of the Iowa Caucuses, Mitt Romney definitely has his swag back. Come to think of it, was there ever a more unswaggy person to maintain a reservoir of swag than Mitt? Swag has probably lost all meaning. Quick! We need sevently fresh Soulja Boy mixtapes! (Kidding! Please, do not produce these!) But here's the story. In Iowa, everything is heading in a right-enough direction for Romney. He'll likely vie with Ron Paul for the top spot in Iowa, and then head to New Hampshire, where it still looks like Romney's a lock. Romney doesn't even really need to win in Iowa, but he's reaching for it now, decidedly playing for a victory -- a win that many now expect to materialize. It surely doesn't hurt that Romney's posting his best quarter of fundraising in what was probably the most uncertain period of his candidacy. The reviews from this week are all pretty positive, and Romney is back to contemplating the possibility that he'll win the next two contests in historic fashion, and wrap up the nomination quickly. (The fact that Joe Biden took to the editorial pages of the Des Moines Register to assail Romney is even something that Romney can see as a positive development -- it's the most recent "game recognizes game" moment that's gone on between Mitt and the Obama administration, and it all adds up to something like inevitability.) So, then, let's find out how Romney can still blow this. Nate Silver?

Still, Mr. Romney's numbers are not those of a traditional frontrunner. He's at only about 25 percent in national polls, which is improved from two weeks ago but only barely. He's still an underdog to win Iowa. His favorability ratings with Republican voters are adequate but not more than that. A lot of Republican voters remain dissatisfied with their choices. Usually, those numbers improve as the actual voting draws nearer, but if anything they've been getting worse lately. This disconnect between expectations and performance is potentially quite dangerous to Mr. Romney. Consider Iowa, for instance. Mr. Romney currently projects to about 22 percent of the vote there, but the history of Iowa is one of volatile polling right up to the last minute -- and sometimes huge surprises on election night. Our state-by-state forecasts, which account for this uncertainty, say that Mr. Romney could finish with as much as 36 percent of the vote in Iowa, but also as little as 8 percent, which could drop him all the way down to fifth or sixth place. That such scenarios are plausible does not mean they are likely. But there is not all that much margin separating the candidates, and Republicans with Mr. Romney's profile have historically underachieved their polls on caucus night. Meanwhile, expectations seem to have gotten a little ahead of themselves. "I don't see any scenario where we're not the nominee," one of Mr. Romney's strategists told New York magazine's John Heilemann. Actually, the scenario is pretty easy to articulate. As I frequently remind our readers, the momentum that candidates get out of the early states has historically had as much to do with expectations as the actual results. Even a third-place finish in Iowa, much less something worse, might now be viewed as disappointing for Mr. Romney, increasing the risk of either a loss in New Hampshire or a close call that made Mr. Romney vulnerable heading into South Carolina and Florida.

Okay, that'll do the trick. And that's why Mitt Romney is still working hard to fine tune his campaign. This week, for instance, we learned how he was tweaking the operational parameters of his operating system to better facilitate organic, relatable relationships with the various homo sapiens he encounters. More significantly, as Jonathan Chait points out, Romney has upgraded his system with a little dash of "Glenn Beck":

A few weeks ago, Mitt Romney abruptly changed his main campaign message. Before that point, he had been lambasting President Obama as a likable failure, well intentioned but sadly unable to revive the economy. When asked if Obama was a socialist, Romney would deny it outright, insisting he was merely in "over his head." But starting December 7, Romney began to paint Obama as a sinister radical who had not failed, but had succeeded all too well, in transforming the basic nature of America. At the time, I thought Romney's sudden switch was a response to Newt Gingrich's sudden (and apparently short-lived) challenge from the right, positioning himself to speak more directly to the fears of a freaked-out Republican electorate. But I now think Romney's campaign has concluded that his old campaign message wasn't strong enough for the general election.

Chait goes on to note that Romney's technocratic heart has always been at odds with conservative orthodoxy, which holds that ideology must persist even in the face of contrary data -- a position that's never been more firm among the voters Romney hopes to reach and the legislators he hopes to rule alongside. But, Chait says: "The irony is that Romney approaches campaigning the way he approaches governing, obeying the data above all else. If the data tell him to start wildly accusing Obama of abolishing all economic inequality, then that is what he will do." And that's exactly what he's doing, by the way! It matters not a whit to Romney that he's lying when he says that President Barack Obama hasn't created any new jobs. He knows that's a lie, but he knows it's a lie that will yield him votes. And it matters not a whit to Romney that it is barking-mad-crazy for a candidate to personally promise someone that the only way they're guaranteed to have a job in the future is to vote for him. He knows that's an insane promise to keep, but it's a promise that will yield him votes, so he'll make it. Romney also knows that the media is not going to aggressively call out this stuff, because in the context of a campaign horserace, this is all just "interesting messaging." We had the occasion to say this back when Romney was just cold putting straight up falsehoods in his ads, but Romney is setting the stage for a campaign in which lying is encouraged...indeed, to not lie repeatedly in a campaign with Romney is to disarm yourself prior to battle. In case this isn't clear, let's recall that "I'm not going to change my positions by virtue of being in a presidential campaign," is a thing that Mitt Romney said just this week.

15 Members Of Congress You Can Tell Apart

Supreme Court Justices

Controversial Immigration Laws

Gay Marriage In The United States

Inside Guantanamo's Prison Facility

Conservatives Pointing Fingers

Lord knows that the volatile fortunes of the 2012ers hasn't always made it possible to use the term, but it's pretty clear that on the eve of the Iowa Caucuses, Mitt Romney definitely has his swag back. Come to think of it, was there ever a more unswaggy person to maintain a reservoir of swag than Mitt? Swag has probably lost all meaning. Quick! We need sevently fresh Soulja Boy mixtapes!

(Kidding! Please, do not produce these!)

But here's the story. In Iowa, everything is heading in a right-enough direction for Romney. He'll likely vie with Ron Paul for the top spot in Iowa, and then head to New Hampshire, where it still looks like Romney's a lock. Romney doesn't even really need to win in Iowa, but he's reaching for it now, decidedly playing for a victory -- a win that many now expect to materialize.

It surely doesn't hurt that Romney's posting his best quarter of fundraising in what was probably the most uncertain period of his candidacy. The reviews from this week are all pretty positive, and Romney is back to contemplating the possibility that he'll win the next two contests in historic fashion, and wrap up the nomination quickly.

(The fact that Joe Biden took to the editorial pages of the Des Moines Register to assail Romney is even something that Romney can see as a positive development -- it's the most recent "game recognizes game" moment that's gone on between Mitt and the Obama administration, and it all adds up to something like inevitability.)

So, then, let's find out how Romney can still blow this.... more

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keedyk87 said on 31 Saturday 2011 am31 5:43 am: Economic systems come and they can go. The Soviet Socialist Republic collapsed and so can AMERICAN CORPORATE CAPATIALISM. Yet the TEAPUBS treat it as if it were created by God and is as sacred as God! There is no such reference in the Bible. These people have been decieved by their Protestant Prechers, the Republican and now the Tea Party. We may have to live through this deception with them after it is too late to stop the Corporate beasts that make us slaves to China! America will die, NOT WITH A BANG BUT A WHIMPER!

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Comments

[j1sju]

02:08 AM on 01/03/2012

I would vote for Michele Bachman only under one condition--appoint me Secretary of the Treasury. And if I'm not, I'm sure a vulture from Goldman Sachs will be.

[egal]

03:55 AM on 01/01/2012

Great, the Cloudcuckooland reference just redirected me to TVTropes, back in a few days....

[Moose Luck 99]

01:46 AM on 01/01/2012

Obama tells farmer no need to worry about government over-regulation of agriculture
8/18/2011 - During a town hall meeting yesterday, when an Illinois farmer told President Obama he was concerned about upcoming regulations regarding the Food Safety Modernization Act and would rather be farming than "filling out forms and permits," Obama had choice words to offer in reply: "Don't always believe...


The debt ceiling fiasco: It's not about compromise; it's about principle
7/27/2011 - An armed man approaches an innocent old lady on the street, shoves his gun in her face and screams, "Give me everything you own!" The little old lady, flummoxed but determined, angrily answers back, "Screw you! I'm not giving you one red cent!" The mugger pauses for a moment and then retorts, "Well...


Four decades of drug war tyranny may come to an end with Ron Paul's new effort to legalize marijuana
6/23/2011 - Four decades of the so-called "War on Drugs" has led only to the suffering of millions of innocents, the crowding of our prisons with non-violent citizens, the utter waste of billions of dollars on law enforcement and the (in)justice system, and the enriching of underground drug gangs who thrive on..

Learn more: Ron Paul news and articles http://www.naturalnews.com/Ron_Paul.html#ixzz1iBdFHsDL

[geneandeddie59]

09:21 PM on 12/31/2011

All future contestants on ... I kid you not... NBC's
'SECOND CHANCE: AMERICA'S MOST TALENTED SENIOR'

[knott wrench]

07:18 PM on 12/31/2011

After six months of the "Flavor of the Month ", GOP TP Crabs in the Presidential Cauldron Race, its finally gotten down to; "Dog eat Dog" entering the:

Loser -Palooser Vote.

[dancingbones]

04:38 PM on 12/31/2011

If any of these paranoid narcissists with delusions of grandeur get elected, the USA will be a t a serious disadvantage compared to countries with intelligent leaders.

[Sisa]

04:19 PM on 12/31/2011

Herman like a ghost in the file photo again.

[Jerry Aripez]

03:05 PM on 12/31/2011

Bachmann is History, literally...the rest of those Tbaggers are going to follow....they are the worst candidates the GOP has ever put in the ringmasters ring....

[WryAwry]

02:38 PM on 12/31/2011

Wow. I am very underwhelmed. If these hateful repugnant-can'ts really want to have a significant positive effect upon history, they should all just goskroo. The world will be a better place when their near-criminal irrelevence is comprehended by average American citizens.

[JohnHopwood2]

02:47 PM on 12/31/2011

very well put

[D-V-H]

02:26 PM on 12/31/2011

I've figured out the GOP plan for 'job creation'. Of course it isn't so much job creation as job opening . With no regulations, the currently employed will_die off leaving many openings for the unemployed.

[Redunzl]

02:36 PM on 12/31/2011

The Healthcare Field and Funeral Industry will see a boom.

[Mister Wu]

02:52 PM on 12/31/2011

Yes, why should America incorporated waste resources on useless seniors when they have out lived their usefulness.

[monstersfromtheid]

12:40 PM on 01/02/2012

next stop:
Soylent Green

[shespeaks]

02:23 PM on 12/31/2011

The best part of this new year is that the old one is coming to an end. The worst part is that the people who are making the end of the year the best thing, are still hanging around, making the start of the New Year the beginning of one of the worst beginnings politically I have ever seen. Including George W. I will be drinking heavily and hoping America has enough people of intelligence and good sense to make 2012 a Happy New Year with an Obama second term, rather than a nut-job first termer. I have hope.

[HexonT3]

03:36 PM on 12/31/2011

You have to know that you articulated the truth well! I'm having those same feelings as this year becomes a wrap. Right on and Happy New Year anyway. Cheers!

[D-V-H]

02:21 PM on 12/31/2011

Why don't righties support women? Bachmann got dumped as soon as Perry entered the race. It's like they couldn't wait to move on.

[ramsha]

02:14 PM on 12/31/2011

The way an individual treats his fellowmen says a lot about a person. This bunch of feeble minded trumped up leaders can be certainly judged by how they have been trying to tear down their fellow contestents

[Nicholas Kocal]

02:03 PM on 12/31/2011

The sad part of all of this is that there are some people who would vote for a serial killing pedophile is he was the republican candidate because party counts more than country.

[Mister Wu]

02:53 PM on 12/31/2011

To which candidate(s) are you referring?

[Jerry Aripez]

03:03 PM on 12/31/2011

All of them....Fol_ey for one...

[Judy Rauch]

01:56 PM on 12/31/2011

Happy New Year everyone and the best thing about the New Year is within 3 days Iowa will be history. Maybe one or two of these clowns will drop out and the others left will start making sense tho I doubt it. I think the GOP had better go back to remebering this is America and all people no matter how much they have in the bank are equal and until you do you lose.