The 2012 Speculatron Weekly Roundup For Jan. 27, 2012

So, yeah, this campaign season is getting ridiculous. Credit the candidates, we guess! From one week to the next, we have seen the race seesaw between these four candidates we are left with -- some winning primaries, others winning bragging rights -- as the lesser lights of the GOP field have faded away. But this week, the seesaw became a whipsaw as Newt Gingrich went from standing proud to stumbling in a matter of days.

The alacrity of how the race at the top flipped was pretty staggering. In South Carolina, Gingrich hadn't merely grabbed the affection of South Carolina voters. He successfully made Romney look timid. When the two candidates found themselves coincidentally booked for appearances at the same eatery, Gingrich -- who at the time didn't need to do any more work to win the primary -- suggested that the two men have an impromptu debate. That put the fear in Romney -- he rushed through his appearance and skedaddled like Gingrich was going to snatch his lunch money.

And in a way, that's what Gingrich had been trying to do all week. Mitt's hesitancy to release his tax returns became the key issue on the trail, and as Romney bumbled his way through the week, South Carolina voters smelled a phony.

But over the next few days, Romney regrouped and put Gingrich back on his heels. To be sure, Romney outspent Gingrich by the length of Interstate 4. But what really helped is that the GOP establishment, concerned that Gingrich might prevail and become the party's nominee, once again unleashed the forces of darkness. Dredging up criticism and ridicule, Gingrich came to Thursday night's debate with his mojo tapped. His attempts to recreate some of that blame-the-media outrage fell embarrassingly flat.

Now, Mitt Romney is surging in Florida, and along with that comes the ability reclaim that mantle of inevitability. And if you watched the State of the Union address, President Barack Obama's opening salvo in the campaign season, you can see who he's imagining as his opponent. We'll briefly summarize the address: "Hi. I killed Osama bin Laden, this Congress is obstructing me at every turn, Mitt Romney is wrong about everything, Seal Team Six, I'm out." It was pretty clear that the only reason he had to take Gingrich seriously was as the guy who helpfully framed the Democratic argument against Mitt in the first place.

But can Obama take the Gingrich playbook and run it himself? The folks over at 1115.org are skeptical:

Despite the attention it is getting now, Mitt’s status as a businessman will not hurt as much as some think. Certainly, the narrative of Mitt Romney as a 1%er will be good for energizing Democrats, but Romney does not need to win Democrats. As always, the election will hinge on each candidate’s ability to attract moderates/independents. His involvement with Mass. health care and Obamacare only makes him seem more moderate, and the big opportunity for that to hurt him (the primary) has since passed without great consequence. His income tax rate, which is a result of his semiretirement and reliance on capital gains, is an overblown non issue (although capital gains tax in general might enter as a liberal talking points). In general, attacks on Romney as a businessman have not and will not land.

There's a lot at stake in next week's primary -- for everyone except Ron Paul, who isn't trying to win Florida and who spent large portions of the week shoring up his effort in the caucus states to come. If Romney wins, the cash that's been keeping Gingrich afloat may dry up. If Gingrich wins, you can expect the GOP establishment to fly into a berserker rage. And if Santorum doesn't manage a strong enough finish, he may come to the end of the line. And how things end up next Tuesday may become frozen in time -- it's a long, lonely month between now and Super Tuesday. For all the news you need to know for now, please feel free to enter the Speculatron for Jan. 27, 2012.

1 of 8

Mitt Romney

1 of 9

First Slide

Previous Slide

@

Mitt Romney's bad South Carolina weekend began with a near incident at Tommy's Country Ham House, where an event timed too closely with a Gingrich visit prompted Newt to make an impromptu debate challenge. This would have cemented this Ham House as the site of an important geopolitical event, but a reeling Romney showed up early, rushed through his remarks, and then bolted. It was going to be that sort of day. By the end, Romney had lost the state, the delegate lead (such as it is), and his momentum. It didn't help that a lot of the support that he'd been greeted with had been the bused-in-from-BYU variety. South Carolinians rejected Romney almost wholesale -- though he did succeed with his own kind: the super-wealthy. While some Romney aides put a good spin on the results, Romney left behind a bruised Nikki Haley with his national lead in tatters and his standing among independent voters diminished. He also renewed many questions about his ability to reach the Republican base. As Politico put it: "The widening gap between Romney in theory, a man who oozes plausibility as a potential president, and Romney in practice, a candidate who just might be missing some kind of intangible something, is now a dominant storyline in the GOP presidential race." And yet despite all this, Jonathan Bernstein still figured Romney was the real frontrunner:

One-on-one, over the long haul, it's highly unlikely that Newt Gingrich can beat Mitt Romney. It's also unlikely that Rick Santorum, with a third place finish tonight, will have the resources to compete in Florida and beyond...it wouldn't be surprising if he dropped out in the next few days, although it also wouldn't be surprising if he stayed in just in case everyone else melted down. He may still be barely viable. Meanwhile, yes, lots and lots of Republican voters aren't very enthusiastic about Romney, just as they weren't very enthusiastic about John McCain in 2008, in Dole in 1996, or in George H.W. Bush in 1988. And with all of those unenthusiastic voters out there, it's not all that surprising that we can see a lot of undecided voters swing one way or another in reaction to campaign events. But Newt Gingrich remains almost as implausible a nominee as he's been from the beginning of the campaign. He's still the guy who has flipped on issue after issue after issue, including individual mandates on health care and climate change. He's still someone who has ethics problems, and marital problems (yes, still). He's still someone who isn't much liked or trusted by those Republicans who worked with him when he was in office. He's still someone who rarely goes a week without saying something that gets him in trouble. He's still someone who has shown no ability to run a proper campaign -- and while that doesn't always matter, as we saw Saturday night, it's apt to matter in some states, and in a hypothetical tough delegate battle, that matters.

Nevertheless, adjustments were in order. And first among them was renewing the battle and demonstrating a willingness to fight. He went at Newt, calling him a disgrace, erratic, mentally unstable. He hit him for his connections to Freddie Mac and brought up his past ethics charges. And he put to rest the notion that he'd opt out of future debates (even going so far as to get a new debate coach), and made it clear that he'd be willing to dog-whistle sweet nothings into the ears of the GOP base just as much as Gingrich. And critically, he also decided to disarm the trap that caught him up in South Carolina by releasing his tax returns. And while observers generally agreed that he had not released enough documents to tell the whole story, and that his reasons for not doing so were dumb, Romney managed to clear the hurdle labelled "the bare minimum." He hoped that by releasing this information on Tuesday, it would largely get swamped out of the news cycle by the State of the Union address -- however, the themes of President Obama's speech actually ended up casting them in sharp relief. What did we learn? Well, we learned that Romney's tax rate is comically low, he pays nearly nothing in payroll taxes and has accounts in all sorts of (tax) dodgy places, he made use of strategies that can typically only be used by the wealthy, and that while none of this was wrong or illegal, it still demonstrated that when you're a person as wealthy as Romney, you can make use of the disproportionate advantages afforded to the super-rich. We also about learned some new controversies, like that no mention was made in Romney's ethics forms about his numerous off-shore tax havens. And we found out that Romney makes all this money for essentially doing nothing. Warren Buffett pointed out Romney in fact learned his living that way -- by essentially doing nothing:

He makes his money the same way I make my money. He makes money by moving around big bucks, not by straining his back and going to work cleaning the toilets or whatever it may be. He makes it shoving around money. I make it shoving around money. [...] Nothing wrong about [Romney] doing that. He will not pay more than the law requires. I don't fault him for that in the least, but I do fault the law that allows him and me, earning enormous sums to pay over all federal taxes at a rate that is about half what the average person in my office pays.

Of course, Romney moved some of that money into and out of Freddie Mac, and siphoned it from Florida foreclosures. In the immediate sense, Romney seems to have done enough to weather the storm of South Carolina and get back on his feet for the contests to come. And in Thursday night's debate, he turned in a strong performance against Newt Gingrich, especially on the immigration issue, where he hit Newt hard for putting out radio ads defaming him as "anti-immigrant," arguing his way to a clear win on the matter. He also deftly parried an attempt by Gingrich to launch an attack on CNN and their debate moderator, Wolf Blitzer. (There were nonetheless weak moments: Rick Santorum was largely successful at tying "Romneycare" to "Obamacare," and Mitt was momentarily flummoxed when CNN factchecked a claim about an ad in real time during the event. The poll numbers signaled a shift back in Romney's direction -- he retook the lead in some Florida polls and ends the week with the best numbers in terms of electability. But it was generally concluded this week that the issue of Romney's taxes, and the way they laid out the innumerable advantages of the idle rich, was destined to take center stage in an election year battle with Obama. You can make use of Slate's "class warfare calculator" to see why. Or, you can muse upon the fact that your big, bailed out banks see Romney as one of their own. Team Obama Re-Elect would love to exploit the wealth gap at a time when so many are struggling. And Romney does himself no favors when he goes on the Laura Ingraham show to tell her audience that the Obama economic plan is working.

Alan Simpson: 'What A Wretched Group Of Seniors You Must Be'

Memorial Day Quotes: Politicians Honor Armed Forces On National Holiday (PHOTOS)

Harold Hamm, Romney Oil Adviser, Also A Big Donor To Super PAC Restore Our Future

Elizabeth Warren Heritage Case Stirs American Indian Query

John Edwards Trial Juror Flirting With Ex-Senator

Obama Says He Could Be Forced To Revisit Health Care Should Supreme Court Rule Against Signature Law

Mitt Romney's bad South Carolina weekend began with a near incident at Tommy's Country Ham House, where an event timed too closely with a Gingrich visit prompted Newt to make an impromptu debate challenge. This would have cemented this Ham House as the site of an important geopolitical event, but a reeling Romney showed up early, rushed through his remarks, and then bolted.

It was going to be that sort of day. By the end, Romney had lost the state, the delegate lead (such as it is), and his momentum. It didn't help that a lot of the support that he'd been greeted with had been the bused-in-from-BYU variety. South Carolinians rejected Romney almost wholesale -- though he did succeed with his own kind: the super-wealthy.

While some Romney aides put a good spin on the results, Romney left behind a bruised Nikki Haley with his national lead in tatters and his standing among independent voters diminished. He also renewed many questions about his ability to reach the Republican base. As Politico put it: "The widening gap between Romney in theory, a man who oozes plausibility as a potential president, and Romney in practice, a candidate who just might be missing some kind of intangible something, is now a dominant storyline in the GOP presidential race."

And yet despite all this, Jonathan Bernstein still figured Romney was the real frontrunner:

One-on-one, over the long haul, it's highly unlikely that Newt Gingrich can beat Mitt Romney. It's also unlikely

... more

comments(868)

featured comment

Reply | Share

bigmaddy said on 28 Saturday 2012 am31 7:39 am: Another four years of President Obama is the only sane choice............OBAMA 2012 :)

Total comments: 868 | Post a Comment

1 of 9

Rate This Slide

Rank #2  |  Average: 4

Fading Fast In It To Win It

• 
  1
• 
  2
• 
  3
• 
  4
• 
  5
• 
  6
• 
  7
• 
  8
• 
  9
• 
  10

Current Top 5 Slides

loading...

Choose your Top 5 Slides

UserName

 | Become a fan

Picked These as the Top 5 Slides in the Slideshow

loading...

Top User Slides

← Prev|Next →

 | Become a fan

Picked These as the Top 5 Slides in the Slideshow

loading...

Users who voted on this slide

← Prev|Next →

loading...

[Would you like to follow me on Twitter? Because why not?]

Also on HuffPost:

 

 

Comments

[sociocanuck]

04:06 PM on 01/29/2012

What the president needs is a more favourable legislative and judicial branch, each, or his second term will just be another constant battle against logic (they obstruct, he gets the blame).

But in spite of recognizing that, I'd really like to see what would happen to the numbers on *both* sides if Gary Johnson did get the Libertarian nomination and took his criticisms of the shortcomings of both to a higher level.

While I'm no fan at all of the extreme ends of libertarianism I don't think that's where Johnson stands. In most ways he seems more pragmatic and deliberate in his application of libertarian policy, where Republicans might also be 'deliberate' but in the sense of cherry picking from Ayn Rand where and when it suits conservative ideology. One only has to look at Ron Paul to see the personification of that strategy, and how easily it fools people into ignoring the truly most harmful of his remaining conservative stances.

Also... about Karger, I agree with the cofounder of GOProud that he's perhaps not the most qualified electable *potential* gay Republican candidate for presidential nominee. But he is the only one who made the effort to seek nomination. That has to count for something.

Given that he's a friend of Johnson and vice versa perhaps something could come of that...

[Tresmilanos]

01:14 PM on 01/28/2012

I would like to see Newt's birth certificate before entertaining any more of his ideas (We already know about Mitt Romney's family ties to Mexico).

However, various articles on-line, indicate that Newt's family is from Germany. I have no problem with the Germany of today, and in fact I lived there for two years at one point in my life.

I am curious as to what part of Germany he comes from and whether or not he or his family has ties to Eastern or Nazi Germany. If that were true, I would definatley have some serious concerns about this man running as POTUS. Apparently there is at least one websites that addresses that issue; however, according to that site my "IP address" was placed on a "banned" list of IP addresses that cannot view that information.

Ginrich or whatever his name is needs to show his birth certificate.

What is good for one candidate is good enough for the other.

[TryKindness]

12:57 PM on 01/28/2012

Evangelicals will just stay home, rather than vote for Romney. He won't be able to win them over.

[flydon1954]

12:53 PM on 01/28/2012

I think we should give the rep.party control of both the house,senate and the whitehouse so the whole country can be on welfare!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[The ORF in Largo]

01:08 PM on 01/28/2012

If the GOP were to gain total control there would be no welfare; we'd become serfs in a corrupt
corporate state

[flydon1954]

01:14 PM on 01/28/2012

I didn't think about that,your right ORF

[richodg5]

12:03 PM on 01/30/2012

If you haven't figured it out; you are surfs now. Also Mitt Romney is a person to worry about. Is money comes from trust funds and taking over failing businesses and taking them to ruin. He is for profit, his. Watch out for this guy my friends.

[kardonb]

03:06 PM on 01/28/2012

But , but , but , the repugs are so much against welfare , that is their mantra " everyone for themselves , no help for anything from government.

[Leftturn Signaler]

12:25 PM on 01/28/2012

David Brooks made an insightful comment on NPR yesterday. He said that Romney finally realized he was in a knife fight (with Gingrich,) and so he got out a knife.

To bad Obama has a machine gun.

[greytunes]

12:39 PM on 01/28/2012

David Brooks always comes out a poor second to EJ Dionne.

[Omentum]

12:20 PM on 01/28/2012

VOTE DEMOCRAT

If you love your country.

COUNTRY FIRST!!!!!

[Omentum]

12:19 PM on 01/28/2012

Republicans,

America is so over you. Find another country to pillage.

[bigmaddy]

12:18 PM on 01/28/2012

Romney is the heart and soul of the Republican party he stands for the wealthest among us, the privileged class. He is what this countries conseratives have always stood for. The Conservatives were the Tories who backed the King of England (wealth and power) and fled when the shooting started. During the Civil War the conservative were the Dixiecrats (the state rights folks) who fought to keep slavery(free labor). The conseravites became the party of the wealthy after the Civil War and fought the creation of labor unions and still are against unions under the name of the republican party. Their failed economics has brought America the Great Depression in the 1920's and in the mid 2000 during the Bush years brought us the Great Recession. I can not understand why ant one who works for a living and draws a paycheck would ever vote for the party of the Robber Barons.

[TexiCali]

05:48 PM on 01/28/2012

Well said. Fanned & Faved.

[Omentum]

12:17 PM on 01/28/2012

Mitt,

America wanted me to let you know.

She is just not into you. You are taking jobs from her and hurting her people. You flirting with the Caymans, Switzerland and China.

She said don't call her anymore. And definitely do not try to come over to here house on Pennsylvania Ave.

[Omentum]

12:14 PM on 01/28/2012

Mitt

You're so Bain. I bet you thought this vote was about you.

[datenutloaf]

12:36 PM on 01/28/2012

~~~~~~~~giggling~~~~~~~~~~

[The ORF in Largo]

01:27 PM on 01/28/2012

For the voters Bain will be his bane

[dgjewel]

12:14 PM on 01/28/2012

Has there been anything of substance or any actual facts in these debates? If anyone finds a truthful statement, please let me know.

[flydon1954]

12:14 PM on 01/28/2012

We need the GOP to make more tax laws that gives Corp. Amer. more incentive to go overseas for cheaper labor.Then they wonder why we have so many people on unemployment and welfare.

[Machiventa68]

12:13 PM on 01/28/2012

All Newt wants to accomplish is to prevent Romney from having the nomination sewed up before the national convention. Newt wants an "open" convention where he could possibly derail the Romney express. Romney does NOT want an open convention under any circumstances. Newt is a tough fighter in close quarters and he is battling hard to keep Romney from getting enough votes to just walk into the convention as the winner.

[greytunes]

12:42 PM on 01/28/2012

If Newt isn't on the establishment bandwagon, I think an "open" or brokered convention does nothing for him. What scares me is that a brokered convention will chose someone the party could get behind. Jeb Bush, I think is waiting to see if this could be a scenario.

[flydon1954]

01:07 PM on 01/28/2012

grey I hope your wrong or there will be another war in this country

[petersjlynn]

12:13 PM on 01/28/2012

I believe any one of these candidates will defeat Obama. I base that thought on Obama's proven allegiances.

I lost my house to foreclosure last April. Millions of Americans have gone through the same misery in the past 3 years, with Obama being tied to that misery. I recently received a letter from FHA stating that help to save my home would soon be available. I wonder, "Where were they 2 years ago?"

Months after Obama set foot in the White House, he strongly began lobbying money for the likes of Solyndra, Ener1 and Beacon Power. In all, he was able to get them $689 million taxpayer dollars. These 3 companies, in less than 3 years, are now bankrupt.Rather than direct his attention to those of US who were about to lose the most valuable investment of our lifetime, Mr. Obama focused on satisfying his friends.

How many families' mortgages could have been saved with $689 million dollars? Mine could have been fixed for less than $20,000. This president is clearly disconnected from the needs of America's normal citizens.

It's obvious to me that Obama's allegiance lies in interests other than the American people, and I'm certain there are many million others who agree.

[swengnikaerb]

12:29 PM on 01/28/2012

Why didn't you pay your mortgage?

[petersjlynn]

06:26 PM on 01/28/2012

I'm permanently and totally disabled.......

[greytunes]

12:45 PM on 01/28/2012

I would beg to differ. 2 years ago the housing market was still in the throes of the Bush depression and banks that were bailed out refused to assisst the country as the country had assissted them. Its wasn't Obama's programs, and the programs he could have initiated were not allowed by Congress(GOP/TP). The GOP/TP is the one disconnected to middle class folks such as us.

[flydon1954]

01:10 PM on 01/28/2012

grey,peters must watch Fox news,they have him fooled.

[Omentum]

12:12 PM on 01/28/2012

Why don't the Republicans just come clean. They just don't like seeing Obama in the Whitehouse.

If any Republican ... given what he was given when he took office ... to be in this position and with all the successes he has had home and abroad..... They would be petitioning him a bust on Mt Rushmore.