Are the Caucuses Dead?

Events are unfolding that will affect every Iowa Republican, indeed probably every Iowan.  We are witnessing the end of nearly forty years of our state's prominence in Presidential politics.


Last week's announcement by Mitt Romney is the latest, and probably fatal blow, to the First in the Nation Status.  Non participation in the Ames Straw Poll (held in the odd year summer preceding the even year winter Presidential Caucuses) is the ticket of death for Republican Presidential contenders in Iowa.   The two summer front runners in 2008, Rudy Giuliani and John McCain- the most liberal Republican nominee since President Ford-narrowly defeated Ronald Reagan in 1976-both skipped the caucuses.   History demonstrates that those who skip the caucus do poorly in the Caucuses.   The smart candidate would surely question, why caucus at all if a poor finish is almost assured?


Both GOP luminaries told the same big lie about the caucuses as does the liberal media complex.  The more flattering description of Iowa Republicans portrays us as "more conservative than the national Republican demographic".  The less flattering description, routinely used by the John McCain's of the party claims that Iowa Republicans are little more than Bible and gun clinging hayseeds.  The only difference between Iowa and southern Republicans in such a meme is our addiction to ethanol and not tobacco.


Losing participation of the two front runners was key blow in 2008.  Part of both campaign's explanations was a common belief that they system in Iowa was unfair and too controlled by insiders and arch conservatives.  What course of action should party leadership-and I emphasize not just the Chairman and Central Committee members-have taken for the 2012 process?


Dispelling the false notion that Iowa is a remote right wing outpost would seem to be the first and most important order of business.   Obviously the facts don't support a conclusion that the Caucuses are the product of a far right wing electorate.  Our governor is among the most liberal Republican state wide office holders in the country.  Our party leadership is tightly controlled by a small minority of equally "pro-government" Republicans, most of whom gain from a large actively spending government.


Moreover, the 2008 Caucus winner derived almost his entire margin of victory in the state's most urban, educated and populous county.  The second place finish was Mitt Romney himself.  Another very mainstream Republican won the caucuses in 2000 (George W. Bush, of course).  But let's take a further look at more remote history.


The 1996 winner was Bob Dole, hardly a right wing revolutionary or flaming evangelist.  Dole also won in 1988, pounding a real right wing evangelist Pat Robertson by a robust 12%.  George H.W. Bush even defeated Ronald Reagan in 1980.


In light of the reality of our demographic (almost all caucus attendees really come from Iowa's three or four largest counties) and our history it would seem party leadership would have an abundance of ammunition with which to defend the Caucuses.  Shockingly leadership has taken a different direction.


Governor Branstad and the IGOP's majordomo, Doug Gross issued the most critical statement yet about Iowa's Presidential process from an actual Iowan when he said:


“If Iowa becomes some extraneous right-wing outpost, you have to question whether it is going to be a good place to vet your presidential candidates,” Doug Gross, a Republican activist from Iowa, told The New York Times this year…"


The quote implies the existence of a problematic condition.  It also implies that we Iowa Republicans must somehow become more liberal if we are to save to process.  As we covered earlier this year, Bruce Raestetter, among the most liberal Republicans in Iowa, implicitly attacked the process by going to New Jersey in what appears to be a totally failed attempt to recruit Governor Chris Christie (whose views on tax subsidized industries might have proven rather disappointing to the Raestetter Mission had it been successful).  One may wonder at the motivation for words and actions that denigrate the process but the words have been said and the deeds have been done.


In fact, Secretary of State Matt Schultz's response to Jon Huntsman's withdrawal from Iowa appears to be a lonely voice among party leadership in defending the process and righting the lie that the Iowa Caucuses are an assembly of monolithic narrow minded superstitious lemmings. 


Our first in the nation status is always on thin ice.  We are a small state with an even smaller minority population (a major problem in a politically correct environment).  Florida in particular-with its 29 electoral votes-is always breathing down our neck.  Other larger swing states, Virginia, Colorado for example, can see much to gain from the demise of the Caucuses.


When the front runners pull out of a state two cycles in a row, for reasons echoed by that state's political leadership,  it will become virtually impossible to prevent the political predation by the existing large and hungry contenders.  After all, when important Iowa Republicans criticize the process and the electorate in Iowa what other conclusion can Republicans in other states draw?


It appears that 2012 will be the year remembered as the death of the Iowa Caucuses.  Killed from within and without.

Palin's latest ploy...liberals become laughing stalks.

Sarah Palin's references to an arcane part of the famous story of Paul Revere's "midnight" ride has sure provided a little comedy at liberal expense.  In a word: "played". 

By now the world knows Sarah said Revere warned the British, as indeed Revere's own account demonstrates to have happened.  Revere's "warning" of course, was not that the Americans were coming, but a threat that the large American force would crush the assembled "Regulars".

The liberal reaction vividly displays typical liberal tactics, and the disingenuous manner with which such tactics are implemented.

However, most significantly, it demonstrates that liberals are truly and typically ignorant of real history.  Liberal education and historical perspective are almost entirely post modern.  The premise: one must learn "why" and then the facts that support the theoretical conclusion.

Real historians learn the historical facts, provided by the historical actors and contemporaneous reports, and then apply historical evaluation.  Maybe that's why half of 12th graders cannot identify George Washington.   Imagine the mouth breathing if those same 12th graders were asked to describe the monumental accomplishments of the revolutionary commander before he became president.

Once the liberal ignorance of Revere's warning of defeat was exposed their behavior was classic and predictable.

The liberal response.  Deny the historical evidence, furnished by Revere himself.  Why?  Was Paul Revere a known liar?  Nothing in the historical record supports that proposition. 

Rather, liberals now argue that Revere's contemporaneous record of a conversation should be disregarded because it inconveniently demonstrates the shallow nature of the Sarah phobic left.  The liberals also get a chance to toss a little mud in the direction of an American hero,  laingappe for those who believe no American heroes exist beyond the 50/60s civil rights campaigns.

Maybe the progressives believe Revere to have been a psychic of greater precision than say, Edgar Cayce.  Surely Revere created a false account of his 1775 conversation with the knowledge that it would be used to expose the hair trigger on the liberal on the Palin gun. 

Of course, the body of biographical information about Revere describes a cocky and defiant revolutionary.  Those  statements of Revere's that Sarah referenced are entirely consistent with a defiant personality's response to unexpected captivity by the British. 

How loud is the laughter on the Palin family truckster?  Loud enough to hear in sleepy little Iowa.

The Strange Case of Rep. Weiner's wiener: this job takes two hands.

The now well known case of Rep. Weiner has exploded on the Internet over the current holiday weekend.  While this is good news for a couple of other cads, John Edwards and the Governator, "Tighty-whiteygate" it strings Anthony Weiner on the always uncomfortable if equally proverbial horns of dilemma.



One one hand, if Weiner's version is true, the Twitter account of a sitting United States Congressman was hijacked by someone that intended to harm that Congressman.  Make no mistake, real harm has been done to real people if this story is the product of identity theft.  You married guys need to reflect on Anthony Weiner's holiday weekend.  Gals, how humiliated does the recently minted Mrs. Weiner feel this weekend?  Identity theft is not a prank, its a crime.

If a hacker was involved Rep. Weiner has a legal duty to report the crime to the Capitol Police and the FBI.  Thus far Weiner has not acted like an outraged and innocent victim and his failure to do so seems highly inculpatory behavior.

On the other hand, if guilty, Weiner has illustrated not only sufficient personal hedonism to earn novice status in the Kennedy Caucus of Philandering Politicians but the intense hatred liberals have for all things conservative coupled with a complete refusal to accept wrong doing by any of their fellow travellers.

While virtually all of the evidence points toward Weiner's guilt (e.g. the timing of the tweets, the direct reference to his air time in Seattle, the putative paramour's previous references to Weiner as her boyfriend and the disappearance of her social networking) liberal websites have excreted pages of vitriolic ad hominem, expressed in terms far more odious than that employed to describe UBL by the same authors, at Andrew Brietbart.  Breitbart's crime?  Violation of the first rule of American journalism-telling an unflattering truth about a liberal politician. 

By Tuesday we can undoubtedly expect to see the main stream liberal media complex fulling investigating the scandal they have heretofore ignored.  One can imagine David Gregory's special on what Breitbart knew and when did he know it?  Matthews will have Ed Schultz (fresh off his suspension for calling a Republican radio host a "slut") Paul Krugman and Andrea Mitchell for a special panel discussion of congressional action to rescind Breitbart's First Amendment rights.  Rachel Maddow will cover the extent to which Bretibart can be prosecuted for hate crimes against the GLBT community.

Remember the theme of Ken Starr's brutality to the ultimately quite guilty Bill Clinton?  Yeah, like that.

Hopefully, Andrew Breitbart will keep the matter alive by refusing to allow the MSM to redefine the issue.  As for you, Anthony Weiner, you'd be better off following a preferred adage of the late Freddy Sporer, paraphrased for a PG audience:  if you employ your johnson, clad in boxers or briefs, as a compass you are probably going in the wrong direction.

Rastetter and the Gang jeopardize First in the Nation status

Yesterday's disclosure that ethanol executive Bruce Rastetter and a group of Iowa donors travelled to New Jersey could not better demonstrate the extent to which the small but powerful donors display contempt for the Caucus process and the importance to Iowa of our "First in the Nation Status" (FINS)

Bruce Rastetter

As a backdrop, let us remember who is making the trip.  Mr. Rastetter runs a business that is almost completely dependent on government largesse.  Ethanol claims it cannot compete without government assistance (usually known as "corporate welfare").  As a capitalist myself, I am of the mind that businesses that need tax dollars to survive probably should not exist.  At the same time, all of the other energy industries should not have their tax subsidies and special tax status either so ethanol gets a more fair market in which to compete, but I digress. 


Mr. Rastetter and the gang are smart people and they know that the mood of the GOP primary electorate, even in Iowa, is increasingly hostile to crony capitalism; they also know that Republican candidates will mirror that mood if they want to win.  Ultimately, the direct benefit that Mr. Rastetter derives from your tax dollars is not the point.  The Rastetter Mission is an appropriate exercise of its participants First Amendment rights-but at what cost?


Back in my Party days, working on the 2008 Caucuses and the 2007 Ames Straw Poll I recall our battles to belie the meme, constantly iterated, by foes of our first in the nation caucuses, that Iowa is a small insider state and the Caucuses are an unfair representation of a candidate's strength. 


The labor was neither easy nor pleasant.  Everyone who wanted to steal our prized "First in the Nation" status repeated the same attack line, best described by our former Political Director: "the Iowa GOP had a reputation for being a political juke box-put your money in and we would play any song you want."  By early January we had to essentially remove our then Chairman for promising to terminate staff members who crossed the Romney campaign. 


FINS is entirely dependent on not just the integrity of the process but the perception of integrity itself.  All that blood, sweat and tears last cycle disproved the national image of a desperate juke box.


Now, with Republicans in control of much of the apparatus of state government our position is much stronger for local issues.  Unfortunately, so are the facts that can form the basis of a meme that Iowa is in the pocket of a few oligarchs close to a virtually regnant Republican governor.  Even if the Rastetter Mission was wholly altruistic the image and spin it will generate does nothing but load the shells about fifteen other states will fire at us.


After all those battles and skin shed over 2007 and 2008 this one image of Iowa oligarchs picking the candidate our state will support in the Straw Poll to Caucus cycle could provide the justification for any number of candidates to withdraw or minimize their effort in the Hawkeye State.  Mayor Giuliani and Sen. McCain both used a similar argument to justify their respective minimal efforts and participations in Iowa.


If we lose FINS our state will be as interesting to Republican Presidential candidates as Kansas and Wyoming. 

... and they're off! (GOP SC debate

The 2012 Presidential race officially started in South Carolina last night.  Former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty, former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum, former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson, Congressman Ron Paul and former Godfather's Pizza CEO Herman Cain were in the starting gate at the Greenville Political Paceway.  What a race it was.

Win:  Herman Cain.  The Hermantor entered the evening as more of a gimmick than a serious candidate.  He emerged as the most Presidential sounding candidate.  Throughout the evening the Hermantor's answers were on point with the audience almost every time.  More importantly, Mr. Cain's answers showed an incisive mind that grasped the job of the President as America's CEO.   Mr. Cain also displayed a decisive personality that knew how to prioritize and solve problems, not just blame someone else for creating them.  On substantive issues Mr. Cain gave the best immigration answer a Republican has given in any similar format, or anywhere else for that matter.  The identification of foreign policy problems was  followed by actual real world solutions.

Mr. Cain's best answer came when asked about his lack of political experience.  After pointing out that all of the nation's problems have been created by professional politicians, the next line said it all: "How's that working out". 

Mr. Cain left Greenville with the audience behind him.  Two separate focus groups (one SC, one national) felt Mr. Cain rocked the debate.  The most ironic aspect of the Cain eruption was the love from the Gamecocks.  After electing a black Republican in a white majority district (Tim Scott) the South Carolina audience and focus groups loved another black Republican.  How long will people give credence to the liberal racism rants?

Place.  Gov. Pawlenty.  Tim Pawlenty came into the debate as the most serious of the competitors.  The major downside of the Pawlenty presentation was simply a willingness to lapse into meaningless political speak.  The electorate really is angry and scared.  The average Republican typically finds biography or tag lines unrewarding and this year that desire for substance is greater than any time since 1980.

On the upside, Gov. Pawlenty did express plenty of substance, especially on foreign policy questions.  The Governor massaged the anti-union question quite well.  Gov. Pawlenty seemed Presidential and the power of that imagery is incalculable.  The candid manner in which he admitted error in his initial position on "cap and trade" was wrong went over well with the audience and apparently most after action focus groups.

The most obvious and most significant difference between Mr. Cain and Gov. Pawlenty was the Governor's tendency to talk about what he had done and Mr. Cain's focus on what he would do.  This is not a conventional election cycle and conventional campaigning just may not work.

Show:  Sen. Santorum.  Rick Santorum surprised both the crowd and this author.  The ex-Senator's attack on the Obama foreign policy was spot on, particularly the distinction between new strategic policy and the tactical execution of the UBL take down.  Sen. Santorum also well presented the very reasons Republicans cannot back down on the "social issues" agenda.  We are defined by the nature of our society.  Killing babies, homosexuals marrying, celebration of secular or invented holidays rather than traditional holidays is not the society that Republicans want.

The downside for Sen. Santorum was more stylistic and rhetorical.  The Senator's demeanor and manner of speech betray, or perhaps misportray, a degree of impatience and petulance that will not play well with the electorate.  The Obama seems cool, serene and Presidential (although also given to petulance and condescension from time to time) and our candidate needs to walk a fine line between aggressive attack and calm leadership.  Both Mr. Cain and Gov. Pawlenty portrayed such demeanor, Sen. Santorum did not.  This is a fixable problem and time will demonstrate if and if so, how quickly, the shine appears on the Santorum campaign.

The Libertarians:  This author must express a degree of bias, I too tend more toward libertarian philosophy than most conservatives.  Hence, I find the more radical domestic ideas expressed by Cong. Paul and Gov. Johnson rather attractive.  Ron Paul is one hundred percent right, sixty-five percent of the time and about zero percent on target on the remaining thirty-five percent.  The paleo-isolationism urged by both Cong. Paul and Gov. Johnson, while a popular feature of American history, is so out of place in the modern world of Jihad, terror and energy policy as to disqualify both gentlemen from the Presidency.

On Wisconsin

Who'd ever have thought that the land of Bucky the Badger might be the spark of the next restorative phase of American history.

Of course everyone knows that Wisconsin state public employees, especially teachers, are engaged in vigorous protest in Madison and Milwaukee.  The protesters have obtain leave from work by lying about illness.  Duplicitous and weak school districts are cancelling school because so many teachers have used illness as an excuse.  All of the elements of a real battle for fundamental control of the political direction of the country exist in Bucky land.

The issue is stark.  The Republican majority want to eliminate collective bargaining rights for public employees and require such employees to contribute roughly 5.8% of their income to fund their own pensions, rather than we, the taxpayers, further fund the pensions.  Since public employee pensions are of tottering, if any, solvency right across the country this issue is going to arise in almost every state, including Iowa in the foreseeable future.  As a result, people all across the nation have a stake in the outcome.

GOP budget: We've stopped the digging, now let's ...

... start the fill. 

Speaker Kraig Paulsen presented a very informative summary of Republican 2012 budget over at The Iowa Republican.


Of course one is immediately, if hopefully unsurprisingly, struck by the significant difference between Republican governance and spending and Democrat spending and governance.  Even the most cynical of punditry has to admit that at least Republicans recognize the existence of a budget crises while Democrats are the crisis.  A failure to acknowledge and champion that distinction by anyone who believes in smaller government is merely exalting hypothetical perfection at the expense of tangible improvement. 


But, Mr. Speaker, recognize your strength and be heroic at a time the state needs heroes.   First, I am sure you and I and a majority of Iowans agree the state is in crises.  During the decade of my birth Iowa had ten electoral votes and soon we all know that number falls to six.  That means that Iowa's share of the national population has fallen by forty percent.  If that is not a state in absolute free fall what then must free fall look like?  Since the size, scope and expense of state government has grown exponentially during the same lifespan, only the truly uninformed or an ineducable biased partisan could possibly fail to conclude that more of the same is unlikely to change the results.


Second, the people are with you.  The public default opinion right now is less government, period.  The public wants change and the reality of what is before us if we fail to change is not foreign to the daily life of the average Iowan.  I know you've got people, hell I probably know the people themselves, talking about polls, and opinion and avoiding major conflict.  They are wrong, very wrong. 


Third, you have the position from which to redefine the dialogue.  The facts are on our side in a major way.  Education spending provides the best example.  In 2001-02 the certified enrollment in Iowa public schools was 494,290.7 and per capita K-12 spending was $5,122.  By 2010, the number of certified enrolled students had fallen by approximately 4.2 percent to 473,493.4 while per capita spending increased to $7,419, an increase of approximately 31 percent.  During that same time student performance at the K-12 public schools most assuredly did not improve by 31 percent. 

Measuring the priority government devotes to any one thing in terms of appropriated dollars has obviously failed.  People understand it when they hear it but they have to hear it much more frequently to overwhelm the contrary liberal message dominant in academia and the news and entertainment media and, thereby to change the governing philosphy of the last fifty years.  We need to create a conviction, not merely transitory opinion, that objectively small government is the primary solution to Iowa's domestic problems.


Now is the time to define a Republican metric that measures government in results produced not money spent.  The public gets it, that's why we won such a landslide last year.  Now is the time to educate the public, who now have only a vague notion of what's broken (but they are convinced its broken) and to educate to a degree and in a way we've never before attempted.  If we do, we defeat the Democrat's charge that Republicans deprive the public of services that the public, in principle, want (e.g.schools, law enforcement).


Now is the time to force Senator Gronstal to defend the indefensible, especially in any split Senate districts.  Let's give him our blue sky and then force every Democrat incumbent who has to stand in 2012 to defend the money down a rat hole in every local forum and media in their respective districts.  We send our top spokesman on to the small talk show in Ottumwa or Osceola, or wherever such media exist, to hammer the obstructive Democrat Senate every day. 

When the Dennis Black's or Jack Hatch's of the world dare to face the public we have our supporters organized on site to force the debate.  Let their union bullies get ugly at those forums, so much he better; the jack boot approach Mr. Murphy took last year certainly proves that point.    If we stick to the facts and keep it simple we will see significant movement in our direction.   Even if forced to compromise in the end we can force the dead end liberal progressive and union thugs to defend the logically indefensible on their way to the 2012 ballot.


We have the facts on our side.  We have public opinion on our side.  We have a whole new 21st Century grass roots media and movement mobilization on our side.  We just won a landslide.  Now we have the votes to force the Democrats to answer one simple question:  how much more will our state have to shrink before we reverse, not slow, the direction that shrunk our state by forty percent in only fifty years?