The Ames Straw Poll is history and so is the immediate aftermath. Mitt looked solid, Huck surprised and Tommy threw in the towel.
That means it is time for a reset of the Presidential preference poll. We are down to ten contestants.
It also is time to start seriously thinking about a winning ticket. With Tommy Thompson out as POTUS he still makes an intriguing VP for a number of our potential nominees. I’ve already had about a half dozen people ask my opinion on Rudy & Huck as a combination. Clearly, choices require discussion so let’s get to it.
Whose your Dream Team and why?
That means it is time for a reset of the Presidential preference poll. We are down to ten contestants.
It also is time to start seriously thinking about a winning ticket. With Tommy Thompson out as POTUS he still makes an intriguing VP for a number of our potential nominees. I’ve already had about a half dozen people ask my opinion on Rudy & Huck as a combination. Clearly, choices require discussion so let’s get to it.
Whose your Dream Team and why?
22 comments:
Sporer/Yoda 2008
Big Killer - Chief of Staff
Krusty - Secretary of Blogosphere
Burton Rider - Secretary of all things that Rock
Hey Ted, you left Governor Huckabee off of the Presidential poll ... Can we fix that?
Looking for Mike Huckabee.
Edwards Moving Staff Out of Nevada
By NEDRA PICKLER, Associated Press Writer
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
(08-15) 07:19 PDT WASHINGTON, (AP) --
Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards is moving staff out of Nevada to focus on other early voting states, a reflection of the uncertainty about the prominence of the first Western contest.
Two Edwards campaign officials said Wednesday that the Nevada staffers were being relocated to Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina.
The Democratic National Committee gave Nevada a new early role in the presidential nominating process for next year, allowing it to schedule its caucus on Jan. 19, between Iowa and the New Hampshire primary.
But New Hampshire has said it may go earlier than the Jan. 22 date set by the DNC, possibly moving Nevada back in the voting order.
Romney/Huckabee...an unstoppable combination. Oh, and Ted, you did leave Huckabee off of the poll.
here's an excerpt from the Des Moines Register about the state of education in Iowa.
.....Still, only 28 percent of Iowa high school students who took the college entrance exam met the benchmark scores that show they were prepared to pass all of their college classes. Nationwide, only 23 percent of students met the readiness threshold.
Testing officials say the numbers are a sign that U.S. high school students need to tackle more difficult coursework, a problem Iowa school leaders were told by lawmakers to fix with tougher graduation requirements.
"These data make it clear that students are not, by and large, learning all of the essential skills they need to succeed in college simply by taking the minimum core curriculum in high school," said Richard Ferguson, chief executive officer of ACT in Iowa City.
http://blogometer.nationaljournal.com/
Just as the Washington Redskins 4-0 '02 preseason record did not guarantee success in Steve Spurrier's first season with the team (they went 7-9), Mitt Romney's first place Ames straw poll finish does not guarantee him the nomination, let alone the IA Caucuses. But as an NFL scout told Sport's Illustrated's Peter King this week: "I don't care about the score of the game in the preseason.
I care only about watching individual players." We should apply the same lesson to Ames. While the final results of the straw poll aren't predictive, underlying stories are.
MORE....When we look closer at Ames, we can see some important messaging lessons for GOPers as they draw up their game plans for the contests they really count.
First, there is a lot more grass roots support for the FairTax.org's consumption tax than there is for the Club for Growth's flat tax.
FairTax produced at least 20 busses of supporters to the straw poll, while the Club for Growth dumped $85K into television ads attacking Huckabee on taxes.
Huckabee's win shows which message better resonates with primary voters (fellow social conservative Sam Brownbacksupports the flat tax ).
This is a big differentiating factor for the GOP primary. Brownback is one of 4 co-sponsors of flat tax. There are dozens (40+?) co-sponsors of the fair tax.
Romney and Giuliani are wishy washy on the subject, but what bubbles up to me about their position is that they are more the flat tax type. They were definately not for fair tax.
Can others clarify their position for the benefit of us all?
Second, Tom Tancredo and Duncan Hunter have positioned themselves as the immigration enforcement candidates.
However, Tancredo is much more willing to embrace inflammatory rhetoric on the subject and is the only candidate in the field advocating an end to legal as well as illegal immigration.
IAans awarded Tancredo 14% and fourth place, while Hunter finished ninth with 1%. It's possible that support for Tancredo's positions maxes out at 14% of the GOP base, but judging from Rudy Giuliani's post-straw poll response to Romney attacks on immigration, the issue is on the radar.
New York Sun's Ryan Sager led the league in IA-hating: "The face of the Republican Party in Iowa is the face of a losing party, full of hatred toward immigrants, lust for government subsidies, and the demand that any Republican seeking the office of the presidency acknowledge that he's little more than Jesus Christ's running mate.
The pandering from the stage told the story. ... This all may fly in Ames. But it won't in Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and the interior West, all of which will be battlegrounds in this presidential election and for many elections to come.
Republicans need to broaden their appeal in this tough environment, and the first step is to turn their sights away from Ames and toward the rest of the nation."
Reprinted from NewsMax.com
Wednesday, Aug. 15, 2007 10:42 a.m. EDT
Fred Thompson Embraces 'Fair Tax'
Written by Susan Jones, CNSNews.com Senior Editor
Former Sen. Fred Thompson of Tennessee -- the not-quite-yet Republican presidential candidate -- says the next president "should enact a fundamental overhaul of the tax code that makes it fairer, simpler, and more pro-growth."
Thompson mentioned that there are a "number of ways to do that," and he said the "principles and ideas found in the Fair Tax are a good place to start."
The Fair Tax -- a national retail sales tax designed to replace the income tax system and all payroll taxes -- has the support of five declared Republican presidential candidates and one Democrat (former Sen. Mike Gravel).
Thompson, in an Aug. 10 letter to the national FairTax campaign, said it's time for Congress to begin "a serious consideration of real fundamental tax reform rather than nibbling around the edges."
FairTax said it welcomes the support of Republicans like Thompson as well as that of Democrats, Independents, and Americans who have given up on political parties.
"Wresting control of the tax system away from an army of Washington, D.C., tax lobbyists requires the kind of grassroots wildfire the FairTax campaign is producing," said Ken Hoagland of FairTax.org.
"Public response has been so strong and so broad we believe this campaign is now on the verge of becoming a powerful national movement," Hoagland added.
Americans for Fair Taxation, or FairTax for short, says it wants to make tax reform the main issue in the 2008 presidential election.
The group says a national sales tax, or consumption tax, would be self-limiting and enhance civil liberties, while direct taxes (such as the income tax) has been a tool of tyranny throughout history.
According to the fairtax.org website, Romney, Brownback and Giuliani are against the fair tax. All the other candidates are FOR the FairTax. Duncan Hunter and Tom Tancredo are co-sponsors of the bill.
A Fair Tax for Progressives and Conservative
Written by Thomas M. Sipos
Published July 10, 2007
The income tax has four negatives: (1) We are forced to pay money to the government; (2) filing the tax forms invades our privacy, forcing us to reveal how much money we have, how we got it, how we spent it; (3) it's a hassle to keep records, then hire accountants or attorneys to make sure we filed correctly "under penalty of perjury"; and (4) the exemptions and deductions discriminate against gays, singles, childless couples, and others based on spending and lifestyle choices.
Conservatives and progressives both insist that taxes are necessary. (Conservatives are supposedly anti-tax, but how else would they pay for their global, decades-long "war on terror?") But let's suppose they're right.
Wouldn't it be better if the feds could collect that money without invading our privacy or fostering discrimination (issues that progressives supposedly care about), and without hassling people with burdensome record-keeping and form filing?
If you agree, the answer is to replace all federal taxes with a national sales tax (aka the Fair Tax, not be confused with the Flat Tax, which is merely a variation on the income tax).
This one national sales tax could replace federal income, payroll, gift, estate, capital gains, alternative minimum, Social Security, Medicare, self-employment, and corporate taxes.
FROM THE NEW YORK POST
HAPPY DAYS HERE AGAIN
By CHRIS MICHAUD
August 15, 2007 -- A surprising 94 percent of Americans say they are satisfied with their lives - although far fewer in New York and other Eastern states think they're better off than they were five years ago, according to a new survey.
The Harris Poll of more than 1,000 people reported the overall "satisfaction" level, defined as people who said they were either very or somewhat satisfied with their lot, was up 4 percentage points, from 90 percent two years ago.
But only 42 percent of people in the Eastern U.S. said things had improved since 2002.
By contrast, 60 percent of Southerners and 62 percent of Westerners said their lives had improved.
The east coast is the most depressed and sees things as not improving by comparison to all their fellow americans.
Is it coincidence that blue states are always the most depressed expressing a large degree of victimhood or does that happen when the party of victims works it's propogandist magic on the folks, convincing them that life sucks?
I think I'd rather have optimistic Iowans vet the presidentials than anyone from NY or CA.
Life really does suck when you live under democrat control
hey tech nerds...go visit bleeding heartland. we don't need nor want you here. you suck all the way through to your websinks.
Sporer:
Can you ban the dickweed who posts articles? Nobody reads them and they stifle debate by wasting bandwitdth.
I agree with 3:27. If I want to read some crap article from NewsMax, I'll go there myself. All it does it clutter up the real debates.
I guess I better link so people don't get all upset. James Carville in Financial Times, titled "How Karl Rove lost a generation of Republicans": http://www.ft.com/cms/s/fbe0b986-4a8d-11dc-95b5-0000779fd2ac.html
I've been saying the same thing for a while now. Carter's presidency clearly traumatized Sporer and many others in their impressionable youth, making them life-long mindless R partisans. The W/Rove era will surely create a large group of (now young) people who will never ever consider voting for the party that produced and accommodated the W/Rove policies and style of politics. While the partisan D in me rejoices the long-lasting benefits my party will enjoy, mindless partisanship is never a good thing.
RF:
Karl Rove lost a generation of Republicans by sacrificing everthing conservatives believed in for the sake of Phyrric victories over weak RAT opponents.
"We prefer reading the articles over your filthy mouth."
Then go to NewsMax.
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