High Ground Underground

The Gift that Keeps on Giving Newt seems to be riding a second wave, this one in good part of the making of the liberal media running the debates. He’s now capitalized in 2 debates in a row on gimme questions providing the perfect segway to lashing out against the liberal media – a favorite target of conservatives. First was the Jan. 16 debate response to Juan Williams’ insinuation that his having poor kids work (e.g., school cleanup) was racially demeaning. Conservatives are tired of liberals’ overreach with the race card. The other Jan. 19 to King’s leadoff about his ex-wife’s public accusations of him asking for an open marriage. His indignant responses elicited wild applause and a standing ovation. Santorum has said that “I don’t know how much Newt paid King for that question, but it wasn’t enough.” He, too, felt it was a significant factor in his last-minute surge in the South Carolina polls, and his win there. An anti-mainstream-media vote. Of course there were likely other facto...

Iowa & New Hampshire It was the narrowest of squeakers in Iowa, but Mitt did a bit better than expected. Maybe my calls the Saturday before to get out his supporters to the caucuses actually helped give him those several votes that made the difference. And yes, there was at least one Iowa “carcass” – Bachman. And for all the hoopla we heard 4 years ago about how many dollars per vote Romney spent, it was Perry by far with the dollars per vote this time – no doubt another soon-to-be carcass with a fraction of 1% in New Hampshire. And a historic win for Romney today in New Hampshire – no non-incumbent GOP candidate has ever won both Iowa & New Hampshire! And I think that says a lot, that the people who know him best (New Hampshire) came out so strongly for him. Things will no doubt be tougher, though, in S. Carolina on Jan. 21 and Florida Jan. 31. Most agree that if he wins them, it’s over. But many are screaming about a too-early coronation. If the anti-Romney vote remains divid...

Only 2 days to go until the Iowa caucuses, and the polls show Romney narrowly leading. The other 2 with significant ground presence & organization, Ron Paul and Santorum, have risen somewhat at Gingrich's expense, showing a moderate "flavor-of-the-month" bump. Gingrich did indeed peak and have a precipitous fall, as it was starting to look like two weeks ago. His baggage is showing. I can't imagine extremist Ron Paul rising much more, but we'll see how big Santorum's bump is. Bachman seems to be down in the noise, even in her "home" territory. Yesterday (Saturday) I placed a couple dozen calls for the Romney campaign -- to Iowa. In my small sample, two-thirds of those who answered said they were for Romney, and the rest were undecided (one leaning towards Ron Paul), and the Romney supporters were definitely going to participate in the caucuses. So we'll see after Tuesday who the Iowa "carcases" are -- the field may start to narrow, ...