Promoted from the diaries as a public service on behalf of conservative voters. For those who don’t know it, the author of this post is a self-described member of the Romney campaign.
#justsayin
Mitt Romney is a flip-flopper (oh…wait)
Does Rick Perry have an online problem?
All of the FEC reports are out now. Here’s my rundown on Rick Perry. (See the Mitt Romney rundown here).
Top level numbers first:
| Perry Q3 | |
| Receipts | $17,009,441 |
| itemized | $16,310,621 |
| No itemized | 10,091 |
| Ave. itemized | $1,616 |
| unitemized | $698,820 |
| % unitemized | 4.11% |
| Disbursements | $2,098,466 |
| COH | $15,078,415 |
| Debt | $339,119 |
That is a solid kick off quarter for Perry. (Note: the quarter that you kick-off your campaign should be one of the strongest.)
Perry didn’t eclipse Romney’s Q2 kick-off of $18 Million but his $17 Million take in Q3 means this race is far from over.
Here’s my question though. Perry’s unitemized number is extremely low in my opinion. For a guy who kicked off his campaign at a Blogger’s forum I would expect the lower-end donations to be larger than 4% of the total donations. By comparison, Romney saw 14% of his donations unitemized.
A religious litmust test?
Tonight I attended an exclusive “cult” meeting at my local Mormon chapel (a.k.a. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) where I witnessed proscribed clothing, handshakes, ritual chants, hierarchical teachings, and special advancement ceremonies.
You may have witnessed one of these “cult” meetings yourself – it’s called Cub Scouts.
“Cult” is an extreme pejorative term that could subjectively be applied to everything from High School Football games to the Pledge of Allegiance.
I could spend this post defending Mormonism from attacks - like the one hurled today by Pastor Jeffress during his introduction of Governor Perry at the Values Voters Conference or I could simply point out the obvious: a religious litmus test is both unconstitutional in character and imprudent for a political stragegy.
You may think my belief in Mormonism warrants some political disqualification – that is your right as a free-thinking American… but know this… the Left thinks our shared belief in the soteriological powers of our Lord Jesus Christ disqualifies us both from political office and even public discourse.
In other words… if someone on the Right disses Mitt Romney because of his religious beliefs… the Left has a free pass to dismiss all Christian beliefs en masse and hold that precedent over our collective heads.
Those are just a few arguments in what I’m sure will be a lively discussion in the weeks and months ahead.
Video: Rick Perry Remix
While my erudite analysis of poll trends and detailed budget charts may impress… those of you who know me may recall that I cut loose at times to do some ridiculous schtick.
This is one of those times…
Rick Perry tried to attack Mitt Romney on the issue of flip/flops… it didn’t quite come out the way he was expecting. I couldn’t resist having a little fun with that moment last night. The actual exchange can be found here.
<iframe width=”560″ height=”315″ src=”http://www.youtube.com/embed/vLxbyd0UgNo” frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen></iframe>
Another Obama Upstage Photo
In case you missed it… Obama had a photo upstage moment yesterday featured on MSNBC and passed throughout the Internet today.
We uncovered another embarrassing photo. See below:
Ras. Reports GOP Poll: Romney Gaining; Bachman imploding; Paul losing youth vote; Perry losing seniors?
Cross-posted at iHartPolitics.com.
Rasmussen Reports is out with a new national GOP primary poll. A previous poll was conducted in August just days after Rick Perry announced his candidacy.
Looking at the detailed demographics here’s what Ras. says:
| 20-Sep | 15-Aug | +/- | |
| Perry | 28% | 29% | -1% |
| Romney | 24% | 18% | 6% |
| Bachmann | 8% | 13% | -5% |
| Cain | 7% | 6% | 1% |
| Paul | 6% | 9% | -3% |
| Santorum | 3% | 1% | 2% |
| Gingrich | 9% | 5% | 4% |
| Huntsman | 2% | 1% | 1% |
| McCotter | 1% | 0% | 1% |
| Not sure | 11% | 16% | -5% |
The big headline: Bachmann is imploding. Her support across all demographics has basically halved. Interestingly enough, much of that support seems to be moving to Romney. (Gingrich’s performance during the debates has also brought in notable support.)
Let’s look deeper at the Male/Female breakdown
| Male – 9/20 | Male – 8/15 | +/- | Female – 9/20 | Female – 8/15 | +/- | |
| Perry | 28% | 32% | -4% | 28% | 25% | 3% |
| Romney | 22% | 20% | 2% | 26% | 17% | 9% |
| Bachmann | 9% | 12% | -3% | 7% | 14% | -7% |
| Cain | 9% | 6% | 3% | 6% | 6% | 0% |
| Paul | 9% | 11% | -2% | 4% | 7% | -3% |
| Santorum | 3% | 2% | 1% | 3% | 1% | 2% |
| Gingrich | 9% | 6% | 3% | 9% | 4% | 5% |
| Huntsman | 2% | 2% | 0% | 3% | 1% | 2% |
| McCotter | 0% | 0% | 0% | 1% | 0% | 1% |
| Not sure | 9% | 9% | 0% | 12% | 24% | -12% |
Bachmann’s support among women dropped dramatically. Undecided women are also moving quickly to make a decision. Both Romney and Perry increased their female prowess while Perry shed the most male votes over the past month.
Next, let’s look at age. The story here: Ron Paul’s youth vote is disintegrating according to Rasmussen. (Grain of salt: b/c these polls usually don’t reach younger voters in high frequencies these numbers can vacillate greatly)
| (18-29) 9-20 | (18-29) 8-15 | +/- | |
| Perry | 19% | 17% | 2% |
| Romney | 13% | 8% | 5% |
| Bachmann | 9% | 5% | 4% |
| Cain | 13% | 5% | 8% |
| Paul | 10% | 29% | -19% |
| Santorum | 8% | 0% | 8% |
| Gingrich | 12% | 7% | 5% |
| Huntsman | 6% | 2% | 4% |
| McCotter | 6% | 0% | 6% |
| Not sure | 5% | 27% | -22% |
Bachmann gain votes among 30-somethings but the 40+ crowd was not kind to her.
But now, the big question… did Social Security hurt Perry? Here’s the 65+ demo:
| 65+ 9/20 | 65+ 8/15 | +/- | |
| Perry | 31% | 34% | -3% |
| Romney | 33% | 22% | 11% |
| Bachmann | 6% | 15% | -9% |
| Cain | 3% | 3% | 0% |
| Paul | 5% | 2% | 3% |
| Santorum | 2% | 1% | 1% |
| Gingrich | 6% | 6% | 0% |
| Huntsman | 1% | 1% | 0% |
| McCotter | 0% | 0% | 0% |
| Not sure | 14% | 16% | -2% |
-3% points is well within the margin of error but it was the biggest demo loss for Perry and Romney’s biggest demo gain. If you add the 50-64 demo to the 65+ crowd Romney saw an increase of 12% and Perry dropped 4%.
Given the ratio of likely voters for older demographics it’s not without the realm of possibility that the vast majority of Romney’s gains and Perry’s losses came in the older demographics.
But I’m more inclined to say that Bachman’s implosion and decreased fence-sitters are the big story here.
Stay tuned.
Howdy Neighbor! How goes the Jihad?
Follow me on this:
- Loudoun county has the highest median household income in the nation.
- It is one of the fastest growing counties in the country.
- Ashburn, Virginia, the largest city in Loudoun county, is home to AOL Headquarters, the Redskins training facility and hundreds of middle class families
- And today, my Ashburn neighbor, Farooque Ahmed, was arrested by Federal agents for plotting to blow up the DC metro.
WHAAAA?
Truth be told I didn’t know Farooque. I believe I had seen him before walking the neighborhood with his wife in Muslim garb. This isn’t a terribly unusual site in this culturally diverse area so I can’t be sure it was him. But I can assure you that every family on the block tonight will take extra care to lock their doors, shut their windows, and pop a few Pepto Bismols before retiring for the night.
Here’s a quick video recap I gave on site:
More on this tomorrow.
Moe Lane
Dan McLaughlin
Dan Spencer
Jeff Emanuel
Neil Stevens
Caleb Howe
