First of all, I don’t really care about the CPAC Straw Poll results. If it was relevant, Ron Paul would have been considered the GOP front runner over the past two years, and Mitt Romney would have won the nomination in 2008. It’s good for a small amount of buzz for a day or two, but that’s about it. I suspect most voters don’t even know what CPAC is, and those who are familiar with the annual conservative conference know how the straw poll is won.

According to the New York Times Caucus Blog, the Romney campaign bused students in from colleges on the Eastern Seaboard to ensure that he had enough supporters there to enable his victory in the straw poll.

…Straw polls indicate very little. The voting pool is affected by who attends the conference — 44 percent of voters were students — and by special efforts campaigns can make to bring in supporters for the vote. In each of the last two years, Mr. Paul was the victor, but others said this was more a mark of his campaign’s organizational ability than its true support…

….The Romney campaign also worked aggressively behind the scenes for a strong showing, including busing students from colleges along the Eastern Seaboard to show their support….

Do I care? Not really. This is all well within the rules of the game, but let’s not pretend that this is some “severely” impressive display of the strength of Mitt Romney with conservatives.

Crosspost

Michele Bachmann has spent the past few days blasting Newt Gingrich for stating that we need to take a humane approach to the deportation of illegals. The following quote is from the debate at the Reagan Library on September 7th.

HARRIS: A quick 30-second rebuttal on the specific question. The fence is built, the border is under control. What do you do with 11.5 million people who are here without documents and with U.S.- born children?

BACHMANN: Well, that’s right. And again, it is sequential, and it depends upon where they live, how long they have been here, if they have a criminal record. All of those things have to be taken into place.

Sound familiar?

The video is HERE

I just read the text of Rick Perry’s remarks to the Border Summit on Aug, 21st 2001. How in the hell is this stuff slipping through the cracks without a single mention in the conservative press? If this had been Obama, Sean Hannity would have been talking about it 24/7 during the last presidential campaign.

There are many passages in the speech that are of great concern to me, but this one really caught my attention.

…Legislation authored by border legislators Pat Haggerty and Eddie Lucio establishes an important study that will look at the feasibility of bi-national health insurance. This study recognizes that the Mexican and U.S. sides of the border compose one region, and we must address health care problems throughout that region. That’s why I am also excited that Texas Secretary of State Henry Cuellar is working on an initiative that could extend the benefits of telemedicine to individuals living on the Mexican side of the border….

Does Rick Perry still support an international health insurance program such as the one he laid out in his speech that day? Will someone in the media please ask him before it’s too late?

You can read the entire text of Perry’s speech HERE.

Really, Mr. Speaker? Are you aware that that moronic comment will be used against every Republican candidate in 2012?

Perhaps it’s time for Mr. Boehner to step aside. If he’s dumb enough to make that comment, he’s not the right guy to be negotiating with Democrats.

I just spoke with a House GOP lawmaker who told me he intends to vote “no” on the compromise. This lawmaker was present on the GOP conference call and quoted Speaker Boehner as saying both “We got 98 percent of what we wanted” and that “The minority leader’s on board,” which prompted this lawmaker to ask: “Really? Nancy’s cool with only 2 percent? She’s that stupid?”

In the past, Mitt Romney has never been a profile in courage. However, he stepped up to the plate last month by signing Jim Demint’s Cut, Cap, & Balance pledge. I know…I know, he was only fishing for DeMint’s endorsement, but he signed it nonetheless.

Romney even went as far as to call Cut, Cap, and balance his ” line in the sand” for increasing the debt limit.

Just in from Freedom Fest…U.S. Rep. Thaddeus McCotter, R-Mich. announced his candidacy for President of the United States.

From his Twitter account:

Under stormy skies at #WAAM Freedom Fest, I announced 4 GOP nomination 4 President & wasn’t struck by lightning. http://www.mccotter2012.com

I don’t claim to know much about McCotter, but he’s clearly not a Romney fan. It appears as though Mitt’s free ride may be coming to an end.

….“Mr. Romney and Mr. Obama are not rivals, they’re running mates.” McCotter said at a Plymouth, Mich. event held Wednesday afternoon, a day before Romney’s arrival in the Wolverine state….

….“In the area of cap and trade, the President and Mr. Romney both believe in climate change. In the area of health care, both the President and Mr. [Romney] believe in comparative effectiveness research and government controlling the supply of health care. What you see in the area of the Wall Street Bailout, both Mr. Romney and President Obama believe that the bondholders and shareholders on Wall Street should be held harmless, with no restructuring, no downsizing, no management changes, no equity, and no preparation for future to get capital flowing back again.”….

Here’s the link to his Campaign website

Cross Post

Scott Conroy from Real Clear Politics just dropped a bombshell that’s certain to turn the race for the GOP presidential nomination on its head. Independent filmmaker, Stephen Bannon, is set to release a feature-length movie about Sarah Palin.

At the request of Palin, close aide, Rebecca Mansour approached Bannon after the November elections to get the wheels turning on the production. According to Conroy, the movie is set to premier next month in Iowa, before expanding into South Carolina, Nevada, and New Hampshire. Eventually, Bannon expects to release the film in 50-100 markets nationwide. They’re also considering offering copies to SarahPac donors.

The weeks leading up to the release should be most interesting. I guess this is what she means by “unconventional!”

Shortly after Republicans swept last November to a historic victory in which Sarah Palin was credited with playing a central role, the former Alaska governor pulled aside her close aide, Rebecca Mansour, to discuss a hush-hush assignment: Reach out to conservative filmmaker Stephen K. Bannon with a request. Ask him if he would make a series of videos extolling Palin’s governorship and laying to rest lingering questions about her controversial decision to resign from office with a year-and-a-half left in her first term. It was this abdication, Palin knew, that had made her damaged goods in the eyes of some Republicans who once were eager to get behind her potential 2012 presidential campaign.

The response was more positive than Palin could have hoped for. He’d make a feature-length movie, Bannon told Mansour, and he insisted upon taking complete control and financing it himself — to the tune of $1 million.

The fruits of that initial conversation are now complete. The result is a two-hour-long, sweeping epic, a rough cut of which Bannon screened privately for Sarah and Todd Palin last Wednesday in Arizona, where Alaska’s most famous couple has been rumored to have purchased a new home. When it premieres in Iowa next month, the film is poised to serve as a galvanizing prelude to Palin’s prospective presidential campaign — an unconventional reintroduction to the nation that she and her political team have spent months eagerly anticipating, even as Beltway Republicans have largely concluded that she won’t run.

[...]

Although Palin is not interviewed directly, the film features on-camera interviews and commentaries from 10 Alaskans who played different roles in her political rise, as well as six Lower 48 denizens who defend her in more visceral terms, including prominent conservative firebrands Mark Levin, Andrew Breitbart and Tammy Bruce.

Divided into three acts, the film makes the case that despite the now cliched label, Palin was indeed a maverick who confronted the powerful forces lined up against her to achieve wide-ranging success in a short period of time. The second part of the film’s message is just as clear, if more subjective: that Sarah Palin is the only conservative leader who can both build on the legacy of the Reagan Revolution and bring the ideals of the tea party movement to the Oval Office.

[...]

In the last couple of months, Palin has delivered major policy speeches, hired a chief of staff, made a well-publicized foreign trip that included a visit with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, all the while remaining consistent about her vow — first made just days after the 2008 campaign ended — that she would “crash through” any of the “open doors” that might lead to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

Bannon intends to premiere the film in Iowa late next month before expanding the release to New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada. After the initial rollout in the four early voting states, the filmmaker will eventually release it to somewhere between 50 and 100 markets nationwide.

[...]

But coming on the heels of former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee’s decision not to join the fray, many grassroots conservatives are clamoring for a candidate who has both the stature and the sizzle to compete with President Obama.

If she does decide to run, “The Undefeated” will be the key element to her initial coming-out party. The film’s impending release — and the frenzied media attention that it is sure to generate — will serve as a vivid wake-up call that despite the many obstacles in front of her, Palin’s entry into the race would turn the campaign on its head in an instant, just as it did in 2008.

As she mulls her decision in the coming weeks, the other Republican candidates in the field will be left to prepare for a hibernating grizzly who appears poised to rise up once again.

Read the entire article HERE. It’s very long, but well worth the time.

It remains to be seen whether Mitt Romney will attempt to distance himself from his disastrous health care legislation in the upcoming presidential campaign. However, from his previous statements, it is clear that he once envisioned RomneyCare as a national model.

Here is what he said leading up to his failed presidential campaign:

…During a speech in Baltimore on Feb. 2, 2007, Romney outlined his ambitions for the Massachusetts plan. “I’m proud of what we’ve done,” he said. “If Massachusetts succeeds in implementing it, then that will be a model for the nation.” Last month Romney’s dream came true. If Republicans knew what was good for them, they would stop treating it as a nightmare…

As ObamaCare was being debated in 2009, he repeated his preference for a national plan similar to the one he authored. His main beef with ObamaCare? The public option in Obama’s original plan.

From CNN’s Political Ticker:

In an interview with CNN in 2009, as Washington was debating President Barack Obama’s health care proposal, Romney said portions of the Massachusetts law could serve as a model for the country.

“I think there are a number of features in the Massachusetts plan that could inform Washington on ways to improve health care for all Americans,” Romney told CNN. “The fact that we were able to get people insured without a government option is a model I think they can learn from.”

[...]

Should Romney get the GOP nomination, Democrats hope “Romneycare” will soften opposition among independents and moderate Republicans to the president’s health care law. How can you be mad at the president, Democrats will ask, when Romney did the same thing?

President Obama previewed the line of attack in a recent speech to the nation’s governors who’d like to see some flexibility in implementing health care reform.

“In fact, I agree with Mitt Romney, who recently said he’s proud of what he accomplished on health care in Massachusetts and supports giving states the power to determine their own health care solutions,” Obama said.

These statements are certain to come back to haunt Romney in the weeks and months to come. The campaign ads write themselves.

Cross Post

In an effort to try to divert attention from the controversial health care legislation he enacted while Governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney released the following statement via National Review last week.

If I were president, on Day One I would issue an executive order paving the way for Obamacare waivers to all 50 states. The executive order would direct the Secretary of Health and Human Services and all relevant federal officials to return the maximum possible authority to the states to innovate and design health-care solutions that work best for them. (…)

The key phrase here is “maximum possible authority.” Let’s take a look at what the signed legislation says about waivers and the authority granted to the states. As John Vinci of Health Care News points out, there are six different types of ObamaCare waivers.

*MLR waiver for mini-med health insurance plans
*Annual limit waiver
*MLR waiver for States
*State innovation waiver
*ACO anti-trust waivers
*Individual mandate waivers

The type of waiver Mitt is talking about, is the “state innovation waiver.” Good luck complying with the requirements, as South Carolina Governor, Nikki Haley recently discovered.

South Carolina Governor-elect Nikki Haley commented on her discussion with President Obama at a recent meeting he had with newly elected governors:

“I respectfully asked him to consider repealing the bill,” she said, to which he clearly stated he would not. “I pushed him further and said if that’s the case, because of states’ rights, would you at least consider South Carolina opting out of the program?”

Obama told her he would consider letting South Carolina opt out, she said, if the state could find its own solution that included a state exchange, preventing companies from bumping people for preexisting conditions and allowing insurance pooling.

“I think it’s something we go back to South Carolina and start crunching,” she said. “This is not about expecting what’s given. This is about saying we’re going to fight this every step of the way and use every option possible.”

Was Obama offering to exempt South Carolina by virtue of his own judgment and magnanimity? Hardly. Obama was offering no more than what Obamacare already offers. Namely, a “Waiver for State innovation” from section 1332 of Obamacare. But this waiver is not as helpful as Governor-elect Haley might hope. What President Obama did not tell her is that South Carolina would also be required to:

•“provide coverage at least as comprehensive” as Obamacare;
•“provide coverage and cost sharing protections against excessive out-of-pocket spending that are at least as affordable” as Obamacare; and
•“provide coverage to at least a comparable number of its residents as” Obamacare.

Benjamin Domenech, in his December 1, 2010 op-ed says, “If this seems like a silly Catch-22 for states, it is. The only policies that could meet this waiver requirement are single-payer constructs — which many other nations are moving away from, having tried them and seen them fail.”

In addition, states can’t even apply for the state innovation waiver until January 1, 2017.

There is no way individual states could comply with the onerous requirements of section 1332. In order for Romney’s strategy to be effective, it would either have to be overturned by the courts, or repealed by both houses of congress. I would like to know more about what his executive order would say. Perhaps he will be kind enough to show us a rough draft?

Click HERE for the complete text of ObamaCare. Section 1332 begins toward the bottom of page 85.

Cross posted at Right Speak