After the debate last night I am gratified to know that at least in the spoken word our four candidates are mostly headed away from BHO and in a direction I’d rather the country go. I’m still undecided and in the ABR camp (Anybody But Romney), however, my vote can be swayed.

I was on Redstate chat during the debate and hands down Newt won. We all agreed I think. those that didn’t agree thought their candidate did the best who ever they were sold out for in the first place. This morning I find Drudge with a voting graphic up asking who I though won the debate. Imagine my surprise when the tally came back as the image I’ve inserted here!?!

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Not often do I agree with Alexander Burns over at Politico. Without any “defining South Carolina-Style” moments, nothing happen that will alter the trajectory of the race.

Last night could have been the end of the long nightmare better known as the 2011/2012 Republican debate cycle.  The last debate before the Arizona and Michigan primaries next week could very well be the last debate of the nomination contest.

It was the last debate. Newt Gingrich won it.

He was the only candidate who repeatedly steered the questions toward Barack Obama. He was the only candidate who dared point out that the media barely touched Obama’s infanticide support as an Illinois State Senator. He returned to the role of elder statesman.

The crowd leaned to Mitt Romney. It was probably inevitable. Mesa, AZ is the second largest concentration of Mormons in America and the State Republican Party handled getting the seats filled. It threw Rick Santorum off his game. The crowd booed Santorum taking on Romneycare’s individual mandate.

Santorum did not shine. He came in, it seemed, prepared to be beaten up. He was off his game. In the second half of the debate he did better. But the beginning was stumbling, bumbling, angry, and in the weeds. One thing he did very, very well is steer the contraception issue to families.

If Santorum can consistently steer this issue back to stable families, he has an issue that will win over independent voters. Note to the Santorum campaign: you will actually win the debate even in the general election if you focus your social values critique on the integrity of the American nuclear family.

Romney out performed Santorum, but he had two flaws. First, Romney claimed to be a long time proponent of school choice, but he opposed school vouchers as Governor of Massachusetts and the Boston Hereald noted Romney refused to ever meet with the head of the Massachusetts Charter School Association while in the Governor’s Mansion.

The big problem for Romney was his concluding moment in the debate. John King asked him what was the biggest misconception about him. It was a legitimate question and a chance for Romney to help himself. Instead, he got bossy and arrogant and told John King he wouldn’t answer the question. That question of all questions was the one he chose to get arrogant about?!

Newt Gingrich won. He kept the focus on Obama. He sounded like the adult in the room. He was both diplomat and scholar.

I would caution the media on one thing — the Rick Perry Factor.

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It was the last debate. Newt Gingrich won it.

He was the only candidate who repeatedly steered the questions toward Barack Obama. He was the only candidate who dared point out that the media barely touched Obama’s infanticide support as an Illinois State Senator. He returned to the role of elder statesman.

The crowd leaned to Mitt Romney. It was probably inevitable. Mesa, AZ is the second largest concentration of Mormons in America and the State Republican Party handled getting the seats filled. It threw Rick Santorum off his game. The crowd booed Santorum taking on Romneycare’s individual mandate.

Santorum did not shine. He came in, it seemed, prepared to be beaten up. He was off his game. In the second half of the debate he did better. But the beginning was stumbling, bumbling, angry, and in the weeds. One thing he did very, very well is steer the contraception issue to families.

If Santorum can consistently steer this issue back to stable families, he has an issue that will win over independent voters. Note to the Santorum campaign: you will actually win the debate even in the general election if you focus your social values critique on the integrity of the American nuclear family.

Romney out performed Santorum, but he had two flaws. First, Romney claimed to be a long time proponent of school choice, but he opposed school vouchers as Governor of Massachusetts and the Boston Hereald noted Romney refused to ever meet with the head of the Massachusetts Charter School Association while in the Governor’s Mansion.

The big problem for Romney was his concluding moment in the debate. John King asked him what was the biggest misconception about him. It was a legitimate question and a chance for Romney to help himself. Instead, he got bossy and arrogant and told John King he wouldn’t answer the question. That question of all questions was the one he chose to get arrogant about?!

Newt Gingrich won. He kept the focus on Obama. He sounded like the adult in the room. He was both diplomat and scholar.

I would caution the media on one thing — the Rick Perry Factor.

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Meet Mark Weaver.

Weaver is an Ohio political consultant who has been around the state for a long time, and had a pretty great track record before 2011. He was the campaign media consultant to Rob Portman’s successful Senate campaign in 2010, and even was an adviser to Ronald Reagan.

Last year, however, during Ohio’s fight to reform public employee union laws, he sold out and went to work for the unions.

A prominent Republican media consultant has been hired by police and fire unions to thwart plans by Gov. John Kasich and GOP lawmakers to kill binding arbitration and eliminate or alter collective bargaining.

Mark R. Weaver has been commissioned “to help us with our communication efforts as we try to educate the legislature on the realities of collective bargaining and not the sound bites,” said Jay McDonald, president of the Fraternal Order of Police of Ohio and a major in the Marion Police Department.

Remember how the unions lied so much in their ads that even the Cleveland Plain Dealer called them out? Weaver was their media consultant and one of the brains behind that campaign to kill reasonable union reforms in Ohio.

We have learned Mark Weaver has been working with someone else in Ohio. Ohio Republican Party Chairman Kevin DeWine.

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Prepare yourselves, I am going to write something semi positive about policies that the Romney campaign happens to espouse today, at this hour*.

Today the Romney Campaign is rolling out their new tax plan. Tonight could be a great night for Romney in the debate. While Santorum may get lost in the weeds and off message with the social issues, Romney will be making a push to talk about his new tax plan. If Mitt can change the focus to the economy and lay out the details of his new tax plan, he can leave Santorum stumbling just before AZ and MI vote.

What Gov. Romney is saying in Chandler, AZ today sounds like it has potential. It isn’t a fundamental reform, but I think the whole package will probably look good and be pro growth for sure.

To that point, I consulted the Mouth of Sauron** on Willard’s tax plan, and it sounds pretty solid so far.

• Make Permanent, Across-The-Board 20 Percent Cut In Marginal Rates, with Reagan’s 28% top rate.
• Pro Growth cuts – 25% Corporate rate.
• 15% Capital Gains for those making over $200,000
• Base broadeners: See Bowles-Simpson
• Change to a Territorial Tax system

Nothing extremely bold, but some solid reforms.

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Prepare yourselves, I am going to write something semi positive about policies that the Romney campaign happens to espouse today, at this hour*.

Today the Romney Campaign is rolling out their new tax plan. Tonight could be a great night for Romney in the debate. While Santorum may get lost in the weeds and off message with the social issues, Romney will be making a push to talk about his new tax plan. If Mitt can change the focus to the economy and lay out the details of his new tax plan, he can leave Santorum stumbling just before AZ and MI vote.

What Gov. Romney is saying in Chandler, AZ today sounds like it has potential. It isn’t a fundamental reform, but I think the whole package will probably look good and be pro growth for sure.

To that point, I consulted the Mouth of Sauron** on Willard’s tax plan, and it sounds pretty solid so far.

• Make Permanent, Across-The-Board 20 Percent Cut In Marginal Rates, with Reagan’s 28% top rate.
• Pro Growth cuts – 25% Corporate rate.
• 15% Capital Gains for those making over $200,000
• Base broadeners: See Bowles-Simpson
• Change to a Territorial Tax system

Nothing extremely bold, but some solid reforms.

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Someone who IS a conservative doesn’t have to convince us he is a conservative because he lives like a conservative, thinks like a conservative, and acts like a conservative.

¹⁵ Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.
¹⁶ Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?
¹⁷ Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.
¹⁸ A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.
¹⁹ Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.
²⁰ Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.
Matt 7:15-20 (KJV)

Cross posted at www.firstchevalier.com

Re-posted from PJ Media

Nothing infuriates me more these days than when I hear a pundit on television talk about how a long Republican presidential primary, possibly even to June, will make the candidates stronger so that the eventual winner will be better primed to take on President Obama.

The example always given is 2008 when Obama battled Hillary until June. The reasoning is that their lengthy battle enhanced and refined their collective campaign skills so that one of them was able to be elected president in spite of the vicious battle.

Yes, that was true in 2008 but there is one huge factor, captured in one word, that renders those presidential primary circumstances completely different from what the GOP faces in 2012. That word is incumbent and incumbent presidents have all the advantages.

So instead of Republicans lulling themselves into a false sense of security with the “we are just like they were in 2008 and it turned out well” attitude, Republicans should look to 2004 for a more realistic assessment of what we will be up against should this primary drag on. Unfortunately the historical comparison is definitely not in our favor.

Consider 2004, when President George W. Bush was running for re-election. In early March 2004, his presidential performance rating was 49% approval with a 48% disapproval.

Then, on March 3, 2004, Massachusetts Senator John Kerry became the presumptive Democrat presidential nominee after a decisive Super Tuesday victory, forcing North Carolina Senator John Edwards to drop out of the race.

Here is a transcript of what Gwen Ifill of PBS said that evening about Kerry’s victory.

“Kerry’s near-clean Super Tuesday sweep made him the Democrats’ presumptive nominee and set up an eight-month challenge to President George W. Bush. He spent last night and today rallying his troops and preparing for the campaign’s next phase.”

It is instructive to note here that John Kerry had eight full months of preparation time to run against a well-funded incumbent whose approval rating only stood in the high forties.

From this same transcript it, is also worth revisiting what John Kerry said on that victorious evening in early March 2004:

“Tonight, the message could not be clearer all across our country — Change is coming to America. (Cheers and applause) Before us lie long months of effort and of challenge, and we understand that. We have no illusions about the Republican attack machine and what our opponents have done in the past and what they may try to do in the future. But I know that together we are equal to this task. I am a fighter! (Cheers and applause)”

Yes, John Kerry was a fighter, but fighting against even a weak incumbent with an eight month start proved to be too much a fight for Kerry the Vietnam veteran.

Let’s shift back to 2012, where many Republican leaders and even more primary voters are deluding themselves into thinking a long drawn-out primary battle is good for the eventual nominee’s prospects against President Obama.

Obama, like President Bush in 2004, will be well-funded, super organized, and currently has virtually the same approval rating (48.9%) as Bush had when Kerry became the presumptive nominee in March of 2004.

But John Kerry, with a long lead time and a united party behind him, still lost to Bush in a close election. (The last Gallup poll before the election had Bush at 48% approval. However, just after the election he jumped to 53% approval.)

Now, in 2012, facing a polarizing incumbent, the GOP itself is dangerously divided, an issue that John Kerry never had to deal with.

The GOP candidates, as a result of inflicting damage upon each other with super PAC help, not even a factor in 2008, are becoming weaker by the day while Obama is gaining strength. The Real Clear Politics average has Obama defeating Romney by 5.7%, a huge increase over a few months ago when Obama and Romney were virtually tied. (Santorum runs even worse, losing to Obama by 8%.)

To make matters worse, the new Republican nominating rules for 2012 (with the objective of making the primary contest more competitive by changing the way delegates are allocated ) practically ensures that the primary fight will be dragged out until summer.

So now, every day that the GOP does not have a strong presumptive nominee is one less day to prepare against a president who flies around on Air Force One campaigning non-stop while taxpayers foot the bill.

Republicans need to think seriously about John Kerry’s eight months of prep time in 2004 as the example to be emulated, rather than being falsely comforted by the June 2008 battle of Obama vs. Hillary.

Ideally, if, starting in March, Mitt Romney were to become the official presumed nominee, and had eight months to gather momentum — it would be just enough time to help unite the party, improve his wounded image, and gear up for the general election.

Then, with such a timetable, Romney would have a decent shot at defeating our incumbent president — for I strongly believe he is the only GOP candidate this year who is capable of attracting enough independent and moderate voters to garner the 270 electoral votes needed to win the White House.

But such a timetable at this stage of the primary game show is pure fantasy.

Meanwhile, it’s back to the front lines of the primary battle with Republican base voters who correctly say that Romney will lose against Obama. Yes, if he wins the nomination, and then has four less months than John Kerry had in 2004 to prepare against an incumbent, Romney will more than likely lose the general election and it will be the Republican base that defeated him.

Something dawned on me the other day when I decided to write yet another assessment of the race for the GOP nomination.  The media elites have been wrong just about every time they have attempted to predict what is going to happen.  Mitt Romney was deemed the front-runner and the nominee before he even officially announced his current bid for the White House.  Even though Romney is likely to be the nominee, it is hard to think of him as the front-runner.

The dynamism of the governor’s team and the size of the money advantage were supposed to surpass everyone else, and eventually he was supposed to become the inevitable nominee.

We are less than a month away from Super Tuesday and not only is Romney not leading in the polls like any solid front-runner should be at this point, but he is fighting not to lose the one state that only months ago no one would have guessed he could lose .  If Romney loses the state of Michigan, where he grew up and met his wife in, the media may have to disestablish his front-runner status, and this time for good.

There is already talk about a “brokered” or “contested”convention; and as we witnessed at the start of the election cycle, names like Chris Christie, Jeb Bush, Mitch Daniels and Paul Ryan percolate through the various political sites as possible saviors. The likelihood of a brokered or contested convention is still low, but it does appear like the establishment media is now realizing what people likeErik Erickson have known all along, Romney will lose the general election to President Obama.

Romney went into this campaign with the premise that Republican activists should get behind him because he would be the strongest candidate against Obama.  The media acknowledged this argument, but outside the moderate wing of the Republican Party, no one else seemed to think it was true, or they did not care.

Romney is not known as a candidate with a solid core, and this handicapped him with conservative activist.  Nevertheless, with superior assets, higher name recognition, and a weak field on opponents this should have been duck soup for an experienced national candidate.

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