Friday, December 30, 2011

The Pluralistic Society

The pundits are going to be in overdrive for the next four days. They have been telling us sequentially who is going to be the GOP presidential nominee for nearly a year and a half. They have elevated and then decapitated one after another, shaping the race and molding the minds of the mindless masses. They've got a disaster in the White House and they want to keep him there for another four years. They know what is best for us and they've seen behind the curtain that the big bucks come to those who support the administration even while the administration is ostensibly vilifying the wealthy. How does Corzine misplace $1.2 billion? How does a solar cell company with a $400 billion million cash infusion go bankrupt in a year?

Now we are getting to crunch time. Actual voters will be expressing actual preferences starting next Tuesday. The snowball is going to roll. But does it really reflect much of anything when it does begin that trajectory?

Iowa is a caucus state. Do you know what that means? It means a marketplace of competing ideas thrown into an arena of neighbors gathered for one cold and snowy night and then a division of preferences rather than a secret ballot. Supporters stand and pontificate on why their conservative is better than your RINO. Some of those pontificators might actually have facts at their command and some might actually be oratorical geniuses. But does it reflect a political preference for the nation to be swayed?

Think about America. Now think about Iowa. Does Iowa look like a microcosm of our nation?

Is Iowa 18% African-American? Is Iowa 16% Latino? Does Iowa have a single metropolitan area of a million people? What is Iowa's industrial contribution? What religious diversity does Iowa have? What percentage of Iowa falls into each economic class and how does that compare to America? Iowa has just seven electoral college votes.

Iowa is rural, agricultural, white-bread, small town Protestant. It's lovely but it really is a very tiny tail wagging a very dissimilar dog.

What will we see come Tuesday? Here's my estimate and it is worth exactly what you've paid to come here and read it:

Ron Paul will finish in the top 3. And, as Count Basie would note, "it ain't got that swing..." It don't mean a thing!

Rick Perry will do better than most pundits have predicted, probably at #3 or 4.

Romney will finish top three as well, but his real focus has been on New Hampshire. He's got support and voters could easily vote for him in the general election, so he's comfortable for now. New Hampshire, however, is similarly weak on parallels to America at large so it may not be very meaningful in the long run.

Gingrich will barely remain in the top tier. He may surprise but I'm suspecting the Ron Paul slash attacks have wounded him among many Iowa voters. That's too bad.

Santorum will be the surprise strong showing. He's burned up shoe leather and he's a likable guy with an approachable style. I think that will play well in Iowa.

Bachmann and Huntsman will drop into the background noise level.


  1. Paul
  2. Santorum
  3. Romney
  4. Perry
  5. Gingrich
  6. Bachmann
  7. Huntsman
But after Iowa, Paul will peter out. 

6 comments:

juvat said...

Ed,
If you were talking about Solyndra in that first paragraph, I think you might be off by an order of magnitude. I think it should have read million instead of billion. But, hey, I think I could avoid bankruptcy if somebody wanted to give me $400 million.

Dweezil Dwarftosser said...

There's quite a bit of cognitive dissonance among Iowans of voting age: while they may be properly-educated and hard-working folks, they often are spoiled brats as frontier caucus voters, demanding that the candidates visit not just their state, but their little village - and preferably their living room.

Some, no doubt (if past caucus choices are a guide) select the candidate whom did talk to them, personally, a while . . . regardless of his or her stance on the issues.

It's good to see Santorum finally get some exposure in the media. Appropriately Conservative, he brought a political twist with a big difference to the dog-and-pony show: FAIR trade (rather than sometimes piratical FREE trade) with international trading partners - especially Red China. (He would immediately slap a 25 percent duty on everything they ship here - even if made by a nominally 'American' company.)

He scares the willies out of the Libertarians, industrial outsourcers, and retailers - but he's one of few who understand that manufacturing jobs will continue to move offshore until there is no (huge) advantage to twenty cents-per-hour slave labor rates overseas. We can't match that - but we can make their products match 'Made in USA' production prices.

Anonymous said...

Part of showing that your competent to be POTUS is running a competent campaign.

If only Romney and Paul are the only ones on the ballot in VA what does that say about the competence of the other candidates?

Gingrich was uterly wrong in comparing his debacle in VA (his home state as "Pearl Harbor" although he did get one of the combabants right. It's Tsushima and his campaign as well as all the other candidates may as well join the Russian Fleet on the bottom of the ocean. (note: Paul is unelectable)

You guys for better or worse are stuck with Romney.

Leadfoot could vote for Romney. I probably won't but I could. He seems like a decent guy. And this election will be decided by undecided voter in the middle not the Tea Party or Occupy. Think about that when picking your candidate to oppose Obama.

The Republican candidate in 2012 will be Romney unless someone like Jeb Bush jumps in And the political analysis I have read suggest JB will wait until 2016. Which means he believes Obama will be elected. Wonder if Karl Rove told him that?


Hilary VS Bush in 2016. Hope we all live to see it ;-)

~leadfoot

Dweezil Dwarftosser said...

"You guys for better or worse are stuck with Romney.

Not a chance - and here's why:

"Leadfoot could vote for Romney. I probably won't but I could."

Why do you think Romney's candidacy was so important to both the DNC and its propaganda arm, the 'mainstream' media ? Simple: he's yet another elitist 'democrat light' RINO, without a shred of true conservatism.

I've been voting republican since I turned 21 - and, like most conservatives, holding my nose while doing so, except for Nixon and Reagan.

We're not going to hold our noses anymore, period.

Romney is Obama's last hope: his designation as the republican candidate would drive millions of former 'nose-holders' into third-party or write-in votes.

Romney is the Ross Perot of the 21st century.

Ed Rasimus said...

Leadfoot gulps the Kool-Aid again:

"If only Romney and Paul are the only ones on the ballot in VA what does that say about the competence of the other candidates?"

What it says is about VA, not the competence of candidates. When I ran for the state legislature in Colorado, the access to the primary ballot was through caucus/assembly which was firmly locked up by the evangelical religious right or by petition. I gathered petitions and submitted 40% more than the required number. I personally vetted every signature against voter registration lists for eligibility. The petitions were "inadequate" and 90% were thrown out.

This is an example of a small group of power-brokers in a state controlling access and thereby restricting voter choice.

The convolutions of the fifty states and the control of ballot access have very effectively corrupted the small "r" republican form of elections in this country.

Anonymous said...

Ed

It was not a problem in 2008 for 6 Republicans and 6 Democrats to be on the ballot in VA. And the rules have not changed. In addition while the requiremnt was 10k signaures once you reached 15K they didn't bother to check.

If you can't manage a campaign to get on the Ballot in VA why should someone vote for you to be President?

Romney will be your nominee. Take it to the Bank.

~leadfoot