Frothy Mix

I can't help but be drawn in by the Republican Primary stuff. I really like electoral politics. I'd really like to ignore them and their shenanigans, but damn it they are having elections and I fucking love elections. I'm not into it enough to watch debates or anything, but I devote a little (a lot) bit of brain power in trying to determine what will happen.

Aside from the fact they are having competitive caucuses and primaries, it is also thoroughly entertaining to see the Republicans like this. This almost never happens with them. They're nomination process is usually very orderly. The Republicans almost always give their nomination to the person who finished second in the last round of competitive primaries (John McCain) or the Vice President (George H. W. Bush). Even in the cases where it doesn't exactly go to that form, it's still pretty orderly as a front runner is picked and the establishment gets in line (George W. Bush).

If the Republicans were following their typical pattern, Mitt Romney would definitely be the nominee. I have maintained that I didn't think he would win the nomination though. He looks every bit of the WASP that you would expect of the GOP, but he isn't a WASP; he's a Mormon and in Republican politics he might as well be a Martian. Also, the other Candidates hate him, so as they drop out they attack him with their last breaths and the throw their support behind his strongest opponent.

Mitt Romney is actually looking like he will be the nominee though and it certainly wouldn't be the first time I was wrong about this sort of thing. He won Iowa. He's going to win New Hampshire, probably by a large margin. Winning those two basically is winning the nomination in normal years. Their delegate totals are actually very small and those two states don't really do a good job at representing the nation, but that doesn't really matter. Win those two and you get momentum and the media pegs you the front runner and you're set to start writing you're acceptance speech.

The thing that makes me really hesitant to guarantee Romney's nomination is that after New Hampshire the Primary calender is very unfriendly to him. Also, the environment will become unfriendly. The division in the anti-Romney vote will go away as people drop out. Also, it has become clear the Republican electorate seems to come to hate the front runner this cycle.

It does look like the anti-Romney candidate will be Rick Santorum*. His timing seems to be just about right. The other anti-Romney people had their time on top of the polls and ended up getting beat up by the other candidates and rejected by the electorate. It seems the only other candidate who could add to the intrigue is Ron Paul. He is going to have to win Primaries though. A close second or third would be good enough in the Democratic Party, but not with the G.O.P.

If the Republicans had the rules of the Democrats, this would be even more fun to watch. The way the Democrats go about allocating delegates is ridiculously convoluted**, which the nation became familiar with in 2008. The Republicans don't do that. There are no Super-delegates and there is no dividing of delegates based on vote totals or congressional districts. It's very simple*** for the Republicans. If you win a state's primary or caucus you get all the delegates from that state.

The dream scenario would be that Romney, Paul and Santorum show up at the convention and they would all be short of a majority. I honestly don't see an alliance that could be formed there. It would be terribly messy and I'd love to see a messy* convention.

My hope is that Santorum wins the nomination, because Obama would win reelection with ease in that case. I actually think Obama will win against any of them. I have a theory that the 2012 General Election is going to sort of mirror the 2004 General Election****, but I'll wait to expand on that in a future post.

Thanks for reading and please comment

-Michael
*Have you googled Santorum today?
**It's actually very democratic, in the actual sense of the word.
***It's actually very republican, in the actual sense of the word.
****In that the incumbent wins, not that the Republican wins.

Special Comment- The Biggest Fight Is Yet to Come

How messed up has political discourse become now that John Boehner is seen as 'reasonable?' He certainly isn't, but for some reason everyone is accepting the farce that the Tea Party deserves a seat at the table. It is because the Republican leadership is scared of that extreme wing of their party. A big part of that is the media acting as though the teabaggers are equal to the two political parties. Therefore, their bat-shit insane ideas are given equal opportunity even if their numbers are small.

They're loud and they have an unreasonable pull on the early primaries for the Republicans, so the Republican leadership is hesitant to just cut them out of the deal. The early Republican primaries are largely white-bred and have an uber-conservative electorate. So their pull is exaggerated by the media because their message is insane and loud and they have a pull thanks to the unfortunate scheduling of primaries.

There wouldn't have been a near government shutdown last night had Boehner been willing to lose some of the self-proclaimed Tea Party votes. House Democrats and the non-extremist Republicans could have easily passed the budget, but the Republican is too afraid of the Tea Party to do something like that. The Democrats did nothing but give in the negotiations and nearly wasn't enough as the Tea Party feels they are entitled to get everything they want even though they are merely a small faction within a political party. Not withstanding the fact the Senate and Presidency are in Democratic control.

As big as this budget fight may have seemed, it will be nothing compared to what is coming in a few weeks. There was a way to compromise with the budget. There won't be one when it comes to the debt ceiling.

In advocating not raising the debt ceiling, the Tea Party is basically advocating the collapse of the global economy and American civilization. The United States defaulting on it's loans would cause the an economic crisis that would likely put the Great Depression to shame.

Not only should the debt ceiling definitely be raised, but cutting spending at a time like this is just plain dumb. The deficit doesn't matter right now. The government needs to keep spending. It is the best thing the fragile economy has. The cuts that have already been passed and will be passed for the 2012 budget aren't going to help the economy, because the deficit isn't a drag on the economy right now. What is drag is that money isn't flowing and government has the ability to make that happen by itself.

What's really funny is that the Republicans ran up huge deficits when they weren't in any way necessary. They fail to notice the debt added on by George W. Bush is significant and is much worse than what is being added now. That debt was created for tax cuts for the wealthy and unnecessary wars. That was a period where the budget could have easily been balanced.

Debt and deficit just don't matter at this moment in our nation's history. Tens of Trillions of dollars of debt sounds way more scary than it actually is. We are the world's biggest market, so any country that would demand payment on their loans would be destroying their own economy. Spending is the way out of this shaky economy. It's not tax cuts. It's not dealing with the deficit.

That's not to say that the issue of debt and deficit shouldn't be dealt with, but now isn't the time for that. If the economy is stable and the country's work force is working, the government should definitely not spend the way that it is spending now.

And honestly the way to deal with the deficit isn't through domestic spending. If someone is really serious about that issue they have to be willing to take on Military spending and Entitlement Spending. Those are the areas where real changes can be made. Money to Planned Parenthood isn't a drop in the sea, but spending on an over-size, over-utilized military is absolutely massive.

And that's all I have to say about that.

Thanks for reading and please comment.

-Michael.