Mitt Romney takes Michigan!

Mitt Romney showed America how to get it done in Michigan tonight. Below is the success speech from Michigan. There is quite the interesting scenario taking shape now. Romney is definitiely leading based on delegate votes now. 2 Golds, 2 Silvers, 46 more states to go! Romneys win in Michigan will push him up in the upcoming states. South Carolina will be a tough battle, but nothing is too tough for Mitt. Let's see how Nevada goes, too. Any predictions? I think we all know who the winner will be.... MITT ROMNEY!

NEVADA LOOMING: Let's insist the media give the GOP Nevada caucus the coverage and respect it deserves

Most Romney supporters were pretty peeved about how the media has downplayed his WY victory. (a recent Newsmax story addresses this) However, I can see how it was easy for the media to ignore WY results since it's the least populous state and due to the odd caucus system they used (mostly party insiders and/or major activists.) However, their 12 delegates were as many as NH awarded, and Mitt actually got more delegates out of WY (8) than McCain got out of NH (7).

But that's in the past already . . . but NV looms in the future and we need to insist that it should count. Sadly, we're already seeing how downplayed NV is in the national media coverage.

Even though the the media is covering NV pretty heavily for the it for the Democratic side, they're relatively ignoring it for the GOP. My paranoid side says: "Figures, since Romney stands a good chance of winning it . . . of course the MSM will downplay it." I'm actually convinced that Romney will win it (and if he wins MI, Romney will win NV BIG). Unfortunate timing has the NV caucus on the same day as the SC primary (which is monopolizing the media's coverage.)

But is SC inherently more important than NV for this nomination?

OK, so we know that in recent history, no GOP candidate has won the nomination without winning SC. But this year is very different with at least three candidates still with very credible claims to taking it all, and two others who are still considered "top-teir" candidates. Usually, someone has established themselves after IA and NH and races into SC with the mighty momentum. Or, in the past, the race has been winnowed down to two people already and SC has been the final elimination round for one of them. Not so this year. Some are arguing that FL may play the role this year that SC has played in the past.

But lets look at the two states objectively.

Both are on Jan 19th

NV: 34 delegates up for grabs
SC: 24 delegates up for grabs

NV: Important swing state/purple state (i.e. we need someone who can show/run strong in such a state for the general election)
SC: Solid Red state . . . whoever the nominee is will win SC and most of the south no matter what.

NV: First western state on the docket (and much of that region are swing states)
SC: First southern state primary . . . and the south is pretty much locked up for the GOP.

Objectively, NV looks MORE important than SC to me!

Romney supporters need to start trumpeting the importance of NV relative to SC. Let's get this message on blogs, in comment sections on important blogs/articles/etc . . . I encourgage people to forward this message to your friends/contacts. It would be great if we could get an email campaign together focused at news organizations/journalists/prominent bloggers and asking them why it's being ignored so much . . . demanding that it get fair coverage (at least as much as their giving to the Dems in NV. I don't think any of us want another of Romney's wins to be written off like WY was. LET'S MAKE NEVADA COUNT!

Liberal Types Give New Hampshire Win to McCain

The CNN New Hampshire exit polling confirms that those with the liberal mindset were the ones responsible for vaulting John McCain to win there and thereby granting him somewhat of a "front-runner" status.

Numbers don't lie (and remember, these are just the numbers from the voters in the GOP NH primary):

52% think that Abortion should be "legal"

53% go to church "never" or "a few times a year"

49% have a negative opinion of Bush

57% do not "strongly oppose" civil unions

50% support a "path to citizenship" or a "guest worker program" for illegals already here.

39% of them are not Republicans

Only 21% say they're "very conservative" (BTW, Romney beat McCain 43% to 18% among them).

45% admit to being moderates or liberals.

Finally, 50% made their decision within the last week (with a full 19% admitting to deciding on the day of the primary).

So they're not just liberals . . . they're fickle liberals.

Thanks for nothing New Hampshire.

Now Playing: Post-Debate Panel: "Very Good Night for Romney"

Sunday's Debate on Fox news showed a solid win for Mitt Romney. See Frank Luntz's focus group give Mitt the Thumbs Up!

2007 Year in Review

Mitt's Post-Caucus speech in Iowa

"It's the Economy Stupid": John McCain Admits He Isn't Ready to Oversee Economy

So "The Economy" constantly ranks up there among the top issues/concerns among voters of BOTH parties. With the Iraq issue being far less polarizing of late, the Economy, Illegal Immigration, and Healthcare look to be the key issues for the general election. Additionally, this New Hampshire Fox News Poll last month had the Economy and Illegal Immigration as the two most important issues to GOP voters with the Economy being by far the most important issue.

Additionally, unlike many issues listed, the status of the economy is something that touches EVERY American in some real and powerful way (as opposed to Iraq, or abortion, or foreign policy, or those without healthcare insurance).

In the financial world, the news of an imminent recession has been dominating the headlines (including the sinking strength on Wall Street). Just yesterday, Bush met with the economic advisors and the Fed Chairman to discuss these issues. The press conference afterwards was not terribly positive.

So is a McCain presidency a good fit for a good economy? Back in 2003 many didn't think so. His new economic plan isn't impressing many. And let's not forget what the Club for Growth thinks about McCain's economic record (Their main points are that "John McCain is No Supply-Sider" and that he has a "Tenuous Record as an Economic Conservative")

Those are the words of others . . . but what does McCain think of himself in relation to the ecomony?

Just one month ago, a piece from the Boston Globe (who has since endorsed McCain) led off with this:

SALEM, N.H. -- John McCain, who happily volunteers he doesn't know much about economics . . .

Later in the piece:

McCain stood before a line graph showing the increase of the alternative-minimum tax, a low-budget campaign's alternative to the PowerPoint presentation Mitt Romney uses when talking about economic policy, a subject McCain has said he feels he is unknowledgeable and that filling the void would be a priority when selecting a vice-presidential nominee.

So McCain wants to bolster the ticket because he's weak on the #1 issue and at a time that recession is a real concern? Sounds scary to me.

Yet further:

Like Mike Huckabee, who joked recently that he "may not be the expert that some people are on foreign policy, but I did stay in a Holiday Inn Express last night," McCain suggested to reporters Monday that American consumer culture offered a short cut to expertise. "The issue of economics is not something I've understood as well as I should," McCain said. "I've got Greenspan's book."

Sorry John, but if you haven't gotten a grasp of economic issues after 71 years of life, and after 3+ decades in politics, something tells me that you're not ever going to "get it" . . . even if Greenspan's book is really good.

If we really are headed toward recession in the next few months, do we really want John McCain as our nominee to put up against Hillary or Obama? I think we have much better options to have at the TOP of the ticket.

Update Jan 14th:
I was just watching Road to the White House 2008 on C-Span (DVR'd) and John McCain, in a Saturday town hall meeting in MI, got a question about the economy and the sub-prime mortgage crisis.

He promptly said he knew it was a problem, but didn't know much about the details and so he brought up Carly Fiorina, former CEO of Hewlett Packard to discuss the issue. After she answered the question, McCain mentioned that he wasn't an expert on every issue, but that he'd get people like her to advise him. I mean, this is a major issue in our economy and every other POTUS candidate can grasp it enough to say a few nice lines. Even Huck can sound conversant on the issue!


Update Jan 20th:
McCain is showing his lack of depth on economic understanding . . . and is proposing policy based on his faulty logic. It's SCARY folks!



I also noticed that the Romney campaign has been reading my blog :)

Huck/Obama Win and Wall Street Tanks

OK . . . so there are other factors too, but the Dow Jones dropped 2% today (257 pts) on the heels of two populist candidates winning the Iowa caucuses.

Coincidence?

I report . . . you decide.

Update: I was watching Kudlow & Company from yesterday on my DVR (OK, so I'm a nerd) and this same question/idea was presented to the panel by Kudlow. Kudlow himself seemed to think there was an effect as did 2 of the 3 people on the panel he presented the question to. So whoever in the comments called me a "dolt" for suggesting such might need to look in the mirror.

Huckabee Wins Evangelical Vote . . . Romney Wins Everybody Else

Mike Huckabee won the Iowa Caucuses. In the spirit of graciousness that Mitt Romney exuded last night, Huckabee is to be congratulated. Good job, you won fair and square.

However, in the spirit of an ardent Romney supporter and as someone who likes to look into the detailed demographics of voting/polls, I'd be worried if I were Mike Huckabee.

The New York Times is reporting that OVER 80% of Huckabee caucus supporters described themselves as Evangelical Christians.

Mr. Huckabee, a former Baptist minister, rode a crest of evangelical Christian support to victory on Thursday over his rival Mitt Romney, capping a remarkable ascent over the last two months from near the bottom of the Republican field. A poll of people entering the Republican caucuses on Thursday showed more than 8 in 10 of his supporters identified themselves as evangelicals.

The same surveys showed extraordinary turnout among evangelicals, who represented some 60 percent of Republican caucusgoers. In years past, Republican Party leaders in Iowa put evangelical turnout at about 40 percent [actually, this story reports that the 2000 evangelical turnout was 39%].

Mr. Romney’s advisers had been saying that if evangelical turnout rose to more than 50 percent, victory would be impossible for Mr. Romney, whose Mormon faith is regarded as heretical by many evangelicals.

And lead paragraphs like this don't help the image of Huckabee's win here:

DES MOINES — Just as the Republican caucuses began on Thursday at 6:30 p.m., a small group of women and children joined hands in the middle of the ballroom at Mike Huckabee's headquarters here and began to pray for his election.

Now I want to be clear, I love the evangelical community. In the conservative coalition I align myself strongly with Christian conservatism. We all need eachother. And I can definitely see the appeal of Huckabee to Evangelical voters (at least superfiscially, and before a deep probing of him and his campaign).

Going back to the numbers . . . Rich Lowry put it pretty clearly:

Here's one way to look at it: 60% of voters were evangelicals. Huck beat Romney among them 45-19%. 40% weren't evangelicals. Romney beat Huck among them 33-13%.

The breakdown goes as such:

Evangelicals:

• Huckabee 46%
• Romney 19%
• Thompson 11%
• Paul 10%
• McCain 10%
• Giuliani 2%

Everyone else:

• Romney 33%
• McCain 18%
• Thompson 17%
• Huckabee 13%
• Paul 11%
• Giuliani 6%
  

So in Iowa, Romney beat Huckabee almost 3 to 1 among non-evangelicals. That doesn't bode well for Huckabee outside of the southern states. What's also encouraging is that Romney came in 2nd place among Evangelicals.

Turnout for the GOP in the Iowa Caucuses was projected to be 80,000. It turns out that there were 114,000 voters . . . and it represents the highest turnout of Evangelicals ever (by a long shot) at nearly 70,000.

However, this other New York Times article shows that, while 25% of the US population consider themselves Evangelicals, only 12% of the US population are "traditionalist" Evangelicals. The rest are "centrists" or "modernists" and their votes split between the parties. If Huckabee thinks that he can count on the "traditionalist" Evangelical vote to carry him to the nomination, he's sorely misinformed. If he somehow manages to get the nomination, Evangelicals surely won't be enough to carry him into the White House. The Dems are still licking their chops at the prospect of him being the nominee.

The good news heading into New Hampshire is that the Romney camp turned out MORE people than they thought they would--over 30,000 votes. But if not for the super showing by the evangelicals, Romney would have won this going away. His 30,000+ votes among the projected 80,000 voters would have been nearly 40% of the vote . . . a convincing victory similar to Bush's Iowa win in 2000. Huckabee over-performed last night at nearly 40,000 votes. But LESS THAN 10,000 of those voters were NOT evangelicals (fewer votes than even Ron Paul got in the caucuses). Put another way, only 1 out of every 330 non-evangelical Iowans turned out to vote for Huckabee as their next commander in chief. Hardly a "mandate" for him.

The likely outcome of the Iowa GOP delegate count is very interesting too:

Huckabee - 34% (17 delegates)
Romney - 25% (12 delegates)
Thompson - 13% (3 delegates)
McCain - 13% (3 delegates)
Paul - 10% (2 delegates)
Giuliani - 4% (no delegates)

New Hampshire is not "winner take all" for their GOP delegates either (all 12 of them). However NH shakes out, it's still pretty clear that Romney will be the leader in total delegates after NH (counting the delegates he'll probably pick up tomorrow in Wyoming). That may be a convincing argument to Romney passing the viability and electability test and being the one who can re-unite the conservative coalition.

Romney supporters need to realize what a strange aberration of evangelical outpouring the Iowa caucus was. Romney turned out his supporters. He'll do the same in NH. He's the best candidate we have bar none. As another Romney supporter said, it's time to quickly lick our wounds and battle on.

Johnson County Update part 2 : MITT WINS ! ! !

It's official! With 96.5% of votes repoted, I think I will call it.....

Johnson County has definitely been won by MITT ROMNEY!!

Results are HERE. and see below:


1. Mitt Romney 1247 31.4%
2. Mike Huckabee 883 22.2%
3. John McCain 608 15.3%
4. Ron Paul 604 15.2%
5. Fred Thompson 349 8.8%
6. Rudolph Giuliani 269 6.8%
7. Duncan Hunter 10 0.3%

I couldn't be happier!! Thanks to all of our Johnson County volunteers and voters!

Keith

North Liberty / Johnson County update

Here in Johnson county the big news is turnout. As we were turning in the binders to the county, the buzz was the huge turnout. I was the temporary and then permanent chair in North Liberty 01 precinct (I ran the caucus and elections). We are the largest precinct in Johnson County because the county auditor is too lazy to split us up. We ended up having 233 voters and another 100 kids at our site. We completely filled the bleachers at the middle school gym. Two years ago, the turnout in this precinct was 10 voters. Big difference. This has been a common theme to other precincts reporting in throughout the night. We also had about 70 same-day-voter-registrations. Those caused some delays at check-in, but it got people in the door. Interestingly, Mitt Romney was the only candidate to have any stickers or signs handed out at the caucus. I saw a few other stickers, but I think they were brought from home.

So, of course, this was a huge victory for our county republican party, too. We have added a huge number of central committee members and we have plenty of delegates to go around.

As for the numbers between the big rivals, North Liberty 01 was won by MITT ROMNEY! The final was 75 Romney votes to 66 Huckabee votes out of 233 voters (32% to 28%). I am so happy that my own precinct won. Of course, we are still waiting to hear about Johnson County composite results, but I would take a guess that Mitt Romney has also won the county. I will throw up numbers once we get them next week.

Indeed, all votes count in Iowa for the Republican caucus, and at 85% reporting, Huck is leading Romney with 9 points. Huck has been called as the winner, but I have some other ideas on who won.
-First, the volunteers helping the Romney campaign in Iowa are winners. They helped Mitt go from an unknown name to a front runner who secured 25% of the votes in Iowa. We've had deidcated volunteers in Johnson County since January. We had a huge number of supporters travel to Ames to vote at the Straw poll. We had a campaign office here in Iowa City packed with volunteers all week to get the last push. We saw amazing sacrifices made by our supporters to help the campaign here in the county, and I am so thankful for that! Thank you to all our volunteers and supporters here!
-Second, the campaign staff are winners! They organized an amazing feat here in Iowa. I don't know how many precincts we have total here, but they had to put together packets for every precinct in the state. They made the straw poll look like nothing compared to what they put together since then. The leadership here in Iowa was great, and a pleasure to volunteer with.
-Third, Mitt Romney is a winner tonight. He proved tonight that someone from outside of Washington can get thru to voters. Let's ignore the evangelical tidal wave that Huck rode in on today, and realize that second place in Iowa is still a huge feat. By no means is Romney done just because of a silver medal in Iowa. He has a lot of campaign resources left over, and he has plenty of organization to carry him thru the upcoming primaries. He's going to hunker down in New Hampshire where the evangelicals don't have a chance, and he is going to focus on the economy to reel in Michigan. Wyoming is in the bag for Romney, and so is Nevada, despite it's lack of legitimacy as a state. Without a doubt, New Hampshire is going to be a vicious contest now. I can't wait to see how it turns out. I am so glad I was part of this in Iowa. Truly amazing! I am still quite happy that NL 01 went to Mitt Romney!

The Speech: YouTube Version

Date altered above to keep this at the top of the blog (and the next two blog entries as well).



It's 20 minutes but well worth the time. Especially the last 3-4 minutes.

Loved it more the third time. Truly a great speech that he wrote himself. Very presidential delivery. This man is what American needs!!!

Caucus Training from Gentry Collins, Mitt Romney, and Ann Romney

Trouble Ahead for Mike Huckabee in Iowa? Updated and Expanded

I altered the date on this post to keep it at the top of the blog entries until caucus day (by popular demand)

Huckabee and his supporters always seem to point out that Romney's attacking him. The already nascent Huck-a-bust will undoubtedly be blamed on Romney by Huck and his supporters. However . . . I don't think that Romney had anything to do with the fact that essentially every conservative with a microphone or blog has been railing against Huckabee for the last few weeks. Need some evidence?:

Rush Limbaugh
Condoleezza Rice
Michelle Malkin
Ann Coulter (new one here)
Phyllis Schlafly
Bob Novak (others here & here)
Peggy Noonan
Charles Krauthammer
Bob Dole
Sean Hannity (not frontal attacks, but plenty of concerns about him being the nominee)
Laura Ingraham
Fred Barnes
Joseph Farah (Founder/CEO/Editor of World Net Daily also expresses concern for homeschoolers who support Huck)
Thomas Sowell
George Will (these comments too on a TV news show)
Michael Reagan
Glenn Beck (semi "reconciliation" ---- but then he's still not too impressed)
Donald Lambro
David Limbaugh (another here)
Doug Giles
Michael Barone
Mark Steyn
Kim Strassell
Matt Drudge (it's obvious that he has a bone to pick with Huckabee given his coverage of late)
Pat Buchanan
Jonah Goldberg
John Fund (an interesting video here)
Jim Geraghty
Kathryn Jean Lopez (another here)
Tony Blankley
Howie Carr
James Taranto (here too, don't miss, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 of "No Truck with Huck")
Clarence Page
Dean Barnett
Rich Karlgaard
Rich Lowry (this one too)
Mark Hemingway
Austin Hill
Quin Hillyer
Tom Bevan
Jack Kelly
Deroy Murdock
David Frum
Jonathan Alder
John Hinderaker
Bruce Bartlett
Victor Davis Hanson
Johnathan Tobin
Hugh Hewitt (and another)
Walter E. Williams
David Reinhard
Frank Gaffney (who Huck claimed was one of his Foreign Policy advisors)
Lori Byrd
Peter Wehner
Douglas MacKinnon
Paul Mirengoff ( here and here too)
Jerome Corsi
The Editors of National Review (Oh yeah, this one too and both were written BEFORE the NR endorsed Romney)
The Club for Growth
The Cato Institute (Huckabee's F grade for fiscal issue . . . 46th out of the 50 governors ranked. Yes, that's worse than the vast majority of Democratic governors!--PDF here)
Mitt Romney :)
Ron Paul :)
Fred Thompson :)
Rudy Giuliani :)

You can just hear and feel all of these conservative/GOP icons pleading with the voters: "PLEASE DON'T MAKE US TRY TO DEFEND THIS GUY!!!" (should he be the nominee).

Conclusion: Huckabee's not a full-spectrum conservative and the GOP would be unwise to give him the nomination. Romney has had to point out the un-conservative spots in Huck's record because the MSM/DNC axis sure hasn't been (they want him as the GOP nominee) and because McCain and Rudy want Huck to win Iowa to stifle Romney's path to the nomination. However, Romney is hardly alone in pointing out Huckabee's worrisome record.

Update: This post has attracted some attention! Hugh Hewitt's Townhall.com blog linked to my cross-posting over at MyManMitt. Also, Quin Hillyer's recent article "The Republican Party: All Hucked Up" contains a list that is interestingly familiar to mine.

What Happened In The Rest Of Iowa?

In my precinct, Romney won more than twice as many votes as Huckabee, who only had one more vote than Fred. What a surprise to come home and pull up drudge report and see that the rest of Iowa had gone strongly for Huck?

Well, you know how it is. Everyone gets a vote.

Clearly this is an evangelical phenomenon. Evangelicals turned out in uncharacteristically huge numbers and voted for Huckabee.

Just a couple of random thoughts.

First of all, kudos to Obama. I'm happy he won, so that New Hampshire Independents won't be artificially boosting McCain's numbers.

Take a look at http://www.iowagop.net/ and there's a map that shows the votes for each individual county. Up in the northwest of Iowa, Huckabee really pulled out huge victory. Those are the same counties that delivered the state to George W Bush back in 2004.

I think there is enough dis-satisfaction within other segments of the republican coalition with the Iowa process that we're going to see some efforts to take away its first in the nation status. What if Nevada were to pass a law saying that the republican primaries are on the same day as Iowa. It could happen.

Wyoming is SO going Romney's way.

New Hampshire voters, it's up to you. Remember 1996, when Bob Dole was running against Bill Clinton? Remember how he had no money? That's how it's going to be if McCain is the nominee. I like McCain and everything, nothing against McCain. He's talking about taking matching funds though, and all the potential democratic nominees have the ability to outspend him 10 to 1.

Michigan is going to be close. Come on Michigan!!!

South Carolina--- It's going to be a major battle. This is where we see if Huck means it about running a positive campaign. My bet - I don't see it happening. We're going to see a lot of the so far quiet under the table machinations from the Huckabee camp coming out into the open.

I look forward to seeing it.