I’ve been dealing with a cranky boy with a bad cold. I think I need a nap myself. I did find time to read this piece by Ta-Nehisi Coates. I’m pretty sure that’s going to be the best thing I read all day. Maybe I’ll turn on CSPAN and see if they have live footage of the wing nuts caucusing in their natural habitat. It could be fascinating.
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
Try a second brilliant blog post from TNC on the same day 😉 (ok, it’s not as good, but it’s not as extensive)
The Banality of Racism
CNN entrance poll has it Romney and Paul at 24%, Santorum 18, Newt 13, Perry 11.
They’ve updated it, Santorum is doing better than initially reported – a hair behind Romney.
And at least according to the 538 live blog at the moment Paul has a thin lead over Romney and Santorum. Paul is doing well with the under-30 GOP crowd – which is hardly surprising.
He’s also only winning because of the cross-overs. If just Republicans were voting, he’d be getting destroyed.
Yup. That would pretty well sum it up.
The question is how many of the crossovers will stay crossed over in November.
if he runs 3rd party, I mean.
Fox News is reporting it is currently split 23%/23%/23% with 27% reporting.
Not sure, but one third of the goers say “beating Obama is the most important thing evah!” and only 7% of those are backing Paul.
Do the Republican caucuses have multiple rounds of voting, allowing supporters to defect to other candidates, like the Democrats’?
no.
Well, that’s boring.
“Hey, Chris Dodd dude! Wanna come over here and stand with us?”
Sigh. “OK.”
Fox is now confidently projecting that Gingrich will finish 4th, Perry 5th, Bachmann 6th, Huntsman 7th.
The top three are still a toss up. Several pro-Paul college towns have not reported.
Rachel was just busting on Ron Paul for saying, “We’re going to win this thing!”
She says, “That doesn’t round down to third.”
NBC projected a while ago that Ron Paul will be third-place. First and second are still un-knowable because they are so close.
Go, Rick, go!
Ron Paul = irrelevant
He had perfect conditions for him to pull out a win in IA and the best he can do is third place with about the same percentage that he’s been at for the last 6-8 months.
What a joke.
While I had been praying for a win for Ron Paul, this was definitely no joke. Consider:
And he managed to get 22% of the vote. 3 points behind the 2 first place contestants. He was not at 22% for 6-8 months. He was about 10-14% and started to pick up steam a month ago. His best showing in the polls was 24%, so after vetting, stories of newsletters, etc, he managed to keep most of his bounce.
While I wanted him to win, compared to ’08 (11,000 votes, 10%) he has made a remarkable jump.
And, as Obamaphiles, you must know that it’s all about the delegates. Don’t be surprised if Paul walks away with the most.
First, the GOP does not use the same system as the Democratic party in the Iowa caucuses, so comparing the situation to the Obama/Clinton fight is misleading at best.
Second the only reason he is “in favour” of drug legalization is the same reason he is in favour of removing all restrictions and regulations on companies, he wants it put down to the individual states and “liberty,” and pretty much desmantaling the federal justice system. Which isnt the same thing as you think it is…
If you take time to do a search of Ron Paul and the drug war, you will see he opposes it for all the right reasons. It causes crime, it is unfairly applied and discriminatory towards minorities, drug addiction is a medical problem not a legal one.
You will find numerous youtubes of him saying exactly that for the past 25 years. My point though, is that it is not a popular position and hard to explain in sound bite. Despite that, he came in a close third.
I made no comparison to the Democratic caucus system, but now that you mentioned it, it seems like the dem caucus is designed specifically to exclude “extremist” candidates. What percent of the vote did Denis Kucinich get in ’08 and ’04?
He opposes it himself for those reasons, but he makes a philosophical defense against in the same way he argues against the EPA. Quite a difference. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if Paul voted against a bill to legalize all drugs if it gave the federal government the authority to regulate them.
As president, Ron Paul told Wolf Blitzer back in 2008 that he would pardon “all non-violent drug convicts.” Now I don’t know exactly whom in particular he would pardon, or how he would go about doing it, but he is as strong an anti-drug candidate as any that ever sought nomination in a major party. No one else even comes close.
Anyway, my point is he was attacked repeatedly as the guy who would legalize heroin, and still got 21% of the vote. In Iowa.
Is there any other national figure who brings as much attention to the drug war?
It’s not a remarkable jump because Democrats aren’t having a primary, and Iowans have been fickle as hell. That jump could be entirely due to moderate/Democratic disaffection, and Paul controlled 40% of liberals/moderates, with 48% of Independents.
The two situations aren’t comparable. Even in the best of conditions: a surge, a failure of a challenging GOP field, a money advantage, Romney being hated, and moderates/liberals voting for him…he still lost to a guy who had no money.
Paul got lucky he got this much for two reasons:
I agree. Therefore what? Ron Paul attracts lots of independents and anti-war, pro-civil liberties Democrats. How is that bad and how does that make him unserious? Why didn’t indies and dems rush to vote for any of those other A$$ clowns?
Therefore, Paul’s numbers would be virtually the same as they were in 2008. The only difference is that this year, Dem’s aren’t having a primary, and the Iowa voters are being fickle as hell in choosing their candidate. Had the caucus been two to three days from now, it’s likely Paul would have done worse than he did. Had it been a week from now, it’s certainly possible that Romney’s victory would have been more decisive.
So it’s not a sign that the GOP is adopting anything less than perpetual war, and that there’s a thirst for anti-imperialism in most Democrats. The same as it’s always been…no breakthroughs.
I find it hard to believe that anyone who actually farms corn (ie, gets their hands dirty doing actual work) trundled down to the caucuses to support Ron Paul.
A bad excuse. High income voters tended to go to Romney. People making 50k or less tended to vote for Paul. The vast majority of Paul supporters are NOT rich.
so now you’re making excuses
he’s either a serious candidate or not – I’ll go with not until he proves otherwise
McCain came in a much more distant 4th place in ’08 and he was a serious candidate. However, I agree that the entire establishment is against Ron Paul and so his chances are slim.
Mr. Frothy Mixture seems quite popular at this point.
I want to find this whole meme funny but it is too gross for me.
Yeah, me too. I’m glad it happened to him, though.
I don’t see it as funny really, more like pitiful and disgusting, like most of the GOP candidates.
Odd. When Santorum was up 15 votes on Romney, the percentages were the same. Now that Romney is up on Santorum by 8, he suddenly has .1% higher.
Really, it’s just rounding.
So, its a 24/24/21 split, with Paul as the third by 3%. Hardly a ringing endorsement of any of the parties involved, is it? Would be nice if this was a sign of a splitting of the GOP, but that will hardly happen as long as there are Dems to give positions they can oppose.
It might also be a consequence of the Citizens United decision, which gives loadamoney for negative ads, and its somewhat fitting that the first victims would be republicans turning those hosepipes of cash on one another.
From the article you linked: “Failing that, it must be asserted that a man [Paul] who once claimed that black people were knowingly injecting white people with HIV…”
Sadly for Paul, nobody of any color has managed to inject a lick of common sense into him…