Posts tagged Newt Gingrich

Beware The Cuckoo’s Egg

32
3 months ago
by filistro in
186274

Cuckoo’s egg in a reed warbler’s nest

The cuckoo does not build a nest or rear its own young. Instead it lays its eggs, one by one, in the nests of other, smaller birds. When the chicks hatch, the larger cuckoo chick imme­di­ately pushes the smaller babies out of the nest to their deaths and then ben­e­fits from the tire­less efforts of the lit­tle par­ent birds who exhaust them­selves, often to the point of their own death, by feed­ing the rav­en­ous inter­loper until it has grown much big­ger and stronger than they are.

This, in a rather sad way, is what has hap­pened to the Tea Party. (more…)

Not the Game Change

76
9 months ago
by dcpetterson in
, member of the United States House of Represe...

Not just Palin around

What does the choice of Paul Ryan as Vice Pres­i­den­tial can­di­date mean for the cam­paign of Willard “Mitt” Romney?

A vice pres­i­den­tial run­ning mate is often cho­sen for a num­ber of rea­sons — to bal­ance the ticket geo­graph­i­cally or ide­o­log­i­cally, to sat­isfy the demands of some branch of the president’s party, to attract a par­tic­u­lar group of vot­ers, to fill some per­ceived weak­ness in the Pres­i­den­tial can­di­date. Does Ryan bring any of this to the ticket?

Back in May, many com­men­ta­tors were not­ing Romney’s need and desire to avoid mak­ing the sorts of mis­takes Sen­a­tor John McCain made in his dis­as­trous 2008 cam­paign. Among them was his choice of then Alaska Gov­er­nor Sarah Palin as a run­ning mate. At first glance, the choice of Ryan seems to have met the require­ment to be unPalin. But how well does Ryan sat­isfy this?

In as far as the tra­di­tional rea­sons for choos­ing a Vice Pres­i­dent — ticket bal­ance, party demands, attract­ing vot­ers, per­ceived weak­ness — Ryan is not the usual sort of choice. As regards what is per­haps the most vital need this time around — to not be Romney’s Palin — he fails mis­er­ably. (more…)

Nay of Newt

10
1 year ago
by Michael Weiss in

For­mer House Speaker Newt Gin­grich is throw­ing in the towel, accord­ing to inside sources. The only sur­prise for most of us is that it took so long for him to see the writ­ing on the wall.

Per­son­ally, I sus­pect he thought he had a chance to return as the only remain­ing NotRom­ney in the race. [Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Ron Paul (R-​​Lake Jack­son, TX) doesn’t really count, since he’s more of a Wal­rus than an Ele­phant.] But after throw­ing all of his chips in on Delaware, and still com­ing up with fewer than half the votes for­mer Mass­a­chu­setts Gov­er­nor Mitt Rom­ney received, even one as mega­lo­ma­ni­a­cal as Newt could see that he has no hope.

The RINO stands alone.

And so we are offi­cially down to two can­di­dates: a RINO (wear­ing an Ele­phant suit) and a Wal­rus. But we already knew that we were down to one real candidate.

Sooooo…how ’bout them Veepstakes?

Related arti­cles

Republican Delegate Counts: April 7

25
1 year ago
by Monotreme in

One big ele­phant and two lit­tle ones. The wal­rus is Paul.

We’re in a three-​​week hia­tus with no pri­maries or cau­cuses, which prob­a­bly accounts for the pun­di­toc­racy focus­ing on the sta­tus of the horse — uh, make that ele­phant — race.

A sure sign that for­mer Mass­a­chu­setts Gov­er­nor Mitt Rom­ney has the nom­i­na­tion all but sewn up: Politico has turned to hand­i­cap­ping the Vice-​​Presidential slot. Politico’s Mag­gie Haber­man feels for­mer Office of Man­age­ment and Bud­get direc­tor and cur­rent Sen­a­tor Rob Port­man (R-​​OH) is the favorite.

We at Log­a­rchism like to look at Intrade num­bers. As of Fri­day on Intrade, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-​​FL) is the favorite with a 25 per­cent chance of secur­ing the VP nom­i­na­tion, fol­lowed by New Jer­sey Gov­er­nor Chris Christie (11 per­cent), Vir­ginia Gov­er­nor Bob McDon­nell (nine per­cent), Port­man (nine per­cent), Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Paul Ryan (R-​​Janesville, WI) (nine per­cent), and New Mex­ico Gov­er­nor Susana Mar­tinez (eight percent).

Romney’s Intrade num­bers are a vir­tu­ally cer­tain 96 per­cent, with none of the other can­di­dates above one percent.

To see the rea­son why, exam­ine the graph of del­e­gate counts (data cour­tesy of The New York Times/​Associated Press), after the jump. (more…)

The Secret Truth about Global Warming

19
1 year ago
by dcpetterson in

I don’t nor­mally do tin­foil hat stuff (though I do owe you all a Kennedy assas­si­na­tion arti­cle). But some impor­tant infor­ma­tion has recently come to my atten­tion, and I need to share it.

We found out that the US gov­ern­ment has dis­cov­ered that the Chi­nese have been active on Mars. The gov­ern­ment learned this because our Mars probes detected the Chi­nese equip­ment. The Chi­nese sent unmanned probes to the Red Planet — equip­ment which is pow­ered by solar energy and pro­duc­ing oxy­gen from com­pounds in the soil, intended to cre­ate a hab­it­able atmos­phere on Mars. (more…)

Republican Delegate Counts: March 15

11
1 year ago
by Monotreme in

Two Ele­phants Cross­wise to Each Other

Super Tues­day and the sub­se­quent March 10 and 13 pri­maries and cau­cuses clar­i­fied one thing: it’s now a two-​​man race.

Past Stam­ped­ing Ele­phants arti­cles, going back to last May, focused on the Repub­li­can field. In that first iter­a­tion, for­mer Mass­a­chu­setts Gov­er­nor Mitt Rom­ney was in first place, for­mer House Speaker Newt Gin­grich in eighth, and Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Ron Paul (R-​​Lake Jack­son, TX) in ninth. For­mer Sen­a­tor Rick San­to­rum (R-​​PA) did not break the one per­cent thresh­old on Intrade to appear in our rank­ings until our Jan­u­ary 5 arti­cle, when he debuted in third place.

Now, from an ever-​​changing field of nine can­di­dates, only two remain, and that’s not a field. Instead, this new ver­sion of the series will focus on the del­e­gate math, and the elec­tion prospects of Rom­ney, NotRom­ney, and Not­NotRom­ney, based on Real Clear Pol­i­tics polling aver­ages, Intrade odds, and head-​​to-​​head polling data with Pres­i­dent Barack Obama.

For­mer Mass­a­chu­setts Gov­er­nor Mitt Romney

Romney’s Real Clear Pol­i­tics polling aver­age this week dropped four points to 34 per­cent, but he still holds a five-​​point lead over San­to­rum. On Intrade, he’s hold­ing at an 87 per­cent chance, unchanged from last week. He has 495 del­e­gates, or 43 per­cent of the nec­es­sary total to clinch the nom­i­na­tion. (Del­e­gate count esti­mates are from The New York Times via the Asso­ci­ated Press.) He loses to Pres­i­dent Obama 48–44 in RCP polling aver­ages for the last nine days.

For­mer Sen­a­tor Rick San­to­rum (R-​​PA)

San­to­rum improved in both RCP weekly polling aver­ages (29 per­cent, up three points) and on Intrade (five per­cent chance of secur­ing the nom­i­na­tion, up one point). Still, a one-​​in-​​twenty chance is noth­ing to write home about. He has an esti­mated 252 del­e­gates (22 per­cent of the needed total), or just about half of the num­ber esti­mated for Rom­ney. He loses to Pres­i­dent Obama 50–42 in aver­aged polls.

As of late last night, Jeb Bush and Ron Paul are tied with just under two per­cent on Intrade. More about their chances after the cut.

(more…)

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