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Baseball Primer Newsblog— The Best News Links from the Baseball Newsstand
Monday, March 12, 2012
Forgive me for posting this.
The Rick Santorum for President campaign is proud to announce that it has received the endorsement of All-Star Major Leaguer Mike Sweeney.
Mike Sweeney said: “I take great pride in the success I’ve had on the baseball field, but even greater satisfaction in knowing that I have spent my entire life embracing Godly principles and instilling these values into the everyday lives of my children, family and friends. After personally getting to know Rick Santorum, I am absolutely convinced that he is the only candidate in the 2012 Presidential race that shares these same core values! The moral decline of our great country must stop now and this can only be achieved through real leadership and real solutions. I believe Senator Santorum has the wisdom, passion and vision to bring our country back to global excellence with those core Christian beliefs that our Founding Fathers envisioned, including protecting the rights of the unborn child, in mind. This election is the most important in my lifetime and as a father, husband, and American I am proud to play on Rick Santorum’s team!”
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Well, Obama isn't going to win Houston any time soon, so I'm not sure what the relevance is to your observations. Setting that aside, I realize that you think all that stuff matters. It didn't, though. Sorry. Campaigns just don't matter that much. Candidate age doesn't matter, VP choices don't matter (except maybe Palin, but at the outmost it's like less than half a percent). The religious fanaticism of the right certainly doesn't matter.
The fact of the matter is that religion plays well in the US. There has never been an openly atheist president.
Also, your statement that elections are won by people who vote for who they hate the least is almost certainly just wrong. Bush won in 2004 by turning out the vote. Conservatives won big in 2010 by turning out the old, white vote. Obama won in 2008 by turning out the youth vote. Enthusiasm gaps have real consequences at the polls.
There is, but it isn't in print. Here in Atlanta the AJC is doing anything and everything to stay relevant (and failing) and the major free newspaper just this week laid people off and reduced salaries for everyone that remained.
True, but - and I mean this as completely positive - I'm pretty sure Obama is the most atheist-friendly President we've ever had.
I've only listened to a couple of his speeches, but in both of them he welcomed the presence of "non-believers."
It's not a big thing, but it's not nothing. Did any earlier President say stuff like that?
Yes, Fox exists. And? On the one hand, you have ABC, CBS, NBC, local news, PBS, newspapers, NPR, CNN, and MSNBC, and on the other, we have FNC.
Newspapers are not dying because they aren't being read. Newspapers are dying because their revenue model doesn't work, what with (a) people reading them for free online, and (b) Craigslist stealing their revenues.
I object to the inclusion of "local news." Sure, some of it is liberal, but that's largely dependent on where it is. The local news in Wyoming is different from the local news in Seattle.
Anyway, yes, attorney. Litigation. General commercial litigation, but mostly employment law right now.
Thank you. I missed that. Technically the same thing, even if Bush's phrasing carries a bit more tone. Good on both of them, then.
True dat.
Though every Presidential candidate must declare himself or herself to be religious (what a country), I've often enjoyed wondering what proportion of them are genuine believers and which are just BSing. I mean, for example, Obama? Maybe, but consider me skeptical.
And the idea that Richard Nixon was a sincere Quaker is just freaking hilarious.
You are slipping, Nieporent. You're not a Republican on this board, remember?
;)
Yes, they run the gamut from Big Government Leftist to Big Government Liberal to Big Government Moderate.
And some somehow I'm miraculously able to keep up with other POV's, including those from your neck of the woods, in spite of all that "bias". I wonder if the average Fox News junkie can say the same thing about their own favored sources.
Of course, in real life I know you read the Times, too, and probably other "Big Government" papers and networks, since whatever your lunacy of outlook, you're rather untypical among conservatives / libertarians in that at least you're cognizant of liberal POVs, even if you love to conflate them with the Communist Manifesto.
Which shows how far off my radar screen Obama was before early 2008.
Then you really weren't paying attention. For a random Senate race, it got a ton of national coverage, what with the whole Jeri Ryan thing.
For the third time, I've never pretended to be Nate Silver when it comes to remembering every Senate or House race that I may have been paying a certain amount of attention to at the time. "Jeri Ryan" rings a certain bell, but I'm glad I'm not having to stake my life on telling you anything specific about her.
Newspapers are not dying because they aren't being read. Newspapers are dying because their revenue model doesn't work, what with (a) people reading them for free online, and (b) Craigslist stealing their revenues.
See, once you shed your ideological framework you can actually make some sense. That's exactly what I was saying a few hours ago, only with the emphasis on the loss of ad revenue.
Though I also might add that since the Times started charging online for more than the first 15 or 20 articles a month, both their print circulation and their internet revenue has gone up. And I'm glad to know that you're possibly among the contributors to the downfall of civilization as you'd like to know it.
---------------------------------------------
Andy,
Re: your Times/PBS/Post news mix, I suggest adding The Economist. You're really missing out if you don't read it.
Back to lurking.
I actually get that, too, along with the New York Review of Books and The New Yorker. But I was referring to "day-to-day" sources, not weekly or bi-weekly magazines.
---------------------------------------------
Though every Presidential candidate must declare himself or herself to be religious (what a country), I've often enjoyed wondering what proportion of them are genuine believers and which are just BSing. I mean, for example, Obama? Maybe, but consider me skeptical.
And the idea that Richard Nixon was a sincere Quaker is just freaking hilarious.
I'm also more than a little skeptical of any deep religious faith among FDR, Eisenhower, JFK, LBJ, Ford, Reagan, and Bush I. Truman, maybe; Carter, definitely; Clinton and Obama, probably, although definitely more along the lines of MLK and the social gospel; and Bush II, obviously.
You're thinking about Nierporent.
He won Harris County in 2008 and Houston is more liberal than the county.
He won Harris County in 2008 and Houston is more liberal than the county.
I think he meant that Obama would always go broke betting on the Astros.
How would you define this in policy terms rather than dog whistles?
No. Because if there are 7 channels that slant left (or whatever) and 1 channel that is slanted right, obviously the 1 channel will have more total viewers, as the people it appeals to don't have 7 options.
---
And I see Steve is pulling his "You haven't shown me 100% incontrovertible evidence!!!" schtick again.
Might not be the best night to poke Treder. See Lounge.
I guess you never know what battles people are fighting. I spent several hours arguing politics with Steve just yesterday.
I'm struggling to remember the other five 24/7 cable news networks beyond Fox News, CNN and MSNBC.
Well, how many C-SPANs are there?
Also CNN En Español.
How would you define this in policy terms rather than dog whistles?
It's simple: David sees the economic policies of Calvin Coolidge as the norm, and any any media outlet to the left of him as "leftist", in spite the fact that opinion columns from every part of the spectrum can be found in the outlets he loves to complain the loudest about, and in spite of the fact that news articles in those outlets cite both sides in every case where there actually is two sides. It's not to say that there haven't been a few spectacular cases where the media went off the deep end, but to conflate those few cases into some overall "agenda" tells us a lot more about David's own biases than it does about those media outlets.
--------------------------------------
I'm struggling to remember the other five 24/7 cable news networks beyond Fox News, CNN and MSNBC.
Assuming that Fox and MSNBC more or less cancel each other out, wasn't CNN the network whose most prominent commentator was largely responsible for inciting public opinion against illegal immigration? What "liberal agenda" have they had that's been more significant in actual influence than that?
P.S. That's not a rhetorical question, since I only watch cable news stations every four years on election night, and even then only while channel surfing.
Is that because they defend their own audience against anti-immigrant demagoguery? The nerve of them!
You mean the guy CNN chased off the air under a torrent of liberal pressure?
A news outlet's job isn't to defend anyone from anything. It's to present facts in a dispassionate manner.
Wasn't that leftist hippie Phil Donahue the highest-rated show on the MSNBC? What ever happened to that guy anyway?
The rise of Fox News terminated that concept with extreme prejudice.
As opposed to, you mean, "World Ends, New Markets Open"?
What complete BS. The "problem" is either covered with quotations from both sides, or (if the outlet has the resources) it's covered in separate articles with emphasis on one side or the other. You're pretending otherwise, but as usual you're simply making assertions.
Or if there's a law that mandates 'benefits' or protections for workers, it's covered as a dispute between those who want to help employees and those who think it's too expensive for businesses.
Considering that those are almost always the two most prominent POV's in most disputes like that, are they supposed to seek out the views of Marxists or Randists in order to meet your idea of balance? On that score, it's interesting how the counter-narrative of the media serving the interests of corporations and businesses never seems to occur to you, although that's certainly as plausible an interpretation of media coverage as the one you're peddling.
Then there's the identity politics, treated automatically as legitimate -- "World ends, women and minorities hardest hit." Or unions treated as spokespeople for workers. Etc.
Yes, I guess it's not kosher for the media to observe certain inequalities among demographic groups in this country. The only fair and balanced thing would be to pretend that these inequalities don't exist.
Yeah, that was an odd way for Andy to characterize Dobbs's latter career at CNN. Don't forget Dobbs pimped the birther conspiracy theory as well.
A news outlet's job isn't to defend anyone from anything. It's to present facts in a dispassionate manner.
The "fair and balanced" version of Univision or Telemundo:
Yeah, that was an odd way for Andy to characterize Dobbs's latter career at CNN. Don't forget Dobbs pimped the birther conspiracy theory as well.
And how many years was Dobbs spewing his bilge before he resigned with an $8 million severance? What comparable liberal voice has CNN had with even a fraction of Dobbs's influence over the public discourse on a controversial subject?
Again, that's not a rhetorical question---perhaps there have been such voices, but I'd like to know who they've been.
Not sure what his severance pay has to do with this, but I remember Dobbs as the host of Moneyline, which (though I didn't watch it much) was a financial show, not a political one. I don't remember him doing "years" of anti-immigration and birther - type rants. I remember a few months of it, and then he was gone (*). I could be wrong, as I didn't watch him; I'm going off of when the controversy about him erupted.
I remember being surprised at his rants because I wasn't aware he ran a political-opinion-oriented show.
(*) Actually, I'm not even sure that he "ranted" about the birther thing.
I'm pretty sure he was weighing in on immigration as early as 2006 or 2007 at the latest, although I could also be wrong. When the Bush / McCain / Kennedy reform bills got derailed, Dobbs was certainly the leading media voice in favor of the derailment, and I don't think he ever really let go of the subject for long once he got hold of it.
As far as the birther issue goes, I vaguely recall that he addressed that in some way, but in that case he was late in the game and had little or no influence. Unlike Dobbs's role in the immigration debates, I wouldn't have cited that as any evidence against CNN's "liberal bias".
(*) None of which are really 24/7, despite their marketing.
What about Rick Sanchez?
Right. Dobbs railed against illegal immigration as part of his populist shtick, not as some crazed right-winger.
It's always comical hearing lefties scream about how Dobbs "hates" Latinos and all that. Dobbs has been married to a Mexican woman for 25 or 30 years.
A news outlet's job is to make money. You would think a conservative would understand that basic concept.
I had to google Sanchez even to know who he was. I seriously doubt if he had 1/100th the influence of Lou Dobbs.
------------------------------------------------
Right. Dobbs railed against illegal immigration as part of his populist shtick, not as some crazed right-winger.
In terms of effect, that's about as relevant as saying that George Wallace's diatribes about race were only part of his states' rights agenda. Not to mention that there are plenty of right wingers (including some on BTF) who want to start trade wars with China, and that the president who instigated NAFTA was that prominent right winger Bill Clinton.
It's always comical hearing lefties scream about how Dobbs "hates" Latinos and all that. Dobbs has been married to a Mexican woman for 25 or 30 years.
And John Rocker had a black girl friend. I never said that Dobbs was anti-Mexican per se, but the clear effect of his anti-illegal immigration diatribes was to stir up anti-Mexican prejudice.
Of course in the dream world of conservatives, nobody hates Mexicans. It's only the ones who try to evade the same endless red tape procedures that all those Irishmen and Italians and Russian Jews had to go through in the early years of the 20th century.
Oh, wait....
------------------------------------------------
A news outlet's job is to make money. You would think a conservative would understand that basic concept.
No, to conservatives that concept may only be applied to Rush "I'm only an entertainer" Limbaugh.
It is, however, interesting to note that conservatives apparently believe that (1) capitalists are only out to make money by meeting the demands of the market (see "tobacco executives" and "cigarette advertising"); (2) the American people are conservative; and yet (3) "the media" are overwhelmingly liberal, and have been pushing a "liberal agenda" for years. Something about that doesn't quite compute.
Broadcasters fight plan to post names of political ad buyers on Web
Since the fight for full disclosure has been led by liberal groups who are alarmed at the proliferation of negative advertising financed by anonymous backers, why haven't the broadcasters gone along with their masters?
(Oh, I see----now they're only capitalists. But what happened to the "agenda"?)
I tried emailing you by clicking your name but it bounced. Pls email me to establish contact
BBC World News
:-)
Seriously, there's more than CNN, FOX and MSNBC?
I'll watch BBC World News every now and then, I'll watch CNN or FOX with the sound turned off, during primary/caucus returns.
Televsion/Cable News has become all kinds of awful in recent years (which I freely blame on Rupert Murdoch), BBC World News is OK so long as they are not covering the US... actually their US coverage is vaguely interesting at times, if only because the viewpoint is so far off...
CNN/FOX/MSNBC are just plain awful, watching them for news is like watching ESPN for baseball analysis.
Because we were talking specifically about them.
I tried emailing you by clicking your name but it bounced. Pls email me to establish contact
Just did it. But I tried sending myself a message as a test about 15 minutes ago, and so far I haven't received it. Do we have to do something to re-activate our email addresses?
Dobbs had been beating the anti-immigration drum for years. Here's one example from early 2006. Here's another from late 2005. There are lots of others of a similar vintage.
Thanks, Vlad. That was my recollection, too, but since my memories were only from secondary sources, it's good to have it confirmed. CNN is a network whose most prominent commentator on the hottest of hot button issues beat a steady drumbeat on the "conservative" side of that issue for many years, and AFAICT has never had any comparable liberal commentator who's had nearly as much influence (or even exposure) on the broader debate on any issue. I'm still at a loss to understand how such a network gets classified either with Fox News or MSNBC, but then subtlety has never been one of the main attributes of our nonstop BTF media bashers.
Sanchez had a prime time show, and what he said wasn't even said on CNN. And his firing was a classic PC response. While FOX likes to monster truck rally issues, CNN likes to Oprahize them.
Dobbs was their most prominent agenda driven host/commentator. The other talent given shows opposite the aforementioned names aren't/weren't hosting political shows.
To illustrate, lineups tonight 6-10pm:
CNN: Jon King, Erin Burnett, Anderson Cooper, Piers Morgan
Fox News: Bret Baier, Shep Smith, Bill O'Reilly, Seann Hannity
MSNBC: Al Sharpton, Chris Matthews, Ed Schultz, Rachel Maddow
I think, and I'm not 100% on this, that David's critique is that while Cooper and Blitzer (sounds like Santa's Reindeer are on CNN) don't have overt partisan leanings, they do have biases towards a liberal orientation on the format and structure of their shows.
Nieporent's critique is slightly different in that he's not claiming that there is a partisan bias in the media so much as an unconscious (or conscious?) bias of thought.
To the extent to which I agree with him on it (and it's not that far), I think that in general the language and structure of academic thought is much more oriented towards discussions in terms of identity rather than liberty. I view that as a feature rather than a bug, personally, as I find liberty based analysis to be somewhat morally bankrupt.
But Cooper and Blitzer run straight news shows with guests on to give their opinion -- or, in the case of Cooper, a News Magazine type of show (like 60 Minutes). That's different from O'Reilly, Hannity, Beck, Olbermann, etc., who give their opinions on the news.
But that is not to say that Cooper and Blitzer necessarily present the news unbiased. Shep Smith runs a "news show," but nobody with a clue would argue that his "news" is not slanted (both in selecting the content and in presentation). As are Fox's newsbreak updates generally.
Same with Bret Baier's show.
(I don't watch Smith but I've seen a few random portions of his show here and there. I used to watch Chris Matthews, and O'Reilly, and Baier's "panel" segment at the end of his show, but I don't anymore. I also used to watch Hannity & Colmes, but I can't stand Hannity solo and stopped watching him within a week of Colmes leaving (Or, as soon as he started labeling his panel the "Great American Panel." It's vomit-inducing.).
(And I agree with Alec Baldwin: Hannity, as far as these things go, isn't as bright as many of the other on-air talents. He basically repeats his talking points over and over, without getting into much depth. Baldwin's characterization of him as a "former construction worker, no-talent hack" is perhaps unfair, because he _does_ manage to succeed in his arena, but, again, he's not that bright, relatively speaking. Say what you will about Krauthammer or Bill Kristol, but they're intelligent. It used to be fun watching Christopher Hitchens pull the curtain back on Hannity's lack of intellect with relative ease.)
NAFTA was negotiated by Bush 41, not Clinton. Clinton was in office when it was ratified by Congress.
As for Dobbs, he seemed to generate a lot of screaming, but I'm not sure how influential he was. It seemed like his show was on at 4:00 PM or 5:00 PM, and CNN paid him to go away rather than continue to broadcast his show.
Same with Bret Baier's show.
So are you now going to sell us your Tootsie-Frootsie code book where all this "biases" will be revealed? For someone who's so demanding of "proof" in so many other contexts (global warming, etc.), you're sure being pretty vague here.
and that the president who instigated NAFTA was that prominent right winger Bill Clinton.
NAFTA was negotiated by Bush 41, not Clinton. Clinton was in office when it was ratified by Congress.
Clinton was the one who led the fight against a well organized opposition, largely within his own party. Then as now, Democrats were divided on the issue of free trade, but in 1993-94 Clinton was its most influential exponent.
(EDIT: coke to Traderdave)
----------------------------------------------
As for Dobbs, he seemed to generate a lot of screaming, but I'm not sure how influential he was. It seemed like his show was on at 4:00 PM or 5:00 PM, and CNN paid him to go away rather than continue to broadcast his show.
Dobbs' late afternoon show became so popular that CNN switched him to the 7:00 slot beginning in 2007. Viewer polls that were taken during his show revealed overwhelming support for his positions----no surprise there, but his views on immigration were certainly influential enough outside his friendly confines to produce feature stories about him in leading newspapers and other TV stations. His influence may have been more along the lines of a Limbaugh (i.e. preaching to the choir), but that's hardly to say that it was negligible.
As a matter of course, he'll repeat the same question three, four, five times if a guest won't budge from their preprogrammed script, just to make their refusal to answer gruesomely clear, as opposed to the Bill O'Reilly "shout the pinhead down" bombast, the Wolf Blitzer "we'll have to leave it there" abject surrender, or the David Gregory "ask one semi-pointed question, then accept any answer given" stenography. And once every show or two, Matthews comes up with some zany analogy or out-of-left-field reference that has a kind of cockeyed truth to it. Even his biases are offbeat for cable yak shows-- mention John F. Kennedy, the Catholic Church, or Pennsylvania politics, and he's like the guy in the old Niagara Falls/Susquehanna Hat vaudeville sketch.
You could easily write the transcript for tomorrow evening's "Hannity" or "Ed Show" right now. But Matthews wanders all over the reservation.
I was talking about Lou Dobbs being considered a prominent commentator. For CNN, he was. I don't care to debate whether CNN has a liberal slant in it's editorial decisions or the guests they have on. I think we'll just run around in circles doing that.
Yes, that was the point I made. That's why it's perceived as neutral. Or at least was, Fox News' ratings in the daytime when they are more news oriented are beating everyone else too, and anecdotally people feel that they're not biased.
I wasn't say that they didn't. Just that they don't have an agenda like others do, they don't get on their soapbox. So again, they're perceived as neutral. It's natural to have some biases, nobody is truly neutral. That's okay with me, we're human, we all have our beliefs.
I agree. O'Reilly knows what he's doing, as does Olbermann. They know the right buttons to push to excite their fan base and piss off the haters, I respect them both in that that they're really, really good at what they do. Hannity seems to me like if he went up against someone like them they'd use him as a punching bag.
I haven't watched Matthews since the old days of those Saturday evening talk shows (the McLaughlin Group IIRC), but the main thing I remember about him then was that he was the most hardline anti-Clinton media spokesman this side of Stuart Taylor and Charles Krauthammer during the days of the impeachment farce. He's a liberal, but of a particular Catholic variety, hardly to be confused with your stereotyped San Francisco Democrat.
Just finished it this morning. Absolutely loved it. Thanks veer bender for bringing it to my attention.
DB
666. Downtown Bookie Posted: March 21, 2012 at 07:08 AM (#4085758)
Anybody here read Lamb by Christopher Moore? It's a lighthearted, frequently vulgar, comedy novel about the life of Jesus.
Just finished it this morning. Absolutely loved it. Thanks veer bender for bringing it to my attention.
DB
I'd watch out for lightning bolts today, Bookie.
So Romney wins Illinois easily. Does Santorum have a chance to win Louisiana? (Yes I know he needs to be doing a lot more than narrowly win a southern state here and there, but thinking about the "momentum" narrative.)
Illinois was the last (small) chance Santorum had to create a national campaign and get the primary back in the center of the news. Instead he got stomped. The only question remaining is whether Romney gets crowned the effective nominee in April, May, or June.
**(Ever since Santorum was rejected by the GOP establishment in February)
It's a lock.
Actually, it's pretty hard not to give that particular medal to Pat Buchanan, isn't it? He had a nice long run with CNN on "Crossfire".
He does seem too pig-headed to throw his support behind Romney, doesn't he, regardless of GOP leadership pleading?
Fox + MSNBC + CNN, combined, have about 1.8 million viewers in the daytime, and 3.5 million in prime time.
Nickelodeon's reruns of "Dora the Explorer," "Spongebob Squarepants," "T.U.F.F. Puppy," and so on pull in more daytime viewers.
"All My Children" and "One Life to Live" were cancelled because their ratings fell to just four times what Fox News gets in early afternoons.
In the evenings. many shows such as "iCarly," "Pretty Little Liars," "Jersey Shore," "Swamp People," "Frozen Planet" and "WWE Raw" have more viewers than all of prime time cable news put together.
If Hannity and Maddow and Blitzer and O'Reilly and Schultz and Cooper could somehow be on one show, like "Friends," and keep every one of their viewers, their Nielsen numbers would rank them 171st in the 2010-2011 ratings.
The Fox/MSNBC/CNN "ratings war" is a dick-measuring contest between mosquitos.
I can guaran-damn-tee Santorum will show up at the convention as an enthusiastic Mitt man.
I hope not. I'm just saying, even when it's daytime news vs daytime news, Fox is winning that too.
If you enjoyed Moore's writing (and not just scoring rep points with Satan), I'd recommend A Dirty Job next. It may not be his funniest (though I thought it was close) but there's just more "book" there than in his other more zany stuff. I thought the beginning was spectacularly sad and honestly rather moving.
For zany, I thought Lust Lizard was the most consistently funny. Fool, one of his newer ones, I found slow and a bit tedious, because it gets most of its humor from the faux-Shakespearean language. I'd also avoid Coyote Blue, which just seemed like a Moore B-side.
Sure, if we want to talk about the 80's when Fox News and MSNBC didn't exist, instead of the actual discussion we were having.
I know that. Good for those networks.
That wasn't what the discussion was about.
Heh! Yeah, I didn't catch the post number until after I hit enter. Nice of everybody to leave that post number open for a couple of days until I could finish the book. 8-)
Somewhat more seriously, the book really isn't all the vulgar, and it's not anywhere near what I would call "blasphemous". Mind you, I wouldn't recommend that it be given as an assigned reading to a Sunday School class, but if you know someone reasonably well versed in the Bible, who has a sense of humor, I think they'll enjoy it.
DB
Yes, just as obvious as it was that Hillary would do the same for Obama in 2008--despite the bleatings of some that she would go rogue.
As for cable news shows, has anyone seen Up With Chris Hayes? I think it's the best of the genre and worth the DVR.
DB
I think there were literally two other candidates for the several dozen other positions on the ballot. The ballot took literally 30 seconds to complete - and 20 of that was writing myself in as the GOP's candidate for the State Senate 6th District. I have to imagine that I at least tied for first, so does anyone want to run my campaign for the GE?
Santorum leads in the polls for Louisiana and Wisconsin (the next 2 states), traditionally at some point primary voters tend to surge towards the front runner and the primary becomes a coronation- some times it happens very quickly (see Kerry in 2004), sometimes late in the game (Obama 2008)- sometime sit doe snot happen (see 1976, Ford had to slog through to the bitter end to beat Reagan- and in the end Reagan was not a good little party soldier btw when he lost)
So far it's been a slog- Romney has the lead but no momentum, his victories have had no carry over (neither has Santorum's- he just took Miss and Alabama- but that had seemingly zero effect on his vote total in Illinois).
So, what now?
1: Same old, Santorum takes Louisiana and Wisconsin as though Illinois did not happen, Romnney has to continue slogging and can't clinch until June.
2: Finally some momentum, Romney upsets Santorum in Louisiana and a few days later in Wisconsin- it's over, Romney may not have mathematically clinched but his nomination will be 99.99% certain by the end of April - he can ignore Santorum, concentrate on strategy in the general, and rebuild his warchest
Romney will clinch the delegate majority in late spring / early summer. He'll endorse then.
I can guaran-damn-tee Santorum will show up at the convention as an enthusiastic Mitt man.
Illinois was the last (small) chance Santorum had to create a national campaign and get the primary back in the center of the news. Instead he got stomped. The only question remaining is whether Romney gets crowned the effective nominee in April, May, or June.
But the more important question in the long run is just how much influence Santorum / Gingrich / the hard core anti-Romney faction of the GOP are going to have over the tone of the convention**, and how much Romney will have to paint himself into a corner in order to win their enthusiastic support. It's easy to say that Obama the Boogeyman will all by himself energize the Republican base, but with little real positive enthusiasm for the candidate himself, that's going to be putting a lot of eggs in one basket.
The truth is that the Republicans have but three things going for them in November, all of them negative: Their Super-PAC spending advantage to saturate the air with negative ads; anti-Obama hatred among their base; and the state of the economy. Their actual proposals, such as Paul Ryan set forth yesterday, have almost no popular appeal outside the Club For Growth types, and if the Democrats have an ounce of sense they'll highlight proposals like that and translate them into the starkest terms as to what they'll mean for the average voter.
**Will Santorum be allowed to replay the Pat Buchanan speech of 1992? Not if the Republicans know what they're doing, but primitive passions aroused by religion aren't always so easy to suppress, even if they alienate any onlooking moderates and independents.
Turnout in Illinois is being called the lowest in modern history -- ~20% (Cook was at about 23%). There were actually several significant congressional races -- a big 3-way in the IL-10, JJJ romping in IL-02, and perennial "looks great on paper" candidate Tammy Duckworth getting another shot (and likely to win in the fall). I don't remember the district, but frosh GOPer Adam Kinzinger knocked off veteran Don Manzullo in a race that got pretty nasty, with Eric Cantor perhaps making a leadership powerplay (Cantor's PAC came out strong for Kinzinger... Manzullo was not happy about the House #2 taking sides in that one).
You gotta figure Louisiana is going to be a very good state for Santorum - I'm supposing that Louisiana is a lot more Catholic than MS/AL. It will be interesting to see what happens in WI.
One of the (more minor) disturbing things about our political system is that a huge number of elites care deeply about every single thing that gets said on Fox or MSNBC or CNN, and expend large amounts of energy to control the day's narrative. Even though no one is watching and it makes no difference in anyone's life and no difference in terms of electoral outcomes.
When the shlock comedy "Shakes the Clown" was advertised as "the Citizen Kane of alcoholic clown movies," it was meant as a joke. But we're supposed to be mightily impressed with "#1 in cable news!"
We don't get weekly press releases from the Jacksonville Jaguars about how their backup punter can kick 10 yards further than any other team's backup punter.
It's all about 'narrative' -- the cable nets are like blenders without lids... crap constantly tossed in, constantly being turned into meaningless mush -- but occasionally, some gunk ends up getting expelled into the general/larger consciousness.
Controlling the cable news cycle is all about ensuring the gunk that escapes the lidless blender is gunk that's good for your side.
He was with CNN in that role until 1999, actually, with occasional breaks to run for office. And when he left for good, it was for an equivalent position with MSNBC.
I'm not saying the national discourse doesn't matter. I'm saying that if you focus on the cable networks at a day-to-day level, you can't see the parts of the national discourse that matter. Obama's "winning" on Iran right now, but the cost of winning is excluding the obviously correct "containment" strategy, and is increasing significantly the chance of war with Iran over the next decade. It's only when you detach yourself from the 24-hour news cycle that you can see the stuff that matters.
Here's where you can see the influence of elites. At a number of points, a bunch of endorsements could have pushed Romney over the edge--after he won Florida, after he won Michigan, after Ohio, or today after Illinois. There won't be any big slew of endorsements though, and that's a large part of why this is dragging on.
I think Santorum is running for VP at this point--Romney is going to need to make big concessions to consolidate the ticket, and VP might be one of those. Santorum probably sees it as his stepping stone to being president, because winning the nomination is no longer a realistic goal.
I just need to put on my panderin' suit. Don't go away - I'll be right back.
I believe the correct phrasing would be, "And when he left for good, it was for an equivalent position with the ultra-leftist MSNBC." You know, the ultra-liberal news channel that fired their highest-rated host because he opposed the great war of adventure in Iraq.
And thus spake Ray DiPerna.
Also a good point.
Louisiana's certainly a good state for Santorum, but it's not because of the Catholics.\
EDIT: Hey, look at the block quote in the intro! That's the ecumenical consolidation of the religious right in action.
That's great. The discussion we were having was about the past 5 or so years.
Traditionalist Catholics would be a better phrase. Radical doesn't really work in describing a highly conservative, orthodox movement.
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