Wait, what? There are places where wingnuts care about something more than they care about misogyny? Where are those places and what are there cares? I am not trolling but genuinely curious.

Although, I have noticed that our (Iowan) Republicans are a bit less anxious about race, so maybe that is it?

T-Paw would be cleaning up by now as the non-Romney option. It was a stunning lack of foresight that gripped him when he dropped out after one bad debate performance. Couldn’t he have seen that there were still 103 debates to go and no would would have given a shit about his un-macho performance in the first debate?

Skepticism that women really need protection against cervical cancer is just special when it’s coming from a woman who has had to endure the banal indignities of gynecological care and knows what a nightmare even having pre-cancerous cells could be.

If you just ask Jesus into your heart and keep your filthy legs shut forever, nothing bad can ever happen to you.  Didn’t they teach you that in health class?

...every time I look at Santorum, I have this feeling that somewhere in the multiverse there is a Gilead that’s missing one of its idiot “Commanders”...

It can end up being a big boost.  Huckabee rode the iowa bump pretty far, and he was a lousy candidate. Santorum is even worse, but Iowa could matter if Gingrich or Perry takes it.

Iowa was a big one for Obama.

I had always thought Santorum - sort of like Huckabee in ‘08 - was close to the back of the pack in funds.

Will be interesting to see the first shakeout. If Romney gets 2nd that will set him up well for NH, where he is the shoe-in.

Iowa matters in that is begins the elimination of candidates.  If a second tier candidate does poorly there and in New Hampshire they are gone. 

Also for republicans, they seem to nominate the candidate who has been there and ran before.  Success in Iowa or New Hampshire can show that they are an effective candidate who can get votes and it will help them out the next time they run.  Had Huckabee ran this time he would be probably be the “anti-romney”.  McCain’s win in New Hampshire in 2000 contributed to him getting the nomination in 2008.

Now in recent elections for the Democrats Iowa is huge. That helped to save the democratic party from John Edwards four years ago, and Kerry probably wouldn’t have won the nomination in ‘04 had he not won Iowa.

Re #6:  Exactly right.  Obama would not have been elected president if he didn’t win Iowa.

Iowa just isn’t important for Republicans.  It’s important for Democrats because the state is likely a Democratic win in the General.  It’s why all Democratic Presidents are centrists and not Progressives.

I don’t know why it’s not important for Republicans, but it’s just not.  It pulls to the right, they’re already to the right, so it pulls them off course.

Iowa can basically function as an enormous relatively low-cost commercial for an otherwise underfunded candidate. Our media market is cheap and you can meet and greet a large percentage of the voters which is inexpensive and allows a candidate to sort of undercut stupid media narratives about “inevitability.” Once you start getting into the populous states/having to campaign in more than one state at once, only well-monied candidates can continue to compete.

I think it is less important for Repubs because 1) Dems seem to be more pragmatic so democratic Iowans vote with an eye to who can win in a general and 2) most of the state is fairly normal and center left, but Western Iowa is insanely conservative and they are completely isolated from other political persuasions. unfortunately that part of the state is low-population, but they matter to Republicans, and those isolated Republicans have no sense of perspective and vote for the most crazy-pants candidate possible. As a rule of thumb, any one from Iowa with a dutch surname is terrible.

Over the past week the entire internet has been kissing Ron Paul’s ass for some reason. Like, in places where I don’t usually see it, and a lot more of it than I usually see. The talking point seems to be “We’re frustrated with Obama. Obama is just like Bush! But Ron Paul is different! Ron Paul will save us! His racism, sexism, and homophobia don’t count because he’s against the war!” It makes my head explode.

So between him and Santorum, I have a feeling the runup to Iowa is going to just make my head explode repeatedly.

snowmentality—David Weigel described the Paul-supporting Obama defectors as people in search of a magic president. I don’t think it is so much policy based, but a lot of people want to believe that what is wrong in the country right now is all the fault of one person rather than the complex mix of an out-dated, ineffective government system, a broken media and fact-checking system, and a lot of deeply embedded, toxic political ideas endemic in our culture. Paul just presents himself as having the simple answer.

I just don’t see why there’s so much fuss over Iowa. Yes, it’s the first game of the season, as it were, and sports fans are always eager to get this shit going already, but whoever wins Iowa doesn’t really matter, does it?

Amanda, with this comment you have just established yourself as smarter than probably 95 percent of the people who cover politics for a living.

Iowa is a MEDIA story. The caucuses don’t even determine the delegate count at the convention. I am going to repeat this for emphasis. THE CAUCUSES DON’T EVEN DETERMINE THE DELEGATE COUNT AT THE CONVENTION.

That’s right, NOTHING AT ALL IS AT STAKE. It isn’t even like New Hampshire, where at least a handful of delegates are at stake.

The growth of the “importance” of the Iowa caucuses has tracked precisely the growth of political media and airtime. Covering Iowa gives the media something to talk about. It gives them programming. So they talk about it and make it important. And then they tell themselves a bunch of myths about it, like that Jimmy Carter won the presidency because he won Iowa. (Sorry, he was the favorite for the 1976 Democratic nomination long before Iowa.)

Iowa is meaningless, except to the extent that people buy into the media narrative that it has meaning. It is especially meaningless when it is dominated by religious conservatives, an electorate that once voted for Pat Robertson for President in the caucuses.

The ‘patriarchy’ is asking Bachmann to ‘submit’ to the man, Santorum…

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/21/michele-bachmann-bob-vander-plaats_n_1162732.html

Wait, what? There are places where wingnuts care about something more than they care about misogyny? Where are those places and what are there cares? I am not trolling but genuinely curious.

I don’t know about places, but some wingnuts care more about making life hell for immigrants, punishing non-Christians, making the economy even more of a disaster for the 99%, invading sovereign nations which happen to have oil, or denying science. Such topics tend to be related to womb-control, but the emphasis of discussion varies.

I keep asking Paulites if they have anything to ‘debunk’ the bills Paul has voted against and the things he’s said on the floor.  They always just say it doesn’t matter somehow and try to point at the ‘debunking’ of his newsletter.  I never even mention the damn newsletter contents.

And then they complain about a list of things Obama has or hasn’t done - and usually the first list has no items which are real, and a second list will be legislation Republicans (including Paul) have voted against.  Soo… I don’t get it.

“Iowa is meaningless, except to the extent that people buy into the media narrative that it has meaning.”

...unfortuately, the Iowa caucuses really do have meaning precisely because The Media treat them as being meaningful.  Enough Americans go along with the media charade that Iowa becomes what many believe they aren’t: important.  The same is true of New Hampshire.

If states like California and Texas came first, before states with more land/cows/corn than people, the whole process would most likely be very different.  As I recall, the last time California was significant in choosing a candidate for POTUS was 1968.  And many of us are all too aware of how that worked out…

...unfortuately, the Iowa caucuses really do have meaning precisely because The Media treat them as being meaningful.  Enough Americans go along with the media charade that Iowa becomes what many believe they aren’t: important.  The same is true of New Hampshire.

If states like California and Texas came first, before states with more land/cows/corn than people, the whole process would most likely be very different.  As I recall, the last time California was significant in choosing a candidate for POTUS was 1968.  And many of us are all too aware of how that worked out…

I’m all for allowing big states to go first. But bear in mind, the reality is that it isn’t as though Iowa and New Hampshire have been deciding presidential nominations because they were going first. The reality is, Barack Obama’s nomination in 2008 was the first one in my lifetime from either party where the early favorite did not win. The nominations are REALLY decided long before any primaries or caucuses take place. It’s the money primary and the endorsement primary and the insider primary that determines the nominee. Everything else is about creating artificial suspense in the media.

The real reason to displace Iowa and NH is that, especially with respect to Iowa, politicians pander to them with crap like ethanol subsidies.

Obviously I am biased, but I really don’t think that ethanol subsidies can be blamed on the caucus. Those subsidies are slipped in by congressmembers and not presidents (and Iowa is over represented in Congress both because the senate favors small states and because our two senators have both been in the Senate since the Civil War), additionally Iowa has like the 4th highest ratio of federal taxes paid in to federal funds recieved despite all of our old farts on medicare so we are not getting special caucus favors overall and our largest industries are manufacturing, retail, and finance/insurance. There are seriously like 10 corn farmers here and all the other ag workers are undocumented workers who can’t vote anyway.

And the problem with putting big states first in the primaries is taht big states are expensive media markets that are won through commercials so only the highly visible money candidates would stand a chance.

That isn’t to say that the caucus is not bullshit—it totally is. I think we should just abolish the primaries the way most countries don’t have them or else have people actually run to represent their states and then decide who should run at the convention or something. Primaries are just a tedious, expensive, circus.

Obviously, for those mentioning the Democrats, I wasn’t talking about the Democrats. The Democratic caucus is a different beast altogether. Noggins: use ‘em.

I’m actually genuinely surprised that Evangelical leaders would endorse a Catholic.  Isn’t Perry good enough for them?

“We’re frustrated with Obama. Obama is just like Bush! But Ron Paul is different! Ron Paul will save us! His racism, sexism, and homophobia don’t count because he’s against the war!

And most of these people are white, male, and straight.  Maybe they care about racism, sexism, and homophobia on a hypothetical level, but they’re all far enough away from their own personal experience that they can be dismissed as fringe issues, or trivial little things that are unpleasant but far less important than all those other real problems.  The progressives supporting Ron Paul is a perfect textbook example of unexamined privilege.  If you look that up in a dictionary, you’ll find a picture of a young white hetero dude who voted for Obama in ‘08 and now supports Ron Paul.

Obviously I am biased, but I really don’t think that ethanol subsidies can be blamed on the caucus. Those subsidies are slipped in by congressmembers and not presidents (and Iowa is over represented in Congress both because the senate favors small states and because our two senators have both been in the Senate since the Civil War), additionally Iowa has like the 4th highest ratio of federal taxes paid in to federal funds recieved despite all of our old farts on medicare so we are not getting special caucus favors overall and our largest industries are manufacturing, retail, and finance/insurance. There are seriously like 10 corn farmers here and all the other ag workers are undocumented workers who can’t vote anyway.

Well, one big reason why congresscritters support ethanol subsidies is because every member of Congress looks in the mirror and sees a future President.

In any event, they are bad policy and saying how you don’t get enough bang for your tax buck doesn’t change the matter. Corn is greenhouse-gas intensive, highly caloric, doesn’t make fuel very efficiently, and displaces better technologies in the realm of alternative fuels. If anything, corn should be taxed, not subsidized.

And the problem with putting big states first in the primaries is taht big states are expensive media markets that are won through commercials so only the highly visible money candidates would stand a chance.

Bear in mind this is true anyway. Every single major party candidate for President in my lifetime, including the one “upsetter” (Obama), has been backed by huge money. It’s true that the caucuses can confer a victory on Pat Robertson or Dick Gephardt; you will notice, however, that every time that has happened, that person has failed to win the party’s nomination.

The caucuses do nothing for “no money” candidates except give them a day of press coverage.

I have to admit that I’m one of the people looking forward to Ron Paul’s ascent. That’s mostly because I’ve greatly enjoyed watching one GOP candidate after another implode once they reach front-runner status, and spreading that around to as many candidates as possible only makes it funner. Add to that the years I’ve spent debating with delusional ‘libertarians’ who absolutely worship Ron Paul, and his ascent and inevitable destruction once the media starts actually paying attention to him will be so, so sweet.

Yeah, I’m evil. What of it?

Things like ethanol subsidies are part of the same craziness that produces a focus on iowa, but not directly related. There are a lot more farm states than that, and every bleeping acre of them has a senator. That plus the long-established ag-distributor cartel means huge campaign and lobbying money in exchange for subsidies. (Does ADM still support a huge chunk of PBS’s public-affairs budget?)

In a world where billionaires didn’t fund the lion’s share of political activity, primaries in small states like Iowa and New Hampshire could potentially be useful, because they do offer the opportunity for retail politics and for voters to see candidates in person, as opposed to the big states where everything happens by TV. But that would require a radical change in campaign laws. As it is, it’s just easier to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars a vote in small states.

“I have to admit that I’m one of the people looking forward to Ron Paul’s ascent. That’s mostly because I’ve greatly enjoyed watching one GOP candidate after another implode once they reach front-runner status, and spreading that around to as many candidates as possible only makes it funner.”

There isn’t an endless supply of marginal Rethuglican candidates, unfortunately.

After they’re all weeded out except Romney, the only thing that might happen is a brokered convention (which really only has a very tiny chance of happening), and then finding out which loser Romney picks as veep.  After that is the general and the joy of finding out which state’s election results are questionable.

Not a lot of excitement left…

“There are a lot more farm states than that, and every bleeping acre of them has a senator two senators, justified by the state’s population or not.”

...fixed that for you…

People liking Ron Paul is just a symptom of how shitty Obama is.  It’s about Paul.  It’s about what an unbelievable opportunity Obama shat out his ass.

It’s not about Paul, obviously.

The talking point seems to be “We’re frustrated with Obama. Obama is just like Bush! But Ron Paul is different! Ron Paul will save us! His racism, sexism, and homophobia don’t count because he’s against the war!”

And, really, how much is he “against the war?”  I am sure he’d approve of Exxon/Mobile hiring a private Xe Army to invade Iran and pass on all the costs at the pump…

Not much different than now, only even less accountable.

I suspect that, for what it’s worth, Ron Paul really is anti-war. I don’t think much of the man, but if you listen to the way he talks about war, he’s basically a non-interventionist, not someone who would be just fine as long as the private sector handled it. He thinks national sovereignty is a huge deal.

It’s not the same as left-wing pacifism or non-interventionism, in that a lot of people on the left think that it would be just fine if we had stronger global governance mechnisms and more international cooperation. Right-wing non-interventionism is more focused on the US doing its own thing and other nations doing their own things and we all leave each other alone.

The thing is, I think some people are suspicious of Paul because his foreign policy position is pretty rare these days. There used to be a lot more of them—during the 1930’s, much of the right opposed US entry into WW2 on these sorts of grounds. But a lot of the right shifted when the Cold War happened, believing that defeating Communism / the international left justified more foreign policy interventionism. After the Cold War ended, a few of them, like Pat Buchanan, shifted back to non-interventionism, but most of them went the route of Dick Cheney and became full blown imperialistic militarists.

So since you don’t see too many conservatives calling for the US to retrench from military conflict, it’s assumed that nobody on the right believes this. But some people really do, and as far as I can tell, Paul is one of them.

Having written this much on it, I’d also add the following—I think that while Paul’s beliefs don’t work that well as a foreign policy, they work very well as a critique of US foreign policy. In other words, I think a lot of people, left and right, have been convinced by the apparent invincibility of American power to get into the imperialistic mindset where we solve every world problem and have the right to invade or bomb or fly drones over any country we want to if they are engaging in policies that we oppose. This is not, in the long-term, a tenable American foreign policy theory. Eventually, the correct and rational response of just about every country in the world that fears US intervention to this is going to be to obtain nuclear weapons, because once they do, that means no more US bombing campaigns, drone flights, or invasions.

In other words, while Paul does not have the right endpoint, he certainly has the right rhetorical response to current American foreign policy. We basically can’t become an empire and a sole superpower without expecting a response from the rest of the world, whereas if we adopt some more skeptical posture on intervention, our future can be much more secure.

Dilan, I know that ethanol, especially corn based, is not a great fuel and that ethanol subsidies are total shit. And I wasn’t trying to imply that Iowa deserves more pork, just merely pointing out that congress is not shoveling money our way because of presidential aspirations. Farm subsidies persist because rural states have disproportionate power and there are no natural enemies of the subsidies because there are not really any anti-farm lobbying/interest groups. Ending the caucus will not change that.

And as I said, the primary system is an expensive joke and primary elections are even more stupid then normal elections. I think they just need to be done away with.

I just don’t see why there’s so much fuss over Iowa. Yes, it’s the first game of the season, as it were, and sports fans are always eager to get this shit going already, but whoever wins Iowa doesn’t really matter, does it?

This is not a metaphor. American elections are sport, certainly more than they are politics. Matt Taibbi has made this point in books like Spanking the Donkey and Griftopia, Americans root for candidates, Dem or Rep, with the same blinkered support of loyal sports fans (CNN knows this, they cover elections like they cover football matches).

Oh look, Santorum has out bigoted the bigots in the pre bigot dust up, he certainly has a great hate game, but it is a long season and has might be caught later if he doesn’t improve his tax cutting and fiscal reform play. 

So does this matter? No, no it doesn’t. The greatest prediction for how candidates are going to act in office is their campaign financing. So who exactly is paying for Santorum’s campaign?

bananacat@23: 

You took the words right out of my mouth.  I’ve had this very same discussion on other blogs.  After a bunch of back and forth about how admirable it is Paul is anti-war, with me pointing out that that is not a Get of Jail Free Card WRT being a misogynist bigot, the entire discussion devolved into “but he’s anti war! and Obama is worse! and Not Everyone is Pro Choice, You Know!” 

Whatever.  I gave up after that because I didn’t want to hijack the thread with a pointless discussion. 

The fact that legions of Paul supporters think that me having control over my body isn’t a big deal tells me quite clearly that they are Out of Touch with 51% of the population.  Like we need more of THOSE guys in charge of things.

I’ve been just holding up the hand and pointing at http://google.com/search?STFUConservatives+ron+paul at those guys.  I keep having to prove he’s a bigot or a theocrat or a misogynist or whatever type of scum and I’ve about had it.

He voted in such a way that means my spouse and I spend $9K more in taxes than a married couple.  It’s personal.

...That’s an interesting digestion of my link there, Pandagon.  Anyhow, I’m sure the point got across.

(forgot the q=, but the %replacements are funky.)

http://google.com/search?q=STFUConservatives+ron+paul

Also for republicans, they seem to nominate the candidate who has been there and ran before.

Which is precisely why, in spite of his Mormonism and the disdain much of the wingnut base has for him, Romney will be the GOP nominee in 2012.

With the exception of George W. Bush in 2000, every single Republican presidential nominee since Barry Goldwater has either been an incumbent POTUS or someone who had run before and lost. That’s why Romney will be the guy in 2012.

Romney will be the hardest to beat, sadly. Sigh

Ron Paul is the only republican candidate that has ever been right about anything, sure he’s like a stopped clock that is right twice a day, but the rest of the republican field is more like a broken clock with the hands still moving so it is never right.

In other words I guess he is the valedictorian of summer school

I think Kennedy is the only Democrat that has ever been assassinated and he was actually pretty status quo, especially with regards to foreign policy. During that period Dems had to prove extra hard that they would stand up to the commies and Kennedy continued us down the road to Vietnam, and approved the Bay of Pigs invasion which was an attempt at taking over a foreign country that could have caused the apocalypse. Also, he was assassinated by a lefty.

STFU Conserv quotes yet another idiocy from Faux News there - that Obama is our Muslim president and that is why the White House card is a holiday card.  Seeing as many Muslims do celibrate Xmas and Obama isn’t a Muslim even if they didn’t, an off-hand remark that Obama might be sending the card to people who don’t celebrate Xmas is really a bobbled, though not dropped, ball.

Well, setting aside the jaq’ing off conspiracy bs at the end, the tape recording conversation that is quoted has MacNamara trying to persuade Kennedy that the American people need to be given some sort of exit strategy. MacNamara convinces Kennedy that, after several years in Vietnam, the US can totally withdraw in 1965 because the S Vietnamese will be ready to fight on their own. Additionally, the withdraw included troops to be left their indefinitely. Also, the article says Kennedy believed in the Domino theory. Granted, it is quite likely Vietnam would not have been as bad had Kennedy lived and Johnson and Nixon deserve the majority of the blame for how bad things got, but JFK was pretty status quo for his era, would not have ended the coldwar, the military industrial complex, or the military bases/intrusions to countries all over the world. Furthermore, the withdrawal plan was MacNamara’s and he lived and remained quite powerful in the Johnson administration.

No doubt everything would have been different under Kennedy and quite likely even better, but he was not some radical departure from the status quo magic president that liberals keep hoping for.

Also, I really really do not want to go down the rabbit hole of who shot JFK, but at the very least, it is completely possible that Oswald shot JFK alone. The Stone film got both the position of the governor and the physics of the bullet wrong.

http://dsc.discovery.com/technology/im/jfk-gary-mack-tech-snuffs.html

Shouldn’t the title of this piece be “A splash of santorum smears insight on the irrelevance of Iowa”?

Just askin’. 

Ok, last post on this, I promise. The bullet struck Kennedy and he initially quickly jerked forward to the right. Kennedy’s skull slowed the bullet, so some of the bullet’s energy Kinectic Energy became pressure inside JFK’s head which was relieved when his brains shot out through the hole made in his head by the bullet causing his head to snap in the opposite direction, back and to the left. This is the reason why it looks like his whole had has exploded even though his face looks nice and intact in the autopsy photos.

snowmentality—David Weigel described the Paul-supporting Obama defectors as people in search of a magic president. I don’t think it is so much policy based, but a lot of people want to believe that what is wrong in the country right now is all the fault of one person rather than the complex mix of an out-dated, ineffective government system, a broken media and fact-checking system, and a lot of deeply embedded, toxic political ideas endemic in our culture. Paul just presents himself as having the simple answer.

Well, that and Paul’s the only major candidate of either party who supports the legalization of pot.  I’m sure that has something to do with it.

Come on! 

Everybody knows that JFK was killed by a consortium of Mafia bosses, disgruntled ex-Bay-of-Pigs survivors, operatives of the Cuban government, operatives of the South Vietnamese government, operatives of the North Vietnamese government, operatives of the Soviet government, operatives of the Chinese government, operatives of the North Korean government, a cabal of high-ranking US military officials, vengeance-seeking friends of Marilyn Monroe, one or more lone nutjobs, and Lyndon Johnson — all cooperating with both green and gray aliens still upset about Roswell.  Oh, and I forgot to mention that Jackie got in at least one shot herself with a cute little .25 caliber pearl-handled purse-sized lady-pistol.

Get yer facts straight, people!...

alysia, that sounds similar to the dynamics behind a countercoup injury, where the damage takes place to the area of the brain that is on the opposite side of where the actual blow occurs.

I am not going to argue anymore because I said I wouldn’t, but the explanation above is the “official story,” and is usually explained by some expert on every “debunking the Kennedy conspiracy” type tv special and the shot has been recreated with the same results on both myth busters and that “beyond the magic bullet” special that was on Discovery as well as through computer simulations of the event. His whole body jerked both directions, but nothing changed the back/left jerk so it lasted longer.

No one will ever know what caused Ruby to act, but I think “he was crazy” is a likely explanation and “the mafia” is much more likely than somehow having to tie ruby to the military industrial complex. 

I only brought this up because the dude that wrote that article claimed that no one believed that Oswald could have shot those three shots when many forensic scientist believe that and it has been recreated on multiple occasions. This creates a bit of a credibility gap for the article writing dude. My overall point is that change is hard work with many moving parts and there has never been and will never be a magic president that can make it all better.

Blue Jean, I don’t know how I could have forgotten the stoner vote!

Blue Jean, I don’t know how I could have forgotten the stoner vote!

Not a problem, alysia.  The old saying “A libertarian is a conservative who likes to smoke pot.” should be Ron Paul’s campaign slogan.

Besides, if anyone looks at the paranoid ravings of Paul’s news letters, (“There’s a race war coming! The gubmint changed the currency just to persecute us! ARRRGH!”), it’s clear that somebody’s been smoking the wacky weed.

And, really, how much is he “against the war?”  I am sure he’d approve of Exxon/Mobile Texas hiring a private Xe Army to invade Iran and pass on all the costs at the pump…

FTFY