Half Sigma

Another post complaining about the media's coronation of McCain

This morning on CNBC, a political “analyst” told us that Republicans like to “coalesce” behind the front-runner, so McCain will easily win the Republican nominee, and the only interesting stuff is happening in the Democratic primary.

My favorite blogger, Steve Sailer, picked up on this issue yesterday, noting how the NY Times has ignored Romney’s win in Maine. CNN claims that Romney has won all 18 delegates from Maine. The party loyalists in Maine who attended the caucus/straw poll obviously didn’t get the message that they’re supposed to “coalesce” around McCain.

The CNN delegate scorecard now shows McCain leading Romney by the tiny margin of 97 to 92 delegates. How can someone be the front-runner with such a narrow lead in delegates? If Florida were not a winner-take-all state, Romney would be the one in the lead, not McCain.

Some bloggers and blog commenters have alleged that reason the media is doing this is because they see McCain as being unelectable because he’s too old and too supportive of Bush’s Iraq policies, and by supporting him they help put a Democrat into the White House. But I disagree, I believe that liberal journalists innocently and genuinely like McCain more than Romney because they see McCain as “bipartisan,” and as having “enlightened views on immigration reform.” If anything, the media seems to buy into the argument that McCain is the most electable Republican, an argument that I think is overstated--voters would come around to Romney once they get to know him better

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Also check out these comments by Mike Huckabee, who seems to have an intense dislike of Romney. Huckabee, by staying in the race, is obviously trying to hurt Romney, and maneuver himself into a Vice Presidential nomination. This would be extremely bad for the Republican Party because it would make him the de facto front-runner for the next presidential election cycle.

GOP debate!

I watched the GOP debate last night, which was supposedly limited to the topic of the economy. I did fast-forward through some of the parts where guys who had no chance of winning the nomination were speaking.

GIULIANI

I was most interested in hearing what Giuliani had to say, because he’s most likely to be the party’s nominee.

On the positive side, Giuliani hit the key conservative economic principles of lower taxes, “moderate” regulation, and controlling government spending. He also plugged nuclear energy, which is good.

On the bad side, he talked too much about energy independence and a “Manhattan Project” for energy independence. I previously blogged about why an energy Manhattan Project is a bogus idea.

He followed up the bogusness with the idea, repeated many times, that we can then sell energy independence to other countries, thus solving the trade deficit problem.

Another thing I didn’t like was his fascist sounding ideas about fighting “child predators” and child pornography on the internet. Is this really one of the top-ten economic problems facing the United States?

ROMNEY

This guy looks just like the executive level bosses in Dilbert cartoons. I’m not talking about the first level boss with the pointy hair (who looks most like Giuliani), but the vice president level bosses are always tall and have the exact same haircut that Romney has.

Of all the candidates on stage, Romney was the best at not saying anything at all. He said nothing where I could say “wow, that’s something different!” Neither did he say anything where I could say “wow, that’s dumb!” I guess if you want a completely boring but good looking candidate who’s very good at repeating traditional Republican platitudes, and don’t care about his Mormon background, then he’s your man.

MCCAIN

Maria Bartiromo asked him about the preferential tax rate for hedge fund managers, which he completely ignored and instead made a big, obviously prepared speech about the economy (which wasn’t as good as Giuliani’s much simpler version). So Maria Bartiromo asked him the question again, which confused McCain because he obviously completely forgot about the original question. Then he regained his composure, and once again talked about some stuff that was unresponsive to the question.

THOMPSON

The MSM pundits think he did well, but this is primarily because they had such low expectations. I came into this without any expectations at all, so therefore my opinion is that he sucked. He’s ugly, a poor public speaker (how was this guy an actor?), and has absolutely no charisma. There’s no way he could ever beat Hillary.

Thompson was able to identify the prime minister of Canada. A pretty mean question on the part of Chris Matthews. Did Thompson know the answer because he knew it, or because he was prepped for the last week by debate experts? I have to admit that I didn’t know the answer. I guess I skip over news about Canadian politics whenever I read the newspaper.

PAUL

Cuckoo!!!!

Every time he spoke, he used it as an opportunity to mention “monetary policy.” Behind this is the guy’s support for the gold standard, which he at least had the good sense not to mention in front of the TV cameras.

I don’t see how this guy is raising any money when his pet issue is returning America to the gold standard.

Occasionally people ask, “Half Sigma, why don’t you support Ron Paul?” I don’t support him because his main issue is one on which he is completely wrong. A gold standard would be disastrous for the United States. The U.S. dollar has become the world’s primary reserve currency, which benefits us greatly because it essentially means that we are exporting dollars to the world, and it’s an export product that costs us nothing to manufacture.

Under the gold standard, we had the Great Depression. Under fiat currency, there has been nothing as bad as that. Under fiat currency, we are the world’s most powerful economy. So how is fiat currency hurting us? Why change what works?

He also said that America has never been attacked in 220 years. Giuliani responded by saying we were attacked on 9/11. Half Sigma responds, “morons, what about Pearl Harbor?”

BROWNBACK

Obviously, I was wrong when I predicted his campaign would pick up steam. But he did have one interesting comment. When asked about the biggest problem facing the economy, he talked about unwed mothers.

He’s on the right track. Kids raised by welfare moms will likely grow up to be a drag on everyone else. Giuliani answered the same question with “education.” I am sick and tired of presidents and presidential candidates talking about education. Has any federal policy in my lifetime actually improved education?

GIULIANI V. ROMNEY

They had an exchange about who had the better tax cutting record as mayor or governor. I have to give this exchange to Romney. I live in New York City, I know as well as anyone that the taxes here are higher than anywhere else. Giuliani says he cut taxes “23 times,” but I don’t see any evidence of it when I fill out my New York tax returns.

They also had an exchange about the line item veto. Romney says (liberally paraphrasing), “line item veto, line item veto, line item veto.” Giuliani says “the Supreme Court said it’s unconstitutional at the federal level, so get over it.” Giuliani won this exchange.

Between the two of them, Giuliani is the more fun candidate to listen to. I think that Giuliani is the one who has the charisma needed to beat Hillary. He also has the cajones to get things done. If America is attacked, Giuliani will be out there commanding our armed forces while Romney is talking over the problem with "lawyers."

A PLEDGE NOT TO INCREASE TAXES

This is a dumb idea subject to multiple interpretations. What’s a tax increase? Does a president who takes this pledge have to veto any statute that might cause someone’s tax liability to increase, even it closes a huge loophole?

Giuliani is a lot saner when he says that he has the intention to lower taxes, but he only pledges to support and uphold the constitution.

UNIONS

Every candidate says he absolutely love unions. Anyone hoping for a union-busting president is going to be out of luck.

IMMIGRATION

Not a bad word was said about immigration. (Maybe Tom Tancredo said something about it, but I fast forwarded through a lot of his answers).

Clearly, if anything is going to be done about the immigration problem, it’s not going to be done by a Republican president (because Tom Tancredo has zero chance of winning the Republican nomination).

Christian Right has no one to vote for

This story about "a private meeting at a Florida resort" of the most influential members of the Christian Right affirms my posts about how Rudy Giuliani is destined to win.

We already know the Christian Right doesn't like Rudy, but the article also affirms my point that they also don't like John McCain nor Mitt Romney.

Surprisingly, they also have problems with Mike Huckabee and Sam Brownback because they are not anti-immigration small government conservatives. In any event, they admit that these guys have no chance of winning. "[M]any conservatives expressed concerns about whether any of the candidates could unify their movement or raise enough money to overtake the front-runners."

Rudy pulling ahead

The latest poll shows that Rudy continues to pull ahead:

Asked whom they favored for the Republican nomination, 40 percent of Republican voters named Mr. Giuliani, while 18 percent chose John McCain.

I think this race will be wrapped up months before a single primary vote is cast.

Can a pro-abortion Republican be nominated?

People say that presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani can't win the Republican Party nomination because he's "pro-choice."

However the Republican nominating process is a series of state contests, and there are plenty of examples of "pro-choice" Republicans who have won state-wide contests.

The following Republican Senators are in the "pro-choice" camp:

Lincoln Chafee, Rhode Island
Olympia Snowe, Maine
Susan Collins, Maine
Lisa Murkowski, Alaska
Arlen Specter, Pennsylvania

The following Republican governors are in the "pro-choice" camp:

Arnold Schwarzeneggar, California
George Pataki, New York
Christine Todd Whitman, New Jersey

This above is only a partial list. And surely many pro-abortion Republicans won state-wide primaries but then lost in the general election, because pro-abortion Republicans tend to come from states where Democrats usually win. Supposedly anti-abortion Mitt Romney was pro-abortion back in 1994 when he ran for the Senate in Massachusetts and lost in the general election.

Giuliani, who is "pro-choice," will surely win primaries in nearly all of the states which Gore won in the 2000 election, and Guiliani will surely win Florida where he is very popular because a lot of ex-New Yorkers live there. Gore's states plus Florida will contribute about half the delegates to the Republican National Convention. (Republican delegates don't match exactly with electoral college delegates because of the bonus delegates which are given to States that voted Republican in the 2004 presidential election. See this explanation.)

Being pro-choice hasn't prevented Giuliani from raising massive money for his campaign.

Sure, there may be some super-conservative states in the midwest which vote for some other candidate, but it's not clear who. The religious side of the party never liked McCain much, Mitt Romney flip-flopped on abortion and he also believes that God is an alien from another planet, Newt is solidly anti-abortion but his multiple divorces and lesbian sister surely don't endear him to the religious wing. Officially, Newt isn't even running. Sam Brownback or Mike Huckabee will have to rise up to rally the anti-abortion vote but so far they are barely registering in the polls.

It's hard to see how Giuliani's pro-abortion stance will stop him from at least bringing a plurality of delegates to the convention, although that scenario is pretty doubtful. When was the last time a nomination was actually unknown going into the convention? The likely scenario is that Giuliani will win the lion's share of early delegates and the other candidates will drop out, leaving Giuliani the undisputed winner long before the convention.

Rudy Giuliani will be the next President of the United States

I have become convinced, in part by Dick Morris, that Rudy Giuliani will be the next President of the United States.

Every pundit "knows" that Giuliani can't win the Republican nomination because he's pro-abortion. I fell for this same line of thinking myself, but now I realize it was wrong. Sure, it's a hurdle, but with Giuliani way out in front, and McCain falling behind, Rudy looks like he's home free.

The majority of both parties are moderate. Most Republicans are slightly right of center and most Democrats are slightly left of center. The idealogical hardcore may have disproportionate influence at the leadership level, but they aren't the majority of voters. Maybe one third of Republicans won't vote for Rudy, but that third will split their vote between too many other candidates. The moderate Republicans will love Rudy's charisma. He's the hero of 9/11 and America's Mayor.

Mitt Romney won't capture the religious voters because evangelical Christians don't want to vote for a guy who believes that God is an alien from another planet.

I still support Newt, and indeed Newt is rising in the polls and may soon be in second place behind Giuliani. I correctly predicted that Newt was the only real conservative who had a chance of winning.

I still think that Sam Brownback will rise in the polls before this is over, but perhaps so will Mike Huckabee. One of them has to drop out because they are clones of each other who will just steal each others' votes.

In a matchup against Hillary Clinton, Rudy Giuliani will win easily. And indeed, this is one reason why Rudy will win the nomination. What do conservatives hate most? Hillary Clinton as president. Hillary Clinton's likely nomination on the Democratic side will cause Republicans to vote for the candidate most likely to defeat her because they'd rather have a pro-abortion Republican. At least Giuliani says he opposes gay marriage and that he will appoint judges like Alito and Roberts. Newt Gingrich, who will rise as the alternative to the right of Rudy, will be deemed a risk in the general election.

This sure does make things interesting. Rudy will steal votes away from the smart half of the Democratic Party, reversing the trend of the past few election in which high IQ voters have been defecting from the Republican Party.

Rudy pulling ahead

A few days ago I said that Rudy Giuliani had no chance of winning the Republican nomination, but maybe I was wrong. Interesting analysis at FrontPage about how Rudy is pulling ahead.

In any event McCain look like he's falling behind, so if there's going to be a challenger to Rudy it's going to be Mitt who wears the Mormon underwear, Newt, or one of the Christian guys like Sam Brownback. What a weird race it's turning into for the Republicans.

The Democratic side of 2008

Unfortunately, I don't have any really deep insights into here. There only seem to be four candidates that have a chance: Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Al Gore, and John Edwards.

The polls show that Hillary has a huge lead over everyone else. It seems like her nomination to lose.

Before further analyzing the race, let's write off Al Gore. As the former Vice President and the Democratic nominee in 2000, you'd expect him to be in the lead at this point of the race. Similar to the way that John McCain is in the lead on the Republican side. The fact that he's way behind not only Hillary, but also Barack Obama, shows that he doesn't have much of a chance.

Democratic Party voters are divided into two halves: the smart half and the dumb half. Hillary dominates the smart half of the party. Most journalists are Democrats, and all journalists come from the smart half of the party. So the news media is behind Hillary, and that's a powerful thing.

But what about the dumb half? Could the dumb half swing the election to someone else? Normally, the dumb half is overpowered by the smart half. The smart half votes more frequently, esepecially in primary elections, all the candidates are from the smart half even if they appeal to the dumb half, and of course everyone in the news media is from the smart half.

I think that, this time around, the dumb half will divide their vote. Barack Obama will appeal to the black part of the dumb half, while John Edwards will appeal to the white part of the dumb half. Dumb white voters don't want a black guy or a woman as president. I'm not sure who the dumb Hispanic voters will vote for, maybe they will split between Obama and Edwards?

But I still wouldn't entirely write off Edwards. Assuming Gore drops out because he's too boring, that leaves Edwards as the only traditional white male candidate. In the end, Democrats could worry about the electability of a black guy or a woman, and the woman in question is already hated by a lot of people. Edwards could wind up winning the nomination based on an overpowering showing from the dumb half, especially after Obama drops out allowing him to pull in the black vote, along with a weaker showing from primary voters from the smart half who worry about Hillary's electability.

Half Sigma supports Newt Gingrich for President

Let's examine who the Republican candidates are.

Rudy Giuliani. He's the hero of 9/11, but what exactly does he stand for? He never was a real Republican commited to fiscal conservatism and limited government. And he's pro-immigration. Furthermore, he has no chance of winning the Republican nomination because he's not acceptable to the party's Christian wing.

John McCain. He's the only major candidate that I've seen in person. More than once. So if he's the next president, I'll be able to say "hey, I shook his hand at a Salt River Project charity event at the Library of Congress." But I'll pass on that opportunity. McCain is probably the real front-runner because he's more acceptable to the Christian wing of the party than Giuliani, and the other candidates further to the right are question marks.

Mitt Romney. He wears Mormon underwear. Can a guy who wears Mormon underwear become president? I don't think so. To Romney's credit, he's anti-immigration, and I'd vote for him over...

Sam Brownback. I first wrote about Sam Brownback in August. He has recently announced his candidacy, and he has the backing of billionaire Catholic philanthropist Tom Monaghan. I predicted six months ago that he'd be a serious candidate, and even though the mainstream media hasn't quite figured it out yet, his candidacy is progressing nicely. Of course I don't support the guy. He's represents everything that's bad about in the Republican Party and he's pro-immigration. You can think of him as a Democrat who supports all the Christian social policies except that supporting Christian social policies is a dealbreaker with the Democrats so he's a Republican.

Mike Huckabee. Sam Brownback light. Don't know much about him.

Newt Gingrich. Of all the potential candidates, he's the most intellectual. He has a PhD in European History and he's a college professor. Can you imgagine George W. Bush as college professor? Even though he associates himself with the Christian right, I'm comforted by the fact that he's been divorced twice and has a lesbian sister. He's a real person and not some Christian zealot. Newt is opposed to granting amnesty to illegal aliens, he supports making English the official language of the U.S. and a requirement for citizenship, and he wants to reform our healthcare system which is a big mess in dire need of reforming.

Is Newt even running? Well I think he's waiting for a grassroots movement to draft him into the race. So I'm doing my part here. Newt is the only Republican candidate with a serious chance of winning who is truly worth supporting.

Will Sam Brownback be the next President?

Who is Sam Brownback? He’s a Senator from Kansas who just might be the next President of the United States.

I’ve written many previous blog posts about how the Christian wing of the Republican Party has grown stronger. It is now impossible for someone to win the Republican nomination without the support of the Christians. This rules out east coast liberal Republicans like Rudy Giuliani or George Pataki. John McCain, the man who many consider the frontrunner, also isn’t well liked by the Christian right. He lost in his 2000 bid for the Republican nomination, and I don’t see how anything has changed that’s going to enable him to win in 2008.

So if you want to figure out who’s going to win the Republican nomination, you need to look at who’s going to be able to pick up the Christian vote. And that person is Sam Brownback. All the evangelical Christians are behind him, and he has the support of Pat Robertson. He’s a shoe-in to win the Iowa caucuses, a state which is very friendly to Christian candidates and which borders his home state of Kansas. Pat Robertson came in first place in Iowa in 1988.

One thing unusual about Brownback’s evangelical support is that he’s Catholic. This makes him a stronger candidate because he doesn’t alienate the Catholic vote. He is guaranteed to have strong support among Hispanic voters, not only because of his Catholicism and conservative religious views, but also because he’s soft on immigration. He favored the immigration reform bill that would grant amnesty to illegal aliens. He also has two adopted kids who aren’t white.

FURTHER READING

USA Today article on Sam Brownback
Rolling Stone hatchet job article on Sam Brownback
Sam Brownback fan blog