Update Sunday morning:
Joe Paterno died in the hospital. Family confirmed the death.
False reports of Paterno’s death during the night were a few hours premature.
Update [False report] Different news break: Joe Paterno dead
Word out that this report, from networks and cable, is not true. Paterno said by his family to be very ill.
A different kind of surprising news, breaking news, in a different political realm: Joe Paterno just died.
South Carolina primary day live blog
Time
10:25 p.m.
As previously noted (below), the gender gap in SC voter turnout was men 53 percent; women 47 percent.
The population of South Carolina is 4,625,364 as of 2010, up 15.3% from 2000 to 2010.
Female 51.4%
Registered voters 2,722,344
So somewhat more than half the state is registered to vote. Not registered by party.
Daily Caller emphasizes that Gingrich won the women’s vote in SC, at least with a plurality of 36 percent. Romney came in second with 30 percent of the women’s vote.
However, most women in South Carolina did not vote.
Dems for Gingrich?
The stridently rightwing Examiner offers a further thesis: Gingrich was elected by Democrats.
“Consider this–unlike most other primaries, South Carolina voters don’t have to register their party affiliation. With no election this time around on the Democratic Party side, it’s a guaranteed bet that a number of South Carolina Democrats voted in today’s primary. As one could assume, some voted because it was an exciting Republican race. Some voted because they had nothing better to do today. And some Democrats voted to help sway the GOP primary toward President Obama’s hopeful opponent–Newt Gingrich.
How much of an effect did the Democrats have on the Republican Party’s South Carolina primary today? It would be almost impossible to quantify. But rest assured, just as former Speaker Gingrich can thank women and evangelicals for his victory today, he can thank Democrats as well.”
There are already copious signs of Republican and conservative discomfort with Gingrich’s win in South Carolina. This is but one of them. David Gergen and others are openly–already–discussing the possibility of a brokered GOP convention, or of a split convention, or of finding someone else to jump into the race if Gingrich and Romney continue in their present courses. The discussion is undoubtedly premature, but it accurately reflects the party’s widespread aversion to Gingrich, who earned it.
So far, the Examiner is the only publication to blame the SC primary outcome on Democrats. Seems a bit far-fetched. I would think that if Democrats or others really wanted to participate constructively in the Republican primary in South Carolina, they would have voted for Herman Cain/Colbert.
But time will tell.
7:45 p.m.
CNN has now joined all the others in projecting SC for Gingrich, who with a whole 4 percent of precincts in has taken the lead over Romney. Only question remaining for South Carolina, all hands concede, is how big the lead will be. If it’s double digits for Newtie, Florida–what will the campaign be like?
They haven’t said what the effect will be should Gingrich carry South Carolina GOPers by only single digits. The first three races have resulted in a win apiece for three candidates. Somewhat like 1964? —
Speaking of previous decades, a wonderful book is still floating around on the 1972 election, titled The Boys on the Bus. Author, Timothy Crouse.
Here is Crouse with a still-timely passage on George Romney, Mitt Romney’s father. The effect on the campaigns stems from the success of Teddy White’s Making of the President books:
“As recently as 1960, or even 1964, a coalition of party heavies, state conventions, and big-city bosses had chosen the candidate in relatively unviolated privacy, and then presented him to the press to report on.
Now the press screened the candidates, usurping the partys’ old function. By reporting a man’s political strengths, they made him a front runner; by mentioning his weaknesses and liabilities, they cut him down. Teddy White, even in his wildest flights of megalomania, had never allowed imself this kind of power. The press was no longer simply guessing who might run and who might win; the press was in some way determining these things.”
Side note: Much as the old party bosses over-relied on their own ‘power’ and ultimately ruined themselves by overreaching, the insiders in the national political press went on to do the same thing. Hence the millions of members of the public who turned first to cable television and then to the Internet. People got tired of not being able to find out anything by reading the paper. Thus the press got its comeuppance from the Internet.
Back, meanwhile, to George Romney:
“The classic example was George Romney. Romney had opened his campaign almost a year before the first primary, expecting a press contingent of two or three reporters. Instead, twenty or thirty showed up for Romney’s first exploratory trips around the country, and they all reported Romney’s embarrassing inability to give coherent answers to their questions about Vietnam, thus dooming his candidacy. But Romney was the perfect, textbook example. The process was usually more subtle, and more difficult to describe.”
Not that Romney senior was the only one, by a long shot. But the elder Romney’s experience provides a rationale for Mitt Romney’s perceived distance from the press.
Newt Gingrich, in contrast, cultivates the press. Politico reported yesterday that Gingrich pretty much butters reporters like toast, in fact.
It will be mildly interesting to see what face Gingrich turns to Florida. He got South Carolina by being ugly, if the numbers hold up. But Florida has different demographics and not a lot of fondness for being lumped in with South Carolina.
7:24 p.m.
Most of television has called it for Gingrich. No votes reported, no precincts, in unofficial returns on the South Carolina State Election Commission big board yet.
If the elite media jumped the gun for Gingrich, that might be ironic. Or it might suggest that bullying these guys works.
7:19 p.m.
Only CNN, of all the majors, is not calling South Carolina for Gingrich. Out of an abundance of caution, since only two precincts have turned in votes, they’re not saying. Makes sense.
Votes in so far show Gingrich and Romney neck-and-neck (Romney ahead by one, a minute ago). Rather a different tenor from the other media outlets, from which one would think that Newt had almost all the votes, with all the other candidates scrapping for a fourth-place tie.
7:03 p.m.
Sure enough, seconds past 7:00 p.m. when South Carolina polls closed, Fox News calls it for Newt Gingrich. NBC, ABC et al follow suit.
This is linked by the suits on television to exit polls showing that 45 percent of GOPers voting in South Carolina rated ability to beat Obama their top concern.
The concern is understandable from their (heated) perspective, but that led them to vote for Gingrich? Note that they don’t call it ‘electability,’ which would be a stretch as applied to Gingrich. They presumably just feel that Gingrich would say the ugliest and most shameful things on the stump and perhaps on the debate stage.
Women, by the way, did not vote in the same numbers as men in SC. The men had a 53-to-47 percent margin in turnout.
6:41 p.m.
Back to ‘weather’ and ‘turnout’: What is mind-blowing is to hear this kind of discussion about a Republican election, any Republican election, and about a Republican candidate.
Back when, weather-and-turnout was applied to Democrats, and generally with some undertone having to do with either race, poverty, or blue-collar workers, or all three. The line of thought, you see, was that Certain Paople were more easily influenced than others. Stalwart Republican voters would turn out, out of a sense of duty, in this line of thought, rain or shine. The little blue-haired ladies, the white-belt-white-shoes contingent, retired military, etc, they would always vote, with or without enthusiasm, with or without special issues, with or without hot-button topics in the headlines. Those people with little pins in their lapels did not need any special stimulus to go pull the lever for whatever candidate the party establishment threw at them. Plus, they tended to drive better cars–this is the same line of thought–so they were less affected by bad weather anyway. Maybe an extra car wash during the week, but nothing to affect the election.
Turnout and weather, au contraire, were held to be closely entertwined on the Democratic side. Some paople just can’t handle the slightest obstacle. Even the slightest difficulty keeps them from doing what they should.
We’re hearing this last thought, if you call it that, in the Gingrich campaign. Gingrich is doing it more explicitly and with more sharp-edged ugliness than most people have thought tolerable over the last thirty years.
But to hear on the airwaves that Mitt Romney desperately needs good weather?
Mind-boggling.
Ironically, it has been less current as applied to the Dems, ever since Jesse Jackson ran and won the Virginia primary in 1988.
6:18 p.m.
At six-ish the major cable channels began official coverage of the South Carolina primary, as opposed to just talking about it almost nonstop.
The biggest surprise from MSNBC so far: Keith Olbermann‘s name briefly flashed across the screen, in the crawl. Olbermann was named as one of the commentators providing coverage of the primary.
Not so. Just a stutter. Nothing to see here.
Olbermann will be covering the primary, but from newer venue as of last year, at Current TV.
First exit polls indicate that surprisingly 64 percent of GOPers who turned out describe themselves as born-again/evangelicals, 66 percent support the Tea Party, and 69 percent are conservative.
Question is how this preponderance plays among Santorum–who says he’s felt a surge since yesterday–Gingrich and Paul, presumably.
5:05 p.m.
Not a dissentient voice on MSNBC as to Gingrich’s win in South Carolina. Craig Melvin just reported that every politico in SC says it’s not a question of whether Gringrich will win, just by what percentage. Drumbeat for Newt turning into an avalanche, from all signs. The weather is also touted as a sign of things to come, rain depressing turnout–and Mitt Romney, of all candidates in the world, dependent on turnout. So it is said.
This is a twist in itself. Turnout reported to be high in upstate South Carolina, voters coming out for Gingrich (and Santorum? and Paul?) Turnout light to steady on the coast, and in the midlands, where the votescasters feel that Romney would get more support.
Entertaining piece by James Carville as CNN commentator, taking some easy shots but undeniably good ones. It might be premature to call the GOP field a “disaster” (aside from their core policy, breaking the middle class and destroying everyone but the super-rich). Abysmally unqualified candidates have managed to emerge victorious before. But politically speaking things are not looking too good for them at the moment, except for the humor. Stephen Colbert as Herman Cain is doing a great job, head-and-shoulders above the other candidates. No other candidate even comes close, although at least Ron Paul has remained consistent on his views and stated positions. He can speak understandably, too.
12:13 p.m.
In all the on-air chatter about Romney’s gaffe and Romney as out-of-touch, no one has mentioned how much like legalized bribery, or subornation, speaker fees are to begin with. No one brings up the Koch-brother-funded functions where right-wingers like Charles Krauthammer and George Will prostitute the art of letters in service to war and exploitation. David Brock of Media Matters noted in his after-the-fall book that he was no longer going to receive six-figure speaking gigs and seven-figure book advances. Has anyone pointed out that those six-figure and seven-figure payments are going to propaganda instead of to legitimate publishing and writing, what we used to call arts and letters? Has anyone talked about America’s intellectual infrastructure?
Not this week.
All the pundits declare this Romney’s worst week ever. These are the pundits who determined three days ago that Romney was the inevitable nominee. The Rominee. True enough, Romney has suffered a downturn–the Santorum win in Iowa, Newt Gingrich surging in the polls, more verbal slips. Thus we have a new overworked word to be sick of, “collapsing.” (Re Romney’s campaign.) First it was “coalesce.” Then “forgiveness.”
I’m all for forgiveness. The one episode of Modern Family I’ve seen did a nice job with it, too. But there is some woolliness about how this concept is being applied in the current commentary. It is pure, and clean, and noble, to forgive someone who has wronged you. It is less noble to forgive someone who has wronged someone else.
Speaking of gagging, some commentators are also taking a new oddly deferential tone about Newt Gingrich. Partly this reflects the newest opinion polls, partly the standing ovation when Gingrich used John King’s question about the Marianne Gingrich interview to vilify “elite media” and their (fancied) protection of Barack Obama. The man is tripping—or rather, lying—but that’s not the main point right here.
The big thorn here is that Gingrich comes across as rather loathesome. He may have boosted himself in South Carolina by out-uglying everyone else, but there is a reckoning ahead. For King not to have asked about the “open marriage” interview at all would have been ridiculous.
It would have been better not to lead off by asking about it, but ignoring it entirely would have looked odd. There is no reason to bend over backward for Newt Gingrich. A couple of things not mentioned on air: When the candidates entered the room for that South Carolina debate, as each name was announced, Gingrich got boos as well as cheers. And when Gingrich got his standing ovation for attacking King, plenty of women remained seated.
10:39 a.m.
Another ongoing theme of discussion, on air at least–how or why Mitt Romney has so much trouble ‘connecting’ with the average person. Maybe eventually they’ll get around to discussing the rich-get-rich economic policy destined to turn the U.S.A. into ColombiaArabia if not redressed.
Not any time soon, though.
That said, there are moments when I feel sorry for Mitt Romney. It happens when Romney’s calling his $374K speaking fees “not very much” comes up in the news media.
Romney announces
It is surprising to feel this way about a candidate whose policies as president would in all likelihood be worse than GWBush’s, but even an offshoring robber baron can be misunderstood.
Take that off-the-cuff “not very much” comment:
That fact has been duly noted, the point made. Income inequality has finally lighted up on the big board.
N.b. Re the question raised earlier about how well Gingrich is doing among women–today’s Washington Post quotes from 15 women interviewed in So. Carolina, most of whom support Gingrich in the exchange with John King at Thursday night’s debate. Several of them seem from the quoted comments to be more siding against Marianne Gingrich, but it works the same way.
9:57 a.m.
It’s Saturday, the non-Tuesday GOP primary in South Carolina–forget religious observance–and the talking heads are going at it. This is not lawn-mowing weather anyhow.
Big question of course is whether Newt Gingrich managed to out-ugly everybody else enough to pull off a South Carolina win that would be considered an upset. The most recent polls put Gingrich ahead of the field including Romney.
“Callista doesn’t care what I do.”
How people judge the content of the Marianne Gingrich interview is up to them. I believe the woman, but many people reportedly believe Gingrich’s denial. Either way, presenting this issue as public-versus-private muddies it.
The issue as applied to Newt Gingrich is not divorce or that Gingrich is thrice-married. The issue is how Gingrich has treated women—asking for a romantic triangle, etc–with some perceivable parallel to how he treats the suffering and unfortunate, the poor, and minorities; his penchant for bullying and for lying; his ethics violations while in office and then denying same; etc. Whether he has a track record of treating people decently is a reasonable question in the circumstances. To present this question as unwarranted intrusion into a public figure’s private life, like someone sneaking photographs of the Duchess of Cambridge, is mistaken at best. Too bad they keep using the vague generality “character” instead of asking, Does the candidate treat people with decency and respect?
The Gingriches, in earlier years
On that question, Barack Obama shows well. He has a track record of having treated the people in his life decently. Maybe that’s why they don’t ask the question on television, during an election year. It would weigh in the president’s favor too much. He hasn’t laid off a bunch of people, either.
Back to Gringrich, what makes the current opinion polls really remarkable is that quoted statement that Callista didn’t care what Gingrich did—i.e. having an ongoing three-way relationship while remaining married to Marianne, for six years. Gingrich is out ahead after that? Maybe: Most times when I have thought one thing and the polls showed another, the polls have been vindicated. But I’ll believe it when I see it.
Forget the overworked and tired terms “Christian right” and “values voters.” Assuming that fundamentalist right-wingers are the only people who care about the conduct in question is like assuming that African-Americans are the only people who care about Gingrich’s misstatements on food stamps. False, but television largely has not caught up with the trends.
Am I the only voter who remembers that right-wing Southern women often disparaged Hillary Clinton for staying with Bill Clinton? Am I the only pop-culture aficionado who remembers Gone with the Wind, that bible of fun-loving white South Carolinians? Remember the laugh the Yankee women got, at the expense of Southern womanhood, when Ashley Wilkes and the guys supposedly got caught drunk in a brothel and their women put up with it?
(Mere) postscript to Iowa caucuses: Who won
2012 is here, and they did it again: After weeks and months of hysterical conjecture about who’s-going-to-win in Iowa, the public gets a staggering indifference as to who won. The Des Moines Register reports that, as far as is known, Rick Santorum came out ahead of Mitt Romney by a near-landslide 34 votes. However, with perceptible mistakes in 131 precincts, there are too many holes in the count, the paper reports, for the true winner ever to be known.
Kudos to Bradblog, for being all over this question from early on, following the caucuses.
A full report containing all the certified results is due to be released this morning.
The morning talking heads have taken note of this development only to discuss it in terms of the horse race. As of now, we have the following consensus: 1) the Iowa results were a statistical tie anyway; 2) this (the outcome) messes up the narrative about Romney as the first Republican to win both IA and NH; 3) old news; and 4) who cares.
There has been no discussion about the problems in getting an accurate vote tally in 2012, in what has historically been one of the most transparent and least manipulable voting processes in the nation.
There they go again. As previously written, all that focus on who will win, little corresponding emphasis on who did win.
There are signs of the times on related matters, however. For one thing, many of the talking heads are intensely touting the line that the election will be ‘close’. This is one way to avoid talking about policy, and talking in specific detail about policy would tend to make the election less close. Let the public get a gander at Romney’s tax plan, for example, discussed by five or six guests and hosts at length and with colorful anecdote the way they talk about being in Iowa or South Carolina.
That close-election firewall protects the GOP.
Notwithstanding the firewall provided by corporate media outlets, MSNBC morning host Joe Scarborough seems to be bothered by the display being put on by the GOP field: He is boosting a ‘centrist’ third party candidate, yet to be named, who will blame both parties for the mess in Washington.
That anyone could buy this tactic does not speak well for reporting in our time.
2004 Election revisited, part 5: DC games versus the grassroots
Dean
The presidential election cycle suffered an odd interlude in winter 2004. Few people remember now, and this kind of topic is not usually revived on cable or network talk shows, but what happened derailed or destroyed the most promising grassroots activity on the Democratic side.
Most politicos remember in some fashion the swift turn downward for Howard Dean’s campaign when CNN jumped on the so-called ‘Dean scream’ nonstop. Few to no politicos mention that the Dean campaign was also on the receiving end of attack by a particularly shadowy 527 organization.
This particular org seems to have been roused to action by some mention of health care in a campaign year. (Danger afoot; the public might like health.) A weird little one-or-two-man ‘group’ called “Americans for Jobs, Healthcare [sic], and Progressive Values” sprang suddenly into action, not to mention into existence.
Any investigation is, of course, history now. However, the trajectory of events looks to be uncomfortably relevant in election 2012, when those 527s are dwarfed by current super-PACs.
Midnight, February 2, 2004, was the deadline for filing IRS form 8872, the comprehensive financial disclosure required of political organizations called 527s. Form 8872 is another of those ‘regulations’ so hated by GOP presidential candidates. It is important because it reveals who has contributed money to the organizations, which, unlike individual candidates and political parties, do not have to file disclosure statements with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) but only with the Internal Revenue Service. Federal law requires that the forms be filed electronically, by any 527 organizations that took in or spent more than $50,000 in 2003.
Early the next morning, I checked the IRS web site to see the financial contributors for the elusive group called “Americans for Jobs, Healthcare [sic], and Progressive Values.” (Slight warning sign: politicians genuinely concerned about health care can usually spell it.)
The group officially began in November 2003, ran three anti-Howard Dean ads including an especially noxious one picturing Osama bin Laden, and almost immediately went inactive. Its web site went down or “under construction,” and it listed few contacts. Its second president in two months was insurance executive and former Ohio congressman Edward F. Feighan, but his insurance office in Columbus said that Feighan was no longer connected to “Americans for Jobs etc.” Feighan’s office could provide no current information about the group, its current officers, or whether it had a head. Spokesman Robert Gibbs, a former staffer of John Kerry’s in DC, did not return numerous calls and voice messages.*
There was no form 8872 or other quarterly filing for the group, and no filing beyond the initial form 8871 dated Nov. 14, 2003.
After more attempts, I was able to talk to the group’s treasurer, David W. Jones, a Democratic fundraiser in DC, who informed me that the organization was not dissolving but also stated that he was the group’s sole officer listed at this point. Jones referred me to Kenneth A. Gross, a partner in the large law firm Skadden, Arps, for information regarding Americans for Jobs’ financial filing.
Many attorneys do not even take Election Law in law school. Gross, in Bethesda, Md., has extensive credentials as an election law attorney and served in the FEC for six years under Reagan (1980-1986). Maryland public records show that Gross was a registered Republican but switched to the Democratic party in March 1993. “I’m a man of all trades,” he said affably. “I represent both Democrats and Republicans; I’m one of the few who do.”
Gross’s GOP credentials, however, were substantially more weighty, surprisingly for someone hired by Democrats. Gross’s resume:
Past candidates for whom Ken Gross had worked were either Republicans or, when Democrats, only in the Democrats in primary elections. All in all, an odd choice for any Democratic candidate, or at least for any candidate who wanted Democrats to win in November 2004. You’re running for office and have a hard-fought campaign in a tight election ahead. You hire Bob Dole’s legal counselor?
Ken Gross explained that Americans for Jobs etc had filed the required form with the IRS, the Friday before the deadline, but it had filed by fax, and the IRS did not immediately post the filing online. “It was filed,” he said. “The IRS failed to give us a [sort of] PIN number,” so the group could not file electronically. “They’re not very well equipped,” Gross commented. “It’s totally their fault. It’s not our fault at all.”
When all else fails, blame the IRS. So, Gross continued, “we worked it out with Ogden, Utah [an IRS office],” and sent it in by fax. “I guess they haven’t scanned it into the system yet.” When I asked to see the filing, or have it faxed to me, Gross turned me back over to Jones, who corroborated the filing by fax.
An IRS spokesman explained that 527s were required to file electronically, but if some glitch prevented their doing so in a timely manner, they could file by fax or on paper to show good faith. Electronic filing was still required when they received their PIN number. Form 8872 is required to disclose all financial information.
Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2004, was the day Democrats held primaries in seven states including South Carolina and Oklahoma. As of that date, Americans for Jobs, Healthcare etc still had a single filing online, its initial electronic filing dated Nov. 14, 2003, posted with its Employer Identification Number (EIN). On Tuesday, Jones offered to fax me the filing. I returned his call, leaving phone numbers and a fax number. No form arrived. Gross said that the filing was handled in his office, by Mark Ward. I called Ward on Wednesday to request a copy of the form, leaving my mailing address and a fax number with him. Ward explained nicely that he did not have a copy of the filing, and that he could not get into either the fax machine or the copier without a client number–“This is such a dumb thing to be held up by, you’ll think, what planet did I drop from”–but would try to see what he could do, and suggested that I call Jones again to request a copy.
Later that day I got a call from Melissa Miles, a SkadArps attorney representing Jones. She explained that “Dave knows he’s legally required to make a copy available” for viewing, within regular business hours, and recommended that I stop by Jones’ office, giving his address at Corporate Visions, Inc., on M Street. I said I could certainly stop by the next day, Thursday, Feb. 5.
Thursday morning I called Corporate Visions, where I happened to get a voice twin of Jones. When I asked whether I was speaking to Mr. Jones, however, the voice said “No, this is Corporate Visions.” Thursday afternoon, after repeated messages, Jones called me, saying that he had just gotten back from New York. When I offered to go to his office to see the filing, he offered instead to overnight it to me, saying at least twice that he had to show me “an original.” He assured me that he would UPS it to my home on Friday. The news that evening was full of a bad weather forecast for Friday, with possible icing; UPS headquarters confirmed that they do hold up deliveries in dangerous weather, but on Friday I received the filing.
The political calendar was loaded. Caucuses were held on Saturday, Feb. 6. Some large-state primaries were held on Tuesday, Feb. 10. On the phone, Jones offered to go over the form with me. He explained at length and repeatedly that the group had purchased three [anti-Dean] ads, totaling about $500,000. Of the total, the two ads referring to Dean’s gun and trade positions cost $485,000. Only $15,000, Jones emphasized, was spent on what he called the “foreign policy ad,” i.e. the one featuring Osama bin Laden. Jones reiterated that that one ad ran only sixteen times in South Carolina and New Hampshire, and never ran in Iowa.
Sounding somewhat harried, Jones also said that the Osama ad (“foreign policy”) got “hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of free media attention,” with several major network news programs giving it national air play. As he remarked, that one ad, on which the group spent only $15K, got the most coverage, “national coverage for four or five straight days.” Jones: “You can blame your colleagues in the media for that.”
Numerous news reports linked the Osama ad to the Gephardt campaign. While the ad did not verbally compare Dean to bin Laden, visually it connected bin Laden’s face with Dean’s name, with a dark-aura image hard to shake off. By all accounts, the attack threw the Dean campaign off-message, away from his successful critique of Bush policies. Negative ads work.
Tthey also boomerang. The smarmy, dark, negative ad ended Gephardt’s candidacy. Jones, formerly a fundraiser for Gephardt among others, reiterated emphatically that the ads were not coordinated in any way with the Kerry campaign or with the Gephardt campaign, describing them as intended to make issues of Dean’s positions.
“His campaign is over.”
Jones took exception to my saying foreign policy experience as an issue usually benefits an incumbent president or vice president, or in the rare case of Richard Nixon, a former vice president. Most people do not connect governors or Congress with foreign policy, regardless of the campaign year. This is an advantage of presidential incumbency. In any case, there can be little doubt about the damage wrought by the Osama bin Laden ad: of the two previously strongest Democratic candidates for president, one (Gephardt) was out of the race, and the other (Dean) dropped behind.
Gephardt
At that point, Howard Dean was still second to John Kerry in delegates won (121 to Kerry’s 260), and the race was still early. Dave Jones, however, vehemently and angrily insisted that Dean was “out”: “His campaign is over.”
Be it noted that Dean’s campaign had sidestepped professional fundraisers, getting its money through a successful Internet drive. This fundraising strategy employed by Dean, and by Ron Paul, was carried forward with even greater success by Obama in 2008 and is going forward for 2012 as well.
A more wide-open race generates more voter interest, by allowing voters more choice and more participation.** The best chance Democrats have to air issues of concern to the public is their primary season, in Democratic primaries and caucuses. Corporate media outlets are often less than eager to devote air time and print space to topics that they have failed embarrassingly to report.
Too bad they knocked Dean out.
Meanwhile, the filing belatedly reviewed showed that Americans for Jobs etc received $663,000 from 26 donors. The “Progressive Values” fell out of the basket. The donors had a strikingly not-progressive profile. Two-thirds of the donations were corporate, with two executives donating $100,000 each and another retired executive donating $50,000. Another $80,000 came from attorneys. The Torricelli for Senate Committee kicked in $50,000. Six labor unions donated $200,000; thus the laborers’ union and Loral corporation gave to the same folks. Expenditures, besides the half-million for television, included $40,000 to Jones’ firm, DWJ Consultants, and $15,000 to Skadden, Arps for legal expenses.
It would be odd if the highly experienced Kenneth Gross, with Americans etc from the beginning, did not foresee the dysfunctional impact of the Osama ad. The GOP, after all, had already used images of bin Laden and Saddam with great effect against Tom Daschle in South Dakota and even against decorated Vietnam veteran Max Cleland in Georgia.
Also, more expeditious filing would have been becoming from such experts. Referring to campaign finance in the Clinton White House, Gross said that all contributions to a party have to be reported and the contributors identified, and that the system falls apart when the parties try to find loopholes in disclosure (MSNBC interview, Oct. 30, 1996). In the same interview, Gross also said the amount of soft money in the system needs to be cut down.
Gross was a go-to speaker on campaign finance reform. Time quoted him as saying that the campaign finance law “doesn’t mean a whole lot,” and that “It’ll affect the process only at the margins.” The New York host committee for the Republican national convention stated an aim of raising $20M for the 2004 convention (which it exceeded handsomely); Gross earlier expressed an opinion that the new law does not limit fundraising for conventions.
When I asked Jones whether he was aware that Gross was representing the GOP convention, he said coldly that he did not get into his attorney’s other clients.
And there, gentlemen and ladies, you have one difference between Republicans and Democrats, in the horse race, in a nutshell: There is very little chance that any GOP candidate or group would naively hire a Democrat.
It must be agreed that the immediate beneficiary of the fall of Gephardt and Dean was John Kerry, whose biggest contributor was coincidentally SkadArps. Even Gross, who donated to Bob Dole in the 1990s, donated (modestly) to Kerry in 2004. Bush, after all, scared a lot of people. But Kerry was not the ultimate beneficiary. Corporatist commentators George F. Will, Charles Krauthammer, and Bill Kristol were openly gleeful over what they called Dean’s “implosion,” although previously they insisted fervently, not looking happy, that the White House was eager to have Dean as an opponent. (Krauthammer, Kristol and Will did not discuss the Osama bin Laden ad.)
As I wrote back then, “If corporate shills for the Bush team in the media were gleeful, it’s a safe bet that the Bush team was, also.”
I should have put money on it. With the twenty-twenty of hindsight, we now know that Kerry was not the most electable, the strongest, the best qualified candidate to oppose the Bush White House and Team Bush. Kerry ran a stronger campaign in 2004 than did Gore in 2000, but Howard Dean could have run an even better one.
The entire series of events drew less press coverage in 2004 than it should have drawn—like the efforts at vote suppression and intimidation. The New York Times reported the story only as an intramural fight among Dems. The Washington Post barely touched it. (The Post fought against Dean like a wounded wolverine, running a front-page story about a younger female aide in Dean’s inner circle. The Post facilitated GWBush’s reelection as it had facilitated his election, again with the corporate incentive of Bush education policies—standardized testing front and center)
*Gibbs went on to become press secretary for the Obama White House. Howard Dean, who should have been appointed head of Health and Human Services, was not. This is not to knock Kathleen Sebelius. The new Obama administration wisely took on board its former competitors, making a good choice in Hillary Clinton for State among others. But the White House went overboard in taking in Rahm Emanuel and leaving out Howard Dean.
Speaking of public health and public safety issues, it will be little short of a miracle if Emanuel as mayor of Chicago does anything to make the Chicago region less of a safe haven for rapists. Remember which archdiocese has had little to no successful prosecution of clergy abuse?
**I took this view in both 2004 and 2008. More commentators now discuss the same point.
More history on those Virginia rules
Perry et al., plaintiffs
Regarding that Rick Perry lawsuit—since joined by Newt Gingrich, Jon Huntsman, and Rick Santorum—over ballot access in Virginia, far too many people state erroneously that the Virginia rules are longstanding.
Today’s Washington Post reinforced the canard:
“Virginia’s ballot-access rules, in place for four decades, are considered the toughest in the nation. Candidates must collect 10,000 signatures, with at least 400 from each of the congressional districts, while some other states only require candidates to pay fees or sign forms.” [emphasis added]
When an excellent reporter, top-notch herself and one of the best political reporters at a major paper, transmits a mistake this way, the mistake has reached significant proportions. Ballot access in the U.S. is a serious issue.
What follows below is the best and most lucid correction on this point easily available. Be it noted that the author does not sympathize with the GOP lawsuit, as the rest of his blog makes clear. The excerpt quoted here pertains only to the history of the Virginia rules on signature-gathering and the Virginia primary:
“Prior to 1988, there was no primary in Virginia at the Presidential level . . . The state decided to hold a primary in 1988, likely in an effort to gain more prominence for the Commonwealth in the first election since 1968 where there would not be an incumbent President running on either party’s ticket. That year . . . a candidate was allowed on the ballot if they had been “prominently discussed in the news media, or who had qualified for primary season matching funds.” (Source: Ballot Access News) George H.W. Bush won the Republican Primary that year. The Democratic Primary was won by Jesse Jackson.”
“Whether it was because of that Jackson win or for other reasons, Virginia didn’t hold a primary in 1992 or 1996 and reverted back to the caucus/convention model. The Virginia primary came back in 2000, but this time candidates had to submit ballot access petitions. The rules were the same as they are now, at least 10,000 signatures with at least 400 from each of Virginia’s Congressional Districts. That same system was in effect in 2004 and 2008, and for eight years pretty much any candidate who submitted a petition package with at least 10,000 raw signatures made it on the ballot.”
Since incumbent George W. Bush was the only GOP candidate on the ballot in 2004, Virginia did not hold a Republican primary that year. Virginia will not hold a Democratic presidential primary in 2012.
A larger difference remains, between the rules of 2000 and 2008 and the rules of 2012. The difference is enforcement:
“Then, just this year, an Independent candidate for the Virginia legislature filed a lawsuit against the Republican Party Of Virginia:
The only reason the Virginia Republican Party checked the signatures for validity for the current primary is that in October 2011, an independent candidate for the legislature, Michael Osborne, sued the Virginia Republican Party because it did not check petitions for its own members, when they submitted primary petitions. Osborne had no trouble getting the needed 125 valid signatures for his own independent candidacy, but he charged that his Republican opponent’s primary petition had never been checked, and that if it had been, that opponent would not have qualified. The lawsuit, Osborne v Boyles, cl 11-520-00, was filed in Bristol County Circuit Court. It was filed too late to be heard before the election, but is still pending. The effect of the lawsuit was to persuade the Republican Party to start checking petitions. If the Republican Party had not changed that policy, Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry would be on the 2012 ballot.”
The difference is no mere detail:
“In other words, prior to this year, the RPV was allegedly not really checking the signatures submitted for validity. As long as a candidate submitted the raw number(s) required then they got on the ballot. The Democratic Party of Virginia apparently follows the same process and has not held its candidates to the high standard that the technicalities of the law require. Since the State Board of Elections relies entirely on the political parties to determine who is eligible for the primary ballot(s), this is apparently entirely legal. It does, however, make one wonder if other candidates would have found themselves in a similar situation in the past had their petitions been given more than a cursory examination.”
A reasonable question.
Further reinforcing the point, the Republican Party of Virginia itself has represented these rules as new. Here is the official party statement on the ballot dispute, quoted again:
“In October 2011, RPV formally adopted the certification procedures that were applied on December 23.”
Maybe something hinges on that word “formally.”
Whatever the outcome, the defendants in the GOP lawsuit have made the history of the rules part of the grounds for their appeal. As the defendants told the appeals court,
“The presidential primary is scheduled for March 6. Two candidates met the statutory requirement of filing 10,000 valid signatures, including at least 400 from each Congressional district. In past elections, there were larger slates of candidates who have met the Virginia statutory requirement and were included on the primary ballot.” [emphasis added]
On its face this sounds like a telling argument. Surely it becomes less telling if it turns out to be inaccurate.
[Update Friday night]
The District Court has now turned down plaintiffs’ application for relief, saying that Perry and the rest knew the rules going in. The judge’s line of thought is that they played the game and lost, so now they want to change the rules. The judge also ruled that the doctrine of laches–unreasonable delay in filing the lawsuit–prevents the plaintiffs’ getting the decision.
The decision is understandable, even to a non-lawyer, but the situation is still puzzling. Generally a person has to be injured by something before filing a complaint. One has to be injured to have a cause of action. So it is hard to understand how Perry and the rest could have filed a lawsuit over the Virginia Board of Election rules before failing to get on the ballot. Wouldn’t the other side just have said, You still have time?
Perry filed immediately after failing to get certified. That left–as both sides agree–little time to move, before the period of mailing absentee and overseas ballots. That problem itself stems partly from the fact that Virginia’s primary date is March 6, a date chosen by the same people who set the rules for signature gathering. According to the GOP of Virginia, the new rules were adopted in October 2011.
Virginia’s primary was previously earlier. In 2008, it took place Feb. 12. John McCain won with 50.04 percent of the vote and got all 63 delegates. It was held on Feb. 29 in 2000, when GWBush beat McCain 53-44. There was no GOP primary in 2004.
Ironically the name of the game in Virginia seems to be to lock up the primary, adopted in place of a state convention under the rationale of giving more voters more of a voice.
Any next step in court may have to be the constitutional route. There again, though, time constraints make raising constitutional questions a challenge to say the least.
Rick Perry, ACLU make good points in Virginia
The Virginia ACLU is doing a good job on Governor Rick Perry’s lawsuit in Virginia. If only the ACLU in Illinois could show as much pep.
At issue, as previously written, are Virginia’s rules for gathering signatures as a presidential candidate:
The rules do not allow write-in candidates, in the primary. Also, the Board of Elections recognizes only two parties, the Democratic and the Republican, a fact that is being noted in the legal filings.
Texas Governor Rick Perry having failed to qualify for the Virginia ballot, his legal team went to court, suing GOPers on the state Board of Elections. Perry won a round Monday when federal judge John A. Gibney ordered Virginia’s local electoral boards to hold off on mailing out absentee ballots.
The response has been interesting.
Defendants Charles Judd, Kimberly Bowers and Don Palmer are appealing the January 9 order. They are joined by Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, Solicitor General of Virginia E. Duncan Getchell, Deputy Attorney General Wesley Russell, and Senior Assistant Attorney General Joshua Lief. AG Cuccinelli initially was so dismayed at all the GOP candidates left by the wayside that he explored the possibility of changing the rules—in 2012. The idea died within a day, and Cucinelli issued a public statement affirming the state GOP’s determination that, indeed, Mitt Romney and Ron Paul are the only candidates qualified under Virginia rules to appear on the ballot in the Virginia primary.
On the plaintiffs’ side, the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia filed an amicus brief yesterday.
Defendants are appealing the temporary injunction on mailing out absentee ballots. From defendants, in appeals court, comes this filing on January 10:
“In their Notice of Live Testimony, State Board defendants gave notice that they intend to prove the following through the testimony of Don Palmer:
- The presidential primary is scheduled for March 6. Two candidates met the statutory requirement of filing 10,000 valid signatures, including at least 400 from each Congressional district. In past elections, there were larger slates of candidates who have met the Virginia statutory requirement and were included on the primary ballot.
- It is the duty of the Commonwealth of Virginia to provide at least 45 days for military and overseas voters to vote by absentee ballot . . . January 9, 2012 had been set as a target date by the Board to have localities complete the preparation for printing of ballots. [56 days]
- That there are 134 electoral jurisdictions and each must print its own ballots, which must be approved by its own electoral board and then the State Board of Elections before they can be used. Moreover, there are two large printing companies that are utilized to print the vast majority of ballots in the Commonwealth and that on or around the second week of January is when most approved ballots will be sent to the printers . . .” [emphasis added]
Reasonably enough, the disadvantages to sending out two different ballots are argued, as is the cost of having the ballots printed over again.
What’s this about printing new ballots over again? –Well, back up front and center on page 3 of the filing, defendants state,
“As the attached Declaration reveals, defendants have received information under the mechanisms of the consent decree that lead them to believe that most of the 134 jurisdictions have already printed some or all of their absentee ballots. Because of the intervening holidays, Virginia jurisdictions will have only four business days after the ruling on January 13, 2012, to attempt to avoid violations of their legal duties.”
Thus it just so happens that immediately after defendants certified their two candidates, the two firms mainly used by local boards printed out Virginia’s ballots. Commendable efficiency, when you think about it:
In short, absentee ballots were readied in less than two weeks during a period including Christmas, New Year’s, two weekends and two federal holidays. Now the state party establishment is arguing that it does not have time to re-do the ballots. Defendants argue that federal and state laws require absentee and overseas ballots to be mailed 45 days before the March 6 primary, i.e. by Saturday Jan. 21.
No claim so far as to whether the ballots’ already being printed either speeds up the process, or hinders it.
Still—back to the above—this is where it gets interesting. One claim made by defendants, as above, is that other candidates have been following these rules for years, and have managed to abide by them.
BUT
We already have the contrary statement on record, quoted in earlier posts, from the Republican Party of Virginia. In pertinent part, as they say,
“From the earliest days of the campaigns, RPV has actively told candidates that Virginia’s signature requirements could be a difficult legal requirement to meet for those who were new to Virginia politics.
In October 2011, RPV formally adopted the certification procedures that were applied on December 23: any candidate who submitted over 15,000 facially-valid signatures would be presumed to be in compliance with Virginia’s 10,000 signature law.” [emphasis added]
There is no long history of candidates’ successfully meeting these demands, in Virginia. Virginia did not set these rules until almost the end of 2011. There have been no general elections under these rules.
Q.E.D.
On other matters in the case
The ACLU amicus brief does not deal with any of the above but instead addresses the RVP’s odd requirement that signature gatherers must be Virginia residents.
More on that later.
Meanwhile, as previously written, the RVP statement makes abundantly clear that it recognizes the obstacles to ballot access:
“Second, Virginia’s State Board of Elections advises candidates to collect 15,000 or more signatures to be safe, based on their long experience with average failure rates.
Third, RPV adopted the 15,000-signature presumption because the Party wants all of its candidates to qualify for the ballot. The 15,000-signature presumption served as an incentive for candidates to comply with the law with a safe margin of signatures.
. . . RPV officials encouraged candidates repeatedly, through both counsel and field staff, to submit 15,000 or more signatures in an abundance of caution, so that they would meet the legal requirements.
Candidates were officially informed of the 15,000 rule in October 2011, well in advance of the Dec. 22 submission deadline. The rule was no surprise to any candidate – and indeed, no candidate or campaign offered any complaints until after the Dec. 23 validation process had concluded.
Despite this early notice and RPV’s exhortations to candidates, only one candidate availed himself of the 15,000 signature threshold – Governor Mitt Romney. RPV counted Governor Romney’s signatures, reviewed them for facial validity, and determined he submitted well over 15,000. Never in the party’s history has a candidate who submitted more than 15,000 signatures had 33 percent invalidated. The party is confident that Governor Romney met the statutory threshold.
Rep. Ron Paul submitted just under 15,000, and was submitted to signature-by-signature scrutiny on the same basis as the other candidates who submitted fewer than 15,000 signatures. After more than 7 hours of work, RPV determined that Rep. Paul had cleared the statutory 10,000/400 signature standard with ease.
Two other candidates did not come close to the 10,000 valid signature threshold.
RPV regrets that Speaker Gingrich and Governor Perry did not meet the legal requirements established by the General Assembly. Indeed, our hope was to have a full Republican field on the ballot for Republican voters to consider on March 6.”
By the way, the Virginia GOP also considered instituting a loyalty oath of sorts. Gov. McDonnell was among those urging the party to drop the idea.
These draconian measures are, let’s face it, new. CBS reports that the state GOP did not check primary petitions against a database back in 2008.
New Hampshire primary results coming in, reporting and periodic reactions–
8-oh-not-much-and 30 seconds p.m. New Hampshire polls now officially closed, NBC et al. can pronounce that Mitt Romney is the projected winner in the state’s primaries. Percentages about where they have been, with Romney well ahead of Ron Paul, the latter solidly ahead of everyone else, and Gingrich and Santorum about tied.
Next big hurdle for the political news media: finding enough to say about Newt Gingrich’s ad campaign in South Carolina to eat up or fill up the air waves for the next couple of weeks. As Al Gore pointed out, SC governor Nikki Haley has already endorsed Romney.
More suspenseful is the Virginia legal matter. Plaintiffs’ attorneys argue in their supporting brief that the constitutional question may never have to be considered by the court. That is, the question of whether Virginia’s restrictive rules on ballot access violate the First Amendment and the 14th amendment, among others, may not have to come up at all.
Plaintiffs hold that the Virginia Board of Elections, named defendants, misapplied Virginia statute in the first place. That “may” and “shall” question.
To a non-lawyer, it does look as though that one will have to be answered. But determinations depend on the courts.
7:44 p.m. With 5 percent of the NH vote in, it’s Romney with 36 percent, Ron Paul with 25 percent, Huntsman with 15, Gingrich and Santorum close to tied at 11 percent and 10 percent respectively.
Votes in are those only from polls closing at 7:30 rather than 8:00.
‘Real’ returns to begin flooding in at 8:00.
Rick Perry’s brief and complaint look substantive, in that filing against the Virginia Board of Elections GOPers.
Of particular interest: the difference between “may” and “shall.” Plaintiffs argue, convincingly, that the Virginia statute says candidates “may” file a petition with 10,000+ signatures. Plaintiffs’ attorneys quote the statute at copious length, clarifying that the statute does indeed use “may” at some points and “shall” at others. Turns out there was a Virginia legal case, decided by the Virginia Supreme Court just four months ago, in which the court ruled explicitly that when the law uses “may” in some places and “shall” in others, the wording is to be regarded as intentional.
Funny how little of this is coming out in the ad-infinitum commentary and reporting on the primary process. Virginia is not the biggest state in the union, with the most delegates, but it is not a small state. Furthermore, it has been treated by the national media as a definitively ‘red’ state for twenty years now, notwithstanding any evidence to the contrary.
7:07 p.m. Switching channels to Current TV—
Useful reminder from former Vice President Al Gore, re South Carolina as a hotbed of socially conservative et ceteras: the late Lee Atwater constructed the South Carolina primary in the late Seventies as a conservative firewall–i.e. to protect the establishment candidate. It was thought that Ronald Reagan might need some protection against an insurgency by John Connally.
Setting aside any question of how ‘insurgent’ the GOP challengers actually tend to be (aside from Ron Paul), in national elections, the fate of John McCain in 2000 is another memento mori for insurgent candidates. McCain was infamously slandered in a whispering campaign by GWBush’s people, including First Brother Marvin Bush. Thus ever challengers, in South Carolina. Huckabee went down in SC in 2008, too, but more cleanly.
6:07 p.m. First 1 percent of the votes reported, and it’s Romney out front with 37 percent, Ron Paul 26 percent, Huntsman 21 percent. Rick Santorum with zero, tied with Michele Bachmann, no longer in the race. Newt Gingrich so far with 11 percent but looking forward cheerfully to South Carolina, where the super PAC supporting him has bought more million$ worth of television ads than any other campaign including Romney’s.
To do him justice, Gingrich is one of the few candidates who appropriately defended Romney’s famous “I like firing people” comment. Ron Paul also defended Romney today, against the all-sides demagoguing on the off-the-cuff remark. Paul went farther, defending the entire Bain Capital process as capitalism at work.
Romney’s getting vilified for firing people is one thing. His getting vilified for the remark about insurance companies not providing good service is one of those sadly selfish mishaps that drag down the entire political process. It also sheds further light, if any were needed, on GOP party establishment priorities. Romney suggested, after all, that people should have a choice about insurers. He went so far as to suggest that insurers should do right by their customers. He even went so far–and this seems to have been the bridge too far–that customers can exchange an insurance company that does not do well for another one.
These ideas are not popular among GOP candidates for office. It will be little short of miraculous if they are repeated on the campaign trail. Meanwhile, for other GOPers to attack Romney for them is rather like the attacks on Rick Perry for taking a humane line toward immigrants.
Speaking of Bain Capital–
Wouldn’t it be great if the millionaires and billionaires connected with Bain Capital had joined in an enterprise to buy suffering companies and do something good with them? This idea is not to be confused with charity. A consortium could legally act as a private task force–acquire companies and re-engineer them with socially conscious objectives in view. Keep an eye on the situation of the workers, keep an eye on the environment, learn to make a worthwhile product. Is that notion considered on-its-face impossible?
Romney
2012 Rick Perry Virginia lawsuit, 2
Rick Perry lawsuit moves forward, Virginia ballots delayed
Texas Governor Rick Perry’s legal team won an early round in Virginia courts Monday. Federal judge John A. Gibney ordered all of Virginia’s local electoral boards to hold off on mailing out absentee ballots.
In a conference call, Judge Gibney ordered the Virginia State Board of Elections to send a directive to each local board to refrain from mailing out any absentee ballots until after a January 13 hearing on the temporary restraining order and injunction moved by the Perry campaign. Perry’s campaign is suing Virginia Board of Elections members Charles Judd, Kimberly Bowers and Don Palmer over Virginia’ rules restricting access to the presidential ballot for candidates.
As previously written, at issue are the Virginia rules, the most burdensome in the nation, that
The rules do not allow write-in candidates, in the primary elections. Be it noted also that the Board of Elections rules recognize only the Democratic and the Republican parties. Thus the 10,000/400 signature-gathering rules do not have the rationale of leveling the playing field for smaller parties or for nonaffiliated candidates.
Defendants Judd, Bowers and Palmer are appealing the January 9 order. They are joined by Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, Solicitor General of Virginia E. Duncan Getchell, Deputy Attorney General Wesley Russell, and Senior Assistant Attorney General Joshua Lief.
Perhaps the rules should have been vetted with this kind of firepower before they were instituted.
Gov. Perry, Repubs gain ACLU support
On the plaintiffs’ side, the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia has filed for permission to file an amicusbrief.
The ACLU position:
“The U.S. Supreme Court has recognized that the petition process is political speech that is protected by the Constitution and that the state can’t impose residential requirements on such speech,” said ACLU of Virginia Executive Director Kent Willis.
“Petition circulators must explain their candidate’s positions to the electorate, and persuade voters that the candidate deserves to be on the ballot,” added Willis. “Reducing the number of available petition circulators by imposing a residency requirement limits this important means for candidates to get their message across.”
The ACLU brief argues that the residency requirement not only violates the free speech rights of candidates, but of petition circulators, voters, and political parties, as well.
“Non-residents who wish to circulate petitions for a candidate are deprived of the ability to do so,” said Willis. “Voters are deprived of the information and ideas that these circulators would provide. And the Republican Party is unfairly limited in its choices for a nominee when valid candidates are unable to obtain the required signatures.”
Perry’s lawsuit is joined by Newt Gingrich, Jon Huntsman and Rick Santorum. Michele Bachmann also joined in before dropping out of the race following the Iowa caucuses.
[update]
Local readers of the Washington Post have to find information about Perry’s Virginia lawsuit elsewhere. The print edition received in my county contained no mention of it this morning, although the online edition has two short AP items.
The edition of the paper going out to Prince George’s county must run off before midnight. The day after the Saints won the wild-card playoff against the Lions, bizarrely the WashPost sports section contained no mention of the Saints or of the game.
Rick Perry right about Virginia
Rick Perry is right. Virginia’s rules for gathering signatures to get a candidate on the ballot in Virginia violate the U.S. Constitution.
Quick run-down on the rules:
State GOP party chairman Pat Mullins reiterated the above on the party web site:
“Under the Code of Virginia, any candidate who wants to have their name placed on the March 6, 2012 Republican Presidential Ballot or the June 12, 2012 U.S. Senate Primary must collect the signatures of 10,000 registered voters statewide, with at least 400 signatures of registered voters from each of Virginia’s 11 Congressional districts.”
Mullins’ statement omits that kicker about signature gatherers having to be from Virginia.
The upshot for 2012, as everyone knows, is that well-funded Texas Governor Rick Perry, Virginia resident and U.S. history consultant Newt Gingrich, and three other Republicans failed to get their names on the ballot in Virginia. Perry did not get enough signatures; Gingrich collected more than 11,000 signatures but had many invalidated by state GOP officials, who hate him; and candidates Michele Bachmann, Jon Huntsman and Rick Santorum did not even file to get on the ballot in Virginia. Thus as of now only Mitt Romney and Ron Paul are eligible to compete for Virginia’s 50 delegates on March 6.
It’s a Schadenfreudefest.
Ironies abound.
Under the U.S. Constitution, the rules for getting on the ballot are left to the states, and there is no national standard for state ballot access. Legislation to limit how far states could on restricting ballot access was repeatedly introduced by Rep. Ron Paul, but without success. Paul, again, is the only candidate besides Romney whose presidential campaign organization succeeded in getting him onto the ballot in Virginia for 2012.
Paul’s campaign still had to jump through extra hoops. As the statement of rules issued by GOP state party chairman Pat Mullins continues,
“Any candidate who submits at least 15,000 signatures of registered voters on valid petitions statewide and has at least 600 signatures of registered voters on valid petitions from each of the 11 Congressional Districts shall be deemed to have met the threshold for qualification and will be certified (provided, of course, that other requirements of State law have also been met).”
Romney’s campaign turned in more than 15,000 votes, as the somewhat defensive statement issued by the Republican Party of Virginia notes. Thus Romney’s petition was adjudged valid on its face under the rules. As the RPV puts it,
“any candidate who submitted over 15,000 facially-valid signatures would be presumed to be in compliance with Virginia‘s 10,000 signature law.”
[boldface in original statement]
Ron Paul’s signatures, au contraire, went through a round of vetting:
“Rep. Ron Paul submitted just under 15,000, and was submitted to signature-by-signature scrutiny on the same basis as the other candidates who submitted fewer than 15,000 signatures. After more than 7 hours of work, RPV determined that Rep. Paul had cleared the statutory 10,000/400 signature standard with ease.”
The RPV situation deserves more attention than it has gotten. Admittedly, a primary pageant featuring Herman Cain, Sarah Palin, Rick man-on-dog Santorum, Donald Trump and the rest tends to suck up oxygen that might otherwise go to constitutional questions. Then we got Perry’s televised gaffes. Then Newt Gingrich inveighing against money, negative advertising and lying in politics. Now the prominent alternative to Romney seems to be Santorum, who is also trying to whittle Gingrich down to size. With this kind of air show on television, it is often difficult to turn to reading.
That said, the RPV statement is still an act of epic folly.
Back to Ole Virginny, and we don’t mean to asperse Scandinavians
Virginia Republicans adopted the new rules in October 2011, obviously to prep for the 2012 election. The rules overwhelmingly benefit Mitt Romney and were undoubtedly crafted to enhance Romney as the inevitable nominee. (Romney advisor/strategist Stuart Stevens, a Mississippi native, is among Romney supporters based in Virginia.) The RPV itself clearly knows that the restrictions are, as Perry’s legal challenge says, onerous:
“From the earliest days of the campaigns, RPV has actively told candidates that Virginia’s signature requirements could be a difficult legal requirement to meet for those who were new to Virginia politics.”
The rationale for restricting ballot access is protecting the integrity of elections. Yet the Virginia rules give a pass to exactly those most liable to jeopardize election integrity, namely the biggest and best-funded campaigns. This is not to suggest that Romney’s signatures are fraudulent. But the rule exempts the biggest list of signatures from any checking at all. RPV defensiveness suggests that the RPV itself recognizes this exemption as questionable:
“The presumption of compliance was set at 15,000 for a variety of reasons.
First, in the party’s long experience with petitions, RPV has never encountered a situation where a candidate who submitted 15,000 signatures has failed to make the ballot (absent cases of obvious fraud).
Second, Virginia’s State Board of Elections advises candidates to collect 15,000 or more signatures to be safe, based on their long experience with average failure rates.
Third, RPV adopted the 15,000-signature presumption because the Party wants all of its candidates to qualify for the ballot. The 15,000-signature presumption served as an incentive for candidates to comply with the law with a safe margin of signatures.
Fourth, under Virginia law, RPV’s Chairman is assigned a profound legal obligation to ensure that each candidate has met Virginia’s legal requirements. The Party was afforded under Virginia law only 5 days over Christmas to review ballot petitions and signatures. The 15,000-signature presumption was intended to assist the RPV Chairman in meeting his legal obligations in an efficient process that would run quickly while providing the Party and the Commonwealth assurances of legal compliance based upon mathmatical [sic] experience.”
Since the state GOP (clearly) knew that the restrictions were onerous, furthermore,
“RPV officials encouraged candidates repeatedly, through both counsel and field staff, to submit 15,000 or more signatures in an abundance of caution, so that they would meet the legal requirements.
Candidates were officially informed of the 15,000 rule in October 2011, well in advance of the Dec. 22 submission deadline. The rule was no surprise to any candidate – and indeed, no candidate or campaign offered any complaints until after the Dec. 23 validation process had concluded.
Despite this early notice and RPV’s exhortations to candidates, only one candidate availed himself of the 15,000 signature threshold – Governor Mitt Romney. RPV counted Governor Romney’s signatures, reviewed them for facial validity, and determined he submitted well over 15,000. Never in the party’s history has a candidate who submitted more than 15,000 signatures had 33 percent invalidated. The party is confident that Governor Romney met the statutory threshold.”
Romney gets to pass Go.
Briefly, the other couple of oddities:
As mentioned, the signature gatherers must live in Virginia. No other state has that requirement, which would seem to increase local control over any signature gathering.
No other state requires major parties to spread the signatures around among congressional districts, either. A few states do set that bar for new political parties, or for nonaffiliated candidates:
But only the Virginia GOP brought you that rule that even the Democratic and the Republican parties, established parties, have to spread their signatures around among every congressional district. The rule effectively prevents any college town from harvesting enough signatures to put, say, Ron Paul on the ballot with ease. Further smoothed the path, in October 2011, for Romney.
On Jan. 3, after the Iowa caucuses, Perry was going to reassess his campaign, going home to Texas instead of to South Carolina.
On Jan. 4, Perry tweeted On to South Carolina.
Presumably, staying in the race keeps Perry’s lawsuit in Virginia from becoming moot or from being dismissed for lack of standing.
If so, Perry’s staying in the race a while longer will benefit the citizenry–not for the Machiavellian reason of dividing the field against Romney, but because Virginia’s rules are genuinely weird. One step farther, and the Virginia GOP, entrenched in the state government, would be able to make only one party legal in the Old Dominion.
Briefs in the case are due today (Friday Jan. 6).
Some local back-and-forth has occurred since Perry filed his lawsuit. Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli was so appalled by the consequences for Virginia’s primary that he initially said he would consider changing the rules for the year. Cuccinelli has announced that he will run for governor in 2013 in Virginia (where elections are held in odd-numbered years, and the governor is term-limited to one term). Cuccinelli changed his position the next day. Even the kookiest state attorney general is not supposed to change election rules for the election in process. AG Cuccinelli’s discomfiture put him at odds with Governor McDonnell (Douglas), who has given no sign of displeasure over Romney’s being the main man on the ballot.
More on the legal challenge later.
Live-blogging the Iowa caucuses, where participants may or may not be still looking for Brand X.
12:58
Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney have now both given their ending speeches–34 votes out of 120K+ votes cast, separating them–and Santorum spoke more effectively. But he’s still calling the Affordable Care Act fascism. He just does it by speaking tenderly of his Italian grandfather, who left Italy under Mussolini.
Two words you don’t hear from Romney or Santorum on occasions like tonight: “insurance companies.”
Sometimes it is hard to understand these guys. How can they possibly think that having the insurance companies act as gatekeepers to health care, to medical attention, is a good idea?
12:01
One candidate made news in his final speech. Rick Perry is suspending his campaign, reassessing–to return to Texas rather than continuing to South Carolina. Perry has ended up with 10 percent of the vote, with 96 percent of votes in, in Iowa. Plenty of money for staying in the race, according to the conventional wisdom, but not a lot of point in doing so.
Looks as though Perry’s attacks on Mitt Romney had less effect than the returned fire.
With only 4 percent of votes yet to come in, Santorum leads Romney by something over 100 votes. The two are statistically tied at 25 percent each.
11:13
Finally, they (MSNBC) cut away to hear Ron Paul speak to supporters. If the cable channels had done that earlier, as often as they aired clips of other candidates speaking, Paul would probably have gotten better than his 21 percent. Speaking to ebullient volunteers, Paul presses some buttons that the Obama White House needs to be aware of. Not the gold standard. But Eisenhower’s warning about the military-industrial complex, yes. “It’s time to get out of Afghanistan,” yes. And most of all, that as Ron Paul remarked, his campaign is bringing into the GOP some ideas it desperately needed, most of all, “the conviction that freedom is popular.”
When was the last time you heard any Republican candidate for office say that? Who else in the GOP could have been capable of enunciating it?
10:49
With votes coming in and 88 percent of votes counted, it’s Santorum with a tiny lead tied with Romney at 25 percent each, Ron Paul with 21 percent. Bachmann loses a point for 5 percent, Rick Perry gains the point for 11 percent, quite close to Gingrich’s 13 percent, a constant for the night so far.
Looking ahead to tomorrow, and the question already shapes itself: What crusade can Newt Gingrich be invited to throw himself into? Can he be induced to spearhead a national drive for a constitutional amendment to throw money out of politics? And if so, who can be found to fund the position?
In short, WHAT’S THE JOB OFFER FOR GINGRICH?
10:16
News flash: NBC will not project the winner of the Iowa caucuses race. We’ll just have to wait and see who the winner is, when–get this–all the votes are counted. Unheard of.
Still effectively a three-way tie, with 45 percent of the vote in. But a gap is widening for now between Santorum-Romney and Ron Paul, who now has 22 percent to Santorum and Romney’s 24 percent apiece.
Update 9:13
With 13 percent counted, it’s Ron Paul 24 percent, Mitt Romney 24 percent, Rick Santorum 23 percent. Numbers Paul 3821, Romney 3650, Santorum 3636. The percentages have been steady among the top three so far, fluctuating only between 24 percent and 23 percent.
All this to choose delegates to attend the county conventions March 10.
Discussion on MSNBC centers mainly on how support will coalesce around Santorum as the anti-Romney candidate. One intriguing interruption: a hoax came in a little while after vote counting began, a bogus news flash that Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson is dropping his bid and endorsing Ron Paul instead. Hoax.
Discussion of Santorum’s chances, if any, has hinged so far on suggestion that Gingrich is now going to go after Mitt Romney and will damage him. Santorum himself earlier said that Romney and Gingrich were the contenders in the establishment primary, as opposed to the sui generis Ron Paul primary and the Christian-right primary featuring him, Bachmann and Perry.
Some theorizing is that the GOP nomination might hinge on how angry Gingrich is–whether he’s mad enough to destroy Romney out of revenge.
Maybe so. But it is hard to imagine a Gingrich so angry about campaign ads that he becomes numb to the appeal of money. Surely any effective, well funded behind-the-scenes team could make him forget some of his pain, offering him further well-paid consulting work to throw himself into.
Update 8:44
Second raft of numbers comes floating in–this time it’s Rick Santorum on top with 26 percent, Ron Paul second with 23 percent, Mitt Romney (still) third with 18 percent. Numbers: Santorum 463, Paul 406, Romney 318.
Hmm.
Update 8:32
First numbers actually in–a breathless one percent of caucuses reporting, and the breakdown is –drumroll here– 43 percent Ron Paul, 19 percent Rick Perry, 14 percent Mitt Romney. All that looks a bit less definitive when clarified with numbers: 9 for Paul, 4 for Perry, 3 for Romney.
Still, at least the commentators are finally, realistically, talking about Ron Paul. As commentators point out, Paul’s appeal for young voters–fiscally responsible, socially liberal, anti-war–is something the Obama team could study.
Update 7:30
A good, succinct run-down of the political situation coming out of the caucuses, by Vermont Governor Howard Dean. Also, Rachel Madow presiding, a surprisingly interesting discussion of campaign finance law with Romney attorney Ben Ginsberg. The Rev. Al Sharpton contributed good questions. He elicited the statement from Ginsberg that each candidate could address other candidates’ PACs, just not his own. To ask a supporting PAC to, for example, cease running a negative ad would be coordinating and thus in violation of campaign finance law after Citizens United, according to Ginsberg. Sharpton will have opportunities to follow up on this line of thought, in all probability.
Reminds me of 1950s law-shaped “Brand X” television advertising, see below. This issue needs further clarification, and will get it.
Meanwhile, one must admit that it is not entirely painful to watch Newt Gingrich hoist by his own petard–while claiming that he is damaged because he, he alone, tried to oppose negative advertising.
Some consensus has emerged among discussants on air that a Romney-Santorum-Paul finish is probable if not certain, also that since neither of the non-Romney ‘top’ finishers is Newt Gingrich or Rick Perry, the exact order in which the top three finish is unimportant. Analysts have reminded each other ad infinitum that Romney-supporting ads have been directed against Perry and Gingrich, not against the others. So, Perry and Gingrich are the candidates perceived as having some national capability, as representing some sort of threat.
Q.E.D.
There is a parallel to all this in old anti-trust legislation, back in the earlier days of television. For at least a while, it was illegal for an advertiser to mention any competitor by name, in commercials. The result was that sponsors would tout their products against all others in some vague and sweeping language–“dentists recommend,” etc. Or they would claim that their product outperformed “Brand X.”
This struck a lot of the old comedians as a vein to be mined for humor.
Now, of course, advertisers can specifically mention (inferior) rival products by brand name. They’ve been able to do that for years. So can political ads, including those paid for by interest groups in support of a candidate, without the candidate’s official endorsement. It is beginning to look as though those previous anti-trust laws/regs, designed to prevent combining against a competitor, had a point.
Frustrating for every form of typical primary-season narrative that no Brand X has emerged yet in Iowa. The question topping almost all others, as caucus night heads toward some kind of result, is what t he primary line-up will look like, without one. The question as to how many voters will turn up to participate in the caucuses is almost secondary, if equally hard to answer with a prediction. (This writer has no guess as to how the caucuses will go.)
Meanwhile, Rick Santorum is saying this evening that he will be spending a lot of time in New Hampshire, apparently more than in South Carolina. Guess he figures his Catholicism will be a barrier in SC, more of one than in New England. Still seems an odd game plan, especially for someone so hyped at the moment who was born in Virginia.