It’s an interesting juncture in the contest for the Republican nomination for president. With a pause in the quite rigorous schedule of debates we’ve seen thus far (the next one isn’t until December 10th) and with the spirit of Thanksgiving and Christmas taking the focus off of profane political doings, there’s a sense out there that things won’t change much until the turn of the New Year. So, the supposition is that we have on the whole a contest between Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich, where Newt Gingrich is the latest anti-Mitt incarnation, but the one blessed most when it comes to timing.

If things actually don’t change until the New Year that leaves us with the Iowa caucuses occurring on January 3rd. The New Hampshire primary is January 10th, followed by South Carolina on the 21st and Florida on the 31st. That might just do it, if one candidate is clearly ascendant.

However, I dispute the idea that we’re really down immutably to Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich. I think it’s far too early to conclude that. In particular, I think that if Newt stumbles badly, Rick Perry may well rise again as the anti-Romney. He has superior finances and organization as compared to Gingrich, and he is not accustomed to losing elections. While I believe it would be a big mistake for him to go after Newt with any negative advertising, I think he is well-positioned to give Romney a very difficult time, and all of that may rebound to his favor if Newt weakens for his own reasons.

Ron Paul is also likely, I think, to do well in Iowa. While I don’t think he has a chance of winning the nomination (in part because no one thinks he could win the general election) his success could affect the dynamics of the race in ways that are difficult to predict (although the most obvious guess is that it would help Romney). [Read more →]

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From section: 2012 CAMPAIGN, Commentary, Politics by Sean Curnyn

No sense beating around the bush: The focus for most was on Newt Gingrich last night, since his emergence as the current most-credible-anti-Mitt-Romney, or even, in some polls, the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination. My view is that he did very well, and was especially wise to stick to his style of not taking shots at the other GOP candidates.

The controversy coming out of this debate appears to center around Gingrich’s comments on immigration. Like everyone else, he’s in favor of controlling the border. After that, he favors a calibrated way of dealing with illegal immigrants who are already here, based on their length of time here and depth of ties. From the transcript:

If you’re here — if you’ve come here recently, you have no ties to this country, you ought to go home, period. If you’ve been here 25 years and you got three kids and two grandkids, you’ve been paying taxes and obeying the law, you belong to a local church, I don’t think we’re going to separate you from your family, uproot you forcefully and kick you out.

The [Krieble] Foundation has a very good red card program that says you get to be legal, but you don’t get a pass to citizenship. And so there’s a way to ultimately end up with a country where there’s no more illegality, but you haven’t automatically given amnesty to anyone.

Later, as part of his response to Michele Bachmann’s fairly predictable attack insinuating that Gingrich wanted to give amnesty to all 11 million illegals, he also said this: [Read more →]

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From section: 2012 CAMPAIGN, Commentary, Politics by Sean Curnyn

Yesterday, after watching it myself, I said that the GOP “Thanksgiving Family Forum” from Iowa had been by far the most adult debate of this election season, and strongly recommended watching it.

I continue to recommend that (and the video is embedded at right, with the actual discussion beginning about the 37 minute mark). It is a highly admirable, intelligent and mature conversation about the nexus of faith, politics, morality and the U.S. Constitution, and stands as a superb tribute to the organizers, to the moderator Frank Luntz and to the candidates who participated. It is revelatory on a far deeper level than any other debate you are likely to see in this (or possibly any other) election cycle.

But since we are in the middle of a horse race, and an important one, I will offer a couple of comments on who I think benefited most from the event. [Read more →]

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From section: 2012 CAMPAIGN, Commentary, Politics by Sean Curnyn

Having watched it as it aired today online beginning at 5 p.m. Eastern Time, it is not difficult to make the following call: The GOP “Thanksgiving Family Forum” from Iowa, moderated by Frank Luntz, was far and away the most adult, civilized and intelligent debate of this election season so far. And, indeed, it was the most mature discussion of its kind of any election season that yours truly has had either the good or bad luck to live through. [Read more →]

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From section: 2012 CAMPAIGN, Commentary, Politics by Sean Curnyn

A couple of quick notes on this debate, which was itself “quick,” compressed as it was into only sixty minutes for the national television audience (with thirty minutes more online). The square-jawed CBS moderators were hilarious, although I fear that their humor was largely unintentional. They hit Herman Cain with a number of “gotcha” type questions (“Exactly how many troops would you deploy in Kandahar versus Mazar el-Sharif?” Alright, not quite but nearly.) but the surprise of the event for me was that Mr. Cain handled himself very well, all in all, in areas where he has previously shown weakness. He’s currently not my guy, for reasons already expressed, but neither is he ready to be consigned to the ash-heap of history. [Read more →]

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From section: 2012 CAMPAIGN, Commentary, Politics by Sean Curnyn

The reason I’ve never dismissed Rick Perry as a potential winner of the GOP nomination for president, despite his decline in the polls, and continue not to do so, is that he has so many fundamental strengths. Among these is his long track record as an excellent campaigner, and one who has never yet lost an election. [Read more →]

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From section: 2012 CAMPAIGN, Commentary, Politics by Sean Curnyn

I didn’t see the entire debate last night. I don’t receive CNBC on my boob-tube, and they chose not to stream it on their website. So I had to resort to a little trick my grandfather taught me involving a shortwave radio, a ball of twine and a cereal box, but it faded in and out.

However, I did see the moment that is generating all the attention this morning. That is, when Rick Perry announced he would shut down three departments of the federal government, but could only come up with two: Commerce and Education. (In answering a later question he did remember that the third one was the Energy Department, and received a big if heavily ironic cheer from the crowd). It was a classic brain-freeze moment, and I guess it was a little like watching an ice skater you’re egging on go totally splat on the rink. It happens to all of us, but all of us are not running for president. It’s likely the result of over-preparation, over-coaching, and having too much of one’s mind on style and tactics rather than the substance of what one is saying. Could it be the end of Perry’s campaign? Sure. It will hurt his fundraising: people who were putting their hands in their pockets will withdraw them, thinking, “This guy isn’t going to make it.” Could he recover? Sure. How? Just by keeping on. The narrative will change, given time and more events. Of-course, it needs to change in his favor. [Read more →]

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From section: 2012 CAMPAIGN, Commentary, Politics by Sean Curnyn

It’s difficult to tell exactly who’s out to get Herman Cain, although this cockamamie series of allegations does not have the look of a random phenomenon. In a way, I don’t have a dog in the fight, since (as explained in some detail previously) I’ve basically put him aside in terms of who I might support for the GOP presidential nomination, for reasons of substance that have nothing to do with the current brouhaha. [Read more →]

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From section: 2012 CAMPAIGN, Commentary by Sean Curnyn

It would not be accurate to say that I’m officially and completely off of the Herman Cain train, but put it this way: The train is in the station, the doors are open, and my hand is on my bag. And it is absolutely nothing to do with today’s breaking story about alleged sexual harassment in the 1990s. That may well be a contemptible smear; nothing is easier than launching such stories, and nothing is more difficult than substantiating them (or, indeed, defending oneself against them).

Herman Cain is hated and feared by liberals because he is a conservative black man. And the natural instinct of conservatives is to support him in the face of attacks by enemies who are so nasty, incoherent and just plain wrong. But that noble reflex should not blind the same people to the legitimate problems Herman Cain has from the opposite perspective. I’ve already expressed serious concern about his garbled answers on life issues, i.e. abortion. Yesterday on the CBS show “Face the Nation” he was given a chance to spell out his position. From the transcript of the interview conducted by old Bob Schieffer: [Read more →]

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From section: 2012 CAMPAIGN, Commentary, Politics by Sean Curnyn

Those in the Republican establishment who believe that Mitt Romney is the most electable (in November 2012) candidate currently running for the GOP presidential nomination ought to consider the following scenario extremely carefully and seriously: Ron Paul, after losing the GOP nomination, decides to run as a third party candidate. Ron Paul has all the things necessary to do so: a committed base of supporters across the country, a decent amount of money and the ability to raise more, and a good beginning at national name and face recognition (thanks to what he’s stirred up during the GOP contest). Plus, you can be sure that whatever he lacks in general name recognition will be amply supplied to him by those many in the media establishment eager to help Obama get reelected in whatever way possible. [Read more →]

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From section: 2012 CAMPAIGN, Commentary, Politics by Sean Curnyn