Conservative Views

Newt Gingrich had a bad night Tuesday: After framing the Florida primary as the "tea party versus the cocktail party," he lost among tea party supporters, according to the exit polls that cable and broadcast networks sponsor as a consortium.

On the other hand, Mitt Romney had a great evening, rising from a nine-point deficit in the Rasmussen poll just nine days ago to a 14-point victory, sweeping virtually every demographic and picking up all 50 Florida delegates.

This was an important inflection point, but the contest won't end until one candidate starts consistently winning. That may be coming for Mr. Romney, but he must step up his game.

Mr. Romney's campaign has an estimated $20 million to spend while that of Mr. Gingrich has roughly $1 million. The Romney super PAC purportedly has more than $12 million while the Gingrich super PAC by my estimate might have around $4 million in its coffers. This disparity could prove decisive, and the Romney campaign will be tempted to simply rely on firepower and organization to bull through the calendar.

It might work: February has only two primaries (Michigan and Arizona, both on the 28th) and one debate (on the 22nd). Mr. Romney can duplicate his Florida strategy, where his campaign and super PAC outspent the Gingrich forces on ads by a ratio of 5 to 1 during the last three weeks.

But dangers lurk. While traditional news organizations have been balanced or slightly favorable in their coverage of Mr. Romney, the GOP blogosphere has been decidedly negative on him all January, pointing to continuing unease among conservatives.

Then there are this month's caucuses: Nevada (Feb. 4), Maine (held over seven days, Feb. 4-11), and Minnesota and Colorado (both Feb. 7). Mr. Romney swept all four states in 2008. Expectations are that he'll do so again—but low-turnout caucuses are highly volatile. Ron Paul's concession speech on Tuesday, delivered before turbocharged supporters in Henderson, Nev., did not sound like a man dismayed at getting just 7% of the votes in Florida. He's been spending time in Maine and could upset Mr. Romney there, and Mr. Santorum is focusing on the Colorado caucuses.

Also, Missouri has a "beauty contest" primary Feb. 7. Mr. Gingrich didn't file there, arguing that no delegates were at stake. True, but bragging rights are. Rick Santorum will audition in Missouri for the role of Mr. Romney's principal opponent.

After the February lull comes Super Tuesday, with 10 contests on March 6, all with delegates awarded proportionally. Mr. Romney is likely to win primaries in Virginia, Massachusetts, Ohio, North Dakota and Vermont (with a combined 198 delegates) and perhaps Tennessee and Idaho (with 80 total). Mr. Gingrich failed to make the Virginia ballot or field a full Tennessee slate but is likely to win the primaries in Georgia and Oklahoma (with 114 delegates combined) and perhaps Alaska (with 27).

With his substantial war chest, Mr. Romney can easily saturate airwaves, stuff mailboxes, and jam phone lines to win most contests and more delegates. But Mr. Romney should be looking ahead and realize that what worked against an underfunded Mr. Gingrich won't work against the well-funded Barack Obama.

The Romney campaign is tilted too heavily toward biography and not nearly enough toward ideas. It should make its mantra a line from President Ronald Reagan's final address to the nation: "I never thought it was my style or the words I used that made a difference: It was the content. I wasn't a great communicator, but I communicated great things."

Mr. Romney showed he knows how to take an opponent down; now he needs to show the ability to build himself and the rationale for his candidacy up. He should become bolder in his prescriptions, presenting a confident agenda for economic growth and renewed prosperity through reforms of tax, regulatory and energy policies.

There's no reason he can't, or shouldn't do so. While Mr. Gingrich called Congressman Paul Ryan's entitlement reforms "right-wing social engineering," Mr. Romney complimented them last November. He can refresh that speech and give it again. He can also build on his best moments in recent debates, when he unapologetically and passionately defended free enterprise. Far better to best Mr. Gingrich in the weeks ahead by taking the fight to President Obama, challenging the incumbent's unpleasant attempt to appeal to envy and resentment.

If he does these things, Mr. Romney will improve his chances of consolidating Republicans and winning the nomination battle earlier and in better shape for the fall. If not, the GOP contest will go on, the bitterness will linger, and the road ahead could be treacherous.

This article originally appeared on WSJ.com on Wednesday, February 1, 2012.

In a rare moment of senior-presidential-adviser-to-senior-presidential-adviser telepathy, I overheard the private thoughts of David Axelrod as he prepared to appear on television Tuesday night, following President Barack Obama's State of the Union address:

Well, this is about as pleasant as a dentist appointment. Sure hope we're right that no matter what the question is, all I need to say is, "President Obama believes everyone should get a fair shot, everyone should do their fair share, and everyone should play by the same set of rules." Say it loud, say it proud, say it again and again.

Speaking of which, I love that line about "asking a billionaire to pay at least as much as his secretary." Sure, the top 10% pay 70% of federal income taxes, so billionaires already pay more taxes than their secretaries, and no one's really for doubling capital gains taxes. But it sounds so good, and stokes so much anger toward the rich.

I did enjoy how Barack went after Congress. A couple of times it looked like he was going to turn around and slap Boehner for obstructing his agenda. Hope it helps voters forget we Democrats controlled both chambers for two years and got pretty much everything we wanted. Now we have to pretend it never happened.

But do I really have to appear on Chris Matthews again? He's always interrupting me with "It's true" or "I agree." Good lord, he even calls me Barack's "much beloved senior strategist" and says that Obama has "done great things, he's put points on the board." Valerie loves that stuff—soaks it up—but it's too much for me. On the other hand, we have to fire up our true believers—and what better place than on Matthews?

Matthews toadies too much, but Candy Crowley challenges me more than I want—like pointing out that there are 1.7 million fewer jobs since Barack took over and dropping that CNN poll on me that says Romney leads by 13 points on who can best get the economy moving again.

Aw, the Mittster: I know we're not supposed to want him, but truth is I'd like to go after him for being so successful in business. Thank goodness Newt and Perry did the spadework on Bain. What did a New York Times reporter call Newt? Our "useful surrogate"?

I especially want to hit Mitt on the car companies: Repeat after me, over and over, "We would have lost 1.4 million jobs" if we'd let them go bankrupt as Romney urged. As if that many people work for the Big Three and as if going through bankruptcy meant liquidation. Fortunately most voters don't know any better. Hell, if the car companies went through bankruptcy, we couldn't have rewarded the UAW.

And Newt. Like I told reporters, "he's back as the lion in winter. That's L-I-O-N." Called him a liar, but subliminally. Of course, I compared him to a monkey a few weeks ago and the press just laughed along.

Jeez, do I have Stephanopoulos tomorrow morning? Early wake up. He's tougher than most, but heck, George let me get away with saying "I'm not sure Mitt Romney would have made that decision" to kill bin Laden.

The one thing that keeps me up at night is that we're so vulnerable. The economy still sucks—and housing's worse. Barack's approval ratings are underwater. Pollster.com says 37% favor and 50% oppose ObamaCare—er, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Barack is the first Democratic president to have a negative approval rating in Gallup on health care.

Maybe Rahm was right. Go incremental, he said. The rest of us said health reform would be a winning issue in 2012. No wonder Barack gave the subject only 44 words in his address. But that's not as bad as the stimulus and "shovel-ready projects." Zip in the speech on those.

These State of the Union addresses are fine, but I'm glad it's over. In that setting it's hard to use a baseball bat to club Republicans. Now we can and will—for nine straight months. Plouffe was saying it would be nice if we actually had a record we could defend and a positive vision to offer. I told him we don't—and get used to it. Let's make a virtue of simplicity. Our job, as we say around here, is to savage the GOP nominee, grind him to dust, turn him into a freak. I'm ready. After all, it's the Chicago Way.

This article originally appeared on WSJ.com on Wednesday, January 25, 2012.

Battered but standing, Mitt Romney emerged from Monday's presidential debate still the front-runner. Newt Gingrich was at the top of his game, likely earning him at least the silver in South Carolina. Ron Paul probably pushed Rick Santorum into third and himself into fourth place by equating Osama bin Laden with a Chinese dissident. In the most volatile Republican primary season in history, Thursday night's CNN debate still looms large.

If Mr. Romney survives the kerfuffle he created about the income taxes he pays and wins South Carolina after taking Iowa and New Hampshire, he will have gone 3 and 0. No Republican has done that in an open presidential race. Ever.

Still, that alone won't make him the presumptive nominee. The gaps between the candidates matter. And here the numbers look good for the former Massachusetts governor. The RealClearPolitics average of recent South Carolina polls has Mr. Romney in front by 10.3 points (at 32.3%), followed by Mr. Gingrich who, in turn, leads Messrs. Paul and Santorum by 7.7 points. If this holds up, Mr. Romney would go into the Jan. 31 Florida primary with a hard-to-dislodge lead.

He's already in great shape in Florida. While voter attention has been focused on the first three contests, Team Romney has been prepping the next battlefield. Since Dec. 12, the Romney Super PAC and campaign have run an astonishing $3 million of unanswered television ads in the Sunshine State.

Florida is where Mr. Romney should do more to prepare for a clash with President Obama by rebutting—in a direct, powerful and unapologetic way—the attacks launched by Winning Our Future, the Gingrich Super PAC. That shouldn't be hard. Its 28-minute film, "King of Bain," is stuffed with hyperbole, half-truths and flat-out lies. Its anticapitalist message has even won praise from the left-wing propagandist Michael Moore.

Mr. Romney, if he wins the nomination, was always going to face withering criticism from the Obama campaign based on his leadership of Bain Capital. Dealing with it now means telling the full Bain story, including putting a human face on his business background.

For example, the film claims that Mr. Romney closed a Florida industrial washing-machine manufacturing plant and features powerful appearances by workers "laid off by Bain." It turns out they actually got promotions and raises, not pink slips, from Bain.

The company was sold six years after Mr. Romney left Bain to take the helm of the Salt Lake Winter Olympics. And while the new owners closed the Florida facility a year later, the jobs were moved to Wisconsin, according to the Washington Post.

"King of Bain" also asserts that Mr. Romney bought KB Toys and saddled it with "millions of debt." But Bain bought KB a year after Mr. Romney's departure—and it failed nine years later, primarily because of competition from big box stores, according to an Associated Press analysis.

There's more. DDi is a California tech company in which Bain invested $46 million in 1997. "King of Bain" alleges that Romney's firm "dumped" all its stock after reaping $103 million in profits and fees and before the company declared bankruptcy, suggesting that too much debt was the cause. However, it was the aftermath of the 2000 dot-com bust that led the firm to enter bankruptcy in 2003—and Mr. Romney left Bain in 1999. DDi has since emerged from Chapter 11 and is thriving today.

Then there's another target of the film: layoffs at an Indiana paper products firm, SCM Office Supplies, that was acquired in 1994 by AmPad, a Bain company. Bain initially made a lot of money from investing in both companies before AmPad was forced into bankruptcy in 1999. This was not because of unsustainable debt as alleged in the film. Instead, as the Washington Post points out, it was "ironically because of price pressure from companies such as Staples, which was started with help from Bain." And contrary to what the film says, the closure of two former SCM plants in Indiana cost 385 jobs, not "tens of thousands" of jobs. AmPad still exists as a division of another firm.

But even AmPad represents a Romney opportunity. Bain invested in struggling or stagnant companies needing both money and management assistance. This was a high risk/high reward strategy. Without entrepreneurs like Bain willing to pony up with cash and expertise, many of these companies would still be struggling, stagnant or dead with all jobs lost.

The temptation for Team Romney will be to avoid this fight now and wait for Mr. Obama to raise it. But Florida is the place, and early February the time, to set the record straight.

Doing so will not only deliver a body blow to Mr. Romney's most aggressive GOP competitor; but it will strengthen him for the coming battle. However nasty the GOP primary has become, it is a stroll in the park compared to what lies ahead.

This article originally appeared on WSJ.com on Wednesday, January 18, 2012.

In an open race for the GOP nomination, no Republican has won both Iowa and New Hampshire, as Mitt Romney has. No one has come in fourth or fifth in New Hampshire, as Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum did, and become the nominee. No one has entirely skipped Iowa, as Jon Huntsman did, and won elsewhere. No one has recovered after grabbing the 1% that Rick Perry received in the Granite State. And no one became the nominee after failing to win one of the first two contests, a position in which Ron Paul finds himself.

All this means history will be made this year, no matter what happens next.

The focus Tuesday was more on the winner's margin than on the victory itself. Mr. Romney won the New Hampshire primary by an impressive 16.4 points. (The state's last five contested GOP primaries have seen an average winning margin of 10.5 points.) True to its tradition, New Hampshire paid little attention to Iowa's big story—Mr. Santorum's impressive second-place finish. He finished fifth. The candidate who camped out in New Hampshire saw that pay off, as Mr. Huntsman did 17 times as well there as he's doing in the Gallup national poll, where he's at 1%.

All six candidates have enough resources to run hard in the next contest, in South Carolina on Jan. 21. Already, five campaigns have placed over $6 million on television in the state, with Mr. Gingrich and Mr. Romney accounting for over $4 million of it.

It's important to understand that South Carolina is not quintessentially Southern in the way that, for example, Mississippi and Alabama are. Social conservatives in the upstate region (including Spartanburg) unfamiliar with Mr. Romney's record might be more willing to support Messrs. Gingrich and Santorum than were their New Hampshire counterparts, who had observed Mr. Romney's unwavering conservative positions on abortion and marriage when he was governor of neighboring Massachusetts.

But economic conservatives dominate South Carolina's so-called Midlands region (including Columbia, the state capital), while the coastal Low Country (including Charleston) is home to many Midwestern retirees. In 2008, Mr. Romney and John McCain ran better in the last two regions than upstate. The presence of national defense conservatives everywhere has negative implications for Mr. Paul, with his heavy emphasis of isolationism. And the state's stubbornly high unemployment rate, today at 9.9%, makes the economy the No. 1 issue.

South Carolina will be the last chance for several candidates. It will be hard to justify going on after being at the back of the pack in three contests—especially with Florida's 10 expensive media markets and four million registered Republican voters for this closed primary looming at month's end.

You wouldn't know this from listening to some Republicans' lamentations. It sounds pretty strange when the former House speaker (Mr. Gingrich), the former No. 3 in the Senate Republican leadership (Mr. Santorum), a past chairman of the Republican Governors Association (Mr. Perry), and a former vice-presidential chief of staff (William Kristol) and others warn against letting "the establishment" choose the Republican nominee. If there is a "GOP establishment," they are surely part of it.

More to the point, a small membership committee does not govern the process. No group of power brokers can pressure others into uniting behind one candidate. Millions of primary voters and caucus-goers will select the GOP's nominee. That's good enough for most of us.

There's a lesson for the front-runner, Mr. Romney, in Mr. Gingrich's complaint that negative ads in Iowa damaged his candidacy there. Because cable TV, the plethora of debates and the Internet have made the entire process so remarkably accessible to all the country, Mr. Gingrich's South Carolina support also dropped 25 points in December, according to the CNN/TIME/OCR poll, as Palmetto State voters reacted to the issue without even seeing the ads. If Mr. Romney emerges as the nominee, he could suffer the same damage when the Obama campaign runs negative ads attacking his leadership of Bain Capital, as it surely would.

His GOP rivals are already doing so. Most Republicans will likely ignore much of the criticism over Bain because they generally approve of successful businessmen. That's not going to be the case in the general election. Mr. Romney can help himself enormously if he uses the weeks ahead to forcefully confront this issue. His words in South Carolina and Florida will be heard by tens of millions of Americans.

This article originally appeared on WSJ.com on Wednesday, January 11, 2012.

An editorial from Editor At Large, Mike Opelka

Another victim of the shootings in Arizona has been discovered.  Free Speech.  In less than a week we have seen an attack on our vital First Amendment unlike any in my lifetime.  I am terrified for our Republic.  It is being disassembled in front of us.

Some in Congress called for legislation to limit the political rhetoric.  In a country known for Free Speech, I respectfully ask these elected officials, “How do you do that?”

Other elected officials have again spoken up for the return of the ironically named “Fairness Doctrine.”

At the core of both of those actions is an attack on the largest and most important stone in the foundation of our Liberty, Free Speech. While I may not agree with your opinion, but I will defend your right to say it.  However, if Congress silences even one voice on radio, TV, online, or in print, then they have silenced all of our voices.

What should worry all of us is not just the potential loss of Free Speech, but that Congress is once again asking us to do something that they are not willing to do.

Congress is exempted from any attacks on their free speech.  Seriously, our elected officials are basically protected against any legal actions for whatever they say in the House and Senate.  It is in the Constitution.

The first clause of the sixth section of Article I of the Constitution provides: “The Senators and Representatives . . . shall in all cases, except treason, felony and breach of the peace, be privileged from arrest during their attendance at the session of their respective houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any speech or debate in either house, they shall not be questioned in any other place.”

This protection was given to Congress by the Founders, but there are more exemptions offered to the Political Class.  Oddly enough, they have granted these privileges to themselves, and only to themselves.

For the record, Congress is exempt from the recent Obamacare rules.  They have a healthcare plan that is so amazing, most of us would happily pay 5 times what they are charged for this amazing coverage.  If you don’t believe me, perhaps you will believe the journalists at CBS News.

Remember the recent rancor raised when the TSA started their very personal pat-downs at the airports?  There are myriad reports stating that elected officials are exempt from security screening and allowed to pass through the airports with ease.  Obviously anyone flying on a military plane is not a concern to me. The American armed forces are quite capable of handling their security, but anyone flying on a commercial plane should be subject to the same scrutiny as Joe Taxpayer.

So, Congress is exempt from prosecution of “heated rhetoric” – but they don’t want you to have that exemption.

Congress may be allowed to sidestep the invasive TSA screenings, but they don’t want you to have that option.

And Congress says that Obamacare is GREAT for you, but not for them or the many “friends” they have also granted exemptions.

Needless to say the Arizona massacre of last Saturday was a terrible tragedy. Six lives were taken, another sixteen innocent people were injured.  But almost immediately after the attack, operatives began lining up to twist and mold this event for their own benefit.  The extreme Left stepped up and started demonizing what they called “the heated rhetoric of the extreme Right.” Sarah Palin’s map with cross-hairs on it was brought up again.  Never mind that years earlier the Democratic Leadership Council published a similar map with targets on it…

Or that the Daily Kos had a blogger named BlueBoy referring to the now-wounded Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords saying “My CongressWoman voted against Nancy Pelosi and now she’s dead to me”  on it’s site just days before the shootings.

(This piece was removed shortly after the shooting in AZ.  Some say “scrubbed.”)

The alleged shooter is apparently not tied to any group, Right or Left.  And yet his bullets struck all sides of the American political discussion.  Sure, some of his college classmates have called him a Left-wing pot head, but where is the proof.  This morning on ABC TV it was reported that a high school friend of his said,  “He did not watch TV. He disliked the news. He didn’t listen to political radio. He didn’t take sides. He wasn’t on the left. He wasn’t on the right.”

All we really know about this madman is that he was not a tool of the Right or the Left, but his actions may take a serious toll on all of our lives.

We must all unite, mourn the dead, heal the victims and then protect our most precious Freedom Of Speech.

As my father has said for years, “Constitutionally, after the First, everything else is second.”

STATEMENT BY YVONNE DONNELLY
NATIONAL CHAIR OF THE PROJECT 9-12 ADVISORY BOARD

“Our thoughts and prayers are with the families and loved ones of Judge John Roll, Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, and all of the victims of the senseless attack that took place in Tucson on Saturday,” said Yvonne Donnelly, national chair of The 9/12 Project Advisory Board.

“This horrific incident is a reminder that the most fundamental values of a free society are both precious and fragile. The acts of a lone and apparently  deranged individual have prompted calls for drastic changes in the way that citizens and their elected representatives conduct the dialog that is so essential to a free society. We must take reasonable and prudent steps that will ensure the safety of those who engage in this dialog, but we must do so in a manner that preserves and enhances the basic tenets of our free society.”

“Just as the brave individuals who tackled and restrained the Tucson gunman, and the Congresswoman’s aide who gave life-saving first aid until law enforcement and emergency personnel arrived, citizens should be prepared to help in emergencies as they are able.  Local 9/12 Project groups will continue to provide emergency preparedness training. In addition, the national Advisory Board is drafting more information on event safety awareness and preparedness for citizens, which will be posted on our website shortly at http://www.the912-project.com.”

Have you seen the new website for the 9/12 Project?

Please visit often and tell your friends.

The 912 Advisory Board

Our friends in Central Texas have also updated their website. We encourage you to visit them and share your thoughts. The National 912 site would also like to hear from any local groups about their projects and events.

AT&T is not endorsed by the 912 Project, we just appreciate their bringing attention to the obvious problem of texting and driving. Perhaps this is a New Years resolution we can all make and keep.

it’s only been on the web a few days, but has garnered over 6 million hits.

WE THE PEOPLE.

If you missed the Christopher Hitchens piece that attacked our humble movement, no worries, your Advisory Board caught it and has responded.

Here is one response from Editor-At-Large Mike Opelka