Just saw on CNN a poll (this appears to be it) that “Of the over 1,000 American adults surveyed in the poll conducted March 14-16, 65% said they are ‘very concerned’ about inflation, and 26% said they are ’somewhat concerned.’” Inflation was the number one worry over job lose, house value and stock market drops. Perhaps people always worried about inflation and I wasn’t paying attention or given when it’s low people don’t concern themselves as much with it so it doesn’t register in polls.
A commercial break happened after the poll report and the next segment to report on was about how much we’ve spent in Iraq over the past 5 years and how that money could have been spent on domestically.
It’s nice to see that even if Paul isn’t doing well people are talking about some of the same topics he is trying to make main components of his campaign.
The heck with Congress’ big stimulus bill. The way to get the country out of recession - and most people think we’re in one - is to get the country out of Iraq, according to an Associated Press-Ipsos poll.
Pulling out of the war ranked first among proposed remedies in the survey, followed by spending more on domestic programs, cutting taxes and, at the bottom end, giving rebates to poor people in hopes they’ll spend the economy into recovery.
Forty-eight percent said a pullout would help fix the country’s economic problems “a great deal,” and an additional 20 percent said it would help at least somewhat. Some 43 percent said increasing government spending on health care, education and housing programs would help a great deal; 36 percent said cutting taxes.
That first one sounds a whole lot like the idea one of the Republicans running for POTUS has. The second sounds like that of those running on the Democrat side. Third the Republicans again. I’d really like to know the logic that those 43% who said increasing government spending. The government doesn’t produce wealth. Wealth redistribution does not help the economy. It leads to deincentivize those who do produce because the more they make and save the more they are taxed per monetary unit and it gives those who don’t currently produce any reason to start. If they start working they will be make just as much often and have to actually work or will be taxed back down to where they were.
The more people use an argument for taxation’s legitimacy or that of licenses based on the services the government provides I will get closer and closer to supporting suffrage exclusion based on knowledge. Particularly history and economics. Sortof like a Read the Bills Act for voting.
As noted on the CNN site says: “Unpledged delegates in the Republican Party do not have to indicate a candidate preference, but a majority are elected just like pledged delegates. Of the 463 unpledged delegates, 123 are RNC members who become delegates automatically.”
These numbers are estimates. No one knows for sure who all the delegates belong. Some states have yet to finalize them.
Kansas has 36: Paul is the number 1 fundraiser, Rudy 2nd, McCain 3rd. I suspect McCain will do well but with no poll data it’s hard to tell. This poll which matches candidates shows McCain doing the best against Clinton so my guess is he wins. It’s not a winner take all however. If we follow Montana which Paul also was number 1 fundraiser… it went to Romney who raised 2nd most.
Washington has 40: Paul is doing well there. 2nd in fundraising to Mitt. Hopefully those two pick up most of the delegates.
Virginia is winner takes all. Looks like McCain will take their 63.
Maryland looks like Rudy and Romney country. Assuming they move from Rudy to McCain he may pickup a majority of their 37.
DC looks like a McCain win with 16.
Louisiana is a cluster fuck. Paul may have gotten 2nd to the Pro-Life slate though McCain may have. Either way it’s split and counted in the 42 the Paul campaign is claiming. There are more (24+) to be selected however.
Wisconsin should go well for Paul and be fairly split. They have 37 to give.
Based on $$ raised Romney should pick up a majority of Ohio but Rudy + McCain could take a large chunk of the 85 they have.
Texas’ 137 appear to be very split. If the Rudy supporters go to McCain he will get many of the delegates.
I’m counting about 330 for McCain from these states. At that rate it seems likely he will get his 511 but it may be fairly close. I’ve heard rumors that some of his delegates aren’t really his. I doubt it’s all that many but it could be enough to force a brokered convention. Even though I don’t expect Paul to get the nomination the opportunity to address the entire Republican establishment and pitch his platform would be priceless. The whole Republican world would hopefully be watching.
There are a lot of people online going nuts about Paul’s 8% result in New Hampshire yesterday. I have to admit I’m surprised by the results. RealClearPolitics.com has 6 polls’ numbers and their average. The averages look like this:
McCain: 31.8%
Romney: 28.2%
Huckabee: 12.2%
Giuliani: 9.3%
Paul: 8.2%
Thompson: 2.2%
What we got was:
McCain: 37.02%
Romney: 31.48%
Huckabee: 11.20%
Giuliani: 8.53%
Paul: 7.23%
Thompson: 1.21%
Hunter: 0.51%
Other: 2.40%
Huckabee, Giuliani, Paul and Thompson look pretty close to the polls which were of likely Republican voters. Is it really the case that the Independents flocked to McCain? I was expecting that Paul would have at least gotten enough Independents to keep his percentile. The events I’ve attended the independents, new voters and Democrats who switched outweighed those who where originally from the Republican party or Libertarian party. I would have suspected that he would have gotten at least 8% of the independents so he’d be at around 8% in the end. It is the Live Free or Die state… and Iowa which can hardly be considered libertarian gave him 10%. It’s the state that gave Pat Buchanan the win in 1996 and Buchanan has been speaking really well of Paul (though no official endorsement.) It all feels a bit weird but I’ve not seen any evidence of foul play. Sutton township accidentally reported zero votes for Paul when it was 31. Shit happens. http://ronrox.com/paulstats.php shows differences between votes counted by hand and votes handled by machines. It is interesting that Paul does a full 2% better in hand counted polls. McCain does 2.87% better and Huckabee 2.65% better. Romney does 7.51% worse. I’d like to see the economic breakdown of those areas which hand counted vs machine. But even with this I’m in no way convinced this means anything. I’ve yet to see anything to indicate foul play. I think it’s much more likely that we screwed up. “[A] late campaign start, late arrival by volunteers, an MSM media black-out, seeing your volunteers spending the last 36 hours of the campaign protesting FOX News and chasing down NeoCon radio hosts instead of focusing on the get-out-the-vote effort, the weather-induced record turnout that allowed the wishy-washy to water down die-hard voters, and so on and so on.” However, as Nick Bradley indicates, Among total votes cast Paul is in 4th at 8.6% above Giuliani at 7.0%. I don’t suspect to continue however given he’s only got max 5% nationwide and if he’s not getting delegates it doesn’t matter. So unless Paul supporters go mascaraed as supporters of McCain and Romney we are SOL.
My worry now is that Paul will decide not to run 3rd party or will not run on the Libertarian ticket. He has till May to become a Libertarian Party member in order to be a candidate. If he does not end up on the Libertarian ticket he would probably run Independent and therefore against the Libertarian and Constitutionalist candidates instead of uniting them. I think it would be in the best interest of the country, Ron Paul and the Libertarian party to have Paul on it’s ticket.
Anyway… here is Alex Jones going off about the info I’ve talked about:
In other but related news… rumor is Bill Richardson is going to drop out of the race soon.
The New Hampshire Republican Party is sponsoring a forum for Republican presidential candidates on Jan. 6, two days before the state’s first-in-the-nation primary.The forum, where the candidates will be questioned by Fox New Channel’s Chris Wallace, will be held a day after ABC holds back to back Democratic and Republican presidential debates.
“Never underestimate New Hampshire voters’ appetite for politics,” said Fergus Cullen, the chairman of the state Republican Party.
Participating in the forum will be Rudy Giuliani, Mike Huckabee, John McCain, Mitt Romney and Fred Thompson.
Unlike a debate, the candidates will face questions from Wallace around a table in a studio on the campus of St. Anselm College in Goffstown, N.H.. The 90-minute encounter will air live beginning at 8 p.m. ET on the Fox News Channel and on Fox News Radio.
Amazing. If you look at the polls Paul is tied or ahead of Fred Thompson in nearly every poll and in some tied with Huckabee. In Iowa he’s been tied for 3rd. It’s outrageous for Fox and the NH state party (who is sponsoring the forum) to leave out Paul.
Update:
All of a sudden people have gone apeshit over this story. Some aparently saying that AP didn’t say he wasn’t invited so he may infact be going. I’ve yet to see any confirmation. However, if you say X, Y, and Z are going to be somewhere that is generally absolute. They didn’t say John Cox was invited either but it wouldn’t be implied he was just because he’s running.
This one has been floating around for a couple weeks I believe but this video does a better job of explaining it than the original clip I came across. I’ve read many reports of similar things. Polls just leaving him out, some putting him on a second page even when their is room on the first, and this where they remove the polled from future polling for attempting to choose something besides the main set.
FOX News jumped the shark today during their ‘FOX and Friends’ interview w/ Congressman Paul this morning. After starting 10 minutes early and asked him about Huckabee, but cut to commercial abruptly afte Paul made a comment about fascism (before Paul could clarify his comments). When they came back, the hostess asked Paul a series of “one-answer questions” for about a minute then ended the interview. FOX then moved on to a hard-hitting story about a dog who had 17 puppies, and showed a trailer for a ‘Hannity an Colmes’ interview with Alan Keyes (!)
