By Krystal Ball, on Wed Mar 28, 2012 at 8:30 AM ET
The chance of Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich forcing a brokered convention has become quite small. At this point, it is starting to come down to math, so forgive me for a bit of tedious delegate allocation arithmetic. After Illinois, Romney is estimated to have 560 delegates in his column, putting him about halfway to the 1,144 delegates he needs to win the nomination outright. While it is still theoretically possible for Santorum to do well enough to deny him that number, Governor Romney has a few things working in his favor.
First, the remaining states on the whole are more favorable to Romney. New York and California have large numbers of delegates at stake and are both very likely to go for Romney.
Other good Romney states like Maryland, Connecticut, and New Jersey are also among the remaining contests. Second, Romney’s key states tend to allocate their delegates using a winner-take-all method allowing him to quickly rack up delegates, while Santorum’s tend to use proportional allocation (and Gingrich’s key states are nonexistent).
For example, California’s 172 delegates are allocated using winner-take-all while the large state most favorable to Santorum, Texas, uses a proportional allocation process. Other potentially favorable Santorum states using a proportional allocation method include North Carolina, Arkansas, and Kentucky.
Read the rest of… Krystal Ball: Chances of a Brokered Convention Are Small
By Jonathan Miller, on Fri Mar 16, 2012 at 8:30 AM ET
Newt Gingrich shouldn’t drop out of the presidential race as long as he feels that he has something to say and to contribute, and he has the desire and fire in his belly to go through the process.
The GOP establishment hasn’t helped Gingrich in his race, and its calls for him to sacrifice for party unity are likely to fall on deaf ears. The amount of pressure these Republicans can put on Gingrich is marginal, since they are neither endorsing nor funding him.
Also, the idea that somehow Newt will lose his dignity if he stays in the race beyond his natural shelf-life…is, well, a bit absurd given who Newt Gingrich is and how he comports himself.
The argument that somehow Santorum would dominate Romney without Gingrich in the race is also misplaced, for several reasons. Firstly, I am deeply suspicious of the underlying rationale of this argument.
It’s the same argument that suggests that Ralph Nader was responsible for Al Gore’s loss in 2000 and not Gore’s anemic campaigning that brought the race to the margin of error. This same argument falls flat with Santorum. Santorum is gaining ground, strength, and momentum from the way he is running his campaign.
Facts on the ground may conspire to make Newt largely irrelevant, as voters line up behind either Santorum or Romney. However, if Santorum loses to Romney, it’s his own fault. Not Newt Gingrich’s.
Read the rest of… Krystal Ball: Only Newt Gingrich Decides When He Gets Out
By Krystal Ball, on Tue Mar 13, 2012 at 8:30 AM ET
Mitt Romney has both a southern problem and a southern opportunity.
Mitt enjoys “sport.” He’s not an ardent NASCAR fan but he does have friends who are team owners.
He’s “always been a rodent and rabbit hunter. Small varmints, if you will.”
If this sounds like a guy poised to win over the hearts and minds of southern conservatives, then your only experience south of the Mason-Dixon likely involved a trip to visit relatives in Boca Raton.
Alabama and Mississippi are coming up on the primary calendar, and they are likely to prove quite challenging for Romney, who has yet to prove that he can win anywhere in the South.
With heartland states on the calendar as well, the March lineup is a tough one for former Governor Romney. This challenge is also an opportunity, though.
It gives Romney a chance to prove once and for all that he can win over demographic groups that he’s fallen flat with thus far.
As a daughter of the South who was born and raised in King George, Va., I can tell you that Mitt Romney’s southern problem is severe but surmountable. There is no question that, to the extent the South shares a cultural, religious, and personality aesthetic, Mitt Romney is the antithesis of this aesthetic.
Read the rest of… Krystal Ball: Romney’s Southern Problem and Opportunity
By Krystal Ball, on Mon Mar 5, 2012 at 10:00 AM ET
Rush Limbaugh issued an apology this weekend for calling Sandra Fluke a prostitute and a slut after she testified before Congress on women’s health care. This “apology” occurs after three days of Limbaugh slut shaming Ms. Fluke, insulting her parents and saying that Fluke should make a pornographic movie for his titillation.
On the fourth day, after a public outcry and the loss of at least six national sponsorships due to BoycottRush.organd similar efforts, Mr. Limbaugh now regrets his choice of words. This was too little, way too late. Especially since Mr. Limbaugh has a long history of offensive and vulgar comments.
No business should associate itself with such a pattern of repeated, reckless, personal abuse. If Rush wants to continue to have the opportunity to demean women in the future, that is his right. Good companies have many opportunities to promote their businesses without having to subsidize the denigration of women. Sandra Fluke wasn’t the first woman to be smeared by Rush Limbaugh, but she needs to be the last.
Two weeks ago, the House of Representatives held a hearing on access to contraception that included no women. Chairman Daryl Issa denied a Georgetown law student, Sandra Fluke, permission to speak on the absurd grounds that the hearing was about religious freedom, not birth control. After Democrats held their own hearing in which Fluke gave passionate, thoughtful testimony about a friend who lost an ovary because she couldn’t afford the birth control pills that would have reduced her ovarian cysts, Rush Limbaugh apparently felt the need to weigh in and decided to do so in the shameful, loathsome way that only Rush could. As I could never improve upon the words themselves for a distillation of the soul of Rush Limbaugh, here they are:
“What does that make her (Fluke)? It makes her a slut, right? It makes her a prostitute,” he said. “She wants to be paid to have sex. She’s having so much sex she can’t afford the contraception.” As if that wasn’t enough, he had to insult the most powerful woman in the legislative branch and Sandra’s parents:
“Can you imagine if you’re her parents how proud of Sandra Fluke you would be?” he said. “Your daughter goes up to a congressional hearing conducted by the Botox-filled Nancy Pelosi and testifies she’s having so much sex she can’t afford her own birth control pills and she agrees that Obama should provide them, or the Pope.”
Martin Bashir said he was left speechless on Thursday after hearing what he called “idiotic comments” made by Rush Limbaugh about Sandra Fluke, the Georgetown University law student who was denied the right to speak at acontroversial Republican hearing on contraception.
“So, Miss Fluke and the rest of you feminazis. Here’s the deal. If we’re going to pay for your contraceptives and thus pay for you to have sex, we want something for it. We want you to post the videos online so we can all watch,” Limbaugh said.
Bashir reread what he called Limbaugh’s ludicrous thoughts and asked his panel to comment. Democratic strategist Krystal Ball called Limbaugh “despicable,” “disgusting,” and a “loathsome individual.” She also defended Fluke and said Limbaugh was trying to shame her.
By Krystal Ball, on Mon Feb 27, 2012 at 8:30 AM ET
Our own contributing Krystal Ball helped change an imminent government policy in Virginia last week. After helping expose the implications of a proposed state law that would have required transvaginal ultrasounds for women seeking abortion, Governor McDonnell withdrew his support.
Here’s Krystal on MSNBC’s “Martin Bashir Show” last week:
MSNBC’s expert on abortion Krystal Ball: “So, Virginia is my home state and I actually ran for Congress there in 2010. So this hits very close to home for me also being a woman. What they are saying in Virginia is not only do women have to undergo an ultrasound, they have to undergo a trans-vaginal ultrasound. Mandatory state probing, okay. That’s what this legislation is talking about.”
“It actually meets the Virginia definition of rape.”
And here’s Krystal’s piece from last week’s The Recovering Politician:
State mandated-transvaginal probes!
Well Virginia, you certainly know how to get a gal’s attention. This weekend I went home to Virginia, partly to give my parents their granddaughter fix but partly to survey the political landscape. My home state has suddenly become the focus of national attention due to extreme anti-woman legislation that looks ready to be passed by the Republican legislature and could yet be signed into law by Republican Governor and vice presidential hopeful Bob McDonnell. The truth is that Virginia’s lady problems go way beyond what I like to call PAP (Probes and Personhood).
For years, a slim Democratic margin in the Virginia Senate and a hold on the governorship kept extreme legislation from becoming law. But since Republicans took over both chambers and the governor’s mansion, each bill has been more hard-edged than the last. With PAP, the Virginia GOP seem to finally have crossed a line — and it may well doom McDonnell’s national ambitions.
Read the rest of… Krystal Ball: Transvaginal Ultrasounds Are Akin to Rape
By Krystal Ball, on Thu Feb 23, 2012 at 8:30 AM ET
State mandated-transvaginal probes!
Well Virginia, you certainly know how to get a gal’s attention. This weekend I went home to Virginia, partly to give my parents their granddaughter fix but partly to survey the political landscape. My home state has suddenly become the focus of national attention due to extreme anti-woman legislation that looks ready to be passed by the Republican legislature and could yet be signed into law by Republican Governor and vice presidential hopeful Bob McDonnell. The truth is that Virginia’s lady problems go way beyond what I like to call PAP (Probes and Personhood).
For years, a slim Democratic margin in the Virginia Senate and a hold on the governorship kept extreme legislation from becoming law. But since Republicans took over both chambers and the governor’s mansion, each bill has been more hard-edged than the last. With PAP, the Virginia GOP seem to finally have crossed a line — and it may well doom McDonnell’s national ambitions.
In 2009, the Democratic nominee for governor, Creigh Deeds, was swept away by a rising tide of anti-Obama Tea Party fervor and Bob McDonnell became governor, pledging to focus like a laser on jobs. In fact, his campaign slogan was “Bob’s for Jobs.” Poor Creigh didn’t stand a chance against someone whose name actually rhymed with jobs! Democrats, however, held onto the State Senate by a slim two-seat margin. The divided government was good for McDonnell, who clearly harbors national ambitions for 2012 and beyond. The Democratic Senate acted as a levee holding back the steady flow of extreme legislation coming out of the Republican House of Delegates. In addition to keeping the worst laws off the books, the Democratic Senate unknowingly did a favor for Bob McDonnell by saving him from becoming the critical deciding factor between Republican red-meat radicalism and mainstream sentiment in an increasingly purple state.
Read the rest of… Krystal Ball: How the Virginia GOP Could Tank Bob McDonnell’s Political Fortunes
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