So obviously a lot can happen between now and November.
War with Iran, European collapse, cat breading craze leads to chronic bread shortages, etc etc.
But first of all, what’s the fun of talking about politics if you aren’t willing to make wild predictions based on insufficient data?
Second, I thought about citing swing state data showing the President in a stronger position and talking about the many paths he has to victory but really, just consider the choice between this guy and this guy. There’s really no comparison.
Over the past month, we’ve launched a new tradition at The Recovering Politician: a great virtual debate on the issues of the day among our recovering politicians; with provocations, rebuttals, responses, and defenses. Our first discussion focused on presidential leadership; our second on legalizing marijuana; our third, Tim Tebow; and our fourth, expanded gambling.
This week, the RP stirs up the mix with another controversial subject: the morality of gambling The RP starts off with his provocative article from The Huffington Post. Tune in every half hour to read what other RPs have to say.
SPOILER ALERT: There will be fireworks.
Krystal Ball’s Provocation
Whatever loyalty former House Speaker Newt Gingrich had to the Republican establishment was destroyed when it dropped the anvil on him after his South Carolina victory. Whatever goodwill Newt had toward former Gov. Mitt Romney evaporated in the blitz of negative ads that stole his chances for a win in Iowa. Now what’s left is Newt’s utter contempt for Mitt Romney. Newt will not be vice president. He will not be in the administration. He will not be fawned over by the Republican establishment like Gov. Mitch Daniels or Rep. Paul Ryan. All that’s left for him is a deep desire for revenge. This is not a happy state of affairs for the GOP.
I attended Newt’s rally with Herman Cain in Tampa this week. While it’s true that the blunt, Gadsden flag-bearing crowd at the rally go together with Mitt Romney about as well as ice cream and anchovies, they are ultimately Republican base voters who will come back into the fold. It is independent voters who may turn away from Mitt Romney and never look back. While Newt may not have the money that Mitt Romney does, he knows how to use the media and is a master at framing negative attacks. Already he has leveled much harsher critiques of Mitt Romney’s time at Bain Capital than Democrats would be able to pull off and it has been effective. Governor Romney’s business experience, supposedly his strongest selling point, is now as likely to be viewed favorably as unfavorably by independents. This is an attack that is less resonant in a Republican primary, but is plenty effective among swing voters.
Read the rest of… The RPs Debate the GOP Mudfest: Krystal Ball Provokes
I want to start where Rod’s insightful and very honest post (particularly for someone who worked for the candidate!) left off. Rod said he wished Romney would “walk into a room with his hair messed up in a t-shirt and jeans grab the mike and say, ‘I’m a heck of a good businessman and I’m going to kick Obamas butt and fix this country. You can either get on board my train or I’m running you over!’”
Rod’s right. This is exactly what Republican voters want to hear this year. Unfortunately for Governor Romney, it’s also exactly the kind of line that with or without actual swearing, Romney is completely incapable of delivering in a non-cringeworthy way. Mitt’s problems have less to do with the ins and outs of his flip-flops and more to do with the fact that those flip-flops feed the narrative of what everyone suspects: Romney is a privileged, out of touch, overly ambitious guy whose positions are poll-tested and designed to reflect what the electorate wants to hear, not what Romney actually believes. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that they suspect he holds no core beliefs. Jeff described Romney as “perfect.” Voters don’t see perfect though, they see too good to be true.
The fact that Mitt doesn’t share the religion of the vast majority of Republican primary voters is also not the problem per se. The problem is that Governor Romney’s religion feeds another narrative that voters suspect is true of Romney: that he’s fundamentally unlike you and your neighbors. You can’t relate to him and he can’t relate to you. How can you trust this guy to get what your family is going through when he seems so unlike you? How can you trust him to fight for you?
Machiavelli says that it is critical for leaders to be either feared or loved and between the two, it’s better to be feared. In America though, I think we prefer to have something like 3 parts love to 2 parts fear in our Presidents. Obama, even now with the initial luster worn off his persona, is loved by his base. But he has another side that’s on display when he says: “Ask Osama Bin Laden if I engage in appeasement.” George W. Bush, Clinton, and Reagan all were loved and feared. In fact over the past several decades, I would argue that the two one-term Presidents, Carter and Bush 41, failed to win reelection because they were neither really loved nor really feared. Could America love Romney? Fear him?
Read the rest of… The RPs Debate Presidential Leadership: Krystal Ball Rebuts
By Jonathan Miller, on Sun Jan 1, 2012 at 12:00 PM ET
Happy New Year!
I hope 2012 brings you joy, laughter, love, happiness, and many pints of tasty hummus. Here at The Recovering Politician, we plan some exciting new features that we will share with you in the weeks ahead.
For now, as you rest and recover from your New Year’s Eve celebration — and recharge your batteries for a busy January — I wanted to share with you some good reading material.
The first nine months at The Recovering Politician have seen more than 1200 posts from over three dozen contributors. I share my favorites below; please let me know what I missed in the comments section:
Our most popular writer, hands down, has been contributing RP and former Missouri State Senator Jeff Smith. Jeff’s first piece — the story of his rise into national celebrity, his dramatic fall that resulted in a prison term, and his hopes for redemption — put the RP on the national map, earning recognition from New York magazine’s “Approval Matrix.” Jeff’s followup — about love and sex behind bars — drew in nearly 100,000 readers, literally crashing the Web site. Jeff’s become a national sensation — expect much more from him in 2012.
Contributing RPMichael Steele was already a national sensation before he joined the site — you know him as the former Lt. Governor of Maryland, as well as the Chairman of the Republican National Committee. Now a regular contributor to MSNBC, Michael shared with RP readers his vision of the new American Dream, and assessed both President Barack Obama and Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Over the next few days, Michael will report from the Iowa caucuses; and in the year ahead, he will share his lively take on politics — and other subjects as well.
Another familiar face at the site in 2011 was another former Lt. Governor of Maryland, contributing RPKathleen Kennedy Townsend. Kathleen elucidated her well-versed take on faith and politics, while slamming a then-ascendant Rick Perry for misusing faith, defended Sarah Palin(!), and shared her unique perspective as a member of the nation’s most iconic political family. Her most popular piece was on, of all things, home births. Expect the same kind of wide variety from Kathleen at The RP in the coming months.
One of the RP’s most prolific contributing RPs was former Alabama Congressman Artur Davis. Artur wrote a fascinating, insightful piece about political authenticity, plunged into the centuries-old debate on race and politics, and explored the Democratic Party’s faith gap. Some of his most popular pieces were book reviews, taking on new works about Harry Truman and Bobby Kennedy. Artur’s not been shy about controversy, angering conservatives by attacking his home state’s “ugly” immigration law, and riling liberals by supporting its new Voter ID law. Don’t expect Artur to pull any punches in 2012.
Contributing RP and former Missouri state House Speaker Rod Jetton is also one who is not a stranger to controversy. At the peak of his power, Rod was charged with ethics and criminal violations, and while he was cleared of everything, he stepped down to begin his second act. Rod’s 3-part series about his “Success, Scandal and Change” was one of the site’s most widely read, and he concluded the year with a touching 4-part series on his best friend, a fallen Marine. In the middle, he showed off a wry sense of humor in a video interview with his unlikely pal, contributing RP Jeff Smith (you have to see Rod’s imitation of Jeff).
Jason Atkinson, an Oregon State Senator and contributing RP, underwent a different kind of political recovery — he had to withdraw from a promising gubernatorial campaign after he accidentally shot himself while hunting. He writes about the experience — with graphic charts — in “A Real Political Recovery,” but also created an Internet sensation with short films he directed on more successful outdoor adventures fishing for trout in “Big Mo” and “Half Pounder.” He also showed off his own wicked sense of humor, imitating Abe Lincoln and citing the wisdom of Homer…Simpson that is.
Our newest contributing RP, former Virginia Congressional Democratic nominee Krystal Ball, has already generated considerable reader interest with her first piece about Why We Need More Women in Politics. Krystal should know; her first campaign for office was interrupted by a ridiculous media inquiry into pictures taken of her in college; PG-13 pictures that caused a mini-national-sensation only because of Krystal’s gender. As a regular contributor to MSNBC and here at The RP, Krystal will help us view politics in a much different way.
Finally, I feel very fortunate — and so is the RP Nation — to have convinced my good friend, contributing RP, and former Kentucky Secretary of State, John Y. Brown, III to share his incisive social and political commentary, along with his uproarious sense of humor, at The RP. John Y. helped set the theme and tone of the site with his early piece, “What Do We Do Now?,” in which he offered a 20-question quiz to help readers determine if they were in need of political recovery. More recently, we’ve launched a regular feature, John Y.’s Musings from the Middle, in which he shares his wit and wisdom on topics varying from fruitcake to the death penalty to Lindsay Lohan. We guarantee a lot of laughs, as well as thoughtful advice, in the year ahead.
Thanks for joining us in 2011. Stay tuned for a wild and wonderful 2012.
Contributing RP, and former Virginia Congressional candidate Krystal Ball, took on hopeful GOP kingmaker Donald Trump on MSNBC yesterday. Our favorite line? “To call (Trump) a clown is unfair to clowns.”
Like most young women of my generation, running for office was something I never pictured myself doing. I tended to think of politicians as coming from two different-and unappealing groups-extreme partisans and opportunists.
But when I decided to run for US Congress in early 2009, shortly after my daughter was born and in the throws of the idealism and hope that President Obama’s inauguration represented, I realized that things are the way they are in this country in large part because people like me, young mothers, young women struggling to make careers and find their way in the world, don’t participate very much in the political process.
We tend not to run for office. We feel in fact virtually excluded from the national political conversation. And I felt, and still feel, that the absence of the voices of women generally, and young women in particular, was hurting us as a country.
So, even though I felt absolutely 100% terrified about the whole process, I threw my hat in the ring and ran for US Congress. I thought that if I could overcome my shyness and insecurities and run for office, perhaps that would serve as an example for a few more young women to run and that those few more could serve as an example for more still until eventually thousands of young women, from all over the country, decided to participate in the political process and run for office at every level, and the higher the better. There’s no question in my mind that if this were to happen things in this country would really change.
Read the rest of… Krystal Ball: Why We Need More Young Women in Politics
By Zack Adams, RP Staff, on Fri Nov 4, 2011 at 9:15 AM ET
Reports out of the Indianapolis Colts state Peyton Manning is still looking to practice this season and retains hope that he may play in a game in 2011. Manning had his third neck surgery in 19 months in September when he had part of his spine fused. Unbelievable. [ESPN]
Krystal Ball & Michael Steele’s Last Words
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