Newt Gingrich, The Ship Be Sinking

Let's see what happens with these recall elections in Wisconsin. I don't expect the Democrats to get a clean sweep (the best they can do is a net gain of 9 seats; 9 GOPers and 3 Dems are up for recall). But they need to get a net gain of at least 5 or 6 seats out of this recall election. If not, the "furor" over what Walker has done is going to look like much ado about nothing. He'll feel vindicated and emboldened, as will Kasich and Scott and the other Republican governors trying to do the same thing.

Wisconsin Democrats are past the point of being able to claim a moral victory here. Party leadership and the groups supporting this effort have talked about the Republicans having overplayed their hand. If the results of these recall elections don't prove likewise, it will be very embarrassing for them.

 

Check the approval ratings of all three governors. Pretty big case of buyers' remorse manifesting itself in all three states.

The Republicans are obviously worried about the Wisconsin recall elections, given their shenanigans in trying to get dummy candidates into the Dem primaries. Time will tell.

 

Just heard Rick Perry on the news complaining that Barack Obama is arrogant.

A Texas governor complaining about arrogance? Can there be bigger hypocrisy?

 

So, the conservative brain trust put its sense of humor on display again this weekend...

"My white mother loved a black man. And no, she wasn't a Kardashian."

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0611/57273.html

 

Goes over big, at the country club . . .

 

Just unemployment, no. It would take a whole lot more than that for me to accept this socialist getting another term

 

Even in the cutline that accompanied the photo at the top it mentions how he was pulled off the stage in the middle of his act. Republicans don't go for that kind of crap...which is why most of us also do not find John Stewart very funny.

 

Meanwhile...I'm sure Perry loves this poll, which says about 22 percent of Republicans and an even larger number of Democrats would never vote for a Mormon...something this Southerner has been saying all along.

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-gallup-poll-mormons-20110620,0,7160786.story

 

It's way too early for polls to mean anything, no matter what they say.

For one thing, the Republican candidates are just primary candidates right now. It seems silly, but credibility matters. What people call "seeming Presidential." Being President automatically confers that credibility on Obama. Being a primary candidate doesn't do much, any idiot can put themselves out there (and many have). However, whoever the Republican candidate is should be able to close that gap just by virtue of being the Republican candidate. Winning your party's nomination confers a certain amount of credibility.

More importantly, the money isn't being spent yet. Obama hasn't been campaigning, really, in a long time. And I think people are forgetting just how good his campaign machine was last time. Maybe the Republicans are ready to match it this time, maybe Obama's organization can't repeat that level of effort, but that all remains to be seen as well.

For a third, it takes a wide sampling of polls to approach the truth, the margin of error and inherent biases in method make any single poll nearly worthless.

And finally, who knows what the national mood will be at that point? Where the economy will be? What tragedies and triumphs might be coming in the next, what, 18 months.

This is like trying to predict the baseball standings before the Hot Stove League even starts.

 

IJAG just snapped a kitten's neck.

 

Umm, the Obama impersonator got yanked when he started cracking on Republicans.