Week in Review Part IV: Random Musings

Mitt Romney defeated Rick Santorum in Michigan, 41-38 percent, and in Arizona, 47-27.

Now it’s on to Super Tuesday, March 6, with primaries or caucuses in Alaska, Georgia, Idaho, Massachusetts, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Vermont, Virginia, and Wyoming.

Ohio is the big one between Romney and Santorum, while Newt Gingrich, by his own admission, is finished if he doesn’t win his home state of Georgia. The last poll in Ohio before the Michigan and Arizona results had Santorum up 37-26 over Romney, but that undoubtedly has narrowed. For example a Gallup national tracking poll of registered Republicans as of Thursday had Romney ahead of Santorum, 35-24, while a week earlier Santorum was ahead of Romney, 34-27.

Meanwhile, Barack Obama is leading both Romney and Santorum in a national Politico/George Washington University Battleground Poll released Feb. 27, 53-43 and 53-42, respectively.

But according to Gallup, Obama trails Romney in Ohio, 50-46, and narrowly edges Santorum, 49-48.

[Ohio is one of the 12 battleground states for November…the others being Colorado, Iowa, Florida, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin.]

420Michael Gerson / Washington Post

“Romney’s wealth is not ill-gotten. His problem is political. He talks about money as though engaged in a discussion with his stockbroker. So $374,000 from paid speeches is ‘not very much.’ He is ‘not concerned about the very poor,’ on the assumption that the safety net is enough for them. His wife ‘drives a couple of Cadillacs.’ While not a racing enthusiast himself, Romney has ‘some great friends that are NASCAR team owners.’

“A single gaffe is a political flesh wound. A series of gaffes that confirm a damaging stereotype is potentially fatal.

“These blunders not only reinforce a traditional Republican weakness, they threaten to diminish a large Republican advantage – Barack Obama’s dramatic disconnect with blue-collar whites. The candidate who talked of small-town Americans as clinging ‘to guns or religion’ lost white working-class voters by 18 points in 2008. In 2010, congressional Democrats lost the same group by 30 points. A similarly dismal performance by Obama in 2012 would open vast blue portions of the electoral map to Republican raids.

“Romney may be the only candidate capable of herding working-class voters back toward the president….

“Voters need to know that Romney has at least witnessed the struggles he has not shared. When another wealthy politician, Robert F. Kennedy, toured Appalachia a week before his presidential announcement, Americans understood that he had met people and seen things that don’t leave a man unchanged. Romney must give some evidence – visiting, say, a low-income health clinic or a gang-occupied school – that his hand has touched, that his retina has registered, the hurt and hardship of another America.

“ ‘For the fortunate among us,’ RFK said, ‘there is the temptation to follow the easy and familiar paths of personal ambition and financial success so grandly spread before those who enjoy the privilege of education. But that is not the road history has marked out for us…The future does not belong to those who are content with today, apathetic toward common problems and their fellow man alike…Rather it will belong to those who can blend vision, reason and courage in a personal commitment to the ideals and great enterprises of American society.’

“If Romney can demonstrate this commitment – personally and authentically – he may yet become president of the United States.”

420Maureen Dowd / New York Times

“It’s finally sinking in.

“Republicans are getting queasy at the gruesome sight of their party eating itself alive, savaging the brand in ways that will long resonate.

“ ‘Republicans being against sex is not good,’ the G.O.P. strategist Alex Castellanos told me mournfully. ‘Sex is popular.’

“He said his party is ‘coming to grips with a weaker field than we’d all want’ and going through the five stages of grief. ‘We’re at No. 4,’ he said. (Depression.) ‘We’ve still got one to go.’ (Acceptance.)

“The contenders in the Hester Prynne primaries are tripping over one another trying to be the most radical, unreasonable and insane candidate they can be. They pounce on any traces of sanity in the other candidates – be it humanity toward women, compassion toward immigrants or the willingness to make the rich pay a nickel more in taxes – and try to destroy them with it….

“How can the warm, nurturing Catholic Church of my youth now be represented in the public arena by uncharitable nasties like Gingrich and Rick Santorum?

“ ‘It makes the party look like it isn’t a modern party,’ Rudy Giuliani told CNN’s Erin Burnett, fretting about the candidates’ Cotton Mather attitude about women and gays. ‘It doesn’t understand the modern world that we live in.’

“After a speech in Dallas on Thursday, Jeb Bush also recoiled: ‘I used to be a conservative, and I watch these debates and I’m wondering. I don’t think I’ve changed, but it’s a little troubling sometimes when people are appealing to people’s fears and emotion rather than trying to get them to look over the horizon for a broader perspective.’….

“Republicans have a growing panic at the thought of going down the drain with a loser, missing their chance at capturing the Senate and giving back all those House seats won in 2010. More and more, they openly yearn for a fresh candidate, including Jeb Bush, who does, after all, have experience at shoplifting presidential victories at the last minute….

“Romney’s Richie Rich slips underscore what Ed Rollins, a Republican strategist, told the Ripon Forum: ‘If we are only the party of Wall Street and country clubbers, we will quickly become irrelevant.’

“Santorum, whose name aptly comes from the same Latin root as sanctimonious, went on Glenn Beck’s Web-based show with his family and offered this lunacy: ‘I understand why Barack Obama wants to send every kid to college,’ because colleges are ‘indoctrination mills’ that ‘harm’ the country. He evidently wants home university schooling, which will cut down on keggers.”

420Kathleen Parker / Washington Post

“Let me be blunt: If Republicans nominate Rick Santorum to run for president, they will lose….

“It gives me no pleasure to rap Santorum, a man I know and respect even if I disagree with him on some issues. Not that he minds. He’s a scrapper who loves a fight – and he forgives. Bottom line: Santorum is a good man. He’s just a good man in the wrong century.

“This doesn’t necessarily mean he’s wrong about everything, but he’s so far out of step with the majority of Americans that he can’t hope to win the votes of moderates and independents so crucial to victory in November. The Republican Party’s insistence on conservative purity, meanwhile, will result in the cold comfort of defeat with honor and, in the longer term, potential extinction.

“Increasingly, the party is growing grayer and whiter. Nine out of 10 Republicans are non-Hispanic white, and more than half are highly religious, according to Gallup. This isn’t news, but when this demographic is suddenly associated with renewed debate about whether women should have access to contraception – never mind abortion – suddenly they begin to look like the Republican Brotherhood….

“The math is clear: Sixty-seven percent of women are either Democrats (41 percent) or independents (26 percent); more women than men vote; 55 percent of women ages 18-22 voted in the 2008 presidential election….

“Republicans may sleep better if they nominate The Most Conservative Person In The World, but they won’t be seeing the executive branch anytime soon.”
420John Podhoretz / New York Post…following the Michigan primary.

“Santorum slaughtered Romney among those Michigan voters who said they wanted a ‘true conservative,’ by a margin of 57-17. But those voters made up only 12 percent of the electorate.

“Most of the commentary you read and hear about the GOP – especially from the Right itself – would lead you to think those highly ideological voters constitute a near-majority. The truth is more complicated.

“Most Republican voters are out-and-out conservatives (indeed, 42 percent of all Americans describe themselves as conservative) – but they’re not necessarily tribal conservatives who are searching for someone ideologically pure to follow. Romney was more than conservative enough, it would appear, for a near-majority of Republicans in Michigan and Arizona.

“That said, Romney did worse than he should, and that happened not because Santorum is such a contender, but because Romney keeps shooting himself in the foot he has put in his own mouth….

“After his stunning victory in Florida, he said he ‘didn’t care about the poor.’ After his commanding victory in last week’s debate, he spoke about his wife’s ‘couple of Cadillacs’ and his friends ‘who own NASCAR teams.’…

“If he keeps getting in his own way, he will get to Tampa unnecessarily and pointlessly wounded. But if Romney can break the pattern, he will cruise to the nomination holding a hand far stronger than overconfident chortling Democrats – and the president himself – realize.”

420The Wall Street Journal’s Daniel Henninger has written some outstanding columns lately on the mythology being spun by President Obama as he rewrites reality in describing today’s economy.

“The economic and social world Barack Obama inhabits, and has always inhabited, is totally static. Your lot in life – income, status, mobility – is largely set, with little prospect of escaping upward.

“He spoke in (last week’s) UAW speech of ‘sons and daughters’ aspiring to assembly-line jobs held by their grandparents. Even they don’t believe life is that static. He promises to solve their economic problems by expropriating money from the wealthy. Boeing will be forced to make planes in Washington State – forever. Naturally this president’s biggest believers live in Hollywood.

“Most Americans are not so credulous. But unless the GOP candidates start spending more time dismantling Obama’s mythical America instead of each other, this grim fairy tale could win.”

420Hopes for Republicans winning the Senate were dealt a big blow when Maine Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe, a true moderate, opted not to run for re-election, citing the chamber’s growing ‘polarization.’ Snowe joins other Senate centrists in announcing her retirement, including Ben Nelson (D., Neb.), Joseph Lieberman (I., Conn.) and Jim Webb (D., Va.).

In the case of Nelson’s seat, former Democratic Sen. Bob Kerrey reversed an earlier pledge not to run and said he would now go for his old seat, thus ticking off party stalwarts in Nebraska but giving that state’s Democrats a better shot at retaining the seat by most accounts. Republicans need to pick up four to recapture the Senate.

Sen. Snowe wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post explaining her decision:

“Simply put, the Senate is not living up to what the Founding Fathers envisioned.

“During the Federal Convention of 1787, James Madison wrote in his Notes of Debates that ‘the use of the Senate is to consist in its proceedings with more coolness, with more system, and with more wisdom, than the popular branch.’ Indeed, the Founding Fathers intended the Senate to serve as an institutional check that ensures all voices are heard and considered, because while our constitutional democracy is premised on majority rule, it is also grounded in a commitment to minority rights.

“Yet more than 200 years later, the greatest deliberative body in human history is not living up to its billing. The Senate of today routinely jettisons regular order, as evidenced by the body’s failure to pass a budget for more than 1,000 days; serially legislates by political brinkmanship, as demonstrated by the debt-ceiling debacle of August that should have been addressed the previous January; and habitually eschews full debate and an open amendment process in favor of competing, up-or-down, take-it-or-leave-it proposals….

“In a politically diverse nation, only by finding (common ground) can we achieve results for the common good. That is not happening today and, frankly, I do not see it happening in the near future.”

420Meanwhile, as reported by the Washington Post, “In the months to come, political strategists expect to see the first family used as a political asset.” As noted by The Weekly Standard, the Post then goes on to quote Democratic pollster Celinda Lake: ‘The value of the family is enormous. The more you know this family and the more you think of Barack Obama in these terms, the harder it is to vilify him.”

To which The Weekly Standard’s ‘Scrapbook’ responds: Oh, really?

“You see, what surprises The Scrapbook is not the apparent fact that the Obamas are a nice, close-knit family, or that Malia, 13, and 10-year-old Sasha are appealing young girls. What surprises The Scrapbook is that, up until the re-election campaign of Barack Obama, news organizations such as the Washington Post have been exceedingly protective of Democratic presidential families, especially children, and highly critical of any comment made about, any attention whatsoever paid to, presidential offspring.

“Unless, of course, the children were the presidential offspring of Republican presidents.”

420We note the passing of conservative activist Andrew Breitbart at the age of 43.

420From Army Times: “The top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan has ordered coalition troops to complete training no later than March 3 in the proper handling of religious materials.”

So commands Marine Corps Gen. John Allen. The Korans that were burned that caused the uproar and led to the deaths of six American soldiers were removed from a library at the Parwan Detention Facility, adjoining Bagram, because they contained extremist messages or inscriptions. It’s just pathetic that ten years into the war, our soldiers still need to be trained on how Korans are to be handled.

420“Seventeen commissioned and noncommissioned officers in a single company in Kosovo have been suspended amid an Army investigation into allegations they employed harsh training tactics to initiate junior soldiers, the commander of U.S. Army Europe said.”

“ ‘It was all about not respecting soldiers, using the wrong kinds of training methods, frat house kinds of jackassery, and just poor leadership,’ Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling said in an interview with Army Times on Feb. 24.”

The allegations surfaced after a private in the company lodged a formal complaint in early February. Hertling said it would be a mistake to characterize the private as weak for his response to the abusive tactics.
“For a young private to stand up like that, it’s courageous,” Hertling said. “For this new guy to say what you guys are doing is wrong, courageous is an understatement. It took a great deal of courage by this young guy.”

Military hazing has led to suicides. I bring it up because it’s the kind of crap you read about when it comes to the Russian military. It’s not supposed to happen in the U.S. armed forces.

I’ve been railing about the generals for years now. It seems I’ve been right to do so, on a number of different levels. The buck stops with them.

And I haven’t even brought up the ongoing investigation of Dover Air Force Base, where we learned on Tuesday that partial remains of some victims of 9/11, from the Pentagon and Shanksville, ended up in landfills. Previously, officials at Dover acknowledged that some portions of remains of fallen soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan had been incinerated and sent to a landfill. [The military now disposes of cremated remains at sea.]

Air Force Secretary Michael Donley told a news conference on Tuesday he was not aware that some remains of 9/11 victims had been taken to the landfill, saying: “This is new information to me.”

It’s sickening. We must do better!

420Police in Latin America and Europe arrested 25 suspected members of the Anonymous hacking group, according to Interpol. Drop ‘em from a helicopter into shark-infested waters.

420Feb. 21-28, 1972…President Nixon went to China.

420Uh oh… “An asteroid with a one in 625 chance of striking Earth in 30 years’ time has been identified by NASA.

“The 460 foot ball of rock named 2011 AG5 is potentially on course to hit this planet on February 5, 2040.

“The United Nations Action Team on near-Earth objects has begun discussions about how to divert the asteroid, amid fears that the likelihood of a collision could increase over the next few years….

“According to sky scans carried out by NASA, there around 19,000 ‘mid-sized’ asteroids of between 330 and 3,300 feet wide within 120 million miles of Earth. All have the potential to destroy an area the size of a city were they to strike.

“The Aphophis asteroid, which is the size of two and a half football pitches, is on course to pass close to the Earth in 2036, coming within 18,300 miles of this planet. Scientists expect that it will be visible from most of Europe, Africa and Asia.” [Rosa Prince / Irish Independent]

I don’t plan on being around for AG5, though Aphophis could be an issue for yours truly, but you younger folk might want to think about putting in for sick days now, just to get ahead of the crowd.

420And the New York Daily News had a story on research published in the journal Space Weather that “finds the sun could unleash another big solar flare (like 1859), much larger than the ones in January that set off impressive aurora borealis displays and caused some airlines to divert flights near the North Pole to avoid disturbances to their planes’ equipment.”

1859 was the year of the so-called Carrington Event, which “was epic – it was the largest on record – and damaged the telecommunications infrastructure of its day, setting telegraph stations ablaze and damaging their communication networks. But it was the show in the sky that proved unforgettable.

“The New York Times descried the skies in Manhattan in breathtaking terms.

“ ‘On Sunday night the heavens were arrayed in a drapery more gorgeous than they have been for years…Such was the aurora, as thousands witnessed it from housetops and from pavements. Many imagined they heard rushing sounds as if Aeolus [a mythological Greek god] had let loose winds.”

Meanwhile, a Carrington Event today would do a number on us; transportation, communication, banking, water supply.

Then again, a bunch of computer hackers can do the same thing.

420-

Pray for the men and women of our armed forces…and all the fallen.

Our thoughts and prayers are with those devastated by this week’s tornadoes, as well as the community of Chardon, Ohio.

God bless America.
420-

Gold closed at $1709
Oil, $106.70

Returns for the week 2/27-3/2

Dow Jones -0.04% [12977]
S&P 500 +0.3% [1369]
S&P MidCap -0.8%
Russell 2000 -3.0%
Nasdaq +0.4% [2976]

Returns for the period 1/1/12-3/2/12

Dow Jones +6.2%
S&P 500 +8.9%
S&P MidCap +11.1%
Russell 2000 +8.3%
Nasdaq +14.2%

Bulls 51.1
Bears 25.5 [Source: Investors Intelligence]