New Hampshire decides shit tonight

“He’s a Massachusetts Moderate” …

… Actually this is a reasonably decent comment from Newt Gingrich.  He could call Mitt Romney a “Massachusetts Liberal”, and his voting base wouldn’t do a second take, but words have meaning anyway.

Down to Ron Paul.  Who’s “blowing his attempt” at Second...

If Paul blows it, I know what to blame: The odd final day of his campaign. In Iowa, Ron and Rand Paul closed out the caucus campaign with a daylong “whistle-stop” tour of cities and college towns — Cedar Rapids, Cedar Falls, Des Moines, etc. Yesterday in New Hampshire, Paul’s schedule went like this.
– Early morning restaurant visit ruined by overwhelming media presence.
– Late morning invite-only town hall with home-schoolers, heavily infiltrated by Massachusetts tourists.
– Afternoon visit to a Timberland facility.

The “Home schoolers” town hall is key here.  We’re rounding back to his “We’re all Austrians” declaration, which … um… reminds his liberal and independent cohorts that his raision d’tre is antiquated economic theory.

But you have to understand: Ron Paul is running now to set up his son’s presidential bids.  Which will probably have the same basic irksome “throwing the libertarianism out there” flair.

Jon Huntsman “surging” into second.  What does it mean?  Supposedly he’s running for 2016, getting the field in place for a wind shift, making his mark as the “Next Guy In line”.  It’s an odd approach we’ve succumbed to — like Mitt Romney, who’s been running for this presidential nomination since 2006, over two election cycles.  The one thing Huntsman has going for him is that he’s the only candidate who hasn’t chewed the flavor out of himself — lasting past a long time in the public eye.

Rick Santorum … continues to live in Dan Savage’s world:
Of course, it’s no mystery why Santorum’s views on gay rights get so much attention; there’s an entire Wikipedia entry with the title, “Santorum controversy regarding homosexuality.” But in New Hampshire this past week, one of the more interesting developments has been the degree to which young audience members have confronted him on the subject. Several college students in Concord last Friday pressed Santorum to justify his opposition to same-sex marriage, prompting a testy exchange in which the former senator repeatedly likened it to polygamy and that ended with loud jeers from some in the crowd. Gay marriage was also the crowd’s favorite topic at a Santorum event at a private high school, while a man in Keene demanded to know why Santorum is against allowing gays to openly serve in the military.

Rick Perry against Obama:

Perry made his claim during the Sunday morning Republican presidential debate, when asked if he considered Obama opposed to the “founding ideals” of the United States.
“I make a very proud statement and a fact that we have a president that’s a socialist.” Perry said. “I don’t think our founding fathers wanted America to be a socialist country. So I disagree with that premise that somehow or another that President Obama reflects our founding fathers.”

And click to see the classic “Socialists Outraged” remarks.  Interestingly, Newt Gingrich — who pegs Romney as a “Moderate” as opposed to Santorum who charged him as “Massachusetts Liberal” — wrote that book on the End of America due to Obama’s Secular Socialist Conspiracy, so he has a mixed record in parsing words and labels.
Rick Perry on Mitt Romney:
“Now I have no doubt that Mitt Romney was worried about pink slips – whether he was going to have enough of them to hand out, because [of] his company Bain Capital with all the jobs that they killed,”
That’s his capitalist prerogative, isn’t it?  Right wing populist talk is always a little strange.

Fred Karger really burns Rick Perry here.
Buddy Roemer slams everyone and everything.

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