{"id":4196,"date":"2009-06-23T18:17:52","date_gmt":"2009-06-24T01:17:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/?p=4196"},"modified":"2009-06-23T18:25:12","modified_gmt":"2009-06-24T01:25:12","slug":"2012-republican-presidential-cattle-call-rankings-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/2009\/06\/23\/2012-republican-presidential-cattle-call-rankings-3\/","title":{"rendered":"2012 Republican Presidential Cattle Call Rankings #3"},"content":{"rendered":"

I see my last posting was on June 3<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0 Well, 20 days is a long time and there has been a notable amount of shaking up as the candidates, potential candidates, and non-candidates joustle for position in the Invisible Primary, three and a half years before the election.<\/p>\n

#1:\u00c2\u00a0 Mitt Romney.\u00c2\u00a0 By default.\u00c2\u00a0 Wow.\u00c2\u00a0 This man has stayed right there at the top of this perch from the beginning.\u00c2\u00a0 When will he ever be pushed from his role as front-runner?
\nMitt Romney has spent the past week making tedious and shrill statements excoriating Obama for not doing stuff to do stuff with the stuff doing in Iran.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s a lot of grand-standing for the public posture that every president since Nixon, with the exception of the last Bush, would hold, and every presidential nominee excepting McCain.<\/p>\n

#2:\u00c2\u00a0 Sarah Palin.\u00c2\u00a0 This Mutual Aid pact with David Letterman played out to both Palin and Letterman’s benefit.\u00c2\u00a0 Palin gets the admiration of her legions of fans for thumping it to a Hollywood \/ New York celebrity.\u00c2\u00a0 Letterman gets to ensure that Conan O’Brien gains no traction.
\nMeanwhile, what’s going on in terms of actual Alaskan governance?\u00c2\u00a0 Alaskans can worry about that.
\nHey!\u00c2\u00a0 She endorsed Rick Perry<\/a>, Texan Segregationist!\u00c2\u00a0 What’s the significance of this move?\u00c2\u00a0 I don’t know.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe about what…<\/p>\n

#4:\u00c2\u00a0 Mike Huckabee … Huckabee’s endorsement of Marco Rubio in the Florida Senate nomination race <\/a>\u00c2\u00a0against the candidate that the RNC thinks might actually wins means.\u00c2\u00a0
\nIncidentally, Mike Huckabee has also said some strong things against Obama’s measured reaction to the situation in Iran.\u00c2\u00a0 But when he says it, it sounds a little goofy.\u00c2\u00a0 The image of putting squirrels in popcorn machines doesn’t lend itself to Macho Talk.
\nAlso notable is he appeared on an extended interview with Jon Stewart to talk Abortion.\u00c2\u00a0 Because nothing lends itself to comedy quite like the topic of Abortion.<\/p>\n

#3:\u00c2\u00a0 Mark Sanford.\u00c2\u00a0 Big Enormous news.\u00c2\u00a0 Mark Sanford disappeared for a weekend.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 He didn’t tell anyone where or what he was going or doing.\u00c2\u00a0 My first thought?\u00c2\u00a0 Went off to the woods.\u00c2\u00a0 Went hiking for a while.\u00c2\u00a0 Dropped out for a spell.\u00c2\u00a0 Big deal.
\nAs it turned out, he … went off to the woods and went hiking.\u00c2\u00a0 I don’t know why my prediction was correct, and there are some who are still questioning the story<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0 If it makes you feel better, we can assume he went off on a tryst with a woman named Sally.\u00c2\u00a0 If that isn’t enough we can cut to the bottom of the page and believe the rather innocuous item that he went and had an affair with Charles Crist.\u00c2\u00a0 It doesn’t change the bothersome question of why I would care.\u00c2\u00a0 For the item of hypocrisy, it’s notable that he wandered off on Federally funded trailing — that’s as sensational as figuring out if he’s made any anti-gay comments and attaching it to a possible tryst with Charles Crist.
\nAnyway, everyone seems to be counting this out as the minute he lost his presidential footing<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0 But actually this should fit well with his constituency of “respectable” Ron Paul-ites.\u00c2\u00a0 He’s sent a signal that they’d love — that if elected president, Mark Sanford may just drop out of sight and not do anything for a two-year stretch.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s worth a vote for the anti-gummint people.<\/p>\n

#5:\u00c2\u00a0 Tim Pawlenty.\u00c2\u00a0 Bowing down before the Religious Right<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0 And getting out of dodge before the going gets real tough<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0 And keeping Franken out of the Senate<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0 Is that enough for a presidential nomination?\u00c2\u00a0 Probably not.<\/p>\n

#6:\u00c2\u00a0 Newt Gingrich.\u00c2\u00a0 Creeping toward his second apology — first time a back-track over Sotomayor, second time… well, never mind.\u00c2\u00a0 He’s not going to apologize to the Uighurs<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

#7:\u00c2\u00a0 Mitch Daniels.\u00c2\u00a0 Is he running?\u00c2\u00a0 He states categorically he’s not, and we’re beyond the age when a presidential candidate can pretend not to be running and then be nominated at the Convention, meaning if he wants to run he’ll have to say categorically so sometime in the next two years.\u00c2\u00a0 But that doesn’t stop the National Review from proclaiming his a real winner.\u00c2\u00a0 Because he’s so homely in that RV of his.<\/p>\n

#8:\u00c2\u00a0 Bobby Jindal.\u00c2\u00a0 Has requested \/ ordered a “Bobby Jindal for President” group to cease and desist<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0 Wants to dampen the enthusiasm, I guess.\u00c2\u00a0 Now it’s time for his supporters to turn on him.<\/p>\n

#9.\u00c2\u00a0 A tie.\u00c2\u00a0 The 178 House Republicans, 39 of the 40 Senate members, and the 17 Republican Governors not already listed.<\/p>\n

#243.\u00c2\u00a0 John Ensign.\u00c2\u00a0 Yep.\u00c2\u00a0 That Ensign bottoms out at #243.\u00c2\u00a0 It’ll be interesting to see if he can recover from this set-back<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I see my last posting was on June 3.\u00c2\u00a0 Well, 20 days is a long time and there has been a notable amount of shaking up as the candidates, potential candidates, and non-candidates joustle for position in the Invisible Primary, three and a half years before the election. #1:\u00c2\u00a0 Mitt Romney.\u00c2\u00a0 By default.\u00c2\u00a0 Wow.\u00c2\u00a0 This […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4196","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4196","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4196"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4196\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4198,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4196\/revisions\/4198"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}