Romney greets a voter in Maine

Mitt Romney has now decisively won (or statically tied) in four states that went for Obama in 2008: Iowa, New Hampshire, Florida, and Nevada. He will assuredly win in Colorado and Arizona–two other parts of the Mormon corridor–and in Michigan, where he is a favored son.

And yet all but Arizona (which John McCain, a carpet bagger, barely held) went to Barack Obama in 2008. What does this mean?  For Republican primaries, this is very odd. No presidential candidate in American history has ever won the nomination without winning South Carolina.

In Nevada, Romney won among nearly every group he was expected to (only 9 percent of Mormons voted against him) and did nicely among groups he wasn’t expected to (the Tea Partiers and evangelicals). It may well be that the evangelicals and Tea Parties that voted against him in Iowa and South Carolina were an aberration.

His challenge, though, will be to win in a red state and he hasn’t done it and the emerging narrative of the 2012 GOP race is this: Will Romney win 1144 delegates before the convention in Tampa or will he have to fight it out at the convention?

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LAS VEGAS (AP) – Republican front-runner Mitt Romney cruised to victory in the Nevada caucuses Saturday night, notching a second straight triumph over a field of presidential rivals suddenly struggling to keep pace.

The former Massachusetts governor held a double-digit lead over his nearest pursuer as the totals mounted in a state where fellow Mormons accounted for roughly a quarter of all caucus-goers.

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I have watched Ron Paul for a very long time and one trend I see over and over is the split that emerges between people of roughly under the age of 40 and those who are older when his name is mentioned. I have no polling data to back this up, but young people seem to like Ron Paul and older people seem not to.

This is by no means uniform. I know plenty of older folks who love the good doctor and plenty of young people who do not like him, but generally the above statement holds I think. Why is this?

Fundamentally I believe it comes down to faith in the markets and whether or not one is playing for the future, or if one is clinging to the past.

Young people have much to lose in the economic quagmire we find ourselves in, namely their future. They recognize that times have changed, that the old economic regime is corrupt, and in order to get things going in any real way (not government stimulated) fundamental reforms must be implemented. Many, including myself would embrace a gold standard or a standard based on a basket of commodities. This is a radical departure from the Fed centered fiat currency regime. It would disrupt the current economic order, but a reset is needed and many young people recognize that it is vital that we head in this direction before it is too late. The economic hubris of the 20th century has come home to roost. We would like a real economy.

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A couple of years ago, after the bubble crashed, my wife and I decided to buy a condo in Vegas.  There were many reasons behind that decision, but Sin City is known for delivering the unexpected.  And so, political junkie that I am, I suddenly found myself eligible to participate in an early, swing-state, caucus.  Las Vegas had taken me into virgin territory.

Being a caucus neophyte, I approached the matter gingerly.  I called the Clark County Republican Party office seeking guidance.  What happens at a caucus?  How long does it run?  What’s the procedure?  No one possessed definitive answers to these complex questions, but we were able to determine that folks in my precinct were caucusing at a nearby High School.  The doors opened at 8:00 AM, with the caucus itself slated to start at 9:00.  Anyone could speak on behalf of any candidate; each speaker would have two minutes.  Beyond that, things got a little vague.  I pre-registered on line “to avoid the crowds” of caucus day.

I arrived at Valley High School at 9:00 AM, impressed to see a sizable packed parking lot.  Perhaps these are the political activists I hear so much about, I thought.  Great to see how many of them show up early on a Saturday morning.  But for a group of activists, the lot seemed singularly inactive.  Where were the Paulistas, gesticulating wildly to emphasize that the Fed is our enemy, while Iran is not?  Where were the Romney and Gingrich surrogates deflating each other’s tires?  Where were Santorum’s nattily-dressed minions?  Where were the folks waving Perry and Bachmann signs, refusing to admit that their party was over?  Two helpful teenagers provided the answers: the caucus was on the other side of campus.  The folks parked in this lot were there for—get this—Valley High School.

I dutifully drove around the block to find the much smaller but equally pacific lot bearing two signs marked “Caucus here,” one sign for Ron Paul, and a TV truck.  I entered the school cafeteria, where a helpful volunteer directed me to the table for pre-registrants.  I surveyed the scene quickly: Fifty or so small tables, broken into groups, and perhaps two hundred people.  No politicking as far as I could tell, no speechifying, just a room full of Americans out enjoying their morning.  The young woman who checked me informed me that my precinct was convening in the gym.  I thanked her for the directions.  Then I told her that it was my first caucus, and asked her what the procedure was.  “It’s my first caucus, too,” she said.  “So I don’t know.”  I thanked her again and headed to the gym.

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From TheNevadaCaucus.com:

How does the Nevada Caucus work?
As most caucuses work, you do not do a direct vote for a candidate like primaries. The caucus has 3 levels: The precinct, the county convention and finally the state convention. Overall Nevada has 33 Democratic delegates and 34 Republican delegates.

Nevada Precinct Caucuses

This is where any registered voter can participate. [Ed: Only registered Republicans can vote in the Nevada GOP caucus.] The precinct voting is a very informal proceeding. It starts with the voters gathered into preference groups for each candidate. A simple head count is taken for each precinct. It takes a minimum of 15 percent in each precinct for a candidate to be viable. If a candidate’s preference group is not viable, they can choose to caucus with another group (pick another candidate), or be uncommitted. There is time for each viable candidate’s group to try to talk the unviable candidates voters into choosing their candidate. This is way many times a candidate will seem to have not received any votes, though the actually may have originally. Each precinct then elects a representative (delegate) to move on to the county convention.

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LAS VEGAS (AP) – In a surprise twist, Donald Trump planned to endorse Mitt Romney—not Newt Gingrich—for the Republican presidential nomination Thursday, three Republican officials told The Associated Press. Gingrich’s camp had been so confident of winning the endorsement that it had leaked that Trump would support the former House speaker.

Trump was set to make the announcement in Las Vegas at the luxury hotel bearing his name, with Romney in attendance. Nevada holds its presidential caucuses on Saturday.

The GOP officials requested anonymity to speak ahead of Trump’s announcement.

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(Reuters) – Businessman and reality TV personality Donald Trump will endorse former House Speaker Newt Gingrich in the race for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination, U.S. media reported on Wednesday.

Sources close to the Gingrich campaign confirmed Trump would endorse Gingrich, according to several television and newspaper reports.

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LAS VEGAS – While the Great Recession has affected almost all Americans, Nevadans may be the hardest hit. The state leads the nation in unemployment (13 percent) and home foreclosures (three times the national average).

Because of the faltering economy and slowed tax revenue, the Clark County School District needs to cut $78 million from its budget over the next two years. The district must do this either by freezing teacher pay and finding a more affordable employee health insurance carrier, or by laying off 1,000 educators as early as next month.

The first alternative is obviously preferable, because students would be adversely affected by larger class sizes and the loss of many enthusiastic young teachers. Unfortunately, the second option may be unavoidable, because the district has been unable to negotiate a new contract with its teachers union, the Clark County Education Association (CCEA).

CCSD is the fifth largest school district in the nation, serving around 310,000 students in 340 schools in and around Las Vegas. The district is also the largest employer in Nevada with some 33,000 employees, 18,000 of which are teachers.

The main sticking point seems to be the district’s desire to find a less expensive health insurance provider. CCEA members currently receive health insurance from the Teachers Health Trust, a company actually owned and operated by their union. (more…)

From the Associated Press:

Obama won 67 percent of Hispanic voters in 2008 but many of those voters have become disillusioned during the past three years. Unemployment among Hispanics tops 11 percent and many Latinos are losing their homes. Others criticize the number of deportations under Obama’s presidency and the lack of progress on a comprehensive immigration plan.

“I am willing to support him, but I would like him to keep his word on all the promises he made,” said Marcos Mata, 17, a Las Vegas high school senior who will vote for the first time next year. “Not just on immigration. But I don’t know if I see any improvement. The jobs act, it’s a good idea but he should have been doing that a long time ago.”

Recent Gallup polling showed Obama with a 49 percent job approval rating among Hispanics, compared with about 60 percent in the beginning of 2011. Hispanic voters could prove pivotal next year, especially in fast-growing and contested states such as Florida, New Mexico, Nevada and Colorado.

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From the Associated Press:

Florida decided Friday to hold its Republican presidential primary on Jan. 31, snubbing a party rule against fast-track delegate-selection for 2012 and triggering angry responses from traditional early voting states which will now likely rejigger their calendars to stay ahead.

The move actually thwarts efforts by both major political parties to delay presidential primaries and caucuses. Their aim has been to avoid a repeat of the 2008 scenario, when states jumped ahead of each other at that time in attempts to increase their influence in the process.

In Florida, a special nine-member committee appointed by legislative leaders and Gov. Rick Scott voted 7-2 to set the January date two days after House Speaker Dean Cannon announced that’s what it was expected to do.

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From the Associated Press:

So much for pushing back the start of primary season.

Despite efforts by both political parties to avoid a repeat of 2008 by delaying early presidential primaries and caucuses, states trying to increase their influence are leapfrogging their dates, threatening to push the first Republican contests into early January—again.

A Florida commission is expected to announce Friday that its presidential primary will be held Jan. 31, according to Florida House Speaker Dean Cannon, though GOP officials from other states are lobbying Florida to reconsider.

The move by Florida could spark a stampede by Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina, which were granted special status by both political parties, allowing them to hold the first nominating contests.

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From The Hill:

Polling leading up to the race indicated Obama was dragging down the Democratic candidate. Democratic pollster Tom Jensen of Public Policy Polling said that a Turner win would be “largely due to the incredible unpopularity of Barack Obama dragging his party down in the district” after PPP’s polling found Obama with just 31 percent approval in a district he won with 55 percent of the vote in 2008.

A Democratic strategist said Obama has become such a problem for down-ticket Democrats that he was wary of encouraging candidates to run next year. “I’m warning my clients — ‘Don’t run in 2012.’ I don’t want to see good candidates lose by 12 to 15 points because of the president,” said the strategist.

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From the Associated Press:

Take a breather, Iowa and New Hampshire.

Florida is about to get into the Republican presidential race big time, starting with a televised debate Monday in Tampa and ending with an early primary in 2012 that conceivably could wrap up the nomination.

It’s quite plausible that front-runners Rick Perry and Mitt Romney could roughly divide the first four contests, in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina. If that happens, Florida could prove the virtual tie-breaker, a prize so big in a state so central to presidential elections that the loser might struggle to stay afloat.

“My guess is that Florida is going to be the big kahuna,” said Brad Coker, a Florida-based pollster for Mason-Dixon who conducts surveys nationwide. Florida is much larger, diverse and expensive than the other four early-voting states, he said, and so it rewards the type of campaigning a Republican must do around the country to oust President Barack Obama in November 2012.

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From the Associated Press:

Wisconsin was the first battleground. But it is unlikely to be the last.

A similar proposal to strip public employees of collective bargaining rights drew throngs of protesters Thursday at the Ohio Capitol. Hundreds more have demonstrated in Tennessee and Indiana, where Republican-led committees have advanced bills to restrict bargaining rights for teachers’ unions. And governors from Nevada to Florida have been touting the need to weaken union powers and extract more money from government employees to help balance out-of-whack budgets.

The confrontation comes as organized labor is reeling from a steady loss of members in the private sector. The public sector, with about 7.6 million members, now account for the majority of workers on union rolls, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Among union leaders, a sense of crisis is growing.

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From the Associated Press:

A former supervisor for the defunct political advocacy group ACORN has agreed to a plea deal in a case alleging that canvassers were illegally paid to register Nevada voters during the 2008 presidential campaign.

Amy Busefink, 28, of Seminole, Fla., pleaded the equivalent of a no-contest in state court to two misdemeanor counts of conspiracy to commit the crime of compensation for registration of voters. Her Alford plea acknowledged the state had evidence for a conviction at trial.

The plea agreement could get Busefink a year of probation, a $1,000 fine and 100 hours of community service.

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Retired Sandra Day O’Connor has had a busy month this month despite her retirement. Just this week she sat in on a federal appellate panel which struck down as unconstitutional Arizona’s law which requires voters prove that they are citizens. Apparently, it is an undue burden on non-citizens to prove that they actually are allowed to vote before giving them a ballot. Nice to see circular reasoning still prevails on the 9th Circuit.

Then, she appeared in a robocall at 1am in Nevada to campaign for a ballot proposition for so-called “merit selection” of judges. Part of the controversy is interesting since federal judges are required to refrain from political activity (for good reason) and appearing in a robocall clearly is political activity. There was, of course, the stunt of scheduling a modest number of robocalls at 1am to ensure massive media coverage of the proposition that might otherwise go unnoticed. It’s clever, really. Generate a moderate amount of controversy to bring attention to your candidate or cause, it’s been done before.

The interesting part of that story isn’t that she was doing robocalls (though that is a problem). The interesting part is what this proposition would entail. So-called “merit selection” of judges is simply a euphamistic way of saying “we’re going to take away the right to vote for judges from the citizens and give it to politicians and special interests.”

Of course, they don’t frame it like that. They say “oh, the special interests corrupt the process” and “judges have to raise money which means they’ll be tempted to trade favors” and “elections mean partisan politics and special interests can play mischief with judicial elections”. See, it’s all about reform.

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Democrat Harry Reid’s Senate race enjoys little hope of victory without Republican “Club” members.  His poll ratings are down; he is held in contempt by most of the country; there is little that is attractive about him; he does not speak well; and he comes across as a not very bright, acrimonious man with a big chip on his shoulder. While Harry may have the equivalent of a political insiders’ flush, he will need a full house that includes Las Vegas Republicans to win this election.

The long and sordid histories of Las Vegas, Harry Reid and the political machine that made him have inseparably intertwined.  And, you would have to look back to the political machines of the early 20^th Century to find similar mediocre politicians of average intelligence with no great personal achievements, reaching the levels Reid has reached.

Nevada is a state of “deals”.  The story is that the Nevada political machine evolved out of deal between the mob and God-fearing Mormons who wanted the economic opportunities the mob was making possible.  While the State has since gone straight and goes to great lengths to be clean, it is the evolution of the “deal” that remains in control of Nevada politics.

Recently Sig Rogich, a longtime Republican operative publicly endorsed Reid, the first indication that the backroom-inside political machine is still alive and well.  Sharron Angle, with the support of the tea party won the primary on the platform that she is an outsider.  A strong independent who has suffered years of personal attacks (recently the most vicious coming from Reid, his surrogates and Union allies) she has been cautious, keeping insiders out of the game.  In fact, many Republican leaders say it is easier to get a phone call returned from Reid than Angle.  The battle against the insider worked well for the primary but now, with the candidates neck and neck in the polls, it is an insider game played by families around the dinner table that could determine the outsider’s outcome.

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The Center for Immigration Studies recently put out a study arguing that immigration has had negative effects on California. One of their measures was a comparison of how many people in the state were receiving some form of welfare compared to other states. I found that data (see Table 3 of the report) very interesting, but not because of the immigration debate (I’ll leave others to debate that topic). Instead, I wanted to get a better understanding of the variations in government dependency. Is there a greater willingness to sign up for income redistribution programs, all other things being equal, from one state to another? The “all other things being equal” caveat is very important, of course, since the comparison produced by CIS may simply be an indirect measure of the factors that determine welfare eligibility. One obvious (albeit crude) way of addressing this problem is to subtract each state’s poverty rate to get a measure of how many non-poor people are signed up for income-redistribution programs. Let’s call this the Moocher Index.

A few quick observations. Why is Vermont (by far) the state with the largest proportion of non-poor people signed up for welfare programs? I have no idea, but maybe this explains why they elect people like Bernie Sanders. But it’s not just Vermont. Four of the top five states on the Moocher Index are from the Northeast, as are six of the top nine. Mississippi also scores poorly, coming in second, but many other southern states do well. Indeed, if we reversed the ranking and did a Self-Reliance Index, Virginia, Florida, and Georgia would score in the top 10. Nevada, arguably the nation’s most libertarian state, is the state with the lowest number of non-poor people signed up for welfare.

Let’s now emphasize several caveats.

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Nearly every election year, a series of analysts and candidates suggest to American voters that the election that year may be the most important of its age.  In retrospect, few can argue that the election of Obama has not been momentous.  The midterm election of 2010 may be a turning point as well – especially for American business.

For decades, American business has wined, dined and lobbied the American politicians. Some have sought preferential tax benefits for themselves or their industries.  Others have sought preferential regulations or corporate welfare for the same reasons.  Still others feed the alligator that is government in hopes that it will be kind to them in the future while it consumes others today.

Perhaps no greater example of the latter mentality exists in California.   Year after year, business interests donate millions of dollars to Democrats in the hope that they will act reasonably.  The coup de grace of which was the 2002 election for Governor between then Governor Gray Davis and challenger, and business man, Bill Simon.  Under no uncertain terms, Simon campaigned on lower taxes and regulations.  Davis offered record deficits and coming tax increases – not to mention an ever increasing regulatory burden.  Incredibly, Big Business gave to Davis three to one over Simon.  They did so because they did not give Simon much of a chance and they wanted to curry favor with Davis – hoping he would be kind to them when he won.

Without a doubt there were two losers in that election.  Simon lost by less than 5 points (far closer than business imagined) and California businesses now face the highest combined tax and regulatory burdens in American history.  In other words, California businesses have received a very poor return on their investments into California Democrat politicians – so much so that California’s desert neighbor, Nevada, leads the nation in new business development.

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This is a rush transcript from “Hannity,” April 2, 2010.

RICH LOWRY, GUEST HOST: Good evening, I’m Rich Lowry in tonight for Sean Hannity. It seems that those on the left feel that the First Amendment applies only to themselves. Members of the Tea Party movement saw that firsthand last weekend as they attempted to travel to a rally in Harry Reid’s hometown of Searchlight, Nevada.

Reid supporters lined the streets throwing eggs at the Tea Party buses as they passed by. There are even reports that some of those Reid supporters intentionally redirected buses in the wrong direction as they approach the rally.

Journalist Andrew Breitbart was there and watched it all go down. Take a look:

ANDREW BREITBART, BIGGOVERNMENT.COM: They throw eggs. They’re throwing eggs. Lovely. They threw eggs, isn’t that nice.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Everybody on the bus.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Get them out of here or I’m going to jail today. Get him out of here.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Out of my way.

BREITBART: What did you just say?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I said I love you! In spite of what you are! You heard what I said.

BREITBART: You’re going to jail if I don’t get out of here? (more…)