“One!”

“Two!”

“Five!”

“—Three, Sir.”

“Three!”

 

In the classic comedy of Monty Python’s Holy Grail, King Arthur entertains us with his consistent inability to count, and with his trusty squire Patsy needing to remind him, repeatedly, not to skip over three and four.

 

It’s a lot like the current primary races. Here, the “we’ll-make-the-news-not-report-it” media can’t seem to count up to the Florida primaries without skipping some of the contests. Did any of us hear about the Wyoming primaries that took place last Saturday, right before the New Hampshire primaries? Of course not. And when talking about which contests are coming up, we hear about Michigan and South Carolina, then on to Florida. But isn’t there another western state nestled in there? That’s right—it’s Nevada, which actually comes before S.C.

 

When the jostling for first position by the states was still going on, it was explained to us that most of the candidates would ignore Wyoming because it had jumped position and broken party rules. Because of this sin, Wyoming would also lose half of its delegates in the party convention. Not mentioned in the official list of punishments was that pollsters also wouldn’t report its opinions leading up to its primary (did any of us hear, without digging on specialty websites, that Romney was leading overwhelmingly?), and its primary results would get shoved under the rug (as expected, Romney won the vast majority of Wyoming delegates). The primary reason I heard, when it was mentioned at all, for Wyoming’s irrelevance, was the low number of delegates it would have to award in its primary as the result of its punishment—only 12.

 

One problem with the media explanations for why Wyoming was supposedly irrelevant is the fact that all of the states who moved their primaries before Feb. 4 are also getting their number of delegates cut in half. That includes the oh-so-important New Hampshire, Michigan, South Carolina, and yes, even Florida contests. Like Iowa, Nevada is exempt from the party rules because it is holding a caucus, not a primary. In other words, Nevada should be even more important, not less, since its delegates haven’t been slashed.

 

Not only does the news media have difficulty keeping track of all of the contests in the countdown to Feb. 5^th, it apparently isn’t able to count the number of delegates or votes that have been awarded to candidates either. Does anyone except the political junkies know who is leading currently in both the popular vote and the delegates awarded? It happens to be the same candidate. You can bet if it were one of the media darlings, we would hear about it constantly. Instead, the candidate who holds this enviable position keeps getting reported as having a campaign on the verge of collapse. After Tuesday’s result, in which he came in a strong second, the pundits were saying, “where is Romney going to go from New Hampshire?” As if the answer weren’t obvious—after winning two silvers and an undereported gold, he actually is the candidate with the most momentum and in the strongest position to take the nomination, still having the money and the resources to carry the campaign to all 50 states. That’s something that campaigns like Huckabee’s can’t say, which is relying on free media coverage and hoping that early wins will jumpstart his fundraising.


The surprising news is, Romney could actually continue winning mostly silvers through even Tsunami Tuesday on Feb. 5th and still stay in the lead for delegates and total votes, as long as the opponent winning the gold isn't the same candidate each time.

 

Yesterday I heard it reported n the news that Romney was pulling out of the South Carolina contest. Only at the end of the day—from Romney’s own mouth on Hannity and Colms after the debates, did we hear the real story: that he has not given up on S.C., that he is still running a strong campaign there, but that he will be focusing his strongest resources on Michigan and Nevada until after their contests have finished, before surging his resources in the contest that comes after those. It’s hard to watch the news media try to make news rather than just reporting it, such as the statement I heard by a commentator (Steve Deace on WHO radio yesterday) that South Carolina would be a “death match” for Huckabee and Thompson, as though whoever of the two did not win in the state would be forced out of the race. This isn’t the playoffs, this is a presidential election! Candidates are able to run long after the reporters have written them off, as evidenced by the case of Duncan Hunter.

 

I was disappointed not to see him again in the presidential debate last night. At least he has actually won a delegate (one in Wyoming), which is more than Ron Paul can say. I think that Ron Paul was included in the event last night for the entertainment value more than anything else, and he certainly did spice things up. But I disagree with Frank Luntz’s focus group participants; I don’t think he was the biggest loser in the debate. Actually, I was very impressed by his answer to the recession question, sharing a theory that made surprising sense that I haven’t heard elsewhere.

 

He criticized the federal reserve for delaying the effects of the recession through artificially lowering interest rates, explaining that the cyclical nature of recessions and booms cannot be held off indefinitely. He went on to say that delaying the recession (which he said has already started, giving inflation and the housing market as examples) by encouraging people to spend more credit—money that they don’t actually have—that delaying the recession thus through lowered interest rates would actually make the inevitable recession worse, by allowing the economic bubble of imaginary economic activity to grow larger before it finally burst. Ron Paul called it the Austrian theory of recessions, and to me it sounded like it had some merit.

 

Shauri and I were watching the debates with some friends we have (we thanked them afterward for watching football with us, and they laughed), and I think we all agreed that if Ron Paul weren’t so wild and kooky in his mannerisms, and didn’t talk with a whine, we would be very tempted to vote for him. He isn’t presidential material, but I had to feel like cheering for him when he counterattacked after being asked an insulting question about whether he is electable. Like he said, he is the strictest constitutionalist on the stage, and if his ideas aren’t electable, it is because the main stream of the Republican party have moved to the left and abandoned many of the constitutional positions that it used to hold—such as getting rid of the Department of Education—not because he is going off into some unexplored fringe territory on the right. I remarked to Shauri that he would have been the candidate for me when I was a freshman in college. It is good to have a reminder of what those principles are that first got me fired up about conservativism, especially since the other strong constitutionalists (Alan Keyes and Duncan Hunter) aren’t being allowed to participate in these debates.

 

While talk show hosts and reporters are telling us that it’s “do or die” in Michigan for McCain and Romney, and that Florida is a “must-win” state for Guilliani, let’s just remember that their efforts to whittle down the list of remaining candidates still hasn’t been able to usher away one of the men on the list that won a delegate in forgotten Wyoming, and their efforts to artificially raise the stakes for the remaining state contests before Tsunami Tuesday are also just that—artificial.

And it doesn't take a Patsy to help us see that, just a basic ability to count.

It has been four days since the Iowa Caucuses, and I am still feeling down about the outcome. We were completely blindsided, that is all I can say. Romney's numbers were about 25% of the caucus-goers, and that is about where he stood in the polls. But Huckabee's numbers were just phenomenal, 34% of the vote, which is nothing like what any of the polls had predicted.

For me, the first big story there is that the polls did a terrible job of predicting the outcome. Partly this is due to the fact that the pollsters defined "likely caucus-goers" too narrowly, and did not look at people who had never voted before. With turnout so much higher than usual, the estimates were way off. For the Republicans, there were 80k voters expected, and 114k turned out.

One of my friends in New London, Iowa paints a picture of what this looked like. He said that in his precinct, they would usually have about 20 people, and instead on Thursday night there were 138. Romney got 30 votes there, which in a usual year would have won the precinct for him. But there were 78 for Huck, and Romney didn't have a chance there.

He also reported some suspicious behavior from one of the mega-churches in the area. He said that on the way to the caucuses, he passed the church and saw that the parking lot had filled up, although it normally is almost empty on Thursday nights. At the caucus, he saw carloads of people from this church arrive together, and then on the way home, he saw that the parking lot was mostly empty again.

The reason I report this is that this was not an isolated incident, but is an example in my backyard of a pattern that was evident around the state. Huckabee, while having a very poor formal campaign organization in Iowa, used evangelical Christian churches to network supporters. His campaign did an online training for pastors on how to get out the vote, and he was quoted as telling born-again church-goers to "hijack" their church bus to help make sure everybody got to the caucuses.

Why does this matter? Because as tax-exempt entities, these churches are supposed to be extremely careful about avoiding activities that would jeopardize their tax-exempt status. I can give you two examples from our local Mormon church of the kind of care that is taken to avoid mixing politics in the church for this very reason. Back in November I was on a committee that was planning Sunday lessons for the adults at my church. There was one lesson that talks about the LDS view on the nature of God that I thought should be moved up so that it would be given before the caucuses, because with questions flying around about whether Mormons are Christians, I thought our local members would benefit from the brush-up on doctrine. I mentioned this in the planning meeting, and the other two leaders in the meeting looked at each other. "I'll pretend like I didn't hear that," said one of them. "That shouldn't even be talked about here," said the other.

Had I said anything about a candidate? No. Had I advocated for a particular candidate? No. But there was still a strong negative reaction designed to let me know that politics should not affect any of our decision-making in the church.

The second example comes from a meeting that the women of our church were having on a Tuesday night, at the beginning of December. They were making some crafts at tables and fellowshipping together with light conversation. At my wife's table, the talk started turning more serious, with the women sharing their burdens of what was difficult for them at the time, what they were having a hard time with, what they needed support with, etc. Mostly they were just comiserating and empathizing with one another. My wife opened up and started talking about some of the stress she was feeling in her new role as part of a political campaign--she had never done anything like this before, and it was putting some strain on other areas of her life and was using talents that she didn't always keep tuned-up. She didn't mention the name of the campaign, and she didn't do any recruiting or soliciting.

But from the other table, where the leader of the women's group was sitting, she got a strong rebuke: "Sisters!"

My wife continued a little later, in lowered tones, and the rebuke came again, "Sisters! We are not to talk about politics!"

So there you have it, two examples from our local congregation. Wherever I have lived and attended an LDS ward or branch, there have been similar strong taboos against engaging in political discourse at church. The strongest taboos, of course, are against using any Church-owned resources (including the chapel) for political activities, and against using the membership phone lists for campaign activities. Why? The answer is obvious--we would lose our tax-exempt status if we didn't adhere to these taboos.

Which makes me wonder whether there will be any investigations into campaign finance irregularities stemming from the heavy involvement of evangelical Christian churches in the Huckabee campaign in Iowa. The exit polls were very clear about him owing his success to voters who identified themselves as evangelical Christian. There were whispers for the past three months that I heard and I'm sure many others heard about how the networking for him was happening along church lines. Of course, since he only got 46% of the evangelical Christian vote, there were a lot of other candidates that evangelical Christians voted for. But with 8 out of every 10 Huckabee supporters identifying themselves as evangelical Christian, the apparent coordination among the churches should not be overlooked.

That said, according to Rush, the big story of the night wasn't Huckabee, it was the loss (by no less than 9 percentage points) of Hillary Clinton to Barack Obama. I certainly hope he gets the nomination. Not because I want him to be president, but because I see him as a clean, fair, worthy opponent--one that would run an honest campaign.

Shauri called me and asked if besides taking caucus-goers to our precinct tonight, if I could also provide a shuttle service, since the parking lot at the high school (where our precinct meets) is some distance from the doors, and a lot of our elderly neighbors have voiced concerns about the walk. I'll see if I can get a picture to post today.

Listening to Rush today on my lunch break reminded me of how much "Mr. Snerdley" adds to the program. It just wouldn't be complete without this inaudible voice asking Rush things, making comments and suggestions, or just giving reactions to his monologues. We never get to hear him, we just get to hear Rush's reactions. But that's half the entertainment. It's like listening to a schizophrenic talking to the voices in his head, only in Rush's case it's like an over-anxious conscience, who always seems to envision the worst-case scenario for the comments that Rush makes.

The uniqueness of his name is half of the appeal of the character. I imagine someone who looked like a cross between Beaker from the Muppets and Rick Moranis in Little Shop of Horrors or Ghostbusters. I've never called in to Rush to tell him this, but I think a "Mr. Snerdley" line of merchandise at the EIB network, right beside the Club Gitmo gear, would probably sell very well. I want me a Mr. Snerdley t-shirt.

Hello to all the traffic from mymanmitt today, who linked to here. By way of introduction, I'm a marriage and family therapist in southeast Iowa; I have a wife and 4 kids. And yes, I'm a Mormon :)

A little more on the aging caucus-goers here in Iowa. BTW, I misspelled septagenarians and octogenarians in my last post, and any of you who caught it can pat yourself of the back for being a sesquipedalian whiz.

Since my wife is part of the Romney campaign and has been calling long lists of people in our county, she has commented to me on what a high percentage of the people on the lists as likely supporters are quite old. So old, in fact, that she wondered whether we would have many caucus-goers left in another generation. When she was calling to recruit for precinct captains, the most common response was along the lines of, "I could do that when I was younger, but I'm just too old for that now."

I noticed the same thing last night when I was making calls at the Romney campaign headquarters for Des Moines County. I was calling Precinct 5, and there were just a couple of people younger than 50 on the list (one was in his 30's), but the rest were 70-85. One nice man told me that he couldn't see very well anymore, but he would still be out tonight. I asked him if he needed a ride, and he said, "Oh no, it's only four blocks, I can still drive that!"

It's amazing to me the political involvement that we see from these old timers who would probably be more comfortable at home in the easy chair--while so many of their younger and more spry neighbors don't even make an effort to come. Shauri (my wife) called one man this week who told her when she asked if he would be at the caucus, "That's the Orange Bowl!" and hung up.

I was just talking to one of my coworkers about this issue (who said she won't be caucusing tonight, because she doesn't know anything about the candidates, so I thanked her for at least that bit of responsible behavior), and she wondered aloud why our older Iowans have such a strong loyalty to participating in politics, while the younger generations seem to care much less.

I don't know. But Shauri has commented that the '50s generation really was the Greatest Generation in more ways than one, and that the nation will be worse off when they have died, and we are left with the more apathetic masses to carry the torch of political activism. When I go to vote each election, who do you think I see running the elections? Almost all of them are silver-heads. And when they are gone, who will take their place?

Caucus Day is finally here, and I couldn't be more pleased. I have my blue shirt, red tie, and Mitt Romney campaign sticker on, I have a full schedule for therapy, and I get off work an hour early so I can go round the neighborhood and pick up septigenerian and octogenerians and take them with me to our precinct tonight. For a political junkie, it's like having the Super Bowl in your backyard.

Last night I spent some time over at the county headquarters for Des Moines County (which happens to be nowhere near Des Moines, Iowa) and made some phone calls to Republicans in Burlington, helping them know where their precinct is and counting potential votes. It was so much fun that I called Shauri afterward and asked her if there was anything else I could do to help our county (she's the county chair for Henry County). Indeed she did have a stack of tasks for me. She's been working very hard for the campaign. Yesterday she was able to get more people to change their votes when she followed up on the calls she made almost a month ago. She reported though that there are a lot of people who still haven't made up their minds about who they will support, and aren't even bothering to do the research on the candidates to see what their positions are.

I think Rush said it best yesterday when he took a caller from a Republican county organizer in Iowa. She was telling him that when she was calling to get people out to the caucuses, she noticed that amid the rude responses, some people were very polite and well-informed. When she asked these nicer people if they were Rush listeners, they invariably said yes. Rush thanked her for this positive report, but contradicted her when she tried to make a pitch to turn out the vote today. He said that if people don't know anything about the candidates, it would be better if they just stay home, rather than show up and make an uninformed decision.

I have to agree with some of his logic. While in the general election some knee-jerk voting (pulling the lever for a party rather than researching the candidates) can be less destructive, in early primaries like Iowa, there needs to be more thought put into the process than just first impressions. Take Huckabee's now-famous talent for glib remarks and one-liners. He does interviews very well, has a gift for looking honest and likeable, but has made some of the most inept comments on Iran (the NIE he didn't know about), Pakistan (we apologize for the assination?), illegal immigration (we will have immigrants register with a defunct agency?), and even his own campaign (Rush reported yesterday that Huck told him he had no idea who in his campaign made the comments about Rush or even what the comments were--this after they had been reported in the mainstream media for several days!). The guy isn't ready for the big leagues, but people who vote based on identity politics (this guy is a Christian, I'm a Christian, so I'll vote for him) and don't look into a candidate's background could completely mess up the voting tonight--especially if they turn out in droves.

A few comments on the utter hipocrisy of the Huckabee stunt at withdrawing the negative attack ad last week--and then showing it to the room of reporters. He knew they would still report on it, thus saving him not only the $30k in Iowa television time he had bought for it, but also getting him national exposure for the ad at a time when he is terribly strapped for cash. You can tell me that the decision not to run the ad didn't include a conversation something like the following, but I think it's pretty plausible:

"How much is it going to cost?!"

"$30,000 sir."

"Do we have that kind of money?"

"We do sir, but if we spend it now, we won't have anything to get us to Tsunami Tuesday."

"Is there any other way we could get the message out?"

Now he's out there saying that he didn't run the ad because "If a man gains the whole world, but loses his soul" it profits him nothing--equating going negative in politics to losing his soul. That's understandable when the negative ad he was going to air was filled with personal attacks and even outright lies--such as the statement that Romney was soft on crime for not executing any criminals when he was Governor of Massachusetts, without mentioning that the death penalty was illegal in Massachusetts! Talk about boldfaced deception! Mitt, on the other hand, has scrupulously avoided attacking his rivals' character, even defending it at the beginning of his ads on McCain and Huckabee, before contrasting his record with theirs. If they are proud of their records, they are positive ads, not negative. These are more accurately called contrast ads, because all they do is show the difference without making personal attacks. In a radio ad I hear every day, Romney's ad starts out with, "Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee: Both good family men, both support the sanctity of life, both would support tradition marriage...but two different records on crime." It goes on to contrast Huck's 1000+ clemencies and commutations with Romney's record of granting no clemencies while in office. These are differences that matter, and the voters need to know about them.

For a more humorous approach to the same issue, check out the Romney internet-only ad that contrast's Huckabee's record on crime with that of Walker, Texas Ranger (an answer to Huckabee's brilliant Chuck Norris campaign ad): link

Back to the Huckabee hipocrisy. Yes, if you deceitfully attack the character of a good man, you are losing your soul--I think he nailed that one right on the head. Also if you deceitfully withdraw an ad in a way that is calculated to still get it released, and obtain free airtime and coverage in the bargain. He also apparently hasn't done anything to restain vitriol and personal attacks in his campain, as evidenced by this statement by his campaign manager:

"What I have to do is make sure that my anger with a guy like Romney, whose teeth I want to knock out, doesn't get in the way of my thought process."  (quoted by the Washington Post)

It's pretty hard to take the moral high ground when you are running a campaign based on that kind of sentiment. Compare that also with Huckabee's false attempt to paint his comments on Mormon theology as ignorant comments, and you see an interesting pattern. Here's a YouTube video that identifies the antimormon comments as coming from a Huckabee operative months before Huck voiced them to the New York Times reporter: link. Obviously I take this underhanded attack personally because of my Mormonism, but I think it points out fundamental flaws in the candidate, ones that would destroy the Reagan coalition and invite a more insidious use of anti-religous tests for public office. For more on this, go to the piece by James Bopp at National Review Online.

Alright, it's 10am and my next client should be here any moment. On with the day!