There’s a lot to look at this week. First, there were GOP nomination race results in South Carolina (and upcoming results from Florida). Then, there was a Supreme Court (SCOTUS) decision on US v Jones regarding warrantless use of GPS by the government for criminal investigation purposes. Finally, there was a State of the Union (SOTU) address and response.
Let’s just look at the GOP nomination results in South Carolina and the upcoming race in Florida and the SOTU address/response in this post. I’m planning to do a whole post on US v Jones.
Newt Gingrich won in a landslide in South Carolina, with Mitt Romney finishing a distant second, followed by Rick Santorum and Ron Paul bringing up the rear. A decisive victory was exactly what Gingrich needed and exactly what none of the other candidates wanted to see for various reasons. What I found most interesting was the surge in turnout and shifts in voter distribution. South Carolina had 30,000 more votes than in 2000 and 157,000 more than 2008 (about 600,000 in 2012) and we saw more votes coming from more rural and conservative areas of the state. That’s not supposed to happen in a race like this, where we have a clear frontrunner who is unenthusiastically embraced and now three others. Gingrich was able to energize and expand the South Carolina voter base.
For Romney, it obviously means he’s in a dogfight for the nomination. The aura that Romney is inevitably the nominee has been shattered. That said, if I was a Romney operative and given the choice between Gingrich and Santorum for a primary opponent, I’d rather take on Gingrich. Even in defeat, South Carolina wasn’t a total disaster for Romney. The reality is, as long as it’s a four-way race, Romney is still the guy to beat.
For Santorum, it means serious trouble and, barring a strong showing (ideally a win) in Florida, I think he’ll be the next to drop out. As I said before, there’s only room for one in the race between Santorum and Gingrich. If South Carolina was Gingrich’s last stand, then Florida is probably Santorum’s last stand.
Paul is in a very interesting place. He has no realistic chance of winning the nomination, but he is amassing delegates. Given how close things are between Romney and anti-Romney (aka Gingrich/Santorum) it may mean that the path to the GOP nomination goes through Paul. He may have enough support to be able to bring one of them to the table for a deal (more likely the anti-Romney). Maybe Paul as the vice president or something like that?
The polls and odds I’m seeing show Romney taking Florida, which makes sense. Florida isn’t as conservative as South Carolina and, unlike South Carolina, Florida has a closed election. Florida is a winner-take-all state, too. In the end, I think Romney takes it. Also, the polls and odds are generally showing Romney as winning the nomination and show him very even with Obama (the other GOP nominees don’t poll against Obama as well).
And we’re onto the other big thing, the SOTU address and response. Undoubtedly, you’ve been deluged with analysis of what Obama/Daniels said/omitted and what it means. I’ll spare you all of that, but I have provided links to their transcripts at the end here for your convenience.
Let’s just say right off the bat that this was not a SOTU address and response, but a campaign rally and counter-rally. It’s not unlike Obama’s previous SOTUs and the GOP responses. This should be painfully obvious to most objective observers who also happen to be grounded in reality. So, my comments from last year regarding the campaign vibe still apply and have been intensified. Also, like last year, there was a lot of abstract, vague speech and few new, concrete policy ideas (where there were new ideas, scant specific details were provided). Being an election year, we can’t realistically expect much of anything that Obama promised will get done this year, with the possible exception of the payroll tax (yes, we get to have that fight again). Also, a lot of these promises were merely recycled from years past. To a certain degree, this is the formula for the SOTU, a rally and counter-rally that are heavy on rhetoric and promises, but light on concrete details. These kinds of speeches, full of abstract rhetoric and promises while lacking in tangible and concrete ideas, are where Obama is at his best. Obama is still a strong speaker, but I wouldn’t consider this his best performance.
Daniels’ response for the GOP was similarly uninspired and also not among the better GOP responses I’ve seen. Daniels was briefly considering entering the race for the GOP nomination and many conservatives were hoping he’d be in that race instead of giving the GOP response. I can’t say for sure whether that’d be good or bad for the GOP because I simply don’t know that much about the man, but if Tuesday night was indication, I don’t see the presidential aura out of Daniels. Again, I’m just going by what I saw Tuesday and maybe further research would persuade me otherwise.
Notably, there was only one counter to this year’s SOTU from the GOP, in contrast with last year’s counters from both the GOP and Tea Party. This merely validates the notion that the Tea Party has been largely assimilated into the GOP. Remember, the Tea Party’s goal was never really about forming a third party, but taking over the GOP. Viewed through that lens, this shouldn’t be a surprise.
While we’re on the topic of outside political movements, very briefly I’d like to note that Occupy Wall Street (OWS) just crossed the 6,000-arrest level this week in case anybody’s curious. The pace of arrests has slowed, but I couldn’t say for sure if that’s because OWS has decided to be lawful, because they called for a natural and/or deliberate winter slowdown to prepare for spring, or because OWS is collapsing from within and descending into irrelevance.
In the end, I was largely underwhelmed by both the address and the response. The GOP race was much more interesting.
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