Posted on 01/03/2012 8:08:24 AM PST by Free Vulcan
Live thread to cover today's GOP caucus. News, predictions, opinions, totals, and the like.
Will be heading out about 4 pm or so to get our site ready and do a final review with the precinct chairs. I expect it to be bigger than 2008 with very heavy turnout and we are preparing for that.
We are also ready for disruptions. They simply won't be tolerated. The state party sent us a memo saying if there's any trouble call the cops immediately. Anyone trying to cause problems is going to get a rude awakening.
My predictions of the outcome are a narrow field with about a 10 point spread for the top five with Bachmann far behind in single digits:
Santorum - 24 Romney - 22 Paul - 20 Perry - 17 Gingrich - 14 Bachmann - 4 The Rest - 1
Think things are still in flux and many won't decide till right to the wire, so I'm not terribly confident of any predictions.
If Muslim terrorists were simply excluded from the United States and/or deported, there wouldn’t be Muslim terrorist attacks here.
Instead of changing our immigration laws to ban Muslim terrorists, we spent over a trillion dollars in Iraq trying to find “Weapons of Mass Destruction,” and then trying to build a “dumocracy” there.
I want to say another word about the benefits of the “pajamas media” and the internet in general. I go way back in politics to the days that computers were nonexistent in all but the most important national campaigns and precinct-by-precinct totals were being recorded in chalk on blackboards by people getting results screamed at them by other people sitting in a rack of rotary-dial phones and taking phone calls from still other people getting the results straight from polling places or the downtown county courthouse. If they didn't get rid of it long ago, my parents have a photo of me as one of those people with different phones in each ear held up by my shoulders while trying to write down election results with one hand — probably the 1976 or 1978 elections, or maybe the 1980 election.
To be able to get live results like this via the internet and have live commentary straight from people walking out of the precincts is fantastic. Never could have remotely dreamed of this thirty years ago.
Great overall analysis, Darrell. I like it.
Me too. We paid in to that “Social Scarcity” system all those years, which went to support the elders in our society. That was okay; but I agree things have to change. It’s not sustainable at this point, so we’ve got to elect people who aren’t riding the pork gravy train by buying voters on the pork gravy train. - I think Paul has probably delivered the pork to his constituents, hence his reelections.
Oh, we were young once, too, not so long ago really.
We’re in Tennessee, and where we were, we had a pretty good education system that included the disabled. Of course, I only got as far as graduating high school, no college, so don’t know how it was in college.
Heck; if you’re artsy at all, produce something exotic, eccentric and artsy to sell. Make your own job if you can. - We have also simplified, simplified, simplified our lives and are thankful for food, clothing and shelter.
God bless you.
Very well, Potty Mouth. - No. Your group elected Obama and the Democrat/liberal crooks over the years. START ELECTING A DIFFERENT KIND OF PEOPLE. If you’re young, the only way the government system will change is IF you change it. You all are gonna have to live under what you elect after we’re long dead.
We did take a dose of Government, because we TRUSTED it to be basically honest; and while we were sidetracked working our rear ends off, LBJ and crew were busily looting the SS “lockbox” (Al Gore’s term for the SS “trust” fund).
So, HOP TO IT! Don’t be an indentured slave.
I suspect Dr. Paul has delivered his share of the Washington pork to his constituents, else he wouldn’t have been reelected so long so handily. - We have got to watch these politicians, all of whom talk a good game.
Oh, good for you homeschooling your children. It’s the only way to go this day and time.
Have you noticed today how Paulites are cheering the leftist attacks beginning against Santorum?
And they think we don't notice. :)
Paul wouldn't have gotten diddleysquat without his leftist support.
It is what it is. Paul is a liberal tightwad.
I will ask a third time: “There always has been, is now and always will be a dominant world military power. Just what county or group would you like to see be that power?”
2,104 posted on Wednesday, January 04, 2012 1:36:53 PM by Slings and Arrows: “Agreed on all counts. What even greater is that not only can we get the news in real time, but sometimes we can even do something about it; e.g. RatherGate.”
Thanks to both of you...
I really do need to get back to work; I'm letting my business suffer based on something that I care passionately about, namely, getting a solid Republican nominated and elected.
For whatever it's worth, I am totally in agreement with Slings and Arrows about Rathergate. That's part of how I found out about Free Republic.
Read this link to a profile of my work in Editor & Publisher magazine if you want to learn more about my views on the role of media in the internet age:
I downplayed my conservative politics in the interview to avoid needless offense, but if you add that piece of background information to my comments about the importance of returning to an 1800s model of aggressively competing news media, you'll see what I hope will happen to the news media in the future.
Reporters used to be told to make the New York Times, their statewide newspaper, and any local competing media operations the start of every day, and keep up with the Associated Press feed throughout the day. I can't avoid the New York Times — it's critical that I understand the mentality of those who run Washington — but for my work, Military.com has long since replaced the role of the statewide newspaper (the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and Kansas City Star are virtually irrelevant to rural Missouri) and Free Republic is much better than the Associated Press in keeping me informed about important breaking news.
There is no possible way I could ever have anticipated something like this happening in the early 1980s when CompuServe first started putting a half-dozen newspapers online for national readers, or even a decade ago. Technology doesn't solve every problem, but it sure seems to be solving the problem of monopoly leftist liberal media disconnected from the desires of their readers.
I really do need to get back to work; I'm letting my business suffer based on something that I care passionately about, namely, getting a solid Republican nominated and elected.
You're welcome, Darrell. You and I both need to get back to work. I wish I knew how many precious production hours I've lost since Obama was elected. The man has the producer class so upset that he's actually lowered the GNP because we can't stop talking about it.
There’s no doubt that we need some new media models, if only because the old one is dieing an economic death of 1000 cuts.
[smiles] Much appreciated.
From reading a number of your posts I have concluded you simply don’t suffer fools easily. Keep in mind that we are not all as well informed and mentally quick as you are. That is not sarcasm.
“And they think we don’t notice. :)”
I have never viewed Libertarians as being particularly “Conservative.” While they do entertain some “conservative” views, they cover their liberal/moderate views by wraping themselves in their interpretation of the Constitution. JMHO
Thank You for the ping TOL! :-)
LOL... except we both know it's not funny, unfortunately.
2,113 posted on Wednesday, January 04, 2012 3:08:46 PM by Slings and Arrows: “There’s no doubt that we need some new media models, if only because the old one is dieing an economic death of 1000 cuts.”
Definitely right.
I've watched the collapse of the traditional print media model over the last 25 years from the inside, and it's not pretty.
Lots of what's wrong can be described as the logical consequences of a non-competitive socialistic mentality in which there are few incentives to succeed and sometimes actual **DISINCENTIVES** to save money or be more productive. Communism didn't work in the Soviet Union for its industrial production and we shouldn't expect a system of media monopolies to work much better in America.
However, even well-run conservative newspapers are faced with a technological crisis. I saw that in the now-bankrupt Freedom Communications (owner of the Colorado Springs Gazette and Orange County Register). The Washington Times is in major trouble, and the Wall Street Journal would be in trouble if it weren't for Rupert Murdoch's decision to buy the paper for its inherent value covering the financial markets before economics tore apart its newsgathering ability.
I believe the model I'm dealing with works at a small local level, but I have no solutions for the economic side of how to run a metro newspaper with the need for dozens or hundreds of reporters.
Something must be done, and I have confidence that long term the free market will find solutions, but things will be brutal in the short term and probably for a long time down the road.
Anyway, back to work... a police chase just ended in a car wreck and I need to go see what happened.
I’m just glad that you’re still thanking me instead of telling me to get out of your comments, LOL!
You’re welcome, friend.
The problem is that some of the areas where they are clearly liberal make them, IMO, dangerous.
Ron Paul would be a disastrous President, and the fact that he got these numbers in Iowa, even with the obvious influx of left-leaning independents, is scary.
Fortunately, he hasn't got a snowball's chance of winning the nomination. I only hope that he has the ethical make-up to not run third party.
Though I'm not sure what that hope would be based on.....
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