Why Did Ron Paul Come in Third in Iowa?

With 99% of the caucus vote reported, Ron Paul came in third at 21% compared to 25% each for Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum. (At least, that’s how it’s being reported by most media; when you look at the actual numbers, that 25% each for Romney and Santorum is actually 24.5% each, and Paul’s 21% is really 21.4%. So he’s 3.1% behind them, not 4%. Funny, when I was in school we were taught that 24.5 percent is rounded to 24%; I guess times change.)

The big Iowa win of course belonged to Santorum, a religious conservative who curried the evangelical vote in Iowa and won with it much as Mike Huckabee did in 2008. Huckabee, of course, quickly lost ground in subsequent primaries. (Meanwhile, Santorum lost the vote of his nephew, who published an article explaining  why he’s supporting Ron Paul.) 

Ron Paul was in a tight race for first with Mitt Romney until only two days earlier. Of course, the difference in Paul and Santorum votes was less than 4,000 people, but still Paul’s last-minute drop needs analysis.

Here’s part of it. In 2008 at the national level the November Presidential vote broke down as follows for age: 

Per census data: Citizens 18-24 were the only age group increasing in turnout from 2004. Citizens between the ages of 45 to 64 saw their voting rates slightly decrease. Voting rates for citizens aged 25 to 44 and 65 years or older were statistically unchanged between 2004 and 2008. 2008 was the second straight presidential election year where young citizens significantly increased their voting rates. 

Obama did well among the 18-24 age voters, helping him win the general election. In Iowa, Paul polled first among 18-45 year olds. But looking at the voting distribution at the caucuses, only 31% of the voters were in the 18-45 age group. 68% were in the 45-older group. To the extent younger voters--who could easily vote for Paul over Obama in a general election but would never vote for Santorum over Obama--were under-represented in Iowa, Iowa downplays Paul’s strength, yet Paul still came in a close second after a tie for first. To put it another way: if the age distribution of the 2012 Iowa GOP vote was the same as the 2008 national vote, with nothing else changed, Paul would have come in first last night.

People are now asking whether Santorum has the organization, money, strength, etc. to win. These are the same questions asked of Mike Huckabee in 2008. He got 35% of the Iowa vote, yet he didn’t come close to winning. Neither will Santorum. This will become a two-man race: Romney and Paul. Fortunately, these are the two GOP candidates who do best against Obama. It’s turning, like 2010, into a choice between the GOP Establishment and the Tea Party.

Newt’s Pearl Harbor, or Alamo…?

12/30/11

Journalist Andrew Cain of the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported Christmas Day (see here) that Republican Presidential yo-yo Newt Gingrich compared his failure to get on the Virginia March 6^th primary ballot to Pearl Harbor.

That is, he compared his own personal difficulties to a sneak attack by a foreign enemy that killed thousands of Americans and pushed our country into war. This confirms for any who still doubted that Gingrich DOES have sufficient self-esteem to be President.

But, should anyone need further reason to not vote for Newt Gingrich for President, this must satisfy: should Gingrich become President, can the nuclear bombing of Virginia be far behind?

Do Actions Speak Louder Than Words?

12/30/11

The blogosphere and MSM are spending an inordinate amount of time on the two-decade old scandal of Ron Paul’s eponymous newsletters. “Is Ron Paul a RACIST?” they indignantly inquire.

Short answer: No. No one who knows him--not a patient, not a fellow Congressman, not a constituent; neither political friends or enemies--is willing to make this claim for the camera. But, we’re nonetheless told, it’s important to look at the man’s record.

I agree. Let’s ASSUME he’s a racist. What follows? If you were black, whom would you rather vote for: a racist who nonetheless supports policies and programs that in fact benefit you, or a candidate who champions black equality but nonetheless supports programs that in fact harm you?

Let’s ASSUME Ron Paul is a racist; not, of course, a string-‘em-up lynch mob racist. But someone who makes broad and false generalizations about you and your character based on the color of your skin; who crosses the street at night to avoid you if he sees you approaching; who prefers not to deal with you as a customer, client, employee, or fellow club member. 

Such people should be shunned. But should they not be elected to high office? That would seem to depend on the policies they support. 

Ron Paul has strongly and almost alone called for ending the drug war. What has the drug war done to black America? According to scholar John McWhorter, writing for the Cato Institute (”How the War on Drugs Is Destroying Black America” , Cato’s Letter [Washington, DC: The Cato Institute, Winter, 2011, p. 1]

"The main obstacle to getting black America past the illusion that racism is still a defining factor in America is the strained relationship between young black men and police forces. The massive number of black men in prison stands as an ongoing and graphically resonant rebuke to all calls to “get past racism,” exhibit initiative, or stress optimism. And the primary reason for this massive number of black men in jail is the War on Drugs. Therefore, if the War on Drugs were terminated, the main factor keeping race-based resentment a core element in the American social fabric would no longer exist. America would be a better place for all."

The Drug Policy Alliance noted in March of this year:

"Mass arrests and incarceration of people of color – largely due to drug law violations – have hobbled families and communities by stigmatizing and removing substantial numbers of men and women. In the late 1990s, nearly one in three African-American men aged 20-29 were under criminal justice supervision,  while more than two out of five had been incarcerated – substantially more than had been incarcerated a decade earlier and orders of magnitudes higher than that for the general population. Today, 1 in 15 African-American children and 1 in 42 Latino children have a parent in prison, compared to 1 in 111 white children. In some areas, a large majority of African-American men – 55 percent in Chicago, for example– are labeled felons for life, and, as a result, may be prevented from voting and accessing public housing, student loans and other public assistance." [5 footnoted references in this quotation removed]

Even though Barack Obama is on record in his own autobiography as having used drugs when he was younger, he has done nothing to limit the harm to the black community, or Americans in general, from the drug war that he prosecutes as strongly as his predecessor George W. Bush. Meanwhile, Ron Paul, a physician on record as never having used illicit drugs and as counseling patients and political supporters not to use drugs, favors ending this blight on the black community. 

Black Americans make on average lower incomes than white Americans. Therefore the current recession--which Obama has been singularly unable to ameliorate--harms blacks to a greater degree; black unemployment is higher, and persistently so, than white unemployment. This is especially true of teenagers seeking their first step up the economic ladder to success. Economists across the political spectrum see increasing regulations on hiring, concerns about the as yet incalculable costs of Obamacare, and a high minimum wage as contributing to the black youth unemployment rate. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics black unemployment is almost twice that of the white youth unemployment rate--39.6% to 21.4%--under President Obama, who allowed the last increase in the minimum wage to go into effect in July, 2009, at the height of our recession. Obama supports expansive government regulations, increasing minimum wages, and Obamacare. Ron Paul opposes all these things. Therefore objectively blacks are economically better off under Paul’s economic policies than Obama’s nostrums.

The continued and persistent gap in black educational success in government K-12 schools is a moral blight on our nation. Ron Paul calls for major change in this area--ending No Child Left Behind, closing the Federal Department of Education, offering tax credits for education--while Obama wants to double down with more spending. Yet the government at all levels in the USA has doubled spending in inflation-adjusted per-capita education dollars over a generation, with NO change in reading, math, science or other basic skills. This, more than anything else, harms black America, and only Ron Paul wants fundamental change for the better:.

Blacks make up a disproportionate number of active service forces in the military. Since its an all-volunteer force, there is nothing wrong with that per se. But with 23% of active duty Army personnel being African-American, compared with 12.6% of the population as a whole, it follows that Blacks are disproportionately at risk when US politicians decide to go to war. Obama claimed he would end the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq when he came into office in 2008. It’s taken him an entire first term to end the Iraq war, and only then because Iraqi Prime Minister Malaki refused Obama’s preference to keep American troops deployed in his country. Meanwhile, Obama is anticipating many more years of American troops in Afghanistan. Ron Paul, on the other hand, wants to end foreign wars and bring the troops home, arguing it is both safer and less costly to American blood and treasure...arguing, in effect, that we shouldn’t be willing to trade black blood for black gold.

I could go on, but here’s the hypothetical: ASSUME Ron Paul IS a racist. In that case he’s a racist with economic, civil liberties, educational, and foreign policy positions that happen in fact to benefit black Americans. Meanwhile, President Obama, whom we stipulate is NOT a racist, favors policies that in fact harm American blacks on many dimensions. 

If you were black, whom would you vote for?

Strassel’s Straddle

December 26, 2011

Kimberley Strassel writes the weekly Potomac Watch column for the Wall St. Journal. Her December 16th column contained her WSJ-obligatory “hit piece” on Congressman Ron Paul, who is gaining in the polls in both Iowa and New Hampshire. Her title, “Why Ron Paul Can’t Win,” said it all. . The term “ideological crank” was bandied about, and Strassel explained Paul “does himself in” when discussing foreign policy. He doesn’t support what Strassel, whose historical knowledge of foreign policy seems to begin in the 1940s, views as the “traditional” American role of world policeman and global-striding colossus. Such views, in Strassel’s opinion, cannot win in the Republican primaries. This creates a problem for Paul. But not only Paul, it seems...

In her very next column, 12/22/11,  “The GOP’s Message Problem,” Strassel discusses how the Republican candidates for their party’s Presidential nomination “are consistently failing to provide the sort of message that will resonate with those voters who will matter most in 2012.” Who exactly are these voters? Reporting on a Crossroads analysis of “18 in-depth focus groups in battleground states,” Strassel notes that Republicans are not reaching out to engage potential cross-over voters concerned about the federal debt, seen as completely out of control and evidence of a DC culture addicted to spending.

And Strassel has a point. Consider Congressman Paul Ryan’s proposed alternative budget, which doesn’t cut one cent. It merely increases government spending somewhat less rapidly than Barack Obama’s over the next decade. As pointed out by Keith Hennessey, among others, Ryan doesn’t move the federal budget from yearly deficits to yearly surpluses until 2040, almost 30 years from now. Strassel’s own WSJ calls that “Revolutionary” and candidate Mitt Romney initially refused to sign onto the Ryan Plan because increasing government spending slightly less fast than Barack Obama might be too extreme…

Well...there is ONE candidate who talks of shuttering FIVE cabinet departments and cutting $1 TRILLION in his FIRST YEAR in office. There IS one candidate who seriously discusses what that sort of cut implies: Not just cutting “waste, fraud, and abuse.” Rather, a fundamental re-assessment of what our government should do, including policing the world and filling prisons with peaceful drug users. How is that candidate doing among the very cross-over voters who so concern the Kimberley Strassel of December 22nd?

Quite well. According to the latest Public Policy Poll, Paul is winning in Iowa, 23% to Romney’s 20% and Gingrich’s 14%. His support is deeper and more dedicated. A greater number of Paul supporters indicate they will not switch. Most importantly as regards those swing voters so important to Barack Obama in 2008, Paul carries 33% of the youth vote (those under 45), and 35% of the quarter of voters who call themselves either Democrats or Independents. 

So combining her December 16th and 22nd columns, Kimberley Strassel’s analysis is that the GOP, excluding Paul, can’t connect with the key subset of the electorate needed to win in November, and that Paul himself is not acceptable to enough GOP voters. The only GOP candidate that might take away key voting blocks from Barack Obama in November can’t, per Strassel, win the GOP nomination.

Against a generic Republican candidate, Barack Obama loses. Against each of the actual candidates, Obama wins, but Paul comes second closest to beating him (within 8% points; Romney is within 3%. These numbers are, of course, very fluid). We understand why Romney does well: he LOOKS Presidential. He is wealthy and successful, handsome and tall, speaks with confidence and sobriety, never saying anything that might get him in trouble. Just what the establishment thinks Americans want in their President. But why is Paul doing well? It can’t be the man himself. He IS somewhat crankish. He DOES tend to blather on a bit. How can HE possibly be doing so well. When you think about it, it MUST be his message.

In a rational world, this sort of thing would make establishment Republicans re-assess their aversion to Ron Paul. But in the WSJ’s worldview, nothing can allow re-thinking their “small limited government capable of policing the whole world” ideology. Nonetheless, they shouldn’t ignore the fact that, distorted and hysterically pilloried though it has been, Paul’s principled non-interventionism attracts support from the people actually fighting America’s wars. Paul receives more monetary contributions from US soldiers than all the other GOP candidates. As for traditional GOP voters, to judge by the applause he receives at the GOP debates he is gaining traction here as well. 

It would be tragic if Strassel were right, that the person best positioned to reach out to Americans sick of big government can’t win because he actually wants to cut big government.

Unemployment Figures, Good and Bad…

Originally written: July 12, 2011

The June unemployment figures landed with a hard thud. Barely 18,000 net jobs created—economists were predicting over 100,000—pushing the unemployment rate up to 9.2%, the second monthly increase in a row.

But when the numbers are analyzed, much of the loss in jobs came from the government sector, local, state, and federal.

Shouldn’t this be a cause for celebration? After all, the focus of the Tea Party is to cut government spending. The only way to significantly cut government spending is to cut the size and scope of government. A large fraction of government spending is payment to government workers. To the extent Americans think their government is too large and spends too much, they must believe it does things that are better not done, or better done by the private sector, or done more efficiently. In all these contexts, a cut in government workers is what is desired. Anyone who has ever watched road construction surely must believe fewer government workers is not always an unmitigated tragedy. Anyone who has ever stood in line at the DMV or Post Office must believe there are still some productivity gains to be eked out of the government workforce. Anyone who hears of cuts in the IRS auditing staff must be forgiven if they cannot hide the smile.

So people of the Tea Party persuasion should celebrate, not be dismayed, at hearing of a downsizing in government workers. The REAL concern is that insufficient jobs in the private sector are being formed to absorb them (and many others.) This is not a necessary result of government downsizing. Within a year of the massive downsizing in the federal government (both military and non-military) at the end of World War II, the private sector, in a post-war boom, absorbed them all and more.

Unemployment is a big problem, but one must do more than just trend the unemployment rate. A dropping unemployment rate can be a bad thing if the new jobs are just government make-work. A rising unemployment rate can be a good thing if it is a temporary adjustment—a bump in the Beltway road—to a drop in government workers.

Did Liberalism Kill Steve Jobs…?

Originally Written October 15, 2011

12/23/11--This was written 10 days after the death of Steve Jobs. Originally written partially tongue-in-cheek, as more time passes and more information about the cancer-related decisions Jobs made and why is released, my brief comments strike me as more worthy of consideration than I initially thought…

As most know by now, Steve Jobs, the brilliant CEO and founder of Apple, died October 5^th, at age 56, of pancreatic cancer. Although perhaps the greatest entrepreneur of our age, Jobs was, politically, a supporter of the Democratic Party. He put former Vice-President Al Gore on the Apple board and developed a strong “green” initiative in the production of Apple products. 

Many extremely wealthy businessmen back the Democratic Party, of course, but it’s usually part and parcel of crony capitalism. However this is not a criticism I’ve heard registered against Jobs. Jobs grew up in San Francisco, spent most all of his life in the area. And he grew up in the 1960s and ‘70s, so he may well have simply been a liberal true believer, an imbiber not only of political liberalism but of the liberal culture of his time. Did it, in the end, kill him?

I ask because of a recent comment made by a respected academic oncologist—cancer doctor—on the East coast, claiming Steve Jobs didn’t have to die.

A brief background: as a broad but workable simplification, the pancreas has two types of cells: acinar cells, the bulk, which produce digestive enzymes released into the GI tract; and islet cells, a minority, which produce hormones—insulin, glucagon, etc.—released into the bloodstream. Over 95% of pancreatic cancers arise from the acinar cells, and these are deadly, with mere months between diagnosis and death, as Michael Landon and Patrick Swayze remind. But islet-cell tumors, although rare, have a better prognosis. Some are benign, and even the malignant ones kill over years rather than months. And, most importantly, while pancreatic cancers from acinar cells have typically spread (and therefore cannot be cured) before they are discovered, islet cell cancers can often be cured if treated promptly on discovery.

And this leads to the recent comment by that East coast oncologist. He notes that NINE MONTHS passed between Steve Jobs’ 2004 diagnosis and his pancreatic surgery, an interval that may well have spelled the difference between cure and spread, between life and death.

Why did he wait? Steve Jobs was, and his family remains, notoriously private about personal matters, so we may never know for sure, but there is some speculation he used that time to investigate “alternative therapies”—holistic medicine; Eastern approaches; herbal and dietary cures…Is that true? Steve Jobs, I suspect, was not a terribly religious man, but his chosen religion in the liberal San Francisco Bay area was Buddhism. Would Jobs have been a Buddhist had he grown up in Sheboygan or Syracuse, Arkansas or Alabama?

If it is true that Jobs spent too much time investigating alternative medicine, it would be a great tragedy, as the East coast oncologist says he has a 100% survival rate with people who had Jobs’ cancer and got immediate surgery and chemotherapy. Was Steve Jobs, who came of age at a time and place that made Haight/Ashbury famous, led by a cultural milieu in which he was raised to turn his back on a traditional and highly effective therapy, a cure? Thinking differently suddenly takes on a darker meaning…

We may never know if it was the cultural liberalism in which Jobs lived and learned that led to his early demise. But the possibility chills…

JAWOHL!

Superstar and astute political analyst Matt Damon: 


"If the Democrats think that they didn't have a mandate — people are literally without any focus or leadership, just wandering out into the streets to yell right now because they're pissed off," said Damon, 41. "Just imagine if they had a leader."


Yes...just imagine.