Four years ago the nation was diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer

And interesting double-whammy from former Florida Republican Governor Charlie Crist and former GOP presidential candidate Ron Paul.  Neither of whom is terribly thrilled with Mitt Romney.

First Crist, who makes a valid point many have forgotten:

We often remind ourselves to learn the lessons of the past, lest we risk repeating its mistakes. Yet nearly as often, our short-term memory fails us. Many have already forgotten how deep and daunting our shared crisis was in the winter of 2009, as President Obama was inaugurated. It was no ordinary challenge, and the president served as the nation's calm through a historically turbulent storm.

The president's response was swift, smart and farsighted. He kept his compass pointed due north and relentlessly focused on saving jobs, creating more and helping the many who felt trapped beneath the house of cards that had collapsed upon them.

What Crist wrote matters, because it counters the latest GOP talking point, dutifully parroted by Fox's Greta Van Sustern on ABC's This Week this morning:

VAN SUSTEREN: [T]he flip side is, President Obama has now had almost four years. And frankly, if you aren't better off -- we know his economic strategy. And if you don't think it worked, if it didn't make your life better -- it doesn't matter whether you find someone sort of warm and fuzzy that you like, you're like, OK, well let's try something else.

Ah yes, the old "are you better off now than you were for years ago."

Four years ago we all had terminal financial cancer. We were on the verge of another Great Depression, financial death. And President Obama came in and stopped it from happening.

Now, has the patient fully recovered yet? No.

Did we feel better four years ago, just as we were diagnosed but the disease hadn't yet caused any real damage? Yup.

But America is a lot like the patient who underwent chemo. You feel like garbage, but that doesn't mean you were better off when you had cancer but hadn't yet felt the full brunt of the disease.

Not mention, remember all the GOP congressman claiming that we weren't in that dire of straits - that this was all Washington paranoia, that people back home were shopping for Christmas without a care in the world.  Remember how the GOP voted against the stimulus, all but 3 of them?  And how Olympia Snowe singlehandedly cut the stimulus even further?  We'd be in a Great Depression right now had the Republicans gotten their way - never forget it.

Then again, Fox is the GOP propaganda organ. And the GOP has never trusted the American people with the truth, because truth has a Democratic bias. So, Republicans have said things such as claiming, falsely, that the stimulus created unemployment because we had a stimulus and unemployment still went up (ignoring the obvious point that the increase in unemployment could have been cut in half by the stimulus (which is the convention wisdom)). So, I understand why Van Susteren is parroting GOP talking points, but as always, they're a convenient untruth.

And now Ron Paul, from the NYT:

Mr. Paul, in an interview, said convention planners had offered him an opportunity to speak under two conditions: that he deliver remarks vetted by the Romney campaign, and that he give a full-fledged endorsement of Mr. Romney. He declined.

“It wouldn’t be my speech,” Mr. Paul said. “That would undo everything I’ve done in the last 30 years. I don’t fully endorse him for president.”

Ha! Read the rest of this post...

Ron Paul's sneaky strategy

Rich Koele / Shutterstock.com

He's not exactly going away.

If Ron Paul actively stayed in the race and didn’t win any delegates in Kentucky, he would damage his son’s political stock in a state where, despite being a U.S. senator, Rand Paul is still a political outsider. But if Ron Paul simply dropped out, his delegates would no longer be bound to him, foiling his strategy to gain control of the GOP platform in Tampa.

By “no longer spending resources,” Paul avoids this trap. His name is still on the ballot, he’s still accumulating delegates who will be bound to him in Tampa, but he avoids any responsibility for his electoral performance. If he does well, it’s a sign of the popular appeal of his message. If he doesn’t, well, he wasn’t really trying. Paul can escape blame for poor electoral results while continuing to help his fans take control of the party machinery state by state. The strategy may be passive aggressive, but it just could allow him to obtain the most elusive prize in electoral politics: power without responsibility. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Read the rest of this post...

How rude of Ron Paul to keep beating Mitt Romney in the primaries

It's so mean of Ron Paul to keep winning. Winning is for losers. From Dave Weigel:

Not quite yet. Over the weekend, Minnesota held congressional district conventions. Now, the state's February caucus -- one of the trio of non-binding contests Santorum won early that month -- went 45 percent for Santorum, 27 percent for Paul, and only 17 percent for Romney. The Associated Press and other groups went on to estimate that Santorum would win 17 of Minnesota's delegates, Paul would win 10, and Romney 6. Wrong. Ron Paul dominated the CD conventions. According to a tweet from RNC committeewoman Pat Anderson, Paul took 20 of the 24 delegates available in the CDs.

Read the rest of this post...

Ron Paul's billionaire—Peter Thiel, founder of nat'l security giant Palantir, also PayPal

It seems that every national candidate has a billionaire daddy (or is had by one). Like sports team ownership, national political ownership is a big-money game these days.

First we learned about Newt Gingrich's billionaire — casino giant Sheldon Adelson. Then we discovered Santorum was similarly possessed — by Foster Freiss, a fan of Gov. Scott Walker and aspirin.

Now comes news of Ron Paul's billionaire. What this says about Dr. Paul is well worth knowing.

Bottom line — Ron Paul's billionaire is a major player from the depths of the public-private national security industry, a very heavy hitter from the Spook-Industrial State.

Mark Ames writing in The Nation (sub may be required; March 19 newsstand copy; my emphases):

So it should come as a shock and disappointment to his followers that Ron Paul’s single largest donor—his Sheldon Adelson, as it were—founded a controversial defense contractor, Palantir Technologies. The company profits from government espionage work for the CIA, the FBI and other agencies, and last year it was caught organizing an illegal spy ring targeting opponents of the US Chamber of Commerce, including journalists, progressive activists and union leaders. (Palantir takes its name from the mystical seeing stones used by characters in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings to spy on one another.)

According to recently filed FEC disclosure documents, Ron Paul’s Super PAC, Endorse Liberty, has received nearly all of its money from a single source, billionaire Peter Thiel. So far, Thiel has contributed $2.6 million to the Super PAC, providing 76 percent of the its total intake.

Thiel, a self-described libertarian and opponent of democracy [sic] who made his fortune as the founder of PayPal, launched Palantir in 2004 to profit from what the Wall Street Journal described as “the government spy-services marketplace.” The CIA’s venture capital firm, In-Q-Tel, was brought in to back up Thiel as one of Palantir’s first outside investors. Today, Palantir’s valuation is reported to be in the billions.

I wasn't kidding when I characterized Thiel — Palantir is a major player at Spook Central, the public-private conglo that runs the U.S. national security state.

Here's BusinessWeek on Palantir, as quoted by Ames (my reparagraphing):

Depending where you fall on the spectrum between civil liberties absolutism and homeland security lockdown, Palantir’s technology is either creepy or heroic. Judging by the company’s growth, opinion in Washington and elsewhere has veered toward the latter.

Palantir has built a customer list that includes the U.S. Defense Dept., CIA, FBI, Army, Marines, Air Force, the police departments of New York and Los Angeles, and a growing number of financial institutions trying to detect bank fraud. These deals have turned the company into one of the quietest success stories in Silicon Valley—it’s on track to hit $250 million in sales this year—and a candidate for an initial public offering. Palantir has been used to find suspects in a case involving the murder of a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement special agent, and to uncover bombing networks in Syria, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. “It’s like plugging into the Matrix,” says a Special Forces member stationed in Afghanistan who requested anonymity out of security concerns. “The first time I saw it, I was like, ‘Holy crap. Holy crap. Holy crap.’ ”

Do check out the BW article. It's eye-opening.

If the name "Palantir" sounds familiar, it should. Palantir was involved in the early-2011 HBGary 75,000-hacked-emails story. Here's Ames on that:

[T]he technologies and know-how acquired over years of spying on suspected foreign terrorists and threats were turned against US citizens. In what became known last year as “Chamber-gate,” Palantir was outed by Anonymous as the lead outfit in a private espionage consortium, with security technology companies HBGary and Berico; the groups spent months “creating electronic dossiers on political opponents of the Chamber through illicit means.”

For more on that story, our coverage is here. This is Glenn Greenwald with just part of the fascinating detail (the whole piece is well worth your time):

And in another case, on behalf of the Chamber of Commerce, they [HBGary] wanted to do the same to progressive groups and activists who are critical of the Chamber of Commerce and that’s what has kind of produced a lot of controversy is that the firms that were involved in these discussions, not just HBGary but also Palantir Technologies, Berico Technologies and most of all Hunton and Williams the very large and well connected DC law firm that represents both the Chamber of Commerce and Bank of America. These are very serious and legitimate players and so to see all of them discussing an email on these kind of odious schemes to basically destroy the credibility of political adversaries is why this has become a news story.

When you think Ron Paul, think Spook Central. Paul is owned by a Spook Central billionaire.

Is Ron Paul really Mr. I'm Against War? Right... (Psst, wanna buy a bridge?)

GP

(To follow on Twitter or to send links: @Gaius_Publius)
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Ron Paul’s racism is the racism of the GOP

It was always obvious that Ron Paul knew the content of the newsletters that went out in his name. Like the fact that Romney pays less than 15% tax and the fact George W. Bush and his cabinet were lying about WMD in Iraq, it was one of those obvious facts that the establishment media refused to discuss while the Republican involved protested their innocence.

But don't expect the confirmation of the obvious fact that Ron Paul wrote and approved the racist bile printed under his name to hurt him in the nomination race, the reason his opponents haven't mentioned the issue is that they know their party too well: The modern GOP is built on racism. Nixon's 'Southern Strategy' was courting the votes of white supremacists upset by the end of segregation.

Like the Iraqi WMD fable, Paul's alibi is even more damning than what he is trying to cover up [Post]:

Mark Elam, a longtime Paul associate whose company printed the newsletters, said Paul “was a busy man” at the time. “He was in demand as a speaker; he was traveling around the country,’’ Elam said in an interview coordinated by Paul’s campaign. “I just do not believe he was either writing or regularly editing this stuff.’’

So what Paul admits to is that he was lying to the people who had paid their money for a newsletter that would give them the benefit of his inside Washington knowledge. But now he claims to have defrauded them: not only wasn't he writing it, he wasn't even bothering to read it either.

The story the secretary tells is much more believable: Like every politician I have ever known, Ron Paul was deeply involved in every aspect of the communications that went out under his name. He didn't engage in casual racism; the racism was calculated to connect with his readers.

We are now down to the final four and the remaining candidates are a racist gold-bug conspiracy monger, an adulterer, a sex-freak and a 0.01%-er who pays 14% tax and mistreated his dog. In their different ways they each represent a different aspect of the GOP base. What the media has all wrong is that these are not 'weaknesses', they are the real core values of the GOP. The median GOP voter is a white male chicken hawk who pays next to nothing in taxes, hates black people, latinos and 'immigrants' and professes a deep belief in the importance of family values despite the fact he is cheating on both his wife and his mistress.

Like all the other commentators, we have it all wrong, what the GOP is looking for is not 'none of the above', it is all of the above. Read the rest of this post...

Ron Paul allegedly signed off on racist newsletters

Wash Post:

[P]eople close to Paul’s operations said he was deeply involved in the company that produced the newsletters, Ron Paul & Associates, and closely monitored its operations, signing off on articles and speaking to staff members virtually every day.

“It was his newsletter, and it was under his name, so he always got to see the final product. . . . He would proof it,’’ said Renae Hathway, a former secretary in Paul’s company and a supporter of the Texas congressman.

Read the rest of this post...

GOP Sen. Rand Paul refuses TSA pat down. Sorry, that doesn’t make him a hero.

The metal detector went off and he refused a pat down. Sorry, but I don't want the guy on my plane if he's setting off metal detectors and then refusing a pat down. From ABC:

The TSA version of events is that Paul triggered an alarm during routine airport screening and refused to complete the screening process (pat-down) in order to resolve the issue. Paul was escorted out of the screening area by local law enforcement.

“When an irregularity is found during the TSA screening process, it must be resolved prior to allowing a passenger to proceed to the secure area of the airport,” according to an official statement released by TSA. “Passengers who refuse to complete the screening process cannot be granted access to the secure area in order to ensure the safety of others traveling.”

GOP presidential candidate Ron Paul says this is "the police state" at work.

Is this Washington Post writer correct, is too much too much? I know Chris has been critical of the TSA in the past, and I'm no fan of the TSA'sa seeming inability to rezip my luggage after they've finished searching it. But is it really too much to ask that you let them pat you down after you set off the metal detector at the airport?

Shorter me: Ron Paul has a point, but this isn't it. Read the rest of this post...

Robert Reich on the allure of Ron Paul - it’s the pot

Robert Reich:

No other Republican candidate has come nearly as close to winning over young voters – and the GOP desperately needs young voters. The median age of registered Republicans is rising faster than the median age of America.

The Republican right thinks Paul’s views on the economy are responsible for this fire among the young. Yesterday evening, on Larry Kudlow’s CNBC program, I squared off with Larry and the Wall Street Journal’s Steve Moore. Both are convinced young people are attracted by Paul’s strict adherence to the views of Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises, and Paul’s desire to move America back to the gold standard.

Baloney. The young are flocking to Ron Paul because he wants to slice military spending, bring our troops home, stop government from spying on American citizens, and legalize pot.

Read the rest of this post...

NH results: Ron Paul is the real Anti-Romney

Cross-posted from AMERICAblog Elections: The Right's Field

NH Results:

Mitt Romney 39.4% (94,255)
Ron Paul: 22.8% (54,513)
Jon Huntsman: 16.9% (40,388)
Newt Gingrich: 9.4% (22,518)
Rick Santorum: 9.3% (22,293)
Rick Perry: 0.7% (1,688)

A few thoughts...

Attention reporters: Mitt Romney is not the first Republican non-incumbent to win Iowa and New Hampshire, as Romney neither got the most votes in Iowa (Rick Santorum did) nor did he get the most delegates (Ron Paul did). Please stop saying Romney won Iowa! Of course, part of the reason this is happening is Rick Santorum waited way to long to give his victory speech and this allowed what would have been the story of the Santorum upset become a story of Romney eeking it out.

The Santorum Surge is over. Santorum made a huge mistake trying to compete in New Hampshire, where a Romney victory was always clear and where Huntsman had already taken up residence. Now Santorum is in the tough spot of trying to ride momentum that no longer exists into a state where all the Anti-Romney's will be fighting for survival.

As Ari Melber notes, Ron Paul is showing to be incredibly strong across a wide range of Republican and independent constituencies. Noting Paul outperformed the field with lower-income voters and McCain voters, Melber writes:

Yet Paul's opponents are strong opponents, the thinking goes, so he would not be accepted by the rest of Republicans. But is that true? You'd have to ask them. The exit pollsters did, and overall, regardless of personal preference, more voters said they would be "satisfied" with a Paul nomination than Gingrich or Santorum. Now, that could reflect some ignorance about Paul's record and ideas, but if the press is going to cover the strength of Paul's campaign on earth, and not its hypothetical vulnerabilities, then it's time to report the reality of his wide appeal in this race so far.

This raises the fundamental dynamic of the race at this point. Clearly Mitt Romney is the front-runner. There has been a lot of competition for the spot of Anti-Romney, but no clear winner. Perry, Gingrich, Santorum, Bachmann, and Cain have all been competing for the job of Anti-Romney, under the presumption that if there was conservative unification around an Anti-Romney, that person could defeat Romney for the nomination.

To this point, it's looked like Ron Paul existed as someone outside of the Anti-Romney race as his own creature without strong overlap into more traditional parts of the Republican base. But the results of Iowa and New Hampshire belie this. Ron Paul is showing strong and he could actually coalesce support as the Anti-Romney, at least if politicians and pundits look at what voters are saying. Paul would have to start getting support from people like Gingrich, Santorum and Perry for him to have a shot at this. Frankly I don't see that happening.

South Carolina will be interesting in that it could be the last chance for an Anti-Romney to emerge. That should lead Gingrich, Santorum and Perry to go hard after Mitt. But if Ron Paul performs another strong second, it's hard to not see the writing on the wall of him as the real Anti-Romney in the race.

In the end it looks most likely that Romney will be the Republican nominee not because it was his turn or because he was the most popular candidate, but that the conservative base was fractured across multiple Anti-Romneys who couldn't get it together to unite behind one person to defeat Romney.

Cross-posted from AMERICAblog Elections: The Right's Field

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Why the GOP’s Ron Paul nightmare will continue

Ron Paul is a crackpot. But don't expect him to disappear from the 2012 race any time soon.

The only constant in the 2012 nomination has been that three quarters of Republicans plan to vote against Romney. The problem is not merely his Mormon faith, its the fact that Romney is a transparent phony. A 25 cent billionaire who claims to be 'unemployed too'. A man whose core beliefs change depending on the audience he is addressing.

GOP voters knew that Perry and Bachmann are fools, that Cain was unqualified and Gingrich and Santorum are unelectable. Nobody seems to want to ask the question in an opinion poll, but isn't the most likely reason they prefer such obviously flawed candidates to Romney is the fact that Mittens makes people's flesh crawl?

Paul looks set to do very well in Iowa tonight. The next stop on the trail is New Hampshire, the 'Live Free or Die' state. Conventional wisdom has been that this is a 'must win' state for Romney. If Paul does well in Iowa there is a real chance that he continues that momentum to New Hampshire and knocks the establishment candidate clean out of the race.

lf Paul looks set to win the GOP race will plumb whole new depths of ugly as the establishment rushes to kill the possibility of a Paul bid. Politicians look to their own interests first and foremost and the last thing they want to see is a sudden influx of libertarian leaning Paulistas. Ron Paul is an anti-choice, homophobic racist but most of his supporters are not. How do they become foot soldiers for the GOP culture war?

There is already talk of a third party bid, expect that talk to get much louder. Trump has good reason to keep his options open: If Paul is the GOP nominee in name, many in the party would be more than ready to back Trump in practice. Alternatively the libertarian party nomination is probably Paul's for the asking if he decides he has been unfairly treated by the GOP. And don't forget that Trump has an ego the size of Rhode Island. If Trump is asked to run as a 'stop Paul' candidate he is not going to fold his tent just because the eventual GOP nominee is Romney.

Unless Paul has an unexpected defeat tonight, the GOP looks set to be talking about Paul for a long time to come. Read the rest of this post...

Perlstein: It's been Romney since 2009

Historian Rick Perlstein on why you can snooze through Iowa and wake to a Romney nomination sometime in 2012 (my emphasis and paragraphing):

It's a curious thing. I study Republicans for a living—I've done so for almost 15 years. I write books about their history; I write articles about their present. But these days, you probably couldn't find a political junky in America less interested to the supposedly hotly contested race for the Republican nomination.

I called it for Willard "Mitt" Romney well over three years ago—the day he finished second to John McCain in 2008. That made him "next in line;" and our modern Republican Party pretty much always nominates the next in line, or at the very least The Logical Choice Of The Party Establishment.

In 1968, it was Nixon, the former vice president. In '76 it was the accidental president, Gerald Ford. The guy who came in second in '76, Ronald Reagan, was nominated in 1980; Vice President Bush, the man who finished second in '80, in '88. Old Man Dole in '96. Son of Bush in 2000. Mighty McCain in 2008.

So why are we hearing about Ron Paul? According to Perlstein, it's the "desperate attempts of the political press to drum up evidence of a competitive race". (Sound familiar?)

Another pattern: the desperate attempts of the political press to drum up evidence of a competitive race, whatever the historical lessons that point obstinately in the opposite direction.

It's not a hard argument to make: "on the ground," things always look competitive. The vaunted party "base" plain their disgust with the sell-out moderate party elites want to shove down their throats, dutifully falling in love with a series of far-right saviors in the earlier innings: President Pat Robertson, who nearly won Iowa in 1988; President Pat Buchanan, who took New Hampshire in 1992; and All Hail Huckabee the choice of Iowa caucus-goers in 2008—but not before Fred Thompson's moment in the sun later in the year, and after Rudy Giuliani dazzled conservatives who hadn't yet figured out that he was a cross-dresser with gay roommates[.]

The same thing always happens next: The insurgents fall by the wayside. The base comes around. Democrats fall in love; Republicans fall in line.

You would think the political press would have figured this all out by now.

It's a rather nice piece, well written and well reasoned. There's a nice point about Goldwater (the reason all the above is true) that's worth your thought.

Romney–Someone vs Obama–Clinton? If so, one slot left to fill.

GP Read the rest of this post...

Why Ron Paul?

From Cillizza at the Wash Post:

Paul’s backers would, literally, walk over hot coals for the man. His detractors tend to roll their eyes when talk of Paul as a serious candidate is broached. (The latter sentiment was summed up nicely by Washington Post columnist Marc Thiessen who headlined a recent piece: “Seriously, Iowa? Ron Paul?”

Then again, consider the Republican alternatives. Romney and Hunstman are the only sane ones in the mix. And Huntsman is too sane for the GOP, while Romney is so desperate to be president he becomes more slippery by the day. As for the rest? Perry, dumb. Bachmann, nuts. Gingrich, really nuts. And Santorum, dumb and nuts.

But it's not like Ron Paul isn't a little nuts too.

Keith Boykin's tweet earlier tonight is about right:

Barney Frank jokes that the Democrats 2012 campaign slogan should be "We're not perfect, but they're nuts."

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I discuss Ron Paul on CNN

The Ron Paul bots are mad at me. (Flying monkeys... attack!)

Read the rest of this post...

PPP: Paul still ahead in Iowa

It's Ron Paul, then Romney. While Gingrich's popularity continues to plummet life a former wife. Read the rest of this post...

Ron Paul’s potential victory in Iowa may make the caucuses irrelevant

Wait, so you mean the results in one small state aren't indicative of how the entire country will vote? Politico:

Paul poses an existential threat to the state’s cherished kick-off status, say these Republicans, because he has little chance to win the GOP nomination and would offer the best evidence yet that the caucuses reward candidates who are unrepresentative of the broader party.

“It would make the caucuses mostly irrelevant if not entirely irrelevant,” said Becky Beach, a longtime Iowa Republican who helped Presidents Bush 41 and Bush 43 here. “It would have a very damaging effect because I don’t think he could be elected president and both Iowa and national Republicans wouldn’t think he represents the will of voters.”

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Weigel: If Ron Paul wins Iowa...

From Dave Weigel in Slate:

If Paul wins Iowa, that stops. The conservative press, which has been bored but hostile to Paul all year (just see the National Review’s cover story), will remind its readers that Paul wants to legalize prostitution and narcotics, end aid to Israel (as part of a general no-aid-for-anyone policy), and end unconstitutional programs like Medicare and social security. The liberal press will discover that he’s a John Birch Society supporter who for years published lucrative newsletters studded with racist gunk. In 2008, when the media didn’t take him seriously, Paul was able to get past the newsletter story with a soft-gummed Wolf Blitzer interview. (“Certainly didn't sound like the Ron Paul that I've come to know and our viewers have come to know all this time,” said Blitzer.) This was when Paul was on track to lose every primary. It’ll be different if the man wins Iowa.

Maybe all of this would drag Paul down. But would it have to? In 2008, the candidate stuck it out through every primary. In 2012, he’ll have more cash than anyone except Romney or Perry—he just raised $4 million in a weekend moneybomb. His supporters will blow off the scrutiny as just so much crap from the corporate media. (Alex Jones will quibble with this characterization: It’s really the “illuminati” media.) No, Paul will stick in the race. Mitt Romney will get to contrast himself with the new-new-new-new insurgent. In that case, the GOP base and donor class will have the easiest pick-a-door choice it’s ever had. Do you go with the guy from Massachusetts who’s not all that convincing of a Reagan clone, or do you go with the guy who wants legal heroin and a pissed-off Benjamin Netanyahu?

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Gingrich is imploding in Iowa

Public Policy Polling:

Newt Gingrich's campaign is rapidly imploding, and Ron Paul has now taken the lead in Iowa. He's at 23% to 20% for Mitt Romney, 14% for Gingrich, 10% each for Rick Santorum, Michele Bachmann, and Rick Perry, 4% for Jon Huntsman, and 2% for Gary Johnson.

Gingrich has now seen a big drop in his Iowa standing two weeks in a row. His share of the vote has gone from 27% to 22% to 14%. And there's been a large drop in his personal favorability numbers as well from +31 (62/31) to +12 (52/40) to now -1 (46/47). Negative ads over the last few weeks have really chipped away at Gingrich's image as being a strong conservative- now only 36% of voters believe that he has 'strong principles,' while 43% think he does not.

Paul's ascendancy is a sign that perhaps campaigns do matter at least a little, in a year where there has been a lot of discussion about whether they still do in Iowa. 22% of voters think he's run the best campaign in the state compared to only 8% for Gingrich and 5% for Romney. The only other candidate to hit double digits on that question is Bachmann at 19%. Paul also leads Romney 26-5 (with Gingrich at 13%) with the 22% of voters who say it's 'very important' that a candidate spends a lot of time in Iowa. Finally Paul leads Romney 29-19 among the 26% of likely voters who have seen one of the candidates in person.

Yikes. This is really bad news for the Gingrich campaign and a sign that as long as the early states have a chance to make a statement about who they want their party's nominee to be, that candidates still have to show up and do the work. It looks like the attacks on Gingrich from Paul and Romney have taken a toll in Iowa.

Now just watch for Gingrich to start falling in other early primary states and in national polls. If so, his status as frontrunner may be coming to a quick end.

Cross posted from AMERICAblog Elections: The Right's Field Read the rest of this post...

Ron Paul hits Gingrich over Vietnam deferments

Paul basically called Gingrich a chickenhawk:

Interviewed by Megyn Kelly on Fox News Channel, Paul was responding to the negative ads he’s running against Gingrich when he added, “you know, there was one other issue that I personally found annoying is that he’s probably as aggressive with the military as anybody. He supports all the wars in the Middle East a thousand times more than I would. But, you know when, in the 1960′s when I was drafted in the military, you know, he got several deferments. He chose not to go. Now. He’ll send our kids to war. But, at that time, he said, one person wouldn’t make a difference, he didn’t know how he could make a difference. So I see that as important information, people should know that, and It reflects on him.”

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Ron Paul promotes idea of selling off 'best parts' of federal land

Um, no. What's wish this guys obsession over the so-called private market? The Federal government may not be perfect but I'd feel a lot better about the future of that property in their hands than in the hands of the likes of BP or Exxon. More extremism from Paul at ThinkProgress:

Take a look at the state of Nevada. Do the people own the property in Nevada? No. Who’s the biggest landowner? It’s the federal government. I would like to see the development of this state the way that Texas had the privilege of developing. Before we went in the Union, it was owned entirely by private owners and it has developed all the natural resources, a very big state. So you can imagine how wonderful it would be if land will be or should be returned to the states and then for the best parts sold off to private owners.

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Ron Paul: FEMA not needed for national emergencies

Um, no. Ron Paul is and always will be a loon who is seriously out of touch with the modern world whether it's his remarks on FEMA, his backwards foreign policy ideas, his economic ideas or his remark that abortion is "the most important issue of our age." Read the rest of this post...