Is Anyone Else Annoyed by the Primary Calendar?

Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. These three states have had a monopoly on the presidential nominee for far too long. As you can tell, I am not sympathetic to these three states. Why should three states get to have the majority of influence when selecting a president? It is just not fair.

Now Iowa and South Carolina want to punish Florida for moving its presidential primary up to January. Of course Iowa and South Carolina are going to throw a fit and try to use all the "rules and regulations" they can to support their monopoly on power, but thankfully other states just aren't buying it. Iowa, NH, and SC are outnumbered on this one and many states will continue to disregard the rules until a fair system is established.

I think the only fair system is to have a rotation where each state gets a chance to be one of the first three.

Polls, Polls, Polls

Why do I care about polls? It seems like every time a new poll comes out I eagerly check to see how Romney is doing. WHY? The fact of the matter is, the only polls that matter are the polls taken within two weeks of voting.

The general public just doesn't follow politics very closely. The vast majority of Americans are NOT political junkies like myself.

At this point, the polls right now are meaningless. All they are is name recognition polls, not indicators of the state of the race and certainly no indicator for how the race will end.

Time Waits for No Man/Presidential Candidate

At last it appears as though the GOP can wait no longer. Finally we have some announcements for Presidential Exploratory Committees. Today Michelle Bachman announced she will run. That adds to the long list of . . . Tim Pawlenty. That's right, only two candidates have announced candidacy at this point. All candidates are waiting until the last possible minute to get into the race.

With so little time, it will be difficult for the new candidates to set up a formidable fundraising network, or state networks in the early voting states. Romney has the clear edge at this point over the other candidates. He has worked tirelessly since he left the 2008 race to prepare for this time. All the other candidates are going to have a difficult time preparing for everything in the short amount of time left.

An NY Times article quotes a GOP insider as saying that "the first few months of any campaign are usually spent working out the kinks." It takes a lot of time to prepare for a debate, set up a state netork in the early voting states, and secure financial backers.

At this point, most candidates have time against them and already have an early handicap. It makes me wonder if most of them are just running for a VP slot.

Opposition to Obamacare Remains Strong

At the one year anniversary of Obamacare's passage, a major poll shows that opposition to Obamacare remains high, at 60%.

That is good news for Republicans who have made Obamacare a major talking point for the upcoming election.

Of course, some of those who oppose the healthcare law actually oppose it on the grounds that they want it to be more liberal, but I am not convinced that is a substantial enough group to change the overall point that most Americans don't like the healthcare reform.

So most Americans weren't happy with the old healthcare system, and they are also not happy with the first attempt at significant healthcare reform since the 1960's. So what kind of reform would Americans be happy with?

Good Polls for Romney

A new poll came out today showing that 60% of GOP voters have a favorable view of Romney. Also a highlight of the poll shows that Romney's unfavorable percentage has dropped since the 2008 campaign.

Potential candidates such as Gingrich, Palin, Santorum, and Barbour have a long way to go in order to close that gap.

Is This the Beginning?

I am disappointed in how many conservatives have flip-flopped on Romneycare. Our latest example is Jim DeMint, GOP Senator and Tea Party favorite of South Carolina.

Despite DeMint endorsing Romney in the 2008 election contest, DeMint now states that he won't back Romney unless Romney "repudiates his healthcare plan." Didn't DeMint know full well what Romneycare involved when he endorsed Romney in 2008? Never in 2008 was there such a call for Romney to repudiate his healthcare plan. In fact, DeMint stated back when he endorsed Romney that Romneycare had a lot of "good conservative ideas." Why the flip-flop DeMint?"

Unfortunately we will probably see a lot of flip-flopping by the leaders of the GOP on this issue.

News Article on Romney

I found a good article about Mitt in a Massachusetts newspaper. Here are some of the highlights on healthcare:

I myself was there closely watching the discussion about The Problem: an expensive health insurance system that was subsidizing the uninsured through what was called the "uncompensated care pool," which imposed higher-than-necessary premiums on us insured citizens to pay hospitals to provide free care, much of it taking place in overcrowded emergency rooms.

My own organization insured four of us who were subsidizing people who did not have insurance. We heard stories about long, often painful waits in emergency rooms that are required by the federal government to treat everyone. Various administrations and interest groups had been trying to find a solution for years.

Then along came Mitt. ("Why the h-e-double-hockey-sticks is everyone standing around?")

He got "everyone" together for very public hearings and forums, legislation was drafted, proposed, amended and passed. Mitt vetoed some sections he found problematic, but was overridden by the Democratic Legislature.

Still, the new health insurance law worked the first year. My organization's premiums actually dropped, as has the money for the uncompensated care pool. Mitt moved on, leaving a competent lieutenant, Kerry Healey, to run, unfortunately unsuccessfully, for the job in 2006.

The necessary follow-up phases to the new law, like cost containment, weren't done; while the Legislature added mandates like a prescription drug benefit that my organization didn't want but was forced to buy. I complained to my legislators (for all the good that does; though as governor, Mitt also tried to get new legislators elected to advance other aspects of his reform agenda).

Sometimes, in Massachusetts, "Can Do" doesn't get done because voters prefer that "D" stand for Democrat instead of decisive action.

A Good Sunday for Romney in the Media

Romney made the front page of many major newspapers and websites today. The biggest of free media coverage given to Romney was the New York Times front page article discussing Romney's political mantra of using his business experience to boost the U.S. economy.

Romney also made the top of the Drudge Report, an extremely popular website for conservatives, with his visit to New Hamphire. Romney also had two articles on Yahoo Politics page.

Mark Halperin's "The Page" on Time magazines website also discussed Romney's visit to NH. Romney also had a front page piece on Talking Points Memo, a very liberal leaning website.

With press this good, who needs to officially declare a run for the presidency?

GOP see Obama as a Tough Opponent

I just read an interesting article where the author stated that many major GOP candidates are refusing to get into the presidential race because Obama is looking too good to beat these days.

The article states that because the economy has improved markedly in the last six months, he is looking much more difficult to beat. Not to mention Obama's massive cash he will have at his disposal for the election contest.

The author says that in order to win, the GOP candidate has to get a large majority of GOP governors to endorse him/her, and tap into virtually all of George W. Bush' financial network.