Two days ago, Mitt Romney was looking at a clean sweep of the first three contests of the 2012 primary. With polls opening at 7 a.m. EST tomorrow, he's now looking at going one-for-three. First, he lost his technical 8-vote victory in Iowa to Rick Santorum. Now, his once dominate odds of winning South Carolina have dwindled to 35 percent as of this writing, 30 points behind rival Newt Gingrich.
Gingrich is doing exactly what Romney hoped he wouldn't or couldn't: consolidate social conservative voters in South Carolina, previously split between Gingrich and Rick Santorum. Romney has never polled above 50 percent in the state and, even at his highest likelihood to win, was expected to win by a plurality, not a majority.
Everybody knows what Obama's top priorities were in his first term: enact healthcare reform, beat back the recession, rein in reckless banks better protect consumers. Whether he accomplished those missions is a mixed verdict. Obamacare still faces a key Supreme Court challenge and for the most part won't go into effect until 2014. Obama's stimulus measures helped the economy heal, but fell far short of Obama's own expectations. It's hard to tell if the banks are behaving better, and many consumers feel worse off than they did four years ago, regardless of how much the government has done to protect them. Obama and his re-election team surely know all that, and there's no doubt they'll craft a fresh plan meant to assuage doubters. But Obama has missed the mark before on issues voters care most about, such as jobs, the national debt, fading prosperity, and the future of Medicare and Social Security. Can he fix this in time for reelection?
Newt Gingrich, who has faced an onslaught of negative ads funded Super PACs recently said that he thinks the new form of fundraising should be eliminated. For the past few weeks, Gingrich has been enduring several nasty attacks from super PACs that support Mitt Romney. The super PAC claiming responsibility for this as is Restore Our Future. They allegedly spent $2.85 million on negative ads. One of the websites they support is Newt Facts. This is one of the ads:
The previous limitations on public action committees were as follows:
at most $5,000 per candidate per election. Elections such as primaries, general elections and special elections are counted separately.
at most $15,000 per political party per year.
at most $5,000 per PAC per year.
PACs are not limited in their ability to spend money independently of a candidate campaign. This may include expenditures on activities in support of (or against) a candidate, as long as they are not coordinated with the candidate.
Last year, in the court case Federal Election Commission v Citizens United, some of these regulations were lessened and removed. PACs are not limited in their ability to spend money independently of a candidate campaign. This may include expenditures on activities in support of (or against) a candidate, as long as they are not coordinated with the candidate. Contribution could be made indirectly such as through a 501(c)(4). Direct contributions are still prohibited.
Gingrich is quoted as saying "These super PACs have huge amounts of money. They're totally irresponsible, totally secret and I think it's a problem."
The Iowa Caucus is over. From one of the closest votes ever emerges a winner. His hair combed neatly to the side and something resembling a smile on his face, Mitt Romney faces the reporters. Romney has just won the caucus by 8 votes. That's 8 out of over 100,000. This is a table that displays the results:
CANDIDATE
VOTES
PERCENT
DELEGATES
Mitt Romney
30,015
24.6%
13
Rick Santorum
30,007
24.5
12
Ron Paul
26,219
21.4
—
Newt Gingrich
16,251
13.3
—
Rick Perry
12,604
10.3
—
Michele Bachmann
6,073
5.0
—
Jon Huntsman
745
0.6
—
These results had triggered several events. First, Michele Bachmann oficially dropped out of the running. Rick Perry also is considering whether to continue or not.
New Hampshire, the next battleground, may turn up different results.
After months of debating their views and policies and defending themselves from other candidates, it all boils down to the Iowa caususe which will be the ribbon-cutter for the race for the Republican nominee for president. The two front runners, Romney and Paul, are neck in neck. In this article the author is factual and unbiased. He states the facts giving recorded data. In today’s political area, many will find out that this year’s republican race was far more fluctuating than that of years before. A key issue arises in the shadow of this article: Will the polls of projected results of the Iowa caucuse have any effect of the other primaries such as the one in New Hampshire or South Carolina. Will a candidate’s win in Iowa mean the same results in the other primary states much to the chagrin of the other candidates? All will be revealed in the coming weeks.
Bachman, a Republican candidate was considered a leading candidate because she was considered a Iowan Native. Many people said that Bachman was a leading candidate considering her offense against Ron Paul on National Security. Many people like a conservative party situated in Iowa have told Bachman to drop out of the race, but Bachman believes she is leading candidate and best against Obama due to her support. According to Bachman, many undecided voters are leaning toward her, and she believes she will win with an upset. Also according to PolitiFact, many statements Bachman said were also true, contradicting allegations proposed by her opposition. This information tells me that the media gives different perspectives of her and the opposition uses the media against her, although her facts were straight. In a political arena today, many voters would consider Bachman as a "real" candidate instead of a person just fooling herself due to the truth in her statements. Many conservative candidates like Perry have to distinguish themselves from each other to get ahead in the race. Watch Bachman's interview with Ali here on CNN.
Candidate Rick Perry recently switched sides on abortion. A few weeks ago, Perry was asked how he felt about abortion. He replied that he felt it was morally wrong except in the case of rape and incest. It appears that he has now shifted his views. In a town hall meeting in Iowa, a pastor asked the very same question. This time Perry said it was unacceptable in all situations. Did he do this to please religious conservatives? Maybe. His idea goes against that of his wife, Anita. Anita has been a long time supporter of a pro-choice group in Texas known as TAASA. In one year, Anita has tripled the donations received by TAASA.
Will this vacillation hurt Perry's chances of being nominated by Iowa? We shall see...
Mitt Romney
Rick Santorum
Ron Paul
Newt Gingrich
Rick Perry
Michele Bachmann
Jon Huntsman