I'd have more respect if they said, "Of course we're panicking, you'd be an idiot not to." http://t.co/Sf3HCq7krZ
— Bob Schooley (@Rschooley) September 12, 2015
From the NYTimes article:
Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin is refocusing his Republican presidential campaign on Iowa and South Carolina, where his early popularity in opinion polls has crumbled with the ascent of Donald J. Trump, and he has taken the unusual step of canceling major speeches in Michigan and California this coming week to spend time in those two crucial states.
Mr. Walker, who has fallen in one key Iowa poll from first place in July to 10th place this month, no longer plans to appear next weekend at a prestigious Republican conference on Mackinac Island in Michigan or at the California Republican Party convention. Instead, his advisers said, he plans to campaign in Iowa — where he is holding events this weekend as well — and in South Carolina.
Mr. Walker’s advisers said the last-minute cancellations were not a sign of panic about the viability of his presidential bid but rather a recognition that at this point his time and campaign funds are better spent on Iowa and South Carolina. Mr. Walker regards Iowa, which will hold the nation’s first presidential nominating contest on Feb. 1, as virtually a must-win state that would energize his supporters and donors nationwide. And he has long seen South Carolina, which votes later that month, as another winnable early state that could give him momentum and stature in a large field of Republican candidates.
By skipping the events in California and Michigan, two states with larger and more diverse electorates than Iowa and South Carolina, as well as more delegates at stake to help win the nomination, Mr. Walker risks diminishing himself. Once a national front-runner, he increasingly looks like a regional candidate — hoping his Midwestern roots will win him Iowa — who is pursuing single-state strategies rather than projecting confidence across the country….
It also looks, to my admittedly cynical Democratic eyes, like his handlers are realizing Walker performs better stage-dancing in front of a crowd than one-on-one with a more discriminating audience that expects more than blanket repetition of the same handful of market-tested catchphrases.
Here’s hoping the Koch brothers have started to look at the sunk-cost equation regarding their early Wisconsin purchase. Looks like they may have chosen him in the first place because he was cheap and desperately accommodating, without realizing why he was cheap and desperate…
Possible Walker comeback plans:
- taking union member on the road to berate at events
- plastic surgery to literally become Reagan
— daveweigel (@daveweigel) September 11, 2015
Joel
Honestly, I’d rather the Kochs funnel their money into the Walker campaign than, say, the Bush campaign.
Richard Mayhew
Big early to cut losses see McCain 2008
Linda Featheringill
I never thought Walker had a chance. But then, I didn’t think that Trump had a chance, either.
Kasich would be a more formidable opponent. He’s neither crazy nor stupid. And he’s very Republican.
So he probably doesn’t have a chance, either.
Baud
Meanwhile, the Baud! 2016 has decided to concentrate on winning Maui. The candidate will spend months talking about the issues with the locals.
Debbie
@Linda Featheringill:
Kasich in fact is crazy; he’s just done a better job of hiding it than others.
trollhattan
Scotty Walker looks to be this campaign’s Rih Perry–scary from a distance, laughable up close. Locals have been telling us that, but given the damage he’s done back there I presumed he’d pull in the Kochbucks. UNLIMITED CORPULENT CRASH!
gene108
Walker is still not as sad as the not Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primary.
They have no name or face recognition at all.
time.com/4030136/martin-omalley-video/
Spirula
Alfred E. Gumby is both ambitious and stupid. Dangerous combination, but forced into the spotlight it should kill his candidacy.
However, some predicted him to rise to be the R nomination. I couldn’t imagine the voters being that stupid, but I live in Florida so I’m used to underestimating the voter’s collective intelligence.
Linda Featheringill
@Debbie:
Well, maybe . . . . :-)
trollhattan
So last year it was Russian “humanitarian aid” to eastern Ukraine and now it’s Syria’s turn at the trough.
I’m sure it’s just borscht and vodka and no fancy weaponry.
RSA
@Linda Featheringill:
I don’t know if there are any substantive similarities, but I remember people saying something similar about Jon Huntsman in 2012. The obvious problem for not-outwardly crazy Republicans is outwardly crazy Republican primary voters…
NotMax
Woo-hoo!
Scored the last of the sofas with cushions they had left.
Keith P.
No more crazy Walker comeback plans. He already tried to switch bodies with his young son by hitting his head on a cabinet, but instead of magically switching, he magically developed male-pattern-baldness.
Baud
@NotMax:
Score!
NotMax
@Baud! 2016
Get off my lawn.
:)
Splitting Image
Without looking at how much money each candidate has in his coffers, I would pick Christie as the next candidate to bail out, followed by Jindal. Pataki and Gilmore can probably outlast some of the higher-profile candidates, because they aren’t spending much money.
I would give Lindsey Graham another month or so, but after blaming Iran for the World Trade Center attack, he may have made himself too big a laughingstock to continue. That was Herman Cain Ubeki-beki-bekistan stupid.
With those five out, they’d be down to 11 candidates. That’s probably a good over/under number for how many will make it to the first caucus. None of them will quit before Iowa as long as they have enough money to keep an office open there. Walker can probably hang on to enough money to be one of the people on the ballot there.
Remember, 15 of these candidates were personally told by God to run for President. It would be morally wrong of them not to hope for a miracle somewhere along the line.
Baud
@NotMax:
I’ll need a place to crash. My fundraising isn’t quite yet ready for prime time. You up for being the official campaign hosteller?
Germy Shoemangler
@Splitting Image:
They’re impatiently waiting for Trump to go down in flames; each of them believes at that point they will assume their rightful place as front runner.
But it hasn’t happened yet, has it? Will the military school service be the thing that finally makes his supporters gasp “Oh my god… who is this person in my bed and how did he get here? I don’t remember last night at all”
WaterGirl
@Splitting Image:
Wow. Really? If true, God is definitely not putting all his eggs in one basket.
shell
Definitely Jindal , one of the next dominos to keel over. Christie, fairly soon. The only down side is we’ll have his sullen, bitter ass back here in New Jersey.
trollhattan
@Splitting Image:
There’s actually a candidate named Gilmore? Too lazy to look it up but I don’t recall that one squeezing in.
BTW, Carson was interviewed on NPR this morning. What a trainwreck that guy is.
Baud
@trollhattan:
So you’re saying he has a good shot at the nomination.
Origuy
@Baud:
Remember, NotMax, cash the check first.
Baud
@Origuy:
The campaign currently only deals in bitcoins.
Baud
@efgoldman:
Hookers and blow.
Richard Mayhew
Can we set up a balloon juice super PAC to back Doug J for parody trolling purposes?
Baud
@Richard Mayhew:
Doug J trolls have never left us.
Baud
@efgoldman:
Good point. Maybe just wishful thinking on my part.
JPL
@gene108: Time noticed him. They probably gave him more exposure than he’s had so far. All he needs to do is release his emails and say see I use e-mail too.
SiubhanDuinne
@efgoldman:
It appeared to be a foreign donation. He returned it via Canada Post. Didn’t you get your Nickelback?
JPL
@WaterGirl: I hope that I have the opportunity to use that. lol
Baud
@SiubhanDuinne:
You are now the official campaign speechwriter.
Splitting Image
@efgoldman:
Graham is John McCain’s acolyte, so I think he thinks of the TV bobbleheads as his main constituency, rather than the unwashed heathens who elected him Senator. He’s not nearly as good at it as McCain was, though. (Did you know John McCain was a PoW?)
Totally agree he’ll get blown out if he makes it to South Carolina, but I wouldn’t bet on him getting even that far.
kc
He’s gonna get crushed in SC.
SRW1
@Splitting Image:
S/he’s quite a joker, isn’t s/he?
scott (the other one)
@Debbie: Yes. That’s why he’s so dangerous. He very nearly as bad as the worst of them but comes across as reasonable. And he’s got Fox on his side. So if he can just stay down in the lower reaches as one by one the others drop out, I can see him being the last one standing, and getting the full power of the Koch Bros and Fox behind him and winning the nomination. And if anyone in the entire field can actually sway those mythical swing voters, it’s Kasich–he seems so boring and moderate, and he’s a white middle ‘murican male, so surely he’d be a good choice, right?
me
Who will he cheer for when Wisconsin plays Iowa in October? I suspect Iowa as he doesn’t give a flying fuck about Wisconsin anymore.
SiubhanDuinne
@Baud:
Okay, but like NotMax, I want payment in advance.
Bill Murray
@Baud: have you considered the Big Island? Two statues of Kamehameha to have your picture taken with showing his blessing of your leadership, and his birthplace, where you can commune with him to get his leadership recipe, Kona coffee and macadamia nuts, real live Volcanoes to feed the media into
Matt McIrvin
@trollhattan: Gilmore used to be governor of Virginia. The most memorable thing about him was that he won on the basis of a campaign that basically consisted entirely of a promise to eliminate the car tax. A lot of people were disappointed that he couldn’t somehow magically eliminate it the day he took office. And, of course, when it did get cut, it caused terrible problems for the state budget. Big surprise there.
Baud
@Bill Murray:
Saving that for the general election.
Another Holocene Human
@Splitting Image: Not just you, everyone on this thread is forgetting Graham’s last political survival act. Not sure running for President isn’t part and parcel of his ongoing play to stay in power in SC. Within SC he’s considered a moderate and draws Dem votes, but he still has to win primaries. He was pretty adept at doing in the competition last time.
I wonder if the war mongering is a cynical ploy to convince conservatives he’s one of them while avoiding culture war or racial hot spots that would endanger him with SC Dems. He likely relies on them to vote in the GOP primary to keep him in power. SC has open primaries, and the SC Dem party is not competitive in Senate races. The GOP has been caught putting their own candidates up in SC Dem Senate primaries (as covered on Wonkette: must credit Wonkette).
redshirt
@Baud: Do you have the http://WWW.baud2016.com domain yet? If not, prepare to pay me a lot of bitcoins.
Another Holocene Human
@Matt McIrvin: that’s because while VA has an income tax, it’s not particularly progressive
they were relying on car tax for everything, which is highly regressive
while also delivering the plus of screwing new residents, like, oh, the sainted TROOOOOPS
and they broke out in some truly epic infighting when NoVa tried to get a special transportation tax passed (it did pass, but it took a while)
I paid less taxes in Taxachusetts than I did in Virginia. The cake is, indeed, a lie.
Percysowner
I’m sure we will all be overjoyed to learn that although Hillary’s emails have were deleted, the drive may not have been wiped. We can look forward to the Senate demanding her personal emails then setting up hearings asking if it was legal for her to order in Thai instead of Pizza when she was working late.
Whatever you may think about Hillary she is as strong as you can get. She got into this knowing what would be thrown at her and she kept on going. I’d be hiding under my bed or telling the world to F off. Yes, she shouldn’t have run her own server, but the Repubs would be demanding her personal emails anyway or they would have been screaming that Colin Powell, Condi Rice and Jeb! all maintained their own servers and thereby saved the nation money so how greedy was Hillary to use government resources.
catclub
@Baud:
Like, best tiny umbrella drinks?
catclub
@shell: I bet Christie feels less unwelcome in NJ than Jindal feels in LA.
Jeffro
.
Jeffro
@Matt McIrvin:
Basically, he was Brownback (lite) before Brownback was cool.
Omnes Omnibus
@Jeffro:
Huh?
Jeffro
@Splitting Image:
Agreed – Christie, Jindal, Santorum (c’mon Foster Friess…we know you can afford it but quit wasting yer dough), and Pataki. Gilmore appears to be on a weird mission to run the world’s first no-overhead, one-man campaign. He could be (technically) in there until the convention.
I was thinking about this, and about why St. Lindsey got into the race in the first place…honestly, I can see him getting out the day after Rand Paul gets out, triumphant in his own mind that his (Graham’s) neocon war-favoring ways have prevailed over Paul’s isolationist cooties.
Jeffro
@Omnes Omnibus: Just a turn of a phrase…Gilmore was a lite version of Brownback way, way back before Kansas’ current budget abyss became national news.
Joel
@Percysowner: The email stuff only has traction because there’s nothing really going on in the D-side. The hearings, in my book, are about physically wearing Clinton down before the general hits. But, let’s be honest, 90% of the news is Trump. And why not? The US is sizing up to be the next Italy, or Thailand. Yay!
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Joel: Meanwhile, the prospect for a government shutdown grows, at least according to TheHill:
There’s always more stupid clowning to be done by the stupid clown caucus.
:-/
Cheers,
Scott.
redshirt
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: I think the question is entirely the other way: Will the Republicans actually shut down the entire USA government over PP funding?
If so, it seems like political suicide.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@redshirt: They don’t look farther ahead than the next primary. They don’t care about the general election – that’s too far away to think about.
They don’t think about what happens after midnight on Wednesday 9/30, either. They say they do – that Obama and the Democrats will cave – because they “really mean it this time”. Or something.
It really is amazing.
They seem to think that their past skill in redistricting guarantees them perpetual power as long as nobody appears on their right.
Sensible redistricting procedures should crush the Teabaggers in much of the country. Will it happen in 2020? Dunno.
I do know, though, that winning races in 2016, and 2018, and 2020 are essential if we want sensible policies in the 2020s. That means getting out the vote and supporting the League of Women Voters and Vote Riders and all the rest who are trying to make sure they don’t take our voting rights away.
We need to play the long game better than they do.
Cheers,
Scott.
redshirt
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: Fucking A right!
trnc
Why on earth would you hope that, unless you think they might reevaluate the idea of campaign spending altogether? Plenty of money to burn, so that can’t be it.