Unless you’ve been under a rock for quite some time, you’re no doubt aware that today is the New Hampshire primary. New Hampshire’s small, but it has a traditional day in the sun in choosing the nominee, although New Hampshire voters also tend to be rather quirky in their picks.
Here’s a thread to discuss the primary and its results.
[UPDATE 8:11 PM: Romney is projected to win New Hampshire by double digits, with Ron Paul second.]
Here’s Walter Shapiro in TNR on the most boring primary ever, this one (which he thinks Romney will win):
Romney inspires all the enthusiasm of “Vegetables Are Our Friends” week in an elementary school cafeteria. My nominee for the typical New Hampshire Romney voter is Dwight Corning, a recent transplant from Connecticut who moved to Dover after he retired from an electronic firm. “I think Romney’s reliable,” Corning said after the rally in Rochester. “I don’t think he’ll do anything crazy when he gets in.” A vote is a vote, but Corning sounded about as passionate as if he had been asked to recommend a CPA.
And here’s Michael Gerson in the WaPo on Romney:
Romney is temperamentally conservative but not particularly ideological. He reserves his enthusiasm for quantitative analysis and organizational discipline. He seems to view the cultural and philosophic debates that drive others as distractions from the real task of governing — making systems work.
His competitors have attempted to portray Romney’s ideological inconsistency over time as a character failure. It hasn’t worked, mainly because Romney is a man of exemplary character — deeply loyal to his faith, his family and his country. But he clearly places political ideology in a different category of fidelity. Like Dwight Eisenhower, Romney is a man of vague ideology and deep values. In political matters, he is empirical and pragmatic. He studies problems, assesses risks, calculates likely outcomes. Those expecting Romney to be a philosophic leader will be disappointed. He is a management consultant, and a good one.
Has the moment of the management consultant arrived in American politics? In our desperate drought of public competence, Romney has a strong case to make.
The two quotes highlight, among other things, some of the differences between liberals and conservatives. Liberals were wowed by Obama during the 2008 campaign; he excited and inspired them. Shapiro considers Romney dull, and perhaps he is in many ways. But although conservatives like a charismatic candidate as well (Ronald Reagan, for example), they tend to be less focused on that sort of emotional reaction. And perhaps the entire nation is less interested in such a thing now, A.O. (after Obama).
Shapiro interprets New Hampshirite Corning’s statements as a lack of enthusiasm. But it could just as easily be relief. Maybe we don’t need an inspirational, charismatic, president. Maybe—as Gerson indicates—we need someone who is competent and who can lead.
I think that Limbaugh lets his disapproval of a Romney nomination blind him to the other possibilities here when he offers the following exchange as support for his thesis that “the Democrats want Romney [as Republican nominee] — and you all know it”:
BRAZILE: Mitt Romney won tonight because no one touched him — and for Democrats, you know what? It was good news for us.
KARL: Why is that?
BRAZILE: Because we believe that the weakest candidate is the candidate that the Republicans are not attackin’, and that’s Mitt Romney.
KARL: Oh, come on.
STEPHANOPOULOS: No, you don’t believe that, Donna.
RUSH: That’s Stephanopoulos. What Stephanopoulos is saying is, “Shut up, Donna! What the hell are you doing, Donna? Did you not take your meds?”
I think Limbaugh is underestimating the degree of possible game-playing here. Maybe he’s even correct, but I doubt it; there’s absolutely no reason to suppose that it’s Brazile who’s being straightforward.
Yesterday I decided, New England being the small place it is, that I would go to one New Hampshire primary event.
I had a few basic criteria. The first was that it not be a breakfast meeting (not a morning person, moi). The second was that it feature more than one candidate, ex-candidate, or future candidate. That made it a no-brainer to go to the Exeter High School rally starring the unusual duo of Mitt Romney and Chris Cristie.
The place was packed, and it wasn’t just with the press or the Occupiers, although they both were there in locust-like droves (the press quieter than the Occupiers, although more numerous). In fact, there were so many regular folks there that even though I arrived way ahead of time, I ended up in an overflow room rather than the one featuring the main event. We outliers were assured that Mitt and Chris would come in to personally address our gym crowd of several hundred, and that their speeches would be piped in (the audio, not the video).
Thus I missed seeing Romney’s sons, who were present at the main event. But because I was one of the first people turned away, I had a front row stand (no chairs, no seat) immediately behind the ropes that the advance men set up to clear a little square footage where the speakers were going to stand on a wooden box (not all that different from the proverbial soapbox) and address our crowd.
The people around me seemed happy to be there but calm and willing to wait. A very civilized group; even the Occupiers were willing to bide their time, although they milled around a bit restlessly in the back of the room.
And then the stars came in. I was about three feet from Romney and Christie with a completely unobstructed view, and if I were better at working my cell phone camera I’d have gotten a ton of photos and video too. But unfortunately I am not, so the following two will have to do (and in the Romney one I unfortunately caught what was probably his single most unattractive moment):
From my perch just a few feet from each man as they spoke, I observed that they look like themselves only different. Christie, for example, (how shall I put this delicately?) is heavier than I’d previously thought, and I already knew he was heavy. But maybe anyone would look heavier next to the slender Romney.
It was Romney who was most surprising. It’s often been remarked (by me, for example, here) that Romney is a handsome man who looks pretty good for his age. But now that I’ve seen him up-close and personal I would like to correct that: he looks better than his photos, and much younger. Except for the graying temples, he could pass for a man nearly half his age.
Is it clean-living (Romney the Mormon does not smoke or drink of even ingest coffee)? I don’t know, but whatever it is if he could bottle it he would make another gazillion dollars to add to his first fortune. What’s more, in this particular venue both men eschewed jackets for more casual wear, and thus it was possible to see that Romney is in great shape—and not just great shape for a 64-year-old man, either; great shape for anyone, although of a type more suited to the occupations of outfielder or runner or even dancer than linebacker or first baseman.
But enough of the pulchritude. Although the physicality was one of the first things I noticed (call me shallow, call me frivolous), the other thing I saw in their most-standard of campaign speeches was that both men seemed genuinely relaxed and happy (not surprising for Christie; surprising to me for Romney) and Romney was very energized. How he does this—or how any of the candidates do it, for that matter—with such a punishing schedule is a mystery to me. He did not seem like a windup doll or automaton, but a flesh and blood human who meant what he said. Make of that what you will.
Christie was more hard-hitting, of course, giving the hecklers a taste of their own medicine. But perhaps the best line of the evening (for me at least) was when Ann Romney said that after their campaign for the presidency in 2008 she told Mitt that never again would she be part of a presidential run. And he reminded her that she’d said something similar about having another child after each pregnancy. So, here she was.
[NOTE: In the photos, the woman in the black boots, jeans, and red sweater is Kelly Ayotte, Republican senator from New Hampshire. The other legs with the black boots and black pants, and then the gray sweater above, belong to Ann Romney, who looked almost as good as her husband. Almost, but not quite.
Here’s some local coverage of the event, with more about the speeches themselves. It states that the crowd was approximately 1000, although I believe that may have been just in the main room. But the estimate of the number of press was 100. I’d say both estimates were low.]
I’ve grown very very tired of research that purports to study conservatives and liberals. It seems that most of it is constructed to prove that the former are bad guys and the latter good guys.
But this one seems to be a rare exception—although I’m sure someone can interpret the results in the usual conservatives-bad/liberals-good manner. At the very least, though, I find the results interesting:
Conservatives reacted more strongly to, fixated more quickly on, and looked longer at the unpleasant images; liberals had stronger reactions to and looked longer at the pleasant images compared with conservatives…While liberals’ gazes tended to fall upon the pleasant images, such as a beach ball or a bunny rabbit, conservatives clearly focused on the negative images ”“ of an open wound, a crashed car or a dirty toilet, for example…
[C]onservatives also exhibited a stronger physiological response to images of Democratic politicians ”“ presumed to be a negative to them ”“ than they did on pictures of well-known Republicans. Liberals, on the other hand, had a stronger physiological response to the Democrats ”“ presumed to be a positive stimulus to them ”“ than they did to images of the Republicans.
Conservatives often criticize liberals for believing, against all evidence, that basic societal problems can be “fixed” if only we have enough goodwill (beachballs and bunnies, anyone?). And liberals often criticize conservatives for being fear-based (as in the so-called War on Terror, for example) or pessimistic about the possibilities of human improvement.
Not that this sort of research proves much of anything at all, or closely ties into any of that. But still, it’s interesting to someone like me, who puzzles over these differences and who’s looked at the clouds of politics from both sides now. Of course, I tend to also reject any physiological or innate explanations of political differences, because (among other things) how would they account for changers?
The other day the following metaphor came to me about the Republican race and the antipathy to Romney’s candidacy:
In football (a sport about which I know next to nothing of the fine points), one thing I do know is that each side has two lines, defensive and offensive (we can ignore the special teams for now). The former goes into the game when the opponents have the ball, and the latter when the team itself has possession.
So, here’s the comparison (not a perfect one, I freely admit): Tea Partiers and many other conservatives are convinced that this is the moment for the Republican offensive line to be in there. Obama is incredibly weak, they think (he doesn’t have possession, as it were, even though he’s the incumbent), and they want their strongest conservative candidate in there to score, and score relatively easily.
So when they look at Romney they say, why’s the defense in there? And a weak one at that?
Those conservatives who support Romney despite their reservations about his conservatism think Obama will remain a formidable candidate: i.e., Obama’s still on offense. Romney may not be an ideological purist, but he can block Obama most effectively.
Moderates, of course, support him for other reasons.
Tonight’s another debate for the Republicans. This one might be a bit more interesting, though, now that things have heated up for Santorum. Will we watch the others focus on him more?
Here’s one place to watch livesstream. There are plenty of others.
Yorkie-promoting bot:
Yorkie puppies dont really like food, Keep him on the same thing she the breeder has him on NO fruit loops his sugar will be high then crash sending him into a low”¦.I would get all the info from her before I leave, Make sure the pup eats alittle bit all thru the day. NOT just one time. Hand feed if you have too Untill he gets about 2 lbs. then The theat is mostly over Keep ALL shots and de-worming up to date. Good Luck and Enjoy your baby puppy !
Hmmm, come to think of it…Yorkie puppies…awfully cute…Yorkie puppies…
No, no, NO, I must snap out of this spambot-induced reverie!
…what you think of Santorum’s chances, now that he’s not only in double digits but in the 20s.
My preliminary opinion is that he could win the nomination if Perry and Gingrich were to drop out. I don’t see that happening though, especially on Gingrich’s part. He’s fighting mad.
But if Santorum does end up as the Republican Party’s nominee in 2012, I don’t think he could beat Obama. And that’s not because I’m some sort of Romneybot, or a member of that group you all love to hate, the “Republican elite.” It’s just what I observe, and it’s based on the relative extremism of his social conservatism. I don’t think that’s where the majority of Americans are these days, and I think they will find it frightening. Plus, he doesn’t have a particularly appealing personality. You may not want that to matter, but it does.
1965. It was a very good year.
Let’s sit and watch “As Tears Go By” with Marianne Faithfull:
A few more years (forty, to be exact) and a few more tears go by for Marianne. Had Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, and Andrew Loog Oldham (co-authors of the song) managed to see into Faithfull’s future when they wrote it?:
What had happened to Faithfull during those intervening years? Well, Sister Morphine (actually, heroin) and brother cocaine, among other things.
I keep reading that Helicobactor pylori causes ulcers. That’s supposed to be an improvement on the old idea that it might be stress, or diet, or some unknown factor that leads to the condition.
But it’s actually not correct. The idea that the bacerium causes ulcers is way too simplistic, as so many science “facts” spread by pop science articles are.
Now, it’s true that most people who have ulcers harbor H. pylori in their stomachs. But it’s also true that most people who harbor H. pylori in said guts do not have ulcers.
Here’s a bit more detail [emphasis mine]:
[H. pylori] was identified in 1982 by Barry Marshall and Robin Warren, who found that it was present in patients with chronic gastritis and gastric ulcers, conditions that were not previously believed to have a microbial cause. It is also linked to the development of duodenal ulcers and stomach cancer. However, over 80 percent of individuals infected with the bacterium are asymptomatic and it has been postulated that it may play an important role in the natural stomach ecology…More than 50% of the world’s population harbor H. pylori in their upper gastrointestinal tract.
And this fact sheet adds that “H. pylori causes more than half of peptic ulcers worldwide.” “More than half” is far from “all.”
So, plenty of people have ulcers but no H. pylori, and plenty of people have H. pylori but no ulcers. Instead of saying that the bacterium causes ulcers, it would be more accurate to say that H. pylori has a strong association with ulcers and that infection with it somewhat increases a person’s chance of having ulcers.
This may not be the most burning (pun intended) question of the day, but it’s been bugging me (same) for a long time.
Sophomoric storytelling bot introduces a bit of levity:
Wanting to impress a girl on the first date we played frisbee with her dog. Frisbee gets stuck in tree. Wanting to look smart, I saw a long piece of wood nearby, got it and reached for the frisbee. Couldn’t quite get it so began to jump up to get extra reach. Success! And accompanied by a huge fart as I landed.
Followed by a link to the website the bot is trying to promote, which has nothing whatsoever to do with dogs, frisbees, or flatulence.
And if that one didn’t quite grab you, here’s another in a far more philosophic mood:
One is always on a strange road, watching strange scenery and listening to strange music. Then one day, you will find that the things you try hard to forget are already gone.
Sounds like a Stevie Nicks song to me. Hey, why not?: