Conspiracy theories - maybe not so conspiratorial.

Image from theweek.com

There is a theory floating around that Senate Republicans are so against the nomination of UN Ambassador Susan Rice because they want Senator John Kerry (of Massachusetts) to be picked instead. Why? Because this will trigger a special election in Massachusetts which they think Republican Senator Scott Brown might win (Brown lost his seat in the recent election to Senator-elect Elizabeth Warren).

Up until now I haven't really bought into this theory because Arizona Senator John McCain and South Carolina Senator Lindsay Graham, along with their new recruit, New Hampshire Senator Kelly Ayotte (who has replaced Joe Lieberman in their triumvirate) are a combination of bitter and difficult (McCain), hawkish (Graham) and inexperienced (Ayotte). They are blaming Rice for going on TV and reporting the views of her administration relating to the 11 September attack in Benghazi, in which four Americans, including the ambassador to Libya, were killed. These views turned out to be incorrect, but Rice claims this was the intelligence available at the time - which is actually a pretty reasonable excuse as the correct story broke before the election. 

But yesterday usually reliably intelligent and reasonable Senator Susan Collins of Maine (who serves as ranking member on the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs) met with Rice. 

Politico reports:
Collins, the top Republican on the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, accused Rice of playing a “political role” during the height of the presidential election, making the rounds on the Sunday shows and reciting administration talking points just days after the attack that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.

The administration’s response to the incursion, Collins said, had an “eerie echo” of the 1998 bombings of two embassies in Africa, which occurred under Rice’s watch when she was an assistant secretary of state for African Affairs in the Bill Clinton administration.

“Those bombings in 1998 resulted in the loss of life of 12 Americans as well as many other foreign nationals, and 4,000 people were injured,” Collins said.

A spokeswoman for Rice declined to comment Wednesday on the criticism by Collins. The Maine senator said she would not join other GOP colleagues who have vowed to hold up her nomination. But that doesn’t mean she would vote for Rice if she is nominated, Collins said.

“I would need to have additional information before I could support her nomination,” she said. “There is much to be learned and I think it would be premature for me to reach that judgment now.”

Not only is Collins spearing Rice's nomination for doing what Rice's boss told her to, she is bringing up  something that happened 14 years ago when Rice was "an assistant secretary of state for African Affairs in the Bill Clinton administration", which bears virtually zero relevance to the attack in Benghazi. In 1998 a series of bombs exploded at US embassies in Nairobi and Dar-es-Salaam, and Osama Bin Laden was found to have planned it all. Let's contextualise that quickly: Condoleezza Rice was a United States National Security Advisor to President George W Bush when the World Trade Center was attacked in 2001 - did that disqualify her from being Bush's second Secretary of State from 2005?

Not for Susan Collins. Lookie here - she backed the appointment of Condoleezza Rice as Secretary of State in 2005, saying "She has both the professional experience and the personal integrity to be a strong Secretary of State." Hmmm, there's a yawning double standard here from someone who is usually a solid voice of reason.

Which lends credence to the theory that Republicans are trying to do little more than get Kerry into the Secretary of State post to force a special election in Massachusetts. Incidentally, the Democrat most likely to contest that hypothetical election is state attorney general Martha Coakely (who lost to Brown in the special election in 2010 after Ted Kennedy died).

According to Foreign Policy, should Kerry be picked by Obama, next in line Senator from California Barbara Boxer will pass the chairpersonship onto third in line, Robert Menendez of New Jersey, whose favourite bug bear is Iran - he is likely to be rougher when it comes to sanctions on Iran than the Obama administration, and will be in a position to push for such things, which suit the hawkish folks on the Republican side of the table somewhat.

There is considerable Republican benefit to Kerry getting a position in Obama's cabinet, and Rice being sacrificed for it.

UPDATE: I am watching Rachel Maddow from last night on DVR who makes this point too. For the record I wrote this before I saw her show (which I usually watch when I eat lunch the day after it is broadcast). 

Your grannies are going to hurt you, Republicans

This is an example of an old voter. Thank you to CapitalGazette.com

Republicans face a problem in 2016 - this has been well documented thus far. The electorate is now full of brown people, which makes lacing a campaign with racial dog-whistles to hustle up old white people much trickier than before. Plausibly, the next person to sit atop the Democratic Party will also be a white folk (Hillary Clinton, Andrew Cuomo, Martin O'Malley etc.) which means that whole Muslo-foreign-brown-person-birth-certificate-no-that's-not-a-real-birth-certificate argument will work even less successfully in 2016 than it did in 2012.

While those demographics are a-changin', so is one core Republican constituency: old people. The Baby Boomers started turning 65 last year, and there are bucketloads of them. There are going to be more people older than 65 in America than ever before, and they vote in numbers, in any weather, and they lean Republican. 56% of them voted for Mitt Romney; assuming Obama won the other 44%, that's a 12-point gap. In American politics that's a solid win.

"Yay,"I hear you cry, "that's great news for Republicans - our very own growing demographic!" No, according to some reports I looked at (and I am open to argument here as I am no anthropologist), the bloc of +65s, while growing, is not growing fast enough to counter-act the increase in groups favouring Democrats. However, it is a MASSIVE bloc within the Republican Party: ie. primaries that pick the presidential candidate (and others, of course). 

The coalition that makes up the Democratic voter coalition - brown people, young people, vagina-d people, gay people, poor people - by virtue of its existence kind of leans toward immigration rights, same-sex marriage (although this is hardly universally popular), liberalism, atheism and agnosticism*, a belief that there is a role for government in improving the country, and so on. 

As per the New York Times:
Beyond political parties, [young and old people] have different views on many of the biggest questions before the country. The young not only favor gay marriage and school funding more strongly; they are also notably less religious, more positive toward immigrants, less hostile to Social Security cuts and military cuts and more optimistic about the country’s future. They are both more open to change and more confident that life in the United States will remain good.

Old people tend to vote conservatively, particularly on immigration. Take, for example, this year's election result in the state of Arizona - Romney won 67% of the votes by people aged over 65. This is the state where immigration is the hottest political topic - the home of the "papers please" law which would have enabled police to request the papers of anyone who seemed to be there illegally (eg. because of brown skin or a funny accent). Romney openly backed Arizona's plethora of restrictive immigration laws this year and two-thirds of old people went along with him. To be clear, the presidential candidate for Republicans in 2008, John McCain, who has previously backed paths to immigration reform, finished the election then with 11 points less amongst this age group than Romney did - McCain is from Arizona!

Old people tend to make up a fat portion (50% to 70% over those older than 50, depending on which state you are in) of the vote in Republican primaries - and candidates with strong anti-immigration messages will therefore likely have a strong platform on which to stand. It is likely that the elderly will support such measures.

A quick count tells me 21 states have open primaries (anyone can vote) to elect party presidential candidates, plus California and Louisiana which have another kind of system, which means 27 states (plus some other territories) do not (which means only registered Republican Party members, and sometimes independents) can vote). In other words, old people, and their concerns, will be hugely influential in 27 closed state primaries. But this influence will not help them in the general elections.

If the elderly's influence on the Republican primary process continues to grow, the party runs a serious risk of selecting an unelectable presidential candidate. Again.

And the party will pay dearly for only waking up in 2012 to the changing country they wish to run. 

*EDIT: A friend of mine on Twitter, @shans, points out: "Perhaps just a matter of wording, but wouldn't say D. coalition "by nature of its existence" leans atheist/agnostic. Brown people and poor people are generally MORE religious than the gen pop. Not sure about women... And Pew which does most reliable research on religious trends says women more religious than men." She is quite right. In my clumsily worded paragraph above I used the phrase "atheism and agnosticism" in a list of characteristics of the Democratic voting coalition. I intended it to reference the young people who are part of this voting bloc, as well as the acceptability of secular legislation, but I referenced it awfully. 

Obama "gifts" - what Romney nonsense

Image courtesy of wookmark.com

Turns out Mitt Romney's 47% comments he made a few months ago are really what he thinks. On Thursday Romney decided that the reason Barack Obama won the election was because he gave "gifts" to certain parts of the electorate and compelled them to vote for him. 

As per the New York Times:
With regards to the young people, for instance, a forgiveness of college loan interest was a big gift,” Mr. Romney said. “Free contraceptives were very big with young, college-aged women. And then, finally, Obamacare also made a difference for them, because as you know, anybody now 26 years of age and younger was now going to be part of their parents’ plan, and that was a big gift to young people. They turned out in large numbers, a larger share in this election even than in 2008.

And as per ABC:
"[Obama] gave [Hispanics] a big gift on immigration with the DREAM Act amnesty program, which was obviously very, very popular with Hispanic voters, and then number two was Obamacare," Romney said. 

 Romney said that "Obamacare was massive" for "any lower-income Hispanic family … For the Hispanic household, my guess is [median income] is lower than that, maybe it's forty thousand a year. For a home earning let's say thirty thousand a year, free health care, which is worth about ten thousand dollars a year, I mean is massive, it's huge.

Let's take a run through:

College loans: In March 2010 Obama signed legislation which halved the interest rates payable on student loans. In mid-term elections in the November following that legislation, Democrats were shellshacked - absolutely hammered. In fact Republicans won their greatest ever portion of the House of Representatives, and reduced Democrats' majority in the Senate. Elections at the state-level all swung towards Republicans, and what happened to the youth vote after this magical gift they receives from the Muslo-communist president? They just didn't even bother coming out to vote: young voters (ages 18-25) made up 18% of the electorate in 2008 and only 9% in 2010. If you want to compare midterms to midterms, the youth vote turnout was 13% down in 2010 when compared to 2006. So this "gift" didn't get the socialism-seeking youth to the polls in 2010. It is unlikely this would have changed in two years.

Obamacare: Same story. This "gift" of Obamacare? Well it was largely the reason Democrats were so pummeled in 2010. Remember how this was going to be hung around the president's neck? It is also worth differentiating between policy and bribery. The USA has a massive problem in that a fat percentage of its population has no health insurance, which means in a best case scenario injuries or sickness plunge them into debt, and in a worst-case scenario they are prevented from seeing a doctor. Voting to maintain such a policy is not at all the same thing as getting a freebie. Many people who can affordd healthcare voted Democrat. Romney admits poor families would have to spend a third of their income on healthcare - but fails to explain that Obamacare isn't just a freebie - one would need to fulfill many criteria to receive government-backed healthcare. Also, if this was such a massive vote-getting gift, then why did Romney, who blueprinted Obamacare with a state-wide plan for Massachusetts when he was governor, leave office after only one term with upside-down favourability numbers? (39% approve, 59% disapprove, according to SurveyUSA). Was it because the idea of the vote-bribing gift of "free healthcare" is hokum? Yes.

Free contraceptives: This is a made up idea. Obama's push is for contraceptives and other birth control measures to be covered under healthcare plans. Healthcare plans you PAY for.

Dream Act Amnesty Programme: Romney actually has a point with this one. Obama pinched momentum which was being led by Republican Senator Marco Rubio (FL) who was pushing for a DREAM Act (Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act) to pass through the Senate. Basically, this said the children of illegal immigrants who were brought to the USA through no fault of their own have a path to US citizenship. It was likely Rubio's attempt at passing an updated piece of legislation (which was originally authored by Senators Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Orrin Hatch (R-UT)) would have failed, but nonetheless Obama authorised a policy directive (note: this was NOT an exrcutive order) which gave some minors a path to citizenship. Now, would it have been a gift if Rubio had done it? Or only if Obama did? I don't think Romney was really clear on that point.

Not only are Romney's grape sour, they are incorrect. 

Battering Susan Rice

Image courtesy of Fox News.

Republicans have decided that they are going to pan US Ambassador to the United Nations due to her statements after the 11 September in Benghazi, Libya, which killed US Ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens and three other staffers.

Rice claimed the weekend afterwards that the attack was due to a protest over anti-Muslim video, which spilled into an attack on the US consulate in Benghazi. She is also likely to be Obama's next Secretary of State, as Hillary Clinton is virtually certain to step down from the role. Important: Rice has said repeatedly that she was reporting on intelligence that was given to her at the time. The White House said much the same thing. What we know now is very different to what anyone knew then. 

While Rice may seem an easy target it is worth pointing out that she would actually be a pretty consensus candidate to take up the role of Secretary of State. She was one of the top critics of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi before he ultimately met the sharp end of a bullet, and she supported and assisted in the implementation of the no-fly zone and other military intervention (along with arming rebels who, incidentally, decided not to give the weapons back).

While the Obama administration has been criticised for not doing everything Israel tells it to, Rice has spent time courting Israel and voters in the USA who feel strongly about the USA's relationship with Israel. If the last election was anything to go by, Jewish Americans backed the Obama administration's foreign policy (although there was a slight increase for Republicans compared to the 2008 election) towards Israel. Rice also spent day after day, hour after hour, attempting to ensure Palestine's bid for sovereignty at the United Nations did not pass. In fact, the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations gave Rice its annual National Service Award in 2011.

When it comes to Iran, Rice is on record saying, "We will take no option off the table to ensure that (Iran) does not acquire a nuclear weapon, including a military option."

Quite frankly, Rice doesn't screw about. When South Africa chaired the United Nations Security Council in January of this year its main item on the agenda was having the African Union play a greater role in dealing with crises in Africa, which Rice agreed to in principle and then immediately said the UNSC would not be answerable to anyone. Rice is also part of an administration which ended the Iraq war and has firm plans to withdraw from the war in Afghanistan - both of which are approved by the US public, according to polls.

While Republicans may string up Rice - an easy target after Benghazi - they may end up missing out on a Secretary of State whose ideas manage to cross the aisle moreso than other candidates.

This nonsense talk of secession

Image courtesy of The Atlantic. 

You may have seen talk of citizens in one or more US states moving to have their state secede from the union now that the awful Muslo-Commie, Indo-Kenyan Barack Obama won re-election last week. 

Well don't take it seriously. Constitutionally, it can't happen. And last time states successfully seceded they were beaten and re-attached in the Civil War - you can see a nice sum up of it in an upcoming film.

But let's just say a state like Texas - which is the state current news reports are mentioning even though this nonsense is taking place in forty states since Tuesday last week - decides to secede. 

Think about how tits-up it would go:

The federal government would have a problem with secession. It would likely shut down all of Texas' federal facilities. So goodbye interstate highways. It would also likely slap all kinds of trade sanctions in Texas so goodbye businesses. No one is going anywhere or earning any money. The Texan dollar would be valued akin to the Iranian rial. 

And while Governor Rick Perry lambasts the federal government and all its tax-and-spend policies, Texas still rakes in a fat portion of federal greenery. Goodbye to that.

Texas also wouldn't have an army - no one could get on the blower to the National Guard if the federal government decides it will take Texas back forcefully. If the USA didn't want the state back Mexico would likely pick it up, merely by marching in. 

Secession would suck for everyone, especially those who attempt to secede, which is why anyone with half a brain won't go for it. 

*Note: To be clear I was using Texas merely as an example.

EDIT: (Wednesday 14 November 14:45PM CT): It was pointed out to me that the petition in Texas for secession had 70,000 votes. Which sounds like a lot until you click there are 25-million people in the state.

Is Romney's result really that bad?

Image kindly pinched from HollywoodReporter.com

I watch a lot of sensationalist news. I figure that by watching Fox and MSNBC, I will average out the hysteria into a basic understanding of what is going on in the world. But sometimes the hysterics cannot be accurately blended into fact, and I feel like the great loser in this melee of somewhat-facts over the last week has been Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. 

"Analysts" of all types unanimously agreed that it was vital for Mitt Romney to win his home state of Michigan in Tuesday's primary. At face value this seems legitimate: one would expect candidates to take their own state, particularly one where their father was an incredibly popular governor. However, what threatened to sink Romney was not so much the fact the people don't like him. Romney penned a highly controversial piece in the New York Times called "Let Detroit go Bankrupt", which criticised what President Barack Obama planned to do (and ultimately did), which was bail out the auto industry, much of which is based in Detroit, Michigan.

Now, the auto industry is to Detroit what Table Mountain is to Cape Town - people get highly protective over it. Romney surely knew when he wrote that column for the New York Times that he was going to piss some people off. In fact, that's half the reason some people write columns. And such a divisive issue was bound to come up when he ran for president this time around. Of course Michiganders are going to have split opinion when it comes to the auto bailout; simple logic would dictate that some folks would be against it. In fact, it was nice to finally see Romney take a principled stand and stick with it.

What this means is that Romney was quite entitled to not win Michigan, in spite of his roots there, because he picked a side in a massively controversial battle. People were quite entitled to disagree with his view on the bail out. Surely the political system is better when people are voting over issues and records than the bloke that comes from a certain place and adores the height of the trees?

What also surprised me greatly was that not one media outlet I read, and I read many, discussed how Romney's opposition to the bailout may play in other states. Instead, we were treated to constant repetition of just how ghastly it would be if Mitt failed to win Michigan. Now, in many southern states, a portion of whom go to the polls on Super Tuesday (on 6 March) are far more concerned with fiscal conservatism. While arguing against the bailout may hurt in Michigan, it is unlikely to do so in Oklahoma, Tennessee or Georgia, all of whom will vote soon. And, let's be honest, if Romney starts winning in the south then this race will be over swiftly.

Something else the media climbed all over was Romney's speech to the Detroit Economics Club on Friday last week at the Ford Field, home of the Detroit Lions American football team. Romney has been invited by the club to deliver a speech about his economic plan for the US, and naturally, attendance to an address by a  presidential nominee was higher than normal. The DEC (note, NOT Mit Romney) changed the venue to the Ford Field and set up a stage and chairs in a small portion of the field. There was never any intention to fill the stadium. But multiple media outlets reported how Mitt Romney failed to fill a stadium. One would think that the nominee would have invited more than 1,200-odd people in a 60,000-seater stadium if he was attempting to do something grand, right?

Image pinched from mlive.com.

Often, Romney doesn't help himself. He manages to walk around with both feet in his mouth a lot of the time, with increasing regularity. But he isn't helped by criticism that isn't, well, in-depth.

While much criticism is justified, it is surely worth looking at why Romney may have stuck with a point of view past the next primary. It is easy enough to point fingers and say you're criticising. It is something else entirely to actually be critical.

The basics of a US election

The American political system is structured somewhat oddly. As you probably know, it boils down to a vote between two parties – Republicans (Bush, Nixon, Eisenhower) and Democrats (Obama, JFK, Clinton) – and this vote is done per state. Now, each state has its own smaller election, and whoever wins this state gets ALL of the electoral votes belonging to that state. Whomsoever wins the most electoral votes becomes president. Get it?

 (image from http://www.270towin.com)

This means that a few states matter more than others during election time. For example, it is highly unlikely that conservative states such as Texas and Mississippi will vote Democrat in this upcoming election. The converse applies to California and Illinois who are unlikely to vote for a Republican in 2012. The other factor to take into account is the population of the state, which determines how influential the state is in picking the president. For example, in a race to 270 electoral votes, California offers candidates 55 votes, Texas 38, and New York and Florida with 29. States with a smaller population, such as North Dakota have three electoral votes. A win in a state gets the party all of the electoral votes; meaning that even a 51% vote for a Republican in a state gives the Republican ALL of the state's electoral votes. (The exception in this case is Nebraska, which only has five votes, but they are awarded proportionally).  

Now, if we take the 2008 election as an indication of which states might swing and determine the result of the election, it is no surprise that current President Barack Obama has been visiting Nevada, Virginia, North Carolina and Ohio recently. These are states he needs to win in order to maintain the presidency, as they have been known to change their minds – kind of like Mitt Romney. Most of them also have enough gravitas to decide the presidency.

Today Barack Obama is in Pennsylvania to bang on about extending payroll tax cuts to the working classes, and getting the wealthy to pay for them. While mostly working class Pennsylvania has usually swung Democrat, it voted the other way in the 2010 midterms which is one of the reasons the House of Representatives fell under Republican control. In 2012, Pennsylvania will carry 20 electoral votes. In the race to 270, that’s a rather nice chunk. Its neighbour, Ohio, will carry 18, and its neighbour Virginia has 13.

It’s also no surprise that on this trip the president is also visiting Florida, which holds 29 electoral votes. You’ll all remember Florida’s influence that robbed the world of the presidency of Al Gore in 2000 and heaved The Inconvenient Truth down the pipes of our televisions ever since. This is the impact that a swing state has.

So while the candidates for the presidency are appreciative of the support they will get from their bankable states, the real election will be contested in the swing states. Expect to see candidates and media all over Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Colorado, New Mexico, Florida, Indiana, Wisconsin, Missouri, New Hampshire, North Carolina and Nevada.

Why Rick Perry might not yet be down and out

Of the Republican candidates in the race, there's only a few we need to take seriously.

We can discount Congresswoman Michele Bachmann and ex-Senator Rick Santorum because they are both too extreme to appeal to independent voters - not all Republicans belong to the (modern definition of the) tea party, after all. Congressman Ron Paul, while easily the most intelligent and skeleton- and hypocrisy-free candidate, will not win the nomination because he is just far too extreme, and his libertarianism wouldn't permit Republicans to ban women's right to decide what to do with their bodies, and would defile Jesus by telling the government to get out of deciding who can get married. While his dedicated supporters will follow him around the country, they can still only vote once. John Huntsman, another candidate who suffers from being able to think outside popular rhetoric, is just not being taken seriously at all.

It is going to be a showdown between ex-Massachusetts governor and flip-flopper extraordinaire, Mitt Romney, Uz-busi-busi-busi-businessman Herman Cain, controversial ex-House speaker Newt Gingrich and erm, uh, hmmmm, erm, who's the last one? Oops. Oh yes, Texas governor Rick Perry. 

Romney's unpopularity is fairly well-known and easy to identify.
1) He was governor of a blue state.
2) He, on record, backed a woman's right to choose whether she wanted to terminate her pregnancy (but has since changed his mind).
3) He backed Massachusetts' relatively restrictive gun control laws (but has since changed his mind).
4) He said he would fight for equality for homosexual people (he now supports the defence of marriage act which would ultimately ban gay marriage).
5a) He had a statewide healthcare plan for Massachusetts from which, according to numerous sources, Barack Obama pinched ideas his own healthcare reform which is, ironically, causing more heart attacks within the Republican base than no healthcare would. (He professes a distaste for Obama's healthcare bill now, on the grounds that states should decide their own fortunes.)
5b) Under the healthcare bill which he signed in 2006, illegal immigrants could get medical attention.

At every one point in time, he has been on the wrong side of a very strong electoral issue with the members of his party. However, Romney remains the fancied candidate because of the sheer screw-ups his competitors seem to be making. While there is a far larger faction which doesn't want Romney, it is split between Cain, Perry and Gingrich. Which should present them with a fair few opportunities.

And in my humble opinion, Perry is best-placed to take advantage of this.

Herman Cain can't seem to stop messing up. Even if we remove the sexual harassment and sexual assault allegations against the man, of which we still don't yet have conclusive proof, Cain seems to make a daily cock-up which the media pounces on. It started with the piss-taking of Uz-beki-beki-beki-stan-stan which is actually quite an important nation when it comes to the war in Afghanistan. He moved onto China attempting to test nukes. Weird, as they were also doing that in the 1950s, and launched their first nuclear missile in 1966. He seized up on a fairly simple question about Libya, and then dropped the same answer he'd given at a Republican debate about Afghanistan, and then blamed the questioner for being out to make him look bad. He asked what the Cuban word for "delicious" was. His 999 plan is an absolute fiscal disaster, no matter how much voters may dislike the current tax plan.

Gingrich's rise in the polls will in all likelihood come to an end. Bear in mind every poll you see within the next 24 hours will not take into account the revelation that Gingrich was paid a $1.6 million consulting fee by Freddie Mac, a pretty hated government institution which is often blamed for the housing bubble which preceded the financial crisis in 2008. In theory, it is anathema to voter wanting smaller government to vote for someone who was complicit in a large one (full disclosure: many Democrats and other Republicans are guilty of precisely the same thing). This is on top of some of the more socially conservative voters' qualms about his exploits outside his marriage. While I think the latter is a rather low priority when it comes to selecting leaders, it IS an issue for many (Republicans and Democrats, by the way). Gingrich also has a history aligned with a shut-down congress during his term as House speaker (from 1995 to 1999), which isn't so hot to have on your CV when Congressional approval ratings, according to polls, sit below that of almost everyone except Cuba.

This leaves us with only Rick Perry who may have been as effective during debates as a condom with air vents, but has had a storming week since he hashed the name of the third government department he would shut down if he was president. Perry started by dealing with the fallout thereof, self-deprecating with his Texan drawl on David Letterman and numerous press conferences afterwards. He has one of the largest donor bases and is abusing the hell out of it, with adverts lambasting President Barack Obama, and staying consistent with his message of sorting out Washington and social conservatism. All of Perry's dirt has been in the open and is old news: his in-state tuition for the children of illegal immigrants so as not to have extra unemployed mouths for the state to feed, holidays at a farm called Niggerhead etc etc. Although Perry was once a Democrat in the 1980s, it was a hell of a long time before Romney's pro-Democrat leanings, and a Texan Democrat is still a conservative, pro-business politician. Perry is pro-life, anti-gay marriage, pro-Don't Ask Don't Tell, loves guns and has a history running Texas.

Finally, with his dirt out in the open, Perry is beginning to talk about the things he wants to talk about: Texas' marvellous run in creating jobs while the rest of the country's unemployment rate has increased. There are two views about whether this was beneficial to most Texans or not, but hell, he is bragging and in a presidential campaign he damn well should be. Perry also didn't flub foreign policy at last week's other debate, coming through largely unscathed. While others also made it through alright, Cain's repeated dribble relating to anything outside the border continues to plague him (hell, if I was Hawaii I wouldn't trust him as far as I could throw him). Perry's other big idea is shake up how Washington DC runs. While he would actually be seeking constitutional amendments, and is unlikely to ever get them, he has concrete plans to go along with his rhetoric, such as reduced hours for Congress so they can work in states, reduced terms for justices (which currently run for life) to 18 years, staggered so that a new judge is elected every two years. Gingrich is the only other non-Romney Republican in the race and for reasons I expressed earlier, I don't think his bounce in the polls will last long. An invitation for a debate with minority House leader Nancy Pelosi was a good show of confidence, and his bluff remained in tact as she declined.

Perry's huge advertising budget goes hand in hand with his ability to campaign. He is known as a master on-the-ground campaigner. Add to this a solid set of socially conservative policies, a state which has created more jobs than any other (and by quite some margin), pro-business speak, and the fact that he's never lost an election, and, ladies and gentlemen, I present to you someone who can break up the non-committal poll results we consistently see.

This is all on the proviso, however, that he doesn't screw up anymore.

Iraq-troops-withdrawal-gate

On Friday President Barack Obama announced that all US troops in Iraq would be withdrawn by the end of the year. As the Americans like to say, "home for the holidays". The end of 2011 was an "aspirational" deadline set by the Bush administration (which, if you remember, started the nonsensical war while hunting for non-existent weapons of mass destruction) in 2008 - Obama only took office at the beginning of 2009.

Obama has been accused once every 13 seconds (according to stats I projected from people whining on the plethora of news channels in the US) of this being a political decision rather than one which is militarily justified. Basically, Obama is ending the war to increase his popularity rather than because it is a justified decision. You know, because there is an election coming up.

Well, "analysts" are forgetting that there is actually quite a lot of time before the next election. It is only in November next year - that's over a year since Obama made the withdrawal announcement (which was 21 October 2011). These experts who are screaming that it is only in Obama's interest, and not in the national interest are missing a fairly sizeable point.

Firstly, it is worth remembering that the Obama has far more access to information and background than any mainstream and a lot of localised media. Basically, his decision is based on far more facts to which anyone sitting outside Baghdad, and many sitting within it, has access. While the senior commander in charge of the mission, General Lloyd J. Austin III (a rather large dissenter of the withdrawal),  would also have access to large amounts of information as well, by virtue of leading a mission, there is a bucket-load of diplomatic data which he, most likely, has not seen.

There would be huge risks in withdrawing troops to boost his poll ratings if the situation in Iraq goes tits-up. If the rate of violence in Baghdad begins to spike again (recent events have gone against more medium-term gains in stemming violence) or if US national security (which is what they call foreign policy a lot of the time here) is compromised in any way. In fact, if troops are withdrawn from one of the countries in which the US is responsible for security, and then something happens on US soil, Obama is finished. The US takes national security incredibly seriously - as would a nation who has faced attacks like 9-11 and chats about domestic safety with BFF Israel. If Obama makes a decision which weakens the US' defence of its borders, he will be collecting unemployment from November next year. No question.

And I highly doubt the president is only thinking up to this year's holidays. It is unlikely that anyone in Obama's administration, and yes, that includes defence secretary Leon Panetta, would allow the president to do so, in spite of Panetta's recommendation to maintain 3,000-4,000 troops in Iraq. Governments around the world think further than two months - everyone older than five years thinks further than two months. While I can't conclusively prove to you that Obama is thinking past Christmas, he is surrounded by seasoned politicians - think Joe Biden, Panetta and Hillary Clinton - who would mop up any basic mistakes like that. 

The other aspect of this whole deal that Obama is taking in the neck deals with the fact that the president was happy to allow a few thousand troops to remain but decided not to because the Iraqi government would not give them immunity. The Bachmanns and other political figures have claimed that Obama couldn't get them immunity because he was "not committed". I'd love to see them argue for keeping the armed forces, probably the most respected grouping of people in the US after the National Rifle Association, without diplomatic and legal protection. In this sense, if anyone is trying to score political points, it is those public figures lashing Obama's decision.