Romney reaps the power of the dark side, Gingrich dreams on...

Mitt Romney reclaims position as GOP frontrunner with crushing Florida win
Romney turns nasty : "In Florida, Romney fought one of the most relentlessly negative campaigns in recent US history. An independent monitoring group reported that 99% of his ads aired in Florida were negative"
Gingrich keeps on dreaming  : "He did not adere to the tradition of congratulating Romney on his victory, nor did he immediately call him to concede. Before he embarked on a rambling speech about what he would do in his first days as president, Gingrich warned the "elite media" against writing him off as they had done before."

Of the rich, for the rich, by the rich?

Money always plays and played a role in politics, but must be coming to extreme levels now in the age of the Super PACs, and it really is shocking the amount of money sloshing around, and due to slosh even more, in the US elections...
Is the US setting itself up for a government of the rich, chosen by the rich, and who one would have to suspect then of being at least in some way for the rich?

some recent articles on the subject :
in http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2012/jan/29/us-politics-vote-money-wins

• "In the whole of 2008 individuals, parties and other groups spent $168.8m independently on the presidential election. This year on Republican candidates alone, where voting started less than a month ago, the Super Pacs have reported independent expenditures of almost $40m. In 2008 election spending doubled compared with 2004. This year industry analysts believe the money spent just on television ads is set to leap by almost 80% compared with four years ago. "

and yet the US public that it works on, don't even like it :

• "This is not a partisan point. Almost two-thirds of Americans believe the government should limit individual contributions – with a majority among Republicans, Democrats and independents. The influence of money at this level corrupts an entire political culture and in no small part explains the depth of cynicism, alienation and mistrust Americans now have for their politicians."
• "The trend towards oligarchy in the polity is already clear. There are 250 millionaires in Congress. Their median net worth is $891,506, nine times the typical US household. Around 11% are in the nation's top 1%, including 34 Republicans and 23 Democrats. And that's before you get to Romney, whose personal wealth is double that of the last eight presidents combined."

And another article about one billionaire pouring cash into Gingrich's campaign
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jan/28/newt-gingrich-sheldon-adelson-billionaire)

• "By 2010 Adelson had donated around another $6m to the group as Gingrich toured the country, touting his causes and contemplating a presidential run. Eventually this group turned into the Super PAC Winning Our Future. The cheques from Adelson kept coming."

But of course all the other candidates have similar 'angels' supporting them, and this must be having real impact on the race. For example the effect of  million dollar blitz advertising would seem to be evident in Florida, where Romney has manage to obtain a double-digit turnaround in a few days, surely in part to facts like

• "Media analysts put the ratio of Romney ads to Gingrich at 4-1 but the ratio is even higher for big, expensive events. During a widely watched basketball game in Florida at the weekend, Romney's camp aired seven ads compared to none by Gingrich."

Money doesn't just talk, it shouts, and drowns out everything else...

Another debate, another round of the Mitt and Newt show...

no matter what one's political persuasion, I think these Guardian blogs of the GOP debates are classic...who'd have thought politics could be so amusing?!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jan/24/republican-debate-tampa-florida-live

some extracts:

• it seems like only yesterday that we were all here for the last Republican debate live blog. That's because it was only yesterday. Well, almost yesterday. This is the 18th debate, and the Republican race is showing no signs of being decided anytime soon, so there could be many more. There's another on Thursday, for god's sake. Then there's a gap of about month, but the ratings are so good, and American Idol is tanking, so the broadcasters will probably drop in even more. It makes you want to scream.
• Dammit. Moderator Brian Williams turns to Rick Santorum.Why, Brian Williams, when you had candidates re-enacting the Sharks vs Jets routine of the West Side Story but without the choreography and more ill will?
• The reason why Newt keeps mentioning Reagan, Pope John Paul and Thatcher, is that he wants to relive his glory years in the 1980s and 1990s. Maybe he should throw Duran Duran in there as well.
• Immigration now – always a hot topic in Florida. "We're not going to round people up," says kindly Mitt Romney. Instead they will be allowed to work without healthcare benefits on one of Mitt's mansions, and then deported. Actually, according to Romney, those without valid ID "will self-deport". That sounds more like something in Star Trek: "Self deport me, Scotty."
• President Mitt will restart the space programme, presumably to shoot his tax records for the past two decades into the ionosphere
• RomneyBot 2000 is back, presumably smuggled on during the last commercial break, and it promptly answers the question about sugar subsidies by talking about Barack Obama having played 90 rounds of golf while presiden
• What I've learned in this debate so far: It is not 1962 (Ron Paul), Americans are insufficiently blood-thirsty (Newt Gingrich) and when Castro dies, someone is going to think it's a good idea to wake up the president at 3AM (Brian Williams). Also, you should not have to apologize for success (Mitt Romney), but if you spend five minutes arguing that point, it will sound a lot like you are apologizing for success. Santorum something something something.

South Carolina primary result: Republicans' verdict

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2012/jan/22/south-carolina-primary-result-republicans-verdict

Newt Gingrich: I would ignore supreme court as president

Gingrich has said before that he regards the president as above the court when the two branches have fundamentally differing views but he went further in committing himself to setting up a constitutional crisis on his first day in office.
The Republican candidate cited what he said were precedents, including Abraham Lincoln's refusal to accept the Dred Scott decision denying that former slaves were citizens.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jan/19/newt-gingrich-ignore-supreme-court-president


Without knowing the details of the US system, can't comment too much on what consitutional grounds a president has to ignore the courts, but regardless of the particular setup, in general it sounds pretty terrible. One can only imagine how Putin or Ahmadinejad would be described if they made a similar promise.
Though of course in principle  courts are to interpret law made by congress, not to make them, and so they are of course not omnipotent. But the point of a complicated and interconnected judicial and congressional system is specifically to avoid the power being given to one individual, who could dictate at will. Laws and their interpretation is something which is culture based and on which culture is based, and must thus change direction slowly, as the result  of deliberation and discussion. If every 4 years one person  can have ultimate control on what they are allowed do, and not just how to do it, then it's not just republicanism, but banana republicanism (as even Bush's attorney general has callled it ("President George W Bush's attorney general, Michael Mukasey, has said that a president selectively ignoring supreme court decisions would turn the US in to a banana republic.")

PAC men

Guide to the super-PACs...

http://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/superpacs.php?cycle=2012

current top 8 by expenditure...

Group	Supports/Opposes	Independent Expenditures	Viewpoint	Total Raised
Restore Our Future	supports Romney	$7,795,104	Conservative	$12,231,700
Winning Our Future	supports Gingrich	$4,204,685	Conservative	$0
Make Us Great Again	supports Perry	$3,793,524	Conservative	$0
Our Destiny PAC	supports Huntsman	$2,453,204	Conservative	$0
Endorse Liberty	supports Paul	$1,165,542	Conservative	$0
House Majority PAC		$1,105,843	Liberal	$2,110,000
American Crossroads		$1,064,223	Conservative	$6,679,887
Red, White and Blue	supports Santorum	$727,200	Conservative	$0

When two Newts go to war...

It seems Gingrich is thrashing in SC out of pure spite, but I guess it could mean such issues are raised and dealt with long in advance of the real campaign, so maybe not so bad as it looks.


Two Newts emerge in South Carolina to take down Mitt Romne : Both the nasty and nice sides of Newt Gingrich are facing a tough battle in trying to derail Romney's momentum, but neither side may be able to succeed

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jan/12/newt-gingrich-south-carolina-romney

I have to admit since I am repelled by some of the more conservative streaks in the Republican party (though as I say elsewhere these elements are probably over-hyped and might cloud objective judgement on policies that do matter), so have also to admit a certain relish in watching them take chunks out of each other. Surely Obama must be sitting back and laughing, especially at the irony of Mitt Romney being portayed by Gingrich as a 'vulture capitalist'. Is this not the exact kind of charge Obama can use to most effect in the final campaign in a time of economic suffering, and what better than be able to say Romney's own colleagues say it?

Since so talked about, here's the link to the full ad : When Mitt came to town :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLWnB9FGmWE

The New Hampshire result...Ron Paul wins in 2nd place...

"Mitt Romney's emphatic win is less significant than Ron Paul's result. And what it signifies is a Republican party fragmenting"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/ana-marie-cox-blog/2012/jan/11/ron-paul-is-a-winner-with-second-place

Though this might be a case of excessive rune-reading. I do however like the comment: "Gingrich continues on completely out of spite, thank God. He is the grim anti-hero of the GOP, a cross between Richard Nixon and Batman."