Hmmm, wonder why he’d be interested in doing that…

From National Journal:

Former MA Gov. Mitt Romney (R), who is writing a book on the direction of the country and has signed on to be one of the national spokesmen for the upstart National Council for a New America, which aims to revive the GOP, appears to be taking a third step in possibly positioning for another run for the White House–making his primary residence at the family home in New Hampshire, the site of the first-in-the-nation presidential contest.

Romney spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom said that the former governor is in the process of opening up the Lake Winnipesaukee house this month and “will be spending more time on the East Coast.” Since last year’s election, Romney has been busy selling houses in Utah and Belmont, MA.

Asked where Romney will establish a primary residence for the purposes of paying taxes and voting, Fehrnstrom demurred. “I have no announcements to make on residency,” he said. “He just recently closed on selling his Belmont house and, as of now, he’s still registered to vote in Massachusetts.”

Here’s the thing…Romney knows Mike Huckabee has a lock on Iowa in 2012 and so he absolutely needs to win New Hampshire to go on to claim the GOP crown.

So this is a pretty smart strategic move because he can have that state locked down tight by the time primary season rolls around. And that means he can then focus on other contests beyond that one to get the momentum going into Super Tuesday.

More as it develops…

There’s no way he was even half as popular amongst Northerners back in the 1860s (I still bump into Civil War kooks down South who HATE Lincoln more than my wife hates the Dukes of Hazzard).

Amongst the dozens of new Lincoln tributes is a 2,024 page biography that weighs 9.3 pounds. The longest book I ever read was Stephen King’s The Stand, a good-vs.-evil plague morality tale that made me get nervous anytime I hung around someone with a terrible cough. That book weighed in at 1,141 pages — and that is my upper limit.

Any Abraham Lincoln comic books out there?

In honor of Lincoln’s birthday, I would like to shine the spotlight on one of his most devoted admirers — a banjo-playing, wood-chopping fringe presidential candidate who believes he’s channeling Honest Abe in the woods of New Hampshire.

Sadly, Carmen Chimento’s life doesn’t even merit a one-line cameo in that new 2,024 page biography.

Carmen also boasts the distinction of making the most bizarre comment I’ve ever heard about Lincoln assassin John Wilkes Booth.

What do you think?  Would we be better off today if we had a Chimento White House?

(New Hampshire political junkie Darren Garnick can be reached at www.cultureschlock.com)

Way back when Barack Obama was just a regular rock star, only filling high school gymnasiums instead of NFL stadiums, my daughter got to cuddle with him twice.

Nothing scandalous, mind you, Dahlia was a five-month-old baby at the time. But her combined 90 seconds with the future president made her a New York Daily News covergirl, inspired a bit in Jay Leno’s monologue and briefly inflated her importance to the same level as Angelina Jolie’s pregnancy.

In the ultimate baby scrapbook exercise, I chased down nearly every major presidential candidate for saliva-free photo ops during the New Hampshire Primary. Only Obama broke the no-kissing rule and the press photographers went nuts. The resulting photo essay, “The Baby Primary,” inspired worldwide speculation about the candidates’ body language.

Exactly a year after the media madness, I’m frequently asked two questions:

1. Did Dahlia ever get to snuggle up to Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin or Vice President Joe Biden?

2. Will Dahlia be attending the Inauguration?

Caribou Barbie only came to NH once and I regrettably could not leave work that day. It would have been hilarious to introduce my baby as Tigger or Trigger or Tugg or Tagg (oops, that’s the name of Mitt Romney’s kid). I did try to meet Biden at a local community college, but his blathering oratory put my girl into an irreversibly cranky mood.

As for the shocked friends and relatives who cannot believe that Dahlia was not invited to Tuesday’s star-studded love-in, here’s a reality check: Barack Obama kisses babies in every city and town in America.

Do they even sell formal gowns at the Baby GAP?

Even though the Obamas’ so-called “Youth Ball” is for 18-year-olds, not 18-month-olds, I do have a lingering feeling that my daughter has been stood up at the prom. Seeking solidarity, I managed to track down political photo-op guru Andy Green, a junior history major at the University of Northern Iowa.

Green pulled off a major coup before the 2008 Iowa Caucuses, posing his Mr. Potato Head toy with Obama, McCain and the rest of the pack. The stoic Biden was the only luminary who refused the honor, explaining that he does “not take pictures with funny hats or funny toys.” But his wife, Jill, happily obliged.

It turns out that Green and his plastic spud, which once had its butt panel removed to satisfy Hillary Clinton’s Secret Service agents, were not invited to Washington either.

Green and I aren’t alone, of course. Scalped tickets to the Inauguration, which were originally distributed free through Congressional Districts, are fetching $500 on Craigslist.

Refusing to shell out that kind of moolah, I figured I had nothing to lose by pretending to play the DC Who-You-Know powergame. I contacted a close friend, who is the son-in-law of Someone Very Important, with hopes of scoring some “extra” tickets. He laughed at me, poking fun at his own lack of clout. Amazingly, his mother-in-law, a.k.a. the influential wife of Someone Very Important, has been turning away her own close friends. (As an aside, he noted that unclaimed 2004 Bush Inauguration tix were as plentiful as Skee-Ball prize tickets).

I now regret trying to play my weak Who-You-Know card. The magic of the New Hampshire Primary was that I had no special connections enabling us to mingle with the next President and the next Secretary of State. It was bad karma to try to force it.

However, I am convinced that Dahlia influenced at least a few votes for Obama during the earliest primaries, when he most desperately needed them. The blogosphere was buzzing with women cooing over his natural baby-handling skills, which are impossible to fake. My own wife, Stacy, fell into this camp. She told CNN that Barack won her vote just by “the way he’s looking at her so lovingly and so warmly.” (To be fair, Stacy also factors the economy, foreign policy and social values into the equation).

But Obama obviously owes my family nothing — except for stuff like defending the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

And the truth is that Dahlia will probably be much happier staying home on Inauguration Day. She has yet to ask for one of those designer Inaugural handbags or t-shirts by Diane Von Furstenberg or Donna Karan. She’s still far more impressed by Fisher Price.

**

New Donklephant contributor Darren Garnick is a freelance writer and documentary filmmaker obsessed with offbeat pop culture and political insanity.

New Hampshire was expected, but still a swing state in the grand scheme of things.

The others were not surprises in the least.

A total of 56 electoral votes.

This is another place Bush won in 2004.

What’s more, no Democrat has ever won here. And Obama’s margin is the most since they started.

1996
Dole: 13
Clinton: 12
Perot: 4
Browne: 2

2000
Bush: 17
Gore: 13

2004
Bush: 16
Kerry: 14
Nader: 1

2008
Obama: 17
McCain: 10
Paul: 2

The very first place to vote in the nation overwhelming goes for Illinois Senator.

Why is this significant? Because Dixville Notch went for Bush in 2004. Also, they haven’t voted for a Dem since 1968.

Now, only 21 people voted, but the spread was 15 to 6. So this certainly bodes well for Obama’s chances in New Hampshire.

Change is coming…

The poll of polls reveals Obama holding steady.

Colorado…

CNN’s new Colorado Poll of Polls shows Obama leading McCain by 6 points 51% to 45%; The last Colorado Poll of Polls –- released Saturday –- showed Obama leading McCain by 7 points.

Florida…

An average of polls conducted in battleground Florida, shows Obama leading McCain by 4 points, 49% to 45%. Saturday’s Florida Poll of Polls also showed Obama leading McCain by 4 points.

Iowa…

In Iowa, where it all started for Sen. Obama, the Illinois senator is leading McCain by 14 points, 53% to 39%.

Minnesota…

CNN’s new Minnesota Poll of Polls shows Obama leading McCain by 12 points, 52% to 40%; The last Minnesota Poll of Polls –- released October 30 –- showed Obama leading McCain by 13 points.

New Hampshire…

In New Hampshire, Obama is leading McCain by 11 points, 53% to 42% according to the latest CNN Poll of Polls. CNN’s last New Hampshire Poll of Polls –- released November 1 –- showed Obama leading McCain by 12 points.

Pennsylvania…

CNN’s new average of polls in Pennsylvania shows the Democratic nominee leading the Republican nominee by 7 points, 51% to 44%; CNN’s last Pennsylvania Poll of Polls –- released November 1 –- showed Obama leading McCain by 8 points.

Virginia…

Finaly, in Virginia, a state that has voted Republican in every presidential race since 1968, Obama is leading McCain by 7 points, 51% to 44%.

And there we are.

I think the only question mark here is Florida. All the rest are pretty much locked up. Sure, Pennsylvania and Virginia could be closer than previously thought, but any state where Obama is polling above 50% will turn blue.

Good signs on the state level (.pdf), even if Obama’s numbers are slipping a bit nationally in the past couple days.

Colorado: Obama +9
Obama: 50%
McCain: 41%

Florida: Obama + 2
Obama: 45%
McCain: 43%

Nevada: Obama +12
Obama: 52%
McCain: 40%

New Hampshire: Obama +18
Obama: 55%
McCain: 37%

North Carolina: Obama +2
Obama: 48%
McCain: 46%

Ohio: Obama +7
Obama: 48%
McCain: 41%

Pennsylvania: Obama +12
Obama: 52%
McCain: 40%

Virginia: Obama + 7
Obama: 49%
McCain: 42%

My prediction? Any state where there’s a margin of 5 or less, he’ll lose. So that means Florida and North Carolina probably won’t turn out in Obama’s favor come election day. I really think undecideds will start to break 2 to 1 for McCain because they’re just nervous that Obama will tax the hell out of them.

And even though Obama leads by 7 in Ohio, I also have my doubts he’ll take it. I just don’t think there are enough early votes there to swing it.

But all the rest? Virginia, Pennsylvania, Colorado, Nevada and New Hampshire are Obama’s.

What do you think?

However, he could definitely siphon off crucial votes in New Hampshire and Georgia.



So, will Barr help bring about an Obama landslide?

New Hampshire:
Obama 53%, McCain 45%
Obama 51%, McCain 43%, Barr 3%, Nader 1%

Wisconsin:
Obama 51%, McCain 46%
Obama 50%, McCain 42%, Nader 4%, Barr 1%

Ohio:
Obama 50%, McCain 47%
Obama 48%, McCain 45%, Nader 3%, Barr 2%

North Carolina:
Obama 49%, McCain 49%
Obama 49%, McCain 48%, Barr 2%

Indiana:
McCain 51%, Obama 46%
McCain 48%, Obama 46%, Barr 5%

Looks like Barr is really hurting McCain in Indiana, and with such discontent for Republicans this year, I can definitely see more people casting their ballots for the Libertarian candidate.

Some more analysis…

On the eve of the penultimate presidential debate, a new TIME/CNN poll shows John McCain still struggling in states won by George W. Bush in 2004, a sign that last week’s vice presidential debate had little effect on voter opinion. [...]

Last week, the McCain campaign reacted to a polling downturn by shuttering its operation in the state of Michigan and redistributing staff to Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Maine, where electoral votes are distributed by congressional district. In a conference call last week, Mike DuHaime, the McCain campaign’s political director, acknowledged that the national mood and Obama’s deep pockets had put previously solid Republican states like Indiana in play.

“I do think just the overall environment right now that we face is one of the worst environments for any Republican in probably 35 years,” DuHaime said. “Any time you have that, you have states move within that margin.”

The big question now, besides Ayers, Rezko and Wright…what else does McCain have to drive up Obama’s negatives? And can he even accomplish that with so much of the electorate having already made up their minds.

Obama – 51%
McCain – 39%

Here’s how the demos break down…

Party ID of likely voters
Democrats – 31%
Republicans – 31%
Independent – 38%

Candidate preference by party ID
Democrats – Obama +84
Republicans – McCain +64
Independent – Obama +15

Gender: Male (48% of likely voters)
Obama – 48%
McCain – 47%

Gender: Female (52% of likely voters)
Obama – 54%
McCain – 32%

Age: 18 to 49 (45% of likely voters)
Obama – 48%
McCain – 41%

Age: 50 & older (55% of likely voters)
Obama – 53%
McCain – 37%

What’s more, 43% of those polled said they’d never vote for McCain, while only 25% said they’d never vote for Obama? Could this be backlash from McCain’s rightward shift?

More as it develops…

PORTSMOUTH, N.H.—A New Hampshire Democratic Party delegate who had supported John Edwards says he will support Barack Obama, now that Edwards has endorsed his former political rival for the party’s presidential nominee.

Joshua Denton of Portsmouth, 26, an Iraq war veteran, says he thinks that both Obama and Hillary Clinton would be a better president than Republican nominee John McCain. He thinks that Obama is the change the country needs, along with having the best chance of beating McCain in the general election.

This means that Obama would need 132.5 more delegates to clinch the nomination.

It was certainly a clever phrase, but it was rude of them to interrupt him. What do you think?

Well, over at one of the biggest pro-Paul blogs, Daily Paul, they don’t hold the same opinion…

According to the official letter that Albert Howard signed, the cost is $55,600 for the recount of approximately 240,000 ballots.

The Secretary of State must receive the money in the form of a certified check by 3 PM tomorrow January the 15th.

Go to http://grannywarrior.chip… to donate. We need a major effort of all to raise this money by the deadline.

Spread the word, blog about it, send e-mails , get on the phone, do everything you can to make this happen.

When we have come this far, don’t leave us hanging…

I trust you do your best.

So far they’ve raised about $19K. Impressive numbers, but is ANY of it going to the recount effort? Because according to this story, the recount is on.

What the hell is going on?

From Huff Post:

The recounts will begin on January 16, at a time and location to be announced after the state has completed an estimate of the cost and received payment based on that estimate. [...]

ChecktheVotes is one of the websites that sprung up last week, parsing the primary numbers, specifically the difference between the hand-counted and machine-counted votes (the site, created by a Ron Paul supporter, was originally called www.ronrox.com, but the name was changed once it began to receive thousands of visitors). Using numbers from Politico, the site compares the percentage of the overall vote a candidate received by machine counts vs. the percentage received from hand counts. For example, according to the numbers on the site, John McCain received 36.419% of the total votes counted by machine and 39.303% of the total votes counted by hand. This results in a presumed “loss” of 2.884% of the from the machine count. [...]

The question, though, is whether these differences mean anything. Is there any reason why the hand-count and the machine count should be exactly the same? The large towns in New Hampshire generally use the AccuVote machine, while the small towns use hand-counts. It would seem that voters in small towns and voters in large towns might have very different concerns, with candidates that appeal in large population centers failing in small towns. Look at the Romney example. Romney did better overall with the machine count vote than he did with the hand count. Was that due to someone hacking the vote in Romney’s favor? Did the majority of the machines suffer malfunctions that gave him extra votes? Or was it more about the candidate and the demographics? It’s not a huge leap to think that Romney’s big business image just didn’t play well in small towns, leading to his poor results in the hand counts.

But to all the Ron Paul supporters, once this recount is done will you be okay with the results? I’d like to hear an answer now, so if they come back with pretty much the same numbers, we don’t keep hearing the same conspiracy stuff.

Agreed?

Thanks to TPM Election Central for the video.

I also asked the governor why young voters should want him to be president. Then, since we are both musicians, we talked about playing bass.

I may not agree with Huckabee on everything, but he sure was a good sport.

Sure, there will be a few pundits here and there who talk about Hillary’s amazing comeback and how badly this has hurt his chances, but ultimately I think it’s going to swing back in Obama’s favor.

See, the poll numbers are what set the expectations. As such, the pollsters will be blamed for raising them so high for Obama and setting them so low for Hillary. To his credit, Barack played it cool, predicted a good night and that’s exactly what he got. There’s no doubt that Hillary had a GREAT night and she should get praise for really bringing it home down the stretch, but to blame Obama for faulty poll numbers just doesn’t seem like something the media can credibly do. Not that it’s really stopped them in the past, but to follow up amazingly bad polling with “We were incredibly wrong so you’re now weaker?” doesn’t seem like an argument they’re going to make.

And to the point of this helping Obama, well, the story will be that there was a bounce after Iowa and it pulled him into a very close, very strong 2nd place. The reason he can make this case is he’s a strong candidate who can inspire and if you saw his speech last night, you’ll know that he still mops the floor with the other candidates when it comes to election night speeches.

“Yes We Can” sets him up for the next contest, the caucuses in Nevada. In fact, he received the endorsement of the SEIU in Nevada after he lost last night and we’ll see if the Culinary Workers Union jumps on board today. Also, there’s word that his campaign has raised $8 million in the last 8 days, with another $500,000 coming in the hours after last night’s defeat.

What this means for Hillary is all that New Hampshire did was stop the bleeding. Remember, she was supposed to win Iowa, New Hampshire, etc., and by her campaign’s own admission they had been running as if this were a reelection campaign, as if she had already had the job. So yes, it was a great night for her, but she’s going to have to pull off some major, decisive wins before she can credibly knock Obama off the top spot, because that’s where he still remains today.

Libertarian, conservative New Hampshire has always loved McCain, and was going to be more comfortable with Massachusett’s Romney than southern preacher Huckabee. Likewise, centrist Clinton was a better play than liberal Obama or populist Edwards.

I think Obama did surprisingly well, given those political realities. Clinton won her must-win race, but Obama is still the one to beat. Edwards, for his part, is pinning his hopes on South Carolina. He’ll need a strong showing there to avoid becoming the odd man out in the Democratic dance.

McCain, likewise, had a must-win here, but it does not mean he has recovered and is now a frontrunner. Had he lost, he was probably out; winning simply means the Republican race is still totally up in the air.

Of more interest is the showings of Giuliani and Paul. I expected Paul to do better in the Granite State, given his politics. People can and will debate whether his old newsletters played a role, but it doesn’t matter all that much: the number is high enough for him to keep going. Giuliani, meanwhile, largely ignored Iowa and New Hampshire (this report notwithstanding) in order to focus on Florida and Super Tuesday. He risks losing momentum before then — and the poll numbers from Florida aren’t encouraging. He needs a win, and soon, to remain relevant.

So enjoy the vote results, but don’t read too much into them. Basically, nothing much changed. Nobody died, nobody broke out ahead of the pack.

There’s no doubt that Ron Paul supporters have to be discouraged today. After all, New Hampshire was supposed to be his state. Sure, you’ll hear Paulites talking about how Nevada is actually going to be his state, and if that doesn’t pan out it’ll be California, but just because you have money to spend in contests doesn’t mean you have any chance of winning them. And so the amount of stories like this will start to be the only ones written about him…

For months now the growing thousands of Ron Paul supporters across the country have been saying virtually everywhere they could, including the comments section of this blog by the hundreds, that the media, the polls and the prognosticators were all wrong. There was a conspiracy.

Those Paul supporters were actually correct. The media, the polls and the prognosticators were, indeed, all wrong — about Barack Obama handily beating Hillary Clinton in the New Hampshire primary. The media that the Paul camp loves to hate was actually dead-on right about Ron Paul. He was a long shot. He misfired again. And he got pretty much the same share of New Hampshire GOP votes as the progressive polls, that Paulunteers also despise as frauds and fixed, unrepresentative statistical snapshots, had indicated he had all along.

I doubt that newsletter story really hurt him much in New Hampshire. The fallout after? Well, he’ll start losing supporters after today because of the combination of his loss and that story, but that muckraking probably only lost him a few hundred people tops in the Granite State. Still not enough to think he could have climbed to 4th. And folks, when you finish with 8% of the vote in the state with the biggest concentration of independents, well, it’s time to rethink whether or not you should be in the race. New Hampshire is tailor made for a Libertarian message, and it just didn’t resonate last night.

So what next?

Paul has the money to keep pushing through till after Super Tuesday, but it’s unlikely his campaign is going to catch fire and convert a ton of GOP voters over to his POV. He has been, is and always will be a candidate with a 3rd party message. You can’t expect to change a party completely when the the voters of that party still, by and large, support their leaders and the ideas they’re pushing.

What’s more, and you all are going to hate me for this, but at this point Paul’s campaign has been less successful than Howard Dean’s. I know, I’m ready for the onslaught, but look at the facts. All he has done is raise a bunch of money. He hasn’t changed any of the other candidates’ positions. Howard Dean turned the entire Dem establishment against the war, and that was ultimately the legacy of that campaign. Well, that and Howard Dean became the Democratic National Committee Chairman. A pretty decent coup for a so called “crazy” man.

So you have to ask yourself, what will Paul’s mark on this campaign be? How is he really effecting the dialogue? The most I think he could hope for is GOP candidates start talking a lot more about reigning in spending, but they were talking about that long before Paul came on the scene. Sure, some of Paul’s more hardline Libertarian ideas might catch on eventually, but something tells me it won’t be during the campaign season.

Where does all of this leave us? Well, if Paul continues deluding himself and his supporters that they can actually win the GOP nomination, I think he’s doing a disservice to the message of freedom that has attracted so much money and attention. It’s time to start pushing him to go 3rd party folks, otherwise all of your hard work will stop dead in its tracks in a little less than a month. Because that’s what will happen. I doubt he’s going to get any more massive money bombs dropped in his lap after these two losses. So the money will dry up, and after that…POOF! But if you start pushing him to go 3rd party, if you demand that he keeps running, then that gives the campaign new life to start raising money and mounting a national campaign to push his message on a national level. Sure, it’s going to be much more of an uphill battle because of the newsletter story, but one big press conference where he explains it all and admits he’s ashamed he let this happen under his name will heal a lot of wounds.

So, what will you do? Because you do realize it’s up to you, right? You created the idea of Ron Paul and you can recreate that idea if you want. But it’s fast approaching midnight and when the clock roll overs to Feb 6th, you may just find yourself holding the pieces of a broken campaign with no possible way of putting it back together again.