There are few more arrogant and wrongheaded statements of policy and intent than that offered by Jim DeMint in his own words:

“If we’re able to stop Obama on this, it will be his Waterloo. It will break him, and will show that we can, along with the American people [an afterthought] begin to push those “freedom solutions” [what the hell is he talking about? As opposed to socialism, I guess] that work in every area of our society.

There are many odd things about that short statement, not least of which is the idea that only one side fought at Waterloo, which is why Napoleon must have lost. Therefore, any reference to Waterloo here on in must refer to the losing side.

Of course, there was a triumphant side to that as well. And Republicans are getting mighty nervous about the fact that the Waterloo analogy might not be working out for them as planned.

Robert Shrum wrote a lovely post about the scorecard: Is Obama winning?

I doubt that congressional Democrats will heed the solicitous advice of Republicans that the only way to save themselves politically is to forsake health reform. They understand, as the president has argued, that they are far better off with Americans experiencing the bill than fearing it. I’m also convinced that enough members of the Progressive Caucus will consult their consciences—and conclude that health coverage for 30 million more Americans is more urgent than even the best-intentioned demand for all or nothing. (If the GOP and the insurance industry so bitterly oppose the bill, then it must be worth passing.)

In fact, looking at who’s aligned against change, and who is writing about it, is rather instructive. For example we have (David Bielspiel’s description) geezer pollsters Caddell and Schoen warning Democrats’ blind ambition : Health-reform push could spell doom for the party…, easily refuted here by Joel Benenson, if anyone actually cared what Caddell and Schoen had to say. Doug Schoen in 2008 brilliantly predicted an easy win for John McCain if only he’d pick Joe Lieberman for VP:

Sen. John F. Kerry tried hard to recruit McCain as his running mate in 2004. Had McCain agreed, Kerry would almost certainly be president today. By offering the vice presidency to a well-regarded moderate such as his old friend Joe Lieberman, McCain would go a long way to ensuring victory in November — unless Clinton or Obama beats him to the punch.

Uh, yeah. The fact that the GOP delegates would have walked out en masse from their own nominating convention doesn’t play into the equation? Only in Washington are repeated failures rehired on the theory that they are ‘experienced’. It’s the same theory that rehires baseball managers, and brings John McCain back to Meet the Press every Sunday, and makes reporters cover whatever accusation comes out of Dick Cheney’s mouth as if it’s seriously thought out and reflects policy.

Then there’s our friends, the Republicans.

The Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, warned Democrats on Tuesday that Republicans would use the issue of health care to bludgeon them in the November midterm elections if Democrats succeeded in passing a comprehensive overhaul.

Really? If it’s so devastating to Democrats, just sit back and let it pass, Mitch. Let’s call your bluff.

We also have the propaganda machine on the right, the ones who have labeled this “ObamaCare” and “socialized medicine”. The trouble is, Obama remains popular and for that matter, so is socialized medicine. There’s nothing as dumb as an argument that says “I don’t want your government-run health care plan, and don’t touch my Medicare.”

So where do things really stand? Here

The office of Rep. Chris Van Hollen, who is the assistant to Speaker Pelosi, sent a memo to Democratic staffers today telling them to clear members’ schedule for next weekend, saying a vote could come as early as Friday or Saturday, and noting that it was no coincidence that President Obama pushed back his trip abroad from March 18 to March 21st.

and here (sensitivity set to “high”):

I don’t recall if the original Waterloo was a scheduled event, but chances are CSPAN didn’t cover it the way this century’s version will be. The question for Republicans is what’s their plan B?

Update [2010-3-14 15:24:21 by DemFromCT]:: Kaiser Health News covers the Sunday shows and increasing Dem confidence: Confident Democrats Predict House Passes Health Bill This Week

At the end of a week when House Republicans agreed to suspend all forms of earmark carve-outs on next year’s spending bills, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said the Senate needs to go even further.

McCain on Friday announced plans to propose an …

Tomorrow’s editorial page in The Wall Street Journal will be playing for laughs:

President Obama has laid a political trap for Republicans with his allegedly bipartisan budget deficit commission, and the question is whether the GOP leadership on Capitol Hill will fall into it. One way to increase the odds of dodging it would be for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to name the likes of former Texas Senator Phil Gramm as one of his three appointees. …

Mr. Gramm—who slowed the growth of spending in the 1980s, first as a Democrat in the House and later in the Senate as a Republican—would be one good selection. The Texan left the Senate in 2002 and now works for UBS. He knows where spending can be cut, and he’d be willing to say so.

As Richard Nadler wrote approvingly of Gramm upon the Senator’s retirement, “No member of Congress — not Jack Kemp, not Newt Gingrich, not Bob Dole — played a more decisive role in launching the Reagan agenda.” Indeed. So it stands to reason the Journal would like to see this supply-sider – who would likely have been Treasury Secretary in the administration (shudder) of John McCain – plunked into a commission that already is co-chaired by another former (but more cuddly) Senator who wants to deconstruct Social Security.

In case you’ve forgotten Gramm’s claims to infamy, besides telling Americans in 2008 that they were in a “mental recession,” it was he – as chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs – who was point man for the 1999 Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, the law that  repealed hunks of the Depression-era Glass-Steagall Act. That 1930s law prevented commercial banks from operating as investment banks and from entering the insurance business. It was the repeal of Glass-Steagall which served as midwife to the financial conglomerates such as AIG and Citigroup. Ironically, McCain, together with Sen. Maria Cantwell, is now seeking to reinstate Glass-Steagall. The Enron loophole can be put on Gramm’s plate. As well as derivatives deregulation. He also blocked legislation that would have cracked down on off-shore tax havens, a law that might, just might, have had a little impact on reducing federal deficits. And he is now vice chairman of the scandal-plagued UBS investment firm.

Yeah. Definitely a good guy to have giving advice on keeping government spending in check. If Edward Teller were alive, the Journal’s editorialists would be recommending him for a seat on the President’s zero-nukes advisory team.

• • • • •

At Daily Kos on this date in 2003: Reviews are in: Bush sucked:

A competent president would seek out the tough questions — proving by force of argument the truthfulness of his position. This is somethig Blair does almost weekly. Instead, Bush punishes any dissent (read: “real journalism”) and coddles the weakest amongst the press corps. That group has to be the laughing stock of the journalism world.

In his post last Friday on how the 2010 tide is turning in favor of Democratic Party, Markos pointed out that polling numbers generated by Rasmussen Reports are single-handedly propping up Republicans in national composite tracking indexes.

In pollster.com’s generic ballot composite index, for example, Republicans narrowly lead Democrats 42.7% to 41.3%. But when you exclude Rasmussen and YouGov (a Democratic leaning internet poll), Democrats lead by a slightly larger 44.5% to 42.0% margin. Including YouGov would have given Democrats a larger 47.3% to 41.4% margin, meaning that the inclusion of Rasmussen alone results in a huge 7.3% swing towards the GOP.

Obviously, tracking polls don’t actually count for anything when it comes to tabulating ballots, but they do have a big impact on narrative, and the impact of Rasmussen’s numbers on the overall composite was shocking to me, to put it mildly.

Of course, Rasmussen’s “Republican house effect” doesn’t mean we’re looking at another Strategic Vision here and I want to stress that the only point I’m making in this post is that at least in national tracking polls, in any given timeframe, a Rasmussen poll is overwhelmingly likely to show better news for the GOP than any other poll.

To illustrate this point, I generated a series of scatter plot charts using pollster.com’s index of polls. Every poll in pollster.com’s index is represented on each chart by a dot, plotted horizontally by the date of the poll, and vertically by the results of the poll.

Rasmussen polls are in red; every other poll is in green. Shaded red areas on the charts represent areas where results would favor the GOP.

I think you’ll see that Rasmussen polls literally stand out from all the others and they almost always deliver good news for the GOP.

Let’s start with a simple chart of President Obama’s approval rating starting from Inauguration Day:

A key point here is not just that Rasmussen’s numbers show lower approval ratings for President Obama than other pollsters, it’s that the sheer volume of Rasmussen’s polls allow them to steer the narrative away from the numbers being shown by everybody else.

The Rasmussen effect is even more obvious with Obama disapproval ratings. There’s a huge gap between Rasmussen’s numbers and those of everybody else. Rasmussen has shown Obama’s disapproval in the “red zone” since July of last year, with only a smattering of other pollsters yielding similar results:

What does it look like when you factor in both the approval and disapproval numbers and look at the net approval rating? Again, same story — Rasmussen vs. everybody else:

The Rasmussen effect is not confined to Obama’s approval ratings. It is arguably even greater on the generic ballot, where Rasmussen continues to deliver the most pro-Republican results — and continues to flood the “red zone”.

On the generic ballot question, in any given timeframe, Rasmussen always has the most pro-Republican results. Every. Single. Time. Without fail.

Just because a poll has good news for Republicans doesn’t mean that the poll is worthless, And certainly, there must be a methodological explanation for Rasmussen’s pro-Republican results, and I’m Rasmussen would defend its methodology with great sincerity.

But whatever that explanation is, it’s also clear that although we tend to focus on the composite index of polls to evaluate narratives, what we’ve actually got going on is two distinct narratives coming from the polling community.

The narratives share a common trend-line, but they’ve arrived in different places.

In Rasmussen’s narrative, Obama is now an unpopular president with majority disapproval and Republicans are enjoying a wide lead in their bid to retake the majority in Congress.

In everybody else’s narrative, Democrats have fallen back to earth from their stratospheric post-2008 levels, but they still enjoy a narrow-to-moderate edge over Republicans, and President Obama still enjoys a positive net approval rating.

As 2010 plays out, we’re going to find which story is right.

To that end, a bit of history might be instructive. In 22 polls conducted in the first four months of 2008, Rasmussen showed John McCain with an average lead of 2.6%. In 80 polls conducted by everybody else, Barack Obama had an average lead of 1.8%.

To be fair, Rasmussen’s polling eventually caught up with reality and showed an Obama win. At least for the first third of 2008, however, it was telling a different story — a story that didn’t come to pass.

In last Saturday’s national radio address, President Barack Obama said he is ready to compromise with Republicans on healthcare but is not satisfied with doing nothing.

There are three kinds of liars: liars, damned liars, and then there’s John McCain.

Here’s what he says now:

MR. GREGORY:  One question about the bailout, the TARP.

SEN. McCAIN:  Oh, yeah.

MR. GREGORY:  You voted for it, but you’ve said that you were misled by former Treasury Secretary Paulson.  How so?

SEN. McCAIN:  We were all misled.  We were all misled.  I mean, he said that they were going after the toxic assets.  The toxic asset–his word–was the housing market.  He testified to that.  I mean, we were all misled.  So what did he do then?  They started pumping money into the financial institutions. … They turned around and switched from trying to address the housing market to bailing out the financial institutions on Wall Street.

And here’s what he said on October 7, 2008 in the second presidential debate:

SEN. McCAIN: This rescue package means that we will stabilize markets, we will shore up these institutions. But it’s not enough. That’s why we’re going to have to go out into the housing market and we’re going to have to buy up these bad loans and we’re going to have to stabilize home values

To recap: McCain 2010 says he was misled on the bailout because he was told that it was for the housing market, not financial institutions. McCain 2008 said the bailout was to “shore up” financial institutions, not the housing market, which he said would need support through separate measures.

Bottom-line: McCain 2008 knew exactly what the bailout was for and how it would be used. But now that it turns out to be unpopular, he’s claiming that somebody lied to him about what it would be used for. Turns out, the opposite is true. The exact opposite.

Sec. Gates and AG Holder wrote yesterday to Nancy Pelosi and John Boehner to express their opposition to legislative efforts to “restrict the ability of the Executive branch to effectively prosecute alleged terrorists in Federal courts or
reformed military commissions in the United States.”

From the letter:

As you know, both the Department of Justice (in Article III courts) and the Department of Defense (in military commissions, reformed under the Military Commissions Act of 2009) have responsibility for prosecuting alleged terrorists, and we ensure that all relevant factors are carefully considered when determining the appropriate forum in which to try a particular case. Furthermore, Congress has voted on multiple occasions to permit detainees currently held at the detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to be transferred to the United States for prosecution in either Federal courts or reformed military commissions.

The exercise of prosecutorial discretion has always been and should remain an Executive branch function. We believe it would be unwise and would set a dangerous precedent for Congress to restrict the discretion of our Departments to carry out specific terrorism prosecutions.

Indeed, we have been unable to identify any precedent in the history of our nation in which Congress has intervened in such a manner to prohibit the prosecution of particular persons or crimes.

Republican efforts to make this a political issue, aimed at the tried and true Dems are weak on national security trope, have attracted the usual Dem suspects, as The Hill reports:

Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.), who is in a tight race for reelection, is co-sponsoring a bill along with Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) that would prevent any money from being spent to move Sept. 11 terrorism suspects to the U.S. for civilian trials.

In the House, a similar measure pushed by Reps. Peter King (R-N.Y.) and Frank Wolf (R-Va.) has attracted the support of three Democrats: Dan Boren (Okla.), Jason Altmire (Pa.) and Mike McMahon (N.Y.).

House Democrats on Tuesday night rejected several GOP amendments to the intelligence authorization bill that would have prevented the transfer of detainees to U.S. soil for trial in civilian court.

There’s no reason for Dems to cede any ground on this to Republicans. While these trials should all be held in the civilian system, the process has been far too politicized, to the detriment of the our national security and our justice system.

Republicans don’t like John McCain, and Democrats certainly don’t. But don’t worry, the DC Beltway media just can’t quit him. Just watch Meet The Press, announcing its Sunday guest:

This Sunday: Exclusive! Sen. John McCain (R-AZ)

Exclusive! Wow!

Benen:

I especially enjoyed the “Exclusive!” with the exclamation point, as if this were a rare, special occurrence — instead of McCain’s fourth “MTP” interview since March.

For those keeping score, this will be McCain’s 20th appearance on a Sunday morning talk show since Obama’s inauguration. That’s an average of 1.5 appearances a month, every month, for over a year — more than any other public official in the country.

Since the president’s took office, McCain has been on ABC’s “This Week” three times (9.27.09, 8.23.09, and 5.10.09), “Fox News Sunday” four times (12.20.09, 7.2.09, 3.8.09, and 1.25.09), CNN’s “State of the Union” four times (1.10.10, 10.11.09, 8.2.09, and 2.15.09), and CBS’s “Face the Nation” five times (1.24.10, 10.25.09, 8.30.09, 4.26.09, and 2.8.09). His appearance on “Meet the Press” this weekend will be his fourth since Obama’s inauguration (2.28.10, 12.6.09, 7.12.09, and 3.29.09).

Quite the schedule for a backbencher with no power base within the party, a loser whose re-election to the Senate — heck, survival in his own primary! — is in serious jeopardy.

When I was on Meet the Press in December, David Gregory asked me what he could do to make the show better. I said, “stop having John McCain on”. He and his producers nodded, seemingly acknowledging the ridiculousness of McCain’s incessant appearances.

And yet there he is again. They really just can’t quit him.

It is an all-out poll-u-copia today, and not just of the Rasmussen variety. In other words, hunker down for what is a pretty busy Wednesday night for your reading pleasure here at the Wrap…

THE U.S. SENATE

FL-Sen: Meek Way Behind GOP Candidates, According to Ras
The Rasmussen poll this week showing Charlie Crist badly trailing Marco Rubio in the GOP Senate primary in the Sunshine State has been widely publicized. Getting less ink has been the general election numbers, which were less than positive for Democratic frontrunner Kendrick Meek. Meek gets pounded in the general election no matter whether Crist (48-32) or Rubio (51-31) winds up as the Republican nominee.

GA-Sen: Is Johnny Isakson Potentially Imperiled? Ras Says Maybe
A couple of days after Rasmussen showed Democrat Roy Barnes within striking distance in red-leaning Georgia’s high-profile Governor’s race, they follow up with a bit of a shock in the low-profile Senate race. They have Johnny Isakson, seen by virtually everyone as safe as could be, only leading a “generic Democrat” by thirteen points (49-36). Of course, “generic Democrat” is not an actual candidate, and there haven’t been many whispers of legit Dem candidates eyeing this race.

OH-Sen: New Q-Poll Gives Portman Slight Lead Over Dems
Quinnipiac returns to the Buckeye State, and finds that former GOP Congressman Rob Portman has a modest lead over either Democratic frontrunner. When paired with Lt. Governor Lee Fisher, Portman leads by three points (40-37). Against Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, the lead stretches out to five points (40-35). The Q poll also takes a look at the Democratic primary, but “undecided” would be the big winner there, as Fisher sits on a nine-point edge (29-20) over Jennifer Brunner.

NY-Sen: Is Former Bush Advisor Eyeing the Senate Race?
Here is a potentially curious twist to what has already been a campaign cycle full of them in New York: the latest GOP name to surface in regard to Kirsten Gillibrand’s seat in the U.S. Senate (which she will be defending this Fall) is Dan Senor. If that name rings a slight bell, you might know it for two reasons. One, he was a fairly high-profile advisor to former President George W. Bush. Two, in media circles, he might be better known as the hubby of CNN anchor Campbell Brown. Remember that it was just last week that NY Daily News publisher Mort Zuckerman was also flirting with making this race. It seems that we can take this as a sign that the GOP is not in love with Bruce Blakeman as their standard-bearer.

PA-Sen: Specter Leads Primary, Trails General, In Strange F&M Poll
Franklin and Marshall releases some new nums in the state of Pennsylvania, and the very hot Senate race found in the Keystone State. In the Democratic Primary, the incumbent (Senator Arlen Specter) leads Congressman Joe Sestak, but remains well below 50% support (33-16). In the general election, the numbers get very curious. Among registered voters, the margins were very close, with Specter beating presumptive GOP nominee Pat Toomey by four points (33-29) while Sestak trailed by just three points (25-22). Among the people F&M considered likely voters, however, Toomey has a double-digit lead over both Specter (44-34) and Sestak (38-20). Now, there is usually some gap between registered voters and likely voters, but this strikes me as more than a little absurd.

THE U.S. HOUSE

KS-01: Potential Mod/Con Clash in Open Seat, According to SUSA Poll
SurveyUSA, which is normally an incredibly prolific pollster but has been curiously silent this campaign season (save for a couple of polls contracted for FDL), is back with a primary poll in a fairly low-profile open-seat race in Kansas. There is no question that the winner in West Kansas’ 1st district (which went 69% for John McCain in ‘08) will be a Republican. Therefore, as is often the case in Kansas (see Thomas Frank’s book on the subject), the question is what type of Republican wins the nod. According to the poll, the “moderate” Republican has the edge. State senator Jim Barnett has 23% of the vote, leading the CfG/Ron Paul candidate, Tim Huelskamp, who trails slightly with 16% of the vote. The rest of the field is in single digits.

THE GUBERNATORIAL RACES

CA-Gov: Poll Confirms Whitman Blowout in GOP Primary
Despite the solemn promises from GOP state insurance commissioner Steve Poizner that he is going to “spend it all” in an effort to win the GOP gubernatorial primary, it is looking exceedingly likely that it won’t help. Meg Whitman has a commanding lead in a new poll conducted for the Small Business Action Committee. According to the poll, Whitman leads Poizner 60-12. Whitman, it must be said, has been at a saturation level of advertising throughout the coverage of the Winter Olympics, with ads (tragically, the same ad) running several times a day for the past two weeks.

FL-Gov: Sink Continues To Trail By Double-Digits, Says Rasmussen
Rasmussen is the latest pollster to chronicle a race that appears, at least on the surface, to be slipping away from the Dems. Rasmussen has GOP Attorney General Bill McCollum leading Democratic state CFO Alex Sink by thirteen points (48-35). This is in line with other recent polling: the last poll to put Sink within single digits was released in November.

NM-Gov: Denish Holds A Modest Lead in Gov’s Race, Says PPP
Democrat Diane Denish is the early frontrunner in the state’s open-seat gubernatorial election, according to new numbers out today from PPP. Denish leads the best-known Republican contender in the field, Pete Domenici Jr., by a five-point margin (45-40). Against the rest of the Republican hopefuls, Denish holds double-digit leads. One liability for her potentially is her predecessor. Bill Richardson’s number in-state are atrocious: his job approval is a paltry 28%.

OH-Gov: Improving Poll Numbers for a Dem Incumbent (No…Really!)
It’s been quite a while since we’ve been able to cobble that particular headline together, but incumbent Democratic Governor Ted Strickland actually looks to have recovered from a spate of bad polling. The Q poll has Strickland up five points on presumptive GOP nominee John Kasich (44-39). The previous Q poll had the race tied, and other recent polls gave Kasich an edge. One note to defend against “lib-biased poll” accusations: the same poll gave President Obama his weakest approval numbers to date in the Q poll (44/52).

RI-Gov: Brown U. Says Indie Chafee The Early Leader
Brown University, which polls the home state of Rhode Island intermittently, hit the state earlier this month to look at the potentially interesting three-way gubernatorial race in Rhode Island. Against either Dem prospect, Republican-turned-Independent Lincoln Chafee leads, with the Dem in second, and Republican John Robataille running third. State treasurer Frank Caprio comes a bit closer (34-28-12) than state Attorney General Patrick Lynch (32-17-13). In the Democratic primary, undecided is the big winner, with Caprio leading Lynch 30-21.

PA-Gov: Undecided Big Winners In Primary Battles
In addition to their Senate polling (covered a little earlier), Franklin and Marshall also looked at the upcoming (May 18) primaries for Governor in the Keystone State. In both cases, a ridiculously small number of voters cited a preference. On the GOP side, it is a massive lead for state AG Tom Corbett, but even he notched just 26% of the vote (state legislator Sam Rohrer lags behind at just 4%). On the Dem side, the lack of attachment was even more apparent, as over 70% of voters did not pick a favorite. Three Democrats (Wagner, Onorato, and Hoeffel) all tied…at a whopping 6% of the vote.

TX-Gov: Dueling Numbers On Next Week’s Primary Elections
Depending on whether you buy stock in PPP’s numbers or Rasmussen’s, Texas Governor Rick Perry may or may not be able avoid a runoff in next week’s GOP gubernatorial primary. Ras has Perry on the verge of winning outright on Tuesday, with the incumbent gaining 48% of the vote, to 27% for Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison and 16% for teabagger Debra Medina, whose numbers have clearly stalled. Meanwhile, PPP has Perry favored to be forced into a runoff, earning just 40% of the vote to Hutchison’s 31% and Medina’s 20%. For what it’s worth, PPP also says that Perry would easily win a runoff, in any event.

In the general election, Rasmussen contributes some new numbers, and they continue to show near-certain (he has an insurmountable lead in the PPP poll) Democratic nominee Bill White in an extremely competitive position against his likely opponent, Governor Perry. Perry leads White by just six points (47-41), while Hutchison has a slightly bigger lead over White (47-38). Medina’s recent flirtation with truther and birther hijinks have cost her dearly in the general election–White now holds a ten point edge (47-37) over Medina in the incredibly rare circumstance that she becomes the nominee.

WI-Gov: GOP Has Early Edge, Says Rasmussen
Rasmussen’s numbers in the past two weeks have moderated somewhat in terms of where they sit vis-a-vis other recent polls. On exception would be Wisconsin, where the pollster sees a sizeable edge for Republican Scott Walker over Democrat Tom Barrett (49-40). Rasmussen also says that former GOP Congressman Mark Neumann also leads Tom Barrett (44-42).

John McCain, 2010 (emphasis added):

“I suspended my campaign — as did Senator Obama — to come back to Washington because the President had told me that we were in a world financial collapse. That’s why I did what I did. I always said that consistently.”

McCain’s claim that Barack Obama suspended his campaign comes a few days after McCain claimed that Bush had asked him to suspend his campaign, and it’s just as false.

In case McCain needs a reminder of what actually happened, here’s video of then-Senator Obama rejecting McCain’s demand that he suspend his campaign and skip the presidential debate:

There’s lies, there’s liars, and then there’s John McCain. No wonder he said he was ’soulmates’ with Sarah Palin.

Our big poll last month of self-identified Republicans had a presidential trial heat (MoE 2%):

Sure, Palin led the bunch, but at 16 percent, it’s not particularly dominant territory for a Republican that dominates the media narratives.

CPAC confirmed Palin’s poor 2012 standing, with 2,395 attendees voting in a straw poll (a conference record):

Paul clearly has the support of his hyper-engaged, but tiny, corps of supporters. Yet his strong support at CPAC doesn’t translate to the broader Republican electorate, getting just 2 percent in our poll. He’s going to be a real headache for the GOP heading into 2012. As of the rest, only Romney showed a pulse in both polls. Palin? Not a lot of starbursts at CPAC.

So Palin clearly has something else in common with John McCain, aside from sharing a presidential ticket in 2008 — they both have far larger constituencies in the media, than they do in real life.

More than twice as many 18-29 year olds voted for Obama as for McCain in 2008, and one year later the party preferences of college students remain similarly lopsided in favor of the Democratic Party.

Ron Paul is still as scary as ever, or maybe I should scarier than ever for the GOP. This has absolutely nothing to do…

Fired up – ready to go.