After finishing second-to-last in Tuesday’s Iowa caucuses, Michele Bachmann announced Wednesday morning that she will suspend her race for the White House. Five months ago, the three-term Minnesota Congresswoman led the GOP …
rick perry
Eight Votes in Iowa: Where the Race Goes from Here
When the bean counters finished tabulating the results from the 1,774 precincts that decide the Iowa caucuses, eight votes separated the victor, Mitt Romney (30,015) from the runner-up, Rick Santorum (30,007). Marvel at that for …
Welcome to the ‘Big Sifter’: Iowa on Caucus Day
Start with the numbers: Seven candidates. Eight months of competition. Thirteen debates. Thirteen million dollars in mostly vicious and anonymous TV attack ads. A final day with 23 events in a state of 3 million people. The …
The Iowa Ad Bonanza: GOP Candidates’ Closing Arguments on TV
As the GOP presidential primary campaign winds down its Iowa chapter, the candidates have taken to their buses and prop planes to sniff out undecided voters in the farthest reaches of the state before Tuesday’s caucuses. But to the nonfanatical participants, those who haven’t crowded into coffee shops or diners to catch a glimpse of the …
Why Rick Santorum Is No Social-Conservative Savior
With less than a week to go before the Iowa caucuses, it looks like the “come-from-way-behind Rick Santorum boomlet” I joked about a month ago could actually be a reality. And unlike many of the other candidate surges that have …
What the Rick Santorum Swell Has Wrought
“People say, when are you gonna get your surge?” Rick Santorum said today in Iowa. “I say, January 3.” He’s gloating and rightly so; a TIME/CNN poll released Wednesday showed Santorum thundering up the leader-board at the most opportune of times: five days before the first-in-the-nation caucuses.
If Santorum is indeed pulling …
Perry PAC Accuses Newt of Supervillainous Plot
The Super PAC supporting Rick Perry is airing a new ad bashing Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich in familiar terms. But it does so through a whimsical, old-timey newsreel device which I assume is meant to make the message feel less nasty. The Perry camp is probably mindful of the double-edged sword of going negative–namely that attack ads …
In the ArenaIn the Arena
13 Days Till Iowa: Remember Rick Perry?
Davenport, Iowa
Is it elitist to expect that a candidate for President of the United States have a passing familiarity with the English language? Rick Perry is a mud-track biker when it comes to fluency, slipping and sliding …
A Day of Iowa Splintering
The Iowa caucuses are unlikely to deliver any candidate a clear mandate in the Republican presidential nomination contest in two weeks. In fact, if anything, the chances for a split decision are growing every day — as today’s campaign highlights make abundantly clear.
Gingrich Emerges Mostly Unscathed From Pivotal Des Moines Debate
In a crucial Saturday night debate that marked the beginning of the final, frantic sprint to the Iowa caucuses, Newt Gingrich weathered an onslaught of attacks from his Republican rivals and emerged relatively unscathed, …
Why Rick Perry’s New Ads Are Wrong on Religion–And Obama
For a swaggering Texas cowboy, Rick Perry certainly does have a serious victim complex. In two different campaign ads released in Iowa this week, the Texas governor defends his faith from enemies named and unnamed. “I’m not ashamed to talk about my faith,” he says in the first spot. “Some liberals say that faith is a sign of weakness. …
The Vanishing, Virtual Presidential Primary Campaign
Monday kicked off the final sprint to the Iowa caucuses, now less than a month away. The latest snapshot of the race, captured by a Des Moines Register poll released Saturday night, showed a surging Newt Gingrich atop the field, …
So Much Happening in New Rick Perry Ad, Except for One Verb
A while back, I argued that Rick Perry made good television ads, and his newest spot–“Lazy”–is no exception. But it is also, in the tradition of the best political advertising, inaccurate, fanciful and grammatically adventurous.
[youtube=http://youtu.be/8_NJgKoBERM]
So let’s break it down.