Get ready for the post-Romney campaign

Reuters has taken notice of the fact that Rick Santorum is currently leading Mitt Romney in Michigan, Romney's home state and a state that elected his father governor.  Overall the article is an attempt to lower morale among Republican voters by beating the "brokered convention" drum.  The idea is that Santorum is such a weak candidate that if he gets the nomination the GOP establishment insiders will have to go behind closed doors in the proverbial smoke filled room and chose another candidate to unite the party and give it a chance to beat Obama.

Of course if the GOP establishment insiders have their way they would choose another even more "moderate" RINO in the John McCain/Bob Dole/Mitt Romney mold. 

The truth is that Santorum is handling the social conservative issues very well.  He is standing up for his beliefs but making clear that he does not wish to impose his Roman Catholic theological views upon the nation as a whole.  He has then forcefully pointed out the mainstream media's hypocrisy in questioning him closely about remarks made by a supporter with no connection to the Santorum campaign while giving Obama a complete pass on his association with a vicious hate-filled antisemitic racist "pastor" in whose church Obama sat for 20 years - even letting the unhinged purveyor of hatred baptize his two daughters.

And then he turns the discussion back to the central issue of this campaign.  Barack Obama's abject failures as a president.  To our economy with its persistently high unemployment (if the unemployment figure was calculated today with the same formula that was used on the day Obama was sworn in the unemployment rate would be over 11%) and anemic growth.  Every time the MSM homunculus tries to drag Santorum back to the issue of contraception he is only reinforcing to every member of the audience who is not already a batshit crazy MSNBC viewer the fact that the media is consciously running interference for Obama.  That they are deliberately attempting to deflect the public's attention away from Obama's failure as president an onto a completely irrelevant area.  Irrelevant not because birth control is not important to many women but irrelevant because no one - not even the Pope - is trying to outlaw it.

Of course we can't count Romney out yet.  He has a huge amount of money and a well organized campaign (after all he's been running for president for over 5 years).  And a loss in Michigan would be bad for him but not the total disaster that Reuters seems to think it would be:

"It's hard for me to see how Romney rights the ship if he loses Michigan," said Republican strategist Matt Mackowiak. "There is no level of spin that can overcome that disaster."

 The truth is that Ann Coulter, who is risking the good will she has built up with conservatives by becoming little more than a Romney shill, has already begun distributing the Romney loses Michigan spin.  As a guest on the Glen Beck show Miss Ann said that a loss in Michigan would come as no surprise because Romney opposed the government bailout of the auto companies.  Clearly the Romney campaign is planning to spin a potential loss in Michigan as proof that Romney is too a conservative because the UAW doesn't like him.


That the Romney campaign is already coordinating an effort to prepare for a loss in Michigan with Coulter, its most visible surrogate , indicates that their internal polling is telling them that Michigan may well be out of their grasp.

Why not Rick?

Michael Medved tells us that Mitt Romney hasn't changed in four years, but that the Republican base has - and not for the better:

On no significant issue has Romney moved to the left or to the center over the last four years; his platform of 2012 offers a program of conservative reform far bolder and more substantive than any ideas he put forward in 2008.

Mitt’s precise problem came into focus for me with an email from an angry listener to my radio show who upbraided me for my open support of Romney as the most electable candidate against Obama. “We remember what you did to us last time, and we won’t let you get away with it again!” she wrote. “This time you’re trying to ram the RINO, Romney, down our throats and last time it was McCain. It was because of people like you that we got stuck with McCain, when we could have had a real conservative who would have beaten Obama!”

And who would have been that “real conservative” back in the distant days of 2008?

None other than … Mitt Romney, the “conservative’s conservative ” eagerly endorsed by Sen. Jim DeMint and nearly all of my talk-radio colleagues, including Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, Laura Ingraham, Michael Savage, and many more.

That Romney no longer counts as a “real conservative” doesn’t reflect any ideological shifts on his part, but it does suggest a significant movement of the entire GOP toward the enraged and indignant right. The far lower turnouts in Florida, Nevada, Minnesota, Colorado, and Missouri all indicate that this tectonic movement hardly counts as a positive development for the Republican Party. Healthy political organizations attract more participants than ever before; troubled, self-destructive movements drive out people who’ve taken part in the past.
Let's help Mr. Medved out.  Back in 2008 Mitt Romney was the only viable alternative to John McCain.  McCain.  McCain, for those of you who may have only come out of a long term coma during the last three years, is the black-hearted Judas Iscariot of the GOP who has built his career on being the mainstream media's favorite Republican. 

McCain has earned the love and adoration of the MSM by never hesitating to go onto television and trash his fellow Republicans and conservative policies such as tax cuts.  McCain is the GOP's most eager "isle crosser" ever willing to abandon his party to make common cause with the left to advance the left's agenda to the detriment of the Republican Party, the conservative movement and (most importantly) the USA.

Back in 2008 many conservatives like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Mark Levin and Lemuel Calhoon begged Republican primary voters to chose Romney over McCain because compared to McCain and only compared to McCain Romney was the conservative alternative.

Romney as president was the lesser evil than McCain as president.  That was it; 75-80% of Romney's support last time around was based on absolutely nothing more than the revulsion that genuine conservatives felt over the utterly detestable John McCain.

McCain isn't on the ticket this time around.

This time around there is an actual conservative in the race which leaves Romney occupying the McCain place in 2012.  This doesn't mean that Romney is as bad as McCain was for he is not.  What it meas is that while we conservatives have a genuine conservative in the race we have no reason to back a Northeastern moderate to liberal RINO who has a proven track record of saying whatever he has to say to get elected.

Mr. Medved says that Rick Santorum will be caricatured as and angry one-dimensional social conservative and that will sink any hope he has of being elected.

Mr. Medved must be aware that Mitt Romney is being caricatured as a "vulture capitalist" who has no greater pleasure in life than firing people, turning them out of their jobs so that they lose their homes and are driven out into howling blizzards clutching their emaciated infants which they have forced to wrap in filthy rags retrieved from the gutter to keep them from freezing.  While Tiny Tim limps along behind without even his crutch for support because Ebenezer Romney seized it in partial payment of his father's debt.

Of course this is not the real Mitt Romney, who gives millions of dollars to charity, and Mr. Medved knows that Romney's campaign should be able to deal with the issue easily. Just as the angry single issue Santorum is a caricature which Mr. Medved should also know that the Santorum campaign should be able to overcome with little difficulty.

Unless, of course, Mr. Medved actually believes the caricature of Mr. Santorum.  This is possible.  Only someone who is severely out of touch with reality could confuse the very different circumstances of the 2012 campaign and the 2008 campaign.  If Mr. Medved can't understand the difference between conservatives being driven to Romney in shear desperation at the though of McCain being our nominee and those same conservatives rejecting Romney four years later when a genuine conservative is available as an alternative then he might well be incapable of looking beyond MSM spin about Santorum.

After all Michael Medved, for all the good things that could be said about him, is someone who is located in the uber-liberal left coast enclave of Seattle, Washington.  Compared to the people Mr. Medved sees on a daily basis Mitt Romney looks like a right-winger.  Just like Rudolph Guilliani and Chris Christie look right-wing to people who live in Manhattan and New Jersey.

This brings us to an article written by the great Chuck Norris in which he explains why he chose to support Newt Gingrich over Rick Santorum:

In 2008 -- when my wife, Gena, and I were on the campaign trail backing former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee for president -- former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania was fighting to get former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney elected. (Go to http://bit.ly/zEIaPw to hear how Santorum passionately endorsed and elevated Mitt in his bid for the Oval Office.)

Just three years ago, in his interview with radio host and conservative commentator Laura Ingraham, Santorum also emphatically told millions of listening Americans, "If you're a conservative ... if you're a Republican ... there is only one place to go right now, and that's Mitt Romney."

Why an alleged conservative would fight for the flip-flopping Massachusetts moderate on the presidential campaign trail -- especially in light of the fact that Huckabee and even McCain were running then, both of whom had much clearer conservative records -- I will never know.

Mr. Norris is angry at Mr. Santorum for backing Romney as the alternative to McCain in 2008 rather than jumping on the Huckabee bandwagon.

Those of you who red this blog in 2008 might remember that my nickname for Huckabee was Elmer Gantry.  I have seen nothing from this slimy huckster in the last 3 years to cause me to change my opinion of him.

All you really need to know about Huckabee, who once styled himself a minister of God, is his reason for supporting Romney now even though he was furious with Romnny in 2008 for running very negative (and Huchabee says deceptive) ads about him.  Huckabee says that that was then and this is not.  He isn't running against Romney this time around and Romney isn't lying about him now.

So in "pastor" Huckabee's world it is just fine to lie about anyone but him.

So much for Mike Huckabee's "integrity".

And so much for Chuck Norris' good judgement when it comes to picking candidates.

Tonight's Music

Florence + The Machine, Bedroom Hymns

Republican voters redeem themselves

(Reuters) - Republican presidential contender Rick Santorum claimed a surge of momentum and fundraising on Wednesday, a day after his shocking sweep of nominating contests in Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri that dealt a blow to front-runner Mitt Romney.

Even though Romney holds strong advantages in financing and organization, his campaign will have to refocus to fight the challenge from Santorum, a former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania known for his socially conservative views.

"We definitely are the campaign with the momentum, the enthusiasm on the ground," Santorum said on CNN.

For Romney, Tuesday's results included losses in two states - Colorado and Minnesota - that he won in his unsuccessful 2008 presidential campaign. Minnesota also became the first state where Romney did not end up in first or second place.

The startling results raised fresh doubts about whether Romney, a wealthy former private equity executive and former Massachusetts governor, can extend his support from the party establishment to win over a broad swath of Republican voters.

Santorum has now finished first in four of the first eight primaries and caucuses, after his narrow victory over Romney in Iowa's caucuses on January 3.

The former senator said his campaign was already bringing in more donations, an important consideration for a candidate who trails far behind Romney in the fund-raising race.

"We're doing very, very well raising money. I think last night we raised a quarter of a million dollars online," Santorum said.

Backed by a wealthy "Super PAC" that pays for attack advertising against rivals, Romney won three of the first five state-by-state contests to pick the Republican nominee to oppose Democratic President Barack Obama in the November 6 election.

As he has before, Romney had seemed on track to win the nomination after big wins in Nevada and Florida last week. He had been expected to win easily in Colorado and did little campaigning in Minnesota and Missouri.

In Minnesota's caucuses, Santorum won with 45 percent of the vote. But the state became the first this year in which Romney did not finish first or second. Congressman Ron Paul was in second place with 27 percent and Romney was third at 17 percent.

Santorum trounced Romney by 30 percentage points in Missouri, 55 percent to 25 percent. That vote was a non-binding primary, but has symbolic value as a measure of support in a big Midwestern state.

The race was closer in Colorado where Santorum won by 5 percentage points over Romney, 40 percent to 35 percent.

This is good news indeed.  Nearly 75% of the American people want ObamaCare repealed.  I cannot remember when there was that much agreement on an issue of importance (except for opposition to amnesty for alien criminals) and the GOP simply cannot afford to give this issue away.

And whatever Ann Coulter may think to the contrary Mitt Romney is too tainted by RomneyCare to be credible to an electorate which does not really understand or care much about the concept of federalism.  They will want their president to agree with them that any government at any level should not impose something like ObamneyCare upon them.  They will want their president to be able to articulate why that kind of government mandate (whether federal, state or local) is immoral and will do great damage to the health care system of whatever polity it is inflicted upon.

Romney will not be able to do this because he still believes to this day that RomneyCare was a good thing.  The voting public is not going to be impressed with his attempt to split constitutional hairs.  What they will hear is that ObamaCare was good when I did it but bad when Obama did it.  This just won't cut it for a large enough segment of the population to cost Romney the election.

The fact that Gingrich has collapsed indicates that he is not the man to take on Obama.  If Republican voters are too turned off by has arrogance, egotism, narcissism, inconsistency, dishonesty, bluster and continual excursions to the left then what hope does he have with independents and Democrats willing to jump ship over Obama's unbelievable incompetence.

It is also significant that Santorum was able to get over 50% of the vote in one state (something that Romney has not been able to achieve this year) and that Romney was pushed back to third place in one state.

All the great majority of Republicans need to abandon Romney is the sense that someone else could win.  Santorum is looking more and more like he can win.

Romney still has enormous advantages.  He is a very rich man with the backing of a very rich superPAC.  He has an impressive organization on the ground (he has been running for president since 2007 after all) and Santorum does not have much money or much of an organization.

However Republican money will flow to a candidate that looks as though he can beat Obama in the general and Romney in the primary.  If Newt Gingrich would bow to the inevitable and withdraw from the race it would be all over for Romney (and for Obama as well).

However Gingrich will not do this.  It is simply not in his nature to place the interests of the nation ahead of his own ego gratification.  It is not in his nature to place the interests of anything ahead of his own ego.

I make no predictions.  Most states have not voted yet and nearly anything can happen but as things stand now Rick Santorum can beat Romney and then he can beat Obama.  Check out this Rasmussen poll which shows Santorum beating Obama in a head-to-head matchup because of his double digit lead among independents (who are supposed to be the key to winning the general election).

I urge anyone reading this to give Rick Santorum a close look.  I think you will be impressed.

I'm not the only one to notice

David Catron writing on The American Spectator's website asks:

Who Castrated Ann Coulter?

 

There is no conservative writer that I admire more than Ann Coulter. She's smart as hell and, more importantly, she is courageous. She has always been willing to write what other conservatives believe but don't have the guts to say in print. She has never played it safe and has certainly never adjusted her opinions for the sake of conforming to the conventional wisdom of Old Guard Republicans. In 2008, for example, she declared that she would not merely vote for, but actively campaign for Hillary Clinton if the Republican Party were foolish enough to nominate John McCain for President: "If you are looking at substance rather than if there is an R or a D after his name, manifestly, if he's our candidate, than Hillary is going to be our girl, because she's more conservative than he is."

But something has happened to Coulter. I don't have firsthand knowledge that she was kidnapped by RINO Team Six and taken to an offshore medical facility where she was forced to undergo a gruesome surgical procedure, but many of her recent columns suggest that something of the sort must have occurred. What else could explain her endorsement of Mitt Romney? Once immutable where her core convictions were concerned, she has executed a vertigo-inducing volte-face in order to promote a brazen opportunist whose positions on the big issues were the opposite of hers before he began running for President. She relentlessly trashes Republican "moderates" like McCain, yet now supports a candidate who makes the Arizona Senator look like Barry Goldwater by comparison.

It first became apparent that something awful had happened to Coulter last November, when she wrote a column asking "If Not Romney, Who? If Not Now, When?" In this surreal effusion, she claimed that the media were "pushing Newt Gingrich" and other alternatives to Romney "because they are terrified of running against him." This, as many pointed out at the time, was preposterous. The only thing that terrifies the media about Romney is that he might not get the GOP nomination. This is the man they want to run against. Unlike Coulter, the media and the Obama reelection team know that Romney can be easily portrayed as a Wall Street parasite whose only memorable "accomplishment" as the Governor of Massachusetts was the enactment of a health "reform" law that renders him unable to credibly denounce ObamaCare.

Which brings us to the latest evidence that Coulter has been somehow altered. Her inexplicable support for Romney has led her beyond being merely wrong about his chances in the general election to writing things that are either deliberately disingenuous or genuinely ignorant. The latest example of this tragic development is a column titled, "Three Cheers for RomneyCare." As its title suggests, this piece actually defends the Massachusetts "universal" health law. When I first read it, I could hardly believe such horse manure had emanated from Coulter's keyboard. The column opens with this howler: "If only the Democrats had decided to socialize the food industry or housing, RomneyCare would probably still be viewed as a massive triumph for conservative free-market principles -- as it was at the time." 

First, Coulter apparently didn't notice, but the Democrats did socialize housing, and it triggered the most dangerous financial crisis since the Great Depression. More to the point, her suggestion that Romneycare was viewed by conservatives as a free-market triumph is revisionist nonsense. Coulter attempts to support this claim by naming a couple of conservatives who initially supported the law. Somehow, though, she neglects to mention the large number who opposed it. As Merrill Matthews pointed out in Forbes, when Newt Gingrich claimed in a debate that most conservatives once supported the mandate as a way of countering HillaryCare, "That's wrong. There was, in fact, a heated battle among conservatives, with a handful pushing for the mandate and the large majority opposing it."

 

Nor does Coulter mention that one of the two conservatives she cites as supporters of Romneycare and its mandate has long since recanted. Robert Moffitt of the Heritage Foundation, whom Coulter tells us was so excited about Romneycare that he "flew to Boston for the bill signing," realized years ago that mandates were not an effective mechanism for eliminating the "free-rider" problem. Since 2008, he has vigorously advocated "far better alternatives to the individual mandate." And Moffitt's buyer's remorse is by no means an isolated case. As Matthews puts it, "[V]irtually all conservatives… have come to realize that the mandate is the gateway drug to control the health care system." Coulter, in a journalistic sin of omission worthy of the New York Times, fails to note any of this.  

 

She instead claims that conservatives dislike Romneycare "because both ObamaCare and Romneycare concern the same general topic area -- health care -- and can be nicknamed (politician's name plus "care")." To this ridiculous charge she adds the irrelevant point that mandates are constitutional when enacted by states rather than by the federal government. This is true enough, but it misses what should be an obvious point. Health care consumers are less concerned with constitutional nuances relating to federal versus state powers than with the reality that they will be forced to buy insurance whether they wish to or not. That the mandate was passed by a state legislature rather than Congress will not render voters less inclined to resent such government interference in their private transactions.

 

Coulter then reminds us that Romney has pledged to repeal Obamacare, but that promise will ring hollow once Axelrod & Co. inform the voters that the law is virtually identical, in its effect on their individual lives, to a law her candidate signed in Massachusetts. The damage this will do to Romney's credibility will be exacerbated when Obama's many friends in the "news" media point out that his reversal of position on health reform is part of a larger pattern of opportunism. They will gleefully report, for example, that Romney is also guilty of shameless flip-flops on Second Amendment rights and abortion. On the latter issue he has reversed himself no fewer than three times. When the voters see MSM "reporters" relentlessly pound him for such "evolution," they will realize that his campaign promises are meaningless.

 

 Yet Coulter, once the scourge of such malleable "moderates," has gone through some sort of transformation that has rendered her blind to Romney's cheap opportunism. And if the primary voters are foolish enough to follow her advice, they will rue the day they listened to her and the establishment Republicans with whom she has now made common cause. As Coulter herself pointed out last year when she spoke at CPAC, Barack Obama will be reelected in 2012 if the Republican Party nominates Mitt Romney for President.

 

As I said, I'm glad that I'm not the only one to notice that Miss Ann is acting strangely. 

 

Either Ann has spent so much time hanging around with media elites that she has absorbed their worldview or she simply has a crush on Mitt Romney.

 

The latter idea has logic behind it.  Women do seek to "marry up" by finding a man who is more successful than they are, who makes more money and if they are also at least as physically attractive as the woman is  so much the better.

 

In Mitt Miss Ann (or her hormones anyway) may think she has found an ideal match (but for the fact that he is happily married - but the heart wants what it wants).  He is, after all, hansom, rich and accomplished.  Sure he has displayed a certain "plasticity" on the issues (pro-life when seeking status within the Mormon church, pro-abortion when running for office in a far-left state and pro-life again when seeking national office in the GOP) but who really cares when looking at what a dashing figure he cuts, especially when contemplating his net worth.

 

Do I really believe that Miss Coulter wants to have some kind of adulterous affair with Mr. Romney or that she wishes him to leave his wife for her?  No, not really.  But subconscious desires have a powerful affect on conscious attitudes and actions.

Tonight's Music

Julie Fowlis and Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh

Tonight's Music

A kick-ass song about quarks written by a hot redhead while she was drunk.

In what universe would I not love this.



The static from your arms, it is a catalyst
You're a chemical that burns, there is nothing like this
It's the purest element, but it's so volatile
An equation heaven sent, and you'll forever inject

Hydrogen in our veins, it cannot hold itself, my blood is boiling
And the pressure in our bodies, that echoes up above, it is exploding
And our particles that burn, it is all because they yearn for each other
And although we stick together, it seems that we are stranging one another

Feel it on me love, feel it on me love, feel it on me love
See it on me love, see it on me love, see it on me love

An atom to atom, oh can you feel it on me love
A pattern to pattern, oh can you see it on me love
Atom to atom oh, what's the matter with me love

Strangeness and Charm

What in the world is wrong with Ann?

Ann Coulter hearts Mitt Romney.

This is no surprise she endorsed him last time around too, choosing him over the far more conservative Fred Thompson even before it became obvious that Fred wasn't even really trying to win the nomination.

But this time around her crush on Mitt has taken on psycho-stalker overtones which have her twisting herself into intellectual pretzel shapes that extend into so many dimensions that she stands in imminent danger of collapsing into a quantum singularity.

I refer, of course, to her latest essay in which she stands up for her man by defending Romneycare.  W. James Antle takes Miss Ann to task for this on the American Spectator blog here and here.  Mr. Antle points out that Coulter is putting forward arguments which will be used by the left to argue against the repeal of ObamaCare, or ObamneyCare as it could be better termed since it is simply RomenyCare on a national scale.

The great Mark Levin also takes Miss Ann to the woodshed here (the embedded video is around 30 minutes long but well worth listening to).

Romney's supporters (I really should start calling them Romney Pod People since they are taking on the mind programed zombie aspects of Ron Paul supporters - but this is happening to Newt supporters as well) keep trying to defend Romney by pointing out that under the constitution states have the right to do things like health insurance mandates but the federal government does not.

This is true but largely irrelevant.  No one is questioning the fact that the state of Massachusetts has the legal right to enact RomneyCare.  We are simply pointing out two facts.  One is that not everything that one has the legal right to do is either good or wise.  Someone has the legal right to have "Heil Hitler" tattooed on his forehead but if he does he's an idiot.  In the same way a woman has the legal right to have five children by five different fathers, none of whom she ever bothers to marry, but if she does she is trash.

RomneyCare makes us question Rommey' judgement.  If he thought it was a good thing for Massachusetts he is a moron and most of us don't want a moron for our president.

The second fact that we want the public to consider is that it is going to be very hard for the man who is proud to this day of RomneyCare in his home state to convince an electorate that, for the most part, doesn't give a rat's ass about the concept of federalism that he is going to strive to totally repeal a national law which is little more than his own signature law expanded to a national scale.

If Ann Coulter thinks that Mitt Romney is the best man for the job then she has every right to say so.  But while she has a right to her own opinion she has no right to her own facts.  Whether you call it RomneyCare or ObamaCare it is a bad idea.  In one state or the entire nation it is a bad idea.

It doesn't matter if there was a time when some Me-Too-Republicans [1] once touted it as an alternative to Soviet style socialized medicine it was a bad idea.

Rick Santorum is correct.  We can not give this issue away by nominating the author of the state level monstrosity which was the basis for Obama's national monstrosity.  Nor can we afford to nominate Newt Gingrich who was supporting an ObamaCare style mandate up until halfway through 2011.

Ann Coulter should be ashamed of herself.  As things stand now denying Obama a second term may well require conservatives to sell out a bit of our integrity by voting for either Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich as we gave up some of it four years ago by voting for McCain.  But there is a difference between selling out and selling your very soul.

[1] A Me-Too-Republican is a Republican who hears the Democrats advocate some bit of liberal/progressive insanity and runs along behind them shouting "me too, me too - just not quite as much".

Let's turn the whole map green

fascinating animation of the progress
of concealed-carry~ source ~

I found this over on KisP and promptly ripped it off.

I note that the only out-and-out non carry state left in the union is Illinois which just happens to suffer under the most corrupt government of any state in the Union.

This is no accident.  Corrupt politicians fear an armed citizenry because an armed people is an empowered people.  It isn't that they fear than an armed mob is going to gun them down in the street.  Rather it is that politicians who regard themselves as wolves and the public as a great mass of sheep put on this earth to be preyed upon instinctively realize that people who are willing to take responsibility for their own safety from criminal predation will be far less likely to accept political predation.

Understand that by corruption I don't just mean the bribe and kickback cash under the table kind.  I also mean the steal your liberty and your money left-wing progressive kind.  This is why you will find Illinois' runner ups for next most corrupt are also the may issue-states

With friends like these. . .

Over at the American Spectator's blog John Tabin is calling Mitt Romney's joint appearence with Donald Trump to accept Trump's endorsement "Romney's Moronic Indulgence of Trump".

Phil Klein calls Mitt Romney's joint appearance with Donald Trump to accept the latter's endorsement "the biggest blunder of his candidacy." I'm not sure I'd go that far, but it's certainly up there. Consider that last time the effect of a Trump endorsement was polled, by Fox News in Spetember, it came out as a net negative: 31% would be less likely to vote for a Trump endorsee, only 6% more likely.

Those who are working to re-elect Barack Obama are thrilled by the development, touting it on the @BarackObama Twitter account and in a blast email from the Democratic National Committee. Romney will most likely be the Republican nominee, and if Trump says something particularly incindiary, one can certainly imagine an attack ad using the footage of Trump and Romney. But even if this blows over and doesn't seriously hurt Romney, it's hard to see how it can possibly help.

 What Mr. Tabin and Mr. Klein miss is that Donald Trump is capable of doing considerable damage to anyone who angers him.  As LBJ famously explained his reluctance to sack J Edgar Hoover, "I'd rather have him inside the tent pissing out than outside the tent pissing in", having a land mine somewhere ahead of you that you might or might not step on one day is better than having a guided missile locked on to you and homing in for the kill.

Trump is fully capable of - among other things - running a third party candidacy for no other reason than to deny the GOP candidate the election in exactly the same way that Ross Perot did to George H.W. Bush. 

Far better to have Trump on your side and feeling that he has a personal investment in getting you elected than hand him a perceived insult and have him dedicated to destroying you.