Politics

Mark Blumenthal sets up this Iowa poll perfectly:

On New Year's Eve exactly four years ago, the Des Moines Register released its final poll of Iowa caucus-goers and turned the political world upside down.

While the newspaper's final Iowa Caucus poll of 2011, set to be published Saturday night at 7 p.m. Central Time (8 p.m. Eastern Time), may not confound the conventional wisdom this time, it is among the most eagerly anticipated political polls of the season for good reason. The Register has a hard-earned reputation for accuracy grounded in the fundamentals of survey research: Assume as little as possible about the likely caucus-goers, and let the voters speak for themselves.

So here's the topline (MoE  plus/minus 4 for full four day poll , plus/minus 5.6 for last 2 days):

Mitt Romney tops the latest Des Moines Register Iowa Poll in the closing days before the Iowa caucuses, but Ron Paul and Rick Santorum are poised within striking distance.

The poll, conducted Tuesday through Friday, shows support at 24 percent for Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts; 22 percent for Paul, a Texas congressman; and 15 percent for the surging Rick Santorum, a former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania.

But the four-day results don’t reflect just how quickly momentum is shifting in a race that has remained highly fluid for months. If the final two days of polling are considered separately, Santorum rises to second place, with 21 percent, pushing Paul to third, at 18 percent. Romney remains the same, at 24 percent.

“Momentum’s name is Rick Santorum,” said the Register’s pollster, J. Ann Selzer.

And you know what? It's still really close (unless your name is Perry or Gingrich.) Romney's the favorite, but Santorum could win. Why?

Another sign of the race’s volatility: 41 percent of likely caucusgoers say they could still be persuaded to change their minds. That's because they are not sold on Romney, and the 75% non-Romney vote is still looking for a home.

There are three things that make a caucus survey hard to do:

1. getting the voter choices right (basic)
2. figuring out second choices (less relevant for this R caucus, but key for the 2008 D caucus)
3. guesstimating and gaming out who is likely to show - and why

That last one is huge, and with tomorrow's scheduled release of detailed analysis, we might know more.

An AP story earlier today notes this:

This year, polls have consistently shown two dominant themes in the GOP race:

—A tepid response to the GOP field among Republican voters.

Earlier this month, an AP-GfK poll found that amid Gingrich’s rise, Republican dissatisfaction with the lineup of candidates also rose. The wild swings among the anyone-but-Romney crowd have lifted nearly all of the candidates at some point this year, but none has fit the bill exactly.

Republicans don’t actively dislike Romney, with 73 percent saying he’s a strong leader and 81 percent calling him likable. But his best showing in any poll this year remains around 30 percent, and no other candidate has pulled a strong showing among the remaining 70 percent of the party.

—A deep anger among Republicans toward Obama.

Why the deep anger?

Maybe this:

If Romney wins, or if someone else does, it won't change the driving force among Republicans, who are against Obama and not for the nominee.  But ask President Kerry if that's enough to win with.

As we discussed a few months ago, some polls matter more than others. In Iowa, the Des Moines Register's Iowa Poll is widely considered the gold standard for Hawkeye State polling, and therefore gets considerably more attention than other surveys in the state.

And with that in mind, and the caucuses just a few days, here's what the race for the Republican presidential nomination looks like in Iowa:

1. Mitt Romney: 24% (up seven points since early December)
2. Ron Paul: 22% (up four points)
3. Rick Santorum: 15% (up nine points)
4. Newt Gingrich: 12% (down 13 points)
5. Rick Perry: 11% (up five points)
6. Michele Bachmann: 7% (down one point)

Jon Huntsman, who was at 2% a month ago, was not mentioned in the Register's report this evening.

The results, however, come with a very important caveat: the Iowa Poll was conducted Tuesday through Friday, and the results from the first two days were quite different from the last two days.

[T]he four-day results don't reflect just how quickly momentum is shifting in a race that has remained highly fluid for months. If the final two days of polling are considered separately, Santorum rises to second place, with 21 percent, pushing Paul to third, at 18 percent. Romney remains the same, at 24 percent.

"Momentum's name is Rick Santorum," said the Register's pollster, J. Ann Selzer.

A couple of other tidbits jump out from the results. Perry, who insists he has a great ground game in Iowa, appears to have recovered from his free fall and has seen his support nearly double over the last month. Paul's 22%, meanwhile, is the best he's done in an Iowa poll so far this year, as is Romney's 24%.

But the real story here appears to be the sharp increase in Santorum's support in the contest's closing days. Note: the best the former senator has done in a DMR poll this year is 6%. Now, at least over the last couple of days, Santorum is at 21%.

Best of all, there are still two days of campaigning to go, and 41% of likely caucusgoers "say they could still be persuaded to change their minds."

The highly respected and eagerly awaited Des Moines Register/Selzer poll just came out. It has the top three Romney 24%, Paul 22% and Santorum 15%. That's more or less in line with recent polls. The current TPM Poll Average (pre-DMR...

Josh Marshall http://talkingpointsmemo.com/joshmarshall.php

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Two related videos tied for spot number 13 in the countdown. Both relate to the OWS protests, and both involve excessive force and aggression on the part of the NYPD. In the first video, a Fox NY News crew is hit with mace and batons while simply standing with a crowd of peaceful protesters.

Luckily for our intrepid Fox News NY reporters, Iraq veteran Shamar Thomas was also among the OWS protesters, and he spoke forcefully straight to the NYPD for the right of the protesters to peacefully gather and demand redress under the Constitution.

Here he is discussing why he was so angry and why he was inspired to speak out after witnessing the police brutality earlier in October.

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Funeral held for man fatally shot by Spring Valley police
The Journal News | LoHud.com
Herve Gilles' mother, Madeleine Clermont of Haiti, far right, grieves at her son's funeral at the French Speaking Baptist Church in Spring Valley on Dec. 31, 2011. Gilles' step-sister Marie Romain-Elias of Mount Vernon, center, and her husband ...

and more »

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One of Mitt Romney's sons did his best on Thursday to promote the rumor that the nation's first black president may not be a U.S. citizen.

Stumping for his dad in Concord New Hampshire, Matt Romney told a group of senior citizens that the multimillionaire candidate might not release his tax returns until President Barack Obama releases his birth certificate, a document that was made public long ago.

"He has not said that he will not do it," the younger Romney said of the tax returns, sounding like the son of a politician. "He has also not said that he will. I think it's just a matter of time until that issue comes up. So, I don't know the answer to that. I'm not sure he knows the answer to that."

While it wasn't a particularly insightful answer, things probably would have been fine if Matt Romney had just stopped there -- but he didn't.

"I heard someone suggest the other day that as soon as President Obama releases his grades and birth certificate and sort of a long list of things then maybe he'd do it," he added.

Sensing that Matt had gone to far, the slightly-older Tagg Romney, one of the candidate's other sons, volunteered that his dad had not personally made that remark.

"No, no," Matt Romney agreed. "That's just a guess from someone else."

The president's Twitter account wasted no time in responding: "Mitt Romney's son thinks President Obama should release his birth certificate. Guess he doesn't have one of our mugs?"

Earlier this year, Public Policy Polling found that the former Massachusetts governor was in fourth place among so-called birther Republican voters who believed that Obama was born in another country.

In April, the candidate declared that "the citizenship test has been passed."

"I believe the president was born in the United States," Mitt Romney told CNBC's Larry Kudlow. "The man needs to be taken out of office but his citizenship isn't the reason why."

The tax return issue may have become a sore point for the Romney family after the Democratic National Committee (DNC) suggested the candidate had something to hide.

"It would show that on the millions of dollars in income he enjoys each year, Mitt Romney pays a lower tax rate than teachers, fire fighters, police officers or other middle class wage earners," DNC National Press Secretary Melanie Roussell predicted in a media advisory.

"Mitt Romney will tell you that it's not required by the law that he release his returns but when he's advocating for policies that benefit the wealthy and the well-heeled, voters have a right to know what conflicts he might have with his own finances."

(H/T: Concord Patch)

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The one thing that makes me sad about Sarah Palin not running in 2012 is that Tina Fey will not be called upon to do her Palin impression. But you can catch her in this sketch from May, before the Republicans decided to hold 150 bazillion debates and make us all long for the days when they were all Fox News commentators instead of candidates for the GOP nomination.

Excellent impressions done by all, but it's Fey's Palin impression that grabs the 14th spot in the countdown.

What's coming up on Sunday Kos ...

• DemFromCT will look thought the details of the Des Moines Register final Iowa poll for clues as to who is likely to actually show up.
• Dante Atkins will speculate about how the third-party group known as Americans Elect could affect the 2012 race.
• In "Arizona Bigotry" Denise Oliver-Velez will discuss the ruling by administrative law judge Lewis Kowal that ethnic studies are illegal.
• Scott Wooledge explains how skyrocketing health care costs became a very personal battle over the holidays.
• After a litany of anti-Romneys have now come and gone, Mitt Romney may well be poised to be the last man standing. Steve Singiser explores the inevitability of Mitt Romney as the Republican nominee, and why the only certainty in the GOP presidential sweepstakes is continued uncertainty.
• Hunter says he's just going to phone something in.
• They all sound the same! Georgia Logothetis will explore the most common political soundbites. Let's hope for some originality from candidates in 2012....
• Mark Sumner begins work on a new novel, and invites you to join in with your own writing project as we spend six months getting to "THE END."

Follow me after the jump to see the latest poll average out of Iowa....

Josh Marshall http://talkingpointsmemo.com/joshmarshall.php

[Ed. note: We break into our countdown of top videos for a few notable videos of the past 24 hours]

Here we have Republican Newt Gingrich tearing up as he recalls times with his mother, who struggled with mental illness and died of cancer in 2003 - or - here we have Republican Newt Gingrich desperately trying to save his floundering campaign by crying a couple of days before voting starts. Your call.

"You'll get me all teary-eyed, Callista will tell you, I get teary-eyed every time we sing Christmas carols. My mother sang in the choir and loved singing in the choir," Gingrich said, referring to his wife, as he fought back tears.

"But I identify my mother with being happy, loving life, having a sense of joy in her friends, but what she introduced me to, is late in her life she ended up in a long-term-care facility. She had bipolar disease, and depression, and she gradually acquired some physical ailments, and that introduced me to the issue of long-term care, which I did with Bob Kerrey for three years, and that introduced me to the issue of Alzheimers, which I did with Bob Kerrey for three more years, and my whole emphasis on brain science comes indirectly from dealing with the real problems of real people in my family," the former House Speaker continued, at moments stopping to cry.

The audience sympathetically cheered for Gingrich as he spoke about his mother.

"I do policy much easier than I do personal," Gingrich joked.

Republican pollster Frank Luntz asked how his mother would react if she was at the event Friday, Gingrich said she would have been working the crowd.

"She'd be talking to all these people, and she'd be telling them how nice I was," Gingrich said to laughter.

[Video via TPM]

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Number 15 in our countdown is a tie between several related videos. We like to call it "debate hate."

The video at the top is from the September 22, 2011 debate, where a gay soldier asked Rick Santorum whether he would roll back the repeal of DADT and the progress gays have made in the military under President Obama. Before Santorum could answer, some in the audience booed the soldier loudly. No candidate spoke up.

But that isn't the first time debate hate has reared its ugly head. On September 7th, the audience cheered Rick Perry's record of executing a record number of prisoners in Texas, including at least one who was innocent.

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I was there. It was sickening and hateful.

And finally, the last example of debate hate comes to us via the first CNN Tea Party debate, where the audience cheered the idea of a sick person being left to die with no insurance or access to health care.

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There you have it. Number 15, debate hate in three movements.

Ezra Klein has a great column, pointing out that finally Republicans have found voting restrictions they don't like. Rick Perry said the laws were “among the most onerous in the nation,” and possibly even unconstitutional. Newt Gingrich compared their impact to Pearl Harbor. Michele Bachmann, Jon Huntsman and Rick Santorum were so intimidated that they simply slunk away without a fight.

Social Security? Obamacare? Dodd-Frank? Nope. Virginia’s ballot-access laws. Of the seven candidates still in serious contention for the Republican nomination for the presidency, only two of them — Mitt Romney and Ron Paul — will be appearing in the Virginia primary on March 6. [...]

But other Republicans — and most of the candidates — have turned their fire on Virginia. Ken Cuccinelli, the state’s attorney general, was particularly unsparing about the access laws. “Virginia won’t be nearly as ‘fought over’ as it should be in the midst of such a wide open nomination contest,” he wrote in an e-mail to supporters. “Our own laws have reduced our relevance. Sad. I hope our new GOP majorities will fix this problem so that neither party confronts it again.”

He hopes, in other words, that Virginia will make it easier for Republican candidates to get on the ballot, so Virginia’s voters are better able to participate in the election. It’s a noble goal, and one many Republicans share. But it runs counter to the efforts Republicans have mounted in dozens of states to make it more difficult for ordinary Americans to participate in the 2012 election.

The point being, of course, that it's not such a noble goal when it's only Republican candidates with ballot access and Republican voters who are eligible to vote for them, as is the case in seven states which have passed strict new voter ID laws, and another 27 states which are trying to pass them.

One of those seven states with new, restrictive laws, is Texas.

The bill, which Perry fast-tracked by designating it as “emergency” legislation, enforces a photo ID requirement that can be met by a concealed handgun permit but not by a student ID from a state university. And under the law, only a Texas citizen who has passed a mandatory training program can register voters.

That would be the same Perry who is now challenging Virginia’s rules. But the differences between the law Perry signed and the law he’s challenging are instructive.

Perry is an experienced politician who has hired a professional staff for the express purpose of navigating the logistical hurdle of ballot access. And he still failed to make the Virginia ballot, despite the fact that the rules were well-known and unchanged since the last election.

In Texas, however, Perry has sharply changed the rules, changed them on people who do not have a staff dedicated to helping them vote, and in fact made it harder for outside groups to send professionals into the state to help potential voters navigate the new law.

Somehow, one suspects Perry wouldn't see the parallel here.

In other news:

• Meteor Blades had this week's must-read take down of Heritage "scholar" Hans Van Spokovsky's assertion that nearly 90,000 disenfranchised voters in South Carolina is an "insignificant" number and calling the Justice Department's blocking of the law that would take away their votes "racial paranoia." The shorter version: Spakovsky's claims are bullshit. Suppression of the votes of vulnerable citizens—the poor, the elderly, students, historically discriminated against people of color—is an ongoing, relentless campaign of right wingers. If one thing doesn't work, they try another. Attorney Gen. Holder has justifiably slipped a stick into their spokes. It's no surprise to hear them squealing about it.
• Last fall, a secret donor stepped in just before the election to bankroll the effort to suppress the vote in Maine, donating $250,000 to fight against the restoration of same-day voter registration to the state. We now know who was behind that donation, and it's the usual suspects. [T]he entire $250,000 worth of late money came from a single source: the American Justice Partnership.

  The AJP is a conservative legal organization based not in Maine, but in Michigan. On their website, the group states they are fighting against “the scheming George Soros money machine” which is “trying to sabotage your right to vote,” a claim apparently made without a hint of irony. Though the AJP doesn’t disclose where its funding comes from, the Bangor Daily News notes that it has partnered with the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) in the past, a group that has been instrumental in the proliferation of voter ID laws across the country.

• Another elderly woman in Tennessee has lost her vote because of new voter ID restrictions the state has enacted. We've heard about 96-year-old Dorothy Cooper and 91-year-old Virginia Lasater. Now they're joined by 93-year-old Thelma Mitchell, who has no birth certificate, and who had even been accused by a DMV worker of being an illegal immigrant because she couldn't produce it. To really put the cherry on top, Mitchell has an old state employee ID, that the state is now rejecting. She has that ID because she cleaned the state capitol building for 30 years.

President Obama (Wikimedia Commons)

The National Journal reports:

President Obama signed on Saturday the defense authorization bill, formally ending weeks of heated debate in Congress and intense lobbying by the administration to strip controversial provisions requiring the transfer of some terror suspects to military custody.

"I have signed this bill despite having serious reservations with certain provisions that regulate the detention, interrogation, and prosecution of suspected terrorists," Obama said in a statement accompanying his signature.

Full text of the signing statement below the fold.

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One thing is for sure: Michele Bachmann offers late-night comedians some real opportunities, which Jimmy Kimmel isn't shy about taking. This video may go down as one of the all-time classic Bachmann collections of historical gaffes and blunders.

Love Kimmel's description of Bachmann: "Kind of like Sarah Palin without the charisma or marksmanship."

She misses the mark, but still lands in 16th place on our countdown.

No visible frozen donkey wheel in Upolu, Independent Samoa. (Kronocide/Wikicommons)

• Consider purchasing a Daily Kos subscription for yourself or a friend. Learn more about the community and how to subscribe right here.
• Somoa time travels. Samoa crossed the International Dateline. The island-nation skipped December 30, jumping from December 29 straight to December 31. The move brings Samoa onto the same calendar page as its local trading partners.
• The change will necessitate a 49-hour Shabbat for Jews on Somoa.
• Joe King will no longer be selling his homophobic, AIDS-mocking calendar through Amazon and Barnes and Noble sites, GLAAD reports.
• Anu Partanen at The Atlantic tips us off to What Americans Keep Ignoring About Finland's School Success. The problem facing education in America isn't the ethnic diversity of the population but the economic inequality of society, and this is precisely the problem that Finnish education reform addressed. More equity at home might just be what America needs to be more competitive abroad.
• Politics takes a progressive turn in Jamaica, as Portia Simpson Miller leads the People’s National Party to become the new Prime Minister.
• Former GOP City Chair in New Jersey, young naked boys, video camera, arrest, the usual.
• Indiana State Sen. Vaneta Becker, (R-Evansville) wants to fine you $25 if you sing the "Star Spangled Banner" badly in the Hoosier state. No. Really.
• American Idol winner Kelly Clarkson got an nasty earful from fans when she tweeted support for Ron Paul. Her album sales spiked from #38 to #7 on Amazon. Call it a draw.
• Holy censorship! Fan boys and girls are irked that both comic book publishers DC and Marvel support the diabolical SOPA bill. To the Batcave!
• Still no word if the bazillion terabytes of pirated stuff downloaded to Congressional IP addresses included any Kelly Clarkson albums.
• Ron Paul's ascension in Iowa puts the Religious Right into full meltdown mode that a "real traditional values Republican" will not prevail in the Hawkeye state.
  

  Now that Paul's presidential campaign appears to be picking up steam, Religious Right activists are no longer simply dismissing Paul but are actively attacking him, with people like Bryan Fischer saying Paul is a renegade who should not be allowed to participate in GOP debates and Matt Barber writing columns about how "Ron Paul is dangerous."

  Apparently, in Iowa, not just any old crazy will do, you have to be just the right kind of crazy to satisfy this crowd.
• Rick Santorum may be just the right crazy. He explains to the AP how liberals caused (his) Catholic Church's pedophilia scandal and laments the striking down of sodomy laws. "We have laws in states, like the one at the Supreme Court right now, that has sodomy laws and they were there for a purpose." It's Santorum's job creation plan to station more (non-union) sex police in your bedroom.
• Related: add Lawrence vs. Texas to the long list of things Rick Perry can't remember.
• Newt Gingrich convened an emergency conference call with the Kingpins of the Religious Right. The master scheme is to shore up conservative religious support in Iowa for the adulterous candidate who has had as many religions as he's had wives (three).
• Alec MacGillis at The New Republic peeks behind the campaign trail curtain and declares Newt Gingrich, The King of the World. The plan is, in anticipation of the impending Gingrich monarchy, the 112th Congress will to vote to repeal the Affordable Health Care for America Act in the lame duck session of 2011. Also, Dodd-Frank, and Sarbanes-Oxley: And then the day after I'm sworn in, have them brought down, so you can literally sign the veto of ObamaCare, Dodd-Frank and Sarbanes-Oxley on the 21st or 22nd of January. That would set a momentum of change.
  
• The New York Times takes a look at the homes of the 2012 GOP hopefuls. Gingrich's 5,206-square-foot stone mansionette may seem big for a middle class American, but remember, his home must accommodate both Calista's Tiffany jewelry collection and Newt's freakishly large head simultaneously. New York designer Thad Hayes weighs in: “I hate to call them McMansions — it gives McDonald’s a bad name."
• New Hampshire is expected to vote in January on whether to bring the fun and games of Proposition 8 to New England.
• Check this out this stylish infographic chart from The Big Picture that purports to explain why Americans pay through the nose for the same drugs Canadians get cheaper.
• Just nine more hours to add to your favorite cause or candidate's final 2011 quarter fundraising totals.

Haitilibre.com
Haiti - Health: Certification of the promotion 2009-2011, of Nurses Midwives
Haitilibre.com
The members of the Promotion and the Acting Director, have warmly thanked the UNFPA for the multifaceted support it has given to the ENISF. Haiti - Health : Certification of the promotion 2009 - 2011 , of Nurses Midwives.

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Bill Maher excels at giving a real-life view of the insanity that is the GOP field. One of his best is this one, where he just completely eviscerates Rick Perry.

BooMan's post on Thursday sums it up nicely:

One things troubles me, however. If God ordains the president, then we have no reason to worry. Why exercise our reasoning thingies and let our stress hormones fly when we are assured that whomever is elected president is God's choice?I don't have to knock doors or make phone calls or donate money. I don't even need to have a preference.

...Paul makes clear in v. 1, “[T]here is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.” Every politician, whether he knows it or not, is using delegated power, delegated authority, authority delegated to him by God himself.

Nothing can go wrong.

Of course not.

Below the fold you'll find the nominations for Best Hate Mail of the Year, based on your votes in Q1, Q2, Q3 and Q4.

So what was the most deliciously frothy hate mail of 2011? You decide, below the fold!

Haitilibre.com
Haiti - Politics : Signature of the decree of the law on co-ownership
Haitilibre.com
my vision of the issue of building in Haiti, is not limited only to mitigate the effects of the earthquake. My gaze goes much further and leads me to take into account modern urban data [...] to make room for spaces planned, developed, organized and ...

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Number 18 on our countdown is actually a video from 2009, but with Shawna Forde going on trial earlier this year, it resurfaced as one to watch again.

It's a shame her trial didn't get more attention from traditional media outlets. Whether it was the fact that the victims weren't the right color for some media outlets, or a reluctance to shine a bright light on the danger of fringe militia groups, I don't know. But C&L's Dave Neiwert covered the whole trial, up to and including the verdict and sentencing, where Forde finally got what she deserved for shooting a nine-year old child in cold blood.

Rest in peace, Flores family.