Caucus Update: "Strategery" edition

Does anyone remember when Rick Perry was going to be the next occupant at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Really?  Does anyone remember that? 

I swear it happened.

Rick Perry went from sure fire contender to fifth place also-ran.  Although blessed with some can't miss attributes and a full resume, his campaign fell like a meteor. 

Are we sure he's not a Democrat?

Perry continues to feel like the lead role in Oliver Stone's W.  He's like George W Bush without all the Karl Rove magic.

Sunday, he went out hunting pheasants with Steve King.

King is one of the most important Republicans in the state, and it draws a comparison to Mitt "I've pretty much been a hunter all my life" Romney (in which all of my life, means twice).

Perry has also hit the Iowa airavws hard with a new tv ad which actually includes the line "reduce our reliance on oil from countries that hate America."  (I guess "either with us or against us" was too obvious).

Bombarding the Hawkeye State with a media blitz won't necessarily do anything (Tim Pawlenty can tell you that) to convert the gentry.

Worst news of all for Perry was this week's Iowa trip.

Perry expected the headlines to be 'Perry unleashes flat tax plan'.

That wouldn't have been perfect (i.e. It strikes me as playing 'follow the leader' and trying to chase after Herman Cain), and the only publicity that it has got has been bad (a large Op-Ed piece in the Register by economist/Fox News contributor Peter Morici (hardly a liberal) tore the plan to bits).  Still, that would have been better than what actually happened.

Local news did mention the Flat Tax plan.  They just buried it under the real headline "Perry visits Iowa, Doesn't know where Obama was born."

I think even the most faith-fullest of Conservatives have moved on from this issue.  At worst, it made Perry look a bit lunatic fringe (during a week where you heard the word Birther was most closely related to the terms 'attempted government overthrow').  At best, it completely obscured the other details of his trip.

Oh well.  The Perry campaign was fun while it lasted.

Caucus Update: 'Money (That's What I want)' or 'Gary Johnson has a friend in Iowa' edition

Sure polls are nice, but as Tim "Half-a-million in debt" Pawlenty will tell you, it's money that's important.

The Sunday Register did a large article on campaign donations so far (specifically focusing on cash from Iowans).

There were a few things that stand out right away. 

First of all, I knew Ron Paul supporters were hardcore, but this puts it in numbers.  Secondly, if Ron Paul has more contributions than any other GOP'er, that is probably a bad thing.

It also should be noted, that the GOP field has now passed Obama's totals, but I am not convinced that means anything.

Candidate                    Amount          #of Contributors     Average Donation
Barack Obama            $198,645               374                            $531
Ron Paul                           77,445               166                            $467
Mitt Romney                      67,070                 78                            $860
Michele Bachmann         31,038                 75                            $414
Rick Santorum                 23,445                 26                            $902
Herman Cain                   21,221                 30                             $707
Tim Pawlenty                   17,530                  27                            $649
Rick Perry                           8,950                  18                             $497
Newt Gingrich                    8,410                  14                             $601
Gary Johnson                        550                    1                             $550

It's like a snapshot of the election so far.  Remember when Iowa was in love with Michele Bachmann (notably $14000 came before the Ames Straw Poll, the rest immediately after)?  Or when the spark of Rick Perry failed to ignite?

Of course, Mitt Romney says he's not fundraising in Iowa, because he'd much rather that money spent on local politicians (thus explaining his low totals).

The Register also broke down the fundraising by county, and unsurprisingly most of it is coming from Polk (where Des Moines is located), though interestingly, Newt Gingrich draws well from Northeast and deeply conservative Western Iowa.  Tim Pawlenty made a good deal from the Burlington area and Ron Paul was popular in the Southeastern part of the state.

It is also interesting to note that Iowa contributions only make a fraction of a percent (roughly .5%) of national contributions, and seeing the numbers really makes the whole thing feel small.  Let's face it, I am only one less campaign contributor away from Gary Johnson, and not much that far from Perry.

There may not be a lot you can really do with these numbers (Huckabee was a distant 4th in '08 fundraising, and Hillary outdrew Obama), and contributions under $200 won't show up, but then again maybe these numbers will lead to who will win the caucus.

(no subject)

I always try to follow closely the career of one of my favorite cranks, ex-Auteurs/Baader Meinhoff/Black Box Recorder leader Luke Haines.

I see he has released a new album (digitally anyway, the physical album comes out next month) called Nine and a Half Psychedelic Meditations on British Wrestling of the 1970s and early '80s.

Inexplicably, the album appears to actually be about psychedelic meditations on British wrestling stars of the 1970s and early '80s.

I am okay with this.

Not that you hear many songs (psychedlic-tinged or otherwise) about Rollerball Rocco, but for Haines, it's pretty much par for the course.