Caucus Update: "Virtual Insanity" edition

President Obama has just started his re-election campaign, and we don't know who the Republican candidate is going to be yet (at best, it's a two-candidate race, at worse, it's wide open).

Still we already know one thing.

We hate our choices.

Don't worry, Americans Elect is already working on it.

You see, Americans Elect is a nonpartisan website that plans on using the power of the internet to get a Third party in the White House.

Their goal is a candidate they can put on the ballot of all 50 states, and they plan on getting consensus by online voting.

They got the website, already close to having that ballot thing taken care of, and plan on polling America in June 2012.

Want Donalt Trump?  Palin? Alan Grayson?  Charlie Sheen?

Soon, America will be able to make that choice.

I have long been cautious of anything based on feedback from internet denizens (for example, when I saw a user-based website have Danny Amendola listed as the #1 receiver in fantasy leagues).

Knowing what I generally have seen, I would assume Ron Paul ends up being the Americans Elect candidate, but it is also quite possibly it could be Mustard Guy.

Don't get me wrong.  I love the idea.  I just am not sure this will work.

Caucus Update: "Idiots Out Wandering Around " edition

Well, we now know the Iowa caucus is going to be on January 3rd and will be the first in the nation (New Hampshire's primary is a week later).

Because of the updated date, the GOP candidates might skip out on the December 19 Des Moines Register debate (and also because the Register are part of the Obama-loving Cain-attacking liberal media).  Some are asking they boycott it.  There are plenty of debates, so it probably doesn't matter, but the Register one is a debate I wouldn't skip out of.  (Ask Jon Huntsman how skipping out on Iowa is working for him).

Of course, Rick Perry suggests he might quit debating altogether (and after watching his performances, that might not be a terrible idea) and Gary Johnson and Buddy Roemer only wish they would get invited to a debate so they could boycott it.

Even as January quickly approaches, it doesn't mean there won't be surprises.  

With the Occupy Wall Street movement, there are plenty of local and regional factions (Occupy Oakland, Occupy Boston,Occupy Badstreet) and of course, there is an Occupy Iowa.  OI has spent time at the State Capital and Wells Fargo offices, and are targeting Presidential campaign headquarters next.

Of course, we all know that Occupy Wall Streeters just want to..... put Ron Paul in the White House.

At least, according to Ron Paul)

It seems everyone is headed to Iowa (even Romney and Cain are headed back here) and the usual suspects have spent the past week doing some hot and heavy campaigning.

The Herman Cain harassment issues have been headline news to the point nonpolitical Iowans are talking about it, and even the people who normally would have his back are starting to say things.

One of the top Conservative commentators in Iowa and someone I have beaten in fantasy football is on record as saying Cain is still making awkward suggestive comments in 2012.

Trying to gain back the ground she lost to Cain, Michele Bachmann is out there in Southeast Iowa meeting the masses (and generally being well-received).

Bachmann is taking to the people her plan to bring back America to its glory days of the 1950s post-war boom when doctor visits were $5 and the tax rate was 5% for everyone.

Of course, in 1961, doctor visits were $5 (also, a gallon of gas was 27 cents, a loaf of bread was 21 cents, and new cars cost less than $3000) because $5 of 1961 money in 2011 is approximately $38.

As far as the 5% tax rate (no surprise to anyone who knows anything about 20th Century economics), that is just completely wrong.  Oh, I take it back, the tax rate in 1950 was 5% (give or take 20 percent).

Bachmann also unveiled her tax everybody with a pulse tax plan.

Anyway, we're there- knee deep in Caucus Season, Perry and Bachmann have been on local television news, and I heard Rick Santorum on local radio at 11 AM this morning and on the ride home at 4:30. 

I even saw back-to-back (literally) Perry for President ads tonight (One from him, and one from his friends).

Santorum spent the week in Osage where he drew 12 (mostly women, the Register notes) and Centerville, where he drew 15.  I am pretty sure I am about three phone calls from gathering a crowd that big.

Get your Santorumentum t-shirts now.




To be fair, Santorum did get 100 people to listen to him in Des Moines. 

How did he accomplish this?

Well, first you start with 600 people listening to Ron Paul ,and then when he's done you take the stage.

Paul also trekked across the state this week, drawing 100 in Ottumwa, 400 in Pella, and ate lunch with 80 in an Oskaloosa diner.  He also gained a couple of big Straw Polls the past week - overwhelmingly at the National Federation of Republican Assemblies in Des Moines and beating Cain among the attendees at the Value Voters Summit in Washington DC.

Anyway, if Paul doesn't win this go around (and the same goes for everyone from Romney to Roemer), we are only a year 370 days from Campaign 2016.