Visual source:
Newseum
NY Times:
Shaken by Attacks, Romney Camp Seeks to Head Off Battle
Advisers to Mitt Romney are scrambling to avoid a prolonged battle over his career as a corporate buyout specialist.
Good luck with that.
WaPo:
A near-panic has taken hold among some core conservative activists, who are now scrambling to devise a strategy to deny Mitt Romney the Republican presidential nomination.
Many of these activists see South Carolina’s primary on Jan. 21 as their last best hope of stopping Romney by consolidating in a united front against him. But many acknowledge that they have yet to figure out which of the remaining conservative rivals to rally behind and which should get out.
You can't get your act together. And that's why you're going to lose, boys.
Want proof? :
Note that despite a big lead for the deficit cutters, the job creators win.
EJ Dionne:
Here’s my favorite exit poll finding on the theme of Romney as the man for everyone: Voters were asked whether they preferred elected officials who made compromises to get things done, or those who stuck to their principles no matter what. Jon Huntsman did more than four times better among the compromisers than among the stick-to-principles crowd. Ron Paul, on the other hand, did far better among the stickers than the compromisers. But Mitt Romney did about as well in one group as in the other. Whether you liked principled politicians or compromisers, you liked Romney.
Gallup:
Eighteen percent of Americans are satisfied with the way things are going in the country, up from the latter part of 2011, but lower than at the outset of any recent presidential election year. Americans continue to name the economy, jobs, and government as the nation's most important problems.
They win nationally, too. Big lose for the tea party.
Chris Cillizza:
What Daley’s year-long tenure ultimately seemed to prove within the White House is that attempts to court independent voters by reaching out to Republicans in Congress (and business leaders off Capitol Hill) were doomed to failure. Republicans simply view the right way forward for the country — on the economy and everything else — through a fundamentally different lens than does the White House and their Democratic counterparts.
Deciding who has more of the right in that fight is, of course, what the 2012 election will tell us.
Matthew Dowd:
While many still say the Republican party’s base is that of Wall Street and corporate America and big business, the real base of the Republican Party has become much more about working class (especially white males) in rural and small town areas of the country. This is where there is a great appeal of Sarah Palin’s and Ron Paul’s populist rhetoric attacking big government and corporate corruption and Wall Street excess. This is where a big part of the anger of the Republican Party is and of the Tea Party movement.
If the attacks on Romney related to Bain are done effectively and consistently and wrapped in a broader argument questioning his authenticity, it could really hurt him as he leaves New Hampshire and heads to South Carolina and then Florida. Those two stops on the nominating road could be problematic on the Bain issue because of their large segments of this angry populist vote.