Visual source:
Newseum
Nate's best and worst, as chosen by him:
With occasional exception, this blog was much too bullish on Rick Perry’s candidacy, skeptical of his initial decline in the polls and then anticipating a rebound that has not yet occurred.
Lots of smart people got Perry wrong. Bigger mistakes were not seeing
Connecticut coming (basketball) and thinking
Derek Jeter was washed up (he hit .300 after that.)
Connecticut, for instance, is a very fashionable pick right now, and I wouldn’t necessarily bet my life on the proposition that they only have a 1-in-142 chance of winning the tournament, as our model seems to conclude (in part because they have a very difficult draw). But I would emphatically recommend against picking them, just because everyone else in your pool is liable to.
Unless everyone else in your pool reads FiveThirtyEight, in which case they’re a sweet pick.
But reading Nate is always fun. And, as always, he got a lot right.
Mark Blumenthal:
Romney's slight edge is not large enough to be statistically significant in the single Marist survey, but it is consistent with the current candidate estimates produced by the HuffPost Pollster chart, which is based on all available public polls. The chart currently shows Romney leading Paul by a percentage point and a half (21.7 to 20.2 percent), followed by Gingrich (14.3 percent) and Santorum (13.1 percent).
CBS:
Santorum is finally experiencing his mini-surge, and he stands to chip away at some of the evangelical Christian voters that represent the overlap in his and Perry's support. Perry has moved swiftly to take down his newly threatening opponent, waiting less than 24 hours after a a CNN/Time/ORC poll showed Santorum at 16 percent to start attacking him on the stump as an "earmarker." (Santorum has defended getting earmarks for his state before congressional Republicans banned the practice.)
Scott Clement/WaPo Behind the Numbers:
Republican problems with Hispanic voters larger than ever
The stakes for Republicans are high. The percentage of whites in the electorate dropped from 89 percent in 1972 to 74 percent in 2008, but John McCain received 90 percent of his support from whites. With more than eight in 10 black voters supporting the Democratic nominee in every recent election, Hispanic voters are key to expanding Republican support among the growing non-white population.
Texas on the Potomac lists 2011 political winners (Obama and both Clintons) and, here, losers:
John Boehner
He’s the House Republicans’ leader in name only. The Tea Party tail is wagging the GOP dog.
Rick Scott
How unpopular can a governor be without getting indicted? Ask Florida’s first-term governor.
John Kasich
The freshman governor’s signature accomplishment — a sweeping anti-union measure — was repudiated by Ohio voters at the polls in November.
Rick Perry
As Karl Rove would say, “I know George W. Bush. George W. Bush is a friend of mine. And governor, you’re no George W. Bush.”
Speaking of Rick Perry, here's
Dave Helfert in
HuffPost:
Now that I'm home in Austin for the remainder of the year, I feel a strong duty to step up and do what someone in Texas should have done months ago: apologize for Governor Rick Perry. It seemed presumptuous to do so from Washington, DC, but it definitely needs doing and it just can't wait a moment longer.
So I hereby apologize that the man who constantly talks about the constitutional preeminence of the 50 states over the national government, as if that little disagreement in 1861 had not finally settled the issue; and who promises to make Congress a part-time institution and the federal courts subservient to just about everything, has now found it necessary to file a lawsuit against one of those states, and in one of those federal courts.
LA Times on Democrats for Ron Paul:
Voters who helped elect Obama in 2008 are planning to cast Republican ballots Tuesday, and Rep. Ron Paul is perhaps the most likely to benefit from the crossovers.
Gail Collins:
What a big week coming up! New Year’s Day and then the Iowa caucuses! Doesn’t get any better than that. And, in honor of this double-whammy of exciting events, here’s the End-of-the-Year Republican Presidential Primary Quiz:
Which of the following has Rick Perry not gotten wrong, so far, during his presidential campaign:
A) Number of Supreme Court justices
B) Legal voting age in the United States
C) Date of the election
D) Whether New Hampshire has a primary or caucuses
E) Number of stars on the Texas state flag
F) Name of the late leader of North Korea
G) Century in which the American Revolution was fought
...
Michele Bachmann: “There are hundreds and hundreds of scientists, many of them holding Nobel Prizes, who believe”:
A) “In intelligent design.”
B) “That vaccines cause mental retardation.”
C) “That the founding fathers eliminated slavery.”
D) “That I should be president of the United States.”
You can't make this stuff up.