Poll: Obama Leads Romney in Four Key Swing States — But Trails Santorum

Electable.

Virgil Goode for President [UPDATED]

As I have previously stated, I am actually backing two candidates for their respective parties' nominations: former Sen. Rick Santorum for the GOP, and former Virginia Congressman Virgil Goode for the Constitution Party.

I already have Santorum stickers on my Dodge Ram and Santorum signs in my yard. Well, today, I recived my Goode for President stickers:



Given the likelihood that Santorum and Gingrich will split the conservative anti-Romney vote between them in tomorrow's "Southern Super Tuesday" primary contests, thereby denying either a clear path to the GOP nomination, it is becoming increasinly likely that I will be casting my vote for a non-Republican candidate in November (since I will UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES EVER vote for Mitt Romney).

Goode still needs to win the Constitution Party nomination next month at the party's national convention in Nashville. But that appears to be a more likely outcome than Santorum pulling off an upset against the GOP Establishment's chosen one.

UPDATE (15 March 2012)
Yesterday, I received some nice Virgil Goode for President political buttons that are produced by someone independent from the campaign. (He specializes in collecting and making old-time political campaign buttons.)



Upon receiving these yesterday, I then went into one of our storage closets and dug out some old Virgil Goode campaign buttons I had kept from Virgil's campaigns for Congress:



I know I have some other buttons from other Goode campaigns, but these are all that I could find in my brief search yesterday.

"Game On" - Oklahoma Family's Pro-Santorum Song

A little too saccharine for my tastes, but this is cute:

Virgil Goode: Mr. Independent

Yesterday, The Richmond Times-Dispatch ran the following opinion piece on my friend Virgil Goode, who is seeking the Constitution Party nomination for President:

Virgil Goode has run for office as a Democrat and as a Republican. Partisanship never has defined his career. He is a true independent. Goode is his own man, which may help to explain why in 2008 he lost his seat in the U.S. House.

For many years Goode represented a Southside district in the state Senate. He promoted rural interests. When the parties split 20-20 in the chamber, he compelled his reluctant party colleagues to share power with Republicans. The Democrats did not embrace power-sharing because they believed in comity. Goode gave them no choice. He also once challenged Chuck Robb in a primary for U.S. Senate.

Goode won election to the 5th House District as a Democrat. Later he became an independent before joining the GOP.

Goode now is seeking the Constitution Party's nomination for president. He concedes his election is unlikely, yet he has points he wants to make. The Constitution Party embraced a Tea Party agenda before the movement's birth. "To thine own self be true," advises Polonius in "Hamlet." Virgil Goode has not strayed.

(emphasis added)

The Atlantic also has a good piece on Virgil: "Virgil Goode: This Is What a Third-Party Candidate Looks Like".

... But it's that mix of social conservatism with economic populism that doesn't get much a hearing as it should, based on Americans' political views. As my colleague Ron Brownstein noted in his column last week "each side's electoral coalition is now bound together far more by shared cultural values than by common economic interests."

That means Republicans, increasingly dependent on the support of blue-collar voters, are campaigning on cuts to popular entitlement programs that may rankle some of the GOP rank-and-file. And it means that Democrats can't effectively win over these voters with populist appeals because the party's views on litmus test cultural issues, like immigration and abortion, are well out of step with their personal beliefs.

That's why former Virginia Rep. Virgil Goode's third-party presidential candidacy should be receiving more attention. The Democrat-turned-Republican congressman is campaigning on a platform of reducing immigration (legal and illegal), protecting Social Security and Medicare and balancing the budget immediately.

Goode, by virtue of his relative anonymity and likely lack of funding, probably won't get much traction -- even if he emerges with the Constitution Party nomination. But he's the prototype of a third-party candidate that would have the potential to get support from a swath of voters who would see both President Obama and Mitt Romney as elites disconnected from the concerns of working-class Americans. Americans Elect isn't jumping to his side, but he's the type of candidate whose positions could resonate with a significant minority of voters.

The media tend to think that the impetus for third-party candidates comes from Americans who are just plain sick of politics-as-usual and want a truth-teller to come in and shake things up. Hence, the regular Bloomberg boomlet in certain circles. In reality, the greatest demand for a third-party candidate would come from the voters whose views are most out of line with the political establishment and most newspaper editorial boards.

(emphasis added)

My Comments:
Some background on the candidate: Virgil is 65 years old, although he looks and seems younger than that. He served in the Virginia Senate for 24 years, from 1972 to 1996. He was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1996 and served for 12 years until 2008, when his seat was targeted by national Democrats because Charlottesville was part of his district.

(Incidentally, Tom Perriello, the ObamaCath co-founder of Soros-backed Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, who defeated Virgil in 2008 thanks to Soros and the Democrats' focus on the 5th District seat, himself went down to defeat in 2010 - in no small part for selling out his Catholic faith in service of Obama and ObamaCare.)

Virgil is a solid conservative of a definite Southern populist bent. He was a Democrat for most of his political career, but like so many conservative Demcorats, left the party as the party lurched leftward. He was one of only 5 Democrats in the House who voted to impeach Clinton (again, remember that C'ville was part of his district, so that was something of an act of political courage). He then became an independent caucusing with the Republicans in the late 90s, and eventually became a Republican during the early Bush years.

As for policy, he is solidly conservative, especially on the issues that matter most to me. NOTE: Just as I disagree with Rick Santorum, who I am currently supporting, on his harsh immigration rhetoric, neither am I in agreement with Virgil on immigration - and Virgil is far more belligerant on the topic than Santorum has been. That said, his views on immigration are not disqualifying for me, and I could gladly cast a ballot for Virgil Goode based on his record and his views on other issues of importance to me. Virgil's views on the issues can be read on his campaign website.

A personal note on former Congressman Goode: Virgil was of immense help to me when I was Mayor of Columbia, Virginia, in my work on Columbia's revitalization plan. He took a personal interest in the town, and actually made a public appearance at a town festival to promote the revitalization process. Note that this was a town of only 50 people whose electoral value was probably close to zero compared to other localities in Virgil's district such as Charlottesville.

Rick Santorum's Economic Freedom Agenda

Rick Santorum writes in today's Wall Street Journal:

... my opponent in the Republican primaries, Mitt Romney, had a last-minute conversion. Attempting to distract from his record of tax and fee increases as governor of Massachusetts, poor job creation, and aggressive pursuit of earmarks, he now says he wants to follow my lead and lower individual as well as corporate marginal tax rates.

It's a good start. But it doesn't go nearly far enough. He says his proposed tax cuts would be revenue neutral and, borrowing the language of Occupy Wall Street, promises the top 1% will pay for the cuts. No pro-growth tax policy there, just more Obama-style class warfare.

By contrast, in my first 100 days as president, I'll submit to Congress and work to pass a comprehensive pro-growth and pro-family Economic Freedom Agenda. Here are 10 of its main initiatives:

• Unleash America's energy. I'll approve the Keystone Pipeline for jobs and energy security, and sign an order on day one unleashing America's domestic energy production, allowing states to choose where they want to explore for oil and natural gas and to set their own regulations for hydrofracking.

• Stop job-killing regulation. All Obama administration regulations that have an economic burden over $100 million will be repealed, including the Environmental Protection Agency rule on CO2 emissions that's already shut down six power plants. I'll review all regulations, making sure they use sound science and cost benefit analysis.

• A pro-growth, pro-family tax policy. I'll submit to Congress comprehensive tax policies to strengthen opportunity in our country, with only two income tax rates of 10% and 28%. To help families, I'll triple the personal deduction for children and eliminate the marriage tax penalty.

• Restore America's competitiveness. The corporate tax rate should be halved, to a flat rate of 17.5%. Corporations should be allowed to expense all business equipment and investment. Taxes on corporate earnings repatriated from overseas should be eliminated to bring home manufacturing. I'll take the lead on tort reform to lower costs to consumers.

• Rein in spending. I'll propose spending cuts of $5 trillion over five years, including cuts for the remainder of fiscal year 2013. I'll propose budgets that spend less money each year than prior years, and I'll reduce the nondefense-related federal work force by at least 10%, without replacing them with private contractors.

• Repeal and replace ObamaCare. I'll submit legislation to repeal ObamaCare, and on day one issue an executive order ending related regulatory obligations on the states. I'll work with Congress to replace ObamaCare with competitive insurance choices to improve quality and limit the costs of health care, while protecting those with uninsurable health conditions. In contrast, Gov. Romney signed into law RomneyCare, which provided the model for ObamaCare. Its best-known feature is its overreaching individual health-care mandate. But it shares over a dozen other similarities with ObamaCare and has given Massachusetts the highest health-care premiums in the nation, and longer waits for health care.

• Balance the budget. I'll submit to Congress a budget that will balance within four years and call on Congress to pass a balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution which limits federal spending to 18% of GDP...

[More]

Santorum the Hot Name Among Ohio GOP Voters

The Columbus Dispatch reports:

He’s the right kind of conservative.

He cares about the problems of average people.

He’s got a small unfavorability rating.

Oh, and Rick Santorum is also the “hot” candidate.

In a nutshell, that’s why the former Pennsylvania senator has wrangled the lead in the Ohio presidential primary less than three weeks before voters head to the polls, a survey released yesterday shows.

Santorum is the new favorite of Buckeye State Republicans, leading ex-Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney among likely voters by 7 points, 36 percent to 29 percent, in the Quinnipiac University poll. Romney was ahead with registered voters two months ago; Herman Cain was on top two months before that.
[...]

“Santorum’s a hot candidate,” said Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.

[More]

Previous Pro Ecclesia posts on this subject:
New Poll Shows Santorum Trouncing "Mr. Electable" by 18 Points in Key Swing State of Ohio

Poll: Santorum Ahead Of Romney In Buckeye State

New Poll Shows Santorum Trouncing "Mr. Electable" by 18 Points in Key Swing State of Ohio

Let me repeat that: SANTORUM LEADING ROMNEY BY 18 POINTS IN OHIO!

While Rick Santorum courts the blue-collar vote in Michigan, he’s already looking forward to at least one Super Tuesday state — Ohio. He has spent quite a bit of time in this Rust Belt swing state, and according to the latest Rasmussen poll, that investment has paid off handsomely. Santorum now leads Romney by eighteen, 42/24 ...

[More]

Previous Pro Ecclesia posts on this subject:
Poll: Santorum Ahead Of Romney In Buckeye State

Poll: Santorum Ahead Of Romney In Buckeye State

Ohio News Network reports:

TOLEDO, Ohio - A new poll shows Rick Santorum edging ahead of Mitt Romney in Ohio.

The Quinnipiac University poll out Wednesday found that Santorum jumped to the lead with Ohio voters just three weeks before the Republican presidential primary.

The former Pennsylvania senator leads Romney 36-29 percent among likely primary voters.

Former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich was third with 20 percent.

A Quinnipiac poll released last month had the former Massachusetts governor Romney well ahead of Santorum, but that was before Santorum's sweep in Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri last week...

Great news! By the way, although the events have not yet been posted on his website, Santorum will be visiting here in Ohio this Friday and Saturday. I'm going to try to get to one of his events if there's one nearby.

As for why Santorum performs so well against Romney in potential Midwestern swing states like Missouri, Michigan, and Ohio, my friend, Don McClarey links to this piece in The New York Times by Ross Douthat that provides a fairly good explanation:

It’s been clear since Iowa that Rick Santorum, of all the Republican contenders, posed the most serious challenge to Mitt Romney. Now we’re seeing why.

[...]

If Santorum were simply the latest “true conservative” alternative to Romney – another Michele Bachmann or Herman Cain, a brazen ideologue without a hint of moderation – then the script would be clear enough. Romney would emphasize his experience, his competence and his electability and gradually box out Santorum the way that, for example, Michael Dukakis boxed out Jesse Jackson in 1988.

But Santorum’s advantage is that he can get to Romney’s right and to his left at once. On the one hand, Santorum isn’t responsible for a health care bill that looks an awful lot like “Obamacare” and he doesn’t have a long list of social-issue flip-flops in his past. This makes his candidacy a plausible rallying point for the voters who previously turned Bachmann and Cain and the pre-debate Rick Perry into conservative flavors of the month.

At the same time, though, Santorum’s persona, his record and his platform all have a populist tinge that plays well in states like Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania, where swing voters tend to be socially conservative but economically middle-of-the-road. (Hence the Michigan poll that showed him leading among independents and Democrats who plan to vote in that state’s open primary.)

This means that Santorum can play the same anti-Bain, anti-rich-guy, blue-collar card that Gingrich tried to play in New Hampshire and South Carolina – but subtly, implicitly, in ways that don’t make him sound like he belongs in Occupy Wall Street instead of the Republican primary.

[More]

Another Elitist "Conservative" Realizes Too Late That "This Obama Fellow Is Unequal to the Task"

IowaHawk is just plain, frickin' brilliant:

Summer once again tiptoes in on crepe soles to the eastern extremities of Long Island; affording, as is its wont, fresh opportunities to enjoy the providence of nature and the financial acumen of one's forebears. Despite the looming spectre of global climate change the lawn is verdant and lush, and my gardener Hideo informs me the hibiscuses are in especially fine fettle. Much to the relief of his mother (if not the household staff) young T. Coddington VIII has returned from Quonsocket Prep and Rehabilitation Center. I am pleased to announce he has made significant strides in overcoming the acute arson disability that so plagued his sophomore academic marks, and thus his matriculation as a member of Harvard '15 is all but assured. And, if you will forgive a note of personal triumph, I also find myself in the midst of a career renaissance as the leading conservative thinker on the scourge and embarrassment of conservative extremism.

This solstitial season should then, by all rights, occasion in a conservative centrist like myself a deep sense of satisfaction -- if not outright contemptuous pity for the jejune editorial boobs of The National Topsider who some 18 months ago unceremoniously dismissed my services following my prescient endorsement of Barack Obama. Thanks to the good conservative breeding instilled in me by my late father, swashbuckling Topsider founder T. Coddington Van Voorhees VI, I am happily above such base emotions. Living well, as they say, is the best revenge; particularly when underwritten by royalty checks from the New York Times, the Washington Post, Newsweek, and the other top-tier periodicals unintimidated by trenchant critiques of the soi-dissant 'Tea Party' idiots. Rather than basking in the deserved status of a conservative man in full, however, I instead find this the summer of my discontent. Each day seems to introduce some new crisis on the world scene with hints of more to come, and one is left to wonder if even our elegant young President's oratorical and tonsorial gifts are equal to the challenges ahead.

[...]

I and my guests were momentarily stunned, this being the first time any of us had heard an ill word spoken about Mr. Obama by a European of impeccable intellect with the Hermes ascot to match. This was followed, understandably, by muffled sobs. It was left to me to gamely break the lachrymose silence. "Perhaps Kloonkie is right," I said. "Perhaps the President has not quite turned out to be the Reagan reincarnation we all expected, and in some ways I am beginning to believe this Obama fellow is unequal to the task. As the intellectual conscience of the conservative movement, and whatever our previous enthusiasm for the chap, we ought have the courage to point out those rare instances where his performance has been found wanting. Such as foreign and domestic policy. The important thing is that we not end up implicated in his shortcomings."

[...]

"Clearly, this isn't the Barack Obama any of us swooned for during the election," offered Peggy Noonan. "As a candidate he was fresh, intellectual, and serious. Instead, as president, he has proven to be naive, detached and aloof. Nostradamus himself could not have predicted such an astonishing 180 degree transformation."

"Indeed, how could anyone?" added Brooks. "The fellow was a success at everything he had ever attempted -- being ethnically interesting, going to Harvard, getting elected, or writing autobiographies about being ethnically interesting and going to Harvard. It was simply inconceivable that there was a task he could actually fail at. I am forced to conclude his Harvard credentials may be a sham."

[Read the entire brilliant thing]

See also Another Elitist "Conservative" Likes the Cut of Obama's Jib


Previous Pro Ecclesia posts on this subject:
David Brooks Wonders What Went Wrong [UPDATED]

"Educated Class" Waking Up to Fact That Us "Yokels" Were Right All Along

Noemie Emery on David Brooks and the "Educated Class"

Michael Barone on David Brooks and the "Educated Class"

Brooksback Mountain

Today's Must-Read: "Palinphobes and the Audacity of Type"

A Conservative Manifesto

Another Elitist "Conservative" Likes the Cut of Obama's Jib

The Liberal Media's Elitist Conservative Rats Leave the Sinking Ship

Victor Davis Hanson: "What is Wisdom?"

Let's Get One Thing Straight ...

Is the Left Beginning to Take Sarah Palin Seriously?

Or, perhaps, they ALWAYS took her seriously, which is why they took it upon themselves to destroy her from Day 1.

At any rate, some on the left now appear willing to openly discuss taking her seriously. For example, the so-called "Dean of the Washington press corps", David Broder, admonishes "Take Sarah Palin seriously" in today's Washington Post column:

... Her lengthy Saturday night keynote address to the National Tea Party Convention in Nashville and her debut on the Sunday morning talk show circuit with Fox News' Chris Wallace showed off a public figure at the top of her game -- a politician who knows who she is and how to sell herself, even with notes on her palm.

This was not the first time that Palin has impressed me. I gave her high marks for her vice presidential acceptance speech in St. Paul. But then, and always throughout that campaign, she was laboring to do more than establish her own place. She was selling a ticket headed by John McCain against formidable Democratic opposition and burdened by the legacy of the Bush administration.

Blessed with an enthusiastic audience of conservative activists, Palin used the Tea Party gathering and coverage on the cable networks to display the full repertoire she possesses, touching on national security, economics, fiscal and social policy, and every other area where she could draw a contrast with Barack Obama and point up what Republicans see as vulnerabilities in Washington.

Her invocation of "conservative principles and common-sense solutions" was perfectly conventional. What stood out in the eyes of TV-watching pols of both parties was the skill with which she drew a self-portrait that fit not just the wishes of the immediate audience but the mood of a significant slice of the broader electorate...

[More]

And talk about an unlikely source of praise, at The Huffington Post (of all places), we read this glowing piece by Joan Williams:

Addressing the Tea Party, Sarah Palin wrote three notes on her hand: "Energy, Taxes, Lift American Spirits." Why? She already had notes in front of her on the podium. Surely she could remember three simple themes. Why write notes on her hand?

Here's my take on why: she knew that they would be visible when she gave the speech. And she knew that she would be made fun of -- as so stupid that she needs to write notes on her hand. And that's one of her most effective tactics -- to be made fun of. It's an integral part of her strategy of standing in for hardworking, Middle Americans, derided by the condescending, know-it-all liberal elites.

So what does the Obama administration do? Press Secretary Robert Gibbs had a great idea: he made fun of her. He wrote a grocery list on his hand at a White House briefing, and belittled Palin for not being able to remember her message. Thus the White House became a vehicle for Palin's narrative of the snooty elites who think they're better than average Americans.

Palin is a brilliant strategist. First, note that I just repeated Palin's key talking points: Palin has even us fellow travelers at The Huffington Post repeating, "Energy, Taxes, Lift American Spirits." Talk about earned media.

Palin's ploy also spoke directly to ordinary Joe and Jane. By writing her script on her palm, she got to identify with the unscripted real folks, heightening the contrast with the golden-tongued Obama and his reliance on the teleprompter. Hasn't everyone sometimes written a note on her hand? Doesn't putting your message on your palm literally define the common touch? The elites were clueless.

Sarah Palin is playing chess. I don't know what game the Administration is playing, but they just walked right into her carefully laid trap. Palin, the strategist, is amazing to watch. Her brilliance is her ability to tap in to the class conflicts that drive American politics these days. Obama, whom I have supported since Iowa, just doesn't get it.

Here's what he doesn't get: He believes in the American dream. He believes that if you work hard, even if you come from a modest, single-mother family, you can make it. You can even become President.

For him that's true. In fact, it's true for everyone in the White House. They're all there based on merit and hard work.

But there are millions and millions of Americans are out there, working as hard as they can, some just as smart as Obama, who never get anywhere. They clean your shirts, mop your floor, fix your TIVO, sell your computer service contracts. They work hard their whole lives, and they feel left out, disrespected, undervalued -- treated as if they are stupid.

So there's the Obama Administration's spokesman reinforcing Palin's narrative, showing that the elites think that average people who write notes on their palms are stupid...

And yet, from certain quarters of the right, Palin is trashed relentlessly by those who claim to be "mystified" that otherwise intelligent people might admire her political skills in addition to her policy preferences.