The Moderate Republican

My New Online Home

2011-09-28T16:52:00.000-04:00

My new online home is here at Thoughts and Quotes. While I still comment on politics from a center-right point of view, the site is more of a catch all for things I come across and want to share or comment on. I suppose it is more of a curating site than anything else. If this is something you are interested in feel free to stop by. It is the political silly season, so there is sure to plenty to

The Moderate Republican is Closing Up Shop...

2011-09-08T12:07:00.001-04:00

...well, sort of. I have been writing here for the past three years and have really enjoyed the give and take with readers as I have thought out loud about some of the more complicated subjects our modern politics has to deal with. But the time has come to make a change. As regular readers have certainly realized, this blog has been moving in fits and starts for the past few months. The reason

GOP's to Lose

2011-09-02T09:30:00.000-04:00

Charlie Cook: "The economic data buttress the view that this presidential election is the GOP's to lose, although if Republicans nominate a candidate who has difficulty connecting with the independent voters between the two ideological and partisan 40-yard lines -- that is, the voters who ultimately decide elections -- they may well test that proposition."

Perry Wants to Repeal the 20th Century

2011-08-31T15:55:00.000-04:00

Taegan Goddard's Political Wire: William Galston writes an open memo to Mitt Romney on a "unique opportunity to define yourself... If you take it, you have a fighting chance of prevailing. If you duck it, you'll lose, just as Tim Pawlenty did when he booted away his chance to take you on." "How should you do it? Well, to the extent that the Republican nominating contest is a rational process,

Jon Huntsman’s Reasonable Man Act - The Daily Beast

2011-08-22T09:30:00.000-04:00

Jon Huntsman’s Reasonable Man Act - The Daily Beast: The Huntsman strategy here is obvious: position himself as the moderate and reasonable guy on the off chance Republicans decide to be moderate and reasonable. We must assume he is aware that his odds on this are rather long, so what he’s really hoping for is to be the consensus candidate of 2016. Maybe the party just has to go through this

Huntsman Promotes Himself as Moderate Choice : Roll Call Politics

2011-08-21T19:07:00.000-04:00

Huntsman Promotes Himself as Moderate Choice : Roll Call Politics: White House hopeful Jon Huntsman took a combative approach to his first Sunday show interview as a GOP presidential candidate. The former Utah governor, who served as U.S. ambassador to China until April, knocked his opponents while positioning himself as the moderate Republican candidate in his prerecorded appearance on ABC’s “

A Thought Experiment

2011-08-21T14:22:00.000-04:00

As of 2010 there were approximately 23 million small businesses in America. About 6 million of those had employees. These numbers are estimates as hard data is hard to find with different organizations defining "small" business in different ways. But for argument's sake let's go with these. Another hard to determine number: the federal expenditures on subsidies and other big business perks. After

Where is the Political Courage?

2011-07-30T11:25:00.000-04:00

Shapiro: Bygone patriots and the end of political courage - CNN.com: "Was the bravery necessary to vote your conscience and to defy the political fates ever really common in Washington? Or maybe the problem is with political ambition itself -- and how hard it has always been for anyone in either party in any era to risk losing the next election.What is particularly frustrating right now is that

Huntsman Plans Biggest NH Staff on Record

2011-07-26T07:14:00.000-04:00

Huntsman building big NH team, changing tone - Boston.com: "Republican presidential candidate Jon Huntsman wants to go head to head with Mitt Romney in the former Massachusetts governor's own backyard.With a laser focus on New Hampshire, President Barack Obama's recently departed ambassador to China is quietly assembling what may end up being the largest paid GOP primary effort in the state's

Center Continues to Shrink

2011-07-25T15:57:00.000-04:00

Taegan Goddard's Political Wire: "Rep. Mike Ross (D-AR), the only Democrat among Arkansas' four House members, announced he won't seek re-election next year, the Arkansas Democrat Gazette reports.'Ross, who has expressed interest in running for governor in 2014, said in a statement that he wants to spend time with his family and explore 'new opportunities here at home in Arkansas.' He later said

Moderate Governors Gone

2011-07-21T18:47:00.000-04:00

G.O.P. Governors Swing Right, Leaving Voters Behind - NYTimes.com: "If the states are laboratories of democracy, then the Republican Party’s research pipeline has run dry. Moderate Republican governors, a thriving species before last year’s elections, are all but extinct.

Romney vs Obama Now a Tie

2011-07-20T19:27:00.000-04:00

Taegan Goddard's Political Wire: "For the first time since last summer, President Obama does not lead Mitt Romney in Public Policy Polling's monthly national poll on the 2012 Presidential race. Romney has now pulled into a tie with the President at 45%.Also interesting: 'An extremely wide electability gap has developed between Romney and all the rest of the Republican candidates. Everyone else we

Obama the Debt Buster?

2011-07-20T09:11:00.000-04:00

Obama Does Want to Cut Medicare and Social Security Benefits | FDL Action: "The truly historic importance of what is happen right now can’t be repeated enough. It is a Democratic President who is the driving force now behind cutting Medicare and Social Security. It is a Democratic President who feels that deficit reduction during a recession and keeping tax rates near historic laws are both much

US, India vs China, Pakistan?

2011-07-20T09:01:00.000-04:00

Clinton in India: Actual News | Via Meadia: "When Americans ask Pakistanis to “do more”, we mean fight terrorism. When Americans ask India to “do more” we are asking them to help us shape the future of the world.Secretary Clinton was careful to say that she does not want the US and India to build an anti-China coalition, but she heads from India to Indonesia, where she is expected to put America

Romney Makes 2012 Competitive

2011-07-20T07:36:00.000-04:00

Is Obama Against Romney a Toss-Up? - NYTimes.com: "Economic performance has been poor enough, and economic forecasts have been downgraded enough, that I’d consider Mr. Obama to be in a rough toss-up against a strong and relatively moderate nominee like Mr. Romney. Meanwhile, I’d consider him to be a clear favorite against someone like Ms. Palin or Ms. Bachmann. And he’d be a slight favorite

Scott Brown Still Looks Safe to Me

2011-07-19T17:00:00.000-04:00

Taegan Goddard's Political Wire: "A new Public Opinion Strategies (R) poll finds Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) leading potential challenger Elizabeth Warren (D) by a 53% to 28% margin among likely 2012 voters.The poll also showed Brown with a 62% favorable rating.

We Can Hope

2011-07-19T13:06:00.000-04:00

New Senate Debt Plan Emerges - WSJ.com: "A surprise jolt of bipartisan support emerged Tuesday for a $3.7 trillion deficit-reduction plan that had been in development for months, though it was thought to be dead just several weeks ago.Roughly half of the Senate's 100 members sat through an hour-long briefing on the plan, which was designed by a group of lawmakers known as the 'Gang of Six' and

Tempting Christie

2011-07-19T10:00:00.000-04:00

POLITICO Playbook - POLITICO.com: "THE TEMPTATION OF CHRIS CHRISTIE: Ken Langone, the billionaire co-founder of The Home Depot, is leading yet another effort to persuade the New Jersey governor to make a late entry into the presidential race. A bunch of Republican bigwigs – uncommitted, moderate to liberal fundraising types – have been invited to meet with Christie in Manhattan this afternoon (

Moderate Brown Getting a Challenger?

2011-07-18T09:24:00.000-04:00

Taegan Goddard's Political Wire: "Now that President Obama has chosen his pick to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, all eyes turn to the future of Elizabeth Warren, the agency's founder and a long-rumored Democratic challenger to Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA), according to Robert Kuttner.'In Massachusetts, the Democratic field right now is stunningly weak, and Warren is the one candidate

A Failure of Political Skill

2011-07-16T16:43:00.000-04:00

A Certain Quality of Life: A Failure of Political Skill: "Democracy may not be perfect, but it is the best form of government man has come up with to manage a free market, capitalist society. However, in order for a democracy to work its many factions need to have the requisite political skill to compromise in order to get things done."

Return for Moderate Shays?

2011-07-15T14:06:00.000-04:00

Taegan Goddard's Political Wire:Shays Mulling Senate Bid in ConnecticutFormer Rep. Christopher Shays (R-CT) is looking to the results of a public poll to determine if he stands a chance of defeating Linda McMahon (R) for the 2012 Republican U.S. Senate nomination in Connecticut, according to Kevin Rennie.'The poll has been in the field this week and asks Republican voters about both Shays and

Illegal Immigration: Not what it used to be

2011-07-14T20:26:00.000-04:00

New reality emerging on illegal immigration | Michael Barone | Politics | Washington Examiner: "Immigration policymakers have assumed that the flow of Mexican immigrants would continue indefinitely at this high level. But now evidence is accumulating that this vast surge of migration is ending.The Pew Hispanic Center, analyzing census statistics, has estimated that illegal Mexican entrants have

Obama Trending Down

2011-07-14T16:15:00.000-04:00

"Republican Candidate" Extends Lead vs. Obama to 47% to 39%: "Registered voters by a significant margin now say they are more likely to vote for the 'Republican Party's candidate for president' than for President Barack Obama in the 2012 election, 47% to 39%. Preferences had been fairly evenly divided this year in this test of Obama's re-election prospects.

Will Obama Get 95% of Blacks in 2012?

2011-07-14T14:09:00.000-04:00

Obamageddon Coming to a City Near You? | Via Meadia: "The administration-produced Department of Labor report does its best to accentuate the positive, but it is clear that when it comes to employment, the Obama administration has been a total bust for Blacks. Buried deep in the report, for example, we find the mumbled admission that Black unemployment continued to rise in both 2009 and 2010 in

Crist's Continuing Popularity

2011-07-14T11:44:00.000-04:00

Taegan Goddard's Political Wire: "Just eight months after losing a U.S. Senate race, a new Sunshine State News Poll finds former Florida Gov. Charlie Crist (I) with a better favorable rating than either of the state's two senators.Crist has a 42% ot 33% favorable/unfavorable rating compared with Sen. Marco Rubio's (R-FL) tighter 38% to 34% ranking and Sen. Bill Nelson's (R-FL) 32% to 27% score.