There is a school of thought that says Republicans are hurting each other to the point that they are merely helping the Democrats and Obama’s chances of re-election. This is far from true. Yes it is true that the news has been distracting and Obama has gotten away with bad plays such as the Keystone Pipeline, but overall the Republicans beating each other up may prove to be beneficial. It is flawed thinking to believe Republicans need to hurry up and pick a nominee so that all of the attention can be put on Obama. This trial by fire is good for whichever of the four candidates emerges. One of Gingrich’s criticisms has been that he is a ticking time bomb just waiting to say or do something inappropriate. The current environment gives everyone a chance to see just how Newt responds to harsh criticism and extreme pressure for prolonged periods of time. The long days of campaigning and rhetorical gun fight with Romney will only make him a stronger candidate if he comes out on top. The same goes for Romney. He hasn’t truly been pressured until recently, and you find out what a candidate is really made of in times like these. Regarding the electability argument Romney supporters cite; If Romney can’t beat Gingrich in a primary battle then he probably won’t be able to beat Obama. Republicans should relax and see the current battle as more of a preparation for next fall than an act of cannibalism.

The Romney camp is still reeling from the results in South Carolina, and they are going through their most tested period since the inception of their second presidential run. The painful responses that Romney gave regarding his tax returns that he finally released this morning (same day as State of Union is no coincidence) were uncomfortable to watch, and Mitt needs to rather listen to his advisors more or be quicker on his feet when faced with these problems in the future. Governor Romney has been taking heat from the opposition from his Bain Capital history, and it would benefit the governor greatly to keep owning this record and not shying away from being successful. It took him some time to incorporate this into his lexicon, and it is something he needs to continue to do moving forward. Also, Mitt took too long to go on the offensive. It took a whipping in South Carolina for Romney to realize that he is going to have to get his hands dirty, and hopefully it is not too late for him at this point.

As we sit tonight looking at the S.C. returns, the Romney camp is reeling. It is almost incredible that the “inevitable” nominee has found himself in such a defeated state. He has only now won 1 of 3 primaries, and even the New Hampshire primary has an asterisk given that he had such an advantage being from Massachusetts.

We will take a close look at the results and what the drivers were, but it is clear that Romney will need to change course. His unwillingness to release tax returns; his record at Bain; his “flip-flopping” history; all are converging to make him vulnerable. That someone with as much “baggage” as Newt Gingrich; that someone as poorly financed as Rick Santorum, could beat him in 2 of the 3 primaries tells you something. There are some deep concerns about Mitt Romney and he has been unable to assuage them.

Nexus Politix has mentioned Chris Christie before. Maybe that is wishful thinking. We will be watching the rebuttal to the State of the Union given by Mitch Daniels. Perhaps he will add some perspective into the Republican primary race.

One thing is for sure. The pundits who wrote off Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, were wrong. Gingrich has arisen from the dead. That he won this primary by such a large margin tells you that Romney is no longer inevitable and in fact just experienced a drubbing. The drama continues to build and anything can happen next.

Two of the better angels in their respective professions, Jon Huntsman and Tim Tebow, are now out of the picture. Tebow was the first to go, having never really had a chance as Tom Brady, the experienced and talented pro quarterback for the New England Patriots, decimated the Broncos defense on Saturday. Millions tuned in as Tebow has accumulated a huge fan base, and is probably the only person I see as giving Mitt Romney a run for his money. It is certainly not any of the remaining Republican candidates!

Jon Huntsman, one of the more rational, experienced, professional, competent candidates in the race for the nomination, is reportedly facing reality after a disappointing finish up in New Hampshire and dropping out. The Republican faithful never rallied around him, and were it not for Mitt Romney and his enormous lead in the polls, this would be a step back for the Republican Party. Huntsman never really fulfilled his potential, and I’m sure he will re-group to see what might have gone wrong, just as Romney did after failing the last time around. Huntsman was sane; one of the more memorable messages for me was his message that the Republican Party can’t be known as a party that is anti-science.

We look forward to the debate tonight and the coming vote in the South Carolina primary this weekend.

This coming year Charlotte, North Carolina will be at the epicenter of the political world. The Democratic National Convention is being held in Charlotte September 3-7, so all of the party figureheads will be out in full force. It is no coincidence that the DNC chose Charlotte as the city to hold their convention. North Carolina went Democratic in the last Presidential election, and the Democrats want to keep it that way. It will be interesting to see the outcome of the DNC on elections in Charlotte and throughout the rest of the state. The upcoming gubernatorial contest between Bev Perdue and Pat McCrory will have many people around the country watching. The energy and momentum certainly see to be with McCrory at this point, but many things will occur between now and next November. McCrory recently reported raising 1.5 million in the second half of 2011 which means more than 2.5 million for last year. This is a considerable amount of money considering what he raised in 08. This strong fundraising coupled with Bev’s recent issues of campaign and administration staffers running into legal trouble spell out a good start for Pat. Anyone who follows North Carolina politics know that Pat is still in for an uphill battle being a Republican attempting election statewide. However, Bev’s accomplishments while in office have been meager at best, and there continues to be a veil of corruption cast over the Democrats running Raleigh. Presidential politics always has a significant impact on state elections, so it will be interesting to see how that will play out in the gubernatorial race here next November.

If you watched Mitt Romney’s speech having just been projected to win the New Hampshire primary, you saw a confident front-runner who is destined to win the Republican nomination. Huntsman on CNN says he has his ticket to South Carolina, and Ron Paul has a strong 2nd place finish. Stopping Romney is going to be almost impossible; and Republicans need to think twice about continuing to futilely attacking him on his tenure at Bain. Democrats will certainly do so; but Republicans who do so do the party a disservice.

Romney has minefields ahead, but he is much stronger than the rest of the Republican field and the results in Iowa and New Hampshire support that contention. We have promoted Chris Christie in this blog and trust his judgement on the Republican side. Chris Christie is no dummy. He fully stands behind Romney for President. So we’ll bow to the inevitable and now pencil him in as a possible VP. Christie vs Biden would make for some lively debates!

The country will be well-served and will be presented with clear choices if it is Romney versus Obama for President. We look forward as this Primary process leads to this inevitable result.

There is a lot of drama going into tonight’s debate, and the airwaves are full of tough attack ads, one which we have just watched produced by the Ron Paul campaign against both Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich running in South Carolina. While the Ron Paul campaign has a long ways to go before it can compete with Romney, it has pulled no punches when competing with the other candidates. We are looking forward to the debate in New Hampshire!

We have watched the debates and up to now had been very impressed with Mitt Romney’s polish and professionalism. He stayed on message, communicated his main strength which is rebuilding the economy, and when threats arose he crushed them viciously via his SuperPac. We have no doubt that once that SuperPac is unleashed on Rick Santorum that his numbers will go down. The Pac will need to take a different approach though because “the baggage” of Rick Santorum is an entirely different brand than Gingrich’s. Nevertheless, Santorum by most accounts, including ours, is likely going to be a flash in the pan.

Gingrich, in the meantime, will be working day and night to destroy Romney in retaliation for the attack ads that had Gingrich’s campaign numbers plummeting in recent days. That relationship could turn very ugly. And we suspect at the end voters will like both of these men less than they do now.

Romney has to be reeling. Despite the spin about Iowa not mattering and really only trying to win at the last-minute, it has become very clear that there are many doubts in Republican minds about the conservatism of Mitt Romney. While we at Nexus Politix  have been impressed with his performance, Republican voters have not. Something will need to change to break through this wall and stop the “not Romneys’ like Rick Santorum from getting their moment in the sun.

Republicans may need a wake-up call, so we’ll give them one here. Mitt Romney cannot and will not beat Barak Obama as things stand now. In fact, he may not even be able to beat Rick Santorum. What are Republicans to do?

Our suggestion? Pay yet another visit to New Jersey, or catch governor Chris Christie if he returns to  Iowa and deals with them “Jersey Style” as he said he would if the voters didn’t place enough ballots for Mitt Romney. It’s that or re-program Mitt Romney to deal with the campaign landscape not as we wish it was, but as it is.

When Nexus receives well-thought out comments, we will move them to posts to give them maximum visibility. This comment came in today as a comment to our earlier post and we felt it deserved better visibility. Clearly the writer is a Ron Paul supporter. We have been hearing from a lot of those lately! We are just hours away from the Iowa results! Here is the comment:

An interesting post. A few things to consider…

1. The idea that Mitt Romney is a front-runner in Iowa is accurate to some extent, but only insofar as Ron Paul is also considered an equal front-runner in this particular state. Romney and Paul’s ground work in the state of Iowa has left the other candidates jealous, and until Fox News anointed Santorum the surging candidate two days before any polls indicated such (interesting huh?), he was considering dropping out with a last place finish in Iowa…yeah he was really expecting this! 

2. Where is the journalistic integrity of Rupert Murdoch? This is the man who owns Fox News and the Wall Street Journal, and he doesn’t think its unfair to the democratic process for him to endorse a candidate for President of the United States? I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised by these actions, but I’m allowed to be outraged.

3. Rick Santorum’s surge was strategically placed for mere days before the caucuses because his record when vetted is going to be chewed up and spit out by fiscal conservatives faster than Gingrich after Ron Paul’s “serial hypocrisy” ad campaign. The mainstream media, in an effort to either sensationalize the caucus or to dilute the vote of the anti-Romney field (the former is more plausible), propped up Santorum’s poll numbers to justify increased face time on major network programs. All of this under the guise of an Iowan electorate that was “still making up their minds.” The ironic truth is that Iowans have heard from Santorum, more than any other candidate in fact, so the idea that he was polling in the low single digits because of lack of exposure is nonsense.

To the point about who the “right candidate” is to go up against Obama:

There are a lot of things to consider here, but I’ll give my take on a couple of things that I’ll be looking to play a role in the general election. First, the Republicans that voted for McCain in 08 will vote Republican in the ’12 election almost undoubtedly. The same cannot be said about the Obama supporters of ’08.  This is a man who promised change, and had a devoted group of supporters that expected him to deliver and in lots of areas he let them down. The Republican candidate is going to need to capitalize on these disenfranchised Obama supporters by appealing to the independent population of America (the heavily majority of America, by the way). So who is the right candidate to vie for the independent vote? Well, statistically its Ron Paul and Mitt Romney, with Ron Paul with a pretty healthy advantage. I consider the right candidate to be someone who is going to be able to contrast with Obama on economic and monetary policy, as this is where the election will be framed around. Ron Paul, and Mitt Romney almost accidentally, endorse the economic and monetary policy of Austrian economics, an economic perspective vastly contrary to Obama’s Keynesian approach of stimulus market-steering and deficit spending. These two, whom I believe will be the Romney vs. anti-Romney after these first few caucuses and primaries take place, will have to frame the debate with Obama as “the government tried, now let the market have its chance!” It should be a very interesting election, and one that I believe sees Ron Paul as the “most right” candidate to take on Obama on issues that matter the most to the citizens of the United States.  

First off, congratulations and thank you to all the candidates, from the front-runner Mitt Romney to those holding up the rear, like Michele Bachman, for putting their views out there and taking on the grueling task of running for President. You have to have a variety of skills and talents, along with very thick skin, to take on a Presidential campaign and the country is better off for them doing so. Tonight they get to see the fruits of what has been months and for some years of labor.

While Iowa is only a small piece of the election puzzle, it will be interesting if they choose the “right candidate.” What do we mean by that? Well, the right candidate by our definition is the one that has the best chance of competing with Barak Obama. Kimberly Strassel, in the Wall Street Journal today, has a column entitled Mr. Good Enough, that states that Mitt Romney is that choice. She grinds through the list of other candidates and where they fell short and how Romney has moved his way to the top of the heap. We agree with everything in the article with the exception that she appears to feel like Romney will win the Iowa Caucus. We are not so sure.

Iowa can afford to take a flyer since they are the first of many primaries, and they may want to express themselves and stray out of the mainstream thinking and make a different choice. The Santorum surge is an example of far they might stray from making a conventional pick. We hope they don’t, but picking up the papers today and seeing his face and name everywhere has us worried that they might.

Rick Santorum lost his last election battle in Pennsylvania, which was for a 3rd Senate term, back in 2006 by a margin of 59% to 41% according to Wikipedia, where we visited just to get a brief overview of his record. Reading through it was enough for us to be convinced that whatever you think about Rick Santorum, he is not the man to beat Barak Obama.

The only conventional wisdom that we are bought into tonight is that Ron Paul’s supporters will be out in droves moving their candidate into the top-tier. What happens to the rest is still an unknown and very much up for grabs, and we look forward to seeing what choices Iowa makes.