Not necessarily a Wall Street Fat Cat

Why should anyone care about the Occupy Wall Street movement? Aren’t they just a bunch of kids with nothing better to do than whine about the lack of a utopian existence? Isn’t that little  gathering of peaceniks over with?

There are a lot of people who would like for it to be. Most municipalities have broken up the occupations citing a host of public health and safety reasons but there is no shortage of people who are willing to continue the protest.

I hung out with the Portland, Oregon office the other day (graciously provided by St. Francis Church) and they are busily planning their next steps. They’ve procured a bus and are outfitting it into a mobile occupation bandwagon. They hold meetings and like any group they have plenty of disagreements over what direction to take or what steps are necessary to get there. And despite the perception created by the media and other critics that #OWS doesn’t have a well-defined goal, they definitely have clearly defined issues. It’s just that they are numerous with each of them intertwined into the bigger scheme of things. The primary complaints are to protest corporate influence on democracy, address the growing disparity in wealth as well as the absence of legal repercussions behind the recent global financial crisis. Many critics view the endeavour as Quixotic folly; tilting at Manhattan skyscrapers, if you will.

But there is a good reason to take the movement seriously.

The people who caused this financial crisis will likely never suffer the consequences of their actions but millions of Americans are suffering from the repercussions of their greed.Yet the outrage seems to be missing or somewhat lukewarm. I can think of only three explanations: complacency, complexity, or just being plain busy with living. You might say…preoccupied.

It would be easy to attribute an atmosphere of complacency that seems to exist in the politics of today as providing these corporate looters carte blanche to control our policy, our elections, our budgets, our taxes, etc. But it isn’t so much complacency as it is resignation that the bureaucracy has become too big to question or challenge. It’s so ingrained just as the mobs were back in the Roaring Twenties that it’s just become an accepted way of doing things. Most people think it’s pointless to expect to be able to do anything to change it. These are the people who tend not to focus on anything outside their immediate sphere of influence. It’s simply not their concern.

Then there are those who find the problem too large and complicated to grasp. Besides, isn’t that what we elect representatives to do? The trouble is that there are entrenched interests who have been doing this so long that even the best of wide-eyed optimists get to D. C. only to be chopped off at the knees until they are so jaded that they just end up playing the same old games. And whether we like it or not, politicians these days rely on keeping those elected positions through donations. Those donations are mostly from monied or corporate interests since Citizens United.

Finally, most of us are just busy trying to get by. We’ve got bills to pay, babies to feed, soccer games to attend after school, deadlines at work, etc. Most of us don’t have the option to live in a tent in Zucotti Park (unless that’s the only place we have to live).

And those who are trying to wrest control of democracy from the majority are counting on that distraction to keep us from being engaged and outraged. The problem then becomes our complicity. The lack of an objection by the majority is a tacit agreement with the wealthy, connected minority. To put it succinctly, if we fail to object, they’ll do it again.

There are always consequences to our actions. I would argue that there are also consequences to our inaction as well. We can’t afford to let our complicity dictate the lack of consequences for Wall Street’s actions.

Related articles

• Robert Teitelman: Stephen Bainbridge’s Corporate Governance After the Financial Crisis (huffingtonpost.com)
• Paul Krugman: ‘People Should Be In Jail’ Because Of Financial Crisis (huffingtonpost.com)

A pomposity of phallic fallacy

If your inbox is anything like mine you probably have a plethora of outraged emails from politicians, pundits, and people of no particular persuasion expressing their dismay over the recent congressional hearing on contraception. I alluded to it in a post a couple of days ago regarding the conservative right’s flailing in desperation to remain relevant in the face of growing unpopularity. Perhaps you’ve seen the picture on the right.

A couple of these ‘experts’ are in religious robes which I suppose makes this an episode of Father Knows Best. But not one single woman is on the panel. And the one woman who was to testify before the panel was denied television coverage. However, the outrage over her censorship prompted Minority Leader Pelosi to give Georgetown University law student Sandra Fluke plenty of rebuttal airtime.

Congressman Darrell Issa’s panel was meant to illustrate an attack on religious freedom by the Obama administration but it has backfired; rather badly. Leader Pelosi and several other people in my inbox have pounced on the Congressman Issa’s bad judgement. The war on religion has quickly turned into the war on women’s reproductive rights. Even conservative and former MSNBC contributor Pat Buchanan says the Republicans are over-reaching. Of course, Issa isn’t the only conservative to try to rally the troops around this poorly constructed Trojan horse. Rick Santorum has been brandishing the topic out on the campaign trail.

I don’t know if Republicans have done the math but they’ve managed in a very short period of time to alienate women, gays, and most Latinos. According to my back of the envelope calculations, if you include the rest of the population that tends to vote Democratic, that’s almost 3/4 of the population. One does not need to be a political strategist to know that a strategy of fear-mongering, misinformation, and religious menacing is not going to be a winning strategy in an election year.

Taking on women’s reproductive right without their input was the height of arrogance. I would argue that women have proven to be more reasonable policy makers than men. Perhaps we need a little more estrogen in Congress. I look at that picture above and all I see are a bunch of dicks.

Related articles

• Contraception Controversy Continues: Meet Sandra Fluke (abcnews.go.com)
• Pelosi hits GOP at contraception hearing (thehill.com)
• GOP: Women’s Testimony At Contracpetion Hearing Won’t Be Televised (thinkprogress.org)

Wait a second…Maine, again?

It would appear that, like Iowa, the Maine caucuses may not be in the bag just yet. You’ll recall that Maine’s caucuses were held over the period of a week on a town by town basis. Washington county, home to Lubec, the easternmost point in the United States, even postponed its caucuses until today because of a potential snow storm. Yet the Republican Party went ahead and called the race for Romney with 39% of the vote next to Ron Paul’s 36%.

An unfortunate irony

Many have cried foul, not the least of which is Ron Paul though Paul is used to being snubbed at this point. But several caucus leaders in several districts have complained that when they called in to report the results in their districts they were told that those figure had already been reported (which is not the way that’s supposed to happen). Some district numbers didn’t even show up in the final results such as all but one town in Waldo County. Washington county has been told their caucus won’t even count and they are not pleased about it. Could the Maine decision be reversed like Iowa? Could Ron Paul have actually won Maine?

The suspicion that the Republican party is rushing Mitt Romney towards nomination regardless of caucus or primary results is growing in Maine. Washington County’s caucus is going on right now. None of Maine’s delegates will be seated until in March so Maine has time to iron out the discrepancies. But the interesting thing here is that reversals like the one in Iowa have never taken place before. If Maine is reversed, then having two reversals in one campaign says something about the state of the Republican primary.

A request has been made to have the Republican State Committee Chair Charlie Webster censured by the Waldo County. Others have called for his removal as happened with Iowa’s chair.

This whole issue probably won’t have a great effect on the primary as a whole, certainly not if it isn’t resolved before Super Tuesday, but it does shed some light on how the outdated caucus system is rife with inaccuracies.

FFFridays have been taking a back seat these days as the ongoing Republican primary eats up the news cycles. But the political arena has been pretty entertaining. But let’s see what else there has been to talk about.

The biggest news this past week was the death of Whitney Houston. I was working at a record store when her first album came out (yep, her first album came out on vinyl). That should give you an idea of my age, if anything. The cause of death hasn’t been released but I suspect, given her propensity for drug use in the past that toxicology reports will reveal an accidental overdose; perhaps even drowning since she was found in a tub. Millions of greiving fans are expected to watch the funeral on live feed.

On a related note, Headline News’ Nancy Grace has received a great deal of criticism for her ridiculous witch hunting over Houston’s death. I cannot tolerate watching one minute of Grace’s shrill, self-righteous rants. Calls for CNN to dump her have thankfully and finally grown louder.

Speaking of which, I find I can’t really tolerate much about CNN these days anyway. Is it just me, or do all of the anchors on CNN act like conservative robots? It’s like watching old black and white movies; the cadence and tone seem really artificial (did people really talk like that back in the twenties and thirties?). Jon Stewart has been skewering CNN on The Daily Show as well.

Anything else that needs mentioning, arguing about, or commenting on? Please feel free to drop a comment in the comment section below.

Related articles

• Chez Pazienza: An Open Letter to CNN Regarding Nancy Grace (huffingtonpost.com)

Going off the rails on a crazy train

The Republican party has been in a steady decline since 2008 like a junkie deeply in denial; flailing about looking for ways to keep the high going. The primary campaign is the embarrassing theatrical manifestation of the downward spiral of a party long out of touch but unable and unwilling to accept that the ways of the past are no longer going to work.

Not that they ever did. People once believed that Reaganomics sounded feasible and there are aspects that are still relevant. For example there is nothing wrong with the concept of smaller, leaner government as opposed to a bloated, lethargic, wasteful bureaucratic pile of red tape. But the trickle down theory has all but been disproved. Yet like Milton Friedman; ever the optimist, many conservatives believe that if you just keep trying the same old tax cuts for the rich strategy, it will eventually yield bountiful results.

And it does yield a bountiful harvest, just not for everyone. Conservatives have been crying that there is a redistribution of wealth going on in the economy. They’ve branded it ‘class warfare’. The implication of this accusation is that the unwashed, undeserving poor are beating at the gates of the ‘job creators’ who richly deserve every penny they’ve inherited earned. There has, indeed, been a redistribution of wealth happening but it has been from the bottom up to the top 1%.

Conservatives also believe that environmental and financial regulations are designed and being wielded solely for the purpose of robbing them of the opportunity to generate wealth. Even though there is demonstrable proof that our environment is cleaner and regulation of markets usually ferrets out those who will abuse market rules as a result.

Something curious is happening as a result of Reagan’s thirty year old experiment: the American public has begun to realize that it’s been a big lie all along. And boy are they pissed.

How have the Republicans dealt with it?

Republican Party lands in New Jersey. "Oh the humanity"

First they did nothing. In fact, they went out of their way to make sure nothing was done at all hoping to paint the administration that the American people had overwhelmingly voted into office as ineffective.

Then, a faction of conservative voters split off and formed an angry group. They likened themselves to the original patriots who resisted British imperialism and staged a raid in Boston Harbour to protest taxation without representation. Today’s Tea Party is a group of disgruntled mostly older white people who are clinging to some archaic (and nostalgically inaccurate) version of the good ol’ days. Their events started out as well organized pseudo-grassroots events (some were funded by special interest PACs and promoted by FOX News). Many had jingoistic, xenophobic, and even racist overtones. A few people even brought their guns, presumably just in case the British tried to retake America.

The result of all this conservative outrage at the Obama administration; much of it just plain old sore loser hurt feelings, was the 2010 election of a super conservative  Republican freshmen majority in the House of Representatives. This 112th Congress wasted no time taking crazy to a whole new level. Someone figured out how to abuse the time honoured filibuster rule and threats of filibuster by House Republicans and Senators more than quadrupled.

Meanwhile, apparently a memo went out to all the newly elected Republican Governors that the top priority was to emasculate the Democratic electorate by any means necessary and as quickly as possible before President Obama could be re-elected. These Governors proceeded to rush through all manner of laws (that none of them campaigned on) that cut off union rights, changed voter registration laws to disenfranchise certain demographic of voters who traditionally vote Democratic, and changed long standing voter ID laws that would cause voters to spend money in order to vote (otherwise known as a poll tax). Even now several states are embroiled in court battles over gerrymandering; the practice of redistricting in order to unfairly benefit a particular political party. When you can’t win democratically, win dirty.

The results of all of this mucking with the system have been revolt and backlash; particularly in Wisconsin where recalls have been staged and are underway for the Governor and Lt. Governor. Similar backlash is occurring in Ohio, Indiana, Florida, and Michigan where a form of financial martial law has been imposed disbanding entire elected governments of some towns altogether.

Not to be outdone, our Supreme Court narrowly passed Citizens United, the absurd ruling that declares that corporations are people and have the same rights that people are endowed with including freedom of speech. One interpretation of that means that corporations may donate unlimited funds to political campaigns. Even Republicans are beginning to see the folly of that decision as the candidates bloody each other with millions in negative ads funded by a few rich donors. Thanks to Citizens United, our elections are the best that money can buy.

Meanwhile, back in Congress, conservatives; dragged ever further to the right by the Tea Party influence began putting forth all manner of obsolete and pointless social issues on the docket and trying to tack them onto routine bills like the debt ceiling bill. They demanded cuts to everything except the military. They engaged in games of chicken with the budget trying to undermine social safety net programs that even their own constituents and the Tea Party members benefit from all in an attempt to discredit the President. It’s like trying to kill the captain by sinking the ship. In their blind hatred for this administration they were willing to risk burning down the economy of the entire world.

Now that this strategy has failed, they’re back to trying to create a negative perception of the President again by perpetuating the mythos of the foreign secret Muslim Manchurian candidate who is as ineffective as Jimmy Carter. Mitt Romney continues to say that the economy has failed because of Obama (the economy is the strongest ever since it collapsed at the end of the Bush era). Newt Gingrich keeps comparing the President with some dead boogeyman named Saul Alinsky who no one has ever heard of (who turns out to be a fairly interesting guy).

The rest of the conservatives are furiously trying to turn this into some kind of religious crusade by trying to take down Planned Parenthood the backlash of which may the demise of the Susan Komen Foundation, the leading organization for breast cancer prevention. And Rick Santorum is even running on a platform of trying to outlaw birth control!

This whole conservative, knee-jerk bout of paranoia is simply a resistance to the change that President Obama was elected to bring about. It’s no different from the delusional paranoid wave of fear that swept the country when Joe McCarthy brought on the red spectre of communism in the fifties. It was wrong then and it is wrong now. In both cases personal ideology based upon fear is being abused to subvert democracy.

The same remedy for the McCarthy era must be applied today: those responsible for perpetuating the fear must be removed from power. The Republican party has lost its soul and needs to spend some time in the wilderness trying to break the fever until the madness subsides.

In the meantime, this country needs to look forward.

Related articles

• Has the Right Gone Mad? (athomesense.wordpress.com)
• New Poll Finds Republicans in ‘State of Collapse’ (littlegreenfootballs.com)
• Republicans’ Reality TV Politics (mykeystrokes.com)
• James Peron: Do Republicans Have a Death Wish? (huffingtonpost.com)
• Poll: Republicans on Verge of Political Death (usnews.com)

Mitt at the prom

Following the caucuses in Minnesota, Colorado, and the non-binding straw poll in Missouri, it seems despite the party line ‘inevitability’ meme that the honeymoon is over. Mitt was on his best behaviour. He brought flowers, opened the doors, pulled out the chairs, ordered the right wine, everything a good first date should do. But in the end, we just weren’t all that impressed.

So we’ve been seeing other guys on the side. They haven’t been all that impressive either. We had some bad boys. That Gingrich guy, for example. He’s all tough talking and whatnot. But we couldn’t trust him as far as he could be thrown (which isn’t far). Besides, we’d be competing with his girl; the replicant escapee from the Tyrell Corporation.

We had a fling with the good ol’ boy from Texas and that went nowhere pretty fast. We tried the black guy and the girl, too just to get it out of our system. But Mama always told us to go with the good Christian boys so no offense, Mitt, we’re just not that into you even if you are rich.

Mitt Romney needs some serious rebranding if he intends to keep his campaign alive. Polling for Santorum after his big wins in the last three races has him ahead of Romney in Michigan, a state that was supposed to be a no brainer for Romney since he was born in Detroit. But it turns out that on a county by county basis, Detroit is the only part of Michigan that is going for Romney.

And it’s not just in Michigan. Romney’s favourables nationwide have plummeted since the beginning of 2012 while his unfavourables have blown through the roof. But the question that still lingers is isn’t this the trend we’ve already become accustomed to? Santorum isn’t the first candidate to propose a direct threat to Mitt Romney in the polls. In fact, aside from Ron Paul and Jon Huntsman, Santorum is the last candidate to threaten Romney’s 25 -30% range in the polls.

Romney barely squeaked by with Maine with Ron Paul contesting the outcome claiming that Romney essentially stole Maine from him and there is some evidence to support that claim. Nothing at this point is a lock. Arizona and Michigan are coming up at the end of the month. Romney was expected to do well in both but if Santorum takes Michigan, Super Tuesday could be interesting. It’s ironic to see pundits telling Newt Gingrich to exit the race and get behind Santorum when it was Newt making the same proclamation to Santorum after South Carolina.

We can’t leave out Washington’s caucus, either. Some reports indicate that there may be a mass Ron Paul push from Democrats, independents, and Ron Paul Zombies alike in the open caucus just before Super Tuesday.

Think of Super Tuesday as the prom. Mitt asked us to go to it some months back and it’s his last chance to woo us with his charm, handsomeness, and money. Mama may be right, though. We may have to dump him for the nice religious boy.

Related articles

• It’s Rick Santorum vs. Mitt Romney in Michigan as Santorum takes big lead (dailykos.com)
• Santorum Up in Ohio Poll, Eyes Super Tuesday (usnews.com)
• Poll: Santorum jumps in Arizona (politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com)

The Republican caucus in the state of Maine is a curious affair. It’s been going on for a few days now in a rolling county by county caucus that ends tonight. It gives Mainers plenty of time to make decisions. The hardest part is keeping the results from districts that have already voted a secret.

The one interesting thing about Maine is that it could be a win for Ron Paul. And why not? Everybody else has a notch in their belts. Paul has been campaigning vigourously there and Mainers are notoriously Libertarian in their political veiws. Plus Paul got 18% of the vote in 2008 and he’s been outperforming expectations this year in almost every race; certainly every caucus. That’s why he looks so happy in his second place speeches.

But is a Maine victory for Paul a possibility? It’s not out of the realm of possibility. The closest competitor is Mitt Romney who fared we’ll in Maine in 2008 but given his recent defeats in Minnesota, Colorado, and Missouri it’s entirely possible that the Romney brand is damaged and Maine will be the first Ron Paul state.

That will really throw a monkey wrench into the machinery.

.

Santorum after winning Colorado

If Rick Santorum’s victory last night proved anything, it’s that the Repubublican primary is anything but predictable. But just how big of a win was it? As mentioned previously, Missouri is considered a ‘beauty contest’, and a rather expensive one at that. It cost Missouri taxpayers $7,000,000 to hold a primary that didn’t have any delegates. Needless to say, many of the citizens of the Show-Me state were a little less enthusiastic about the contest as a result.

But why do something as silly as hold a primary that doesn’t count and then a caucus at a later date to award delegates? In reality, all three of the races last night were ‘non-binding’. That means that they don’t count. All of the delegates are to be awarded later and since they aren’t bound by any criteria they don’t have to cast their support for one candidate or the other. This gives them an out in the event the candidate that wins the primary eventually drops out and they can roll their support behind a remaining candidate (for example Santorum could be out of the race by the time March 17th rolls around).

So, technically speaking, Rick Santorum didn’t win much of anything last night except a symbolic victory since no delegates will be officially added to his side of the ledger until March.

This peculiar arrangement is a result of the changing rules set forth by the RNC and the recent spate of states breaking those rules. The RNC made the rules in an effort to randomize the voting and spread the contest out over a greater period so that voters in every state would have a chance to meet the candidates in preparation for the election in November. States like Florida hve been particularly egregious about breaking the RNC’s rules and jumping ahead in the primary. The penalty for doing so has been to cost them half of their delegates. It may also revoke thier winner-take-all status and distribute their delegates proportionally.

To avoid these penalties, Missouri tried a ‘Missouri compromise’ of sorts by moving their caucus date into compliance but their legislature failed to act quickly enough to move the primary back.

Does that mean this was a loss for Santorum? Absolutely not. It was, in fact, a stinging rebuke to Mitt Romney. Romney not only lost contests he wasn’t expected to lose, he lost them by significant margins. Now voter perception is that Santorum is an A-list player. He and Romney have three wins apiece. Indeed the biggest loser is Newt Gingrich, who also lost badly in these contests (and wasn’t even on the ballot in one race). Gingrich chose to spend his time in Ohio where he holds on to the lead in the polls.

All of this is indicative of the utter state of disarray that the Republican party is in. It’s arguable that Romney’s campaign did so badly because they got complacent. It’s also apparent that Gingrich was sloppy and careless in the beginning and that kept him off the ballots in Virginia and Missouri (infairness, Santorum made a clerical error that kept him off the ballot in Indiana).

What does this bode for the future? Most likely a prolonged race. But hopefully this was the last ‘Missouri compromise’.

Tampa Bay awaits the Republican Convention

The fifth Republican primary/caucus just wrapped up in Nevada With Mitt Romney taking his third win. While Romney is generally considered to be the presumptive nominee, Newt Gingrich seems determined to stay in the race just for spite. Ron Paul will likely stay in as well and has a good chance of garnering more support than he did in 2008, particularly in light of his over-performance of expectations in Nevada. We’ve pointed out before that Paul is really running on the Republican ticket as a Libertarian candidate in disguise.

We’ve also surmised that Santorum will eventually have to drop out either because of funding or an abandonment of support. For the purposes of this exercise, let’s say that Santorum is banking on good results by Super Tuesday and absent that will be forced to drop out afterwards.

There is enough data available already to make an extremely rough calculation of the final outcome if these circumstances were to remain unchanged until the last caucuses/primaries in June. Given these circumstances, factoring in regional influences, and projecting percentages of previous races onto future races, we can make a rough picture of how many delegates each candidate would have by the end of primary season. Similar to a fantasy football match.

(Note: This scenario is unlikely to happen because it would be handled long before it could ever come to pass. The Republican party would step in and start making deals with the trailing candidates to drop out and encourage their delegates to get behind Romney to ensure that there is a definitive candidate for the convention.)

Currently; depending on which network’s metric is used (this is CNN’s*), the delegate allocation as of Nevada is as follows:

• Mitt Romney     95 delegates (65%)
• Newt Gingrich  30 delegates (20%)
• Rick Santorum  13 delegates (9%)
• Ron Paul            10 delegates (7%)

Percentage breakdowns will be influenced by:

1. Past Performance
2. Regional conditions
3. Proportional or non-proportional allocation
4. Open or closed voting
5. Bound or Unbound conditions are not taken into consideration

So, 538Refugees is ready to make an early prediction: Mitt Romney will effectively have the nomination wrapped up by the Missouri caucus on March 17th**.

Here’s the logic behind the argument (download the spread sheet below to play along):

• Identify the remaining states that are winner-take-all for Romney.
• Of the remaining states that have winner-take-all but with a threshold, identify which candidates will meet the threshold and eliminate the others. Allocate the delegates proportionally (this is where I used quite a bit of gut feeling but suffice to say, Mitt got the higher percentage, Newt the next, and Paul got a bump in states with open primaries).
• Assume Santorum is out after Super Tuesday and give his delegates to Gingrich.

Even if anybody else placed in or after the Missouri caucus, no one could catch Romney unless he lost every contest until June. And since Gingrich didn’t even get on the ballot in Missouri, it appears that will be his Waterloo (sorry, Iowa).

Even for the sake of argument, let’s say Rick Santorum stayed in the race. If we continue with the same formula, the race would only be prolonged until April 3rd when Romney would mop the floor with Maryland, Wisconsin, and D.C. no matter how well anyone else performed in Texas.

So download the spread sheet below and play with the figures. See what other outcomes are possible. For now, it looks like the general campaign begins in mid-March.

* NBC’s delegate count differs. Also, it isn’t yet clear whether or not Florida’s delegates will be forced to be proportional or not. It’s also assumed Jon Huntsman’s two delegates will go to Romney.

** The March 17th Missouri caucus is not the same as the February 7th Missouri ‘beauty pageant’ primary. Only the delegates from the caucus are sent to the convention.

Primary Caucus Calendar 2012-3

Related articles

• Gingrich’s Southern revival strategy (cnn.com)

No real surprise here. Mitt Romney glides to victory in first place. He’s polling at twice as much as Newt Gingrich who will come in second. Romney has something of a home field advantage in Nevada with his Mormon background. While Mormons make up only 7% of the population in Nevada, they make up 26% of the Republican electorate. In 2008, an astonishing 95% of them voted for Romney. He easily won Nevada with 51% of Republican voters.

This year should be no different. Even Romney alienated a large portion of the rest of the Republican electorate he could probably still win just on the Mormon vote alone. This scenario will probably play out the same in Arizona later this month for the same reasons. Romney’s success in neighboring Utah with the 2002 Olympics should buy him a little love among non-Mormons as well. Even without the absurdity of the quickie endorsement by Donald Trump yesterday.

More interesting in this race is the third place candidate, Ron Paul. Paul is polling about the same percent as he did in 2008 as well. But could he exceed it? Santorum has already left the state to focus his efforts elsewhere and Gingrich, while polling at 25%, still remains a volatile question mark. Paul’s efforts in the state could potentially siphon off some of their votes. It is a caucus state and they are known to behave oddly (the author of this piece having run a caucus in the 2008 Democratic campaign). Paul is counting on enthusiasm to get people to show up at caucuses where the turnout is typically lower than in primary states. Is it possible that Paul could upset Gingrich?

And don’t forget; Ron Paul has the endorsement of The Mustang Ranch bordello.

We’ll know tomorrow night if that made a difference.