Three sources close to Republican Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana tell CNN they are told he will announce he is not running for president in 2012 and will instead begin exploring a run for governor.
These sources say he has been flattered by the efforts to nudge him into the GOP presidential race but, as one of the sources put it, “he is a realist and kept coming back to questions about the fund-raising.” The second source said some around Pence also have reminded him of the difficulty of mounting a presidential campaign from the House, and noted that, at age 51, he would have a better platform to explore a presidential run if he first was elected governor.
There is a fair amount of disappointment in the CPAC community over this today but I think this is a great development. The easiest way for a non-conservative to win the Republican primary is for too many strong conservatives splitting the vote. I suspect that some good conservatives who have no prayer of winning are going to find themselves well-financed early by people who want that vote divided to allow an establishment candidate some space. That’s how you win a nomination with only 35-40% of the vote.
I think this is good news for us. Of course we haven’t heard the actual announcement so this could all be smoke.
Can someone tell me where this move to the center is?
Since the election every network (except Fox of course) has one word for the president: “centrist”, “centrist” “centrist”. Son of Journolist lives!
Correct me if I’m wrong, but the President made one deal to avoid an embarrassing defeat concerning taxes. That’s it.
If the White House didn’t make that deal, democrats would have gotten all the blame for a tax debacle while letting Republicans get the credit for it for the solution.
Where is the move to the center? Where is this BS coming from? Are people uninformed enough to believe it?
It’s clear that this is the template that the White House/Democratic Party/MSM has embraced to prepare the ground for 2012 but in a world where social networks allow us to bypass these sources, can they convince the public to buy it?
If we do, or if we don’t, we will get the government we deserve.
That’s from Hot Air. Before we get to just about every other bloggers comment in the world here is what I think is driving this:
#1 Comcast:
I have Comcast, A lot of cities have Comcast, Comcast is buying NBC. That means that every conservative who is giving money to Comcast was paying for Olbermann’s show. Can you say Verizon FIOS? O’Donnell and Maddow and Matthews and Schultz all have their moments but none of them have the reputation for outrageousness that Olbermann did. This is in my opinion a preemptive move because the next time Olbermann said something really stupid and insulting the people who would be sending angry e-mails would be in a position to vote with their wallets and Verizon would happily help them along.
#2 Triangulation:
The very act of removing Olbermann creates a (albeit temporary) split between the far left and MSNBC. Since MSNBC is part of the democratic spin machine (and lets not pretend it is not, the public certainly knows it) the removal of Olbermann is a signal of a more “moderate” tone. Democrats need not actually do anything different. The simple tone that will be quoted on blogs and papers changes at once. Additionally it allows democrats to differentiate themselves between “the Keith Olbermanns of the left” and their own calm moderate selves (HA). I suspect (as I have read NO BLOG on this as I type) the reaction of the Far left will be hyper enough to provide the separation that Democrats desire.
That being said how to replace him? After all one needs to compete with O’Reilly on FOX and you don’t want there to be a mass exodus to Parker and Spitzer on CNN (of course the quality of Parker and Spitzer being what it is helps to lighten that fear). I need to find a person just as partisan, and just as socialist as Olbermann who is pragmatic enough to tailor his message to aid the white house and democrats over the next two years. If I am a democrat worrying about 2012 who is the person I want in that chair ….
#3 Selling the democratic message
…to sell my bill of goods? I want Lawrence O’Donnell. O’Donnell is a true believer, admitting on air that he is a socialist. Don’t think for one moment that Lawrence O’Donnell isn’t the Obama/DNC Choice for the MSNBC 8 p.m. slot. O’Donnell for all his PITAness is one of the most politically astute people on the left. He is a hyper-partisan but is pragmatic enough to give blunt advice to democrats when it comes to political reality. Think of him as Olbermann with self control, insider political experience and brains. He can be on Morning Joe and can sound reasonable. Look at this video again:
here is the money quote:
I Glenn (Greenwald) unlike you, am not a progressive, I am not a liberal, who is so afraid of the word that I have to change my name to “progressive”. Liberals amuse me. I am a socialist. I live to the extreme left of your mere liberals, OK? But I know this about my country: Liberals are 20% of the electorate, conservatives are 41% of the electorate OK. So I don’t pretend that my views which would ban all guns in America make medicare available to all in American, have any chance of happening in the Federal Government. Ok you can sit there and pretend that liberals should run more liberal in conservative districts, the reason, you love the loss of the blue dogs, ..the only way you have a Chairman Barney Frank, there is only one way, that’s by electing Blue Dogs! It’s the only way you have a Speaker Pelosi. all emphasis mine
As Rush Limbaugh has said over and over again, liberals can only win if they hide who they are. O’Donnell gets it. His goal is to help the democratic party seem moderate so that he can get a Chairman Barney Frank and a Speaker Pelosi and advance the agenda that he and the Democratic party shares.
He is MUCH more dangerous to the right than Olbermann, and when the far left understands that they will come back and embrace him.
This may be a feel good moment on the right but O’Donnell will hurt us more on MSNBC that Olbermann ever did. He will not just speak to the true believers, he will put a moderate face on and persuade people ( who want to be persuaded ) that the democratic agenda is something it is not. For democrats this is all about 2012.
The Cable Gamer can’t help but think that two big events in the news: The FCC’s approval of Comcast’s takeover of NBCU, and Jeff Immelt’s ascension as the Obama administration’s favorite corporate stooge, have something to do with this.
This would actually be a really smart move in an economic sense. It would grab the far left who would migrate out of spite giving them the chance to shift the 8 p.m. audience numbers. But in the sense of helping elect democrats in 2012, it would be a bad move so it will not happen.
Considering his sins during the primary season of 2008, including his blatant sexism and over the top critiques of Hillary Clinton, with no actions except to be banned from some broadcasts and replaced by David Gregory, I can’t imagine what grievous sin he committed that caused it to happen now.
Taylor Taylor Taylor those actions helped The One. Now his actions hurt The One. Get with the program.
Oh, and “NBC executives said one term of his settlement will keep him from moving to another network for an extended period of time,” the Times’ Bill Carter adds.
I have told you this before: I am reliably informed that he is an OK guy in person, and the TV person is an act. He sure as hell acts different when he fills in for Warren Olney on the “Which Way L.A.?” radio show.
Remember Danny DeVito in Taxi? He made a good living pretending to be a pain.
Today begins either the second half of the Obama presidency or the end of the first quarter of the Obama presidency.
There are people on the right and the left who think both ways in terms of what is going to happen. Given my years of blogging and following politics I can definitely say this:
Who knows?
Two years ago this president was riding above the clouds, two months ago his party got pounded at the polls. Consider:
We have no idea what new crises will arise.
We don’t know how the republican congress is going to govern.
We don’t know who will win the battle between the tea party wing and the establishment wing of the party.
We don’t know how the democratic senate will act.
We don’t know if Iran will get the bomb…
…or how Israel will react
We don’t know what North Korea will do…
…or China….
…or Russia..
We don’t know if the president will govern in order to get re-elected…
…or to advance his beliefs
We don’t know the results of the Economic crisis in Greece…
Or Spain…
Or Ireland…
Or Portugal.
And we don’t know how the war will go and if the president will continue to try to win it.
None of these things are known and in fact there wasn’t a lot we knew two years ago. So what DO we know?
Only two things really, one that we already did two years ago and one we did not:
We’ve always known you can’t outlaw the business cycle, you can only mess it up a bit. That is and always was true.
What we DO know now that we didn’t before is how the president governs and how he acts in a crisis.
Two years ago a vast majority of the public (and the Nobelcommittee) projected their hopes on this president based only on what they felt having no idea how he would govern.
Now we have seen him in action. We know exactly how he has governed in a crisis. No person making a judgment in a democratic primary or in the general election in 2012 has any excuse for deceiving themselves.
Update 2: Stacy gives another example of how things can change in year.
Update 3:Instalanche via update! Thanks Glenn. Ironically this ‘Lanche brings to mind a post from December 2009 when Charles Johnson was 233 Instalanche’s up on me. It really illustrates Stacy’s point on how things change.
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