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In order to keep up with the nature of free, spirited debate, I wanted to place the chat feature at the top of the homepage. This ensures people can come here and share their views on anything they wish and not have it be related to any specific discussion. Here, people can share ideas, links, and views "unmoderated" and an their own pace. To me, this makes The Elephant in the Room blog truly a place for debate.

Thursday, January 12, 2012

South Carolina Primary - January 21st, 2012

Our blog is all about sharing ideas and information. We hope everyone finds the following Twitter tags helpful:

#SCPrimary #SC #SouthCarolina #SouthCarolinaPrimary

We wanted to get this forum up early. South Carolina is pivotal; it tends to be, for lack of a better word... correct :-). It is also very different compared to Iowa and New Hampshire. Candidates like Rick Perry, who had a dismal showing in moderate/libertarian New Hampshire, expect to garner significantly more votes. Newt Gingrich, who represented the South Carolina border state of Georgia in Congress, expects a large showing as well.

Questions:

- First and foremost: Does Mitt go 3 for 3? We have asked this in our week-long LME poll on the right.
- Will voters turn out for Newt, Perry and Huntsman?
- How will Ron Paul do in a state with a smaller libertarian population?
- Will anyone drop out prior to the primary?
- List who finishes where.

All other comments, opinions, analysis, etc. are welcomed. Thank you.

14 comments:

  1. I'm actually Newt fan, but realistically, this election is Romney's to lose. I don't think his showing will be as slim as people say. My predictions:

    Romney: 31%
    Newt: 25%
    Santorum:14%
    Perry: 11%
    Paul 10%
    Perry: 8%
    Others: 1%

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    1. I think you are wrong....at least I am praying you are.

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    2. Thank you for your input. What do you think will happen? Do you have a percentage breakdown?

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  2. This is a tough one. I WANT to say that Mitt will lose as I guess I'm a Mitt hater - I just feel like they guy is more desirous of the presidency for prestige rather than doing the right thing(s) which I'm not sure he is capable of doing. I can't possibly see how the guy can run on a jobs platform as his knowledge base is more on divesting of jobs than creating them. I also find it hard to believe that Americans want to rule by apparent force as Romney insinuated when he said something along the lines of 'we'll have a military so big nobody will dare challenge us'. I think he loses his chance at alot of independent voters on that one as war fatigue settles in with everyone but the far right. Quite frankly, I'm tired of elitists like Romney and W using the military like they're playing a game of Risk. The Bush's didn't serve and neither have the Romney's yet Bush proved and Romney talks like they can't wait to send the military out to jeopardize the lives of young Americans. It's another reason I like Paul and Huntsman... they truly get the consequences of war - they understand it is real and has real affects of the lives of Americans and the economy.

    I do think though that the negative ads that will be run in SC will benefit Paul and Santorum the most (assuming Santorum doesn't take part in the negativity). It seems that Perry and Gingrich will be the ones slinging the most mud. I think Bain is going to hurt Romney and I also believe his shot at Huntsman will hurt him (or it should). I don't know how Romney can say that about Huntsman and then be the guy who says he will unite the parties... I think the word for someone like that is HYPOCRITE!!!

    I am, reluctantly, going to predict a Romney will win at which point Perry, Huntsman and Gingrich will leave the race with Gingrich endorsing Santorum.

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  3. whatsamattausa - thank you for your well-thought prediction.

    You probably know this, but I respectfully disagree with you on the Bain capital opinion. Without getting deep into a PE/venture capital discussion, as someone who studied it, I don't think the press is being very fair. They are headlining absolute junk to people who have no idea what this field is (I'm not saying you are in this group). With PE, there are risks. In short, you win some, you lose some. Companies like Bain tend to help more than they hurt. Looking at this report by the WSJ: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204331304577140850713493694.html and the hard numbers in it (again, without going too deep into the quantitative stuff), qualitatively, they did pretty well. Yes, some lost their jobs, many gained jobs and many jobs were retained. I don't like the media's argument that Mitt Romney is even and greedy and corrupt. All that being said, of course, we do not yet endorse any one candidate; I/we just want to live in a world of truth and fact.

    I respect your views on militarism. I might disagree with them (a little) but I do definitely see your side and where you're coming from.

    As far as the prediction, you might be right. I honestly can't see Santorum sticking around. You have made a bold one. I like it! Any stab at the %age of votes?

    Hope all is well!

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  4. LME - I'm not saying press is being but neither were the swift boat attacks against Kerry and that took him down. I don't think this will have quite the same impact but I do believe he'll see a downward tick.

    BTW - I just came across this and the numbers, especially for Paul, are interesting (I'd categorize Paul's numbers as impressive and perhaps concerning for the mainstream candidates). In the link below, you will see that Romney has a slight downward tick while Gingrich (surprisingly) saw an even smaller upward tick. Ron Paul's momentum appears to be spectacular while I'm VERY surprised about Santorum's nose diving poll numbers (i though he'd collect the southern evangelicals).

    http://americanresearchgroup.com/pres2012/primary/rep/sc/

    As a side note, I wonder if Romney's 'military so big no one would dare challenge it' declaration has folks running to Paul... just a thought!

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  5. AND THEN THERE WERE FOUR! How does this affect the race?

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  6. Newt has this locked up.

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  7. I agree with the above poster, that this is more of a prestige thing with Mitt and wants to please Ann (make her first lady) as someone who has everything...why not the presidency. Mitt did not win Iowa by the way as the final count put Santorum first. Mitt has been lukewarm throughout this campaign and I believe he will not be able to beat Obama and so that puts Gingrich as our only hope. He is a very intelligent man with great conviction for this country as well as an excellent debater. He would be able to put Obama in his place.

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    1. Thank you for your opinion. While we at The Elephant in the Room do not yet endorse one candidate, yes, we do think that Newt is incredibly smart and a great debater. I'm just afraid he is too smart for Americans. Do you think young voters, for example, will vote for an old white guy with white hair and a first name of "Newt?" It's sad that we even have to talk about this, but I don't have much faith in American voters. This is how they vote. It's based on looks, names, how hip they are, etc. hence why Obama won in 2008 :-)

      Thank you again, and I hope we hear back from you.

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  8. Mitt can't be 3 for 3. The official results of the Iowa Caucus showed Rick Santorum as the real winner. Mitt has only won 1 state so far.

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    1. Thank you for you stopping by. We published this post on Thursday, January 12th, well before Iowa announced Santorum won. We apologize for the inconvenience. I hope you stop by to share your opinions again!

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  9. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  10. The first time I heard of Obama I could not figure out why a man with no record would ever be elected. As things developed I learned to be very leery of him. This has turned to outright distrust. I fear for the direction the country will go should he be reelected. However, I fear him less than I do Gingrich who has had ethics violations, extramarital affairs as well as other lapses in judgment that led to his meltdown years ago. Should he become the nominee I may be forced to vote for his opponent. That would be a terrible outcome.

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