Wednesday, March 2, 2011

And We're Off...

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is set to dip his pinky toe into the waters of a Presidential run Thursday by announcing the formation of an exploratory committee- officially getting the race for the 2012 Republican nomination underway.

I suppose someone had to get this show on the road- so why not Newt? Everything seems to have been moving behind the scenes for the past few months, so it'll be refreshing to get some actual debating and campaigning going on. I'm not saying I'm particularly wild about the Republicans- there seems to be a populist-radical streak emerging in me these past few months that's getting wider. I don't just want to rein in public sector costs and unions- I want to cut sweetheart deals for big business. (The Quiet Man twigged me to this link, which shows that Iowa taxpayers subsidized $43 million in research to corporations last year that paid NO TAXES whatsoever. WTF? I don't think so..)

But what's interesting is that there's no clear front runner- and everyone's got some baggage. Romney is organized and has cash in the bank, but he also passed his own version of ObamaCare when Governor of Massachutsetts that included an individual mandate- which is going to be Kryptonite to any Republican this cycle. Barbour doesn't have a good national profile and has made some dubious comments on growing up in the South back in the day. Pawlenty is trying, but again, I'm not sure he's going to have people jumping up and down in excitement anytime soon. Palin is lurking- but Palin also has a lot of expectations to confound. And Newt? Well he's so 1995.

It's going to be interesting. Especially when you consider this.

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