Presidential nomination. Obviously.

Also Receiving Votes: Scott Brown, Jeb Bush (too soon, Jeb, too soon), Eric Cantor, Mitch Daniels, Luis Fortuno (it’d be fun to watch *his* star rise), George Pataki, Ron Paul (too old, Ron, too old), Mike Pence, Tom Ridge, Rick Santorum (because what everyone wants is another senator as president), John Thune (ibid.).

Who’s “The Field”? It’s a bunch of people who aren’t really getting much speculation at present, but who are going to decide they might be interested over the next six-to-12 months. Maybe someone like: Jan Brewer, Jim DeMint, Carly Fiorina, Mitch McConnell, Bob McDonnell, Rick Perry, David Petraeus, Condoleezza Rice, Meg Whitman, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson… Possibilities are somewhat endless.

“Obama to Offer Aid for Families in State of the Union Address“, state media the New York Times crows. What, like, in the middle of the address he’s going to write them a check? And how much more useless can the NYT *get*?! This is a news story, not an editorial, and yet we get unattributed statements like “a package of modest initiatives” to describe the speech’s content. By whose measures “modest”? What evidence do we have that the initiatives proposed will be “modest”? That’s not fact, so cite your source.

J-school. I dunno.

Obama: “Because in the end, that’s how Joe and I measure progress — not how the markets are doing, but how the American people are doing.”

I love this Wall Street bashing. It’s so populist and yet so, um, counter-productive. I dunno. Maybe we *should* nationalize every industry known to man. Seems to be working out really-really well for Venezuela. Just ask Magglio Ordonez. And certainly there’s no correlation between the stock market, the economy, and the wellbeing of the American proletariat people.

And this is choice:

Addressing advisers who developed the plans, Mr. Obama tried to frame them as part of his efforts to build what he calls “a new foundation” for the American economy and took credit for creating or saving two million jobs since taking office through his stimulus spending and tax cut program. But he acknowledged that seven million jobs had been lost, which he called “an epidemic that demands our relentless and sustained response.”

So anyone who’s newly employed, that’s down to Obama. Anyone who lost their jobs, well, that’s because of all the bad people. Wall Street, I’d assume. And seriously, the last thing the economy needs is a “relentless and sustained response” from the government.

Here’s how this recovery will eventually work:

1. The government says and does nothing.
2. The private sector realizes that they don’t have to worry about the Dear Leader firing their CEOs, doubling their healthcare costs, declaring their lines of business illegal, nationalizing their industries, giving their competitors blank checks, etc., etc.
3. Confident they understand the rules of the game once again, the private sector makes plans to grow in the next year.
4. Businesses make money, the economy grows.
5. American Families get new jobs, promotions, raises, etc., etc.

That’s the only way recession recoveries ever seem to work. Anything else a politician tells you is grandstanding. Even if the government *could* manage to get some sort of Keynesian multiplier going by throwing its money around, any gain that it gets is just borrowing from the future and that borrowing will be paid back in either taxes or inflation later on. It’s kind of an immutable law. Like physics. And if it stops working, we’re all screwed.

And just to be clear, I’m pretty dang amazed at how blatant especially the NYT is about supporting the current regime:

Mr. Biden rejected criticism that the proposals Mr. Obama was unveiling were relatively small-bore compared with the vast and sweeping measures he pushed during his first year in office. “They’re big-deal things if you’re just able to give some respite for a husband and wife, both working, to give a little bit of help,” Mr. Biden said.

Which is basically the NYT telling you that if you think the government is spending too much, they’re not — this is relatively “small-bore”. But if you’re a lefty and think they’re not spending enough, why, Joe Biden says you’re wrong and you know what a good lefty *he* is.

Hugo Chavez + Benito Mussolini = Barack Obama? It’s a working theory. We’ll see how it plays out all the while keeping in mind that politics are cyclical.

~ ~ ~

So Joe Biden’s son Beau isn’t going to run for senator from Delaware after all, saying “I have a duty to fulfill as attorney general, and the immediate need to focus on a case of great consequence. And that is what I must do.” The case of great consequence is a child molestation case. I mean, I kind of respect his humility; it’s disarming. He thinks the value of himself as US Senator for six years (vs. an average replacement senator) is less than the value of prosecuting one child molestor. Disarming and I don’t necessarily think he’s wrong (unless the guy’s not guilty, then…).

OTOH, I think it’s an interesting indication of how pundits are always more alarmist than they ought to be. As is anyone with a mouth at some point. There were accusations a few weeks ago — prior to the Brown Revolution in Mass — that the Dems had several “legacy seats” that were being kept warm by placeholders until rightful heirs like Beau could assume them. I mean, stuff happens, things change, it’s a rich tapestry, and so on. It’s like when you’re watching a college football game, one team goes up by two touchdowns in the third quarter, and the commentators start talking about the game like it’s over already — which makes it *so much more interesting* when the opponent then comes back to tie the game in the fourth. It’s like that.

It’s also like the bastard Economist, which condescended to tell us backwoodsy Americans back in ‘07-08 that our democracy was fundamentally broken because once Hilary Clinton became president, we’d have effectively restored hereditary rule to our fair shores. I mean, sure, our democracy is fundamentally broken, but not for *that* reason.

~ ~ ~

Marketing. Marketing is the reason. Or, better said, humanity’s susceptibility to marketing.

Prove me wrong.

~ ~ ~

Stories like this one (thanks, LA Times!) about serial letter-writer “Ellie Light” are what make the Internet (thanks, Al Gore!) all worthwhile. It’s the whole story that’s interesting, not the post on the LAT. The LAT post is a good compilation though. Just clarifying.

~ ~ ~

Colorado’s Nazis are showing a kinder, gentler side by purifying cleaning state highways (thanks, DenPo).

~ ~ ~

I almost entered “stove-top hat” for the headline, but fortunately thought to look that up first. OTOH, maybe there *should* be such a thing. Maybe I can get rich off it.

Newt Gingrich, Georgia
Supporters: Old-School Republicans, Cranky People, Readers of Military Fantasy Fiction, FoxNews
Detractors: Consensus-Builders, Big Government Republicans
Comment: Has said (in effect) that he has no intention of running for president, but that he’ll consider doing so in 2012. He’s essentially Ronald Reagan without all that debilitating charisma and has always looked better (to Republicans) on paper than in person.

Mike Huckabee, Arkansas
Supporters: Flat-Earthers, Dinosaur Denialists, People Who Hate Mormons, Preachy Big-Government Types
Detractors: Scientists, Anthropologists, Mormons, Libertarians, Those Who Have Never Spoken in Tongues
Comment: Wouldn’t have thought he’d have been a viable candidate in 08 either, but did a passable job of depriving Mitt Romney’s campaign of oxygen. Hard to imagine a former Southern Baptist minister being the leader of the free world — but come 2012 the world may not really want to be all that free anyway.

Bobby Jindal, Louisiana
Supporters: Multi-culturalists, Catholics, American Dream Romanticists, Moralists, Anti-Tax People
Detractors: Civil Libertarians, Darwinists, Anti-Youthists
Comment: You get the sense that the GOP wants Jindal to be some sort of conservative Obama. You also get the sense that he’s only 36 and not above pandering to evangelicals. Just a sense. And frankly, aside from being not-white, he doesn’t seem like he’s done anything very special. Actually, not being white isn’t “doing” anything either. But he’s definitely not white.

Sarah Palin, Alaska
Supporters: Russia Denialists, Big Oil, Pageant Winners Everywhere, Religious Types
Detractors: Both Republican Environmentalists, Foreign Policy Wonks
Comment: She’d be the first president to have college-transferred four different times before getting her bachelor’s degree, so she’d have that going for her.

David Petraeus, New Hampshire
Supporters: Military Strategists, People Who Think Being PotUS is All About Counter-Insurgency, Eisenhowerists
Detractors: People Who Think a Candidate Should Have Some Stated Positions or at Least Say They Have Some Interest in Politics Before Being Considered a Candidate
Comment: OTOH: war hero!

Tim Pawlenty, Minnesota
Supporters: Alliterationists (Headline: “President Pawlenty Pulls Pollsters Perfectly!”), Both Republican Environmentalists, Big-Government Republicans
Detractors: Small-Government Types, Pro-Corporatists
Comment: More electable than Republican, Pawlenty comes across as a smiling so-called moderate who’s all about making compromises and getting things done that people think they want to have done. Probably plays better to the locals than he does to the idealists, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing if the objective is to get “elected”.

Condoleezza Rice, California
Supporters: Both Hawkish Academics
Detractors: Jilted Pac-10 Members, Isolationists
Comment: It’s hard to imagine anyone carrying the Taint of the W will be a serious contender in ‘12, but then again, four years is a long time. Maybe not long enough to make people forget her flip-flop from being an anti-US-as-police-force powerhouse to being a leading proponent of Iraq intervention, but still: long time. Her few published statements on matters of domestic policy make her look less like just another Neo-Con.

Tom Ridge, Pennsylvania
Supporters: Neo-Cons, Terror Paranoiacs, Blue-Bloods
Detractors: Libertarians (when, as a pubbican, you give up 13 points to the Constitution Party in your gubernatorial election, well…)
Comment: Sort of a war hero, but, more importantly, from a state with a lot of electoral votes. Also important: seems like he might actually be *retired* from politics.

Mitt Romney, Massachutah
Supporters: Venture Capitalists, Mormons, Paul of Tarsus Devotees, Both Massachusetts Republicans
Detractors: Effective Campaign Planners, People Who Hate Mormons
Comment: Given that his primary skill is as an astute businessman, having his 08 campaign derailed by a desire to run away from his weaknesses rather than run toward his strengths might make one wonder if he’s not so much an astute businessman as he is a fairly fortunate one.

Mark Sanford, South Carolina
Supporters: Old-School Republicans, Anti-Beltwayists
Detractors: Neocons, Big-Government Moralists, Welfare Staters
Comment: An electable Ron Paul? Possibly neither, but his insistence on foregoing federal stimulus moneys would have to make him bona fide in the eyes of any remaining small-government pubbicans.

John Thune, South Dakota
Supporters: Both SoDak Residents, Big Rail, Corn Farmers, American Conservative Unionists
Detractors: People Who Recognize that Corn-Based Ethanol Is an Awful Idea, Darwinists
Comment: On the one hand, he did defeat tax-dodging Tom Daschle to become senator. On the other hand, I don’t know that anyone has heard anything out of him since.

Eh — that’s good enough. Next time around, we’ll do some power rankings around these fine, upstanding titans of clowndom and make believe that it’s somehow sensible to talk about their stock rising and falling when we’re two years away from any of them even acknowledging that there’s even going to be an election in 2012.

-bkd