[Posted by Karl] Today is the Florida primary, which most expect to be won by Mitt Romney. While we await those results this evening, it is worth reflecting on the other primary Romney essentially sews up today : the invisible primary. Yesterday , I referred to the GOP apparat — and some of the response was to have a little fun with the idea, or to express weariness with debates about the “GOP establishment.” Such responses are understandable. After all, the Republican Party is not a conspiracy. Moreover, post-1968 reforms took presidential nominations out of the hands of party bosses and into the hands of caucus and primary voters, right? At the very least, it placed the process more in the hands of candidates and their campaigns, yes? Some political scientists think it is more complex than that. For example, in The Party Decides , Marty Cohen, David Karol, Hans Noel, and John Zaller argue the rise of the invisible primary still gives the party control of presidential nominations: The invisible primary is essentially a long-running national conversation among members of each party coalition about who can best unite the party and win the next presidential election. The conversation occurs in newspapers, on Sunday morning television talk shows, among activist friends over beer, in chatter at party events, and, most recently, in the blogosphere. *** *** Some voices obviously count for more than others in the invisible primary, but anyone can join in simply by paying attention, attending party gatherings, and chiming in. The weighting of voices is determined by the resources (money, labor, expertise, prestige) the speaker can bring to party business and by the cogency of the remarks offered. Politics enters as well: pressure to go along with one’s group, to get on the bandwagon of the likely winner, or to repay old obligations. But the main business of the invisible primary is figuring out who can best unify the party and win the fall election. Note the authors’ definition of the party extends beyond its elected officials and party functionaries, but extends to activists, fundraisers, interest groups, campaign technicians and others. As Jay Cost noted last summer, the invisible primary has become extremely important because the cost of campaigning has increased exponentially and frontloading has altered the nature of the nomination battle. Since the institution of the caucus/primary reforms, Jimmy Carter remains the only candidate to win his party’s nomination without winning the invisible primary, as typically measured by fundraising and endorsements — and that was largely because the parties had not recognized that someone could beat the system before 1976 and the system was not as frontloaded. Howard Dean attempted a similar feat in 2004 via the Internet, but failed. Barack Obama may have beaten the seemingly establishment Hillary Clinton in 2008, but he raised more money than her heading into the Iowa caucuses and his endorsements in early states were competitive with hers . The closest example in the GOP, John McCain, stumbled in the summer of 2007, but started and finished as the winner of the invisible primary (especially after accounting for Romney’s significantly self-funded 2008 campaign). This cycle, anyone following politics could see the efforts mounted to pull Haley Barbour, Mitch Daniels, Paul Ryan and Chris Christie into the race. The names of those behind such efforts were not always public, but it was hardly a shadowy cabal, either. Tim Pawlenty’s early withdrawal from the race was a product of the invisible primary (donors lost confidence in him after the Iowa straw poll). Most commentary and coverage of Ron Paul, Herman Cain and Michelle Bachmann reflected the judgment of the invisible primary that these were not serious candidates. The invisible primary has never been more visible. Of course, opinion is far from unanimous on the theory that party elites play a decisive role in determining presidential nominations. Nate Silver is among the skeptics, helpfully noting that Romney may be preferred by GOP elites, that preference is rather tepid. Silver focuses primarily on the relative scarcity of endorsements overall, but that data is corroborated by reports that many big-name GOP donors did not commit to Mitt until Chris Christie was officially out. However, even if you are more partial to the view that the current rules emphasize candidates, their consultants and voters over the party per se , Jay Cost correctly notes the early caucus and primary states often favor moderates and attract large numbers of the poorly informed. Even if you do not think the party decides, the party does more or less set the calendar. You know who that benefits? –Karl
See the original post here:
The invisible primary
This is an abbreviated version of a post at my personal blog . There you will find more detailed text, additional figures and references. In 1956, M. King Hubbert predicted that crude oil production in the U.S. (ex-Alaska) would peak in rate around 1970, to be followed by a long, irreversible decline. Hubbert nailed the timing of the peak, and in doing so, cemented his status as a technological visionary among neo-Malthusians and opponents of the “fossil fuels”. But Hubbert’s paper also contained a similar forecast for gas. In 1956 , Hubbert’s estimate of the amount of natural gas that would ultimately be consumed in the U.S. was 850 trillion cubic feet (TCF) . In the 1978 update, Hubbert increased his estimate to 1,103 TCF , but considered that value to be on the high side. Lower 48 Gas Production, 1900-2010 By the end of 2010, we had produced and marketed 1,131 TCF from the Lower 48, more gas than Hubbert thought would ever be possible. We find ourselves in the midst of a natural gas boom, with gas production now exceeding the peaks of 1973: rates are over three times higher than the 7 TCF per year Hubbert foresaw for 2010. The Lower 48 resource base is some 3,100 TCF, three to four times Hubbert’s earlier estimates. Peak Oilers rarely mention Peak Gas. Hubbert expected his method to work for all resources; why did it fail with respect to gas? The answers to that question shed light on the shortcomings of Peak Oil Theory, and reveal the reasons why it should not be used as a policy-making tool. Shortcoming #1: Hubbert’s technique depends entirely upon the estimate of the ultimate resource base . Any extrapolation of historical trends contains only the information embedded in the history. There is no way to anticipate “game-changing” developments outside the confines of the history upon which it is based. A forecast of a limited future thus becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy if it is used to set policy. Shortcoming #2: “Hubbert’s Peak” is the ultimate ceteris paribus analysis. Problem is, all other things are never equal, particularly in the realm of economics. Hubbert’s equations worked well in his experience, so well that he accepted them as immutable laws. Hubbert showed little concern for how changing policies or economics might affect his resource estimates (see Shortcoming #1 ). Shortcoming #3: We are all limited by our imaginations. Hubbert could not imagine economic production of hydrocarbons from water depths over 600 feet; we now have production in nearly 10,000 feet of water. Shale rocks were never considered to have economic potential. Moore’s Law has enabled accomplishments in drilling and exploration beyond Hubbert’s wildest dreams. Product Price Until the mid-1970s, natural gas was dirt cheap, so cheap that drillers rarely targeted it intentionally. Most of the gas that was found and produced was incidental to oil operations, which explains why Hubbert deemed the gas resource to be a ratio of his crude oil estimate. The following graph shows the history of natural gas prices (which was historically priced per mcf, or 1,000 standard cubic feet). The average wellhead price (i.e., the price received by the producer in the field) from 1925 until 1970 was less than 10¢ per mcf (about 66¢ in 2005 dollars). The energy content of one barrel of oil is roughly the same as 6 mcf of gas, so that the cost of buying one barrel’s worth of energy in natural gas form was only 60¢ (or less than $4.00 in 2005 dollars). Nominal and Real U.S. Wellhead Gas Prices, 1925-2010 Public Policy Since 1938, the Natural Gas Act had enforced low gas prices and near monopoly status for the big interstate gas pipelines. It was not unusual for a producer to be locked into a long term gas sales contract at 3¢ per mcf, with no recourse and no alternatives. In an effort to build domestic gas supplies, President Carter signed the Natural Gas Policy Act (NGPA) in 1978. It maintained existing price controls while granting preference to newly-found supplies. Its recognition of a dozen or more “vintages” of gas led to a price structure that became increasingly byzantine over time. President Reagan began phasing out price controls on oil and gas in 1983. Tax reform ended limited partnerships’ tax shelters for drilling dry holes. The industry floundered as prices tanked and investors vanished. From 1981 until 1985, the count of active drilling rigs declined from 4,500 to under 700. Under severe economic pressure, the energy industry consolidated and contracted, then set about figuring out how to regain profitability. Technology Coincidentally, by about 1985, the impact of desktop computing began to be felt in the industry. Directly or indirectly, the PC era would contribute to a number of important technical advances in exploration and well operations, including 3-D seismic, horizontal drilling and logging-while-drilling. Using these and other new technologies, operators began finding ways to produce natural gas from rocks that had been never before been considered to be commercial sources of hydrocarbons. Explorers drilled fewer dry holes, and more efficiently developed smaller accumulations than in earlier days. Real Wellhead Price and Lower 48 Gas Production, 1925-2010 Conclusion Hubbert may have been correct about the ultimate volume of gas that would have been produced under pre-1970 prices and marketing structures. That price was unrealistically low compared to the energy content of gas. Today’s gas prices are about six times the pre-1970 average (2005 dollars), but gas is still a relative bargain. (Six thousand cubic feet of gas costs about $24, but can do as much work as one $100 barrel of oil.) So, if all this is true, why does Hubbert’s curve seem to work so well for crude oil? One key fact distinguishes natural gas and oil. Oil can be readily imported from anywhere in the world. Gas is primarily a North American commodity. Imports (other than Canadian pipeline imports) can impact the market only when domestic prices are high – and even then we have to compete with Japan and other regular customer on the world market. At the current low price of gas (relative to oil), the United States may become a gas exporter . The transportability of oil caused the oil-oriented major integrated companies to focus their exploration efforts overseas when drilling and production costs rose in the U.S. Finding large deposits of oil overseas was easier, cheaper and more efficient than it was in the States. The U.S. natural gas market became the domain of domestic independents. Policy decisions have taken much of the domestic oil resource base off the table, namely in the Alaskan North Slope, much of the Mountain West and the 85% of the Outer Continental Shelf which is closed to exploration. We cannot know how big this potential resource base is until we drill it. Many would prefer not to know, whether for political or environmental reasons, so we can expect the fight to continue. Cross-posted at stevemaley.com . Follow @VladimirRS !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=”//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js”;fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,”script”,”twitter-wjs”);
See the article here:
What’s Wrong with Peak Oil Theory? Consider ‘Peak Gas’.
This is it. The final debate before Florida will be tonight from Jacksonville, FL on CNN. It may be the final debate of the primary season. If it becomes just Mitt, Newt, and Ron, there is no way that MItt Romney will want to share the stage with them after tonight. I’ll be on CNN for post debate coverage, though I’ll be in Atlanta tonight. All you need to know is that the latest CNN poll has something like a 22 point swing toward Newt Gingrich, but a lot of post South Carolina polling settled back down from irrational exuberance to Romney still ahead. Tonight, expect a concerted Romney effort to bring out the really angry Newt. Expect Gingrich to try to throw off Romney. In fact, we may not hear from Santorum and Paul unless they get called on. This is all the Mitt and Newt show. They don’t like each other and both have a lot on the line. One wild card factor — does Rick Santorum stay in? There are rumors circulating he may drop out before Florida because he is out of money. His campaign says no. But we’ll see. If he leaves, polls show most of his voters go to Gingrich, but I’m not sure that’s actually right. We’ll get into it all below the fold. Newt Gingrich Gingrich must perform well tonight in the debate. Debates help Gingrich with momentum and the NBC debate has not fully been factored into polling. He did not do well in that debate. He must shine tonight and he’ll have an audience to help him along. But it is not just polling and I think a lot of people have been complicit in saying “debates won it” when there is more to the story. I’ve talked to a number of people in South Carolina and they are all stunned at how the press has missed the story about the Newt v. Romney ground game in South Carolina. According to a number of people I and others have talked to, Newt relied on the traditional grassroots network in South Carolina, outsourcing it to the Speaker, various sheriffs, etc. Romney’s campaign bussed in volunteers from out of state including a heavy contingent from Brigham Young and they were sign holders and phone bankers, but they didn’t do traditional GOTV operations. I think the polling bears out this reality. In my experience from running campaigns, a well run campaign can match its polling. A well run campaign with well run GOTV can exceed its polling. A well run campaign with a poorly run GOTV operation will never reach its polling. This bears out time and time again in campaigns. If we look at South Carolina, the final RCP Average was Newt at 33.5% and Romney at 28.5%. The final results were Newt at 40.4% and Romney at 27.8%. Debate performance cannot explain Newt topping the polling average by 6.9%. The only thing that really explains it is ground game getting the people wowed by the debate performance to the polls. In Florida, Newt needs a good ground game, not just good debate performances. His related Super PAC has some heavy lifting to do. Ron Paul Ron Paul will not be the nominee and does not expect to be the nominee. But he is going to do better than many have expected and he’ll get a prime spot at the Republican National Convention to bore us all with Austrian economics. Mitt Romney It is his race to lose. If he wins in Florida, the conventional wisdom will be that he is the nominee. The races after Florida up to Super Tuesday favor Mitt Romney, including Arizona, Nevada, and Michigan. But Gingrich will have Georgia on Super Tuesday and they’ll be able to fight over the rest. Romney is on all the ballots, has the most money, and has the best organization. But the Republican base continues to bristle. If he cannot win Florida, he cannot win the nomination. There is much at stake in tonight’s CNN debate and there is much at stake for Romney on Tuesday. He’s the favorite to win, but Newt can draw it close. One good thing for Romney — he is better at throwing Newt off his game in a debate than Newt is at throwing Mitt off his game. Rick Santorum He will not be the nominee. He is out of money. He cannot put in the time in Florida or elsewhere that he put in in all 99 counties in Iowa. There are rumors he may drop out. Santorum’s support, polls suggest, would go to Newt. I think it would probably be a wash, which is an advantage to Romney. There’d be one less guy fighting him and when forced to confront Newt Gingrich’s personal issues, a lot of Santorum’s support would slowly shift to Mitt Romney or stay home. That’s all Romney needs. There is an effort to keep Santorum in the race out of Washington on the theory that he keeps Gingrich from consolidating conservatives. That is the most likely scenario. The question for Santorum is who does he want as his nominee. If we wants MItt, he stays in. If he wants Newt, he gets out. Ultimately though, I still think his supporters trickle to Mitt. Maybe not in Florida, but I think it happens even with Gingrich still in the race.
Go here to see the original:
The Horserace for January 26, 2012
[Posted by Karl] George W. Bush has enough to answer for without hanging Mitt Romney around his neck. Yet that’s a major theme of Erick Erickson’s rambling and occasionally incoherent post-Iowa rant: The reason this Republican primary season is so chaotic is because George W. Bush failed to have a successor. Had President Bush had a Vice President to run for President, Bush would have undoubtedly made different policy decisions, but even aside from that there would have been an ascertainable front runner coming from the Bush administration to win or lose. Because there was not such a thing and because the GOP likes orderly processes, we had to go back to 2000 and dredge up John McCain. The Republican field was unable to reboot because we had no logical successor coming out of the White House to either win or lose. We went back to McCain and have had to work our way back through unresolved issues from 2000. And now, when the field should be rebooted, we’re having to deal with Mitt Romney who should have been displaced by an heir in 2008 and instead, because the 2008 season did not reboot the crop of candidates, is now the guy three quarters of the GOP does not want who is about to be the nominee. Our process is chaotic because Bush left us no heir to win or to be rejected through a cathartic process of locking in gains or moving on from Bush. Yes, this one is Bush’s fault. Erickson identifies with the tea party, but is he or the tea party really upset that big-spending, “compassionate” King George II did not provide a the line of sucession? Of course not, which is why Erickson ends up complaining “Bush left us no heir to win or to be rejected .” However, had Bush offered up a RINO Veep as common foe to true conservatives, wouldn’t that Veep have had even greater institutional advantages and been even more difficult to defeat than John McCain or Mitt Romney? Blaming Bush ends up being part of a larger pattern as he bemoans Rick Perry’s loss in Iowa: Had Santorum run a successful retail campaign and caught fire on his own accord, he’d have been vetted by now and probably also succumbed to the Romney machine. His campaign was not successful, it’s just all the others sucked so bad. *** If Rick Perry drops out of the race it will be the ultimate failure of the tea party movement to see the race come down to two or three big government conservatives. Romney and Santorum both hide behind compassionate conservatism to expand the state to suit their purposes. Only Rick Perry has run a campaign to make Washington “as inconsequential to our lives as possible.” If I were Perry, I’d wake up tomorrow, say I refuse to surrender the Republican Party into the hands of big government conservatives after all the gains the tea party has made, and then announce I’m firing all my political staffers and communications staffers and ask South Carolina to help me reboot to victory. Make it an Alamo stand and, if like at the Alamo Perry goes down, perhaps there’ll at least be a rallying cry for small government conservatism left over. That’s just me. Well, it’s likely not just Erickson; it looks like Perry is staying in . But anger and denial are not a substitute for judgment. Erickson paints Santorum as lucky, but luck is often the residue of hard work. Erickson writes about campaigns that “sucked,” but avoids discussing the central role of the candidate in his or her campaign. In general, I would prefer not to dump on Perry or Erickson for supporting him. My bias toward a NotRomney and my appreciation of how well Perry’s record of success contrasts with Obama’s failures is documented . But Perry in fact rebooted his staff once already, so maybe the problem is elesewhere. If Erickson knows which Perry staffer told Perry to insult conservatives who disagreed with him on Gardasil vaccinations and the Texas Dream Act, he ought to provide a name. (Indeed, Erickson recently tweeted about all the email he gets from people whose big objection to Huntsman is his insulting the base, so he ought to get this.) Also, the names of the staffers who told Perry to botch questions from the media and voters — as large as which Departments he’d eliminate to as small as his favorite books — those names would be good to have also. The names of those who forced Perry to get in late and the names of those who stopped him from demanding to be better prepared? Yeah, I want those also. Pretty much anyone responsible for Perry looking like a caricature of George W. Bush when Obama is going to campaign on blaming Bush should be on the list. I think everyone, with the possible exception of Erickson, knows whose name should be at the top of that list. If Rick Perry is the executive and man I have been led to believe he is, he would be the first to take personal responsibility for his failings as a candidate. Then again, Perry’s decision to soldier on to South Carolina, further dividing the NotRomney vote, may suggest I am again overestimating Perry. Or it could be Perry was persuaded that Romney really should be the nominee, on the theory that it’s better to win or lose with a known moderate like Romney than for conservatives to get sucked into another W-esque experience with big-government conservatives like Gingrich or Santorum. However, if that’s the case, the true conservatives may need to turn down the rancor toward Romney. –Karl
Read the original here:
Let’s not blame Bush for Romney
“Democracy,” H.L. Mencken once observed, “is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.” Although mindful of the fact that the United States is a republic rather than a democracy, Ron Paul supporters are about to learn the truth of this maxim. For months, they have protested as political reporters have ignored their candidate in favor of people with far less measurable popular support: Tim Pawlenty, Jon Huntsman, and even Rick Santorum. They have seen the 11-term Texas congressman receive much less ink and pixels than a former pizza company CEO who insisted that the economy was just fine right before the global financial meltdown occurred — a crisis their man had long predicted. Cover Ron Paul, many of his supporters demanded. Well, they are about to get what they want good and hard. Two reputable scientific polls now show Paul with the lead in Iowa. He is third nationally, moving back toward the double digits. When it comes to measuring public opinion, polls are but a snapshot in time. But even the keepers of the conventional wisdom can no longer ignore the Paul campaign. Expect outlets ranging from the liberal mainstream media to the more hawkish precincts of the conservative press to become one big reprint of the Ron Paul Survival Report between now and January 3. Already those who most disagree with Paul on foreign policy have been discussing the newsletters, which for a period of the 1990s contained some (reputedly ghost-written) racist content the congressman and his campaign have never explained satisfactorily. There has already been a flurry of predictions in places as diverse as the New York Times and conservative blogs that Paul’s surge spells doom for everything from the Iowa caucuses to the Republican Party itself. Robert Stacy McCain has a good round-up . This is what it sounds like when hawks cry. If Paul holds on to win Iowa, the Washington Examiner ‘s Tim Carney predicts he will receive the Pat Buchanan treatment. After Buchanan won the 1996 New Hampshire primary, a terrified Republican establishment rallied to crush him in South Carolina and beyond. While Paul began his campaign opposed to the war that led to Americans being unceremoniously kicked out of liberated Iraq, Buchanan had most recently opposed the war that kicked Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait. Like Paul, Buchanan almost certainly had too low of a ceiling to prevail once the GOP field narrowed. “But for the enforcers of Republican orthodoxy,” Carney concludes, “a Paul victory in Iowa will be an act of impudence that must be punished.” Paul has risen among Republican voters who want a candidate who means what he says about cutting government and following the Constitution. The alternatives include a Massachusetts governor who drafted the blueprint for Obamacare and the prodigal son of the last Republican revolution, a former House speaker who illustrates a memorable M. Stanton Evans quip: “Most conservatives know when they come to Washington that it is a sewer; the trouble is, too many of them wind up treating it like a hot tub.” Yet Paul’s successes will undoubtedly raise the political costs of his excesses. It should be possible to oppose a repeat of the Iraq adventure in Iran while maintaining greater rhetorical distance from the odious regime in Tehran. Similarly, one should be able to curb excesses in Republican talking points on Islam without making concerns about radical Muslims sound as outlandish as complaints about Romney’s Mormonism. None of this means the attacks on Paul will necessarily be proportionate to his offenses, to say nothing of fair. Paul’s suporters can take heart in one thing: their man has a successor waiting in the wings to lead their movement, one who smooths some of the good doctor’s rougher edges. Pat Buchanan didn’t have that, but Barry Goldwater did.
Read more from the original source:
Ron Paul in the Crosshairs
