By “Romney family member,” I mean the Romeny’s former family dog, an Irish Setter named Seamus.

Seamus achieved fame and glory during the 2008 presidential campaign cycle after one of Romney’s sons told a treasured family story:

In June 2007 the Boston Globe reported that in 1983, current Republican presidential hopeful (and former Massachusetts governor) Mitt Romney had placed his Irish setter in a dog carrier on the roof of his station wagon for a 12-hour trip to his parents’ cottage on the Canadian shores of Lake Huron. He’d built a windshield for the carrier to make the ride more comfortable for the dog. He’d also made it clear to his five sons that bathroom breaks would be taken only during predetermined stops to gas up the car.

The dog spoiled this plan by letting loose with a bout of diarrhea during its rooftop sojourn, necessitating an unplanned gas station visit for the purpose of hosing down the pooch, its carrier, and the back of the car.

There are now two competing theories on the fate of Seamus. The orthodox theory is that Seamus was eventually given to Mitt’s sister:

The Romneys eventually dealt with Seamus’s apostasy, and nervous stomach, by fobbing him off on Mitt’s sister, Jane, who lived in California and was said to have space for the dog to roam freely, unfettered by straps, crates or station wagons.

And now we have a competing theory:

Mitt Romney may not have told the whole truth about the scandalous tale of his Irish Setter, Seamus, being strapped to the roof of his car during a 12-hour family road trip to Canada. According to a trusted Politicker tipster, two of Mr. Romney’s sons had an off-record conversation with reporters where they revealed the dog ran away when they reached their destination on that infamous journey in 1983.

That’s right…Seamus became a “draft” dodger by running away in Canada.

The Obama campaign uses the incident to draw a distinction between the two men.

The Darcy Burner campaign has released a second in-house poll for WA-1 (and accompanying memo). And it looks very good for Burner on the Democratic side.

Campaigns normally don’t release internal polls unless there is some advantage to doing so. So we’ll look at the positives, and then read between the lines for the rest.

The good new for Burner is that she leads the Democratic pack:

Among primary voters who vote for one of the Democratic candidates on the initial ballot, Darcy Burner currently leads the pack with a decisive lead. Burner leads with nearly half of the vote (45%), followed by Laura Ruderman (15%), Steve Hobbs (13%), Suzan DelBene (12%), Roger Goodman (10%), and Darshan Rauniyar (5%).

More good:

Moreover, Burner is well-regarded among primary election voters who pick a Democratic candidate in the initial ballot. More than half (54%) of these voters have a favorable opinion of Burner, while 9% have an unfavorable opinion. DelBene is less well known, with 21% of voters having a favorable impression of her. Seventeen percent of voters have a favorable opinion of Ruderman. A majority of these Democratic voters have no impression of Ruderman or DelBene, while most are familiar with Burner.

The findings are consistent with the previous internal poll released by the Burner campaign.

What these numbers tell us is that, contrary to certain media naysayer, Darcy is the front-runner among Democrats in this race.

These results debunk, what I’ll call, the Connelly meme, named after the Darcy Burner naysayer-in-chief, SeattlePI.com’s Joel Connelly. Joel has, of late, has made something of a specialization in portraying Burner as an outside interloper—as some kind of ultra-liberal Daily Kos Manchurian Candidate destined to be an also-ran. The Connelly meme is bullshit.

The new poll results bode well for Darcy Burner in a Democratic primary race.

Unfortunately, Washington state doesn’t have a Democratic primary. Rather, we have this top-two primary. And that brings me to what this poll doesn’t tell us.

Take a look at the poll methods:

These findings are based on 504 telephone interviews with a random sample of likely 2012 primary election voters in Washington’s new 1st Congressional District. Interviews were conducted from January 23-26, 2012. Sampling error is +/- 4.4%.

What we never learn is how many of the 504 interviewees chose to not select one of the Democratic candidates. There were two Republican candidates in the race when the poll was taken (one has since dropped out), yet we don’t see numbers for these candidates, or an “other” category if the pollster made a (dubious) decision to not name Republican candidates as well.

The absence of reporting on the Republican (or “other”) tally in a poll of “likely 2012 primary voters” is telling. It suggests to me that the “votes” for non-Democrats matched or exceeded those for the Democratic candidates. That is, the numbers don’t make Darcy look strong enough in a general election that the campaign was willing to release ’em.

The numbers support the idea that Darcy is the Democratic front-runner, but it leaves me feeling a little bit nervous about the prospects that any Democrat will be taking the district.

I look forward to seeing some independent polling in the race.

It’s a clusterfuck down there. But somehow you just can’t help but gawk at the carnage.

Yep…we’re talking Florida, where Mitt Romney is prepared to slam Newt Gingrich to the matt—revenge for South Carolina.

I’m at the Montlake Alehouse, and maybe Lee and Carl will show up and partake of the live-gawking.

Have at it in the comment threads.

5:00: CNN just called it for Mitt Romney, 48% to Gingrich’s 31%, Santorum’s 13%, and Paul’s 7%. 56% of the vote is in, so that pretty much seals the deal. No Iowa repeat here, folks.

5:01: That was fast.

5:04: Is the race over? Is Romney the nominee? My inclination is to say, “yes”. I’ve been saying that for awhile. But then some ground truth emerges….

5:05: New polls released today:

• Missouri Primary poll: Gingrich 30, Santorum 28, Romney 24, Paul 11. Missouri hates Romney!!!
• Ohio Primary poll:Gingrich 26, Romney 25, Santorum 22, Paul 11. Ohio likes Gingrich a little better than Romney.
• National GOP Primary poll:Gingrich 28, Romney 27, Santorum 17, Paul 13. America seems to prefer Gingrich a little over Romeny

It ain’t over yet!

5:11: Don’t forget about the Oregon special election tonight. We’ll be anxiously awaiting those results.

5:22: Okay…so Lee is here and he started a competing thread to liveblog the results. This has now become an HA primary contest. Who will get the most comments? Just to be a good sport, I put his post on top. See what a great guy and good sport I am? Please leave a comment HERE if you agree.

5:32: Lee writes, “Finally at the Ale House only to find out that Darryl fucked up the Live blog plan.” Oh, man, after all Lee and I have been through. I feel just like Dominic.

5:35: As long as we are engaging in negative campaigning here, I though I would point out that in 2004, Lee voted for Dino Rossi. But voted for Gregoire in 2008. What a flip-flopper!

5:59: The next primary event is the Nevada caucus. Most of last year, Romney has led Gingrich by double digits in Nevada. That was through last October. The only more recent poll is this poll taken in mid-December. That poll has Romney leading Gingrich by +4%. Nevada may end up being more interesting than Florida!

6:04: As my opponent (Lee) mentions, the sound is off on CNN here at the Montlake Alehouse. We just had about 30 minutes of Santorum on the screen. What the fuck, CNN? That’s just disgusting!

6:06: Even though I am watching CNN, I am listening to NPR. Reporter in Florida just points out what a big win this is, “It’s the first state where [Romney] doesn’t have a house in the state or where he governed the neighboring state.”

6:08: Lee responds to the previous comment: “He doesn’t have a house in Florida?!?

6:10: Newt takes the stage, but more importantly, I see three comments on this thread and two on Lee’s thread. You LIKE ME! You REALLY LIKE ME!!!

6:11: There are two great things about Newt being in the race. First, he is one nasty motherfucker. Second, he has tons of baggage. When Newt first started boasting about running (in Dec 2010), I wrote:

But mostly it [a Gingrich run] would be fun for the memories: Contract with America, government shutdown, impeachment over a blow job. And there is, of course, that scarcely explored aspect of Newt life: his marriages:

Gingrich has been married three times. In 1962, he married Jackie Battley, his former high school geometry teacher, when he was 19 years old and she was 26. They had two daughters. In the spring of 1980, Gingrich left Battley after having an affair with Marianne Ginther. According to Battley, Gingrich visited her while she was in the hospital recovering from cancer surgery to discuss the details of their divorce. Six months after it was final, Gingrich wed Ginther in 1981.

In the mid-1990s, Gingrich began an affair with House of Representatives staffer Callista Bisek, who is 23 years his junior; they continued their affair during the Lewinsky scandal. In 2000, Gingrich married Bisek shortly after his divorce from second wife Ginther.

The blogosphere really hasn’t had the opportunity to explore this side of Gingrich’s life. It’s fucking gold!

6:31: What I REALLY want to know is what Roger Rabbit thinks of tonight’s events. And yesterday’s. And maybe the entire week before. Roger?

6:34: Carl Ballard is here. He notices that at the Ron Paul speech there are three guys on stage…one with a bow tie, one with a regular tie, and one with no tie whatsoever. And they say there is no diversity amongst Republicans.

6:38: At least Ron Paul isn’t wearing a fucking sweater vest. (Carl is.)

6:46: The TeeVee tells me that “there are eight Santorum delegates.” Word to the wise: Be careful if you use the words “eight Santorum” in a conversation.

7:08: Damn! Lee is kicking my ass. But somehow his post got pushed back…. Clearly WE’VE BEEN HACKED!

7:12: Let’s see…we have me, Lee, N In Seattle, Carl Ballard, and Will showed up recently…Goldy is supposed to show up soon. The Montlake Alehouse has become a freakin’ HA class reunion!

7:18: Carl here. I’m not endorsing in this thread, but I’m opposed to typing on Darryl’s tiny computer. I guess I won’t get my passport stamped “Moon” any time soon.

7:24: Carl still. Rick Santorum is on CNN, and like Ron Paul, he’s also not wearing a tie. What the fuck? You’re on TV guys!

7:46: Darryl here…I’ve wrestled my computer (with its tiny little keyboard) back from Carl Ballard. Right now Seattle Jew is pontificating about Mormon church ownership of The Media. I notice that he speaks with as many typos as he writes with.

7:51: Goldy finally arrives. I guess the folks at The Stranger are done wringing whatever use they can get out him tonight to increase their page views.

8:15: Oregon Special Election: OR-1:

• Rob Cornilles (R) 53,215 37.52%
• Suzanne Bonamici (D) 79,386 55.97%

Please join us Tuesday for another evening of Politics under the influence at the Seattle Chapter of Drinking liberally.

This Tuesday we’ll be rubbernecking the G.O.P. Florida presidential primary clusterfuck returns—I’ll be helping to live blog the mayhem.

The other election of interest is the special election in OR-1, the seat formerly held by Rep. David Wu (D). Former state Sen. Suzanne Bonamici (D) is likely to defeat her Republican opponent Rob Cornilles.

DL meets every Tuesday at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. Our normal starting time is 8:00 pm, but this week some of us will be there early for the Florida presidential primary polls results that should begin at 5:00 pm.

Can’t make it to Seattle? There’s also a meeting Tuesday night of the Tri-Cities chapter of Drinking Liberally. The Tacoma chapter meets this Thursday. And next Monday, there are meetings of the Olympia chapter, the Yakima chapter, and the South Bellevue chapter.

With 225 chapters of Living Liberally, including twelve in Washington state and six more in Oregon, chances are excellent there’s one near you.

In case you haven’t noticed, I love collecting and analyzing polls—they tell me the score in the game of politics. Like I did in 2008, this year I’ll collect polls and do analyses for the presidential races, the Senate races, and the gubernatorial races.

What I won’t do (with a few exceptions) is analyze races from the House of Representatives.

Why ignore House polls? Because there are too damn many House races and too few polls released for them. That’s why.

Seriously, this is a hobby, and I can hardly keep track of the relatively small number of Senate and gubernatorial races without having to keep track of an additional 435 House races. Instead, I follow a few races of interest, mostly from Washington state. And I follow the “generic congressional polls.”

Generic congressional polls ask something like, “If the election for the U.S. House was today, would you vote for the Republican candidate or the Democratic candidate.”

Empirically, subtle swings in the results of these polls seem to be amplified into larger electoral swings. They somehow capture the mood of the electorate.

For the past year there have been over 80 generic congressional polls taken on a national sample. Here is what they look like in aggregate over the past year:

The trend is encouraging for Democrats, who have gone from a deep deficit in late 2010 to what looks like a tie in early 2012.

Notice anything funny about the graph?

Yeah…it’s pretty obvious, isn’t it. The “green” pollster seems to have a (roughly) 5% bias in favor of Republicans.

Wanna guess who that pollster is? If you guessed Rasmussen, you’re right. Here are the Rasmussen polls shown alone:

If you are a Republican, perhaps this is the only pollster you watch. If so, then things looked okay until today, when Rasmussen reported for the first time in a year a net advantage for the generic Democratic candidate. But don’t panic, my Republican friend…I mean, it could just be a fluke.

Or not. Here are all the other pollsters except Rasmussen:

If we are to take the collective findings of eight other pollsters over Rasmussen, the generic Democratic House candidate has led the generic Republican House candidate since sometime in August 2011.

In fact, you might say that, without the Rasmussen results, Republicans might have been in a state of panic for the past six months—instead of just the past 12 hours.

Young Turks: Barney Frank to marry his partner.

Darcy Burner: Never Give Up:

Young Turks: Conservative’s more likely low IQ and racist.

White House: West Wing Week.

Countdown with Dan Savage: Same-sex marriage equality.

The GOP Gladiatorial Games:
[Read more…]

One of the things we “learned” this week is that gubernatorial hopeful Rob McKenna is against same-sex marriage.

On Wednesday, McKenna told KCPQ-TV (3:47):

I will vote to maintain the current law and the current definition of marriage.

I guess he has given up on the line, “I hold the same views as President Obama.”

Goldy wrote about this under the headline, “McKenna Finally Admits He Opposes Gay Marriage”. But is McKenna only now admitting he opposes same-sex marriage?

I mentioned last June that McKenna has previously taken a stand on the subject:

In 2004, King County Superior Court Judge William Downing issued a controversial ruling that same-sex couples could marry. The Seattle Times, sprung to action to find out where candidates in state-wide races stood:

…King County Councilman Rob McKenna, criticized the ruling’s wording as too broad and said its argument that there is no compelling state interest to deny marriage to two people in a committed relationship could leave marriage open to blood relatives or those practicing polygamy.

“It threatens to destroy all standards we apply to the right of marriage,” he said.

One might argue that McKenna was only criticizing the wording of a ruling, rather than the effect of legalizing same-sex marriage.

Closer scrutiny reveals that as bullshit. I encourage you to read the ruling for yourself—it’s well-written, and includes some amusing word play. Judge Downing:

…concludes that the exclusion of same-sex partners from civil marriage and the privileges attendant thereto is not rationally related to any legitimate or compelling state interest and is certainly not narrowly tailored toward such an interest.

The ruling doesn’t “open up” incestuous or polygamous marriages. To do so, it would have addressed an additional set of state laws that are narrowly targeted to toward protecting compelling state interests in prohibition of incestuous or polygamous marriages. It didn’t touch on those at all.

No…what McKenna was doing was using a bullshit “legal-like” argument to express his opposition to same-sex marriage, while not quite saying so.

That’s right. It is another Republican debate.

They say, debate is what catches de-fish, and what a stinkin’ mess we have here.

So go grab some tartar sauce if you prefer, or a bag of Cheetos and play along.

The live stream can be found on CNN or here.

5:15: The topic has been on illegal immigration. Romney parses classes of illegals and who he is concerned about and who not.

5:16: Newt says he doesn’t want to grab a grandmother in a church. He goes for young women now. (Older women while in high school).

5:17: Mitt yells at Romney about calling him “anti-immigrant”. Apparent “anti-immigrant” is a “highly charge epithet”. I can think of worse.

5:21: The debate has turned in to a bickering match between Mitt and Newt.

5:24: Paul is pro-Cuba. Santorum is TOTALLY OUTRAGED by Obama’s policy in Central and South America. Nothing he says connects with anyone.

5:25: Santorum again sounds the alarm bells about Iran and al Qaeda in Cuba.

5:29: Mitt was saying something about unemployment and housing, but I was fading out….

5:31: It back to Mitt and Newt are airing dirty laundry. It is very personal and awkward!

5:33: Newt seems to be losing this Fannie-Freddie argument, but it is hard to tell. Ron Paul: the topic doesn’t interest me at all.

5:36: Santorum wants to shrink Fannie and Freddie until it can be drowned in a bathtub.

5:37: Santorum: “If these guys (Mitt, Newt) don’t quit bickering, I’m going to sent them to their rooms without dinner.”

[Read more…]

Mitt Romney has mostly been the G.O.P. front runner for at least the past year. There are transient exceptions.

Most recently, from early November to mid-December of 2011, Newt Gingrich lead the Republican pack in the national polls. But Americans remembered why they despised Gingrich—an arrogant motherfucker, who is mean, nasty, and corrupt. Mitt re-took the lead as the first polls of 2012 came out.

Yesterday, a Rasmussen poll found Newt in the lead by a remarkable +7. And today, the Gallup tracking poll put Newt up by +3.

Once can be a fluke. But not twice in a row. It appears that Newt taken the lead—perhaps for a few days, or maybe right up to the convention.

One of the implications for me is that I should probably start doing state head-to-head matchups of Obama against both Newt and Mitt. When I started this year’s batch of analyses I wrote:

At this point, I am only doing analyses of an Obama versus Romney general election. As much as I would like to see one of the weaker candidates take the G.O.P. nomination, I’m pretty certain Republicans will, as they did in 2008, act rationally, and chose the candidate that performs best against Obama in head-to-head polling. That is currently Mitt Romney. As the Republican primary circus continues, I’ll reassess. If, say, Santorum trickles on up to the front (eww!) or there is a crazy surge for Ron Paul, or the Mittster takes a tumble after unintentionally tweeting a photo of his underwear, or Rick Perry challenges the rest of ‘em to a duel (and wins), I’ll switch do doing analyses for the new front-runner(s).

Mitt didn’t magically Tweet a bulge in his underwear, but he did release his tax forms. That’s pretty much the same thing. So, while I still believe Republicans will ultimately act rationally and pick the candidate who performs best against Obama, I’ll give you the same analyses for the mean motherfucker who thinks knows he is the smartest man in the world.

I started collecting poll information for Newt last night. Perhaps I’ll have the first Obama—Gingrich analyses out by tomorrow.

Day by day it gets harder to defend Republicans against the charge that they are collectively stark-raving mad. I don’t know why I try any more:

An Oklahoma lawmaker files a bill to ban the making and selling of food or products that use aborted human fetuses.

State Senator Ralph Shortey says he’s done research and found reports that companies have used stem cells in the research and development of food.
[…]

“There is a potential that there are companies that are using aborted human babies in their research and development of basically enhancing flavor for artificial flavors,” says [State Senator Ralph] Shortey.

Okay, so it’s not really insanity. You see, some of these “concerned” lawmaker types just haven’t yet learned how to filter truth from fiction, fact from rumor, science from made-up-shit-designed-to-freak-people-out that one occasionally comes across whilst doing “research” on the InnerTubes.

This reminds me of a previous State of the Union address where some stark-raving mad indiscriminate presidential speech writer slipped into the speech some InnerTube weirdness about the dangers of human animal hybrids.

Okay…I am stuck in traffic on Montlake. But I can, apparently drive and blog, so here is the thread. Enjoy the discussion while I enjoy the fragrence of car exhaust.

6:11: I made it to the Montlake Alehouse just in time for the start. Man…it took 30 minutes to drive from UW campus…a 20 minute walk….

6:15: This morning, Boehner was calling Obama un-American. This evening he has to introduce Obama to the entire nation. Awwwwwwkward.

6:18: Biden is doing a great job keeping that spot on his forehead stationary, while moving his head around it. Great party (and SOTU) trick!

6:19: Obama wears a red tie. Boehner wears a blue tie. This is the dawning of a new age of bipartisanship!

6:24: Even Boehner is being forced to clap (gingerly) at some of these tax ideas. Poor guy…it must hurt.

6:25: Eric Cantor is thinking, “Oh my God…we’re going to have to oppose this?!?”

6:34: Obama plots to get more young people into those institutes of liberal indoctrination…. Educated citizens == Bad for Republicans

6:35: Obama channels Rick Perry on illegal immigration. How can the Republicans not feel all warm and cozy inside?

6:39: Mitch McConnell was obviously heavily sedated prior to the SOTU address.

6:42: Republicans are all like, “boooooo…clean energy….bad, bad, bad.”

6:44: Watch…dollars to doughnuts, next week there is a house bill to prevent the military from investing in clean energy.

6:47: There Obama goes again, pandering to the “millions of innocent Americans”. What about the millions of guilty Americans????

6:49: Thanks, TV people, for that magnificent view of Holy Joe’s facial pores.

6:51: What kind of anti-American bastard is Boehner…he isn’t wearing a flaggy-flag pin!

6:55: Tax breaks for the wealthy or keep our investments? I wonder what Republicans would choose?

6:58: Obama argues for investing in the future. Yeah…like that is going to win over the selfish teabaggers.

7:01: Obama has a new theme…the divide between Washington D.C. and the rest of America. This could be a potent theme. But the follow-up was pretty weak. (I don’t think insider trading by congresscritters really highlights the problem.)

7:11: Joe Biden wipes away a small tear.

7:14: Obama uses graphical imagery to help us all live the assassination of Osama bin Laden.

It’s over. Obama was pretty much focusing on common (D & R) themes. “Send me bills and I’ll sign them.”

Now we can enjoy the Republican rebuttal followed by the Michele Bachmann second rebuttal….

7:29: Mitch Daniels seems angry. Given his approval ratings, I guess he has good reason to be angry.

7:30: “With a government as big and bossy as this one….” What a fucking pathetic whiner!

7:31: Gloom and Doom! What a pessimistic son-em-bitch.

7:32: Carl Ballard: “I’m surprised how political the speech is!”

7:33: “Being a businessman is the most noble of human pursuits”…which pretty much means that Mitch—the politician—is self-loathing.

7:35: Mitch Daniels looks like the very model of a modern undertaker.

7:38: Mitch criticizes “Obama” by quipping about freedom to choose the right light bulb. Apparently he doesn’t realize that the lightbulb thing was done by the BUSH administration…while he was director of the Office of Budget Management. What a fucking dolt!

Mitch Daniels gives the second worse Republican response. It will take generations to out bad Bobby Jindal. But damn he tried.

7:52: There seems to be a live Tarantula on Mitt Romney’s head!

7:53: Did anyone notice that both Mitch Daniels and Mitt Romney have defaced flaggy-flag pins on? There is a big blotch in the middle of the stripes. Some say, communists do that.

7:57: Poor Mitt…all those millions and he still cannot keep his hair under control…

It’s State of the Union season. So please join us this evening for a State of the Union under the influence edition of Seattle Chapter of Drinking liberally.

We meet every Tuesday at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. Our normal starting time is 8:00 pm, but this week we start at 6:00 pm to catch the start of the SOTU address.

Of course we will be live-blogging the SOTU address from Drinking Liberally, so if you cannot make it to DL, join the discussion right here.

On another topic: Newt or Mitt?

Can’t make it tonight? There are also meetings on Tuesday evening of the Tri-Cities and Bellingham chapters. And Wednesday evening, the Burien chapter meets. So…with 230 chapters of Living Liberally, including twelve in Washington state and six more in Oregon, chances are excellent there’s one near you.