Oops!

I can't believe it's been 3 weeks since I posted anything. That's a slightly scary testament to how busy life gets!

So, in the interest of better-late-than-never:

As the Republicans gather for their debate in AZ tonight, I'm struck by how the terrain has shifted since the last contests two weeks ago. Santorum is giving Romney a run for his money (literally) in Michigan and even AZ. But the bigger story is how fully the mainstream media seem to have caught on to the seismic shift in campaign finance--helped by organizations like ProPublica, which just published this graphic showing how dominant individual wealthy donors have become this cycle.

Looking ahead, one question is whether the general election will go to the candidate with the biggest individual contributors (who are nearing or have surpassed legal giving to individual candidates), or the candidate who can mobilize more small donors. Talking Points Memo says that looking at these numbers should the well-funded Romney campaign gulp. Of course, legal limits are meaningless when it comes to those SuperPACs pictured in the ProPublica graph.

Meanwhile, Santorum's bankroller embarrassed him with his Bayer aspirin as a contraceptive remark. (See the fun take-down by SNL here). And that remark has become just one of many flash points in what seems to be the new top issue in this election: women & sex--or more accurately, controlling women's sex. Who'd have thought that with a still struggling economy, we'd be debating contraceptives?

Observations from D.C.

First, one addition to yesterday's post: This piece by the Washington Post's Dana Milbank shows just how sour relations between Newt and the press corps have gotten.

Now for some observations from my last couple of days in two of the nation's leading news rooms:

1. There is no doubt that Twitter is the new circulatory system of the 4th estate. What's interesting is how varied the individual uses of it are--beyond using it as an 'early warning system' for breaking news, which literally everyone I talked with does. While a few are quite comfortable tweeting almost everything they see and hear, many reporters and editors are ambivalent about Twitter's role in political news. I'm hoping there's a journal article in there somewhere for me.

2. There is little doubt that the news cycle has sped up to the point that many in the business are concerned about being able to rise above the tide of info-bits to report the bigger picture. They use a variety of phrases to describe this phenomenon; I like the way Karen Tumulty of the Post characterized it in our conversation today: "nano news."

The micro-focus encouraged by Twitter, on which 'news' is continually breaking, seems to be making it harder for reporters to connect the dots--as Tumulty did when Gingrich told a Florida audience a few days ago that college students should work while going to school (something a younger Newt refused to do himself).

This speeding up of the news cycle probably isn't news to a lot of you. But the implications are pretty interesting.

For example, what if nano news makes it harder for the press to call out candidates who are not real candidates? I think we've had at least two of those this cycle: People for whom running for office is a business model, a way of spreading their personal brand to sell more books, charge higher speaking fees, and amass big campaign accounts that they are allowed to keep (See Exhibit A here). Is a press corps with their noses buried in their Blackberries and iPhones less able to resist the instant news appeal of those pseudo-candidates? To be fair, several smart reporters I've spoken with insist that Twitter and other innovations are improving the collective ability of the press to call out candidate b.s. Another question begging for a good research paper!

Finally, I'd just like to say that many people in the newsroom are way nicer than you might expect. Banal, I know, but we get so accustomed to the egomaniacs on TV that it's good to be reminded that many of those in the news business are just trying to do a good job in challenging circumstances.

Romney Wins Florida: Will the Media Ditch Newt?

An interesting question raised by Romney's decisive win tonight: Will this signal to news executives that it's time to scale back campaign coverage? BuzzFeed thinks so, though Politico's Dylan Byers disagrees. (It seems to me that even if they do go to "zone" coverage, it won't matter much, since the reporters will also tell you they've not gotten a lot of access to candidates this season. The candidates have relied on the debates, TV ads, and social media to reach voters--not the MSM).

On the other hand, many reporters I've been observing are not eager for this race to end. Regardless of how they may feel about the candidates personally (which they don't divulge to me anyway), they kinda hate the thought of essentially covering just Mitt all the way until at least late March, when a candidate can finally amass enough delegates to clinch the Republican nomination.

Meanwhile, David Corn at Mother Jones, who's been following this race closely, asks whether Newt will be the "Doomsday machine" of the GOP: "Gingrich is a problem for the front-runner and the entire GOP establishment—and that's because he's following the scorched-earth playbook that he long ago developed for the party and that the party has embraced for years."

On the eve of the Florida primary

Some stories I'm watching as we wait for voting to begin tomorrow:

A new report analyzes ad spending so far in the Republican presidential race and finds that spending by interest groups (i.e. SuperPACs) has increased by 1600% over 2008 levels, and that Romney's campaign and its SuperPAC allies have run 13,000 ads in Florida compared to Newt and company's 200.

Probably reflecting that outsized advertising influence, the polls all show Romney with a comfortable lead in Florida. Yet Newt is threatening to go all the way to the convention, and as a Politico story pointed out earlier today, there's little holding him back: As an aging pol who's long wanted to hold center stage, he has little to lose (ahem) in terms of respect within the Republican establishment by creating a contested convention. And the Republican party's new rules for apportioning delegates allow a challenger like Gingrich to actually rack up a delegate count rather than being shut out even if he loses Florida (a fascinating case of unintended consequences?).

Meanwhile, Sarah Palin cheers Newt on from the sidelines: "if for no other reason [than] to rage against the machine: Vote for Newt, annoy a liberal. Vote Newt. Keep this vetting process going..." And writing for the Times, Thomas Edsall shows just how compromised the so-called values voters have become: "Joining Gingrich’s National Faith Coalition are Tim and Beverly LaHaye (Tim LaHaye is the author of “Battle for the Family” and Beverly LaHaye is the founder of Concerned Women for America, the largest women’s pro-family advocacy group in America); Dr. Jim Garlow, the California pastor who presides over the websiteProtectMarriage.com, which backed the Proposition 8 campaign against gay marriage; and Don Wildmon, whose American Family Association website features his unshakeable commitment to “Strengthening Today’s Marriage and Family Movement.”

The Florida primary approaches

On Sunday I fly to DC to do interviews and observation and the Washington Post and Politico as they cover Tuesday's primary in Florida. Looking forward to the experience; not looking forward to the cold. :)

In the meantime, here's a random collection of my latest favorite observations about state of the Republican nominating race:

Re. last night's debate, some consensus that it was a Newt "no-show": "the Gingrich who lit up a pair of moderators last week in South Carolina on his way to a thumping win didn’t show up here Thursday evening."

Politico this morning: "In soliciting support on Capitol Hill, Romney has sought to highlight his potential reliability as a Republican nominee. At a closed-door meeting with GOP lawmakers last year, Romney offered this promise to the more than 60 members who came to hear him. 'I won't embarrass you,' he said."

David Brooks in the New York Times: "...it’s an odd thing when a leading Republican candidate has the children of his first wife attacking his second wife for things she said about his third wife and this candidate is the one getting social conservative support."

Tim Egan, also in the Times: "After inventing, and then perfecting, the modern politics of personal destruction, Gingrich has decided now to bank on the dark fears of the worst element of the Republican base to seize the nomination — using skills refined over four decades." [In case you don't get the previous quote, this second piece will explain it.]

ANOTHER debate??

The Republican candidates will line up tonight for their umpteenth debate. One question is whether Newt will repeat his masterfully evasive performance from last time (see Jon Stewart's expert analysis here.) Suddenly, as Politico reports today, many key figures in the GOP and conservative circles are sounding alarms about Newt. "Erratic" is one key charge. False flatterer of Reagan is another (a theme of a new pro-Romney SuperPAC ad as well). The bottom line: These people are actually frightened that Newt might really become the nominee--though, as Politico notes, many won't speak publicly against him in case...he becomes the nominee.

Another question is how the audience will react. As the New York Times reports, CNN (host of tonight's debate) likes a raucous crowd.

Overall, the race in FL may be boiling down to The Tea Party vs the cocktail party--though the outcome may also depend on how Romney and Gingrich handle the complicated politics of Florida's large Hispanic communities.

update to Newt in Action

Just saw Chris Matthews' commentary on Gingrich's debate performance last night. I'm not always a big fan of Matthews, but I think he nailed the racial dog-whistling that occurred last night dead on.