“Why, I do declare…!”
:: fans self ::
I recall Colbert doing that . . .
Maybe Lindsey Graham’s entry into the race frightened Mitt out of it?
Nah, there isn’t any alternate universe, no matter how remote, where this could have happened.
Anyhow, I’m starting to think that Scott Walker, “the goggle-eyed homunculus hired by Koch Industries to manage their midwest subsidiary formerly known as the state of Wisconsin,” per Charles Pierce, is looking like the early favorite.
The base regards him as a True Believer, the Brothers Koch own him, so they’re all for him, and he’s as adroit a hippie-puncher as the GOP, which loves hippie-punchers, has. Plus he seemed to be the hands-down winner at the Freedumb Summit last weekend.
He may be even more soulless than Richard Nixon, but that’s never stopped anyone from winning the GOP nomination before.
Plus he’s a college dropout with a high school diploma, so he really appeals to the base.
You didn’t provide a link, but here’s the article I read, which is pretty clear about the percentages.
What base?
In the 2012 Presidential election, voters who had some college (like Walker) were evenly split between the two parties 49-48. Much the same for those whose highest educational level was a high school diploma, 51-48.
Where you really see a difference, by a margin of nearly 2-1, was in the category of high-school dropouts. Guess which candidate they voted for? The one with a (D) after his name.
OTOH, people with graduate degrees appear to lean Dem.
From your own link:
Since only 3% of voters are HS dropouts, but 18% are postgrads, the latter outweighs the former hugely and gives Democrats their victory.
They do, but not nearly as much as the high school dropouts. 
The Democrats tend to get voters on both educational extremes - high school dropouts and the extremely well educated, such as PhDs, etc. The Republicans score better in the education range in between.
Look at the middle three groups, which comprised 79% of the voters. They were split pretty evenly, which matches up with the actual election results wherein the Democrat got 51% of the vote.
It’s not the education level of the voter, it’s the perceived intelligence level of the candidate. Republicans hate egghead, know-it-all, snobby professor types.
That is probably because HS dropouts are poor and PhDs are smart.
But we don’t encourage them to run for President.
Walker isn’t a high school dropout.
CNN on Romney’s thought process in deciding not to run: http://www.cnn.com/2015/01/30/politics/romney-exit-ticktock/index.html
Yeah, you can’t assume that a person’s own education level will reflect the education level they want from their candidates. A dropout could be someone who thinks that education is a waste of time, and who thus values other dropouts for coming to the same conclusion… or a dropout could be someone who didn’t have time for school what with working desperately to support their family, and determined to give their children the educational opportunities they missed out on, and such a person certainly is not going to support a dropout politician.
I love the line in there about Jeb Bush being “mild-mannered” - followed immediately by a description of a ruthless campaigner cutting the legs out from under his presumed main opponent. Anybody who thinks Jeb is mild-mannered has only ever seen him on tv or met him in a social setting. He’s as bloodthirsty as they come.
And if the GOP thinks Obama’s administration was an “Imperial Presidency”…
There’s public persona and then there’s the kind of team he builds around him. The Bushes are mild-mannered. The campaign teams they hired tended to be the most ruthless around.