Are the GOP Primaries Acting as an Early Policy Referendum by Accident?

No, Santorum does not count. As the State of the Union Address is tonight, I could venture a guess at each candidates odds agains President Obama or just pull some Nate Silver ish about who I think might win; but, as it is really Obama v. the Economy for who'll win this fall, it doesn't really matter.

The interesting part of the GOP nomination contests, for me at least, is that they are bringing to the fore issues that you wouldn't expect until the general election; namely, super PACs in the post-Citizen United world and, in a roundabout way focusing on Mitt Romney's reluctance to release his tax returns, the appropriateness of the 15% capital gains tax rate (especially as it is applied private equity shops). These are focal points you would expect to see from President Obama's team but not from internecine fighting between republican candidates. Romney and Gingrich have been going back and forth biatching about each other's super PACs. Super PACs that have already spent $30 million so far amongst the Republicans. Just today, Dr. Miriam Adelson, wife of casino magnate and super Israel supporter Sheldon Adelson, donated $5 million to Gingrich's super PAC. Between the husband and wife, team Gingrich has pulled in $10 million for negative adds in the past month. Despite the claim in Citizens United that the money is just speech and would have a negligible influence on politicians, quite the opposite seems to be true as I could've told you the second that opinion came out. As Barrett seems to point out, Gingrich's 90 degree rightward shift on Israeli/Palestinian issue could be from any number of reasons, including the general rightward shift in the GOP recently due to the Tea Party and the partisan shift that comes during a nominating process. However, it is hard to deny that it stinks to high heaven. As the NY Times points out,

The Adelsons’ contributions on Mr. Gingrich’s behalf illustrate how rapidly a new era of unlimited political money is reshaping the rules of presidential politics and empowering individual donors to a degree unseen since before the Watergate scandals.

The wealth of a single couple has now leveled the playing field in two critical primary states for Mr. Gingrich, a candidate who ended September more than $1 million in debt, finished out of the running in Iowa and New Hampshire and, unlike Mr. Romney, has yet to attract the broad network of hard-money donors and bundlers that traditionally propel presidential campaigns.

It boggles the mind.

Meanwhile, the very attacks on Romney that Gingrich's super PAC has financed have recently (in South Carolina at least) concentrated on his time at Bain Capital and how it affected the working man. The long and short of it being how the cold-hearted, Gordon Gekko-like, Romney acquired a vast fortune off the plight of the workers laid off by companies that had to fold after Bain Capital saddled them with too much debt in leveraged buyouts (LBOs). The companies suffered, but Bain prospered after using some of the debt to pay off their investment and management fees. This led to a further attack on how Romney refused to release his tax returns, an attack which he failed to respond to effectively, forcing him to release his returns for the past two years today. They show that he pays a rate of 13.9% as most of his income is seen as capital gains. Though most of the Republicans on the stage want either that rate or even lower, this talk is undoubtedly going to illuminate this country's income inequity and call into question whether a lower capital gains rate is good policy (especially for those in private equity). At the very least, this is certainly going to come up in tonight's State of the Union Address. Hopefully, as Andrew Sullivan has called for, it comes in a larger talk about the need to reform our tax code in general. Debt has been incentivized for too long in this country and it has caused a myriad problems. Talking about it tonight would be a good first step.

Though the GOP candidates, and their talking head puppetmasters on Fox News, will undoubtedly end up labeling him a socialist tomorrow, it is important to remember the words of the proto-capitalist Adam Smith. And I quote:

The subjects of every state ought to contribute towards the support of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities; that is, in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the state.

BONUS POINTS- State of the Union Prediction Edition: Obama uses today to launch some sort of tax reform initiative. In the midst of this, especially with the presence of Obama's secretary and with the release of Romney's tax returns, he takes the opportunity to throw out some derivation of the following line: "It is not right that people of means like Warren Buffett, with billions of dollars, are paying the same rate as his secretary, who is here today. I know that it is called the Buffett rule because of this but perhaps it would be more appropriate to call it the Romney rule, as he pays even less." Obama is probably too classy to go explicitly at Romney like that, but BELEE dat the above sentiment will be implied.