Does Santorum live in the United States?

Rick Santorum is giving his speech in Ohio before the votes are counted.  That in itself says something.

But listening to his speech begs the question – what country does this guy live in? He seems to think he lives in a theocratic country, Iran perhaps?

In short, he seems unable to say anything that is remotely related to actual fact.  He’s one bumper sticker after another.  And I’m not holding him to a normal standard of actually being honest and reality based.  After all, he’s a politician.  But listening to him I have to wonder if he’s simply gone off into some parallel universe in which reality is whatever rhetoric he can come up with.

I’m sorry to be blunt, but the guy is unreal.  Not only has he shown over the last few months that he is a maniacal bigot, he just seems not to realize that people actually are not all as uniformed as his rhetoric suggests he believes they must be.

Okay, Santorum won Tennesee and Oklahoma.  That tells you something.  What is interesting is that he is slightly ahead of Romney in Ohio with about a third of the vote in as I write this. That doesn’t bode well for Romney.   But we’ll see that it bodes very well for Obama given Romney’s utter disconnect from anyone who isn’t a $200 millionaire.

Is this thing over yet? Seriously. The Republican party has effectively demonstrated that it is incapable of governing this country.   Blame it on the tea party bigots.

Next.

Arizona and Michigan Choose Obama in Republican Primary

Today is the big day.  Arizona and Michigan go to the polls to pick their respective choices for the Republican nominee.  And the big winner is…

…President Obama.

Mitt Romney has done an excellent job letting the voters of both states know who he is – a super-rich, out of touch, elitist who just can’t seem to fake this whole communing with the common man thing.  He doesn’t know NASCAR racing, but hey, he has some good friends who own NASCAR racing teams.  He reiterated his belief that the American auto industry – based in Detroit – should have been left to go bankrupt with no intervention, but hey, his wife’s two cars are both Cadillacs.  [Mitt’s cars also are American, though it’s unclear if that only happened recently when he started running for president and knew it would look bad to have foreign cars…you know, like the undocumented foreign workers the company he hired to have his domestic work done were asked to leave because “I can’t have undocumented aliens; I’m running for President.”]

Then there is Rick Santorum.  Well, Jennifer Granholm, Michigan’s former Governor, says it all with:

“The version of Republicanism you are offering is a gift to Democrats looking for recruits. The anti-gay, anti-woman, anti-immigrant, anti-Latino, anti-Muslim, anti-Europe (particularly the French and the Greeks), anti-labor, anti-poor, anti-99 percent and now anti-college graduate rhetoric enables us to eagerly welcome your castoffs into the Democratic Party — where inclusivity is celebrated and their contributions are welcome.”

So no matter which GOP candidate officially wins tonight in the Republican primary, the big winner is President Obama.  Thanks Mitt and Rick (and those other two guys) – you let people know exactly who you are.  And that got President Obama a bunch of new votes in November.

Conservative icon, National Review, calls for Newt Gingrich to drop campaign for Republican nomination

The conservative icon, National Review, is calling for Newt Gingrich to drop out of the race.

According to a February 13, 2012 editorial:

“But it would be a grave mistake for the party to make someone with such poor judgment and persistent unpopularity its presidential nominee. It is not clear whether Gingrich remains in the race because he still believes he could become president next year or because he wants to avenge his wounded pride: an ambiguity that suggests the problem with him as a leader.”

And that’s from the conservative wing of the Republican party.

The National Review says that it is “Santorum’s Turn,” that Mitt Romney “remains the undramatic figure at the center of the primaries’ drama.”  It’s not so much that Romney is the best candidate.  In fact, “lack of enthusiasm for him has set it all in motion.”  Worse, “Romney is trying to win the nomination by pulverizing his rivals” [i.e., his fellow Republicans]. So much for Reagan’s 11th Commandment, though clearly the same lack of adherence to that commandment is true for all the other candidates as well.  Of course, you can add one or two (or more) other Commandments that Newt Gingrich has also violated.

How will this end?  Likely very badly for Romney.  Oh, and Gingrich?  He’s pretty much toast.

Mitt Romney wins Maine caucuses…and wins CPAC straw poll…net gain of delegates – Zero

Ron Paul tried, but just missed beating Mitt Romney in the Maine caucuses.   The margin was probably due to the fact the voting has been going on for a week (i.e., started before Romney got embarrassed on Tuesday) and the caucuses for Washington County were postponed due to a major snowstorm.  Meanwhile, “severely conservative” Romney also won the meaningless straw poll at the end of the CPAC conference, beating out Rick Santorum as Ron Paul slid into fourth.

So with Saturday’s two wins Romney gets exactly the same number of delegates that Santorum got with his three wins on Tuesday.  Which is, of course, zero, zilch, nada, null.  The actual delegate choices come later in some cases and are non-binding in others, which makes one wonder why they spend so much time and money to hold these dog and pony shows.

In any case, this is good news for Romney since losing either or both of today’s non-events would paint him as a serial loser.  And that really isn’t a good paint job for the campaign bus heading into a general election.  Winning at CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference, aka, a conservative lobbying event, was actually quite a good outcome for Romney considering two important details.  First, Ron Paul won the CPAC straw poll the last two years, and second, it means Romney’s newest bizarre verbal gaffe didn’t hurt him too much.  At least with the white guys in the room.

When PGH first heard that Mitt had emphasized his “severely conservative” ideology we were as confused as everyone else.  “Highly” conservative? Maybe.  “Largely” conservative? Sort of.  “Always” conservative? Umm, no.  But “severely” has essentially no positive meaning in this context.  PGH’s first thought was “time to fire the speech writer.”  Seriously.  But then this was apparently an ad lib by the Mitt, and since the Republican party has fired pretty much everyone else that was running already, we guess Mitt is safe for now.  [Though Gingrich seems to have had a belly bouncing guffaw that Romney had said something even more nonsensical than Michele Bachmann, aka, “the perfect candidate.”]

So Romney survives another day in his inexorably slow bumpy road to the nomination.  The next few states (Arizona and Michigan on February 28 and Washington on March 3) seem to be tailor made for him.  Notably, Daddy was Governor of Michigan, though this must be balanced against Mitt’s stated desire to have let the automobile industry in Detroit fail and millions of jobs go down the tubes.  Who knows, Santorum could surprise everyone and do well in those states.  Then comes Super Tuesday on March 6 when there are some substantial delegates available in a wide variety of states – pretty much something for everyone.  Even Gingrich has Georgia (though not Virginia).

If Mitt can win all of the above then it’s finally over.  If the results look like a blindfolded drunk dart thrower than at least the media have something to talk about.  Because, after all, isn’t that the real reason they have these primaries and caucuses anyway – to give the media something to talk about for that boring two years leading up to an election?

Mitt Romney Wins Nevada Caucuses While Not Worrying About the Poor, Newt Gingrich Needs Your Prayers

Wow, what a week for Mitt Romney.  And what a week for Newt Gingrich.  Romney wins the Nevada caucuses but picks up an endorsement he might not want.

Okay, first for the wee little poor choice of words by Romney this week. And we of course mean the “poor” choice of words about not worrying about the poor.  Okay fine, the words were taken out of context and he didn’t really mean it the way it was portrayed by some.  But that doesn’t let Romney off the hook.  Not surprisingly, Romney’s intent had little to do with whom he is “concerned” about and a great deal to do with trying to convince middle class voters that he doesn’t represent exactly the kind of person/economic policy that benefits the very rich at the expense of the middle class. In short, he was trying to create a new reality to replace the one that isn’t so good for the middle class, i.e., the one that he supports.

Here are two insightful views on this topic:

Ruth Marcus: Why the poor should concern Romney

Eugene Robinson: Romney fails the empathy test

So on to the Donald Trump endorsement.  First off, Trump was “endorsing” solely and entirely as a gimmick to promote his reality TV show (is that still on the air? seriously?).  But what is really interesting about this endorsement is that Romney decided to accept it.  Mormons (Romney) have always opposed gambling, so hey, no problem accepting the endorsement in Trump’s Las Vegas casino.  I mean, that’s no bigger a stretch than Mormon’s opposing the drinking of alcohol unless, of course, you pay a $5 “membership fee” to join a “club” for “one night” (which, I’ve been told, is not a “cover charge in the local bar”).  That little detail aside, Romney’s acceptance of Donald “birther” Trump is sure to be a headline in coming months.  Already the Obama campaign has sent out an email noting:

“Yesterday, Mitt Romney said he was ‘humbled’ to accept Donald Trump’s endorsement. Seriously.”  “Yes, Donald Trump — birth certificate conspiracy leader — has decided that Mitt Romney’s his guy, and Romney has embraced him without reservation. He made a speech and even sent out a press release welcoming him.”

Good one, Mitt.  Embrace the buffoonish bigot tea party vote. That ought to help you with independents.  Especially now that the stock market is at highs not seen since before the Bush depression and the unemployment has been dropping as hundreds of thousands of jobs are being created per month.

Meanwhile, Gingrich is asking for prayers.

And he’ll need them since he is looking forward to Super Tuesday.  Yep, he’ll just skip Nevada, Maine, Colorado, Minnesota, Missouri, Arizona, Michigan, and Washington since they don’t matter (and he can’t win) and focus on the Super Tuesday states (even though he didn’t even make the ballot in at least one of them – Virginia).  Well, that certainly is a plan.  Sort of like Rudy Giuliani waiting for Florida in 2008. That worked out well.  Oh, wait. Never mind.

 

Huntsman Begins Run for 2016 – Romney Wins 2012 Republican Nomination

Jon Huntsman will officially announce on Monday that he is dropping out of the race for the 2012 Republican nomination for President and immediately beginning his run for the 2016 nomination.  Word from those “in the know” of his campaign suggest that he will probably not phrase it quite like that tomorrow, instead opting for the usual boring “doing it for the good of the party” speech.  But we all can read the writing on the bathroom wall, folks.  Do you really think we aren’t paying attention?  Jon Huntsman – 2016!!

In any case, Huntsman is pretty much in a bind.  He surprised everyone by taking Show (as in Win, Place and Show) in the New Hampshire primary, falling a mere 2 light years short of Romney’s first place total and a couple of clicks behind the chief “Not-Romney-of-the-Week” Ron Paul (standing in for his son, Rand Paul).  Notwithstanding this spectacular finish after spending only most of his life there the last few months, Huntsman faces the usual problem for thoughtful, honest candidates – no one wants to give him money to continue.  So Huntsman is showing how smart he is by leaving while sane people think highly of him, thus leaving a positive memory for when he officially starts running for the 2016 nomination.  Of course his unofficial 2016 candidacy starts today, but he does have to make a show of supporting his current party until it is safe to disappear (which should be less than a week). After that he’ll likely spend his time building his network.

So all of this means that Romney will win the South Carolina primary, something that he would have done anyway given that even South Carolina won’t vote for Perry, Santorum or Gingrich enough to jeopardize their “always vote for the nominee” pride day.  And then Romney will win Florida.  And then no one will care whether the other states even bother to vote since Romney will already be pivoting to try to make everything he has said to cater to the extremist tea party disappear from the collective memories of independents and other not crazy people.

From his speech, January 16, 2012:  “This race has degenerated into an onslaught of negative and personal attacks not worthy of the American people.”

And of course, that is from Republicans since he’s talking about the Republican primary race.

Fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy night! *

* All About Eve (1950) starring Bette Davis

Huntsman Shows Class, Romney Shows He is a Corporate Raider Who Puts Himself Before Country

Jon Huntsman has a new campaign ad out today in New Hampshire.  It’s called:

Country First

The short video shows Huntsman responding to Mitt Romney during this weekend’s debates.  Romney attacked Huntsman for…serving his country.  Yes, Romney actually attacked a fellow Republican for putting his country first and not playing partisan politics.  Romney made it clear he is more interested in his own wealth and power than what is best for his country.

Huntsman shows what America is supposed to be. Country First. Mitt Romney shows what he is – Romney first. Party first. Damn the country, I want mine first. That attitude is reflective of his time at Bain Capital – the goal wasn’t to save businesses, it was to make money for the investors. And if that meant laying off workers and dismantling the company, so be it. They were unimportant to Romney – all that mattered was that Bain Capital and the individual wealthy investors made money.

And that is a very very sad commentary on what Mitt Romney represents.

See the video below:

Romney and a few non-Romneys Debate in New Hampshire – Winner Takes All! Film at 11!

Team Romney goes into tonight’s Republican primary debate with a ridiculously insurmountable double digit lead in the polls.  So Team Anti-Romney has one last chance to knock Romney from the thrown before Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary.

Actually there are two chances since there is also a debate Sunday morning, but the timing is such that it’s really one debate split into two parts, presumably to capture both the asocial people with no Saturday night dates and those who don’t go to church on Sunday morning, so we can think of it as a last chance for the Anti-Romney forces to get noticed.

So watch tonight for whether anyone remembers Reagan’s 11th commandment (thou shalt not speak ill of fellow Republicans). Forget that Reagan and everyone else broke that commandment, and a few others, so many times that it became nothing but a meaningless platitude.  In any case, more than likely it will be all hands on Romney.  After all, the only way anyone stays in the race is to knock Romney down a peg or two or maybe three so that they have a chance for a comeback.  You can betcha the Gingrich, Santorum, Perry, Paul and Huntsman camps have been digging sharpened bamboo-spiked tiger traps for Romney all week.  I almost expect camouflage face paint (not so much for Paul, as he really wouldn’t carry that look off too well).  So expect all the non-Romneys to go for the severe wounding (metaphorically speaking) in New Hampshire, then the (equally metaphorically speaking) kill in South Carolina.

The South Carolina whose Governor has backed Romney.

You see where this going, right?

Anyway, it really doesn’t matter what they say tonight since no one is really listening and the words are political pomposity anyway.  What matters is whether Romney comes out of the debates inspiring pundits to think “The Coronation of Napoleon” or “Le Mort de Marat.”

Depending on that result, the tea party will have to decide whether to prostrate themselves in utter hypocrisy to support the nominee, or actually stand for the principles they claim to have.