If Romney is the nominee, he may very well recruit Kasich as VP to try and secure Ohio. As usual, the election will probably come down to Ohio.

It seems like the major bankers have already decided that Obama would stay on as President.

Any of these Republican candidates will be crushed.

Allegedly, corporate profits are at a record high.

Which is like both the best and worst news rolled into one.



The same Kasich who fronted the flop Senate Bill 5 that Romney tried his damn best to run away from before forced to back it by the base?

Romney/Kasich would practically cede that state away.

That's true, Ronnie.

Occupy what?

- Anne Coulter, November 16th.

- Ann Coulter, February 12th.

Well, as much as I hate that twat, her November quote does make sense if you're a Republican.

It's surreal (if pathetic) seeing such a purist hack pundit backing the perfect definition of a RINO, a man who once promised to be more pro-Gay than Ted Kennedy, and the father the HCR that passed through Congress, oh and a member of a Christian-affiliated "cult" religion.

Yet as the biggest RINO of that primaries, the other candidates have been disqualified by the base for lesser RINO offenses. (Cain got more heat from the base for his past public thoughts on unions than for the female problem.) Sad too that a solid candidate with a better resume in Huntsman was never given a chance, only because he believed in trying to drag the party from 1981 to 2011 on Gays and Immigration. Seriously he was the governor of fuckin' Utah, what more conservative credentials do you need?

(Or for that matter, ignored by the base whether by choice or through their usual ignorance, Romney's foreign policy pounded at the last debate is practically the same as the current administration.)

I hear you, Ronnie. But it just looks like a lot of their base would rather put up with only four more years of Obama, as opposed to eight full years of Romney. Coulter has obviously chosen to go in the other direction. But I doubt that a Michael Savage or a Glenn Beck will do likewise.

Besides the economy, the other major issue in Ohio will be the health care law about which Ohioans have already expressed their collective opinion. Unlike collective bargaining, it is a national issue and Kasich may be the Republican candidate's best shot to secure Ohio.

Cain suggests Taliban running Libya

http://news.yahoo.com/cain-suggests-taliban-running-libya-002006496.html

I know this is not entirely election based but it does concern Mr. Obama, who i saw was in Australia this week driving the poor woman leader of Oz into a frenzy (she appeared unable to keep her hands off him, the poor old biddy).

Anyways i read that he said that the US has no stronger or better ally thatn Australia? What happened to us?? I am sure he has said the same thing about the UK? Now i know words come easy to politicians and he has to keep Oz sweet to have as a base for when we go to war with China ......

But in the meantime, the next Arab country we go to war with, will Australia be the number one ally??

Notice how i keep saying we here??

I know its all politics but i had to raise a quizzical eyebrow at this!! A bit like Roger Moore in the old James Bond movies

P.S. I hasten to add that i say this with no animosity towards Oz, which is a great country and should be on board.....with us - theres that "we" again.....

Don't worry UK, we still love you. Pay no attention to the lipstick on the collar or the late night phone calls. And for God's sake, don't be trying to look at our cell phone texts...

Thanks Lilo

I wouldn't read anything into it, Yogi. It's just politics as usual.

Woe for the days of Tony Blair and George W. Bush sneeking off to a cheap motel together.

GOP '12 Primaries, the gift that keeps on giving for the President.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/20...l-campaign.html

Our Tony. our version of a ten buck hooker......

Bill Kristol masturbates to Newt '12.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/evitable-newt-gingrich-mitt-romney-2012_609187.html

Meanwhile, a report that focus groups of Evangelical women conducted in the last two years hate Newt.

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/283472/newt-and-social-conservatives-katrina-trinko

Anyone understand Russian? This news reporter appears to say Barack Obama's name and then gives the finger. I kid you not. Check it out.


TIS


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/21/reporter-fail-russian-middle-finger_n_1104941.html

There are a few formally regularly posting Board members from which we haven't heard in awhile. One is Apple. With the Presidential election season heating up, I thought she'd being posting alot.

Certainly I disagree with her alot on politics, but perspective from the other aisle is good for debate and clarity.

(or unlike say me, she has a life.)

Give Newt credit: Somehow he angled Romney to come off as the insensitive dick on immigration. (And this from Newt.)

Those crazy Russinas. This should seal Obama's reelection:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnew...e-at-Obama.html

Yeah, getting the finger from a crazy Russian bitch ought to get him the sympathy vote. Forget the economy!

Reminds me of when that waitress kept "accidentally" giving George Costanza the finger.

National Review panics about Romney (shockingly) lacking a solid base of support.

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/283628/down-ship-michael-walsh



That blog posting came about after the Washington Post reported that despite liberal bitchings (some deserved) and the Super Committee failure and the debt negotiations mess, the President's base of support is about as good as Clinton's was 12 months before the re-election ballot. Should I be shocked?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/p...K5fN_story.html

Michael Medved argues that McCain lost among other things, not because self-described conservatives stayed home, but because Republicans lost among independents and Hispanics.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204224604577030482569015376.html

This is of course the classic question of whether it is better to put forth someone unblemished with compromise who loudly and unashamedly brays forth the party line or whether a party should nominate someone who compromises here and there but can attract independents and win.

To sum up Medved's argument.. "The Conservative Family ain't even got that kind of muscle no more!!!"

Even if every conservative registered and voted for the most conservative candidate that won't be enough to win. Because not everyone thinks like they do. To have a chance at winning in the general election, the Republican candidate must be able to (dishonestly in my view of course ) sell palatable conservative ideas to independents.

This is MUCH easier to do if unemployment rate is still at current levels next year but it's much more difficult to do if the eventual nominee is locked into Tea Party talking points.

Medved is more practical minded than most conservative talk show hosts. But he may recognize (but won't admit) what I posted years ago. Americans' life experiences have become so homogenized, that many of us feel vulnerable. So many of us have fallen on hard or harder financial times, have diseases of all types, unwanted pregnancies, divorces, drug and alcohol problems, and criminals in our families and among our friends and relatives that it's become more difficult to spout turn our backs on those in the same boat. Staunch conservatives refuse to recognize such.

Is he sure about that? I thought it was because he had a political unknown as a running mate who was incapable of naming one newspaper that she read and couldn't deliver any electoral votes.

She was part of it. But Hispanics never give more than about 30-40% of their vote to Republicans. They are a conservative group, but they feel that it's Republicans that have discriminated against them. That's why Gingrich is modifying his stance on illegal immigration.

Independents? You never know about. Bush was a Republican Presiddnt as the economy was heading downhill. So, independents may have done what so many Americans do and blame a bad economy on the President.

You'll find fascinating debates at right-wing blogs debating that very question. Should we swallow our souls and support Mittens, or follow our hearts?

My answer is the most unsatisfying one: It depends in context because no presidential election is alike. Would Bill Clinton 1992 have won in 1960 or Reagan 1980 in 1940? No. But to craft a unify hypothesis, I suppose you have to look at it like commercially marketing a product to the masses, where timing and giving people what they need (or think they need). But at the least, you have to be credible. If people think your product sucks, they won't buy it.

(I told you that answer wasn't satisfying.)

McCain, for a time at least, had public credibility as a "maverick" in trying to achieve bi-partisan legislative remedies for controversial issues like global warming, illegal immigration, and campaign financing. He disowned all that to win the '08 nomination, but I degress. If he had "run" as a conservative moderate (and more importantly had won primary votes without betraying that basic narrative), the Democrats in '08 painting him as Dubya 2.0 or agreeing with him 90% of the time would've had a much tougher assignment.

Romney...doesn't have that. He was a moderate conservative that's now hiding in the closet while publicly a reincarnation of Reagan. With about as much current success as Lance Bass, Liberace, Clay Aiken and Ricky Martin all had in convincing America that they weren't gay.



I find disconnect in the Romney campaign. They've tried to skate through the primaries without being forced to publicly accepting primary friendly/general election toxic positions, win by default because of party establishment support and shitload of money raised. He's for it because he hasn't said he isn't. (Notice how his foreign policy, aside from some hot air at the debates, practically mirrors the current President.)

Not that I blame him, it's a sound strategy that I guess is working. But then Perry has his immigration "gaffe" (translation: sane pragmatic solution to a real problem) and Romney with a boner the size of Texas, cheerfully destroyed Perry on it and took credit for securing the party's ideological purity. Because surely a guy from Cape Cod has the knowledgeble authority to lecture a state government how to integrate a massive illegal (and poor) immigration population into the local economy.

Then Ohio with the failed anti-union ballot initiative. He (rightly) initially tried to avoid that loser, but pussied out when Fox News forced him to endorse it. Then because he took no clear public position on the current anti-IVF meme with the Pro-Lifers, he's having to nationally back away from that shit like the plague after Mississippi voted it down while telling that base he is still Pro-Life. if saner But the Democrats will still gladly hang that albatross around his neck, and not much he can do about it without some good tap dancing.

Now with Newt's own supposed immigration "gaffe" and the Romney people are publicly rubbing their hands in glee about how they know how to torpedo their latest threat. But Mitt, buddy, aren't you doing the exact opposite of what want to do? Yes you might defeat Newt, hell you probably will. (Well goddamit you should, it's Newt!) But that camera drama of Newt making a risky gamble by going to your left and making you come off as an insensitive dick on that issue? You don't think the White House didn't watch that exchange and got a giant shiney bright lightbulb over their heads?

I believe George Will nailed Romney correctly: A too reactive of a candidate.

I think the GOP (currently at least) has trouble when their generic GOP candidate is polled tied with the President among independents in an economy of over 9 percent unemployment. How do you fuck that up?

I remember him arguing to disgruntled GOPers after the last national election as to why most American Jews (outside the Orthodox) are still loyal to the Democratic Party in spite of the supposed Israel-friendly and religious flavored Neocon foreign policy: they don't trust the Evangelicals. And he's right.

Though to be blunt, Medved's opinion angled from the idea that the moderate/Reform Jews (i.e. liberals) in America are intolerant against Christians, which of course I consider to be repugnant Neocon porn. But none the less, he has some brains and unlike most in the mindless right-wing landscape, he dares to deploy critical thinking in public.

(Of course critical thinking isn't profitable. You don't see guys like him or David Brooks or George Will hosting shows on Fox News.)



Me the political science major would bring up how supposedly if American politics have generational swings between the ideologies, then we're seeing it right before our eyes. The liberals in the 1970s in rhetoric were still running against Herbert Hoover, now the conservatives in 2011 are still running against Walter Mondale. Times change, stale rhetoric and discredited ideology adapt to survive or they crawl off into the corner of irrelevancy and die.

Perfect example: Consider how the American public has really shifted positively towards gay rights in recent years compared.. Hell just a decade ago, most Americans weren't just against gay marriage or civil unions, they didn't find homosexuality "morally acceptable." You remember President Dubya pushing for that constitutional amendment against gay marriage, and all those state ballot initiatives as part of Karl Rove's strategy to drive up the base vote. (And it worked.)

Now the last Gallup poll has the majority finding it not just tolerable, but also broad support for legalized domestic partnerships (marriage or civil unions.) I like that argument that the public is way ahead of the government in this policy. What happened?

Most experts claim it's because of recent pop culture, whether Lady Gaga or Glee or Ellen or Neil Patrick Harris or Modern Family or Torchwood convinced people that those gay people out to corrupt your kids aren't evil, they're just normal people who're just as miserable as the rest of us. They're not a threat. I do agree it played a significant part, for breaking down the polls have the youth have no problem, their parents are getting over it, but their grandparents still rant about the evils of Sodom at their retirement home inbetween medication. Thankfully God invented death.

But I argue that was allowed to happen in the same timespan after the religious right in America absolutely shredded their legitimacy as the moral authority. From countless Republican "family values" politicians busted for immarital affairs or being hypocritical closet gays to the Vatican's complete unashamed complicity in committing pedophilia and aiding/abetting child rapists. Or that divorce rate average in the Evangelical Christian community is equal to the national average. Or that the daughter of Sarah Palin, the Evangelical champion, bore a child out of wedlock and became a national public spokeswoman for abstinence. Or blasting Iran (rightly) for persecuting Homosexuals, yet screamed of the impending apocalypse if gays openly served in the military. And yada yada.

Long term the GOP still vehimently against the Gays on that issue is a loser. Obama will be the last Democratic presidential nominee that is publicly against gay "marriage," yet he's made his incremental steps towards civil rights equality with repealing DADT (with 80% public support), refusing to defend DOMA in federal court, allowing AIDS victims to have travel visas or appointing a (alleged) lesbian to the SCOTUS, etc. The GOP long term will either have to abandon it as a relic well of the past that won't hold mainstream water anymore, or subtly oppose it in stealth or coded speech like conservatives did after the Civil Rights victory back in the 1960s.