Tag: Primaries

Decision: New Hampshire–2012

Most of the votes are in for New Hampshire….the first test of the voters likes or dislikes….Will Mitt be the man?  Will Santorum sneak into 2nd place?  Is Paul for real?  What about Huntsman?  And where the Hell is Newt?  I will attempt to answer all your questions on this vote and maybe some you did not know you wanted to ask…..

The final poll was…..Romney with 33%, Paul with 20 and Huntsman with 13……how telling were the polls in New Hampshire?

At 8 pm ET the polls closed on New Hampshire and by 8:30 pm ET Romney was declared the winner…Paul second and Huntsman 3rd……and by 8:45 pm ET sane people turned to TCM and Dr. Strangelove…..people like me spent the evening listening to the media tell us just how important New Hampshire was and how it will effect the rest of the race…..the truth is, in the grand scheme of things they are not that important except for all the cash that is spent and all the media spin….now a days the MSM does not speculate anymore because they do not want to get caught flat footed and lose viewers…..

And so far, none of the candidates have said they would drop out, even Perry who got in the neighborhood of 1% is gonna stay and duke it out in South Carolina….which may be his Alamo and last stand……

Mitt’s victory speech was uninspiring…….it sounded insincere, shallow and memorized….is there a book for candidates with one liners they can use in their speeches?  I have not, that I can remember, heard a candidate that is less inspiring than Mitt…..

On to South Carolina and the next media circus and Mitt may be one step closer to being crowned….I think that South Carolina will be a loss for Mitt and Florida will be the real test….but who the Hell knows?

2012 Anal-Ocity #2

Politicos have hit the ground running with anal statements…..after all it is an election year and I expect many more……

While doing an interview on the tube DCCC member, Debbie Wasserman Schultz said….

“I am confident that in 2012 the people will be the winner in this election cycle”  (a paraphrase)

I realize that she is NOT the first person to use this statement, on the contrary, it has been used by almost every politico regardless the color of the ideology…..but…… (there is always a ‘but’)…….after she made the statement I got to thinking…..after at least 50 years of this comment and NOTHING has actually changed for the people of this country…I mean this is a cute little sound byte…….please explain to me what the people will win…..justice for the thieving bankers?  Maybe it will be a way to get out of poverty?  Or will it be a Congress that works more than it is off……what will we, the people, win?

I truly wish that I could say something positive about this election…..but the only think that comes to mind…..same song….different singer!

Could 2012 Be Another 1968?

I will bet you are asking just what the Hell I am going on about, right?

Well let us see……thinking…..both primaries had a Romney in them……both primary seasons had a ego-centric candidate…..both seasons had question on just how conservative a candidate was…..and both seasons had a Romney!

The Week has summed it up very well……

In 1968, a moderate Republican governor named George Romney was running for president against a vulnerable Democratic incumbent, and Romney’s main argument was that he was electable, say Paul Goldman and Mark J. Rozell in USA Today. In the Michigan governor’s way were the “Goldwaterites,” a group of conservative insurgents who seemed destined to lose — and Richard Nixon, once “the party’s premier political thinker” whose “rising star had crashed.” What happened next should make Romney’s son, Mitt, very nervous. Here, an excerpt:

Despite all the electability hype, one Republican instinctively knew Romney couldn’t win the GOP nomination: Richard Nixon. Dwight Eisenhower’s former veep knew that the Goldwaterites didn’t consider him sufficiently conservative…. So during the run-up to the New Hampshire primary, Nixon plotted his comeback, mending conservative fences in private, content to let the Michigan governor have the spotlight. By the time the candidate whom conservatives always wanted to run — California Gov. Ronald Reagan — entered the race, the clever Nixon had the nomination sewn up….

Fast forward to the 2012 GOP nomination cycle. Once again, a Romney is running as Mr. Electable, stuck at 20-30 percent in the polls…. Enter the Richard Nixon of his era, the old warhorse, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. The Georgian, like Nixon, was a back-bencher in Congress until shrewd conservative politics and good luck propelled them on to the national stage. Each, in turn, became a shooting star, a mixture of personal and political foibles seemingly smashing forever his dreams of becoming president.

Until a Romney showed up.

Sports fans, it looks like a historical repeat waiting to happen….can Gingrich do what Nixon did in 1968?  What are the chances that Newt will be the GOP nominee to face Obama?  Your thoughts, please.

Should Obama Face A Primary?

For all those people that voted for Obama and his change and hope…..how did that work out for you?  There were so many people that were looking for a new way of governing and Obama was that way…..back in early 2008 I wrote a piece on Daily Kos saying that if he were elected that it would be business as usual in Washington…I was attacked merciless and told that I was not welcome on a site that was working to bring hope and change to America….now I can look back at send the “finger” to all those so-called progressives….they were wrong and now they are turning on the president…….how does it feel to be crapped on by your fair haired boy?  (Not intended as a slap at the Prez, in case someone is offended)

With all of Obama’s giving to the GOP…he has fallen flat on his face as a progressive…the progressive we all hoped he would be………

Sorry, I digress…….to answer my own question….yes he should face a primary and have to defend vigorously his lack of leadership and principles……but then the question arises……who?

One of my votes would go the independent Senator Bernie Sanders…..why?

Sanders said recently….and he is right……

“My suggestion is, I think one of the reasons the president has been able to move so far to the right is that there is no primary opposition to him, and I think it would do this country a good deal of service if people started thinking about candidates out there to begin contrasting what is a progressive agenda as opposed to what Obama is doing,” Sanders told talk show host Thom Hartmann over the weekend. “I think it would be a good idea if President Obama faced some primary opposition.”

Sanders has been an unfaltering champion of true progressive ideals…not the Dems ideals which are no more than Repub ideas in liberal clothing….he would be a good choice.

And then there is former Senator Russ Feingold, another champion of true progressive ideals….by standing by his ideals it cost him his re-election and gave a mamby pamby Repub a shot at destroying the country….Feingold is BETTER than a liberal….he is a PROGRESSIVE!

And then there is my long shot……Eliott Spitzer…..the man is a progressive and a genius in economics….the only problem would be getting past the “hooker” thing…..which in my opinion is NO big deal…I mean look at Sen. Vitter of LA….he had a hooker thing around his neck and he is still in the Senate even tough he actually broke the law…he is still there.

Of course, the inevitable criticism will be that it will harm the prez and possibly give the GOP a win….in my opinion…it is a crap of an argument….why?  Because the prez is giving the GOP everything they want …..so where would be the harm?

There is a downside to running against the Prez in the primaries…..the one that comes to mind is the election of 1980……Carter faced a primary challenge from Kennedy and the chaos that was brought about the John Anderson third party candidate which cost Carter the presidency….as case could be made  (that is what Google is for)……..

Okay, those are my three nominees……what to you guys think?  And who would be your picks?

The GOP’s ABM Treaty (Thanx Chris Matthews)

Since I am an old fart I can remember the original ABM Treaty from the 1970’s….it was the treaty that limited and was to eventually ban missiles that carried nuclear warheads and it was between the US and the old USSR….there has been much controversy from the time it was signed in 1972 until 2002 when the US pulled out of the treaty……sorry….I digress….the ABM Treaty I am writing about is NOT about missiles but the GOP candidate Mitt Romney.

The ABM stands for “Anybody But Mitt”……..I say that because every poll taken, no matter by whom, shows that the GOP base is not happy with any of their candidates…..and the one that is getting the least amount of respect is their frontrunner……Mitt Romney.  Mitt has all the excitement of paint drying.

There is so much that the conserv base dislikes about their frontrunner……he is a flip-flop, he gave Obama a health care program, he was pro-choice before he was pro-life, he is a Mormon (thought no one will admit it) and he has all the excitement of crab grass…..and those are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head…..believe me there are many more things the base does not like……Hell, his fundraising has been so low that that he had to go to London looking for fresh donors…….

I think he is the frontrunner only because it is his turn in the GOP rotation…..a typical tactic of the Party…..no matter where he goes….there he is……there is NO passion among his supporters….if their were he would have attracted big rollers as advisers….instead these people are aligning themselves with candidates like Michele Bachmann…….

As the primaries progress and Romney does NOT do well…..he will be asked to drop out and make room for someone who could possibly win the 2012 election…..right now I do not believe that there are many in the GOP that think he can beat Obama in the Fall of 2012….even though he may be the most mainstream candidate….few think he has the talent to lure the so-called independents.

Unless he catches fire with the base…..he is NOT what they are looking for in a candidate to go against a sitting president.  And that is why it is “Anybody But Mitt”  (ABM)………..at least for now……

The Longer They Go, The Whackier They Get

From the VOMITORIUM

The Teabaggers are getting more and more air time during the present cycle of elections and primaries……and all their lunacy keeps coming out and out and the Low info voter keeps licking it up by the jug full…….

Take Nevada when the darling of the Tea Party won her nomination as the Repub candidate…..she wants to abolish Social Security, bow out of the UN, just to mention a few of her quirky little stands….but does it stop there?

Hell NO!

Since she won the nomination more and more of her extreme right and extreme crazy ideas keep coming forth…..

The peculiar ideology of Sharron Angle, the Republican nominee challenging Sen. Harry Reid in Nevada, is perhaps no better illustrated than by her embrace of the patriot group Oath Keepers, whose membership of uniformed soldiers and police take an oath to refuse orders they see as unconstitutional — including enforcement of gun laws, violations of states’ sovereignty, and “any order to blockade American cities, thus turning them into giant concentration camps.

According to the SPLC, Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, a former staffer for Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) warns his followers against “a coming dictatorship” that will happen if “our brothers in arms go along and comply with unconstitutional, unlawful orders.” An extensive report on the group by Mother Jones in March suggests supporters of the movement believe they’re living through the first steps of the shift away from constitutional freedom. Members of the group — many of them in the armed forces — share the “belief that the government is already turning on its citizens, they are recruiting military buddies, stashing weapons, running drills, and outlining a plan of action [to stop it],” the magazine reported.

Early in her career, if we can call it that she had the John Birch ideas about Communist plots……

Nevada GOP Senate candidate Sharron Angle earlier in her career spoke out strongly against fluoride, the substance known alternately for improving dental health and as a Communist plot to undermine Western democracy.

Poor thing, she just cannot catch a break….the mainstream media is after her butt or she could be just plain….CRAZY!

This next part has little or maybe nothing to do with  Angle….but is just as crazy and just as much the Tea Party as the woman above…..

From Newser’s website:

Think the Tea Party rhetoric is getting a little overwrought? Then get a load of this video from Alabama House candidate Rick Barber, in which he has a kind of war council with various founding fathers. Barber calls for President Obama’s impeachment, then launches a mostly nonsensical rant about the IRS, which is making us “spy on ourselves” by asking us to report our income. “I can’t stand by while these evils are perpetrated!” Barber cries. “You gentlemen revolted over a tea tax. A tea tax! Are you with me?” To which fantasy Washington replies gravely, “Gather your armies.” Which is kind of funny because, as David Weigel of the Washington Post points out, Washington instituted the nation’s first federal tax in 1791—on whiskey—and organized a militia to forcibly collect it from anyone who resisted.

All this would be all the more humorous, if it was not so damn scary…….scary in the sense that there those out there that believe all this equine fecal matter…..and anyone with half a brain would be scared at the popularity that all these NUTS are receiving……

Women Rule Mid-Term Elections

Inkwell Institute

2010/2012 Election Series

For the most part the normal mid-term election primaries are about as boring as watching flies mate…for the most part the 2010 ones were No exception…..but…..there were few races that caught my eye….why?  Women!  I like women and political women are just hot…for the most part…but this time around there was more to the campaigns than just political diatribes…..to be honest there was some real funk going on…..

Meg Whitman in Calif has spent over $80 million in a primary and the general is coming on strong……is the running of a bankrupt state really worth $80 million?  Fiorina will take on Boxer for the Senate seat as the outsider……

South Carolina, the attractive Tea Party candidate has won a run-off for the GOP nomination, Nikki Haley, even after allegations of a couple of sexual affairs were thrown around….she said she would resign if they can be proven…keep an eye on that see if that campaign promise will be kept….

Blanche Lincoln has pulled her political butt out of the fire by making a comeback against Halter in the primary and now she will move on to the general against the GOP candidate and will most likely lose her seat in the anti-Washington sentiment of the Arkansas voter.  But I think that her voting record and campaign donations may bite her harder in the butt than labor did in the run-off.

But the favorite of all the races has been Nevada…..one candidate wants to use barter like chickens for health care to bring down the cost but the best is the one that is currently in the lead……Angle….the whackier of the women in this race…..she does not think that alcohol should be legal, she wants to pull out of UN, wants to disband Social Security, just a few of her more scarier of beliefs…..the good news is that she will most likely face Harry Reid for the Senate seat….he should have an easy campaign….that is assuming that the people of Nevada are not complete idiots.

Women have had this mid term dance a bit more interesting than it would have been without them…at least for me….the mid-term elections are usually just a rubber stamp of the political dance and then when it becomes something more….thanx to the American voter and their anger at the way Washington is doing business….

Obama Wants To Fix Primary System

The presumptive Democratic nominee wants to clean up the nation’s primary (and caucus) mess for the next go-round four years from now.

A message to that effect was issued by Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign Wednesday, calling for a so-called Change Commission that will settle caucus rules, cut the number of superdelegates and develop a system of primaries and caucuses that attempts to avoid this year’s confusion.

The Obama campaign suggested its commission could draw up a system — one with a pre-window for some states to hold primaries or caucuses in February 2012 and all the rest relegated to elections no earlier than the first Tuesday in March of that year.

Iowa and New Hampshire will demand to be part of the early mix — and could be — as national officials seem loath to alienate those states. But two top Michigan Democrats — U.S. Sen. Carl Levin and National Committeewoman Debbie Dingell — who have agitated to break those states’ monopoly on first-in-the-nation status said Wednesday they’ve been assured no state will get an automatic preference.

Obama, however, supports Iowa and New Hampshire keeping their first-in-the-nation status. Accomplishing that may not be part of the commission’s job but, if he wins the presidency, his opinion is likely to count for a lot.

Would it not be a lot easy to have Regional primaries, 3 or 4 weeks, and then move on tyo more important stuff?

What Now?

Finally, the end of the primary season, but not the end of the bickering.  Obama has the delegates for the nomination, but Clinton has not conceded that it is over.

The GOP sees the Dem Party as a fractured Party and will attack on that level.  McCain is already stoking the fires of the the dissenting voters–women, Hispanics and the rest.  The GOP will do all they have to to keep the divisiveness of the Dems going all the way to the convention.

It will be interesting to see where the MSM comes down here….will they continue the BS of non-issues or will they now and finally start focusing on the issues like health care?

For now the insanity is over….may I have an amen?  But now the backroom deals will begin.

Will The Fight Continue?

Now that the Democrats have voted on seating the disputed delegations from Florida and Michigan (all the delegates get to come, but they only get half a vote each), some of Hillary Clinton‘s highest-profile supporters are divided over what should happen next.

You’ll recall that those two states broke party rules by moving their primaries ahead of the dates on the Democrats’ schedule. Primary voters in Michigan and Florida were told that their votes would not count, and Democratic candidates did not campaign in either state. In Michigan, Clinton’s was the only name on the ballot; the other choice was “uncommitted.”

Top adviser Harold Ickes, a member of the rules committee, appeared on CNN’s “Late Edition” Sunday and reiterated his threat to take the matter to the party’s credentials committee at the convention in August. He and other Clinton backers are upset that the committee allocated 69 of the Michigan votes to their candidate and 59 to Barack Obama, who was not on the ballot.

Another Clinton adviser, Mandy Grunwald, argued on CBS’ “Face the Nation” “that in the way delegates were apportioned by the rules committee yesterday, they broke their own rules. And that’s a terrible precedent. That’s a terrible precedent. That’s why our campaign has said we will consider taking this fight to the convention.”

“Just to explain — they took the votes, the delegates, and apportioned them the way they chose,” she said. “It had nothing to do with the way votes were made in Michigan. That is an arbitrary ruling that simply violates the rules of our party.”

But appearing on the same program, one of Clinton’s most prominent supporters seemed to back away from a battle.  Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell started his comments by noting, “I’m not inside the campaign mechanism, but I believe she’ll do the right thing for America.”

This should be the story of the week.  The last primaries of the season in Montana and South Dakota will give us an idea of the delegate breakdown.  Will the convention bring unity or dis-unity?  Will the party survive?