Would This Be Romney’s Last Flip-Flop?

2/5/08:

You know, Ann came to me and she said, “You know, the one thing that’s clear tonight is that nothing’s clear.” But I think she’s wrong. One thing that’s clear is this campaign is going on.

(APPLAUSE)

AUDIENCE: Mitt! Mitt! Mitt! Mitt! Mitt! Mitt!

M. ROMNEY: I think — I think — I think there are some people who thought it was all going be done tonight, but it’s not all done tonight. We’re going to keep on battling. We’re going to go all the way to the convention, we’re going to win this thing, and we’re going to get in to the White House.

2/7/08:

This is not an easy decision for me. I hate to lose. My family, my friends and our supporters… many of you right here in this room… have given a great deal to get me where I have a shot at becoming President. If this were only about me, I would go on. But I entered this race because I love America, and because I love America, I feel I must now stand aside, for our party and for our country.

According to my math, that was less than 2 days.

Why Obama, Part V: Ethics

For the fifth installment of the Chamber’s Why Obama series, I’ve picked the ethics in government issue.  The same format applies; this is right from the Obama website. 

Ethics (pdf)

The Problem

Lobbyists Write National Policies: For example, Vice President Dick Cheney’s Energy Task Force of oil and gas lobbyists met secretly to develop national energy policy.

Secrecy Dominates Government Actions: The Bush administration has ignored public disclosure rules and has invoked a legal tool known as the “state secrets” privilege more than any other previous administration to get cases thrown out of civil court.

Wasteful Spending is Out of Control: The current administration has abused its power by handing out contracts without competition to its politically connected friends and supporters. These abuses cost taxpayers billions of dollars each year.

Barack Obama’s Plan

Shine the Light on Washington Lobbying

• Centralize Ethics and Lobbying Information for Voters: Obama will create a centralized Internet database of lobbying reports, ethics records, and campaign finance filings in a searchable, sortable and downloadable format.
• Require Independent Monitoring of Lobbying Laws and Ethics Rules: Obama will use the power of the presidency to fight for an independent watchdog agency to oversee the investigation of congressional ethics violations so that the public can be assured that ethics complaints will be investigated.
• Support Campaign Finance Reform: Obama supports public financing of campaigns combined with free television and radio time as a way to reduce the influence of moneyed special interests. Obama introduced public financing legislation in the Illinois State Senate, and is the only 2008 candidate to have sponsored Senator Russ Feingold’s (D-WI) tough bill to reform the presidential public financing system.

Shine the Light on Federal Contracts, Tax Breaks and Earmarks

• Create a Public “Contracts and Influence” Database: As president, Obama will create a “contracts and influence” database that will disclose how much federal contractors spend on lobbying, and what contracts they are getting and how well they complete them.
• Expose Special Interest Tax Breaks to Public Scrutiny: Barack Obama will ensure that any tax breaks for corporate recipients — or tax earmarks — are also publicly available on the Internet in an easily searchable format.
• End Abuse of No-Bid Contracts: Barack Obama will end abuse of no-bid contracts by requiring that nearly all contract orders over $25,000 be competitively awarded.
• Sunlight Before Signing: Too often bills are rushed through Congress and to the president before the public has the opportunity to review them. As president, Obama will not sign any non-emergency bill without giving the American public an opportunity to review and comment on the White House website for five days.
• Shine Light on Earmarks and Pork Barrel Spending: Obama’s Transparency and Integrity in Earmarks Act will shed light on all earmarks by disclosing the name of the legislator who asked for each earmark, along with a written justification, 72 hours before they can be approved by the full Senate.

Bring Americans Back into their Government

• Hold 21st Century Fireside Chats: Obama will bring democracy and policy directly to the people by requiring his Cabinet officials to have periodic national broadband townhall meetings to discuss issues before their agencies.
• Make White House Communications Public: Obama will amend executive orders to ensure that communications about regulatory policymaking between persons outside government and all White House staff are disclosed to the public.
• Conduct Regulatory Agency Business in Public: Obama will require his appointees who lead the executive branch departments and rulemaking agencies to conduct the significant business of the agency in public, so that any citizen can see in person or watch on the Internet these debates.
• Release Presidential Records: Obama will nullify the Bush attempts to make the timely release of presidential records more difficult.

Free the Executive Branch from Special Interest Influence

• Close the Revolving Door on Former and Future Employers: No political appointees in an Obama administration will be permitted to work on regulations or contracts directly and substantially related to their prior employer for two years. And no political appointee will be able to lobby the executive branch after leaving government service during the remainder of the administration.
• Free Career Officials from the Influence of Politics: Obama will issue an executive order asking all new hires at the agencies to sign a form affirming that no political appointee offered them the job solely on the basis of political affiliation or contribution.
• Reform the Political Appointee Process: FEMA Director Michael Brown was not qualified to head the agency, and the result was a disaster for the people of the Gulf Coast. But in an Obama administration, every official will have to rise to the standard of proven excellence in the agency’s mission.

Barack Obama’s Record:

• Federal Ethics Reform: Obama and Senator Feingold (D-WI) took on both parties and proposed ethics legislation that was described as the “gold standard” for reform. It was because of their leadership that ending subsidized corporate jet travel, mandating disclosure of lobbyists’ bundling of contributions, and enacting strong new restrictions of lobbyist-sponsored trips became part of the final ethics bill that was signed into law. The Washington Post wrote in an editorial, “The final package is the strongest ethics legislation to emerge from Congress yet.”
• Google for Government: Americans have the right to know how their tax dollars are spent, but that information has been hidden from public view for too long. That’s why Barack Obama and Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) passed a law to create a Google-like search engine to allow regular people to approximately track federal grants, contracts, earmarks, and loans online. The Chicago Sun-Times wrote, “It would enable the public to see where federal money goes and how it is spent. It’s a brilliant idea.”
• Illinois Reform: In 1998, Obama joined forces with former U.S. Sen. Paul Simon (D-IL) to pass the toughest campaign finance law in Illinois history. The legislation banned the personal use of campaign money by Illinois legislators and banned most gifts from lobbyists. Before the law was passed, one organization ranked Illinois worst among 50 states for its campaign finance regulations.
• A High Standard: Unlike other candidates Obama’s campaign refuses to accept contributions from Washington lobbyists and political action committees.

To me, this is one of the more important issues, and in this race I was looking for someone who could clearly reverse the trend that the Bush administration came to embody.  This is an issue that effects the very core of our democracy.  Is our government “of the people and for the people”, or is it simply guided by the whims and wishes of powerful donors, lobbyists, special interest groups and cronies? 

Of the remaining candidates, Romney and Huckabee don’t even address this issue (at least, not on their websites), and McCain’s position is pretty light on specifics.  Clinton, to her credit, does address it, but with such an established Washington political machine and extensive network, it lacks believability and it’s hard to look at this as much more than lip service.  Clinton is running a campaign run by big donors, and where there are big donors there are usually expectations of big favors.  Obama, on the other hand, has a certain amount of purity being a relative newcomer to Washington and is running his bid on an extraordinary amount of much more numerous and smaller donations.   Where some see lack of experience, I see a man who hasn’t become corrupted by the system and is genuinely coming in to do the people’s business, which gives him a lot more credibility when it comes to what he has posted on his website for this issue.

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Goodbye Rudy, Tuesday

Well, the Florida results are in, and Rudy’s out. 

The question that is undoubtedly on many people’s minds:  What the heck happened to Giuliani?  I think we’ve just witnessed a campaign roll off a hill, and I’m not quite sure what caused it.  According to most polls, Rudy was the frontrunner for most of 2007, and as late as early December still had double-digit leads over most of the other candidates, including John McCain. 

		1/15-17/08	12/3-5/07	11/5-7/07
		%	%	%
	John McCain	22	13	13
	Mike Huckabee	16	18	10
	Mitt Romney	16	12	12
	Rudy Giuliani	14	26	29
	Fred Thompson	9	11	19
	Ron Paul	4	3	n/a
	Other (vol.)	1	1	2
	None (vol.)	8	7	7
	Unsure	10	9	8
	Newt Gingrich	n/a	n/a	n/a
	Sam Brownback	n/a	n/a	n/a

Was it “World Wavered, History Hesitated“, or did people simply forget about 9/11?  ‘Cause he was there on 9/11.

9/11.

He was there, and he didn’t waver, remember?

Oh  what the heck, one more time… for Rudy…

9/11.

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In ’08 Race, Boo Birds Are Not An Endangered Species

Seriously, what’s with all the booing?

McCain booed in Michigan…twice; Update: Video added

Clinton booed at MLK rally in New York 

Mitt Romney Gets Booed For Attacking Ron Paul

Obama Booed At NAACP Speech

Giuliani booed on gun control

Ron Paul gets booed at the Univision GOP debate

Edwards gets booed

Brownback Booed For Support Of Federal Amendment On Gay Marriage

It reminds me of the old Chexx bubble hockey game. It had a “boo” button, which was usually pressed after your opponent scored a goal. It got me thinking.  Maybe I should just keep a “boo” track on my site for watching the debates. It might be fun!

Boo!

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Kos Urges Michigan To Vote For Romney

There are reactions across political web to this: Let’s have some fun in Michigan

For Michigan Democrats, the Democratic primary is meaningless since the DNC stripped the state of all its delegates (at least temporarily) for violating party rules. Hillary Clinton is alone on the ballot.

But on the GOP side, this primary will be fiercely contested. John McCain is currently enjoying the afterglow of media love since his New Hamsphire victory, while Iowa winner Mike Huckabee is poised to do well in South Carolina.  

Meanwhile, poor Mitt Romney, who’s suffered back-to-back losses in the last week, desperately needs to win Michigan in order to keep his campaign afloat.  Bottom line, if Romney loses Michigan, he’s out. If he wins, he stays in.

And we want Romney in, because the more Republican candidates we have fighting it out, trashing each other with negative ads and spending tons of money, the better it is for us. We want Mitt to stay in the race, and to do that, we need him to win in Michigan.

Forget the ethical implications, the effect on Kos’ reputation, and the fact that it reveals a certain lack of confidence in one’s own candidates,  I’m not convinced that this tactic will work quite the way he’s hoping.  I don’t know if he can pull together such a movement in only a few days.

If it works?  This has come-back-to-bite-you-on-the-ass written all over it.   Suppose Mitt goes on to win the general election?  Kos would be the laughing stock of the blogophere.  It just seems like a risk that isn’t worth the potential reward.

I don’t live in Michigan, but even as an Obama supporter, I can’t endorse this sort of subversion.  I’m not so blinded by partisanship to believe that its worth tainting our democratic process.  The tactic sounds childish, and the fact that he believes that he can influence such a thing seems arrogant and egotistical.  Luckily, after 900+ comments in that Kos thread, the reaction is mixed.  Many believe as I do.  Others wonder if another candidate should be the target.  Currently, I think this idea will flop, but Kos will probably wind up with some egg on his face either way. 

I would hope that if you’re an independent or Democrat and decided to vote for a GOP candidate, it would be for the person most in-line with your political views.  Period.

Update:  There’s actually an ad now. (h/t Katie for the email) 

Hilarious?

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Who Gives A Flying ___ If Romney’s Pop Marched With MLK?

Seriously.  I thought that I was beginning to understand the dynamics of this war that those of us in America call the electoral process, but my mind can’t avoid being ravaged by the effects of bewilderment when I see some of the crap that is dragged into the theater.  After all, the minor embellishment that forces the analyzation of the meaning of what “saw” means has little to do with 99.9% of the much more critical situations that our country faces at the moment.   No one really saw it coming, yet, here it is:

Mike Allen / The Politico:

Witnesses recall Romney-MLK march  —  Shirley Basore, 72, says she was sitting in the hairdresser’s chair in wealthy Grosse Pointe, Mich., back in 1963 when a rumpus started and she discovered that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and her governor, George Romney, were marching for civil rights — right past the window.

Link Search: Ask, Technorati, Sphere, Google, and IceRocket

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Discussion: Talking Points Memo, The Daily Dish, Detroit Free Press, Talking Politics, Don Surber, Big Lizards, Stop The ACLU, Instapundit.com, Hot Air, Macsmind, Mitt Romney For President News and The Huffington Post

–

Discussion:

Eric Kleefeld / Talking Points Memo:   WITNESSES BACK UP MITT ROMNEY ON MLK

Andrew Sullivan / The Daily Dish:   “Mitticisms”  —  That’s the mot juste a reader just proposed …

Dawson Bell / Detroit Free Press:   Romney sticks to belief in King, dad

David S. Bernstein / Talking Politics:   POLITICO: TWO WITNESSES SAW ROMNEY-KING MARCH

Don Surber:   The week that was  —  Happy birthday, David, my best Christmas present ever.

Dafydd / Big Lizards:   Mitthausen’s Syndrome

Jay / Stop The ACLU:   Romney’s “Figurative” Defense Of His MLK Claims

Glenn Reynolds / Instapundit.com:   POLITICO: Witnesses recall Romney-MLK march.  —  Well, fine.

Allahpundit / Hot Air:   Two eyewitnesses: We saw Mitt’s father marching with MLK

Macranger / Macsmind:   Mitt-CACA Moment ****UPDATE: Witnesses?

Mitt Romney For President News:   Gov. George Romney And Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Chris Kelly / The Huffington Post:   Mitticisms: “Martin Luther King”

» All Related Discussion

« Hide All Related Discussion

RELATED:

Michael Luo / New York Times:

Romney Learns That ‘Facts Are Stubborn Things’  —  FORT DODGE, Iowa — There was the period last spring when Mitt Romney claimed while campaigning in Iowa and New Hampshire that he had been a hunter “pretty much all my life,” only to have to admit later he had seriously hunted on only two occasions.

Link Search: Ask, Technorati, Sphere, Google, and IceRocket

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Discussion: Firedoglake, Boston Globe, Weekly Standard, BAGnewsNotes and The Daily Dish

–

Discussion:

Julia / Firedoglake:   late night: the secret life of willard mitty

Michael Levenson / Boston Globe:   Romney never saw father on King march

Matthew Continetti / Weekly Standard:   Romney Digs Deeper

Michael Shaw / BAGnewsNotes:   Ace Candidate  —  TIME’s Year In Images is out and I fixed immediately on this one. …

Andrew Sullivan / The Daily Dish:   The Little Fibs Of Mitt Romney

Deacon / Power Line:

THE “SCANDAL” THAT’S RIDICULOUS … That claim is incontestable. … The AP story is titled: Romney backpedals on statements — again. … Via Hugh Hewitt.

Link Search: Ask, Technorati, Sphere, Google, and IceRocket

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Discussion: Associated Press, Riehl World View, Flopping Aces, Townhall.com and Vox Popoli

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Discussion:

Glen Johnson / Associated Press:   Romney backpedals on statements — again

Dan / Riehl World View:   Romney Flap Isn’t Ridiculous, Or Absurd

Curt / Flopping Aces:   The “Absurd” Romney/King Flap

Hugh Hewitt / Townhall.com:   “Witnesses Recall Romney-MLK March”

VOX / Vox Popoli:   Rhymes with “Mitt”  —  The Northern Alliance’s big guns appear …

Jeremy Dibbell / The Moderate Voice:
Depends on What the Meaning of the Word “Saw” Is, eh Mitt?

Link Search: Ask, Technorati, Sphere, Google, and IceRocket

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Discussion: The Caucus and Hot Air

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Discussion:

Ariel Alexovich / The Caucus:   The Early Word: Huckabee Scoffs at ‘Christophobia’

Allahpundit / Hot Air:   Mitt: It depends on what the meaning of “saw” is

Andrew Sullivan / The Daily Dish:
It Gets Better  —  Here’s the latest on Mitt and MLK.

Link Search: Ask, Technorati, Sphere, Google, and IceRocket

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Discussion: The Corner, Alas, a blog, Tammy Bruce, Redstate, MSNBC, TBogg, Dick Polman’s American Debate, Balloon Juice, Firedoglake, Chuck Adkins, Talking Points Memo and The Heretik

–

Discussion:

Andy McCarthy / The Corner:   Re: Romney’s Explanation

Ampersand / Alas, a blog:   The Right-Wing Misuse of MLK (Actually, if you say you saw …

Tammy Bruce:   Depends on What the Meaning of “Saw” Is

Redstate:   Mitt Romney’s potential problem

Domenico Montanaro / MSNBC:   Oh-eight (R): Rudy returns to NYC

TBogg:   Black History Month with Rahsaan Roland Romney

Dick Polman / Dick Polman’s American Debate:   Pap for the stump  —  One durable Republican staple …

John Cole / Balloon Juice:   Say Anything, Starring Multiple Choice Mitt

Blue Texan / Firedoglake:   Romney’s MLK Problem Just Got Worse

Chuck Adkins:   Romney sticks his foot in his mouth

Josh Marshall / Talking Points Memo:   MITT X  —  Alright, I cut the Mittster a little slack last night.

The Heretik:   A Definite Winner  —  Guess it depends on what the definition of saw is.

 And I know that its probably poor form to just copy/paste all those links from memeorandum like that.  I don’t care.   If the media really wants to run with this crap, well, I guess I can’t stop them, but at least I can call out the bloggers for taking part.  

Of all the things to focus on from Romney’s big speech (aka “The Speech”), this seems like the most surreal of the bunch.  I mean, we’re talking about a claim that has absolutely nothing to do with anything beyond an attempt to shore up a vote that the guy probably wouldn’t have had anyway.  A footnote, really. 

 And…

Just remember that, somehow, Americans everywhere have let the disingenuousness of the current administration slide right by (on issues that were, literally, a matter of life and death), while this -in comparison- is something that anyone with a pulse and a brain might throw into #135th column on the list of things that are actually important when it comes to choosing the next president of the United States. 

Did Mitt actually “see” it?  Maybe not.  Was Romney Sr. pro-MLK?  Sure.  What the ___ difference does it really make then?

C’mon!

But, by all means, have at it.

Somebody Grab A Mop

Well, today was the day for Mitt Romney’s much-anticipated (for those who care, anyway) “religion” speech (aka “The Speech”).  For the better part of a week, the media and the blogs were discussing this thing, referring to it as a make-or-break political maneuver for a Mormon desperately trying to hold his ground as we enter the home stretch of this race.  From the outset, I was thinking that Mr. Romney was banking more on the hype than the content of the speech itself, since this was, in fact, being hyped.  Tremendously.  I really couldn’t figure out why this was made out to be such a big deal.  I mean, what do presidential candidates do when they’re campaigning?  Why, they give speeches!   

 Needless to say, there was a lot of chatter about this today because The Speech finally happened and the various pundits out there had their liveblogging gear all ready to go for the big event.  It appeared that just about eveyone had an opinion on this, but the one that stood out above the rest in the category of “largest cyber wad blown” belongs to…Hugh Hewitt.

You see, Mr. Hewitt found it necessary to post not one but two gush sessions over this, the likes of which would make Peter North cower in the corner in intimidation:

Mitt Romney’s “Faith in America” speech was simply magnificent, and anyone who denies it is not to be trusted as an analyst.  On every level it was a masterpiece.  The staging and Romney’s delivery, the eclipse of all other candidates it caused, the domination of the news cycle just prior to the start of absentee voting in New Hampshire on Monday –for all these reasons and more it will be long discussed as a masterpiece of political maneuver.

I’d actually agree with some of that, albeit on a somewhat less enthusiastic level.  However the Romney camp did it; whatever calls had to be made, emails sent, or blog entries posted…it certainly did get hyped.  It was Mitt Romney day today.  Of course, whether that hype pays political dividends is something that remains to be seen. 

As for the content of the speech, I’ll say that it was well written but delivered in a manner that lacked passion.  It was a speech that, to your average conservative, probably looked good on paper, but watching it I couldn’t help but be reminded of that public speaking course I took in college.  You know, the one where half the class falls asleep while your fellow classmates regurgitate the performance they gave to the mirror the night before.  It can be summed up pretty quickly:  He’s a) a Mormon, b) hopes you’re OK with that, and c) wants you to trust him that he won’t be taking marching orders from some polygamists meeting in secret in barns on some compound somewhere.  The rest of it was material that could have been delivered by any of the candidates (including a few of the Dems).

Anyway, I thought I’d close this entry with another Hewitt howler (hey, maybe I could coin that?); after he gave examples of all the prominent conservative pundits that gave the thumbs up to the speech The Speech, he posted this:

Here are seven of the most influential conservative commentators in the U.S., and their opinions on the Romney success are all aligned with mine.  Thus, objectively, the speech cannot be judged as other than an extraordinary success for Romney.

I’m not exactly sure what brand of logic that is.  If Romney’s goal for the speech was simply to get glowing reviews from blowhard pundits, he probably could have opined about his love for Cap’n Crunch as long as he bought all seven of them a fully loaded Tahoe for Christmas.  Ultimately, positive reviews are never a bad thing, but people have to actually show up at the theater (so to speak) before phrases like “extraordinary success” get thrown around, right?  Objectively speaking, that is.

Update:  Even the folks at Hot Air are with me on this one, which is kinda rare, actually:

Exit question: Does Hugh need to “sit down”?

LOL.  It’s too bad that I can’t comment over there.  I was going to say “take a nap”.

Update:  Iowahawk parodies Hewitt;  definitely worth a link:   In My Objective Opinion.

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A Great Debate In New Hampshire

I’ll have to give kudos to Fox and the GOP candidates tonight.  This debate was the best I’ve seen yet.  The previous engagements on both sides were more like talking point exchanges that an actual debate.  For a moment this evening, I’ll admit that I got goosebumps while watching Paul and Huckabee going back and forth.  We definately need more of this in the future.  Even if I disagree with the positions being taken here, it was refreshing to see the passion and poise coming from these candidates.  The Dems should take note.

(h/t Hot Air)

Are We Clear, Kristol?

According to Federal Election Commission figures tabulated by a diarist on Daily Kos, the Q2 donations made my active-duty troops to presidential campaigns breaks down like this:

Anti-war:
Ron Paul 26.23%
Barack Obama 24.02%
Hillary Clinton 11.08%
Bill Richardson 5.59%
John Edwards 2.63%
Joe Biden 0.84%
Mike Gravel 0.16%
Dennis Kucinich 0.05%
Chris Dodd 0%

Pro-war:
John McCain 18.31%
Mitt Romney 4.05%
Rudy Giuliani 2.44%
Mike Huckabee 1.84%
Tom Tancredo 1.63%
Duncan Hunter 1.05%
Sam Brownback 0.07%
Tommy Thompson 0%
Jim Gilmore 0%
John Cox 0%

In other words, 70.6% to anti-war candidates vs. 29.4% for pro-war candidates (although I’m not sure if it’s fair to lump candidates like Brownback or Biden into opposite camps, seeing as they seem to be advocating a similar way forward in Iraq, but you get the idea).

Then, today, we get another wonderful bit of wisdom from William Kristol:  They Don’t Really Support the Troops

Having turned against a war that some of them supported, the left is now turning against the troops they claim still to support. They sense that history is progressing away from them–that these soldiers, fighting courageously in a just cause, could still win the war, that they are proud of their service, and that they will be future leaders of this country. They are not “Shock Troops.” They are our best and bravest, fighting for all of us against a brutal enemy in a difficult and frustrating war. They are the 9/11 generation. The left slanders them. We support them. More than that, we admire them.

–William Kristol

Does anyone else smell that?

Clear?

Here’s A Headline You Don’t See Everyday

Ya know, for a guy who isn’t running (wink wink), Fred Thompson has been in the news quite a bit lately:  Contemplating a Run for Office Can Complicate Television Reruns

Hoping to avoid violating a Federal Communications Commission provision that would force the network to provide equal time to other candidates running for president, NBC chief lobbyist Robert Okun has reached out to the GOP presidential campaigns of former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney and former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, among others, to inquire whether they would make a major issue out of Thompson being featured in reruns this summer.

Under the equal-time rule, if a network gives time to one political candidate, it is required to provide the same amount of airtime to his or her opponents. In other words, if Thompson appeared on a “Law & Order” episode for 10 minutes during prime time, NBC would have to give Thompson’s rivals for the Republican nomination 10 minutes of prime time each.

If Thompson waits until fall to announce, however, he’ll essentially have NBC putting his Arthur Branch persona on prime-time TV for free (or, better yet, residuals?).  Considering that Republicans aren’t really liking any of the current GOP front runners right now, I think Thompson is safe to wait it out a bit.

Campaign Blog Of The Week: Dogs Against Romney

I must have been on vacation when this story broke: Romney’s dog story: Really, he loved riding on the car roof

Nearly 140 bloggers in the last two days have linked to a Time article on this nugget mined from a seven-part Boston Globe series on the former governor: In 1983, Romney’s dog made a 12-hour trip from Boston to Ontario in a kennel lashed to the top of the family station wagon

Animal lovers everywhere were aghast, and the story even inspired the creation of a new blog:

Dogs Against Romney

Indy offers his enthusiastic support!

Update: As Romney supporter practicalreasoning pointed out in the comments, Mitt might discover that he has a sudden surge of support from the cat community over this news. I laughed. But then I saw this:

Bible Battles On The Campaign Trail

I couldn’t quite believe this when I saw it, but here it is: Brownback staffer’s e-mail stirs controversy over Romney’s Mormonism anew (hat tip: Political Pale Horse)

WASHINGTON – A staffer for Sen. Sam Brownback’s presidential campaign circulated an e-mail last week that raised questions critical of Republican opponent Mitt Romney’s Mormon faith.
    Brownback says today that he plans to personally call Romney and the leadership of the LDS Church to apologize.
    Emma Nemecek, the southeast field director for Brownback’s Iowa efforts, sent the email to a dozen people last week asking if they knew whether “any of these [issues are] inaccurate.”
    The list included a sentence that says “the only thing Christianity and the LDS Church has in common is the name of Jesus Christ, and the LDS Jesus is not the same Jesus of the Christian faith.”
    It also said that “those who claim that [the] LDS [faith] is a Christian denomination don’t know Mormon or Christian theology.”

Not the same Jesus? 

(hat tip: loljesus)

Well….My Jesus can beat up your Jesus!

Just In Case Romney Wins The Nomination

I saw a post by Denny that showed Romney’s polling advances, so I thought I’d keep this video handy:

Null Set!

Kevin Drum said it best:

WTF? Does this kind of stuff run in the family? (Yes, I know I’ve already made that joke once before.)

Question: does Romney genuinely not know that both the IAEA and Hans Blix’s team had hundreds of inspectors in Iraq prior to the war? And that those inspectors found nothing?

Or does he know it perfectly well and has simply calculated that no one in the media cares enough about this stuff to make a big deal out of a howler like this? In any sane world, this kind of thing would be enough to disqualify a candidate from running for dogcatcher, let alone president of the United States.

Wonderful thing, that YouTube. 

WordPress.com Political Blogger Alliance

I had an idea (strange, huh?). Originally I thought it would be neat to add political WordPress.com blogs in a special section of my blogroll, and create my own little community of amateur pundits that use the service. In a way, ALL WP.com bloggers are part of a community already, but I thought I’d start a club just for those who like to talk politics.

Most political bloggers will have blogs from other services in their blogroll.  Not everyone uses WP, after all.  There are advantages to staying within the community, however. One advantage would be ease of commenting. Once you’re logged in, you can hop from blog to blog without having to enter in tedious email info and quickly drop a comment (nice to have avatars too), and all discussions can easily be kept track of through the “my comments” section of our dashboards.  Another advantage: you don’t have to do a lot of work to ping these blogs.  All you have to do is link to a post, and it pings them immediately (leaving a pingback in the comments section).  With other blogs (or blog services), you may have to copy/paste trackback urls, and that can be a bit of a crap shoot.  It can work real slick for some blogs and not work at all for others (or at least I’ve discovered). Yet another advantage is how easy it is to search for tags within the community, but that is less special because services like technorati seem to be dialed into it as well. Anyway, you get the idea….

So, every so often, I’ll click on the WP ‘politics’ tag and check out what people are posting.  If I stumble upon a blog that I haven’t seen before, I’d just add it to the blogroll.  I’ve been adding a couple a week since I started it.  I’m sure there are more, so as time goes on this list will grow in my sidebar (under “wordpress political blogs”)

Then I started thinking. What if we formed some semi-formal alliance? A ‘club’ made up exclusively of WP.com political bloggers (right, left, and center) who could regularly exchange ideas and comment on others’ posts. So far I haven’t seen anything like that. Maybe it’s worth a shot?

I whipped up a ‘club’ button that we can put in the sidebar. You’ll have to forgive my photoshopping skills, but here goes:

If you want to add the button to your blog (it links back to this post), here is the code (with border):

<a href="https://chenzhen.wordpress.com/2007/05/25/wordpress-political-blogger-alliance"><img src="https://chenzhen.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/05/wppoliblog1.jpg&quot; alt="WordPress Political Blogger" /></a>

…and without a border:

<a href="https://chenzhen.wordpress.com/2007/05/25/wordpress-political-blogger-alliance"><img border="0" src="https://chenzhen.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/05/wppoliblog1.jpg&quot; alt="WordPress Political Blogger" /></a>

Update 11/2:  The alliance has become interactive!  The lowdown:

What I’m attemping to create here is a tool that we can use to make our blogs more lively and entertaining.  I’m not really forcing any obligations on anyone, so I don’t want you to get the impression that going along with this means that there’s going to be a whole list of expectations (beyond etiquette).  You don’t have to respond to every ping.   Just so you know.  

If you want to participate, there are just a few details…

1. In order for this to work smoothly, everyone needs to create a page that can be pinged.  It took me about 2 min. to make mine: https://chenzhen.wordpress.com/wp-political-blogger-alliance/ .  And I need to know the link so that I can consolidate them, so just post it in that thread or respond in email once you’ve whipped it up.  That’s really the only requirement.  A handful of you already have done this, and the pings work beautifully.  The idea here is to compose a code that is easy to paste in your post that allows you to ping everyone in the alliance at the same time.*
2. I don’t really like the idea of any one blogger “abusing” the tool by using it to try to dominate the discussion.  In other words, if you’re calling out and pinging the alliance 3 times a day it might get a little annoying.  Sure, it’s easy enough to just ignore such a thing, but nevertheless I think it would be akin to blog whoring just for the sake of blog whoring.  It’s kind of a fine line, and we’ll probably tweak the guidelines as we go forward, but for now I’ll stick with a rule of 1 per day max.  No minimums, since some of you might prefer to comment only.  And, it probably goes without saying, but we don’t want to double up on a topic either, so try to make sure that a story or headline hasn’t already had pings sent by someone else first.  If it has, and you’ve got your own unique analysis that you just spent like 2 hrs on, just link to that thread in your post instead.  We’ll see it.  Make sense?
3. Be somewhat civilized.  This might be the hard part, ’cause a) there’s a very diverse crowd being pinged and b) it’s the internet.  In debate, you win by attacking the argument or idea, and you lose once you resort to attacking the person (there is a difference).  Keep that mindset, and we’ll be fine.  That’s not to say that I don’t enjoy a good blog war.  This will be a bit of a free-for-all, so I hope people are relatively thick-skinned when it comes to having  logic, facts, position, etc. challenged.  We’ll just have to see how this goes, cause I’m not sure if anyone has really tried anyting like this before. 
4. This is about “politics”, so use the “politics” tag/category when you post, and only send the pings when you post about “politics”.  You might have a cool car, for example, but please don’t ping the whole group to show off the latest pics you just posted.  Also, consistent use of the “politics” tag in general means more views from the wider wordpress.com audience.

Luckily, it’s pretty easy as individuals to block urls and IP’s if #2 or 3 becomes a problem for someone.

* The up-to-date code can always be found in my sidebar (——>): 

Founder of the WordPress.com Political Blogger Alliance

Simply copy the “WordPress.com Political Blogger Alliance” and paste it at the bottom of your post. Once your post is published, it will send a ping back to everyone in the alliance.  Easy!

Update 11/4: A tag (category) specifically for the alliance:

WordPress Political Blogs

Create the “WordPress Political Blogs” category and add it to your alliance-oriented posts.  In2thefray and I have already added the RSS feed for this tag in our sidebars, so we can see the latest offerings right on our blogs:

WP.com political blog alliance

Even better, if everyone uses the tag consistently, the above link will provide a great chronological record of the posts within the alliance. In addition, you will have a record of your own contributions to the alliance in your sidebar (assuming you have added the “categories” widget).  Remember to use “WordPress Political Blogs” exactly (alternate spellings and abbreviations will be a different tag, technically)