Category Archives: Mittens

Meanwhile, the Republicans Are Still Looking for a Candidate

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We’ve been having so much fun I’ve been forgetting about the presidential primaries. So today is Super Tuesday. Nate Silver has Mittens winning Massachusetts and Virginia for sure and probably Ohio also, with Frothy a close second. Newt will pick up Georgia, and Frothy likely will take Oklahoma, Tennessee and Wisconsin. Mittens should end up with at least half of the delegates he needs to clinch the nomination.

Meanwhile, a few Republicans are beginning to suspect that the GOP brand is perhaps being compromised by extremism (ya think?) and have suggested that a good bottoming out, à la Barry Goldwater in 1964, might not be a bad thing. But they don’t think it will happen this year, because if Mittens is the nominee and loses, the whackjobs will see it as proof that they should have found a certifiable screaming lunatic real conservative to run.

Via Annie Laurie, Doghouse Riley:

THE 2012 Republican Presidential primaries will be remembered, if at all, for having taught us any number of things we already knew.

Rush Limbaugh is a human cloud of flatulence. Rick Santorum is a 10th century religious lunatic. Newt Gingrich is to serious politics what Newt Gingrich is to academic history.

Nobody likes Mitt Romney.

Of course the preeminent truth is that the whole goddam party is insane, and that the Press, having ignored the over-abundance of evidence of this for a generation, now finds itself incapable of dealing with this. Aside from the customary writing of scripts designed to encompass all such facts as aren’t truly inconvenient. Those, as always, get ignored.

The thing is, everyone on the planet whose head is screwed on all the way can see plainly that the GOP has driven itself into a ditch in the clown car. The only ones who can’t see it are most Republicans, and that’s because they are demented. So I don’t see them learning any lessons, no matter watch.

Michigan Primary Nail-Biter

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Nate Silver says the Michigan primary is too close to call, and conventional wisdom says Mittens must win Michigan or lose his argument that he is the most electable candidate.

There is a lot of talk about Democrats doing “mischief” and voting for Santorum in the Republican primary. Somewhere this morning I read that this was not being endorsed by either the Obama Administration or the Michigan Democratic Party. However, Steve M says the Santorum campaign has a robocall going to Democrats asking them to vote for Santorum.

Meanwhile, CBS reports that President Obama’s approval rating with women has taken a big leap recently. Do tell.

Tough Talk

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Frothy complains that Mittens is a wimp about taxes.

Our economy and American families are struggling, and the country needs bold reforms and major restructuring, not tinkering at the margins. …my opponent in the Republican primaries, Mitt Romney, had a last-minute conversion. Attempting to distract from his record of tax and fee increases as governor of Massachusetts, poor job creation, and aggressive pursuit of earmarks, he now says he wants to follow my lead and lower individual as well as corporate marginal tax rates.

It’s a good start. But it doesn’t go nearly far enough. He says his proposed tax cuts would be revenue neutral and, borrowing the language of Occupy Wall Street, promises the top 1% will pay for the cuts. No pro-growth tax policy there, just more Obama-style class warfare.

Mittens is tinkering at the margins? Ezra Klein says,

Mitt Romney is promising that taxes will go down, defense spending will go up, and old-people programs won’t change for this generation of retirees. So three of his four options for deficit reduction — taxes, old-people programs, and defense — are now either contributing to the deficit or are off-limits for the next decade.

Romney is also promising that he will pay for his tax cuts, pay for his defense spending, and reduce total federal spending by more than $6 trillion over the next 10 years. But the only big pot of money left to him is poor-people programs. So, by simple process of elimination, poor-people programs will have to be cut dramatically. There’s no other way to make those numbers work.

In fact, Mittens recently proposed a 20% across-the-board cut in income tax rates. This is much more drastic than what he has been proposing, but he has to keep moving Right to stay in the race.

Not to be outdone, Frothy is proposing a ten-point Economic Freedom Agenda, which he says will balance the budget in four years. Yes, and I’m Jean Dujardin. And the dog.

Here are his ten points, briefly:

  1. Drill, baby, drill; frack, baby, frack; and pipeline, baby, pipeline.
  2. Deregulate.
  3. Cut taxes.
  4. Cut taxes.
  5. Lay off public employees.
  6. Repeal “Obamacare” and replace it with the better plan Republicans keep promising but can’t seem to find anywhere.
  7. Pass a balanced budget amendment.
  8. Make lots of free trade agreements.
  9. Cut the hell out of “entitlement” programs.
  10. “Revive housing” by finally killing off Fannie and Freddie.

Seriously. I left out some details, but the whole plan is such a fantasy the details are kind of irrelevant. Obviously if the country goes this way in no time we’ll be in such a hole that Greece will look good.

Why the GOP (and Romney especially) Should Be Worried

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Nice little chart, from Benjy Sarlin at TPM (click to enlarge):

Click to Enlarge

Nearly 90 percent of donations to Romney are from large donors. This is a problem for him in two ways. One, it shows that he doesn’t have a broad base of “regular guy” voters. Two, if Romney donors have already given their maximum donation, he can’t go to that well again during the general election.

Here’s another chart you might have seen on Rachel Maddow’s show (click to enlarge):

Click to Enlarge

This is to demonstrate that Romney’s popularity took a dive after he got Donald Trump’s endorsement. But whether the Donald caused the dive or not, Romney doesn’t seem to be wearing well on voters.

Everybody’s In!

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I am pleased to report that none of the remaining GOP contenders are dropping out yet. Party on!

Dylan Byers at Politico figured out that each Romney Florida vote cost the Romney campaign and its superPAC $19.94, whereas runner-up Newt spent just $6.38 per vote. And for the $15,389,287 it cost the Romney tribe to win Florida, he still got less than half of the vote.

Also, Gingrich won more votes in the panhandle than Romney, which suggests Mittens really does have a Southern problem.

Also, too: President Obama is out-fundraising the lot of them, and he isn’t having to spend a ton of money winning primaries.

Florida Primary

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Nate is giving Mittens a 97 percent chance of winning the Florida primary today, so it’s all over but the votin’. The establishment, faced with a choice between Mittens and Newt, have now congealed around Mittens. Barring an intervention by God, Mittens will be the nominee.

However, word is that Newt is crazy/deluded/narcissistic enough to keep campaigning. I hope so; Mittens is such a crashing bore.

Speaking of the Great Gas-Passing Orifice — Newt’s latest contribution to our nation’s political discourse is another doozy —

The transcript, via Think Progress —

GINGRICH: Now, I think we need to have a government that respects our religions. I’m a little bit tired about respecting every religion on the planet. I’d like them to respect our religion.

And what religion would that be, Newt? The Church of Asshattery? But you see why I would be sooo disappointed if Newt drops out now.

Newt says President Obama and Mittens have been waging a “war against religion,” most recently for not permitting the Catholic bishops to dictate the reproductive choices of their non-Catholic employees. Apparently this violates the bishops’ “freedom” to force their beliefs on people who don’t agree with them.

Mitt Romney’s Blood Money

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Here’s another Mitt Romney Bain Capital video:

I’ve been checking this story out, and it appears to be all true. Basically: In 1989, while Mittens was CEO, Bain Capital bought a medical testing company called Damon Corporation. Bain took Damon public in 1991, and Mittens sat on the board of directors. Damon was sold to Corning in 1993 for a nice profit to Bain. Mittens personally made $473,000 on the deal, according to The Real Romney by Boston Globe reporters Michael Kranish and Scott Helman.

Very soon thereafter the sale it was revealed that Damon had been under federal investigation, and in 1996 Damon pleaded guilty to Medicare fraud. They’d been over-billing Medicare for unnecessary tests. Federal prosecutors say that the over-billing was going on from 1988 to 1993, during the entire time the company was owned by Bain. The feds credited Corning for helping out the fraud; no word about Bain.

Today Mittens said he didn’t know about the fraud, but when he was running for governor of Massachusetts in 2002 he said that he had “blown the whistle” on Damon and had taken steps to stop the fraud. There’s no indication that Bain did anything except send some lawyers over to review Damon’s Medicare billing practices, which appears to have gone nowhere. In any event, no Bain executive, including Romney, was implicated in the fraud.

If Mittens is the nominee, I doubt this will be the last we’ll hear of the Damon Corporation and Labscam.

No No Newt

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I didn’t watch last night’s GOP debate, but the consensus this morning is that Newtie did not impress anyone. “He sounded bad, he looked bad, and generally came across like a weasel who had finally been cornered by Animal Control,” said Ed Kilgore.

I agree with Steve M that Newt needs someone to bash, or he doesn’t know what to do with himself. And after South Carolina, the questioners have been careful not to throw him a cudgel.

Timothy Egan has an unusually frank (for the New York Times) portrait of Newt:

Gingrich, as he showed in a gasping effort in Thursday night’s debate in Florida, is a demagogue distilled, like a French sauce, to the purest essence of the word’s meaning. He has no shame. He thinks the rules do not apply to him. And he turns questions about his odious personal behavior into mock outrage over the audacity of the questioner.

Nate Silver has Mittens pulling ahead of Newt in his Florida projections. But Newt’s SuperPAC is expected to blitz the state with television ads over the weekend, so it’s possible the race will tighten again.

Is Mittens Toast?

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The latest data at Nate’s place:

Florida VOTE
PROJECTION		 CHANCE
OF WIN
Newt Gingrich 37.6% 66%
Mitt Romney 30.0 32
Ron Paul 15.2 1

All last week, the chart showed Mittens as the overwhelming favorite in Florida, with a 90-something chance to win. Now that’s gone. almost overnight.

The Florida primary is nine days away, and a lot can happen in nine days. But Romney’s strength (again, this is what Nate said awhile back) is that he was positioned to dominate the early primaries, and that’s not happening. And there aren’t that many primaries in February. A bunch of caucuses, yes, including the ever-entertaining Nevada caucus. There’s a primary in Missouri that won’t award actual delegates.

So after Florida the only “real” primaries are in Arizona and Michigan on February 28, and then there’s super Tuesday on March 6. So one could argue that a big win in Florida could give Newt the “big mo” going into Super Tuesday. At the very least, if Newt wins Florida as decisively as he won South Carolina — still an if, with nine days to go — it ought to cement his status as the Favorite Not-Mittens Candidate, and Santorum and Ron Paul likely would fade away.

Democrats are surely giggly with joy at this development. On the other hand, Newt’s blown it before; he can always blow it again.

Update — speaking of Ron Paul — Rand Son of Ron was detained at the Nashville airport for refusing to be patted down after the body scanner showed an “anomaly.” Y’all can go ahead and have fun guessing what the “anomaly” is; the news story doesn’t say.

Update: More news stories say that Rand Son of Ron was not detained at the Nashville airport, but neither was he allowed to board the plane.

Today in South Carolina

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© Karen Roach | Dreamstime.com

Nate is giving Newt an 82 percent chance to win today’s primary. Newt also has sewn up the coveted Chuck Norris endorsement. And it appears the Faux News crew has been ordered to put lipstick on the pig.

(Regarding the lipstick, if you’re in the mood for some undiluted and unmitigated crap, check this out. It’s such self-evident moonshine I’m not even going to waste bandwidth commenting on it, although others have. See Steve M, Zack Ford, and Charles Johnson.)

See also how Newt seems to need wives as emotional and political props, and also that America really hates him.