Herman Cain, fashion victim. In more ways than one.
Your brickbats go here.
(Tip o’ the pixel to the Missus.)
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WWD=Women’s Wear Deadly
Gail And Seamus Are Back!
New York Times dogged columnist Gail Collins is growling again, this time about last night’s GOP presidential primary debate in Michigan :
Pity the Republican voters. They aren’t asking for much. They just want a candidate who’s really conservative but not totally crazy. Who has verbs in his sentences. Who didn’t drive to Canada with the family dog strapped to the roof of the car. Yet they’re still searching with such desperation that you expect to wake up some morning and see a headline like: “Poll Says Most Likely Voters in South Carolina Favor the Geico Gecko.”
Seamus vs. the Gecko.
Bakeoff!
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Gail Collins, Geico gecko, Michigan GOP debate, New York Times, Seamus
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NYT, WSJ Handicap The 2012 Election
Somebody please get the Wall Street Journal’s Dorothy Rabinowitz and the New York Times’s Nate Silver into the same room.
In Wednesday’s Journal, Rabinowitz makes a compelling case for Newt Gingrich as a viable alternative to Mitt Romney in the GOP presidential primaries:
Whoever his competitors are in Iowa and beyond, Mr. Gingrich faces a hard fight for the nomination. His greatest asset lies in his capacity to speak to Americans as he has done, with such potency, during the Republican debates. No candidate in the field comes close to his talent for connection. There’s no underestimating the importance of such a power in the presidential election ahead, or any other one.
His rise in the polls suggests that more and more Republicans are absorbing that fact, along with the possibility that Mr. Gingrich’s qualifications all ’round could well make him the most formidable contender for the contest with Barack Obama.
Nowhere in her piece does Rabinowitz mention former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman. But Silver’s Times piece picks Huntsman as the GOP’s best hope against Obama, as the Washington Post reports:
Who will win next year’s presidential race? Well, the results are in from the best forecaster of the 2008 election. Headline: Huntsman is the strongest possible candidate against President Obama. Subhead: Both Romney and Huntsman win under the most likely economic scenarios.
These results are from electoral swami Nate Silver, who predicted accurately 49 of 50 state outcomes in the last presidential election.
Huntsman? Romney? Gingrich?
Bakeoff!
Rick Perry, R.I.P.
The hardworking staff has three things to say about presidential hopeless Rick Perry (R-I Coulda Been a Contender):
1) Perry’s brain-freeze moment in the Michigan GOP debate will live forever in political memory.
2) Via the ubiquitous Larry Sabato:
3) Uh . . . er . . . uh . . .
We’ll get back to you on 3).
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged brain-freeze moment, Larry Sabato, Michigan GOP debate, Rick Perry
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Let The $4 Billion Rumpus Begin! (Super PAC Smackdown Edition)
Super PACs are the kibitzers of political campaigns. They circle behind the players and throw their two (million) cents in, but never have to worry about losing the game.
Enter Crossroads GPS and Priorities USA, which are running new TV spots attacking Barack Obama and the GOP, respectively.
Crossroads GPS ad (via MSNBC’s First Read) that cleverly uses Bill Clinton to attack Obama’s jobs bill:
Priorities USA ad that boringly uses newspaper clippings to 1) attack GOP efforts to cut Pell grants and 2) support Obama’s effort to reduce the cost of student loans and allow graduates to consolidate debt at lower interest rates:
Your yawn goes here.
And that’s why the GOP is totally winning the Super PAC Smackdown.
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Bill Clinton, Crossroads GPS, First Read, jobs bill, kibitzers, MSNBC, Pell grants, Priorities USA, Super PAC smackdown
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That’s Just So Mean! (Sharon Bialek Edition)
The Boston Herald, never a photographic friend to women, does it again:
A picture’s worth . . . worrying about in the hands of the Herald.
Mitt Romney Can’t Add
In a rare encounter with actual people, presidential wannabe Mitt Romney (R-Call Me Ahab) parachuted into Iowa this week in an effort to – wait for it – campaign there without seeming to campaign there.
According to a New York Times report, Romney told a crowd in Dubuque “I will slay the deficit beast” by cutting federal government programs.
In addition to repealing the president’s national health care program, Mr. Romney also offered a few other examples of federal programs he’d be willing to cut — The National Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities.
“These are wonderful things,” he said, referring to the programs he’d just placed on the chopping block. “But I’m not willing to borrow a billion dollars to pay for things we don’t absolutely need. “
All well and good, except Romney’s math is a bit off. Federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting ($422 million), the National Endowment for the Arts ($154 million), and the National Endowment for the Humanities ($167 million) only adds up to $743 million.
Well short of a billion.
Not to get technical about it.
Hormone Cain Goes All In
You gotta admit – Herman Cain is one gutsy bastard.
Talk about upping the ante: At his press conference Tuesday afternoon, Cain shot the moon (via the Los Angeles Times).
“The charges and the accusations, I absolutely reject,” Cain said. “They simply didn’t happen. They simply did not happen.”
Regarding Monday’s allegations by Sharon Bialek that he “reached under her skirt for her genitals and pushed her head toward his crotch in July 1997,” Cain had this to say:
“The fact is these anonymous allegations are false, and now the Democratic machine in America has brought forth this troubled woman to make false accusations, statements, many of which exceed common sense.”
Sorry, Herman, but what doesn’t exceed common sense is this: 1) The accusations are no longer anonymous; 2) the Democratic machine in America is fairly salivating for you to be the Republican presidential nominee. There’s no reason in the world they’d try to submarine your candidacy.
What’s most dazzling about Cain’s mutiny is that one credible piece of evidence could bring down the entire house of cards.
We should know pretty soon whether this is the mother of all bluffs. Or not.
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Cain's mutiny, Herman Cain, Hormone Cain, Los Angeles Times, Sharon Bialek
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Michele Bachmann Is Language-Impaired
In the ongoing effort to reinsert herself into the GOP presidential primaries, Michele Bachmann (R-Put James Garfield on Mt. Rushmore) has launched a new offensive against the leading Republican candidates.
From the New York Times:
Michele Bachmann Warns Against Supporting ‘Frugal Socialists’
It is probably news to her rival Republicans, but in Michele Bachmann’s eyes their policies mark them as no better than “frugal socialists.’’
Mrs. Bachmann made the assertion in an attempt to position herself as the true conservative standard-bearer in a speech on Monday, a role she has lost to a succession of other candidates. Addressing the Family Research Council, a socially conservative Christian group, she said, “We cannot preserve liberty for ourselves and our posterity if the choice in next November is between a frugal socialist and an out-of-control socialist.’’
Among the Tea Party base that Mrs. Bachmann courts, it is second nature to call President Obama a “socialist.’’ But in suggesting that leading Republican candidates — in particular Mitt Romney but also Herman Cain and Rick Perry — might also have socialist tendencies, Mrs. Bachmann seems to stretch the word pretty far.
No – it’s a stretch to call Barack Obama a socialist; it’s a pulled hamstring to call Mitt Romney, Rick Perry, and Herman Cain socialists.
We’ve known for a while now that facts have no meaning for Bachmann. Apparently the English language doesn’t either.
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Boston Globe, frugal socialists, Herman Cain, James Garfield, Michele Bachmann, Mitt Romney, Mt. Rushmore, New York Times, Rick Perry
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The Things WordPress Says To Us (II)
Once more:
The hardworking staff has mentioned this before – and again, not to look a gift host in the mouth – but really, you guys at WordPress: Please stop!
Please stop saying after every post, “This is your (umpteenth) post” followed by one of the following:
Magnificent! Glorious! Handy! Whiz-Bang! Boss! Rad! Nice! Cool! Fantastic! Bomb! Hunky-dory! Slick! Brilliant! Neat! Sweet! Grand! Cowabunga! Woohoo!
Woohoo this.
Honest to God!
P.S. WordPress says this post is Sweet!
Campaign Outsider 