Ron Paul said no to a Donald Trump moderated debate, and Donald Trump fires back.
“Ron Paul’s not going to win. He’s got no chance. You have a better chance right now of winning, and you’re not running, and so he’s not going to win. He’s a joke candidate.”
Oh the wonders of the Republican party!
Consider: This has been the year of economic gloom, a devastating Japanese tsunami, an earthquake in Virginia, a hurricane in New England, and a destructive East Coast snow storm before Halloween. These are bad enough.
Are we really headed for a holiday season dominated by discussion of Newt Gingrich’s chances in the Republican primaries? The fates are indeed playing a cruel joke on us mere mortals.
The stories and analysis are coming fast and furious. Let’s see…
So which Newt are we going to get? And why should we care? After all, he’s not going to win the nomination.
I still think that ring will be worn by Mitt Romney, the subject of a long story in the New York Times Magazine today. It’s not an especially flattering account, but it gets to the heart of how Romney intends to win next year. From the article:
Mitt Romney’s campaign has decided upon a rather novel approach to winning the presidency. It has taken a smart and highly qualified but largely colorless candidate and made him exquisitely one-dimensional: All-Business Man, the world’s most boring superhero. In the recent past, aspirants and their running mates have struggled to clear the regular-guy bar. Dan Quayle lacked a sense of struggle; Michael Dukakis couldn’t emote even when asked what he would do if his wife were raped and murdered; George H. W. Bush seemed befuddled by a grocery-store scanner; John Kerry was a windsurfer; John McCain couldn’t count all of his houses.
Romney, a socially awkward Mormon with squishy conservative credentials and a reported worth in the range of $190 million to $250 million, is betting that in 2012, recession-weary voters want a fixer, not a B.F.F. As the Romney campaign’s chief strategist, Stuart Stevens, told me: “The economy is overwhelmingly the issue. Our whole campaign is premised on the idea that this is a referendum on Obama, the economy is a disaster and Obama is uniquely blocked from being able to talk about jobs.”
What happens when the economy starts improving? This is the oft-repeated conundrum of the candidate running against a recession. Ronald Reagan made it an issue in 1980 and won overwhelmingly. Bill Clinton hammered George H.W. Bush about the economy and defeated him, despite the fact that the economy was improving during the fall of 1992. In 2012, Romney will be in a position where he has to hope that things don’t markedly improve before the election. For an American exceptionalist, it must hurt him to have to root against jobs, rising wages, recovering banks and the success of the euro zone, but I think he believes that if he smiles all the time, voters will forgive him.
And Newt (this is a story about Newt)? Well, Newt is touting his résumé these days.. He’s running on ending communism and getting the economy moving in the 90s, despite voting against (and having every Republican vote against) the Clinton budget of 1993 that set the stage for the decade’s expansion. On that issue, Newt is moot. But, again, it doesn’t matter, because Newt will never be the GOP nominee.
The pundits tell us it’s a two-man race over on the right, now that Herman Cain has dropped out and the other retreads have had their days in the sun and their corresponding sunsets. I feel bad for John Huntsman, who never got his renaissance, and who might qualify as the only reasonable Republican in the race. But this is the year of the uncompromising conservative and I imagine that Mitt and Newt will fight to see who can oppose abortion, taxes and union rights more than the other.
The good news is that the holidays are fast approaching, and this year, we’ve really earned the good cheer.
For more good cheer, visit me at facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives
This post originally appeared on my blog: anjfarmer.blogspot.com
This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. Herman Cain recently “suspended” his presidential ambitions because of allegations of sexual misconduct from various women. And Newt Gingrich is a known womanizer, cheating on his first two wives, even serving one of them divorce papers while she laid in a hospital bed battling cancer.
So is it any surprise that Herman Cain may endorse Newt Gingrich? Nope. It is expected.
A top adviser to Herman Cain says the former presidential candidate plans to endorse one of his ex-rivals, most likely New Gingrich, this month in order to have an impact before the Iowa caucuses on Jan. 3.
“He wants to play ‘who to endorse’ for a while,” said the adviser, who spoke on condition of anonymity in order to speak bluntly. “Then he’ll probably be endorsing somebody in a couple weeks — before the caucuses…. I’d say he’s going to endorse Newt Gingrich,” the adviser said.
Five women with Cain and three with Gingrich. Eight women between these two men. Yep, keep an eye on these two birds!
If you have a circus and the clowns don’t show up, is it still a circus?
Well Ring Master Donald Trump and the conservative organization Newsmax may find out sooner than later. Yesterday, Jon Huntsman was the first Republican Presidential candidate to decline a Newsmax invitation to their December 27th debate, simply because The Donald is scheduled to moderate the event. And now we learn that Ron Paul will not attend either.
Citing a “circus-like” atmosphere as their reason for declining, Paulson campaign issued this statement.
“The selection of a reality television personality to host a presidential debate that voters nationwide will be watching is beneath the office of the Presidency and flies in the face of that office’s history and dignity,” campaign chairman Jesse Benton said.
“Mr. Trump’s participation as moderator will distract from questions and answers concerning important issues such as the national economy, crushing federal government debt, the role of the federal government, foreign policy, and the like. To be sure, Mr. Trump’s participation will contribute to an unwanted circus-like atmosphere,” Benton continued.
“Mr. Trump’s selection is also wildly inappropriate because of his record of toying with the serious decision of whether to compete for our nation’s highest office, a decision he appeared to make frivolously. The short-lived elevation of Mr. Trump’s stature as a candidate put him on the radar of many organizations and we recall that last spring he was invited to keynote the Republican Party of Iowa’s annual Lincoln Day Dinner, yet at the last minute he left RPI holding the bag by canceling. In turn, RPI canceled its biggest fundraising gala of the year and suffered embarrassment and in addition RPI was required to engage in refunding measures.
Our candidate will not even consider participating in the late-December debate until Mr. Trump publicly apologizes to Iowa party leaders and rectifies in full the situation.
“Therefore our candidate Ron Paul, the champion of the Constitution, has advised he will not attend.
Two clowns out, what will the others do? Hope you haven’t already bought tickets to the show.
Herman Cain confirmed today in an interview with the editorial board of the New Hampshire Union Leader, that whatever he had with woman number 5 for over 13 years was a secret to his wife. And it was essential and necessary for the survival of his 13 year adventure that his wife be kept in the dark.
“My wife did not know about it, and that was the revelation. My wife found out about it when [White] went public with it,” Cain said. “My wife now knows. My wife and I have talked about it and I have explained it to her. My wife understands that I’m a soft-hearted giving person.”
And Mr. Cain continued claiming that all five women accusing him of sexual misconduct are lying. The different women are telling “baseless” stories about him, simply because he says that they are.
“Every time a new story comes on TV, it mentions sexual harassment charges. That’s inaccurate because they were found baseless. I call them false accusations.
“They were false. They were not proven, so every time they are called sexual harassment charges, that just keeps saying to people sexual harassment, rather than false accusation.
Herman Cain is facing tremendous pressure from the Republican big shots to terminate his candidacy for the Republican nomination. After woman number 5 broke her silence on their 13 year relationship, Cain said that he will now re-evaluate his decision to run. He has stated that when he eventually sees his wife face to face and convinces her that he is telling the truth (his version), he will then make a decision on whether to continue his doomed run for the Republican nomination.
They say Mr. Paul is too extreme in his thinking, so his invite to the next Republican debate on December 7th wasn’t even considered. “He’s just so far outside of the mainstream of the Republican party and this organization,” said Matt Brooks, Executive Director of the Republican Jewish Coalition. Brooks also said that inviting Paul to attend would be “like inviting Barack Obama to speak.”
The Republican Jewish Coalition is hosting a forum for our merry band of Republican presidential candidates next week. The contenders are expected to flesh out a broad range of opinions about Israel, its future, and its relationship with the United States. Oh, except for Ron Paul, who was not invited. It seems his “extreme views”—like how he would stop giving Israel a few billion dollars each year to purchase weapons from the American defense industry—would be too controversial even within the context of a debate of ideas.
As Herman Cain falls off the leader-board for the Republican nomination, we now turn our attention to the new flavor of the month, Newt Gingrich – a man who has perfected the art of the flip-flop, and who has paved the way for other indecisive Republican “leaders” like Mitt Romney.
One well documented issue that is now causing Gingrich a major headache among his base, is his support for abortion. Of course, he has already flipped on this issue, but this is a vetting process, so let’s take a stroll down memory lane…
TAXPAYER-FUNDED ABORTION
The New York Times on April 10, 1995, reported, “House Speaker Newt Gingrich on Sunday supported the availability of federally financed abortions for poor women who are victims of rape or incest and expressed opposition to organized school prayer, positions that are at odds with many conservatives in his party.”
Also asked that year on CBS’s “Face the Nation” whether he agrees with Republicans who oppose federal abortion payments in cases of rape or incest or to protect the life of the mother, Gingrich answered: “No. First of all, I think you should have funding in the case of rape or incest or life of the mother, which is the first step.”
Later that year, Gingrich urged his colleagues in the U.S. House to accept language in an abortion bill that would not completely ban abortions under federal employee health plans, leaving in place exemptions in cases of rape, incest or to save the life of the mother, the Washington Times reported on Aug. 7, 1995.
TAXPAYER-FUNDED EMBRYONIC STEM CELL RESEARCH
Bill O’Reilly on “The O’Reilly Factor” asked Gingrich on July 19, 2001: “Stem cell research, should President Bush approve some federal funding for that?”
Gingrich answered: “Well, I agree with Senator Bill Frist, as the only medical doctor in the Senate and as a world-class heart surgeon. I think that there are ways to have appreciation for life, to recognize the sanctity of life, but nonetheless to look at fertility clinics where there are cells that are sitting there that are not going to be used to create life. They literally today, they’re unregulated, they can be thrown away. And I think the president, I hope the president, will find a way to agree that there ought to be federally funded research.”
On ABC News’ “This Week” on July 8, 2001, Sam Donaldson asked: “So he should approve stem cell research on embryos?”
Gingrich answered: “On embryonic cells that, that are pre-fetal.”
PARTIAL BIRTH ABORTION
Gingrich helped quash an effort to deny Republican Party funds to candidates who opposed legislation outlawing so-called partial birth abortions, a Jan. 21, 1998, article by the Associated Press said.
The Republican National Committee at its winter meeting that year wanted to deny party campaign funds to Republican candidates who opposed banning most late-term, or partial-birth, abortions.
Gingrich addressed the RNC meeting on Jan. 16, 1998, calling for tolerance of candidates who support partial-birth abortion, saying he would campaign for them: “It’s the voters of America who have a right — in some places they’re going to pick people who are to my right, some places they’re going to pick people who are to my left and in both cases, if they’re the Republican nominee, I am going to actively campaign for them, because when they get to Congress, whether they are a moderate Republican from the northeast, whether they are a very conservative Republican from the south or west, whatever their background.”
With Gingrich leading in the Republican nomination process and about five weeks remaining before primary voters head to the polls, the Gingrich campaign will be in high gear, trying to distance Newt Gingrich ‘Version 2’ from Newt Gingrich 1.0.
The Republican governor of New Jersey and endorser of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, is falsely attacking the President. What else is new? “What the hell are we paying you for?,” Christie askedyesterday, implying that the president could have changed the outcome of the failed Super Committee.
“I was angry this weekend, listening to the spin coming out of the administration, about the failure of the supercommittee, and that the president knew it was doomed for failure, so he didn’t get involved. Well then what the hell are we paying you for?” Christie said in Camden, N.J.
“It’s doomed for failure so I’m not getting involved? Well, what have you been doing, exactly?” Christie was contrasting the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street movements, saying both stemmed from “anger” with government’s inability to respond to the financial crisis.
But while Christie said “both parties deserve blame for what’s going on in Washington, D.C.,” he pointed the finger squarely at Obama for failing to strike a budget deal. “Why the president of the United States refuses to do this is astonishing to me. If he wanted to run for Senate again and just be 1 of a 100, I’m sure he could have gotten reelected over and over again in Illinois,” Christie said. “He’s the one in Washington and he’s got to get something done here. And it’s not good enough just to say, ‘Well, I’ll get it done after the election.’”
Of course, this claim that President Obama could have worked his magic and convince Republicans hellbent on protecting the taxes of millionaires, is false. Republicans would want you to believe that Mr. Obama was missing in action on deficit reduction.
The facts however, are very different.
It was, after all, President Obama who first introduced a proposal to cut the deficit by $4 trillion. And he spent the entire summer trying to work with Republicans to come to some agreement. He even played golf with John Boehner, trying to come to some understanding on what spending cuts to make and at what cost.
But because of Republicans’ secret pledge to make this president fail by tanking the economy, the possibility of a deficit reduction would work against their pledge. They unanimously said “no” to the President’s proposal, and decided to put their faith in the hands of the super committee – a group of 12 people who knew the dire importance of the job at hand, but chose ideological political positions instead.
So, now that the super committee has failed to do their job, it is obviously President Obama’s fault. He should have sat in with the Super Committee everyday, giving his input and recommendations to a group of people who want him to fail.
The failure of the super committee was inevitable. Republicans went into the negotiating process knowing they were going to agree to absolutely nothing thus, causing its failure. And nothing would have been more pleasing to Republicans like Chris Christie, than having President Obama take part in that failure.
If he had played a role in the negotiations, the super-committee’s failure would be his fault. If he didn’t take part, the failure of the super-committee would be his fault.
The Republicans already knew who to blame way before the committee failed. They were just waiting to see which card the President played. It’s classic Republican politics.
Colin Powell, the Secretary of State during the Bush administration and one of the only sane Republicans remaining in America, has some advise for his fellow Americans -do not vote for anyone representing the Teaparty!
“The Tea Party point of view of ‘no compromise whatsoever’ is not a point of view that will eventually produce a presidential candidate who will win,” he said on ABC’s “This Week With Christiane Amanpour.”
Powell said taking the no-compromise position isn’t helping get things done in Washington, and called on members of Congress to “come back to the center to compromise” in order to see progress.
“Compromise is how this country was founded,” he said, offering as an example the issue of slavery. “Can you imagine more difficult compromises today?” he asked. “We have a Congress now that can’t even pass an appropriations bill.”
Powell slammed the tone on Capitol Hill, which he called “very tense.”
“Republicans and Democrats are focusing more and more on their extreme left and extreme right,” he said. “Unless two people in disagreement with each other don’t find a way to reach out to one another and make compromises, you don’t get a consensus that allows you to move forward.”
Powell appeared on the show in part to promote America’s Promise Alliance, the service coalition he founded, and to talk about veterans’ employment initiatives. He did not discuss the most recent example of partisan congressional gridlock, the failed deficit-reduction Super Committee.
It’s a talking point used, not only by Mitt Romney, but also by Michele Bachmann, and really just about every other Republican in Congress. They just love repeating it over and over, like it cannot be checked for accuracy or something.
Well PolitiFact, the non-biased, non-partisan group, has taken it upon themselves to fact-check these politicians. At the last Republican presidential debate, Mitt Romney continued the usual talking point – “President Obama apologizes for America.”
Fact-checking found this to be a lie. And not just any ol’ lie, like a white lie or a fib. No, this one qualifies for a category PolitiFact calls a “Pants On Fire” lie.
Two of the Republicans who claim they’ve gotten a message from God to run for President, said in the last debate that they believed that waterboarding is not torture. Michele Bachmann and Herman Cain then went on to say that they would reinstate the practice if they won the presidency in 2012.
God cannot be happy with these two!…
Asked how he felt about what Bachmann and Cain said, President Obama responded that the two were “wrong,” about waterboarding. The President reiterated that the practice was indeed “torture,” and stated that the use of it diminished the moral stance of the United States.
With all you government workers making hundreds of millions of dollars a year, you will expect the economy to be a lot better than it is now. You will also expect everyone to drop their present jobs and flock to the government for jobs. After all, why would anyone settle for anything less than $35 million a year!
According to Mitt Romney, who made up to $37.5 million in 2010, government employees are making “a lot more money” than he is. Speaking at a fabrication plant on Monday, Romney targeted government employees, saying that if he becomes president, he will reduce the work force by 10%.
Wearing his best plaid work shirt and Tommy Bahama blue jeans, the candidate explained to workers at Giese Manufacturing that he would slash the number of federal employees if elected.
“We have to cut back on the scale of the federal government,” Romney declared. “And for me that will start by reducing federal employees by 10 percent. You do that through attrition.”
“And then something else that is just as important, and that’s to make sure the people who work for government don’t get better pay and better benefits than people that work in the private sector.”
He added: “The tax payers shouldn’t have to have money taken out of their pay checks to pay people in government who are our servants who are making a lot more money than we are.”
It’s a good thing we have the poor-man Romney looking out for us, having his finger on the pulse of exactly who is bringing down the economy – at last check, Romney was worth over $250 million. But that was about two hours ago. We’re sure a few more millions were added since then.
