Who's the GOP Nominee, again?

I'll openly admit to not paying much attention to the conventions.  A bunch of glad handing and rah rah bullshit to gin up the base. 

God only knows what the democrats will unleash on us, but at least I think we'll come away knowing who their candidate is.  You had to squint hard to figure it out in Tampa.  Ryan's fact challenged speech and Clint Eastwood's...well whatever it was sucked all the oxygen out of the room.  Heck even Ann's speech garnered more attention. 

Mitt isn't a good public speaker, we've known that for a long time.  He's stiff, awkward and falls into the same trap Obama does of using large words when simpler ones could convey the message.  While he did step it up from his usual stump speech offering touching personal narratives, and probably gave the best speech of his life, he still faded into the woodwork.  To be fair I'm not sure what else they could have done.

Romney suffers in two ways when compared with his running mate: 1) Ryan is clearly more at ease in front of a microphone.  Coaching can help, but at the end of the day you either have it or you don't.  Paul does and Mitt doesn't.  2) Romney's platform has very little substance while Ryan's has been crystallized in two budget packages.  Substance isn't necessarily a good thing but it fleshes the candidate out and gives us an idea of where they're coming from.  Ryan's substance also gives him ideological consistency where Romney's reversals on things like abortion and gun control leave us scratching our heads.

It feeds into the larger problem of selling Romney to voters.  Which version are we getting?  Given his past positions, his embrace of every one of the far right's issues should fill voters with a healthy amount of skepticism.  

Good luck taking a machete to that mental thicket to quote Captain Jack Sparrow.

With an awkward public presence combined with his tangled mess of policy positions, it's no wonder Mitt was relegated to the background.  One of the right's favorite lines of attack on President Obama is that he "leads from behind."  Well it appears they've nominated someone who campaigns from behind.  How would that change if he got to the White House?

Paul Ryan: Republican's Lip Synching Rock Star

The dead of night announcement of Ryan as vice president was a dead giveaway the Romney camp just doesn't care anymore.

They're months into a running a terrible campaign.  They're trying desperately to humanize a gaffe-prone robot.  Their economic plan is a bumper stick sprinkled with fairy dust.  Their foreign policy boils down to incinerating Iran and taking the child leash off Israel (and some hilarious post cold war pablum about Russia as public enemy #1).  Their domestic policy caters to the Christian taliban and tells the poor to fuck off.

Oh and their poll numbers suck.  Anyone surprised?

What will they do breathe life into their plodding march of failure?  Make it worse.

John McCain suffered from a similar problem.  The response was a circus stunt that wrote the book on how to torpedo a presidential campaign.  Romney's people are apparently slow learners.

Traditional wisdom advises a couple things.  First nominate someone who shores up your policy weaknesses.  Romney's platform is across-the-board awful.  But his tone deaf "we'll keep the ship afloat by hitting the iceberg harder" economic plan is the worst.  The second is to pick someone non-controversial, someone who compliments the candidate, and doesn't steal their spotlight.

In Paul Ryan, they managed to fail at all these things.

Romney has been extraordinary in his vanilla-ness, his ability to not have a concrete answer to anything.  How will he pay for his tax cuts?  What will he replace the Affordable Care Act with?  What was his effective tax rate prior to 2010?

Ryan doesn't have a problem dotting his i's and crossing his t's.  His answers are specific, and they specifically suck.  His "Road to Prosperity" was shredded by virtually every economist from the CBO on down.  His plan to turn Medicare into a voucher program was so unpopular he fled from his own town halls.  And Romney's people think Ryan will play better to a national audience?

Secondly Ryan will draw attention away from Romney.  Romney's campaign couldn't pick an old boring white guy for VP because they already had one.  Portman or Pawlenty would have been safer picks.  Instead they repeated the blunder of 2008 and went for the shot of adrenaline.  Good or bad, reporters will be talking about Ryan's budget, not Romney.  The right wing hails Ryan as a rock star.  But they have a habit of conflating obnoxiousness with celebrity.  Ryan's budget hadn't been tried because no one else had the balls.  That and the numbers didn't add up.  Gutsily doing something stupid doesn't make it any less stupid.

In picking Paul Ryan Mitt hitched his wagon to a toxic figure known for wanting to throw granny off the cliff.  The selection will fill in blanks on Romeny's platform.  Too bad they're the wrong answers.  This will invite fresh scrutiny of just how awful the Ryan budget is.  Maybe when it's all said and done, voters will see Ryan for the economic Milli Vanilli he is. 

Who Knew Bigotry had a Taste?

And that taste is greasy fried chicken served on a buttered bun with a pickle.  Perhaps it's the special way they cut their fries, or the oil they're cooked in.  Who knows? 

Either way, Chick Fil-A is a company that espouses Christian values and opposes gay marriage.  Predictably, the controversial, but fairly innocuous statement by their CEO hasn't stopped right wing media from making them the latest fake martyr.  Cynical opportunists, excuse me, good Christians like Mike Huckabee and princess dingbat (pictured below) have come out to support heterosexual fast food.

Chick Fil-A's decision makes as much sense as brushing your teeth with a mouthful of Oreos.  They are a business.  They exist to sell chicken.  Telling 10% of the population to piss off (not to mention straight people who support equality for the LGBT community) makes lousy business sense.  They're certainly free to do it, while I'm free to take my business elsewhere.

Also don't forget August 1st is Huckabee's "Chick Fil-A Appreciation Day".  Your local franchise should be easy to find: just look for the near empty building ringed with protesters.

 

Happy Fourth of July!

Hopefully the news media will give us a day off from their endless coverage of last week's SCOTUS decision so we might enjoy the holiday.

The United States is polarized like I've never seen.  Political divides are sharper than ever.  If politics were ever a way to divide a family, destroy friendships, or spoil polite conversations, it's never been more true than now.  The battle lines are drawn, the knives sharpened.  The presidential election looks to be the most expensive and nastiest in our history.

On the one hand, it's encouraging to see Americans so engaged in the electoral process.  On the other, it's dispiriting to see how easily partisanship gives way to petty, vicious attacks on each other. 

We are the United States of America.  That seems to get lost once we're registered with a political party.  We're all on the same team.  It's important to understand that we're each invested in our neighbors' success.  The guy across the street may be an arch conservative complete with bumper stickers decrying the liberal media.  But if he loses his job and his home, it doesn't just hurt conservatives, it hurts all of us.  The lady next to you on the train may be a liberal school teacher who advocates universal healthcare and childhood nutrition.  But if her pay is cut, or job eliminated, money she previously spent in your store won't be spent any longer.

Today, if no other day of the year, Americans need to put aside their differences.  We should rejoice that we live in a country with the freedom to make our voices heard.  That we have the right to join the party of our choice.

Happy Birthday America.

As usual, Krauthammer is wrong

Predictably, right wing pundits rushed to claim that Wisconsin's recall election was something bigger than it was.  According to Charles Krauthammer it was a referendum on the nation's feelings toward labor unions.

To listen to him, it was the valiant citizens of Wisconsin standing up to organized labor's ginned up, mobbed up assault on the state.

He conveniently forgets that WI was flooded with out-of-state money and that Walker's campaign outspent his opponent 7 to 1.  He also neglects to mention that Tom Barrett wasn't even the union's choice.  Kathleen Falk was their candidate, but lost to Barrett in the truncated primary.

He fabricated a hilariously at-odds-with-itself comparison that unions give their members massively overblown pensions, while at the same time do nothing but extort dues.  Which is it?  He then points out that Indianans have largely opted out of paying dues to their public sector unions.  Hey great work.  A bunch of lazy slackers who want to coast on the hard work unions did, paying nothing into the system but enjoying all the benefits.

He then makes a lame attempt to paint all unions as corrupt gangsters, ignoring their necessity and all of organized labor's accomplishments, such as the 40 hour work weeks, minimum wage, overtime and a multitude of other things.

It's no secret that, culturally, conservatives are way waaaaaaaaay behind the times.  But it's pathetic to see they're still mired in an era that ended over 40 years ago.  It's especially awful given that big business is richer than ever while worker wages stagnate and fall.  Got to keep those red staters angry and voting against their own interest right Charles?

The New Race to the Bottom

It's an election year.  You can see it on tv, hear it on the radio, read it in the newspapers.  Obscene amounts of money are being spent to make sure we're focused on Mitt Romney's dog, that Obama ate dog as a child, literary pamphlets from 21 years ago again reviving the zombie birther myth.

It's gonna be a doozy folks.  Our first post Citizens United presidential election.  The parties and the super PAC's look to spend more money than The Avengers will gross.  More than any election in history.

What's lamentable is how little that money will promote discussion about actual issues.  Instead we'll see Karl Rove hit jobs with amazing production values.  We'll hear sound bites cribbed and edited so flawlessly most won't realize what's being said is complete bullshit.

It wouldn't be as maddening if there weren't so many serious issues facing us: a limping economy, stubbornly high unemployment, a Congress that will not act to reign in spending or raise revenue.  No, we're debating for the 87 millionth time whether Obama is a Kenyan, passages from Obama's books are presented as revelations.  Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers brought out AGAIN.

I could care less if Romney did cut that kid's hair.  He was a teenager.  Teenagers do stupid things.  In other breaking news, the sun rose today.  Why don't we put this pablum aside and discuss how awful his policies are?  Why not look past Seamus' trip on the car roof and look at how Romney had to struggle to establish his conservative bona fides e.g. joining the NRA only after getting slammed by the second Amendment crowd.

It's worse on Obama's side.  The conservative blogosphere has been on a partisan acid trip for 4 years, cooking up one insane conspiracy after another.  Obama's failure to address their lunatic musings has only fueled the chants of 'Cover up!'  Who cares what a 1991 literary pamphlet said?  Why not talk about Obama's foreign policy being uncomfortably similar to his predecessor's?  Instead of enabling Orly Taitz, why not discuss Barack's milquetoast support for gay marriage which only solidified after Biden held his feet to the fire?

We're a better country than this.  We're adults and should be having a grown up conservation.  Instead we've turned our elections into a reality show.  With the amount of information literally at our fingertips, it's almost criminal how poorly informed people are.  And how little they seem to care.

But alas, it's an election year.  Serious discourse can't help but give way to juicy attack ads and salacious gossip.  Maybe a 5 year old Romney let a goldfish die because he forgot to feed it?  Maybe a 3rd grade Obama gave a female classmate cooties?

It's been 392 years...

...since the Puritans landed at Plymouth.

Nearly four centuries.  And we're still grappling with their angst over sex.

Is it more complicated than that?  Of course.  There are issues with STD's, teen pregnancy, gay rights, reproduction, marriage and others.

But at the end of the day, it comes down to religion based shame.

I won't even get into the absurdity of having a debate about contraception while we're slogging our way out of a historic economic crisis.

Reagan cynically saw poor Christians as an untapped electoral resource and made outlawing abortion a republican issue. Sadly churches played along. They facilitated pigeonholing their congregations into one issue voters.  Who cared if republicans disagreed with Christian faith on virtually everything else?  "Don't you dare vote for a baby killer" to quote a preacher whose church I once sat in.

Thirty two years later, Rick Santorum is winning a presidential primary by pounding the lectern about abortion and making a contraception a states' rights issue. 

Apparently job creation is a stale message when people are screwing.

Did it ever occur to Rick that perhaps sex is one of the few pleasures Americans can still afford?  I get that like most republicans, he wants to strip away labor and civil rights protections progressives spent the last hundred years achieving.  But he even wants to take away sex?

The best argument the Christian right can muster is that sex is morally reprehensible and should have consequences.  It seems to grate on them that contraception has so effectively worked against pregnancy.  And it really seems to bother them that birth control has other medical uses.

Way to lead the charge straight back to the thirteenth century.  Santorum has twisted the First Amendment into a club to pound religious beliefs into employees of church run institutions.

The Puritans would be proud.  Keep the faith Rick.

Christmas Coming Early for Democrats?

When Rick Santorum announced his candidacy, like a lot of progressives, I was stunned.

In 2006, I watched his spectacular flame-out, losing to Bob Casey by 19 points.  His bigoted comments conflating homosexuality with bestiality fresh in the public's ears.  Santorum's downfall was emblematic of voter disgust with a republican party run amok.

A mere six years later, Santorum is not only running for the GOP presidential nomination, he's winning.  Moreover he's doing it running on a platform of toxic social issues.

Understandably, the establishment is doing everything it can to submarine Santorum.  Romney has the biggest war chest fueled by mountains of super PAC cash.  As Chris Matthews recently said, Romney will "carpet bomb" Santorum with negative advertising leading up to the Michigan primary.  So far his efforts have been for naught as Santorum continues to the lead in the polls.

As for democrats? We've been watching the show and laughing our asses off.

Last week on Hannity's carnival sideshow, Dick Morris called DHHS's new contraception rule a "hit job." If one works this through in their head, it begs the conclusion that Morris blames Obama for the right wing's working itself into a religious froth.

If it isn't true (and there is no evidence it is) then republicans have no one to blame but themselves for losing their minds and showing the country how virulently they still oppose women's reproductive rights.

If it is true, then Obama and the democrats deserve credit for playing republicans like a fiddle. Tossing this innocuous regulation out and letting the right go insane.  More brilliantly, it served to not only show how little republicans care about the economy, but also replaced their only viable candidate with someone epically unelectable.

Democratic strategists would LOVE to take credit for it.

The republicans toss aside jobs, the economy, and everything else voters care about in favor of the most poisonous fringe issue they could find.

Anyone know what the over/under is for an Obama/Santorum race?  Obama by 20 points? Put me down for the over.

I don't know about the rest of you, but I might leave cookies out for Santa this year. 

The GOP's Deafening Silence on the Economy

The last several weeks have been interesting, and quite entertaining.

Obama's DHHS announced that religious owned institutions, who employ and serve people regardless of their faith, will be required to provide contraception to employees via their health insurance plans for zero co-pay.

And the right wing goes berserk.

Not just a little nuts.  Full on, frothing at the mouth, end-of-times looney tunes.

Rick Santorum is propelled to victory in three consecutive primaries.  Santorum, Mittens, Newt, Fox News and AM hate radio all trumpet this ridiculous (and non existent) "War on Christianity."

I don't really blame them.  They have to do this to placate their base. Their tired narrative demands that Obama be portrayed as a  liberal ubermensch, an  arch secularist who deflowers virgins and dines on the unborn.  Big government, tax and spend and weak on defense are also required.

Obama has proven this laughably false with a 2013 budget that reduces the deficit by $400 billion in one year. He's pushed to extend payroll tax cuts.  He's made superlative use of the military in Libya and in taking out bin Laden and al Awlaki.

It leaves the right in a pickle.  It doesn't make a difference to Limbaugh, Hannity or their ilk, they'll lie right to your face.  Hannity said this week that if Obama had had his way, bin Laden would still be alive. This flies in the face of logic, reason, and sanity.

But anyway, Santorum, Romney and Gingrich have been hurling contraception red meat to the right wing base.  It's particularly funny that this brouhaha is being fueled not by Catholics themselves (58% support Obama's measure), but by their self appointed mouthpieces.  While the GOP has been busy demonizing the President over this IMO trivial matter, it's left a huge gap in the candidates' running narrative.

What about the economy?  What about jobs?  What about the housing market?  What about the debt and deficit republicans claimed were their real issues?

This is spookily reminiscent of Rachel Maddow's exposure of the Tea Party as the social conservative fanatics they are.  In 2010, they got elected on a platform of smaller government and lower taxes.  What voters got were 80+ anti abortion bills and open war against unions.

It's even more telling that this week Obama unveiled a $25 billion settlement with mortgage lenders to help ease the housing crisis.  Admittedly his jobs bill went nowhere but again, where were the republicans?

The GOP's contraception freak out combined with their utter silence on the economy paints a picture of a party woefully out of touch with the country.

But oh the steak tartar.

Why Newt Should Thank Occupy Wall Street

 "You got it. It’s time to be patriotic, Kate. It’s time to jump in, it’s time to be part of the deal, it’s time to help get America out of the rut." - Joe Biden on raising taxes on the wealthy, 2008

Biden was excoriated for this remark by the McCain campaign while the notion of taxes as patriotic was scoffed at and vilified by the usual gang of talk radio idiots.

Fast forward to now. 

Romney is under heavy fire for his status as a super rich guy.  Much of it is his own fault for condescending and patronizing attempts to find common ground with the little guy.

• Wearing jeans and flannel shirts (but don't you dare touch his coif). 
• Telling people he's unemployed, while sitting on over a quarter of a billion dollars.  
• The unintentionally sarcastic remark he created 100,000 jobs while at Bain Capital, despite their track record of laying off workers and shuttering factories.  
• More recently, his ludicrous waving away of $373,000 in speaking fees as "not very much money." 
• Let's also not forget the shocker that he invested in offshore funds in the Cayman Islands, which according to his camp isn't really a tax haven.

The latest charge is the revelation that Mittens' actual tax rate for 2010 was 15%.

No one is suggesting he did anything illegal (though the ethics of private equity firms has gotten a lot of attention).  Likewise no one is suggesting he doesn't deserve his income, that he should give his money away, or that he's at fault for availing himself of current tax law.

But it blows a HUGE hole in the already sinking ship that Romney is an every man, someone not of the super wealthy elite.

The Grinch (good nickname for Newt?), who's been viciously attacking Mittens, now proudly pats himself on the back that in 2010 he paid an actual federal income tax rate of 31%.  Take that Richie Rich!

I love it. One rich guy attacking another rich guy for being more rich (Newt's personal worth is estimated at over $100 million).

Paying more in taxes in order to score points with voters?  Egads.  Joe was right.

Newt should thank the Occupiers.

One inarguable success the protest movement had is shifting the national dialogue towards issues like income and wealth disparity and tax laws that favor the rich. Those phrases are appearing in the media more now than in a quite a while.

The issues obviously resonate with GOP voters (even if they still hate the Occupiers) otherwise Romney wouldn't be on his heels defending his image while his poll numbers dip.

Of course Newt doesn't have the guts to point this out.  Solidarity with a bunch of hippies whom Sean Hannity accused of rape and murder?  Oh no no no.  The Grinch doesn't want to raise Romney's taxes, he wants to lower everyone else's to 15%.  Shrewd way to push another awful flat tax policy (9-9-9!!).

The GOP distraction of deficits and debt have been pushed aside in favor of appealing to the middle class and the fact they pay taxes at a higher rate than their bosses do.  If the GOP adopts this platform, they'll be doing the Occupiers' and the left's job for them.

While Obama has been consistent with his message that jobs and the economy come first, he's been content to let the GOP figure it out on their own.  All it took was a lot of brave men and women, some tents, and several tons of granola.

Maybe Newt's next attack ad will call out Mittens as the 1%?