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2012 Presidential Primary

National Review – 2012 Presidential Primary Panel – Jan 7 in Manchester, NH

I spotted this earlier today, but this is the first chance to post it up as blogging during the work day is bad form:

Jonah Goldberg, Rob Long, James Lileks, and other NR All-Stars will be in Manchester on Saturday, January 7, for an evening of ruminating, riffing, and debate-watching. And you’re invited! Did I mention the event is free? And that there will be free food?

Joining G, L, & L will be Rich Lowry, Ramesh Ponnuru, Bob Costa, Kathryn Jean Lopez, Uncommon Knowledge host Peter Robinson, and others, all of whom will participate in a great program at the Radisson Hotel Manchester (700 Elm Street). Doors open at 6:00 p.m., and the event should end at approximately 11:45 p.m. Here’s the program:

  • 6:30 to 7:35 p.m. — Rich Lowry moderates a panel discussion on the upcoming NH primaries, and more.
  • 7:45 to 8:50 p.m. — Goldberg, Long, & Lileks spend an hour-plus reflecting wisely and wittily on current events.
  • 9:00 to 11:00 p.m. — Join us as we watch (on a big honkin’ screen) the GOP candidates’ debate being broadcast from nearby St. Anselm College.
  • 11:05 to 11:45 p.m. — G, L, & L regroup for an encore performance of pithy observations on the just-watched debate.

…How to reserve a spot? Simple: Email nhevent@nationalreview.com and tell us the name(s) of those who will be joining us on January 7.

I went to the same kind of presentation back in 2008 and came back with my tail between my legs knowing that I had just watched three virtuosos do something that I doubt I could ever do – and without evah breaking a sweat:

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More Humor! 2012 Presidential Primary – Mitt Romney / Obama version. +1

  Heh!  (BTW, who wants to bet on the over/under for time that Media Matters (that hack site funded by George Soros is going to call me racist and demand a take down (that’s where the image came from!)?) A spokesman for President Obama‘s re-election campaign blasted Mr. Romney and questioned whether he had something … Read more

Me supporting Mitt Romney? Hardly

If you are considering a vote for Mitt Romney on January 10, and if you feel strongly about the following list of issues, you may want to think again.  Despite what he says today, Romney supported stronger gun laws for Massachusetts (the only current candidate to do such a thing).  He also once assured MA … Read more

What Is In A Campaign Ad?

Total Bummer....I like Ron Paul

“If you’re going to be crazy, you have to get paid for it or else you’re going to be locked up.” —Hunter S. Thompson

I am watching the television. I cannot remember which station or what show. But to be certain, it was the Discovery Channel, Learning Channel, Smithsonian, NatGeo, Military Channel or Fox News. Most other television is, in the words of Frank Lloyd Wright, “Chewing gum for the eyes.”  With the current political season upon us, the channels are replete with rank and file political ads. Political ads that are simply unavoidable.

One that galvanizes in my mind is a recent hard hitting, vitriolic ad put out by the Ron Paul campaign where Newt Gingrich is the target. The ad uses sound bites, sober and serious background music and billowing voice enhancements to create a serious, yet stoic collection of imagery. If one hates Newt Gingrich, this ad is a, “must-appreciate.”

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Line of the Day – a little financial portfolio talk

”This portfolio is a half-step away from a cellar-full of canned goods and nine-millimeter rounds”

– William Bernstein, investment manager

And that portfolio makeup?

  • 21% – real estate
  • 14% – cash.
  • 0% – bonds / bond funds
  • 0.1% – stock funds (all “short,” or make bets against, U.S. stocks)
  • 64% – gold and silver mining stocks

Whose?

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Email Doodlings – Really? We HAVE to support Ron Paul because if we don’t, he’ll run as a 3rd Party and Obama will win

Essentially, this is the political equivalent of “don’t make me mad or I’ll kill myself!”.  Another way of putting it is “I’m Sampson (in my own mind, anyways) – if you make fun of me, I’ll bring down your house!”.  Here’s the assertion:

Here is my claim: Republicans have no choice whom they support. They must support Paul. Here is the reason: Paul can defeat Obama. If Paul runs 3rd, the Republican loses. Therefore, Paul is the best choice. What do you disagree with? You can rail on about how you don’t like these realities, but they seem like realities to me. Show me where I am mistaken.

Let me restate it (again):

  1. Paul can beat Obama
  2. If you do not vote to have him be the nominee, Paul will run for President via a 3rd Party.
  3. Whoever you vote for then, will lose to Obama
  4. Therefore, you HAVE to vote for Paul NOW.

My response was this:

I will vote for him if he is the nominee – that is clear and cast in concrete.  But I reject the premise that only Ron Paul can defeat Obama.

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2012 Presidential Primary – next up, Rick Santorum?

Everyone, seemingly, has had the Primary Pop except for one: Rick Santorum.  Of all of the candidates in the race now, I would have to say that he has put the most time and work into his candidacy.  Not just since Primary “began” in earnest, but for much longer than anyone else in the face … Read more

No Mitt, you are not part of TEA Party (even if you spoke at a TEA Party event)

Michelle had this little beauty (emphasis mine):

Mitt Romney said today he’s “the ideal candidate” for the Tea Party movement because his stance on issues lines up “pretty darn well” with the movement he says will soon realize that GOP frontrunner Newt Gingrich isn’t their best option for president.

“I recognize that the speaker has a big lead here,” Romney said of Gingrich in a press conference in South Carolina. “But I think as people take a closer and closer look, they’ll recognize that I reflect more effectively the positions which they hold on key issues.

Um, okay. Everybody has a different definition of “ideal,” I suppose.

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Email Doodlings – Assertion: “a threshold that I believe none of our recent wars has crossed”. Me: Really?

The Assertion that was made was in response what I posted here:

You asked the question as to whether we need to wait until American lives are lost to respond….To me, this means that there must be imminent danger—and that is a threshold that I believe none of our recent wars has crossed—and all other options should have been exhausted. Instead, our recent wars have been pre-emptive with no clear moral certainty that an attack was imminent.

Answer: Really??  Crossed a threshold?

  • Oil is in our self-interest, like it or not.  Gulf 1: Should Bush 1 NOT have rallied the world to throw Saddam out of Kuwait, especially when it looked like Saddam might be able to roll up the Saudis et al?  Just or not?
  • Gulf 2 – lots of UN resolutions were broken by Saddam.  More importantly, if you read the Congressional resolution (of more importance than the UN resolutions to be sure), there was a whole litany of things that they found against Saddam and gave Bush 2 approval for.  And yes, LOTS of countries still thought Saddam had WMDs and that they would be used against the West as he had done so against Iran and his own people.  And Saddam had almost a year and a half of warning to comply.  Just or not?
  • We gave the Taliban plenty of advance warning – give up those that you are sheltering that trained and attacked us.  Were there just reasons to go and eradicate the Taliban from Afghanistan?

My problem is that I believe that Ron Paul IS an isolationist on defense and not just a non-interventionist; and many believe likewise.  I also believe that…

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Newt on the Left as presented by Occupy Wall Street

It fits – it is just a minute long so watch it.  Since Hayward reprised it, if you liked Reagan’s “Acts like Tarzan, dresses like Jane, smells like cheetah”, you get the idea: (H/T: Powerline) Note: Our new blogging platform is nice enough to show me drafts of stuff that I didn’t actually post…this is … Read more

Email Doodlings – 2012 Presidential Primary – Yes, it gonna be a long month…

More meanderings from on this:

Despite the (still) prevailing hawkishness within the GOP, I feel that the tides are turning. Republicans are starting to understand that we are FLAT BROKE and we can’t financially sustain these wars. We are being bled dry just like the mujahedeen (al Queda) did to the Russians in Afghanistan.

I am going to hate my self for doing it, but I couldn’t help myself at the time….(heh!) (edited slightly)

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Email Doodlings – 2012 Presidential Primary – whose next?

Well, on yet another email thread I’m on, just before I decided to be a rock Fool, I got the question (else I would have posted earlier):

Tim, Johnson’s likely to run 3rd party, due to the media freeze-out.  Cain is now out.  So who’s left?  Or perhaps, who’s right?

What’s the Granite Grok crew going to do now? Skip?

Good question – what are we going to do? (edited slightly)

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And I thought that only Charlie Bass was proud to be a Progressive Republican…..

Well, to make the play here, take a gander at Mitt Romney’s self-declaration when he was running for a different elected position: Now, certainly people change over time, but is yet another showing of Mitt Romney’s willingness to be pragmatic (re: what has to be done to get elected?).  I understand “shading a position” depending … Read more

Compromise: The New Hegelian Dialectic

“I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.”—Barry Goldwater

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

With the coming of the Holiday season, some conversations will invariably gravitate to politics. One particular assertion during one such conversation galvanized in my mind a rather flawed logic. A flawed logic that is at the very heart of the probable cause of why America is on the path to destruction that it is today.

This particular relative, one who describes himself as a moderate, condemned this President, the House and the Senate for doing absolutely nothing to improve conditions in America. His viewpoint is that neither the Democrats nor the Republicans are willing to compromise…to reach across the aisle, to, “work together.” He went on to explain that even though Democrats do not agree with  Republicans and vice-versa, each should be willing to accept some policy measure that each doesn’t like or agree with. The time-aged honored principle of “horse-trading.”

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EMail Doodlings – “How the can this movement support this insider?!?!?!?!?!” (Part 2)

Adding on to my previous post – a reposte to a response (lightly edited):

Obama is a dictator, not a traditional political President

Obama is the epitome of the Progressive end-game: The High Administrator of the Administrative State that should decide for us all what is best for us instead of the Founders’ vision that we are the sovereigns and not the State; in that, you are absolutely correct.

Yes, Obama will have to participate in at least two debates, if not three.  Simple Alinskyism – use his strength against him, which was his PREVIOUS speechifying and he didn’t do too badly in the Democrat debates.   But you also have to admit that McCain was AWFUL in the debates and in the campaigning in between them, he refused to put on the gloves and beat Obama to a pulp (indeed, methinks McCain took a dive).  If he REFUSES to debate, that will only exacerbate the meme HE has created that he is worthless without TOTUS.

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Romney Disagrees With Gingrich on Child Labor…Surprised?

“A charlatan makes obscure what is clear; a thinker makes clear what is obscure.” — Hugh Kingsmill

Willard "Mitt" Romney: The Matthew Lesko of American Politics

Last month, while speaking at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, presidential candidate New Gingrich drew the hue and cry of liberals everywhere when he suggested that children can learn the value of a paycheck by maintaining their own buildings.

 On the face of it, I was perplexed why people were so up-in-arms about Gingrich’s suggestion. But then as I read on, I understood what the real issue was. Newt also said,

“Most of these schools ought to get rid of the unionized janitors, have one master janitor, and pay local students to take care of the school,”

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EMail Doodlings – “How the can this movement support this insider?!?!?!?!?!” (Part 1)

There is one very upset and confused guy on one of the email lists I’m on; a Libertarian TEA Party kind of guy, he JUST cannot for the life of him, understand why Newt Gingrich is surging so with Movement Conservatives.  And why TEA Partiers are flocking to Newt just is beyond his comprehension.  So, the above question uttered from his fingertips.  Never wishing to leave a challenge undone, I answered:  “A tool“.  Now, in many groups, that would be fightin’ words – in this case, merely “a tool with which to achieve an end”. And I wish, at the time, that I had thought of that two word answer.  Silly me, had to go and use a whole bunch more instead (H/T: Gallup for the chart) (lightly edited):

I will agree with you that beating Obama is not a done deal.  We all, as uber-political junkies know that because we know that a lot of effort is going to be done by the vast Left Wing / Union conspiracy in their GOTV (Get Out The Vote) efforts.  We all, from our lofty positions (heh!) known that many people are not really all that knowledgeable about ALL the issues and all of the nuances thereof, and will therefore , may well vote for Obama.  Again.

Being here in NH, I can tell you the overriding issue to Movement Conservatives and TEA Partiers is not to beat Obama right now but to beat Romney.  That is the near term issue that is forefront on every TEA Party / 9-12 / Conservative’s mind.  Five weeks to go.

The Libertarian part of the Republican Party has already…

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Another Presidential candidate calls a halt to the race – Herman Cain

After several weeks of dealing with allegations of improprieties and a media hell-bent on chasing him out of the race, Herman Cain decided to suspend his campaign to be the next Republican nominee for President.  Unlike John McCain when he suspended his during the fiscal crisis to go to DC, went back to Senate deliberations, … Read more

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