Orrin Hatch is conservative by almost any measure, but these days that’s not enough to shield him from the right. There’s a credible challenger in the wings and a real possibility that the Utah senator could become the first establishment casualty of the 2012 season. The Tea Party movement first demonstrated its clout last year by knocking off Hatch’s Utah colleague, Bob Bennett. Now the movement’s activists have served notice that they are displeased with several big-name Republican senators. Hatch, like most of them, is cultivating the grassroots, moving rightward, and hoping to fend off a serious primary challenger.
In their quest for ideological purity, the right wing of the Republican party may well doom the party to election losses and pyrrhic victories. Good. Run, Michelle, run.
Others drawing conservative scrutiny and complaints are Olympia Snowe of Maine, Scott Brown of Massachusetts, and Bob Corker of Tennessee.
Corker? How conservative do they want to be? Corker makes Hatch look moderate. Or, did.
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Gingrich staff quits
Do I hear the pleasant sound of a campaign deflating?
Newt Gingrich's top aides resigned en masse Thursday in the first major blowup of the 2012 campaign, delivering what could be a fatal setback to a campaign that has stumbled from the outset. The defections followed a week of heated debate within the Gingrich camp over whether the former House speaker was sufficiently committed to his bid for an unlikely political comeback more than 13 years after his resignation from Congress. The departures included campaign manager Rob Johnson, veteran spokesman Rick Tyler, and all of Mr. Gingrich's top advisers and campaign operatives in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, the first big three primary states.
Perhaps disappearing is a better term. Bye, Newt. Next.
Newt Gingrich's top aides resigned en masse Thursday in the first major blowup of the 2012 campaign, delivering what could be a fatal setback to a campaign that has stumbled from the outset. The defections followed a week of heated debate within the Gingrich camp over whether the former House speaker was sufficiently committed to his bid for an unlikely political comeback more than 13 years after his resignation from Congress. The departures included campaign manager Rob Johnson, veteran spokesman Rick Tyler, and all of Mr. Gingrich's top advisers and campaign operatives in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, the first big three primary states.
Perhaps disappearing is a better term. Bye, Newt. Next.
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Another dwarf
Perry Changes Tune on White House Bid - Texas Gov. Rick Perry has said for months he has no interest in running for the White House in 2012. But political advisers and friends say that in private conversations he has recently changed his tune on a possible presidential campaign.
Obama should be so lucky.
Mr. Perry is making a number of national appearances this month, including an address next week to an annual dinner of the New York Republican Party. Last week he announced an August summit in Houston and invited all the country's governors to attend. He described the event as a 'day of prayer and fasting' focused on "the healing of our country." Mr. Perry has recently built a base among tea-party groups and conservatives by hammering on state's rights and attacking the Obama administration for its health-care overhaul and interventions in the economy. This year, he backed an array of measures appealing to social conservatives, including a requirement that all women considering an abortion have a sonogram first.In 2009, Mr. Perry caused a stir by expressing sympathy for Texans who might want to secede from the union if federal mandates became too onerous, a comment that could prove problematic in a presidential campaign, especially among general-election voters. Mr. Perry's candidacy would also test whether voters are willing to elevate another Texas governor so soon after the presidency of George W. Bush, Mr. Perry's predecessor in Austin.
Perfect: Bush III, and a Tea-Party, secession-supporting right-winger. Obama should be so lucky.
Obama should be so lucky.
Mr. Perry is making a number of national appearances this month, including an address next week to an annual dinner of the New York Republican Party. Last week he announced an August summit in Houston and invited all the country's governors to attend. He described the event as a 'day of prayer and fasting' focused on "the healing of our country." Mr. Perry has recently built a base among tea-party groups and conservatives by hammering on state's rights and attacking the Obama administration for its health-care overhaul and interventions in the economy. This year, he backed an array of measures appealing to social conservatives, including a requirement that all women considering an abortion have a sonogram first.In 2009, Mr. Perry caused a stir by expressing sympathy for Texans who might want to secede from the union if federal mandates became too onerous, a comment that could prove problematic in a presidential campaign, especially among general-election voters. Mr. Perry's candidacy would also test whether voters are willing to elevate another Texas governor so soon after the presidency of George W. Bush, Mr. Perry's predecessor in Austin.
Perfect: Bush III, and a Tea-Party, secession-supporting right-winger. Obama should be so lucky.
After 40 years, the complete Pentagon Papers
At first blush, it sounds like the release of one of the worst-kept secrets in history — finally unlocking the barn door four decades after the horses bolted. The study, after all, has already been published by The Times and other newspapers, resulting in a landmark First Amendment decision by the Supreme Court. It has been released in book form more than once. But it turns out that those texts have been incomplete: When all 7,000 pages are released Monday, officials say, the study can finally be read in its original form.
That it took until the era of WikiLeaks for the government to declassify the Pentagon Papers struck some participants as, to say the least, curious. “It’s absurd,” said Daniel Ellsberg, the former RAND Corporation analyst who worked on the report and later provided it to The Times. He said Tuesday that the report should not have been secret even in 1971, when newspapers first published it, adding: “The reasons are very clearly domestic political reasons, not national security at all. The reasons for the prolonged secrecy are to conceal the fact that so much of the policy making doesn’t bear public examination. It’s embarrassing, or even incriminating.”
the secrecy has persisted. Timothy Naftali, the director of the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, said that when he recently put together an exhibit on Watergate, he wanted to display just the blue cover of the Pentagon Papers report. “I was told that the cover was classified,” he said, adding that he was astounded.
THAT is absurd.
That it took until the era of WikiLeaks for the government to declassify the Pentagon Papers struck some participants as, to say the least, curious. “It’s absurd,” said Daniel Ellsberg, the former RAND Corporation analyst who worked on the report and later provided it to The Times. He said Tuesday that the report should not have been secret even in 1971, when newspapers first published it, adding: “The reasons are very clearly domestic political reasons, not national security at all. The reasons for the prolonged secrecy are to conceal the fact that so much of the policy making doesn’t bear public examination. It’s embarrassing, or even incriminating.”
the secrecy has persisted. Timothy Naftali, the director of the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, said that when he recently put together an exhibit on Watergate, he wanted to display just the blue cover of the Pentagon Papers report. “I was told that the cover was classified,” he said, adding that he was astounded.
THAT is absurd.
Friday, June 3, 2011
This is what passes for news
as tornadoes ravage the land, as flood waters drown Louisiana, Montana and Vermont, as Congress threatens not to pay America’s creditors and as the economy teeters, “Weiner’s Pickle” as The Daily News phrased it on Thursday, dominates. CNN, ABC and CBS lead broadcasts with it. Fox News is nearly beside itself — a liberal Democrat endangered! — and so offers a Weiner extravaganza.
Fair and balanced.
Fair and balanced.
Thursday, June 2, 2011
Pants on fire?
Mitt Romney is at it again: lying, obfuscating, parsing, evading the truth. He has declared his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination, and began (or continued) attacking President Obama.
he blamed the president for high unemployment, rising gasoline prices, falling home values and a soaring national debt.
Rising gasoline prices are products that vaunted free market the Republicans like to give so much lip service to; no president has a direct effect on them. Unemployment and falling home values are more the responsibility of that free market and corporations. No president control them. Ditto for the national debt. Yes, economic policies have an effect, but no a pervasive one.
Mr. Romney made his candidacy official at a family farm, where he invited supporters and media to a “Cookout With Mitt and Ann.” Under clear but windy skies and with tractors and hay bales as a backdrop, Mr. Romney hopes to send the message that he intends to win New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation primary. The choice of the Bittersweet Farm for his announcement is an interesting one for Mr. Romney, who regularly argues for a smaller federal government that spends less. The rolling green hills of the farm were preserved in recent years in part with $1 million in federal money, according to a recent report in Seacoast Online.
O, Mitt. Republicans love to blame the federal government for almost everything, but never say no to federal money. A smaller federal budget would take away farm subsidies, and losing farm subsidies would make corporate farmers howl in protest.
Mr. Romney made no mention of his potential rivals. Instead, he painted a picture of a country that is in crisis. He said that he “believes in America,” but said it is suffering from the leadership of the current administration. “We look at our country and we know in our hearts that things aren’t right, and they’re not getting better,” he said.
Who doesn't believe in America? Pandering and groveling ain't gonna do it, Mitt.
he blamed the president for high unemployment, rising gasoline prices, falling home values and a soaring national debt.
Rising gasoline prices are products that vaunted free market the Republicans like to give so much lip service to; no president has a direct effect on them. Unemployment and falling home values are more the responsibility of that free market and corporations. No president control them. Ditto for the national debt. Yes, economic policies have an effect, but no a pervasive one.
Mr. Romney made his candidacy official at a family farm, where he invited supporters and media to a “Cookout With Mitt and Ann.” Under clear but windy skies and with tractors and hay bales as a backdrop, Mr. Romney hopes to send the message that he intends to win New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation primary. The choice of the Bittersweet Farm for his announcement is an interesting one for Mr. Romney, who regularly argues for a smaller federal government that spends less. The rolling green hills of the farm were preserved in recent years in part with $1 million in federal money, according to a recent report in Seacoast Online.
O, Mitt. Republicans love to blame the federal government for almost everything, but never say no to federal money. A smaller federal budget would take away farm subsidies, and losing farm subsidies would make corporate farmers howl in protest.
Mr. Romney made no mention of his potential rivals. Instead, he painted a picture of a country that is in crisis. He said that he “believes in America,” but said it is suffering from the leadership of the current administration. “We look at our country and we know in our hearts that things aren’t right, and they’re not getting better,” he said.
Who doesn't believe in America? Pandering and groveling ain't gonna do it, Mitt.
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
Flip-flop?
I enjoy reading Darrell Delamaid's columns: he is a thoughtful, and thought-provoking writer. I happen to disagree with him about Mitt Romeny, but that might be a prejudiced viewpoint (as I dislike Romney).
The conventional wisdom might be right and Romney may indeed find that taking care of the health of the people in Massachusetts has irreparably damaged his political health. And Romney continues to do his share of pandering to the tea party, but at least he’s showing that he can stick to something.
The extreme right will need pandering to all through the early phases of the campaign, and it will not be long before Romney either tilts further right by flip-flopping, or loses traction and gets walked over by others less reluctant to openly pander and grovel.
The conventional wisdom might be right and Romney may indeed find that taking care of the health of the people in Massachusetts has irreparably damaged his political health. And Romney continues to do his share of pandering to the tea party, but at least he’s showing that he can stick to something.
The extreme right will need pandering to all through the early phases of the campaign, and it will not be long before Romney either tilts further right by flip-flopping, or loses traction and gets walked over by others less reluctant to openly pander and grovel.
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