Yep. It’s Rick’s turn…
Here is a scary one. Unfortunately, embedding is disabled: Rick Santorum Argues With Student Over Gay Marriage http://youtu.be/PzzDrOR30U8
Showing posts with label Rep. Michele Bachmann. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rep. Michele Bachmann. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 04, 2012
Another one bites the dust: Bachmann Out
Another bullet dodged, several more to go... Sanatorum? Really?
Now that Michele Bachmann has dropped out of the presidential race, TPM took a look back at a memorable candidacy and compiled our favorite moments:
Some more winning moments...
Related Posts
Monday, October 10, 2011
Freaks and, uh, more freaks... Republicans in 2012
A few excerpts below, but this one is really worth a read. Don't know if it makes me laugh or cry or both. One of the worst pitfalls of modern American politics is the pervading feeling among the majority of voters that we are left choosing between the lesser of two evils. Unless a miracle happens, 2012 will be no different for most voters.
While I have yet, in my voting life, to actually pull the elephant lever for President, I always root for them to have a serious, competent candidate for the job. I would argue this happened in 1992 (in hind sight), 1996, and (questionably) in 2008. While this current freak show of a Republican field might be "good" for the Democrats a year from now, it is BAD for our country.
And, make no mistake, my money says that Herman Cain will get the nomination before Romney. The primary voters will vote black before Mormon. That is the dirty little not-so-secret secret of the 2012 election so far. And if he does get the nomination, expect many on the wacko right to stay home in November.
Who knows, maybe Huntsman can pull it together? I do not know too much about him yet, but he seems the least vile of the bunch. Romney wasn't too bad until his swerve to the far right, past the nicely trimmed lawns of Conservative Lane into the tall razor wire fences surrounding the armed compounds in Crazy Town. Unfortunately, Huntsman also suffers from Romney's small L.D.S. problem.
Blah...
The GOP's sad, intolerant 2012 field - Yahoo! News: "At the weekend's Values Voters Summit, Republican presidential candidates and conservative kingmakers proved that bigotry is among their chief values
Even in an economy where the congressional GOP has intentionally and successfully stalled jobs and growth, the party's nominee may prove to be as vulnerable as the Christie-imploring Republicans calculated. It's clear that the president won't let 2012 be cast as a referendum; he's now setting out the basic choice: Who's on your side? Romney will call this class warfare, but people are coming to understand that we've already had a decade of class warfare — against the middle-class. That's what Occupy Wall Street is all about. And that's why Barack Obama should and will go the next step — and week after week, month after month, challenge Wall Street and vested interests across the board.
Mitt Romney will be ill-prepared for this contest. He will enter the general election burdened by the craziness to which he's had to kowtow. The primaries are also stripping away the strands of his already threadbare character. And they're leaving him on the wrong side of the great dividing line of 2012 — for the privileged, not ordinary people."
While I have yet, in my voting life, to actually pull the elephant lever for President, I always root for them to have a serious, competent candidate for the job. I would argue this happened in 1992 (in hind sight), 1996, and (questionably) in 2008. While this current freak show of a Republican field might be "good" for the Democrats a year from now, it is BAD for our country.
And, make no mistake, my money says that Herman Cain will get the nomination before Romney. The primary voters will vote black before Mormon. That is the dirty little not-so-secret secret of the 2012 election so far. And if he does get the nomination, expect many on the wacko right to stay home in November.
Who knows, maybe Huntsman can pull it together? I do not know too much about him yet, but he seems the least vile of the bunch. Romney wasn't too bad until his swerve to the far right, past the nicely trimmed lawns of Conservative Lane into the tall razor wire fences surrounding the armed compounds in Crazy Town. Unfortunately, Huntsman also suffers from Romney's small L.D.S. problem.
Blah...
The GOP's sad, intolerant 2012 field - Yahoo! News: "At the weekend's Values Voters Summit, Republican presidential candidates and conservative kingmakers proved that bigotry is among their chief values
There's a good reason for the otherwise inexplicable reality that in most surveys President Obama, despite his currently desiccated job approval ratings, leads all but one of his Republican rivals — and even against him, the president nonetheless runs neck and neck.
And there's a deeper reason, beyond the inchoate, predictable, and perennial yearning to find an alternative, why so many of the GOP's smartest strategists and most prodigious fundraisers fought so hard to broaden their field of candidates. They sought someone else, anyone both serious and authentic — from Indiana's diminutive but economically literate Gov. Mitch Daniels, who once committed the conservative capital offense of contemplating a tax increase, to New Jersey's blunt, at times bullying, and comprehensively heavyweight Gov. Chris Christie, who believes in the heresy of global warming.
What's unfolding in the Republican arena is not a campaign but a spectacle that repels mainstream voters and rejects or infects mainstream conservative candidates.
...
Huntsman, as Tish Durkin argued, has qualities that ought to recommend him — among them, that: "He's not Romney... He's not crazy... He's not swearing on a stack of Bibles." Yet these very qualities are disqualifying in today's Republican Party. Huntsman doesn't want, or can't get, a séance with Donald Trump, who's become the grinning Joker of today's GOP. And Huntsman won't get a second look or a second chance — not this time around.
...
Huntsman, as Tish Durkin argued, has qualities that ought to recommend him — among them, that: "He's not Romney... He's not crazy... He's not swearing on a stack of Bibles." Yet these very qualities are disqualifying in today's Republican Party. Huntsman doesn't want, or can't get, a séance with Donald Trump, who's become the grinning Joker of today's GOP. And Huntsman won't get a second look or a second chance — not this time around.
Instead the party marches to the tin drums of ideological extremism and angry fantasy, while its stiff and fragile frontrunner compliantly frog-marches to the right. Mitt Romney isn't setting the pace; he's trying to do just enough to placate a party where crazy now flourishes in many forms."
...
There's persistent resistance to Romney — on the shameful ground of religious bigotry and on the defensible ground of doubts about his sincerity, his personality, and his principles. The result: The extremism and pratfalls of his opponents, which should benefit the Mitt-man by making him seem relatively sensible and reasonable, have generated a miasma that's enveloping the Romney campaign. Not only has he toed a bright right line on social issues; he's adopted the GOP habit of fact-free argument — almost certainly the easy reaction of someone who's already treated his public life as record-free.
There's persistent resistance to Romney — on the shameful ground of religious bigotry and on the defensible ground of doubts about his sincerity, his personality, and his principles. The result: The extremism and pratfalls of his opponents, which should benefit the Mitt-man by making him seem relatively sensible and reasonable, have generated a miasma that's enveloping the Romney campaign. Not only has he toed a bright right line on social issues; he's adopted the GOP habit of fact-free argument — almost certainly the easy reaction of someone who's already treated his public life as record-free.
...
Mitt Romney will be ill-prepared for this contest. He will enter the general election burdened by the craziness to which he's had to kowtow. The primaries are also stripping away the strands of his already threadbare character. And they're leaving him on the wrong side of the great dividing line of 2012 — for the privileged, not ordinary people."
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Stupid voters enable broken government - CNN.com
Stupid voters enable broken government - CNN.com: " This is one of a series of CNN Opinion articles on the question, "Why is our government so broken?" LZ Granderson, who writes a weekly column for CNN.com, was named Journalist of the Year by the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association and is a 2011 Online Journalism Award finalist for commentary. He is a senior writer and columnist for ESPN the Magazine and ESPN.com and the 2009 winner of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation award for online journalism. Follow him on Twitter at @locs_n_laughs. Watch him on CNN Newsroom Tuesdays at 9 a.m. ET."
"...Newt Gingrich, who cheated on two wives and is the only speaker of the House to have been disciplined for ethics violations. And yet somehow he is running for president of the United States as a religious conservative and managed to get 8% of the votes during last week's straw poll in Florida.
Are you freaking kidding me?"
...
"Each time Rep. Michele Bachmann insinuates falsehoods into her arguments, as she did earlier this month on the "Today Show" by suggesting HPV vaccinations cause mental retardation, I think: A group of people on auto-pilot in Minnesota did this to us."
...
"Each time Rep. Michele Bachmann insinuates falsehoods into her arguments, as she did earlier this month on the "Today Show" by suggesting HPV vaccinations cause mental retardation, I think: A group of people on auto-pilot in Minnesota did this to us."
Thursday, June 16, 2011
An interesting look at Michele Bachmann
The Michele Bachmann show should be an interesting one through the primaries. I expect she will attack her competition ferociously, but I also suspect that she'll draw as much fire as she dishes out. She probably will not get the nomination in the end, but she may take a few people out with her. Just my hunch. This article provides a pretty decent look at where she stands at the moment as the festivities get rolling.
Can Michele Bachmann broaden her appeal beyond the Tea Party? - Yahoo! News
From the article:
Bachmann, in other words, can be flaky and prone to flights of wild assertion. But usually in ways that endear her to conservatives and drive liberals nuts. The three-term Minnesota congresswoman is a cheerful culture warrior, a pro-life mother of five (plus 23 foster children) whose upbeat lack of concern for political verities -- she delivered her own response to the president's State of the Union address -- has made her a Tea Party favorite. Think Sarah Palin, without the aggrieved victimization.
...
[In the recent debate,] Rather than coming across as a fringe figure, she looked as if she belonged on stage with the other candidates, outshining most of them and comporting herself in a way that seemed plausibly presidential. That's been the challenge that most other Tea Party candidates have failed. Other heroes of the movement, from Sharron Angle to Christine O'Donnell to Rand Paul, have often frightened ordinary voters. But on Monday at least, Bachmann did not.
...
But there is likely to be a limit to how far she can go. For all the attention she draws to herself, she hasn't actually done much in Congress. "She runs on what's wrong, not on what she's accomplished,'' said Jacobs. And several people who have worked for her, including her former chief of staff, have stated that she has no business running for president.
...
Bachmann's history of slip-ups and strange claims makes it a little hard to believe that the woman who shone in the debate is here for the duration. But Republicans are yearning to be excited. They'll make allowances. If Bachmann can keep it together a little longer, this may not be the last surprise she offers.
Can Michele Bachmann broaden her appeal beyond the Tea Party? - Yahoo! News
From the article:
Bachmann, in other words, can be flaky and prone to flights of wild assertion. But usually in ways that endear her to conservatives and drive liberals nuts. The three-term Minnesota congresswoman is a cheerful culture warrior, a pro-life mother of five (plus 23 foster children) whose upbeat lack of concern for political verities -- she delivered her own response to the president's State of the Union address -- has made her a Tea Party favorite. Think Sarah Palin, without the aggrieved victimization.
...
[In the recent debate,] Rather than coming across as a fringe figure, she looked as if she belonged on stage with the other candidates, outshining most of them and comporting herself in a way that seemed plausibly presidential. That's been the challenge that most other Tea Party candidates have failed. Other heroes of the movement, from Sharron Angle to Christine O'Donnell to Rand Paul, have often frightened ordinary voters. But on Monday at least, Bachmann did not.
...
But there is likely to be a limit to how far she can go. For all the attention she draws to herself, she hasn't actually done much in Congress. "She runs on what's wrong, not on what she's accomplished,'' said Jacobs. And several people who have worked for her, including her former chief of staff, have stated that she has no business running for president.
...
Bachmann's history of slip-ups and strange claims makes it a little hard to believe that the woman who shone in the debate is here for the duration. But Republicans are yearning to be excited. They'll make allowances. If Bachmann can keep it together a little longer, this may not be the last surprise she offers.
Wednesday, June 08, 2011
What will it look like when the tea party starts eating itself?
One thing the Tea Party had going for it, one thing that they will now lose as the 2012 presidential candidates are powering up, is the fact that they have never really had to run against each other. They could run around in circles, saying strange things, bashing Washington, the Democrats, the media, and even the few moderate Republican still surviving out there, but they've never had to face off against each other.
Now we have a field of presidential hopefuls and maybes emerging that have a pretty solid record of attacking hard, with cheap shots, with sound bites that treat facts as an unnecessary inconveniences, and who tend to care more about gaining widespread media coverage of their strange, outlandish comments than about the logic or even coherence of their comments, seeking name recognition more than respect. And now they are going to be going after each other, using these methods to tear each other to shreds.
The Obama crew has run one of the tightest ships in many, many years when it comes to gaffes and miscalculations from the 2008 campaign and on into the White House, but listening to the Tea Partiers, you'd think it was a ship of fools in charge. This is not to say that the current administration has been pitch perfect, and I am not talking about whether or not you agree with them politically, but they have been managing themselves in a fairly professional manner.
Still, the tea partiers and the far right latch onto any thing they can and shred away at it like a bunch of rabid sharks in a feeding frenzy. Over the last few years, they have had quite a bit of success in spite of the fact that, in traditional politics, they have made more mistakes, factual errors, gaffes, and miscalculations than any other political movement in recent history. In fact, they use what appears to be almost embarrassing amateurishness when it comes to politics as one of their biggest selling points. However, when they turn on each other, the amount of material each candidate will have to use against each other will be tremendous, and I don't even know if you can call it "going dirty" when you start by raising yourself out of the mud to take aim at those around you...
This circular firing squad will be interesting to watch. I suspect the Republican nominee will be whomever does the best job staying out of the messy fray.
The Palin-Bachmann Fight We've All Been Waiting For - Yahoo! News/The Atlantic Wire
The Palin-Bachmann Fight We've All Been Waiting For - Yahoo! News
Now we have a field of presidential hopefuls and maybes emerging that have a pretty solid record of attacking hard, with cheap shots, with sound bites that treat facts as an unnecessary inconveniences, and who tend to care more about gaining widespread media coverage of their strange, outlandish comments than about the logic or even coherence of their comments, seeking name recognition more than respect. And now they are going to be going after each other, using these methods to tear each other to shreds.
The Obama crew has run one of the tightest ships in many, many years when it comes to gaffes and miscalculations from the 2008 campaign and on into the White House, but listening to the Tea Partiers, you'd think it was a ship of fools in charge. This is not to say that the current administration has been pitch perfect, and I am not talking about whether or not you agree with them politically, but they have been managing themselves in a fairly professional manner.
Still, the tea partiers and the far right latch onto any thing they can and shred away at it like a bunch of rabid sharks in a feeding frenzy. Over the last few years, they have had quite a bit of success in spite of the fact that, in traditional politics, they have made more mistakes, factual errors, gaffes, and miscalculations than any other political movement in recent history. In fact, they use what appears to be almost embarrassing amateurishness when it comes to politics as one of their biggest selling points. However, when they turn on each other, the amount of material each candidate will have to use against each other will be tremendous, and I don't even know if you can call it "going dirty" when you start by raising yourself out of the mud to take aim at those around you...
This circular firing squad will be interesting to watch. I suspect the Republican nominee will be whomever does the best job staying out of the messy fray.
The Palin-Bachmann Fight We've All Been Waiting For - Yahoo! News/The Atlantic Wire
The Palin-Bachmann Fight We've All Been Waiting For - Yahoo! News
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