Romney may still have a chance. Gingrich has not been filling paper work appropriately (e.g. not naming all of his potential electors/delegates). Organization and may yet trump demagoguery.
Has anyone got a link to what Romney's position is on various Political issues NOW. I know there is a problem from the right in what he has stood for in the past. Is he just a bland best-of-the-worst, or does he have some real ideas on America's future?
(Something, something, Burt Ward) Depends on how you define "real". Underneath it all, Mitt Romney is a capitalist and a redemptionist. That is, when we strip away all of the masks and pretty political silks, he is a guy whose outlook seems to be about making things as good as possible for himself, and having faith that God will look after everyone else. I think his one "real" idea, in this context, is that the solution to our economic woes is an even heavier dose of what got us into the mess in the first place. In that sense, he may well simply be the best of the worst. After all, he is also a politician. Today, for instance, he's a Tea Party candidate: "Recounting his positions on promoting a smaller, leaner government," Emily Friedman explains for ABC News, "Romney said he lines up 'pretty darn well' with the tea party movement." Which, of course, is why South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley enraged her state's Tea Party factions by endorsing Romney. (And no, I did not, in my initial survey, find any website clearly labeled, "What Mitt Romney Says He Believes Right Now".) ____________________ Notes: Friedman, Emily. "Romney Declares Himself ‘Ideal’ Tea Party Candidate" The Note. December 17, 2011. ABCNews.Go.com. December 17, 2011. http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2011/12/romney-declares-himself-ideal-tea-party-candidate/
Some sort of irony Well, there were the Democratic Seven Dwarves of ... was it '88? Simon, Gephart, Biden ... okay, I can't even remember. Maybe it was '84. But yeah, the Dems have put up some completely useless slates before. Decent men of reasonable ambition who lacked either requisite human sympathy or sufficient charisma. Let's see ... Gary Hart was our shining light in '84. Whoops. Jesse Jackson was our shining light in '88. Right. And look at the field Bill Clinton emerged from in '92. A complete disaster. It's not so much that the GOP field is really that horrible; in former years, Romney and Huntsman would have risen to the top while the rest of the clowns either fell away or had the good sense to stay out. And yes, there is irony of some sort about the notion that the two Latter Day Saints would be the front-runners, but I can't possibly classify it.
I found these National ID Cards for Immigrants http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2011/12/romney-immigration-plan-new-rules-for-businesses/ He doesn't want Moon Colonies and Space Mirrors like Newt does. http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2011/12/mitt_romney_ham.php I'm warming to Newt. This stuff dates back to 1979. He'd have only been a small newt then. Here’s how Gingrich summarized the idea: "The climate group at the Woods Hole conference suggested that a large array of mirrors could affect the earth’s climate by increasing the amount of sunlight received by particular areas, citing recent feasibility studies exploring the possibilities of preventing frosts in Florida or enabling farmers in high altitudes to plant their wheat earlier. "A mirror system in space could provide the light equivalent of many full moons so that there would be no need for nighttime lighting of the highways. Ambient light covering entire areas could reduce the current danger of criminals lurking in the darkness. Mirrors could be arranged to light given metropolitan areas only during particular periods, so there would be darkness late at night for sleeping." Brooks’ portrayal glosses over the fact that Gingrich was primarily reciting proposals made by participants at a NASA-sponsored forum. Still, Gingrich cited them approvingly. http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2011/12/mitt_romney_ham.php
Unfortunately no Republican can become president these days without endorsing the Tea Party insanity which has been developed on the nation's airwaves independent of logic, reason and evidence. That is the Republican dilemma. The nation's Republican media has created a an unworkable platform based on hate and misinformation (e.g. George Junior and the Great Recession 2008). The Republican media developed/driven platform is great at driving ratings and obtaining political power. But it is an absolute disaster when you try to run a country with it. The smart guys in the party know this (e.g. Huntsman and Romney). So Romney flip flops..and Huntsman has recently done the same. It is a dilemma. The other Republicans in this race Perry, Bachmann, Paul, et al. are pretty much clueless and careless - part of the most recent Republican mushroom harvest. Unfortunately Republican candidates cannot get the party nomination without endorsing the insanity. And they cannot govern the nation using their talk show policies without putting the nation into mortal jeopardy.
The quality of life of the Middle Class is being eroded. They are having to spend a fortune just to get a satisfactory level of education, which puts them in lifetime debt. Middle Management is a disappearing niche for them to work in, as workers are more easily controlled by computerised observation, Target systems, reviews, and self monitoring as "Teams". When I look at the people in the Tea Party, I see educated, hard working Americans who fear that their hard won progress out of the body of the working class is being lost forever. They are right aren't they?
When I look at the Tea Party in America, I see mostly factory, trade workers, government employees, retirees and those on the lower end of the income and education scale. There is little doubt these folks are sincere. But that does not make them well informed. Because they clearly are not. The creators of the Tea Party have been quite clever in how they have manipulated the Tea Party. These creators/funders have succeeded in getting Tea Party folks into shooting themselves in the foot time and time again (e.g. resistance to healthcare reform, destroying Social Security, refusal to raise taxes on the wealthy, refusal to engage in stimulus, threatening to cause the nation to default in it's debts, etc.) to the benefit of billionaires like the Koch brothers. The technique is simple, control the media. Tea Party folks are some of the most misinformed people I know. They may be able to wire a house or fix the plumbing but they don't know squat about business, finance, economics and politics. And since their primary source of information is conservative media, they are not getting any more informed. Back in the old day, we used to have this notion of fair and balanced reporting which gave equal time to both sides of the issue. Since that is no longer the case, there is a lot of misinformation going out over the nation's airwaves making it easy for folks like the Koch brothers to get good people to screw themselves.
It's the American dream. Everyone can rise from log cabin to White House. They just have to work hard. They still think the ladder to the top is there, and they are afraid of having it taken away. Poor people gave up on it long ago. You say the Tea Party is a blue collar outfit. I didn't get that impression from what I've seen, but you are better informed. I only see what I see on TV. Most of the Tea Party people I've heard talk, I would probably like if I met them. They seem to think that if all the regulations were dropped then they could get back to working hard and progressing, but the tradesman end of the working class will never be prosperous again unless they have a radical change of viewpoint. They are going down the same path as the unskilled labouring class did before them.
Ah yes, back to the good old days when there were no regulations on industry; back to the days of sweat shops, hazardous working conditions, rampant pollution and child labor; a state of low or no regulation of industry was great for workers - not. It is going to take more than scare talk of socialism & communism to restore the American middle class. And that is the problem for folks in the Tea Party, they don't have a viable way to restore the middle class. In no small part because those that have funded and organized the movement have no interest in bettering the middle class.
Romney Wins Register Endorsement Romney Wins Des Moines Register Endorsement Mark Sappenfield analyzes the powerful endorsement from Iowa's largest newspaper: In another sign that the GOP world has gone completely haywire (as if that was needed), the Des Moines Register has endorsed Mitt Romney for president. This, in itself, is not terribly surprising. Former Massachusetts Governor Romney has long been seen as the safest, most-electable GOP pick among the mainstream media and establishment Republican circles. Yet the endorsement also encourages a healthy shrug of the shoulders. Iowa, after all, is supposed to be the American epicenter of retail politics. Perhaps more than any other state, Iowa likes to be wooed with bus tours and town halls and appearances at state fairs. This is because Iowa does not hold a primary, but caucuses – involved affairs that encourage only the most committed voters. It makes politics a personal affair in Iowa, and because the caucuses are first nominating process in the nation, candidates are often happy to oblige. But Romney has spent comparatively little time there. Having been burned in Iowa in 2008, he's apparently been willing to concede it to rivals in order to focus on other states. And the Des Moines Register is endorsing that campaign? It gets weirder .... Meanwhile, Sappenfield's Christian Science Monitor colleague Linda Feldmann offers up a list of Romney's most notorious recent gaffes: • The $10,000 bet. • That he can't employ illegal immigrants because he's running for office. • "Corporations are people, my friend!" • "I'm also unemployed." • Seeming to endorse a brutal Indonesian dictatorship. • "We're going to hang [President Obama] ...." • Blasting Obama for "one of the biggest peacetime spending binges in American history" while the U.S. was engaged in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya. • "Small varmints, if you will." (Prior campaign, in 2007.) As the primary season draws close, it could be that Mitt Romney is poised to finally emerge as the bona fide, statistical frontrunner in the GOP contest, as opposed to the nominal and expected frontrunner that Republican voters seem to want to avoid. One might suggest that Sappenfield's analysis is too simple for sifting through the complexities. There is not much nuance about the proposition that there are only two potentially viable candidates in the GOP field, and the other one isn't getting any respectable attention. Thus, it comes down to Mitt Romney. The Des Moines Register for its part, says the following about its endorsement of Mitt Romney: Sobriety, wisdom and judgment. Those are qualities Mitt Romney said he looks for in a leader. Those are qualities Romney himself has demonstrated in his career in business, public service and government. Those qualities help the former Massachusetts governor stand out as the most qualified Republican candidate competing in the Iowa caucuses .... .... He stands out in the current field of Republican candidates. He has solid credentials in a career that includes running and starting successful businesses, turning around the 2002 Winter Olympics and working with both political parties as Massachusetts governor to pass important initiatives. He stands out especially among candidates now in the top tier: Newt Gingrich is an undisciplined partisan who would alienate, not unite, if he reverts to mean-spirited attacks on display as House speaker. Ron Paul's libertarian ideology would lead to economic chaos and isolationism, neither of which this nation can afford. The traditionally conservative-leaning newspaper appreciates Romney's "well-reasoned alternatives" to Democratic policies he disagrees with, praises his infamous waffling for having "evolved from one-time independent to moderate Republican in liberal Massachusetts to proud conservative today", seeks merit in his repudiation of Romneycare on a national scale, reinforces his waffling as "carefully nuanced", and lauds his economic plans for "calling for reforms that would benefit middle-income Americans and not just those at the top of the economic pyramid": This ability to see the merits of tough issues from something other than a knee-jerk, ideological perspective suggests that Mitt Romney would be willing to bridge the political divide in Washington. Americans are desperate for the Republicans and Democrats to work together. His record of ignoring partisan labels to pass important legislation when he was governor of Massachusetts suggests he is capable to making that happen. For those reasons, Mitt Romney deserves the support of his party in the Jan. 3 Iowa caucuses. If he is the GOP nominee, the nation would have a clear choice in November 2012. So, yes, to the one, Sappenfield is not amiss to find the endorsement strange within a certain context, but perhaps other contexts apply. The editors might be looking toward the best chances for a GOP victory, or they might well be looking more at the country at large; after all, they acknowledge that some Republicans would not do well for the country. ____________________ Notes: Sappenfield, Mark. "Iowa newspaper backs Mitt Romney? Weird GOP race gets a little weirder." The Christian Science Monitor. December 18, 2011. CSMonitor.com. December 18, 2011. http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politi...t-Romney-Weird-GOP-race-gets-a-little-weirder Feldman, Linda. "Mitt Romney gaffes: 8 times the button-down candidate should have buttoned up". The Christian Science Monitor. (n.d.) CSMonitor.com. December 18, 2011. http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Electi...utton-down-candidate-should-have-buttoned-up/ Register Editorial Board. "The Des Moines Register's GOP caucus endorsement: Mitt Romney is best to lead". The Des Moines Register. December 17, 2011. Caucuses.DesMoinesRegister.com. December 18, 2011. http://caucuses.desmoinesregister.com/2011/12/17/23902/
When the cops show up for a domestic battery call, and they try to take the abusive husband/boyfriend into custody, it isn't all that unusual for the battered spouse to try and defend him, even to the point of assaulting the officers herself.
Romney's position on things is that he has no position on things. That way no-one can accuse him of betraying any principles later.
How Do You Solve a Problem Like Mitt Romney? How Do You Solve a Problem Like Mitt Romney? Steve Benen notes: Newt Gingrich's status in the Republican presidential campaign went from "frontrunner" to "barely hanging on" over the course of about two weeks. There's no great mystery as to why: $4 million in attack ads from Mitt Romney's Super PAC tore the disgraced former House Speaker to shreds. Gingrich, not surprisingly, is pretty unhappy about it, and pressed Romney on the point in yesterday's debate. The former governor had an interesting response. First, there was this line: "With regards to their ads, I haven't seen 'em." That was followed 14 seconds later with this line: "The ad I saw said that ..." At that point, Romney proceeded to describe the contents of the attack ad that he hadn't seen in quite a bit of detail. I think we all sympathize to some degree with the proverbial foot-in-mouth syndrome, but with Mitt Romney, it seems a chronic and even impairing condition. As Benen notes: This is a real danger for Romney. Some of his lies are less obvious to campaign reporters, because they require a little fact-checking research. But this one was obvious to anyone awake during the debate — Romney couldn't possibly know the script of an ad he knew nothing about. And once he develops a well-deserved reputation as someone who's willing to routinely say things that aren't true, it has the potential to do significant damage to his credibility. Romney's approach to politics seems downright puzzling. To the other, if one is cynical enough, it does make a certain amount of sense. The idea of retail politics is a hint; if all you're doing is selling, some folks—especially ardent capitalists—don't think much beyond the immediate pitch. That is, the elements don't have to make sense because one does not intend for the potential buyer to think it through like that. With six months to go in primary season, and the general election after that, it might behoove Mr. Romney to consider the possibility that some might actually undertake the process of thinking it through. And if that some equals enough, he will only hurt himself by sticking to selling points without considering how one aspect relates to another. ____________________ Notes: Benen, Steve. "Telling falsehoods for no good reason". Political Animal. January 9, 2012. WashingtonMonthly.com. January 9, 2012. http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal/2012_01/telling_falsehoods_for_no_good034625.php
Is Romney an American? Where is his birth certificate (long form)? And why is he not disclosing his finances as most candidates for POTUS do?
And why is Romney not using his real name, Willard Milton Romney? His father was born outside The United States like President Obama. Only Willard was born into a polygamist family (grandfather was a polygamist). So where are the birthers? And why are those folks who were calling President Obama by his full name not calling Romney by his full name? Oh that is right, Fox News is not pushing it like the did with President Obama - not inspiring the ditto head faction to take that action. It appears leaders in the Republican Party have pretty much coalesced around Romney. Now all they have to do is sell him to the rank and file ditto head. Even limbaugh's is encouraging his self proclaimed ditto heads to follow Romney.
"... Romney has used a variety of techniques to help minimize the taxes on his estimated $250 million fortune. In addition to paying the lower tax rate on his investment income, Romney has as much as $8 million invested in at least 12 funds listed on a Cayman Islands registry. Another investment, which Romney reports as being worth between $5 million and $25 million, shows up on securities records as having been domiciled in the Caymans. ..." From: http://news.yahoo.com/romney-parks-millions-offshore-tax-haven-160547876--abc-news.html He admits to paying only 15% on his multi-million dollar income.
