Frothy

Willard Mitt Romney may end up squeaking out a win in Iowa with the smallest winning percentage in GOP history (worse than Bob Dole's 26% in 1996), but it's going to be cold comfort. He's not feeling like a leader, more like a shill, who's has yet to be fully challenged over his bald-faced lies about his eventual opponent, a President who kills terrorists with efficiency and is presiding over a slow but clear recovery.

While I have no love for Rick Santorum's political views, he deserves credit for his late surge to second, almost first place in Iowa. Massively outspent, he did the retail politics right, visiting every single county in Iowa. Will the evangelicals nationwide coalesce around him as they did in Iowa? Or is Romney simply the next in line, which is always the GOP nominee? With the Bush political team behind him, the most professional organization and all the money in the world, including Mormon money, it's hard to imagine he won't be debating Obama next fall.

Bye-bye Rick Perry, who had tons of dough but screwed the pooch spectacularly. Michelle Bachmann says she'll go on but she won't have the money or organization -- then again, not much of what comes out of her mouth is ever true.

As for Newt, who a few weeks ago said it would be hard not to imagine him as the nominee, the fall has been swift and swiftboated by the Romney PACs, and I think it will be irreversible.

Ron Paul, of course, will keep going with the most committed volunteers and supporters of the bunch. If they GOP establishment doesn't treat him right, it could be all the way to a third party candidacy, giving Obama that landslide I've been predicting.

Any chance Mittens would make Ron his Veep?

Those Funny Candidates and the Convention

Gotta love Michele Bachmann Turner Overdrive:

According to a tweet from NBC News’ Jamie Novogrod, Bachmann responded to the recent raiding of the British embassy in Iran, by saying that if she was President, she would close down the U.S. embassy there.

There’s just one problem: The U.S. has not had an embassy in Iran ever since the Iranian hostage crisis, when revolutionaries from the budding Islamic state held 52 Americans for 444 days.

But that was so long ago, how is she expected to remember??

How about Rick Perry White:

The Associated Press carried the following report on a speech he gave to a crowd at Saint Anselm college in New Hampshire:

[H]e appealed to students who will be at least 21 before Election Day to vote for him. As for those younger than 21, he merely asked them to work hard on his behalf. Doesn’t he want their votes, too? It turns out Perry didn’t know or had forgotten that the voting age in America is 18. The flub caused some whispers in the crowd.

No biggie. In Texas what really matters is the drinking age!

And, finally, Jon Stewart goes all out on Herman "Adam Raised A" Cain, who finally gets nailed on the consensual affair:

The Daily Show

Bachmann was never a serious contender, she just had her flash paper moment before confirming to the Republican electorate exactly what everyone else has known for years. She's not a reliable in the political sense. Or the honesty sense.

Cain was another flash, maybe on route to a Vice Presidential candidacy (take that, Barry Obama!) but that won't happen now. Oooh yeah.

And Perry is most interesting of them all, because he's a very successful politician in Texas, the second largest state in terms of both population and landmass, right near the end of the qualifying period he came riding high to save the day, and all leading up to this, earlier in the year, David Axelrod and the Obama Campaign was always very excited whenever anyone mentioned Perry, then not on the heavy radar, as a possible candidate.

It clear that the Obama Campaign was relishing the idea of running against Rick Perry. And maybe they knew something that wasn't general knowledge, like how much Rove and the Bush people hate Perry going back to when he was Lt. Governor under W. Because his implosion as like a series of Japanese nukes going off one after each other, the last revealingly stupid moment just getting to the dying embers before he did something else even more obviously not ready for any 3:00am calls.

We'll miss these clowns when they're gone for the race, but they'll be sure to pop back up again at the GOP Convention next summer, and if Newt does indeed win, or Ron Paul (which would be the smartest Republican choice, the apotheosis of Ayn Randianist), they'll get Administration positions. I always thought Herman Cain was running for Secretary of Commerce, anyway.

Newt will be funny in a different way -- he's got such a sure sense of self, he can instantly rationalize his way out of any of his shenanigans. I think Newt vs. President Barack would be a classic -- Newt as replay/last gasp of the 1990's vs. an Obama who looks all the more young and together because of the contrast. Newt shut down government and then failed to even make that work. Barack has been working his ass off to make government work, from healthcare to terror defense. His gotten a bill passed and taken out Bin Laden et al.

Could he possibly beat Newt by ten percentage points (55%/45%) or better? Could Newt make John McCain look like an Electoral College overachiever?

As for Mitt, don't worry about him:

As Mr. 1%, I now don't expect him to win the nomination -- unless he turns his trajectory around very, very quickly, and not just with the Bush wing of establishment old-school, but with the rank and file Republicans. Remember, if Mitt becomes President, the clock turns back a generation.

Then there's one other possibility. If the Tea Party is strong enough, and Newt manages to damage his electability profoundly (I say 70% chance) by the Convention, you could see a true political rarity, the brokered convention, most famously held by the 1924 Dems, torn apart by the rural/urban Prohibition conflict. In this case it's the Reagan deal with the Southern Religious Right, come home to roost in Tea Party garb, versus the money side, the hawks and the hardcore Libertarians. Aside from the hawks, the other two can get along on the Libertarian cry for smaller government.

Which is exactly what the Paulites a waiting to have happen.

Send in the Clowns

It's Mitt's to lose. Rick is shrinking next to him, the size difference, better hair (for the first time, Rick looks like he's wearing a toup), Herman Cain is entertaining and running for Secretary of Commerce, Michelle Bachmann is disappearing, Newt and Rick are hanging in by dint of experienced stubbornness, Ron Paul will always have a seat at the Primary table, who knows what speaking spot the Party Elders give him at the Convention.

The idea of Obama running against Mitt Romney for ten months is hilarious when you think about it. Presidential elections are, in large part, for who you want to see on TV for four years. The lead role in the biggest serial of all. I'll be shocked if Mitt doesn't wear out his welcome by May.

He holds his own here, but oh that smiling scold:

Astonishing how little John Huntsman has mattered. It's not that he's too left, it's that he was spectral, a ghost of a candidate, does not bode well for 2016 for him. He even disappeared tonight altogether, not at the debate. Goodbye.

Watch Perry flop so quickly, even with $17 million in his Q3 haul, is more gratifying than I ever expected. Lots of hat.

Arm Yourself

If you read no other political post this month, let it be this revelatory GOP insider piece, Goodbye to All That: Reflections of a GOP Operative Who Left the Cult. It's everything you may have ever suspected about today's nightmarish Republican Party, not just anti-Democratic but anti-democracy, instead pro-oligarchy, pro-authoritarian and theocratic:

It is this broad and ever-widening gulf between the traditional Republicanism of an Eisenhower and the quasi-totalitarian cult of a Michele Bachmann that impelled my departure from Capitol Hill...

I left because I was appalled at the headlong rush of Republicans, like Gadarene swine, to embrace policies that are deeply damaging to this country's future; and contemptuous of the feckless, craven incompetence of Democrats in their half-hearted attempts to stop them...

If you think Paul Ryan and his Ayn Rand-worshipping colleagues aren't after your Social Security and Medicare, I am here to disabuse you of your naiveté...

During the week that this piece was written, the debt ceiling fiasco reached its conclusion. The economy was already weak, but the GOP's disgraceful game of chicken roiled the markets even further. Foreigners could hardly believe it: Americans' own crazy political actions were destabilizing the safe-haven status of the dollar. Accordingly, during that same week, over one trillion dollars worth of assets evaporated on financial markets. Russia and China have stepped up their advocating that the dollar be replaced as the global reserve currency - a move as consequential and disastrous for US interests as any that can be imagined.

If Republicans have perfected a new form of politics that is successful electorally at the same time that it unleashes major policy disasters, it means twilight both for the democratic process and America's status as the world's leading power.

So is Obama up for the task of calling out these crazies or can he get anything done without compromise? Will the people stop voting for the destruction of America, or are we lost as so many empires past?

Is this first salvo of a wised-up post-deficit crisis Obama, or yet another brick in the road to a GOP-driven American sunset?

I Knew It

Michelle Bachmann Revealed To Be Elaborate Joaquin Phoenix Performance Piece

“I also wanted to see just how long I could get away with it. I’m sorry if it spun a bit out of control. I honestly thought I’d get called out after two, maybe three weeks tops. No one is as surprised as I am that people took ‘Michelle Bachmann’ seriously.”

...

“Seriously, I’ve completely run out of ideas for where else I can take this character. It seems there is literally nothing I can sign, do, or say, including making vague death threats, that will cause people to meaningfully question ‘Michelle Bachmann,’” Phoenix said. “I’m releasing her rap album next week. Between that, and this press conference, I imagine this whole social experiment will finally come to an end.”

And the shameless Rick Perry - hoax as well?:

Who else would compare the Civil Right Movement to lifting taxes and regulations on the rich?

Back in Red

Sorry for the vacation break -- had some sign-on issues while I was away. Thanks to all regular readers who were checking, hope the lack of posts did not drive you away forever.

While the News Corp scandal is a blast and there's other interesting news, the Debt Limit Crisis is #1 with a bullet, and unfortunately that bullet is aimed at the heart of America and the global economy. If there was ever a reason to despise tax-pledge false god Grover Norquist or one-track Teabagger thinking, this is it. No matter what Reps. Bachmann or Gohmert might say or actually believe, they are wrong -- there's no way to successfully prioritize government spending under default, and no way that it won't raise interest rates through the room and further decimate the job market. Per a real economist:



As Norm Ornstein says, this group of Tea Partying freshmen Representatives have created, arguably, the Worst Congress Ever (or at least since the Civil War):

That brings us to the 112th Congress. House Republicans are adamant about refusing to compromise with the president, and are able in most instances to make good on the threat. When they are not able to maintain this unity, they are simply unwilling to bring up or pass measures that would lose significant GOP votes and require as many or more Democrats in support. This is a formula for gridlock, or worse. is the Republicans are simply declining to govern.

We have seen problems emerge on more issues than the fiscal issues now before Congress. For instance, the painful effort to find broad bipartisan support for three significant trade agreements that are clearly in America's national interest, including its economic and diplomatic interest (and which first had to overcome substantial Democratic opposition), have been thwarted of late by Republicans' refusal to negotiate with the president over a much more minor issue of implementing trade adjustment assistance.

Political tactics to provoke confrontation, during a time when the permanent campaign reigns supreme and the competition for majorities in both houses is fierce, have combined with the rise of partisan media, one with far more reach and immediacy than the partisan press that thrived in the 19th century. When a phalanx of conservative media outlets, from the Wall Street Journal editorial page to talk radio and blogs, chimes in that breaching America's debt limit would at worst be benign and at best could actually do the country some good, and are joined by presidential candidates like Michele Bachmann and Tim Pawlenty in those messages, it encourages the confrontationalists to ignore the reality that damaging the full faith and credit of the United States will cause long-lasting economic turmoil at home and abroad.

Know Nothingism lives.

Michele Nightmare

Matt Taibbi has the brutal truth about serial liar and Oral Roberts University-trained extreme rightwinger, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN). The article is a must-read, with passages like:

Bachmann is a religious zealot whose brain is a raging electrical storm of divine visions and paranoid delusions. She believes that the Chinese are plotting to replace the dollar bill, that light bulbs are killing our dogs and cats, and that God personally chose her to become both an IRS attorney who would spend years hounding taxpayers and a raging anti-tax Tea Party crusader against big government. She kicked off her unofficial presidential campaign in New Hampshire, by mistakenly declaring it the birthplace of the American Revolution. "It's your state that fired the shot that was heard around the world!" she gushed. "You are the state of Lexington and Concord, you started the battle for liberty right here in your backyard."

And:

The theme of socialists scheming to herd children into a factorylike system of predetermined occupations still comes up often in Bachmann's rhetoric. In a recent speech in Iowa, for instance, she talked wistfully of the early Midwest settled by her Norwegian ancestors, a place where "we can choose whatever profession we want, and no one tells us what profession we go in." Bachmann likewise rejected AmeriCorps as an attempt to build "re-education camps for young people, where young people have to go and get trained in a philosophy that the government puts forward," and blasted a schools program started by Bill Clinton for trying to brainwash kids into accepting "government central planning of our economy and our way of life."

And more ominously:

It has taken just over 10 years for Bachmann to go from small-town PTA maven to serious presidential contender, a testament to both her rare and unerring talent for generating media attention, and to her truly astonishing energy level and narcissistic tenacity. Minnesota politicians who have squared off against Bachmann all speak with a kind of horrified reverence for her martial indomitability, her brilliantly fortifying lack of self-doubt, even the fact that she hasn't appeared to physically age at all in 10 years. "She will not stop," says Cecconi.

She's currently running very close to former Massachusetts Mitt Romney for the Republican Presidential nomination and could steal the Iowa Caucus crown -- the neighbor state of Minnesota and her birthstate. Bachmann is fervently anti-choice and anti-gay, and known for pathological lying to bolster her wingnut arguments (the list is huge).

Like a more focused version of Sarah Palin (and one who I believe is already eclipsing Word Salad Sarah, making her seem obsolete literally this week), she's telegenic as she relentlessly mangles history for her truthiness needs. With her mistaken comparison of herself to serial killer John Wayne Gacy today in Iowa, it was actually unintentionally hilarious:

What I want them to know is just like John Wayne was from Waterloo, Iowa, that's the spirit that I have too. It's really about not being ashamed of America. It's embracing America.

Uh, Michele, the John Wayne from Waterloo, Iowa isn't the John Wayne you're thinking of. It's John Wayne Gacy, one of the most notorious serial killers in American history.

Yes, the serial killer responsible for over thirty sexualized murders and was known for dressing in a clown suit at children's parties.

I'll leave the metaphor to you, valued reader.

Pink Elephants

If arch-Conservative and Tea Party opportunist Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) is somehow the winner of last night's Republican Presidential debate in New Hampshire, that's kind of all you need to know.

The debate was filled with lies and ideology masquerading as "fact" most heinously about our very tame and considered healthcare reform legislation (and I promise to take a positive look at the first GOoPer candidate who calls it by its proper name, the Affordable Care Act, and eschews the manufactured misnomer, "Obamacare"), and just plain surreal candidates positions for 2011:



You want to know what's really going on that these clowns aren't addressing with any real programs, new thinking, anything other than platitudes and service to the wealthy:



Are any of these GOoPers serious about anything other than their own lust for money or power? Because they are not acting like they want to advance civilization, they want to firmly ensconce it in corporate feudalism, enforced with a layer of religious legislation.

And don't talk to me about Romney. He brings up jobs to bash Obama but admits he has no ideas or programs in mind of his own. He's just the CEO with the privatization mantra, that worked so well under Bush. Hey, he'll do Bush and Brownie one better.

Dude's ready to privatize FEMA.