Political Actors

Janeane from Des Moines is an unusually and cutting new movie that essentially pulls a Borat on the GOP contenders for President in run-up to the 2012 Iowa Caucuses.  It opens with a clip from ABC News where Diane Sawyer introduces footage of a desperate and emotional Iowa housewife named Janeane Wilson begging candidate Mitt Romney to "save small families" because they are falling apart.  The rest of the movie tells the story leading up to this moment, as we watch Janeane, a religious conservative Republican simultaneously going to candidate events to decide how to cast her vote and trying to keep her personal life from falling to pieces.

The secret is that Janeane Wilson is actually Jane Edith Wilson, a highly-talented Los Angeles-based actress who grew up in Ames, Iowa, and who fearlessly plays this character and takes her straight into the belly of America's political beast, sitting down in a diner with Rep. Michelle Bachmann and Rep. Steve King, questioning Gov. Rick Perry's wife on her way to the campaign bus, lobbing questions to Rick Santorum, Ron Paul and Newt Gingrich on the campaign trail.  Off the trail, "Janeane" faces her husband's layoff and their subsequent loss of health insurance, her alienation from her grown children, the potential loss of her house and a serious threat to her own health.

All of this done with a straight face, no winks, the only clues to the deception being the end credits which lists both actors/roles and politicians playing "Himself" or "Herself."  Knowing that the politicians have been duped by Janeane creates an initial feeling that the enterprise might be unfair.  It's a grueling road through Iowa, pressing the flesh and trying to master retail politics.  But as Director Grace Lee had said, the politicians are themselves all acting.  When Bachmann attempts to pander to Janeane by blaming President Obama for the rise in tax prices we see that moment when Bachmann looks to King for affirmation of her contention, not sure if she should run with the lie or not.  She does.

The main question Janeane ends up asking all the candidates regards healthcare, and the GOP candidates give her nothing to go on, just platitudes about health savings accounts (not a solution for the laid-off) and lowering costs (which Obamacare attempts to address).  What Janeane learns is that Planned Parenthood, which she's disparaged as a death-factory, is her provider of last resort, and the Obamacare the candidates want to kill is actually the solution.  This may be the first feature film where Obamacare is kinda the hero.

As a friend of Grace Lee and family, I may be biased in favor of her sensibility by familiarity, but from what I hope is an objective filmmaking point-of-view, I think she's created something new.  It's a combination of documentary, mockumentary, drama and agitprop, all executed with technical skill and beauty.  When seen in the context of Lee's previous features, both The Grace Lee Project, a very funny documentary investigating the proliferation of Asian-American women sharing her name, and American Zombie, a metaphoric mockumentary standing up for zombie rights, Janeane for Des Moines is essentially an essay on "What's the Matter with Kansas?"  Why do conservative Middle Americans vote against their own economic self-interest and well-being?

While the passing of the recent election is probably not doing a ton of favors for Janeane's shelf-life, and already the 2012 GOP candidates feel like characters trapped in a time capsule as the media discusses potential 2016 candidates like Rubio, Christie and the younger Paul, conservative Middle America hasn't suddenly vanished with the reelection of their Antichrist, President Barack Obama.  This movie will remain relevant and cautionary.

Unless or until, of course, the Affordable Care Act becomes a part of everyday life and the benefits are felt by all.

Envisioning America

The Democratic Convention looks like way so much more fun than the Republican event last week. The hall looks bigger, more populated and whole lot happier. It's a truly diverse crowd, the future of our country rather than it's insulated past. The faces on the dais were not radically different from the composition of the crowd, as was the case last week. And the total acceptance of gay Americans as full Americans, thanks to the President leading with his acceptance of gay marriage, by speaker after speaker is a refreshing change from...every other convention in U.S. political history.

By contrast, the GOP keep talking about "taking back" America, but the subtext lately has been a return to secession. If we can't "take it back," we won't play. Not exactly patriotic in the "union" sense. Just as the South seceded to create The Confederacy, so does the spirit emanate from our Southern states. It's the spirit of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's ironclad no-cooperation rule. Combined with the overwhelming whiteness of the Republican Convention (not to mention the peanut throwing incident), it carries the aura of racism.

But the most interesting aspect of the secessionist movement is how easily it has blended with the 21st Century Secession of the Wealthy, so perfectly embodied in candidate Mitt Romney. It's been coming for some time. As described by Mike Lofgren in The American Conservative:

I do not mean secession by physical withdrawal from the territory of the state, although that happens from time to time—for example, Erik Prince, who was born into a fortune, is related to the even bigger Amway fortune, and made yet another fortune as CEO of the mercenary-for-hire firm Blackwater, moved his company (renamed Xe) to the United Arab Emirates in 2011. What I mean by secession is a withdrawal into enclaves, an internal immigration, whereby the rich disconnect themselves from the civic life of the nation and from any concern about its well being except as a place to extract loot.

Our plutocracy now lives like the British in colonial India: in the place and ruling it, but not of it. If one can afford private security, public safety is of no concern; if one owns a Gulfstream jet, crumbling bridges cause less apprehension—and viable public transportation doesn’t even show up on the radar screen. With private doctors on call and a chartered plane to get to the Mayo Clinic, why worry about Medicare?

...

The objective of the predatory super-rich and their political handmaidens is to discredit and destroy the traditional nation state and auction its resources to themselves. Those super-rich, in turn, aim to create a “tollbooth” economy, whereby more and more of our highways, bridges, libraries, parks, and beaches are possessed by private oligarchs who will extract a toll from the rest of us. Was this the vision of the Founders? Was this why they believed governments were instituted among men—that the very sinews of the state should be possessed by the wealthy in the same manner that kingdoms of the Old World were the personal property of the monarch?

Were Mitt Romney to reveal his tax records, the electorate would learn that he has seceded with his money to Switzerland, the Cayman Islands and who knows where else. While it's completely against the interests of the grassroots secessionist whose economic situation won't be improved by the exodus of that capital from our ecosystem, it's a matter of faith.

So what makes this first night of the Democratic National Convention so powerful is how American it is. American stories of real struggle and moments of real triumph, the military wife, the mother of a child with a life-threatening birth defect, the First Lady who came from modest roots. Shared patriotism through trying to make the country just a little bit easier to struggle through for all.

As the chant goes, U.S.A., U.S.A.

Exactly

Robert Gibbs, Obama campaign advisor, said it best on Meet the Press this weekend:

"I think sometimes you listen to the Romney campaign and they do think a lot people in this country are stupid," Gibbs told NBC's David Gregory. "Their message is: You didn't clean up our mess fast enough."

More direct swipes at Romney and the failed GOP philosophy of governance:

"The last six months of the Bush administration, we lost three and half million jobs. We know this about Mitt Romney: He's not a job creator. When he was governor of Massachusetts, they were 47th out of 50 in job creation. His experience is in downsizing, outsourcing jobs and bankrupting companies and walking away with a lot of money for himself."

Gibbs added: "His economic ideas are the failed economic ideas that we tried for eight years, tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires, and letting Wall Street going back to writing the rules all over again. That is the policies that got us into this mess."

Thomas E. Mann and Norman Ornstein of two different institutes with two different political bents have joined forces to actually tell the truth: the reason our political system is so frustratingly polarized is almost entirely the fault of the modern-day Republican Party:

We have been studying Washington politics and Congress for more than 40 years, and never have we seen them this dysfunctional. In our past writings, we have criticized both parties when we believed it was warranted. Today, however, we have no choice but to acknowledge that the core of the problem lies with the Republican Party.

The GOP has become an insurgent outlier in American politics. It is ideologically extreme; scornful of compromise; unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.

When one party moves this far from the mainstream, it makes it nearly impossible for the political system to deal constructively with the country’s challenges.

“Both sides do it” or “There is plenty of blame to go around” are the traditional refuges for an American news media intent on proving its lack of bias, while political scientists prefer generality and neutrality when discussing partisan polarization. Many self-styled bipartisan groups, in their search for common ground, propose solutions that move both sides to the center, a strategy that is simply untenable when one side is so far out of reach.

Or, as Jimmy Kimmel put it at the White House Press Correspondents dinner on Saturday:

I have my own theory about President Lincoln's death. I think John Wilkes Booth was innocent. I don't even think it was an assassination. I believe that Abraham Lincoln had a vision about what the Republican party would become in 150 years, and he shot himself."

Let's hope America is less self-destructive in November.

Obama the Centrist

President Barack Obama took on the Paul Ryan GOP budget, which defunds services to the middle class and needy Americans to fund still more tax cuts for the rich without specifying where budget deficit reduction will actually come from, in a strong speech today:

Chiding Republicans for not learning anything from the failure of trickle-down policies that defined the last decades, Obama attacked the GOP budget head-on. “They have proposed a budget so far to the right it makes the Contract for America look like the New Deal,” he said. “In fact, that renowned liberal, Newt Gingrich, first called the original version of the budget radical. He said it would contribute to right-wing social engineering. … This is now the party’s governing platform. This is what they are running on. One of my potential opponents, Gov. Romney, has said he hopes a similar version of this plan from last year would be introduced as a bill on Day One of his presidency.”

...

“There’s oftentimes the impulse to suggest that, if the two parties are disagreeing, they’re equally at fault and the truth lies somewhere in the middle,” Obama cautioned the room full of reporters. “And an equivalence is presented, which reinforces people’s cynicism about Washington in general. This is not one of those situations where there is an equivalence.”

The president noted that a similar theme has played out on other key issues, including cap-and-trade and Obama’s own health care law, both of which were first proposed as conservative alternatives to liberal approaches to environmental and health care reforms.

“Suddenly, this is some socialist overreach,” Obama joked.

“It is important to remember that the positions I’m taking on the budget and a host of other issues, if we had been having this discussion 20 years ago, or even 15 years ago, it would have been considered squarely centrist positions,” Obama said. “What has changed is the center of the Republican Party.”

Amen, brother. Greg Sargent does a nice job delineating the three main political objectives of the speech:

1) Obama cast the Romney-Ryan-GOP approach as not only radical and extreme, but as a proven failure.

2) Obama defended government activism as not just morally right, but as a way to facilitate economic growth.

3) Obama framed the choice as one over who sacrifices to fix the deficit.

Full explanations via the link above. One can only hope President Obama is reelected in November, if for no other reason than to defeat the most ideological, partisan, unrealistic budget proposal by a major political party in my lifetime. Per the facts.

Here's the speech:

Don't blow it, America.

Bullshit Candidate

If there was ever any -- any -- remaining doubt that Mitt Romney is a joke candidate with no core convictions (other than love and respect of wealth), then this statement from his campaign spokesperson, Eric Fehrnstrom, has made it clear that he's the emptiest of empty suits:

Is it a gaffe if all you're doing is revealing the truth behind your campaign curtain?

I think this one is going to stick, especially coming on the heels of a big Primary win (Illinois) and repeating his snatch-defeat-from-victory pattern of following wins with gaffe's. There's already a website up with Mitt's Etch-a-Sketch position changes -- just click on the words to see yet another example. Both Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich brandished an Etch-a-Sketch today, and the political ads just write themselves.

Here's Romney (a terrible candidate to begin with) trying to put the genie back in the bottle later in the day:

You have to bet that his approval ratings will fall further, and maybe this is the big opening that Santorum needs to scoop Romney in the upcoming state contests.

BTW, I love the Etch-a-Sketch product and have since childhood. I love that it's been owned by the same company that created it for over 50 years. I love the statement they put out today and, most of all, hope their sales rocket skyward...as the Romney campaign tumbles towards hell.

Medieval

The GOP War on Women's Reproductive Rights - astounding to other developed Western countries.

On the campaign trail, Presidential contender Mitt Romney couldn't care less if the loss of Planned Parenthood means women can't get the health services they depend upon. He's got so much money, he tells other people to "go elsewhere."

Using the assumption God's name to punish women...it's got a long and sordid history. In the Olde Days, they called them witches.

It's a 21st Century witch hunt, once again from the most inflexibly Conservative among us.

Can Democracy beat them back?

War on Women - or Humanity?

What the hell is going through the heads of the GOP candidates and leaders, if only from a political standpoint. You only want the votes of women who are against the right to control their own bodies? (And I don't just mean on the right to end an unwanted pregnancy.)

View the devastation:

Willard Mitt Romney is the so-called "moderate" in the GOP Presidential race, but it's time the press woke up to his wildly extremist positions:

How easily it rolls off his tongue: "Planned Parenthood -- gonna get rid of that." First off, it's a private organization, so he's going to "get rid of that?" Second, the use of "that" indicates how far he's distanced from Planned Parenthood -- and the huge amount of good it does for women who don't get health services in other ways. And, finally, there's that good it does; Willard willing to dismiss it/cut it without a second thought? Who the hell's life is he trying to make better as President? No one but himself (and his fellow 1-percenters)?

Willard has veered so far into extremism that he won't even stand by his positions from the previous Presidential race:

And how testy that guy gets when challenged. Is this the guy who's finger should be on the nuclear trigger?

The fact is that the Affordable Care Act is already working. So what this election is really all about, as George Lakoff so insightfully puts it, is a radical Conservative revision of this nation:

The Santorum Strategy is not just about Santorum. It is about pounding the most radical conservative ideas into the public mind by constant repetition during the Republican presidential campaign, whether by Santorum himself, by Gingrich or Ron Paul, by an intimidated Romney, or by the Republican House majority. The Republican presidential campaign is about a lot more than the campaign for the presidency. It is about guaranteeing a radical conservative future for America.

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Liberals tend to underestimate the importance of public discourse and its effect on the brains of our citizens. All thought is physical. You think with your brain. You have no alternative. Brain circuitry strengthens with repeated activation. And language, far from being neutral, activates complex brain circuitry that is rooted in conservative and liberal moral systems. Conservative language, even when argued against, activates and strengthens conservative brain circuitry. This is extremely important for so-called "independents," who actually have both conservative and liberal moral systems in their brains and can shift back and forth. The more they hear conservative language over the next eight months, the more their conservative brain circuitry will be strengthened.

...

The radical conservative discourse of the Republican presidential race has the same purpose, and conservative Republicans are luring Democrats into making the same mistakes. Santorum, the purest radical conservative, is the best example. From the perspective of conservative moral values, he is making sense and arguing logically, making his moral values clear and coming across as straightforward and authentic, as Reagan did.

Lakoff goes on to describe the differences between the Progressive moral worldview and the Conservative one. It's very much worth reading as a whole, particularly when he shows how the Democrats may be missing the point and, even if they win the Presidency this year, may lose other office elections and the overall, long-term war. And he lays out the Conservative "logic" that leads to the decimation of critical governmental programs and safeguards that actually help Americans:

Here's how that logic goes.

• The strict father determines what happens in the family, including reproduction. Thus reproduction is the province of male authority.
• The strict father does not condone moral weakness and self-indulgence without moral consequences. Sex without reproductive consequences is thus seen as immoral.
• If the nation supports birth control for unmarried women, then the nation supports immoral behavior.
• The conservative stress on individual responsibility means that you and no one else should have to pay for your birth control -- not your employer, your HMO, or the taxpayers.
• Having to pay for your birth control also has a metaphorical religious value -- paying for your sins.
• This is a classical slippery slope narrative. If no one else should have to pay for your birth control, the next step is that no one else should have to pay for any of your health care.
• And the step after that is that no one else should be forced to pay for anyone else. This is, everything should be privatized -- no public education, safety nets, parks, or any public institutions or services.

It's war. On who is a great question -- because it isn't just women, no matter how much they are the target at the moment. If these GOoPers get in, kiss all the advances from the Affordable Care Act goodbye.

It's shaping up to be the most pivotal election of our era.

Fractured

Mitt Romney is geographically challenged:

So it is fitting, in a way, that after two big losses in the latest Republican primaries on Tuesday night, the main pitch for Romney's campaign is now, basically, mathematical probability. The former Massachusetts governor finished third in Mississippi, behind Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich, with 30 percent of the vote. And he was headed for a third-place finish in Alabama, with 29 percent of the vote.

The double-barreled setback was unexpected in Mississippi, reflecting neither polling numbers nor the expectations that Romney's campaign was setting in the days leading up to the vote. And in the aftermath, Romney's aides were left with unemotional appeals for why the primary remained very much his alone.

"Mathematically we are fast approaching the point where it is going to be a virtual impossibility" for opponents to win enough delegates, Romney's top spokesman Eric Ferhnstrom told CNN.

Wow, that's a compelling campaign message. Inspire me again, Mitt. Please.

Palinstein

About three-quarters into the great HBO movie, Game Change, I realized what genre the director Jay Roach and screenwriter Danny Strong were playing with. Sure, it's a great political genre movie, up there with their 2008 triumph, Recount, which did great service to the 2000 Florida recount battle which led to George W. Bush becoming President without winning the popular vote (and subsequently led to the debacle in Iraq, the crash of the economy that plays a part in this new movie and, now, the massive GOP amnesia about the eight years they controlled the Executive branch of our government). But it's something more: Game Change is a monster movie.

'

The monster is, of course, 2 1/2 year Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. Not only does the movie recreate her origin story as a force of hate-pandering and resentment reinforcing on the national stage, but it does a terrifying job of treating her as both representative and contributing cause to the nightmarish Republican Primary of 2012, as reactionary as any in national political memory. The fact that Willard Mitt Romney, a supposed moderate and former Governor of the generally Liberal state of Massachusetts, has veered psychotically Right trying to outflank and outpander his highly Conservative opponents, the fact that this very week past he was incapable of summoning the courage to strongly vilify Rush Limbaugh for his misogynistic smearing of citizen Sandra Fluke, proves that whatever prairie fire Sarah Palin ignited in 2008 has yet to burn out.

The progression is like something out of a 1950's sci-fi movie, only instead of an unknown virus reeled in by inquisitive scientists, it's an unknown, unveiled GOP Governor from the most remote state in the Union. Coming from the coldest state as well, it hearkens back to The Thing. She's let in through all decontamination barriers almost by accident to positive fanfare, sparking all sorts of activity including massive investment (here a rush of small-donor campaign contributions), then she begins to falter, unable to adapt to this unfamiliar environment.

But have no fear (or, rather, have dread), because like Frankenstein's monster and most others, it has the ability to learn. Palin studies the television coverage as it goes from ridiculing her to reveling in her speaking power, and she goes through a classic movie-monster chrysalis stage. In the middle of the movie Palin (played to genius perfection by Julianne Moore, ditto Ed Harris as John McCain and, carrying the main story with ease, Woody Harrelson as campaign chief Steve Schmidt) goes silent. She doesn't respond to her handlers, sinks into funks, rattles around on her Blackberry, essentially seems to fall into some sort of catatonic state that ends up feeling more like gestational hibernation.

When she emerges she's unstoppable. She can't be controlled by the campaign, takes on her signature disregard for the truth (and outright lying), whips up crowds with various degrees of hate speech and gets that scary Palin gleam in her eye. The movie doesn't hit it too hard -- it's a smart piece of work -- but it's that gleam that haunts.

In the framing device, Steve Schmidt (Harrelson) is interviewed by Anderson Cooper, and it's clear the scientist no longer has any control over the monster, just a wary, chastened point of view he didn't have at the beginning. To Schmidt's credit, he was just as penitent on The Morning Joe Show this a.m. Unlike the party of Romney, Santorum, Gingrich, Perry, Bachmann, Cain, etc. etc. he's emerged as a man of honor. His party could use more of his type of candor and reality.

On the other hand, Palin is still in the celebrity politics business, the recidivist Tea Party will celebrate it's fourth anniversary this year, and 52% of Mississippi Republicans think President Obama is a Muslim.

There you have the bigger monster: the GOP electoral base.

Stooper Tuesday

At this point, could anybody care less who wins the GOP Presidential nomination? This is, anyone besides the candidates and campaigns themselves? I read today that Newt's due for a second or third surge, that the Republican establishment is expecting to coalesce around Mitt after he takes Ohio and most of the states today, that Santorum wins two plus maybe Ohio and it all slogs on.

For what?

These guys are boobs, blusterers and cowards. A few weeks ago I was sure Santorum was going to steal Mitt's nomination, that not only was he the "real" conservative for the party to come home to, but that he was the first professional candidate amongst the Not-Mitts. Turns out his 12th Century views on contraception and his bile towards fellow Catholic JFK were evidence that he's just as much of an amateur as Rick Perry, Michelle Bachman, Herman Caine, etc.

The fact is that today's GOP has jumped the shark and become America's first major religious party. Thanks to Ronald Reagan's successful courting of the religious right into the party, and George W. Bush increasing their power in 2000, the party is now in the thrall of those who do not believe in the Founding Fathers' separation of church and state. Per Howard Fineman:

"There has never been anything like it in our history," said Princeton historian Sean Wilentz. "'God's Own Party' now really is just that."

....

The American Faith Party is a doctrinally schizophrenic coalition bound by faith in the power of biblical values to create a better country; by fear of federal power, especially that of the federal courts and President Barack Obama and his administration; and by fear of rising Islamic political power around the world.

The AFP unites Catholic traditionalists who especially revere the papal hierarchy; evangelical, fundamentalist and charismatic Protestants; some strands of Judaism, including those ultra-orthodox on social issues and Jews for whom an Israel with biblical borders and a capital in Jerusalem is a spiritual imperative, not just a matter of diplomatic balance in the Middle East; and Mormons, who ironically aren't regarded as Christians by most other members of the coalition. Romney, a devout Mormon, is their man.

The four still-standing Republican presidential candidates are all AFP members in good standing on most of the party's key agenda items. The GOP platform is sure to feature all of them, including opposition to abortion and gay marriage; measures to counter what Republicans regard as attacks on religious liberty; expressions of fear about the extent of federal power, especially from the courts, on social and medical issues; libertarian economic policies that limit regulation and taxes (for religious conservatives and economic libertarians share a common enemy: government); denunciations of Islamic political power; and support for Israel. (Ron Paul is a dissenter on the last two points.)

All the candidates, including Paul, adhere to the AFP's central operational tenet: that professing your own faith -- once verboten in American politics -- is a necessary precondition to being taken seriously.

In direct violation of the U.S. Constitution, one South Carolina county, the GOP just tried requiring a Purity Pledge to run for office in their party:

The Republican Party in a small, conservative South Carolina county expects its candidates to lower taxes. They also expect them to not watch porn, be faithful to their spouses and not have sex outside of marriage.

The Laurens County Republican Party originally decided that anyone who wanted to run for office with the GOP’s blessing would have to sign a pledge and be approved by party leaders. They backed off that idea after the state party told them it was illegal and the pledge received international attention, becoming another cultural issues nightmare for Republicans.

They're becoming America's Muslim Brotherhood, Taliban, Sharia party. Let them nominate an avowed atheist for President and I'll rescind that sentence.

Their positions are damaging to women's health and world peace. We have a very calm, sensible, strong and stable President right now -- what some would call conservative values -- who himself is telling the screaming spoilt brats competing for the GOP nomination to put up or shut up:

The contrast couldn't be clearer -- we have a President much more gracious than he probably opponent this November:

If I were a Republican, I'd just say, Let Mitt Win. Let him and his supporters, the wealthy or Mormon, spend all the money this Presidential cycle to keep the GOP operatives fed. If he beats Obama it'll be a surprise (and a disaster) so if someone has to be the fall guy this Fall, let it be the richest man in the race.

And, with any luck, rinse and repeat in 2016.

Garage Burner

By no coincidence, on the very day of the Michigan primary, where Romney and Santorum battle to see who will lose to President Obama in November, the President spoke to the United Auto Workers with a refreshing barnburner of a speech that calls out the arguments made by the GOP candidates that we should not have bailed out the auto industry in the crash they helped create. (Or maybe that we should have done it their way, or maybe we did do it their way -- depending on the day that these guys, particularly Romney, are speaking.)

I sure hope to hear more like this as we close in on November:

Willard or Rick or some non-declared GOP candidate? It only matters to the Party itself -- the Party of Failed Ideas.

The Santorum Problem

He's a sanctimonious dumb person. Smartest of the dumb.

• Compares Obama to Hitler
• Is against pre-natal testing because he says it encourages abortions
• Thinks birth control "harms women"
• His own spokesperson is mixing up Radical Environmentalism with Radical Islamicism in her attack on Obama
• He's questioning Obama's faith in saying essentially that we should have all laws by Santorum's approved interpretation of the Bible

BTW, what the hell is "Theological Secularism?" Isn't that just the U.S. Religious Right trying to brand secular thought and law -- you know, the Constitution.

President Barack Obama (D) vs. Senator Rick Santorum (R)

The GOP has come home to Rick Santorum. They've found their way back home: religious righteousness, Neoconservative war policy, grumpy negativism, discredited economics.

It looked like they were coming home to Newt Gingrich, but with a long enough look Republicans knew you couldn't really go home with Newt anymore. Three wives and too many nights he didn't make it home.

Mitt Romney is fighting a rearguard action after his ill-advised "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt" back when President Obama authorized the auto bailouts. He's fighting a battle from four years ago while we've all moved on. He's trying to make us forget he opened that Op-Ed with this:

If General Motors, Ford and Chrysler get the bailout that their chief executives asked for yesterday, you can kiss the American automotive industry goodbye.

Mitt is not where his party is, no matter how much he tries to pander to what he thinks it is. Rick knows where it is because he is part of what it is.

His youth doesn't hurt, either. For Mitt to knock off Newt or Rick Perry, thanks for doing the Party a favor. For him to knock off Rick Santorum, that'll be like killing the GOP's baby. The Bobby Kennedy of the religious Far Right.

Santorum has said so much crazy stuff, but he has conviction, national experience, and he's a good cover for plutocratic economics sand lobbyists, since he comes from a blue collar family -- even if he's in the 1% now.

Rick Santorum said that a woman who is impregnated by raped should not be allowed a legal abortion, since still carries "a gift." Most Americans would not agree, but it won't keep him from winning his Party's nomination. I believe he can be their idealized version of themselves.

As for the President, could the timing of the contraception Obamacare bru-ha-ha have come at a better time? Rebranding the entire GOP -- and Rick Santorum in his own words -- as anti-contraception.

Almost by design.

Upside Down

Wow, what a difference 1/8 of a primary makes. And that's a rough estimate. Here's the crazy news that has completely flipped whatever conventional wisdom existed three months ago:

• President Obama now leads all GOP challengers in national polling. And his approval rating is now official "above water" -- higher approval than disapproval percentages.
• The GOP Congress just folded without a fight on the Payroll Tax Cut Extension, and isn't even trying to balance it - going for more deficit rather than raising taxes on their precious rich.
• Mitt Romney can no longer claim electability as his Primary advantage -- Independents have gone upside-down and no longer favor him over President Obama.
• Rick Santorum now leads Romney nationally in GOP Presidential Primary polling and, even worse for Mitt, his firewall state of Michigan is now firmly for Santorum.
• Mitt can only win, it seems, by buying or stealing, and in Maine his win may be a loss to Ron Paul.
• Just as a Google search for "Santorum" yields and embarrassing definition, a search for "Romney" now means "to defecate in terror." Sounds about right.

With the contraception issue turning into a GOP albatross and Obama's new budget (unlikely to pass the GOP Congress) setting the populist tone for the campaign...my only fear is that the best finisher in national politics today may be peaking just a little early!

Rick on Mitt

Sadly, the more voters learn about Mitt Romney, the less they like him. His three state Primary numbers last night were not just atrocious, not just loser number to Rick Santorum in Colorado, Missouri and Minnesota, they were actually lower vote totals than Mitt received four years ago when he lost the nomination to John McCain:


I'm far from a Rick Santorum fan, and he's hypocritical in a number of areas including lobbying, but he sure comes across as a lot more sincere (in his reactionary beliefs) than Romney. It's weird to hear Santorum speak after Romney -- almost (gulp) like a breath of fresh air. No kidding.

How bad is it for Romney? Per Frank Rich:

But a Washington Post/ABC News poll released just before these contests found that by a margin of more than two to one, Americans say that the more they learn about Mitt, the less they like him, and last night added further proof. The standard interpretation of Mitt's triple defeat on cable news (regardless of network) is that "conservatives rejected Romney." But who exactly isn't rejecting Romney? He couldn't even fill up his headquarters when speaking last night in Denver. And then he gave a talk that reminded anyone who was watching how hollow and fake a candidate he is.

Maybe in another age a phony could go further. Not right now. And it's looking like no fun being that guy:



It's the authentic guy in the White House who's having fun:

Super Bowl Sunday Political Notes

My father would be happy to know the Giants won today. He was a fan during so many terrible years, and now...dynastic.

The ads run during the Super Bowl all seemed short on imagination, but one stands out. Chrysler and Clint Eastwood came together for something that feels rather like an Obama campaign ad, especially in light of Mitt Romney having written an editorial at the time of the auto bailout that advocated for letting the American car companies die:



Clint's known to be an Republican but one who could care less about abortion or gay marriage issues, somewhere between Eisenhower and Libertarian. Whether he'd ever vote for Obama, I wouldn't wager, but nonetheless this seems to dovetail with the campaign.

As for Mitt, I've thought for a long time that the best GOP move would be to nominate Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) and corner the Libertarian vote. I don't expect that to happen, but Rep. Paul is gathering forces this run that will surely be handed to his son, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) in four years. This expectation is why I do not believe Rep. Paul will mount a Third Party Presidential bid this year. With the spread of Rep. Paul's message between now and then, and his son's relative youth, I expect Sen. Paul will be a bigger threat to win the nomination in 2016 than his father is now.

The other choice for the GOP would be to choose an actual hardline Conservative candidate, i.e. former Senator Rick Santorum. He's for immediate war with Iran, he's against contraception let alone a woman's choice for her own body, what's not there for a staunch rightwing Republican to like? That way, if a "true" Conservative loses, the GOP would have some soul-searching to do and (at least if they're rational) come back more "moderate" in 2016, even if only in messaging.

Instead it appears they're getting Willard Mitt Romney, who's talking like a full-blown reactionary but is suspected of Liberalism. So if/when Mitt loses to President Obama, the hardcore Republicans will just say they should have gone even more Conservative, no soul-searching required.

If I were a Republican operative in the current situation I'd say, fine, let it be Mitt, whatever, as long as he's stays rich and writing checks. Mitt has enough money to fund zillions of dollars worth of consultants, ad agencies, speechwriters, campaign staff, etc. He's a 2012 gravy train for professional GOoPers. Take his money -- I'm sure it's as green as Teresa Heinz-Kerry's in 2008 -- and get paid for the cycle. Less likely that'll happen with Newty.

As for Obama's election strategy, to circle back to Clint and Chrysler:

US Vice President Joe Biden spelled out a blunt reelection message for his boss President Barack Obama on Tuesday -- "Osama bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive."

Simple, direct, and even a little more imaginative than 9/10ths of this year's Super Bowl ads.

Of Course He Isn't

Mitty Mitt Mitt. What's to be done with you? The day after you win the Florida GOP Presidential Primary, you remind everybody why you should never be allowed in the Oval Office:

“I’m not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there,” Romney told CNN. “If it needs repair, I’ll fix it. I’m not concerned about the very rich, they’re doing just fine. I’m concerned about the very heart of the America, the 90 percent, 95 percent of Americans who right now are struggling.”

Host Soledad O’Brien pointed out that the very poor are probably struggling too.

“The challenge right now — we will hear from the Democrat party the plight of the poor,” Romney responded, after repeating that he would fix any holes in the safety net. “And there’s no question it’s not good being poor and we have a safety net to help those that are very poor . . . My focus is on middle income Americans ... we have a very ample safety net and we can talk about whether it needs to be strengthened or whether there are holes in it. but we have food stamps, we have Medicaid, we have housing vouchers, we have programs to help the poor.”

I love Soledad's incredulity bordering on outright contempt, if not for his callousness then for his impolitic messaging. While I agree that it is unfair to take the quote out of context -- although it is something the Romney campaign does to President Obama unapologetically in ads itself -- the actual context is pretty dreadful, tin-eared and reveals a candidate without the Big Picture of American society today.

On one hand, it's easy to take as Freudian slip that Romney doesn't care about the "very poor," but is he essentially saying there's always going to be a permanent underclass in this country that will never move out of social welfare programs?

Or is he even aware what it means to be "very poor" and how many families in America are below or near the poverty line -- per Wikipedia, "Most Americans (58.5%) will spend at least one year below the poverty line at some point between ages 25 and 75."

Or is he making a false distinction, since employment uncertainty has grown among those "middle income Americans" thanks to layoffs like those experienced by Bain Capital-managed companies?

And where does he get the 90-95% for those "middle income Americans?" Is that what he believes, or just a pander since his wealthy, almost all now from investments, has branded him Mr. 1%?

And where does he get off even citing class differences when he's ready to excoriate Obama for "class warfare" every time the President suggests that millionaires and billionaires should pay more than a 15% capital gains tax? Class division works when you need to pander, right Mitt?

And that pander, is it actually an attempt to separate out the "middle income Americans" from the "very poor" since he's given up in trying to get votes from the "very poor" and, in fact, may benefit from his Republican Party's work suppressing those votes?

And is there some sort of missing class here? I don't mean "the very rich," I wonder about the just plain "poor." Is that a different category than the "very poor?"

And why is the GOP always trying to cut programs for the "very poor" if Mitt says it's important not only that we have safety net (Ronald Reagan's term, originally, as he cut it), but that he'll vaguely "fix it" where it isn't working?

If so, what is his analysis of the state of the safety net...and what proposals, if any, does Mitt have to fix it? The only proposals he's shown thus far benefit the rich he claims not to worry about.

And, finally, did he just admit that the Democratic Party actually does care about the poor, f'real?

To the three remaining GOP Presidential wannabes: Stay in the race. This runner stumbles. Badly and often enough and egregiously enough that his Party is questioning his ability to take on President Obama in the Fall. Some are even saying this Election Cycle is a wash, time to start strategizing for 2016.

Per the TPM video below...the concession stand is having trouble keeping enough popcorn in stock to enjoy the GOP 2012 Presidential Election show.

Willard

Willard Mitt Romney beat back Newt Gingrich in Florida by outspending him 5:1, hiring a new debate coach, repeating his "God Bless America" speech ad nauseum and, of course, by incessant bold-faced lying regarding the President.

Willard bought his Republican Presidential Primary win in Florida with $15,000,000 in ads (between his campaign and his SuperPAC). He spent, roughly, $21 per voter. What interesting is that 92% of all the ads for this race were negative -- and only 0.1% were pro-Romney:

The bulk of the ads were run by Mr. Romney and his PAC, Restore Our Future, which spent a combined $15.4 million on television and radio advertising in Florida. That compares with $3.7 million for Mr. Gingrich and his allies, according to an analysis by a Republican media strategist not working for either candidate.

The tone and content of the commercials were almost as lopsided. Of all the spots that ran in Florida for the last week, 68 percent were attacks on Mr. Gingrich, Kantar Media found. Only 9 percent were favorable toward him.

Ads assailing Mr. Romney accounted for 23 percent of the political commercials that were broadcast. Yet less than 0.1 percent were pro-Romney, Kantar found. That sliver of a figure was because of one ad the Romney campaign broadcast in Spanish, which featured Mr. Romney’s son praising his father’s leadership abilities.

That's right, the only pro-Romney ad wasn't even broadcast in the English language.

So what's Willard's "positive" vision for America?:

And I'm going to stand and defend capitalism across this country, throughout this campaign. I know we're going to get hit hard from President Obama, but we're going to stuff it down his throat and point out it is capitalism and freedom that makes America strong.

"Stuff it down his throat." You kiss your wife with those lips, Willard? I mean, unless you're a dyed-in-wool Obama hater, what's to like about this guy?:

When Romney ran for the presidential nomination and lost in 2008, the share of Americans who saw him positively never topped 30 percent. By last month, that number had dropped to 24 percent, according to The Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll.

Romney took a beating last week in South Carolina over his business career at Bain Capital and his taxes -- and so did his image among voters. A Washington Post poll released Tuesday, three days after Romney lost the South Carolina primary, found a 17 percentage-point drop over two weeks among independent voters who viewed Romney favorably.

That's right, Willard Mitt Romney. The more you see him, the less you like him.

Mitty Mitt Mitt

Ah, Mitt. Seems you may have removed Newt Gingrich's rationale for the GOP Presidential nomination tonight -- Newt is not the greatest debater since Lincoln-Douglas after all.

As for your own rationale, that somehow you have the phenomenal business acumen that will make you a better President than Barack Obama...not so much:

• You claim you have not even seen the campaign ad with your own voice saying you approved it. Not exactly stellar detail-oriented CEO work -- it's impossible to imagine Steve Jobs, for instance, making that same mistake. Might even be a campaign finance law violation.

• You finally release your taxes after claiming your campaign's personal finance disclosure form was enough...and it turns out you lied left accounts off of that form.

How bad is it?

A review by the Los Angeles Times/Tribune Washington Bureau found that at least 23 funds and partnerships listed in the couple's 2010 tax returns did not show up or were not listed in the same fashion on Romney's most recent financial disclosure, including 11 based in low-tax foreign countries such as Bermuda, the Cayman Islands and Luxembourg.

The campaign has stressed that Romney has paid all required U.S. taxes on his foreign funds.

Many of the funds are affiliated with Bain Capital, the Boston-based private equity firm Romney ran for 15 years. Several others are apparently unrelated offshore entities with mysterious names such as Babson 2006-1, which is based in the Cayman Islands, and Barracuda Investments, which has an address in Dublin, Ireland, but appears to be solely owned by Golden Gate Capital, a private equity firm based in San Francisco.

Again, is (a) lack of attention to major (not minor) details ill-becoming of a CEO and downright dangerous in a President, (b) an attempt to obfuscate for some yet-to-be-uncovered reason, meaning we'd have an untrustworthy President or, worse, (c) you're some kind of crook, and one who would immediately under investigation upon taking office.

So what's the great rationale for a Mitt Romney candidacy now, other than generic Republican Obama hate?

Anyone?

SOTU 2012

President Obama's State of the Union address last week managed to make the Republicans seem very, very small. All they can do is squawk about "class warfare" where Obama says "fairness," what was always the Bill Clinton position - play by the rules, fair is fair. Here's the highlights as chosen by Talking Points Memo:

On the GOP side, wha???:

The nationwide survey of registered voters shows that only 26 percent of respondents believe Romney has strong principles, while 61 percent believe he will say anything.

From Rupert Murdoch's very own Twitter handle, it appears that Romney may be losing the biggest GOP Primary of all -- the Murdoch Primary:

Romney's tax returns might kill his chances. See Republican establishment panic now!

Maybe Rupert is realizing what I've been saying all along, that Romney is a terrible General Election candidate (and is doing more poorly that he should be with his own party) and is choosing to go with the most entertaining possibility, the one that will stir things up, get ratings for his outrageousness and fire up the viewing base all the way to his own destruction:

“By the end of my second term we will have the first permanent base on the moon and it will be American,” he said. According to Newt, the base would be used for “science, tourism, and manufacturing” and create a “robust industry” modeled on the airline business in the 20th century.

From there, Gingrich suggested moving towards a Mars mission by the end of the next decade. He proposed setting aside 10% of NASA’s budget in prize money for private research into interplanetary exploration.

“I accept the charge that I am grandiose,” he said. “Because Americans are instinctively grandiose.”

Obama last night was a relief after the antics of these nerve-wracking crazies.

Lastly, there was the moment where he embraced now Former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ), who resigned from Congress in a very moving official ceremony today:

It's not that hard to make Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) cry, but this is one I felt with him.

Here's to a triumphal return, a few years down the line.