"Incendiary Language"
"I originally voted for the suspension because I thought that it was extraordinary circumstances, given the huge hike in prices," he said at the time. Gas prices averaged $1.52 a gallon in March 2000.
Drat you commentators for accusing me of being too black! Oh and by the way, if you think Jeremiah Wright is an unacceptable choice for pastor, you're just not black enough.
As commander in chief, I will always reserve the right to make sure that we are looking out for American interests.Gee Barak, let's hope you don't have to tap into this looking-out-for-America "reserve" very often. It's almost as if you're more willing to tap into the ANWR reserves.
He intends to run again in four years, according to a senior member of his inner circle.Mitt is pulling for the Democrats.
Pollster John Zogby: “It is important to note that popular Florida Gov. Charlie Crist endorsed McCain Saturday and campaigned with him Sunday. Sunday alone, McCain had another big day, winning 38% support to Romney’s 31%.
I strongly oppose McCain's nomination, but I don't hate him. And I had not heard this phrase "McCain Derangement Syndrome" until Brooks dropped it into his column.Mark, this is the curse of the "professional conservative" Pay attention.
Yesterday, on “Fox News Sunday,” using his most up-to-date talking points, Romney claimed to be an outside-the-Beltway candidate, by contrast with John McCain, “who has been in Washington all [his] life.”
Romney might have paused before charging McCain with being a prisoner of Washington. In the late 1960s and early 70s, while Romney was a missionary in France and a law and business student at Harvard, McCain wasn’t living the good life here in the nation’s capital. He was “tied up at the time,” as he once reminded the audience in a Republican candidates’ debate, tied up and perhaps reciting to himself lines from “Invictus.”
Which ONE of these four candidate qualities mattered most in deciding how you voted today?Ouch!
Says what he believes(29%)
John McCain 53%
Mitt Romney 13%
It is cruel to compare the senator to most of his Republican competitors.
The leaders of the Republican coalition know Romney will lose. But some would rather remain in control of a party that loses than lose control of a party that wins.
"This guy didn't even support Ronald Reagan."Ouch... and it passes the truth test. AKA 'and one'.
We’ve always prided ourselves on our ability to spot a fake, whether it’s bogus Louis Vitton, Gucci or Fendi bags or 2008 presidential candidates like Mitt Romney or John Edwards (pictured above), both of whom would probably change gender if they thought it would score them a majority of voters in their respective primaries.
Romney has done to himself what the Bush campaign did to John Kerry. The Bush team made it so that every time Kerry opened his mouth, he hurt himself, thanks to the perception that he was talking out of both sides of his mouth. Kerry couldn’t help himself by saying the right things because nobody believed what he was saying.
What is most compelling about McCain, however, is that his record, his character, and his courage show him to be the most trustworthy, competent, and conservative of all those seeking the nomination. Simply put, McCain can be trusted to make informed decisions based on the best interests of his country, come hell or high water....
John McCain is the man to lead America.
"On the other hand if we're running for president, I think it's important for us not to go into details about the weaknesses and our own failings as young people for the concern that we open kids thinking that it's ok for them."-Mitt
McCain Leading Among GOP 9/11 Commission Members, 60 percent to 20 percent
This would be a good question for John McCain. He was one of the very few Republicans to pull off a national security hat-trick: he supported the war in Iraq, he subsequently became a ferocious critic of the feckless occupation, and then full-throatedly backed the “surge”. There aren’t many people on the national scene who did all three.
Notice anything different from the screenshot I luckily took last night?
Sad... you would expect better from him.
Sad... you would expect better from those who support him.
McCain communications director Jill Hazelbaker responds to Romney's charge:
"It is appalling, but not surprising, that Mitt Romney would seek to take advantage of this disturbing incident to launch yet another hypocritical attack. It’s the hallmark of his campaign."
"Back when Romney was calling for taxing campaign contributions and banning PACs, and before McCain-Feingold was passed, push polling was, regrettably, alive and well in American politics. Anyone who spent a day in South Carolina in 2000 knows that."
McCain's campaign, which has fielded calls into their Iowa headquarters complaining of similar such calls, emphatically denies responsibility.
"Senator McCain strongly rejects this style of campaigning and we have absolutely no involvement whatsover," said Jon Seaton, McCain's top aide in Iowa.
This is what happens when you don't have zoning.-Mitt Romney after a visit to Houston, Texas
"Her positions are not terribly relevant to my campaign."
Romney's Economic Miracle
Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney erred when he claimed U.S. job growth had been nearly 17 times faster than that of Europe:
Romney: We are the largest economy in the world. We’ve added – during the time Europe added 3 million jobs, we’ve added about 50 million jobs in this country.
That miraculous-sounding statistic is way off. It has taken since the end of 1978 for total employment in the U.S. to grow by 50 million jobs, according to official figures kept by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But total employment for the 15 core members of the European Union (those who joined before 2004) grew by well over 33 million between 1978 and 2005, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Europe has added even more jobs since. In fact, the 27 current EU nations added nearly 3 million new jobs last year alone, according to the EU statistics agency Eurostat. That's well over the 2.3 million jobs created last year in the United States.
Romney was misquoting an outdated and highly dubious figure, which was used by an author who no longer stands behind it. Romney cited a 2005 article in The American Enterprise magazine, published by the pro-business American Enterprise Institute. In the article, titled "America Still Beckons," author Joel Kotkin wrote: "Since the 1970s America has created some 57 million new jobs, compared to just 4 million in Europe (with most of those in government)." Kotkin told FactCheck.org he wouldn’t use the figure today.
We concur. The 4 million figure is a somewhat garbled version of what another author, Karl Zinsmeister, had written in another American Enterprise article from 2002, “Old And In The Way (Decline and Fall of Europe).” Zinsmeister put the figure at 5 million – not 4 million or 3 million – and the time period as "since 1970," rather than Kotkin's "since the 1970s," which implies a somewhat more recent time. “I don't know how it got changed," Kotkin said. In any case Kotkin told us it was his sense that Zinsmeister's 5 million figure referred mainly to Germany and France, not to all 15 pre-2004 European Union members, let alone the 27 current EU members. In any case, it refers to statistics covering years prior to 2002. “This was an old number,” Kotkin said. His advice: “I would not use that.”
Hugh Hewitt: What is…do you have a target for GDP expenditure on defense matters?
Mitt Romney: For me, the target is we’re going to reach about 4%, and I think you’re going to see us hit the 4% level. I think we need to hit that level. I don’t think we have to sustain that level forever, but we’ve dropped below that. It used to be as high as 6% during the time when Ronald Reagan was president. Of course, Bill Clinton pulled back the scale of the military, pulled back the spending on our equipment. We have been underinvesting in equipment and maintenance now for a long, long time, and we’re going to have to rebuild our capacity.
For me, the target is we’re going to reach about 4%
Romney: We are the largest economy in the world. We’ve added – during the time Europe added 3 million jobs, we’ve added about 50 million jobs in this country.
That miraculous-sounding statistic is way off. It has taken since the end of 1978 for total employment in the U.S. to grow by 50 million jobs, according to official figures kept by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But total employment for the 15 core members of the European Union (those who joined before 2004) grew by well over 33 million between 1978 and 2005, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Europe has added even more jobs since. In fact, the 27 current EU nations added nearly 3 million new jobs last year alone, according to the EU statistics agency Eurostat. That's well over the 2.3 million jobs created last year in the United States.
the united states house of representatives voted for a bill that was identical to what i proposed. what they voted for is what i proposed. They voted to provide for surplus embryos from in vitro fertilization processes being used for research and experimentation that's what i said i support. that's what they just supported. What said we should not do is get into embryo farming, cloning for experimentation and a redefinition of when life begins. that's what our legislature has done. What our legislature has done goes well beyond what's done in Washington. What's in Washington is consistent with what i said i support which is using surplus embryos for fertilization processes so it would be helpful if people pointed, as a matter of fact what the us house of representatives is doing is exactly what governor Romney proposed.
On embryonic stem cell research, Romney said the place where he draws a bright line and says no is when there is an embryo created solely for the purpose of research and destruction.
Nearly half of the Republicans polled said that Giuliani represents their party's best chance to win in November 2008; that is three or four times as high as the percentage who mentioned other candidates.
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We've read the news reports that only two of your fellow candidates have agreed to attend the Republican Party of Florida/YouTube debate, and there are major candidates considering snubbing the event.
As Republicans, we believe this is a serious mistake. Every Democratic candidate eagerly accepted the opportunity to answer questions from the American people via YouTube, even Hillary Clinton, the most cautious and calculating of the bunch.
Attend the YouTube debate, and you may get a tough question or two. Don't attend, and millions of Americans will wonder if you were too afraid to answer questions from the Internet, just as Democrats were afraid to go on Fox News. None of you could have gotten to where you are now without showing real political courage. Is that really how you'd like to be known?
Republicans cannot write off the Internet. Thus far, the Democratic candidates have dramatically outperformed Republicans online, most alarmingly in online fundraising. We believe this is a direct result of failing to effectively engage the medium and seize the tremendous opportunity of bottom-up grassroots activism. If you approach the Internet from a position of paralyzing fear, you will be out-gunned, out-manned, and out-raised at every turn. It is fundamentally unacceptable to surrender to the Democrats on one of the most important battlefronts of this election.
And Republicans cannot write off the youth vote. A recent poll showed Democrats with a staggering 24-point advantage among 18 to 29 year old voters. Once a generation of voters is lost like this (just think of the New Deal or Reagan Generations) they are extremely difficult to get back. We are under no illusions that a YouTube debate alone can change that, but denigrating the way millions of young Americans live and communicate does not help.
We sincerely hope you will reconsider any decision to snub the critical January 29th primary state of Florida and 51 million unique YouTube users. The Republican Party is about freedom. A free and open debate that includes the American people could be just what the doctor ordered to break the stanglehold of the liberal media.
Embed this petition on your blog. Cut and paste below:
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"Why is it that the Democrats wouldn't even go on Fox, but we Republicans are happy to sit there and have Chris Matthews of the Carter administration, former chief of staff to (ex-House speaker) Tip O'Neill?" asked Romney
In an interview Wednesday with the Manchester (N.H.) Union Leader, Romney said he's not a fan of the CNN/YouTube format. Referring to the video of a snowman asking the Democratic candidates about global warming, Romney quipped, "I think the presidency ought to be held at a higher level than having to answer questions from a snowman."
Banishing the squeegee operators was something I suspected we could accomplish fairly easily - and that would have an immediate and measurable impact. I called Police Commissioner Bill Bratton and Denny Young, who played in important role in all equality-of-life-initiatives. Bratton, who shared my belief in treating small crimes as a way to establish lawful, civil behavior and a feeling of safety, came back in a couple of days and told me that the Police Department said that getting rid of the squeegee men couldn't be done. He wanted to do it, but had been told that so long as they were not physically threatening drivers or "demanding" money, we lacked a legal basis to move the operations along or arrest them if they refused.
This is an example of how being a lawyer and former prosecutor could be helpful. I said, "How about the fact that they're jaywalking?" I told him to forget about whether they were asking for money or not. When they stepped off the curb and walked out onto the street they had just violated the law. You could give every single one of them a ticket immediately. Then, in giving them a ticket, you could investigate who they were, whether there were outstanding warrants, and so on. If they became intimidating you could arrest them.
