McCain begins to take off the gloves

Look at the smile on his face. This is beginning to get very interesting.

Why Rudy? Why?

Is this for real?


This is becoming routine? D'oh!


New York City's biggest tough guy doesn't even wear the pants?

Mitt flip flops on Houston?

So I see that Mitt goes to Houston to panhandle. Oh, even trust fund babies worth a quarter billion are permitted to do that. What Makes this so different?



Well for starters, there's this:

This is what happens when you don't have zoning.

-Mitt Romney after a visit to Houston, Texas

Romney attack site on Thompson update

The Google news count has doubled in the past 24 hours 327.

Slick Willard Passes The Buck

google news has 129 posts of romney passing the buck on his gutter sniping attack site on thompson. lots have weighed in, but where the heck is matt drudge?!: (update: the count is now at 176. Romney's gonna have a rough day tomorrow)

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McCain lays the smackdown in NH

Raise your hand if you think John McCain won the NH debate:




GO JOHN!

Romney's Third Stool Problem

So Mitt Romney's final stool problem regards the third leg of his stool: strong families. We all know Mitt wheeled out his wife to cozy up to Planned Parenthood so he'd have pro-choice cred when running for office in Massachusetts. But what kind of husband when pressed about such a donation says this:

"Her positions are not terribly relevant to my campaign."

I just had my three year anniversary last month. Guess what? In these 37 months, I've learned that's about the dumbest thing a husband can say about his wife. And Mitt said this while speaking face to face with a New York Times reporter.

Romney's stool has some major problems. Could it be he's not Reagan after all?

Mitt Romney's Second Stool Problem

Romney's second leg in his three legged stool is a strong economy. So why on earth did he say the EU added 3 million jobs in the same amount of time it took the United States to add 30 million jobs?

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.”

Mitt Romney's Stool Sample Problem

Hugh Hewitt traded his credibility as a right-wing pundit for a pair of Mitt Romney pom poms. For the latest blatant example, look no further than this exchange with Hugh and Willard:

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.

In Hugh's warped mind, this actually makes sense. oof.

Now we all know Romney touts his stool, or to be more precise, his three legged stool. One of the three legs: strong military.

"GREAT," the passive conservative passerby may say. "I too want a strong military"

What's wrong with that? ROMNEY... HAS... A... STOOL... SAMPLE (which he pegged at 4%)... PROBLEM (see page 140)...

For me, the target is we’re going to reach about 4%

Read a book Willard. Spending for 2007 is projected to be 4.1%! And the country has been at 4% for the previous two years. What's more, spending is projected to increase in 2008. Perhaps even more baffling is that Romney considers spending 3% of the GDP on the military to be dismantl[ing] it. So in conclusion, 3%=dismantling; and a cut from 4.1% to 4=making the military strong.

No wonder McCain took you to task on your legendary parsing of words in the latest Foxnews debate:


Romney waffling on Iraq (specifically the surge) puts the Waffle House to shame:

Ouch...

Fred announces

McCain video

McCain's run in 2000 vs. 2008

It just struck me after skimming this and this.

In 2000 John McCain took some serious heat in South Carolina for calling Falwell and Robertson "agents of intolerance", but so much less well known is his take on Bob Jones University's ban on interracial dating (yeah, this stuff still goes on in this country). In opposition McCain refused to speak at the school. McCain raised a very important debate at Bob Jones and across the country. Within days, the school folded like wet cardboard. Tho unlikely, this side debate may have caused him the GOP nomination.

Now McCain claims to have received death threats. At least one protester, flanked with signs reading "traitor", follow him around. His "crime"? Immigration. It's not so much his immigration record, since Rudy, Romney, and even Thompson have been at least as loose in the past. His real crime is that he refuses to pander for the nomination. The right is falling head over heels for an immigration panderer -never mind what your record actually is.

Is this the new debate akin to the interracial ban in 2000? I think so.

Ames, what does it mean?

Not a whole lot. I suppose Romney had wished he'd deliver a mortal wound to Brownback, but looks like that's not gonna happen.

Results:
Romney - 31.5%
Huckabee - 18.1%
Brownback - 15.3%
Tancredo - 13.7%
Paul - 9.1%
T Thompson - 7.3%
F Thompson - 1.6%
Giuliani - 1.3%
Hunter - 1.2%
McCain - 0.7%
Cox - 0.2%

Mitt's sons serving the country Google News count

105 at present.

I don't think Caroline Giuliani supporting Obama had this many hits in the first few hours. But at present, there's 419.

First Rudy, now Colin Powell?

Yesterday Rudy said if he wasn't running for Pres, he'd be campaigning for McCain. Thanks for the quasi-endorsement! Today we learn of another quasi-endorsement. Colin Powell, perhaps the most popular political figure alive, has gone all in in financially supporting McCain. Meaning he has donated the maximum amount one can donate to a campaign -$2,300. What's more, the article goes on to say he hasn't donated a penny to anyone else. (Sorry Obama) Sweet!

Rudy's second pick for President: McCain

Good job rudy!

To all the people thinking Rudy is the non-McCain option, that's not true. Everywhere Rudy and McCain differ, McCain is to the right of Rudy. Sometimes FAR right to him. As with abortion and guns.

It was rough to see Giuliani flip-flop on McCain-Feingold, but the Right seems to want to be pandered to more than they want to be leveled with.

More tough breaks for Mitt

Mitt is now 4 for 4 in committing the worst gaffes during the debates.

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.

Oh, and Willard justified his attacks on Giuliani for being pro-choice by saying Giuliani hadn't declared yet. Fact is, Giuliani declared a good two weeks prior.

GOP gets crushed

This from pollingreports.com

The GOP is in bad shape fellas! Dems are outraising GOP candidates 2 to 1. And as this graph shows, they get crushed in the ever-important war of ideas. I get a kick out of people in message boards saying Hillary cannot win. That's simply not true and these numbers prove it. The GOP needs to nominate a candidate that polls strongly against Clinton (read McCain or Giuliani --not ready Romney or Thompson). Plus I see a very week pro-life turnout of it's Giuliani vs. Clinton in 08. I truly believe McCain is the only candidate who can beat Hillary.

Romney's Dirty Little Secret. He supports embryonic stem cell research

That's right. He is aligned with McCain and Giuliani. Why do I say this? Two reasons: A direct quote from Romney.

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.

Nice use of the third person, Willard.

Most recently in July according to palmbeachpost.com

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.

The only explanation here is that Romney supports EXCESS embryos that otherwise would have been discarded. This is exactly where McCain and the militantly pro-choice candidate Rudy Giuliani stand. And Romney lied (whatever, misspoke, told untruths) in the MSNBC debate on his stance on embryonic stem cell research.

Just read what Mitt wrote about stem cell research.

The reader comes away with VASTLY different interpretations if they 1) had never heard of Romney or 2) if they knew he supported federal funding for EXCESS embryos.

It's just like the Sixth Sense or The Usual Suspects. Quite a different move after you know the ending.

Romney flip-flops on Hezbollah

Today Romney flip-flopped on Hezbollah's health diplomacy.



Today he sent out surrogate Kevin Madden to do the damage control; presumably because Romney didn't feel it necessary to correct the record himself. This was clearly done because of Sunday's debate in which it will undoubtedly be brought up. I'm sure he will have "made it very clear Hezbollah is bad". Even with Romney's legendary use of poll-tested rhetoric, he's going to come off very badly on ABC.

No word yet on whether or not he's going to back away from his statement where he used Hitler as a source of inspiration for energy Independence.


If only we had a hi-res closeup of Willard. I'm almost convinced there was a sparkle in his eye when he said "Gosh! Hitler."