Nikki Haley says women don't care about birth control, unless they do

By Michael J.W. Stickings

She was okay on Colbert last night -- amusing for a politician, and fairly likeable, if also typically partisan (can't give Obama any credit whatsoever for the economy!) -- but her appearance on The View yesterday included this brilliant nugget, in response to an easy lob-ball question from resident conservative Elizabeth Hasselbeck (see clip below):

"Women don't care about contraception," Haley said, "they care about jobs and their families..." She was cut off by Joy Behar, who bristled along with the rest of the panel and noted that women should care about contraception. "The media cares about contraception," Haley tried again, and then concluded that while women might care about contraception, they just want to be able to make those decisions themselves, without government involvement. Interesting position for a female Republican governor!

Indeed. Sounds like she's a tad conflicted, as perhaps are many Republican women watching their party wage war on... women.

Of course it's obvious that women (and a lot of men) care about contraception -- they all use it, after all (pretty much, anyway). I suspect that what Haley meant is that in terms of political issues women care more about jobs and the economy than birth control, that is, that women don't want birth control to be a political issue at all -- because it's a settled and firmly private matter, as most of us thought it was before Republicans decided to make it a centerpiece of their misogynistic war.

It just didn't come out that way, and her view that women should be able to make decisions themselves, in private, is a rather un-Republican one these days.

She said on Colbert that she wouldn't accept an invitation to be on Romney's ticket, but of course that's what she has to say. And it seems to me that she'd be a serious contender for the nod given her various demographic and ideological bona fides.

She'll just have to make sure to get the orthodox GOP talking points down if she wants to move up in the party.

Keep it zipped, Mitt

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Ann Romney says there's a "real" Mitt lurking somewhere behind the shameless pandering facade of a human being we've seen so far on the campaign trail:

Ann Romney defended her husband's sense of humor today during a radio interview, explaining that if people think the candidate seems too stiff at times as the host suggested, she thinks "we better unzip him and let the real Mitt Romney out."

The thing is, if you unzip Mitt, isn't what you'll find... stiff?

Sorry, but that's the double entendre here. And if you're going to use the word "upzip," Ann, you'd better be prepared for the obvious.

Seriously, maybe there is some semblance of a real human being, a real Mitt, down in there somewhere, but does anyone really believe that the upzipped Mitt on the campaign trail would be all that different than the zipped version? Even the unzipped one would be completely phony and manufactured, just as much an act of shameless pandering. Remember Mitt in Alabama saying "y'all" and talking about eatin' cheesy grits? Remember how utterly ridiculous that was? Well, the unzipped Mitt would be just like that, Mitt trying desperately, pathetically, to come across as authentic and genuine -- and failing miserably.

Because, really, the real Mitt is probably the privileged rich douchebag who's been out there sucking up for votes, an out-of-touch plutocrat who just keeps embarrassing himself on the campaign trail. Sure, he may have something of a sense of humor, and maybe that's what Ann sees, but there's no way Mitt will suddenly expose himself, such as there is a self with a soul in there, for all to see. He's too far gone for that.

Mitt Romney's enthusiasm chasm, according to Mitch McConnell

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Last week, Richard wrote about Mitt Romney's "enthusiasm chasm," translating Marco Rubio's rather half-hearted endorsement as:

Yep, Romney is going to be the Republican nominee and I'm a Republican so I guess I'll be supporting him.

Well, Rubio isn't alone. A lot Republicans are having a hard time getting behind Romney with anything resembling enthusiasm. And we all know that Romney isn't exactly beloved by the grassroots primary voters who are holding their noses at his very presence, if not vehemently opposing him. And it's not like the conservative elite likes him much either, whether it's Dear Leader Rush or Krazy Kristol, while those who are behind him, like Will and Krauthammer, just don't seem all that convincing -- and seem like they're trying to convince themselves as much as anyone.

The latest example of a high-profile elected Republican unable to summon any enthusiasm at all: Mitch McConnell, who said this yesterday:

It's absolutely apparent that it's in the best interests of our party at this particular point to get behind the person who is obviously going to be our nominee and to begin to make the case against the president of the United States.

In other words: "Okay -- (sigh) -- looks like Romney will be the nominee, so we might as well support him -- (yawn) -- because at least he's not Obama.

And there was more:

Most of the members of the Senate Republican Conference are either supporting him, or they have the view that I do, that it's time to turn our attention to the fall campaign.

So other Republican senators are unenthused as well. It ain't just McConnell.

Oh, sure, he also said that Romney's "going to be an excellent candidate," but that only means that Mitt has been a not excellent candidate so far.

And McConnell hasn't even formally endorsed him yet. It's like he's just supporting him by default, supporting him because he's likely going to win and because, well, Republicans have to support the Republican, like it or not.

He added:

I think he will be an outstanding nominee. I think he can win the election.

Well, he has to say that, doesn't he? He has to express optimism. He has his standing as a big-time Republican leader to uphold, after all.

Based on what else he said, though, it's hard to believe he means it.

Yes, Romney's enthusiasm chasm is massive.

Women could put Obama over the top in November

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Actually, not just over the top. There's a long, long way to go, to be sure, but women could hand Obama a landslide.

As USA Today reports:

President Obama has opened the first significant lead of the 2012 campaign in the nation's dozen top battleground states, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds, boosted by a huge shift of women to his side.

In the fifth Swing States survey taken since last fall, Obama leads Republican front-runner Mitt Romney 51%-42% among registered voters just a month after the president had trailed him by two percentage points.

The biggest change came among women under 50. In mid-February, just under half of those voters supported Obama. Now more than six in 10 do while Romney's support among them has dropped by 14 points, to 30%. The president leads him 2-1 in this group.

But why would women be shifting in such large numbers to the president? Oh, right, because Republicans are waging war on them.

Ultimately, it'll be the economy, stupid, that will determine how these swing states -- Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin -- go, but, looking at that list, there's no reason Obama should be able to win all of them.

And if women in particular see it as a choice between a likeable president who is effectively managing an improving economy (and cares about issues like health care and education) and a privileged rich douchebag who advocates plutocracy and belongs to the party of theocracy -- a contrast that will become much clearer over the course of the campaign -- well, you have to give Obama the decisive edge.

A desperate, pathetic Romney smears Obama for supposedly selling out America

By Michael J.W. Stickings

In response to the Obama campaign's call for Romney to release his tax returns going back to the 1980s, the Romney campaign has made a counter-proposal of its own:

"The Obama campaign is playing politics, just as he's doing in his conduct of foreign policy," Romney spokesperson Andrea Saul wrote. "Obama should release the notes and transcripts of all his meetings with world leaders so the American people can be satisfied that he's not promising to sell out the country's interests after the election is over."

This is, of course, ridiculous. As Politico's Alexander Burns notes:

Releasing tax returns is a standard thing for a presidential candidate to have to do, which is not so much the case for releasing the transcripts of every conversation an incumbent president has had with a foreign leader. But of course the Romney campaign knows that, and the decision to answer with a non sequitur is a deliberate one. And the effectiveness of the tactic will hinge on voters are as prepared to believe that Barack Obama is bargaining away the country as they are willing to buy the idea that Mitt Romney is a secretive rich guy.

That's right. Basically, Romney is hoping that his completely baseless accusation that Obama is trying to sell out America, as if the president is basically a traitor, will stick. With the economy improving and his own approval ratings tanking, it's pretty much all he's got, this and his various other anti-Obama smears.

The selling out argument, such as it is an argument at all, has picked up speed after Obama was caught telling Russian President Medvedev that he'll have more flexibility after the election. Of course, he didn't mean that he'd sell out to Russia, just that politics limits one's viable options, particularly in the middle of an election season, but Republicans, as stupid and opportunistic as ever, jumped all over the remark as if it were the smoking gun they'd been waiting for.

The Romney campaign's "non sequitur," comparing apples to oranges, reflects just how pathetic it is, how desperate it is to smear Obama as a way to deflect from its own candidate's massive weakness.

And suggsting that "the notes and transcripts of all his meetings with world leaders" is fair game for public consumption isn't just ridiculous but reflective of a dangerously ignorant understanding of how the world works and of how diplomacy must be conducted. Simply put, the president, like any world leader, must be able to have private conversations, out of the public eye, with his fellow leaders. If it were all to be made public, no world leader would say anything of substance to the president, and the president would have to make every statement with an eye to how it would play, unfiltered, in the public arena. In other words, it would severely handcuff America's ability to communicate with, and make deals with, other countries. What the Romney campaign is suggesting, simply, is that the U.S. should willingly weaken itself on the international stage. If anyone is willing to sell out America, then, it's Romney. He would effectively disempower his own country.

It's unlikely, of course, that Romney and his people actually think this should be done. In addition to smearing Obama with the "selling out" charge, they're just using it for immediate political purposes as a self-defensive way to deflect attention away from Romney's tax returns, which should certainly be released for public consumption.

But the Romney campaign's ridiculous response can nonetheless be seen as an indication of how it intends to wage its battle with Obama -- that is, by lying and smearing and doing everying possible to keep the real Mitt Romney, whatever there is left now that he's a soul-less political automaton, from public view. That's really his only hope.

Nikki Haley to be indicted for tax fraud? (update)

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Updating my post from earlier today, it looks as if South Carolina Gov. (and right-wing star) Nikki Haley is not going to be indicted for tax fraud:

South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley's office Friday provided IRS documentation that she is not facing investigation for tax fraud, calling accusations that she was "totally contrived."

Haley denied the rumors of a looming tax indictment on Thursday. The rumors were based on an anonymously sourced blog post alleging that the Internal Revenue Service was investigating possible tax fraud at a Sikh center where the governor's parents are top officials. The Palmetto Public Record claimed Haley managed the temple's finances as recently as 2003 and implicated her in a failure by the temple to pay contractors. The governor denied keeping the books for the church.

Well, as I wrote, innocent until proven guilty, and the rumor only came from this one relatively unknown blog, at least outside of South Carolina, the Palmetto Public Record.

Unsurprisingly, Haley has taken aim at "dirty blogger politics," a typically Palin-esque way of deflecting a crisis (or any bad news), and is also arguing (ridiculously, it seems to me) that such rumors are hurting the state's efforts to attract business investment, but actually, as The State reports, there were other reasons for speculation, and even if the IRS isn't investigating Haley personally, it is probing possible tax irregularities (to put it nicely) at her parents' Sikh temple. 

Again, there may be nothing to this. For all I know, the IRS will find, or has already found, that the temple did nothing wrong or that, even if it did, Haley didn't do anything wrong. But I do still wonder how all this will hurt Haley's national profile, if at all.

Would she have been on Romney's VP shortlist? Will she be, even now?

It's hard to see Romney going with an inexperienced young governor after the Palin debacle of '08, but she seems to be much more substantial than Palin and obviously is demographically desirable for the extremely white/male GOP.

It's certainly a possibility.

Mitt Romney's enthusiasm chasm

By Richard K. Barry

Sen. Marco Rubio endorsed Mitt Romney for president shortly before he strongly implied that he took no joy in the announcement. When you say in essence that you guess you'll endorse Romney, but you wish better candidates had run, that's not really an endorsement.

Here's what Rubio actually said at Townhall.com:

There are a lot of other people out there that some of us wish had run for president -- but they didn't. I think Mitt Romney would be a fine president, and he'd be way better than the guy who's there right now.

And then, in an interview on Fox News' Hannity show he had this to say:

I am going to endorse Mitt Romney. Not only is he going to be the Republican nominee, but he offers a stark contrast to this president's record.

Here's my translation: "Yep, Romney is going to be the Republican nominee and I'm a Republican so I guess I'll be supporting him."

Just to be serious for a moment, it is possible that the GOP will find a way to be enthusiastic about Romney. I know it's possible that some of the pundits are right when they say that once the thing becomes a one-on-one battle, everything changes. Voters who are moved by conservative political arguments, they say, will get behind Romney and get excited. I'm just not sure I agree.

I'm looking forward to the Republican convention. I think a lot of delegates will find it hard to give a damn about Mitt Romney no matter how much he professes to speak for their political values. Two points that stick out are that a lot of these people just don't believe the man, don't trust him and, even if they trust him, he is such a cold fish that they can't relate to him and don't really like him.

Sure, they'll nominiate him, but it won't be much of a send-off for their guy as he steps into the arena with the incumbent president, one of the more exciting political figures to come on the scene in a long time. 

Maybe, just maybe, Mitt Romney is a hell of a guy in real life, though I doubt it. He certainly doesn't come across that way as an actor on the national stage. And if there is one thing I know about politics, it's that people don't vote for candidates they don't like, at least not in sufficient numbers to elect them. 

Successful campaign slogans are usually in the category of "I like Ike," or "Nixon's the One." They are rarely things like, "I'm voting for Romney, what the hell."

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

Nikki Haley to be indicted for tax fraud?

By Michael J.W. Stickings

S.C. Gov Nikki Haley, with some unidentified attention-seeker

Well, so much for being a possibility for the Romney ticket in November. Looks like the South Carolina governor is going to be dealing with some legal troubles soon:

Two well-placed legal experts have independently told Palmetto Public Record they expect the U.S. Department of Justice to issue an indictment against South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley on charges of tax fraud as early as this week.

A highly ranked federal official has also privately confirmed rumblings of an investigation and possible indictment of the governor, though the official was not aware of the specific timeframe.

Yesterday, Palmetto Public Record exclusively reported that the Internal Revenue Service has been investigating since March of 2011 the Sikh worship center run by Gov. Haley’s father. At least five lawsuits have been filed against the Sikh Society of South Carolina since 2010, alleging that the group bilked contractors out of nearly $130,000 for the construction of a new temple.

Gov. Haley is reported to have managed the temple’s finances as late as 2003, and our sources believe any indictment would center on what happened to the missing money.

I know, I know, innnocent until proven guilty. But it wouldn't exactly help a privileged rich douchebag to have someone accused of tax fraud as his running mate, even if her conservative bona fides are in order and she endorsed him back when he really needed a boost.

(Besides, while she would bring certain demographic benefits to the ticket (female, non-white), she's not exactly crazy Christianist enough for Republicans, many of whom would recoil at the mere thought of a Mormon/ex-Sikh ticket, even if she is a Methodist now.)

For more, see Ed Kilgore at Political Animal.

(photo)

Behind the Ad: Santorum goes apocalyptic with "Obamaville" nightmare

By Michael J.W. Stickings

(Another installment in our "Behind the Ad" series.) 

Who: Santorum. All Santorum, but speaking on behalf of many, many Republicans in their hatred of President Obama.

Where: Online. In other words, everywhere.

What's going on: Just watch the ad. It explains itself.

You may have seen this on Jon Stewart last night, but it's also been making the rounds. And it's about as un-subtle as a Ron Jeremy film.

We do a series here at The Reaction called "Signs of the Apocalypse," though we haven't done a new entry in a long time. (This was the most recent, #75, from October 2010. I really need to get back to it.) It's more socio-cultural than political, focusing on various indications that the Apocalypse is on the way. (And, no, it's not religious.)

Well, according to Santorum, in this first of an apparently eight-part series (just like Harry Potter!), the Apocalypse will come if President Obama is re-elected -- and it's called "Obamaville," a dystopian future meant to scare the shit out of conservatives, or at least to reinforce the conservative lie that Obama will turn America into something resembling Mordor, an earthly hell for "God"-fearin' Americans. And, note, for white Americans specifically, as Jon pointed out. Yes, this too features the racism that is at the core of the right's assault on Obama.

"Imagine a small American town two years from now, if Obama is re-elected..." Yes, 2014! If Obama is re-elected, it will take just two years for the nightmare to become a reality.

Oh wait... that's not quite enough to scare you? How about blending Obama and... Ahmadinejad. Yes! Perfect! And add to that the treat of nuclear armageddon. Even better! "And every day, the residents of this town must come to grips with the harsh reality that a rogue nation and sworn American enemy has become a nuclear threat."

Honestly, this may be the silliest, most ridiculous political ad I've ever seen. And yet it captures the fear, ignorance, bigotry, and outright insanity that have been driving the right's own apocalyptic opposition to Obama -- and that are driving conservative politics generally.

As Rude Pundit put it yesterday, so very well:

One of the things it has always been easy to admire (yes, admire) about Santorum is that the motherfucker may be crazy as a shit fight in a monkey house, but he believes what he's saying. He's all-in. If you're gonna base your candidacy on your belief that Satan wins if you don't, own that shit. And nothing says nutzoid like Santorum's latest video from his campaign, not a Super PAC, wherein he imagines the color-drained hellscape that America will become if Barack Obama wins a second term. Because apparently you can put anything after the President's last name, it's called, "Obamaville."

That's right. Obama will force your children off playgrounds and take away one of their shoes. Hot women with whore-red lips will tell you to be quiet. You and your spouse will have nothing to chop on the butcher block but a bowl of grapefruit. Grapefruit, goddamnit. Little girls will dress in rags and sit in wooden rooms. Doctors will have long lines, says the narrator, but somehow hospital beds will remain empty. And all of a sudden gasoline will have the ability to pierce your skull. Old people will sit or stand quietly, knowingly. TV will mix up Mahmoud Ahmadenijad with the President in showing us our "enemies."

It's all supposed to be a bit Twilight Zone-y. Check out the ending. It's the sort of thing that would be understandable, perhaps, as satire, as something you might see on Colbert to show just how fucking insane Republicans really are. The thing is, Santorum means it. And you know conservatives are just lapping it up.

Enjoy!

Another kind of Romneying: "Accidentally being a little too open about how the political game is played."

By Michael J.W. Stickings

So you know how there's "Romneying," one of the key neologisms of the political season? Dave Weigel coined it, and it means: "Accidentally bragging about your place high up in the economic stratosphere." Romney does it all the time.

Well, there's another kind of Romneying. Jon Chait has written about it, without calling it Romneying, and, if I may add to what Chait wrote yesterday, it means: "Accidentally being a little too open about how the political game is played." Romney and his campaign do it a bit too much for their own good. A good recent example is the Etch A Sketch line, an embarrassing gaffe that exaggerated how the game is played while confirming that Romney is indeed a shameless, unprincipled panderer who is not to be trusted, particularly by conservatives.

I can't think of one at the moment, but we need another word for this second kind of Romneying. Any suggestions?

I'm also thinking that the word "accidentally" should be taken out of the two definitions. As I wrote a couple of weeks ago, after yet another Romney gaffe: "The thing is, if you keep doing it, it is really accidental? Or is it just who you are? Which is to say, a privileged rich douchebag. Which is to say, Mitt Romney."

Anyway, how was Romneying in the Chait sense? Well, in an interview with The Weekly Standard, he said this:

"One of the things I found in a short campaign against Ted Kennedy was that when I said, for instance, that I wanted to eliminate the Department of Education, that was used to suggest I don't care about education," Romney recalled. "So I think it's important for me to point out that I anticipate that there will be departments and agencies that will either be eliminated or combined with other agencies. So for instance, I anticipate that housing vouchers will be turned over to the states rather than be administered at the federal level, and so at this point I think of the programs to be eliminated or to be returned to the states, and we'll see what consolidation opportunities exist as a result of those program eliminations. So will there be some that get eliminated or combined? The answer is yes, but I'm not going to give you a list right now.

Short version, as Chait put it: "One of the things I have found in previous elections is that announcing my plans makes people want to vote against me!" Because, basically, voters overwhelmingly oppose spending cuts to most federal programs (and, of course, eliminating whole departments):

So the thing to do is advocate reduced spending in general but decline to furnish details until after the election. This is a tried-and-true conservative strategy, embraced by everyone from Ronald Reagan to Paul Ryan (who specifies severe cuts to programs for the very poor, but otherwise relies on unspecified cuts to omnibus categories, thus allowing Republicans to deny plans to cut any specific component of them).

Republicans using this tried-and-true strategy generally steer clear of coming out and saying they won't specify their cuts because of the election. That's the part you're not supposed to admit.

Has there ever been a major national politician -- here there ever been a presidential candidate for one of the two major parties -- who's been so embarrassingly and self-destructively gaffe-prone? 

I can't think of one, but one thing's for sure: Mitt Romney is all about the Romneying.

Paul Ryan a GOP VP choice?

By Richard K. Barry

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) told Fox News Sunday that, if approached, he would have to consider running for the vice presidency, though he was quick to add that he's given the matter little thought due to his interest in writing and selling the GOP's budget plans to Congress.

According to The Washington Post, some Republicans still think Ryan could bring a seriousness to the ticket that has yet to present itself in the "topsy-turvey and occasionally circus-like process."

Yeah, well, no doubt it's been a circus. But does Ryan's addition really settle things down for the GOP and give them the gravity they may seek? Or does it just add one more clown under the Big Top?

In the same Post article, it's noted that:

Democrats would likely use a Ryan candidacy to try to link the presidential ticket even more closely to Ryan Budget Plan to reshape Medicare and deeply cut federal spending.

Then again, as the Post continues, Democrats have said they would pursue that strategy even if Ryan is not selected to join the ticket.

My guess is that even though Democrats will make GOP attacks on medicare a centrepiece of their campaign, having a target as big as Ryan on the actual ticket is probably not going to be the smart choice. Given that Romney is likely to be their nominee, though, it's hard to see how being smart has really been a characteristic of their efforts to date.

As well, I'm not sure Ryan would want to stand with Romney. I guess I can't help thinking that Ryan is too much of a conservative boy scout, too much of a true believer to be able to stay ahead of Mitt's instant flip-flops. It seems obvious to me that Romney is so duplicitous, that his understanding of the truth so maleable, that he would need someone similarly dishonest on the ticket, someone similarly nimble with the truth (if I can put it that way).

Those kinds of people just aren't that easy to come by. As much as I disagree with Ryan on everything, I think he'd have a hard time being on a Romney ticket, as would anyone with a shred of personal integrity.

And since I can't see Romney choosing Gingrich, I don't know who else would fit the job description

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

Mitt Romney: The incredible erasable candidate

Guest post by Comrade Misfit

 

Ed. note: This is Comrade Misfit's third guest post at The Reaction. Her first looked back at when Romney was pro-choice, which wasn't all that long ago, while her second looked at Romney's incessant flip-flopping. For more of her writing, head over to her very fine blog, Just an Earth-Bound Misfit, I, which I highly recommend. -- MJWS 

 

********** 

 

Comrade Misfit is a lawyer and cat-owner in upstate New York. You can find her at her blog, Just an Earth-Bound Misfit, I. 

 

The Etch-a-Sketch Candidate: "I can be whatever you want me to be."

The Romney campaign, as much as they are trying to retract the comment, told the truth two days ago: Everything that Romney has said or promised during the primary campaign has been complete and utter bullshit. Romney will flip from being a "severe conservative" to Mister Middle-of-the-Road. He'll get up and deny that he meant anything he said during the primary campaign and that, in the Fall, we can really trust him now.

It's a lesson he learned at Bain Capital, when his job was to lie like a patent-medicine salesman to get the shareholders of a company to agree to being taken over. Romney and his boys at Bain would proclaim how they valued the company, what it did and they'd only make it better. But then, as we all know, they'd load up the company with debt and then loot the company, leaving people out of work, factories shuttered and towns devastated. All the while, the Bain boys laughed all the way to their vacation houses in the Hamptons and in Vail.

Republicans are being fools if they think they can believe or rely on anything that Romney says. I won't say that they are "being fooled," for there is abundant evidence that Romney believes nothing other than he should be in charge. 

I am Ann Romney

(Ed. note: We received such positive responses to our posts by the fourth Mrs. Limbaugh, Kathryn Rogers, which you can find here and here, that we thought we'd invite another woman married to a leading Republican to write for us. So here you go. Ann Romney -- in her own words. Take it away, Ann!)

Hi! It's me, Ann Romney! How are you all doing out there in bloggerland? I don't go on the computer much, I have to admit. Tagg showed me how to "log on," as he called it. I am so square. My family makes fun of me. 

So I decided to try this blogging thing after I heard about Kathy Limbaugh doing it. Can you believe all the problems her and her husband Rush have been having? Poor Rush. The message was clear enough, but my husband Mitt and I agree that Rush should have used a different choice of words. I asked Mitt if he would talk to Rush about it and he said he would. I think he called him a few times, but Rush hasn't returned his calls yet. Turns out, Rush is not an easy person to reach.

Anyway, it's great to be here talking directly to the American people. I am very thankful for the opportunity.

It is so exciting to be here and to be riding this wave of excitement and support that you all have shown for my husband Mitt. I have to tell you, these past eight years haven't been easy for us. I feel like we have been running for President forever. I remember when we started. At the time our third home had not even been renovated yet. It's funny. Somehow I can remember dates and events by which house we were renovating at the time. But you should see the house now. It is really something.

And I am proud to tell you we do not employee a single illegal alien! Our entire staff, in every one of our homes, including the maids, gardeners, drivers, even the people who tend to our horses, come signed sealed and delivered, 100% Grade A legal! In fact, just the other day I was speaking to one of our staff. I can't recall her name, but she told me how proud she was to be in America legally. I kindly told her "you're welcome." Isn't that great? The American Dream is alive and well in our homes and we are so proud to be a part of it!

My family is so proud to be able to employ so many hard working people. It is a testament to who we are as a family and who my husband is as a man and as a candidate. I tell you, sometimes with all the people around us doing all their daily activities, I don't even feel rich. Sometimes I feel like I am down there in the trenches with all of them. Sometimes I even help out. For example, the other night I was helping our chef open a wine bottle and we got to chatting about his family. His wife works two jobs! Isn't that such a uniquely American story? I told him I also have two jobs. I look after my husband, which let me tell you, is a full time job in and of itself, and I am also a mom to my five wonderful children. It is the hardest job you'll ever love, I always say. It really humbles me. And it is that experience that I will bring to the White House as your First Lady.

To give you another example about how normal we really are, I remember when Mitt worked in the private sector. He would come home concerned and depressed about all the layoffs that occurred as a result of some merger or takeover his company had to do that week. But my husband was and is resilient. By the next day he was singing to himself again, once more the usual chipper fellow I fell in love with. This is who he will be as your President. He is not distracted by pessimism. But he does have feelings and that is what I am trying to convey.

Too often Mitt gets a bad rap for being uncaring or cold. It is so false. But he takes it all in stride. At the end of the day Mitt understands that to make things better you have to have "creative destruction," as he calls it, and then turn that into something better. That is his plan for America.

As my daddy used to say, you can't enjoy mashed potatoes unless you first boil raw potatoes until they are soft, mushy and easily squashed. I never understood what he meant until my husband decided to run for Governor all those years ago. Now I understand it completely. America is that raw potato.

President Obama seems satisfied with America being a raw potato. But as Mitt always says, America needs to be transformed, turned into yummy mashed potatoes, as we often joke around the dinner table. As President, Mitt will ensure that America is turned into those mashed potatoes. To get there will take an entire nation working together to make it happen. I liken it to Mitt being the restaurant owner with all of you being the line cooks working hard in the kitchen.

Together we can turn America into a heaping bowl of mashed potatoes! Together we can make America yummy again!

Thank you all for reading. See you on the trail and God Bless America!

**********

Guest post by tmcbpatriot (not Ann Romney, but close) 

tmcbpatriot's informative and always entertaining blog, Take My Country Back, emanates from somewhere out in the Midwest. He writes passionately and as often as possible about a confused, mindless right wing hopelessly lost in the abyss of endless lies and misdirection. 

Ed. note: This is the patriot's fifth guest post for us. His first was on how it's about the vagina, stupid, his second was on gay marriage and the end of the GOP, and his third and fourth were the posts by "Kathryn Rogers." -- MJWS

Lee Atwater: Romney can't win in November 2012

By Nicholas Wilbur

Master political tactician Lee Atwater once said that "anyone who gets more than a 35-percent negative factor can't win an election."

In the 2012 Republican presidential contest, Mitt Romney is that person.

According to a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, 39 percent of adults in America view Romney very or somewhat negatively, compared to 28 percent who view the former Massachusetts governor very or somewhat positively.

"If his negatives are 35 percent and his positives aren't at least 5 percent higher," Atwater believed, "it's politically fatal."(1)

Far from a polling fluke, the NBC/WSJ survey has remained fairly consistent over the past six months. In fact, the only significant difference between this year's results and the same poll's findings in 2008 is that Romney is disliked more now, as the frontrunner and presumed nominee, than he was in '08 as a third-place finisher in the GOP primary.

In January, 2008, Romney earned a 28 percent positive review from poll respondents -- the exact same positivity rating recorded in this month's poll. His negative responses, however, have jumped 7 percentage points since 2008, from 32 percent to 39 percent.

The question is, will Atwater's axiom hold true? Is Romney's political fate doomed?

What the GOP primaries forecast

The only thing standing between Romney and the 2012 nomination is Rick Santorum. Unfortunately, the only thing that has kept Santorum from securing permanent frontrunner status is Romney's 28-to-1 fundraising advantage.

Santorum has survived Romney's attacks with an authentically grassroots-style campaign -- shaking hands with constituents, sitting down for hours-long chats with meager-sized crowds, and, in Iowa, driving a truck through each of the Hawkeye State's 99 counties.

Romney, in contrast, has done little more than throw money into (mostly negative) advertising.

For a man with a $50-million fundraising advantage over Santorum (per the Jan. 31 disclosure reports), Romney doesn't have much to show for it.

The single most important takeaway from Super Tuesday -- other than the obvious observation that Romney is still very much disliked -- it's that the "presumed nominee," a title now requiring quotation marks, has no Southern Strategy whatsoever. He has lost South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, and Oklahoma, and he's on track to lose Mississippi, Louisiana, Kansas, and Alabama -- all of which will be decided this month. (Florida, though technically in "the South," is neither ideologically or demographically "southern," and in the panhandle of Florida, the more conservative, "southern" part of the state, Romney lost 27 of 33 counties to Newt Gingrich.) In Texas, a February poll showed Santorum with a 29-point lead over Romney.

Romney managed to eke out an eight-tenths-of-one-percent victory over Santorum in the must-win Ohio primary on March 6, but considering the paper-thin margin, the four in ten Republicans who expressed reservations about their options, and the "weak field" of Republican candidates, David Frum called the win "deeply, deeply ominous."

Perhaps more ominous, Romney's primary victories have come mostly in states Obama carried with ease in 2008: New Hampshire, where Obama won by 10 percent; Massachusetts (26 percent); Vermont (37 percent); Maine (17 percent); Washington state (17 percent); Nevada (12 percent); and Michigan (16 percent). Obama also won Virginia, by 6 percent; Ohio, by 5 percent; and Florida, by 3 percent.

In other words: Arizona, Idaho and Alaska are the only states Romney has won that Obama lost in '08. Combined, the three states will provide Romney with a whopping 18 electoral college votes out of the 270 needed to win the presidency.

(Though difficult to fathom, it's possible that Arizona, which Obama lost by an 8-percent margin in 2008, could turn blue this November. Republicans have isolated Hispanics with their vehement opposition to the DREAM Act and their state government's discriminatory SB 1070 immigration law. According to the 2010 census, 30 percent of Arizonans are Hispanic. A February 22 poll showed Obama and Romney tied at 47 percent in The Grand Canyon State.)

This race should be over

The upward political mobility of a presumed nominee should be visible 22 races into a primary.

Sen. John McCain hadn't officially secured the Republican presidential nomination after winning Florida on January 29, 2008, but his poll numbers shot through the roof, jumping 16.5 percent after a narrow but powerful 5-percent victory over Mitt Romney in The Sunshine State. A week later he led Mike Huckabee by 25 percentage points.

Two days after the Feb. 5 Super Tuesday races, when Romney won seven states to McCain's nine, Romney dropped out. By the time Mike Huckabee followed suit a month later, McCain was polling at 57 percent nationally.

In 2000, George W. Bush was polling in the mid-60s at the end of January. In February of 1995, when the politically insipid Bob Dole fought for the nomination with the equally bland vice president, Dan Quayle, Dole hovered between 38 and 46 percent from February to April before breaking out for good. "And although Gallup's Republican test elections expanded to contain up to nine candidates, Dole faced no significant competition throughout 1995."

In January 1987, H.W. Bush was in the low 30-percent range, but he too held a 20-percent margin over his primary rival (Dole) "and maintained a roughly 2-to-1 lead over Dole the rest of the year."

Comparatively, it has been a year since Romney announced his presidential exploratory committee, and he has thus far failed either to reach the 40 percentage mark or to open up a poll margin greater than 10 percent. (On the few occasions he has topped 10 percent, the lead hasn't been sustained for longer than a week.) He's trailed Rick Perry, by 12 percent in September; Herman Cain, by 2 percent in November; Newt Gingrich, by 12 percent in December; and most recently Santorum, who has led by as much as 6.6 percent, according to the RealClearPolitics average of all national polls.

NBC's Chuck Todd et al. wrote recently that: 

Romney's image right now is worse than almost all other recent candidates who went on to win their party's presidential nomination: Obama was 51%/28% and McCain was 47%/27%, per the March 2008 NBC/WSJ poll; Kerry was 42%/30% at this point in '04; George W. Bush was 43%/32% in 2000; and Bob Dole was 35%/39%. The one exception: Bill Clinton (2), in April 1992, was 32%/43%. That means that if Romney becomes the GOP nominee, he has a LONG WAY to go to rehabilitate his image.

As columnist George Will observed of Romney and Santorum, "[n]either has demonstrated, or seems likely to develop, an aptitude for energizing a national coalition that translates into 270 electoral votes."

And as a recent CNN analysis predicted, Super Tuesday won't change that.

Romney is quick to attack Santorum for not having a national campaign apparatus in place -- or even a national campaign headquarters. He's an evangelical extremist who offends all but the hardcore religious right. His strengths in the primaries would be his demise in the general election. But a primary opponent's shortcomings don't make Romney a general election contender.

Santorum will still be "nipping at Romney's heels" long after Super Tuesday, and even if Romney manages to win enough delegates to secure the nomination (or if he doesn't but Santorum concedes at the Republican convention this August), Obama will be waiting, with a full war chest and a strong favorability rating among both Democrats and independents.

How is Romney going to compete in the general election if he can't separate himself from the pack, can't rally the South, and can only win primary victories in liberal states that are guaranteed to vote Democratic in November? He has higher negatives than any electable presidential nominee in decades, and even his fundraising is drying up. (He already has tapped 40 percent of his campaign donors for the maximum amount they're allowed to contribute.)

How is that guy going to beat a growingly popular incumbent whose re-election campaign is both financially well-oiled and strategically unrivaled?

The answer is, he can't.

Atwater knew the outcome of this election 20 years ago.

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1 - Bad Boy: The Life and Politics of Lee Atwater, by John Brady, 1997.

2 - Bill Clinton was running against two conservatives in 1992, the GOP establishment candidate George H.W. Bush and the anti-establishment populist Ross Perot. Clinton won the presidency without winning a majority of the vote.

(Cross-posted at Muddy Politics.)

Erick Erickson gets it right about Romney

By Richard K. Barry

Sometimes in politics the despair of the other side is so palpable that you almost feel sorry for them. Almost. Such is the case with Erick Erickson, noted conservative pundit, who runs the website RedState, as he commented on Mitt Romney's candidacy after the Michigan primary.

Go on Erick, share your pain. We're here to help.

When you have a candidate few people really like, whose support is a mile wide and an inch deep, whose raison d'etre (a 4am fancy word) is fixing an economy that is fixing itself without him, and who only wins his actual, factual home state by three percentage points against a guy no one took seriously only two months ago, there really is little reason for independent voters in the general election to choose him if the economy keeps improving.

Seriously, putting it bluntly, conservatives may not like Barack Obama, but most other people do. And when faced with a guy you like and a guy you don't like who says he can fix an economy that no longer needs fixing, you're going to go with the guy you like.

If Republicans in Washington are not panicked and trying desperately to pull Bobby Jindal in the race tomorrow, or someone like him, the party leaders must have a death wish. Mitt Romney continues to run an uninspiring campaign only able to win by massively outspending his opponents to tell voters how much worse the other guys are. That may work in the primary, but it will not work in a general election where the President of the United States won't be outspent 5 to 1.

Well, that was fun.

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

It’s the economy... er... I mean vagina, stupid!

Guest post by tmcbpatriot

Ed. note: I'd like to welcome a new guest blogger to The Reaction, the patriot who writes the blog Take My Country Back, which I discovered a while back while doing the round-up at Crooks and Liars and of which I've since become a big fan. Given the high quality of his blogging, which focuses on one of our most beloved topics (i.e., Republican craziness), I expect he'll become a regular contributor here. Stay tuned for more from him, but also make sure to check out his excellent blog.

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tmcbpatriot's informative and always entertaining blog, Take My Country Back, emanates from somewhere out in the Midwest. He writes passionately and as often as possible about a confused, mindless right wing hopelessly lost in the abyss of endless lies and misdirection.

Sexytime!

"General Motors Posts Largest Annual Profit Ever, Despite Lackluster Fourth Quarter" — "Weekly Jobless Claims Fall To Four-Year Low" — "U.S. Stocks Rise on Improving Economic Data"

No, these are not the thought bubbles from the mind of a future Republican president. These are headlines from today's news! These are Obama administration headlines and they have made Republicans stand up, take notice, and naturally move the conversation to something other than the economy.

Republicans have been screaming about the economy ever since the day after it was handed over to Obama. Since that day we have heard how Obama is destroying the American way of life, how he is a socialist, how his administration is waging class warfare on the rich in order to bring Communism to our shores, and on and on.

It is the same tired lines we always hear when a Democrat is president. And as always, when the economy improves, even slightly, Republicans have a problem. Sure, we are still a long way off from anything resembling lasting recovery, but nevertheless and regardless of Republican obstructionism on everything Obama has tried to do these past four years, the economy does seem to be improving. And that is something Republicans just had not counted on.

So what do obstructionist Republicans, who have tried everything to stop Obama, do when the policies put in place by said president actually seem to be helping to improve the economy? Well, you do what Republicans always do in times like this. They bring out the vaginas! Yes, I said it.

You see, Republicans have three go-to subjects no matter what the situation when they are trying to gain power — the economy, war, and sex. Their economic argument, of course, is weak. It always is. And with the outcomes of Iraq and Afghanistan, their best bet now, and forever always, is to talk about sex... and boy are they talking about it!

All we have heard about recently has involved women's issues.

Contraception, birth control, abortion, insane definitions of "personhood," you name it. Since Republicans were swept back into Congress in 2010, the narrative has been heavily vaginal.

Republicans don't care about jobs. They know that for them talking about jobs and the economy after winning elections is a losing battle. Sure, they promised jobs in 2010, but sex brings in more donations and riles up their evangelical base far more than boring low-paying jobs.

Sex is so popular in fact that the Republicans' moral policeman, Rick Santorum, is now leading against Mr. Capitalist 1% Mitt Romney in the polls. Sex trumps money every time. It never fails.

Question now is, do Republicans really think they can win in November using just their vagina monologues? Will pretending that the entire country is as religious as their base get them to a win in November? How will it play in Peoria when come election day voters are heading back to work, able to keep their homes, and essentially becoming more able to make ends meet than they were before? Even if just a little? Will the vagina still be able to distract us then?

Don't count on it. But until then, expect a lot more sex and a lot less substance coming from the right. Come to think of it, when has it ever been any different?

Ron Paul says it's "a losing position" for Republicans to focus on social issues

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Ron Paul is wrong about most things, mostly because his extremist right-wing libertarianism is wrong about most things, but he's also right some of the time, specifically in defending civil liberties, criticizing American militarism, and exposing the inanity (and insanity) of so much of his party.

Yesterday, in an interview with CNN's Candy Crowley, we got to see it all (with the exception of the bigotry): the extremist states' rights (and anti-government) views but also a critique of the Republican obsession with wedge social issues like abortion and, recently, birth control. He's wrong to call Santorum's record liberal, but he's certainly right that the Republican focus on social issues is "a losing position."

So go ahead, Rick, wage your silly culture war. Make ridiculous attacks on the president. Whether it's you or Romney (who has to run hard to the right because you're such a threat to him), or someone else (who would have to appease the dominant social conservatism of your party), voters will reject this sort of crazy militancy at the polls in November.

Occasionally, Ron Paul knows what he's talking about.