Category: Florida

‘Remain Calm! All Is Well!’

Posted on Comments

“All the insanity inspired by the intense struggle in Iowa will be over in two weeks, and nothing would be crazier than to predict that Santorum — who has lingered near the back of the Republican pack all year — will emerge with an upset victory Jan. 3.”
— Robert Stacy McCain, “Hawkeye Fever,” Dec. 21

Jennifer Rubin embarrassed herself with her desperate “open letter” plea to Republican leaders to join her “Stop Newt” movement, but I didn’t have time to react to that lunacy Sunday, because I was too pissed off about Erick Erickson’s equally bizarre assertion that a vote for Santorum is actually a vote for Romney.

How long  before Ann Coulter flips out and shows up on Fox News declaring that a vote for Newt Gingrich is actually a vote for Ron Paul?

This GOP primary campaign has been plagued by savage weirdness for months, ever since those vicious bastards in Florida decided to ruin Christmas by moving up their primary. This was probably part of the apocalyptic prophecy that the world would end in 2012, foretold by the ancient Mayan calendar.

Alas, the ancient Mayans could not be reached for comment.

Everybody’s gone wacko this year except me, but that’s only because I’ve been certifiably insane since 1979. At any rate, I got enough sleep Monday to recover from the semi-psychotic caffeine-induced frenzy that seized me during the latter stages of my South Carolina trip. Between provocations like “Occupy” freaks glitter-bombing Rick Santorum — which happened again Monday in Florida — and the financial straits that threatened to leave my son and I stranded at a McDonald’s in Rock Hill, S.C., it was a struggle to maintain any slight semblance of sanity, much less write my special Sunday column for the American Spectator.

Writing anything except incoherent gibberish under such challenging conditions would be impossible for a normal person, but when the going get weird, the weird turn pro.

These “Blogger on the Edge of a Schizo Breakdown” episodes are more or less routine now, and there is probably no need to worry that I’ll go berserk in Florida.

‘OCCUPY’ PROTESTER INJURED IN BRUTAL ATTACK;
JOURNALIST ARRESTED AFTER ORLANDO ASSAULT

That’s unlikely to happen, but if you’re feeling the urge to contribute to the Shoe Leather Fund in case I need to get bailed out — hey, don’t fight the feeling. All of which is a preamble to my two main points:

  1. Thanks to all the tip jar hitters who came to the rescue Sunday, ensuring that I not only got home from the South Carolina trip, but also have enough to get to Jacksonville for Thursday’s CNN debate; and
  2. Can we all just chill the hell out for a while?

For the past month, not a day has gone by without someone on TV, talk radio or the blogosphere issuing an Emergency Declaration of Impending Doom unless their favorite candidate wins the GOP nomination (or their least-favorite candidate loses). I’m about at the point where I’m ready to start blogging all day about Kate Upton bikini pictures or something — anything — except this depressingly vitriolic presidential campaign.

And you know who understand the importance of a calm and steadfast temperament in times of crisis? Yeah, I think you do.

SANTORUM RISES ABOVE THE BICKERING

“America Was Worth It To Do It The Right Way.”
Tampa, FL – At this evening’s NBC/National Journal/Tampa Bay Times Republican Presidential Debate, again Rick Santorum stood alone as the one candidate ready and able to stand firm, stand tall, and effectively implement conservative principles as our next commander-in-chief.
Hogan Gidley, National Communications Director, said: “While some on stage bickered back and forth about issues that won’t put one person back to work, Rick Santorum stood as the statesman ready to lead our nation on day-one.” . . .

You may want to read the rest of that Santorum campaign press release, which is probably better for your mental health than reading anything written lately by Jennifer Rubin or Erick Erickson. But you know who has written something truly insightful about all this?

Yeah, I think you do:

Florida is not South Carolina, and neither is it Iowa or New Hampshire, and the pundits rushing to early judgment about the likely result of next Tuesday’s primary in the Sunshine State should take a deep breath and calm down. Such was the advice offered by Florida GOP activist Sarah Rumpf yesterday, and I feel obligated to share her advice with people whose knowledge of Florida politics is less direct and extensive than hers.
“These people in New York and D.C. are looking at it from 30,000 feet up in the air and you can’t do that,” Rumpf said. Currently involved in Republican Adam Hasner’s Senate campaign and not allied with any of the remaining GOP presidential contenders, Rumpf was an early supporter of Marco Rubio’s successful challenge of former Gov. Charlie Crist in the 2010 Senate primary, a crucial battle for the Tea Party movement.
Rumpf called me Monday to warn against underestimating the strength of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney’s campaign organization in Florida. Romney endorsed Rubio in 2010 and campaigned with him, garnering respect from Tea Party activists and also from the Cuban-American community that is an important GOP constituency in South Florida. Furthermore, Rumpf said, Romney has a large staff of experienced Florida operatives who have been working in the state for months, and have been especially active in pushing Romney’s supporters to submit early absentee votes, a process that began over the weekend. Most of all, Romney has a vast funding advantage which allows him to advertise heavily in Florida’s expensive TV marketplace. Monday, the Romney campaign rolled out a new ad attacking former House Speaker Gingrich: “While Florida families struggled during the housing crisis, Newt Gingrich cashed in while working for Freddie Mac.” . . .

That’s from my American Spectator column today, and I hope you’ll read the whole thing. Otherwise, you might go completely nuts like that Vegas guy who just threw another $5 million at Newt Gingrich’s campaign.

My guess is he did it for the pure fun of watching Jennifer Rubin have another conniption. You probably don’t have $5 million to fling around for fun like that, but if you wanted to hit my tip jar for $20, I’ll see what new kind of craziness I can come up with.






TAMPA, FLORIDA NBC DEBATE

Posted on Comments

by Smitty

Thoughts:

  • These debates are great. The GOP is going to the gym, and going to be very muscular, assuming it doesn’t have a heart attack and die from it all. The Dems for all their bluster, have got to understand that they are losing the mindshare.
  • The various pleadings to Florida were interesting. I won’t even embarrass myself by hazarding a guess as to the winner, except to say that it probably won’t be Ron Paul.
  • Rick Santorum continues to improve. Whether that improvement will have enough impact to keep his campaign afloat is the harder question.
  • I didn’t find Romney’s lobbying attack on Newt terribly compelling. In fact, it raised more concerns about Romney’s ability to trade verbal barbs with Obama than it raised doubts about Newt. Newt may not have lobbied, by some technical definition, but anyone who doubts that Newt schmoozed to the fullest capacity of English- and body-language is a knob. “Methinks the laddie doth protest too much,” to tweak Lady MacBeth. The question for everyone to consider is whether BHO would make more adroit use of the lobbying card against Newt in the general. I am confident BHO would be more rutheless than Mitt. Mitt should see Dan Riehl for lessons in verbal deconstruction of an opponent.
  • I must now get some beauty sleep.

22:41 EST Mitt: If elected, I will institute the Seven Habits of Highly Effective Countries Not Named Greece.
22:40 EST Williams: Has America seen better days?
22:39 EST Newt: Yeah, we’re toast. I don’t want people for me, I want people with me.
22:38 EST Mitt: I have an inflatable record that is sufficiently buoyant to float the albatross and the galoshes.
22:37 EST Williams: RomneyCare; albatross, or cement galoshes for you?
22:36 EST Paul: Yeah, if want liberty and small government, you need to gaff these RINOs on the stage with me right off.
22:36 EST Williams: Paul, can you wreck the other three gentlemen for me?
22:34 EST Rick: RomneyCare and Newt’s individual mandate support. I am the clear conservative. OK, I can’t out-conservative Ron Paul.
22:33 EST Newt: I have been a really big, nearly Christie-sized, historical figure for the last 40 years. Master debater? Yeah, that’s me.
22:32 EST Mitt: I did what capitalists do.
22:31 EST Williams: They say Republicans are zombies. Does that mean the GOP has no soul? How do you nurture a soul in an undead organization?

So far:
Rick Santorum is having his strongest outing yet.
Mitt and Newt have had a jolly plowing contest; unclear whose ox was more gored.
Ron Paul’s Cuba ideas neglect a lot of the rogue state interactions that plague global stability.

22:25 EST Newt: Well, they helped us not crater so bad. But Dodd-Frank is killing us.
22:25 EST NBC: If tax cuts are the magic jobs pixie dust, why didn’t the Bush tax cuts work?
22:24 EST Newt: We should offer prizes. Permanent Moon bases, Mars, space stations. Do it.
22:23 EST NBC: Will you commit to putting a man on Mars?
22:22 EST Mitt: Why, yes: NASA, and also private sector. I will bring $ to the space coast, if you bring me votes.
22:22 EST NBC: Should we have a space program?
22:21 EST Paul: This underscored the issue of having living wills.
22:21 EST NBC: We’re not doing well painting Rick and Newt as fools. Can we lure you in with Schiavo?
22:21 EST Newt: Look at the efforts spent on death row inmates.
22:20 EST NBC: Can we throw you under the Schiavo bus?
22:19 EST Rick: I stand by my actions and would do it all again.
22:18 EST NBC: Hey, can we throw Terry Schiavo at you?
22:12 EST Mitt: I hate subsidies, and I hate what BHO has done to the economy.
22:11 EST Newt: Even Herman Cain can’t beat beet and cane sugar, and don’t attack my Chris Christie figure.
21:10 EST Adam Smith: The wealth of nations is diminished by subsidies. Newt, are you sub-sized?
22:09 EST Rick: We should quit rewarding illegal aliens for breaking the immigration laws.
22:07 EST Newt: They can serve in the military, but I don’t support the Dream Act otherwise.
22:07 EST NBC: Do you like Dream Theater?
22:06 EST Paul: That 10th Amendment should let a state have a bi-lingual ballot if Florida chooses.
22:05 EST Mitt: You FRICKIN’ Commie! We Do Not Support You Fragmenting This Country! [No, he doesn’t say anything that forceful: I’m kidding.]
22:04 EST Newt: English is a unifier. There are hundreds of languages.
22:04 EST NBC: You all want English as the official language, yet you’re courting Hispanics in Spanish. Hypocrisy?
22:03 EST Rick: Oil and energy will give you an economy. You might like it.
22:01 EST NBC: If we have offshore drilling, there will be a spill and Florida will die, die, die.
22:00 EST Rick: Iran is a pack of thugs. Tehran having a nuke would be tantamount to al-Qaeda having a bomb.
21:59 EST Williams: Iranian nukes. Why the h8?

break
Dear Representative Paul,
The United States is not blockading Iran. The United Nations (generally useless though it be) has issued sanctions against Iran. You can argue that the U.S. calls the U.N. tune to a large degree, but at least argue the case accurately.
Also, the Golden Rule is an inter-personal statement, not a political science statement. Peace through both superior firepower and the merest hint of a twitchy trigger finger is the empirically proven approach.
Thanks,
Smitty

21:53 EST Paul: We’re already blockading Iran. How would we respond to a blockade of the Gulf of Mexico?
21:52 EST Mitt: BHO is screwing up in Afghanistan.
21:51 EST Newt: President Milquetoast cancelled the Israeli bilateral operation. Apparently too busy at the YMCA to make the right decision.
21:50 EST Mitt: I will muster the Village People to sing “In the Navy” until Ahmadinejad sues for peace and quiet.
21:49 EST Williams: Straights of Hormuz. Is the term ‘Straight’ vaguely homophobic? If the Iranians force straights into the closet, is that an act of war?
21:47 EST Rick: The sanctions should continue until the Castros are both room temperature, and then we should make the Cubans an offer they can’t refuse to enjoy normal relations with us. And, Paul, the global thug club is working with Cuba against us.
21:46 EST Paul: I don’t like isolationism. I think the sanctions propped up Castro. And no, I don’t think we need to overthrow the Cuban government.
21:45 EST Newt: I would forget the Arab Spring and bring the sting of a Cuban Spring.
21:45 EST Mitt: I don’t smoke.
21:44 EST Williams: 3 A.M. call. Castro done. Can you smoke a couple hundred cubans for sheer joy?
21:43 EST Mitt: They were poorly regulated.
21:42 EST Williams: Were markets over-regulated?
21:42 EST Newt: Repeal Dodd-Frank, and the housing market will get better overnight.
21:41 EST Mitt: What Paul said.
21:39 EST Paul: Washington has really screwed it up. The Community Reinvestment Act screwed it up. The bubble was as obvious as corruption on Congress. Liquidate the debt. Plus another 1,000 words.
21:37 EST Santorum: Yeah, we tried to work on it back on ’06, but Reid, Biden, and Obama filibustered the legislation.
21:36 EST Williams: 40% of FL homeowners are underwater. Did the government tube it?

break
Dear Governor Romney:
You have got to publish some specific details of precisely where you think Newt lobbied/peddled influence/behaved unethically. Such a case may exist, but the handwaving isn’t convincing.
In fact, it makes you look like Marianne Gingrich.
This is not meant to sound like a Newt apologist. The concern about the October surprise is real.
Also real: specific facts.
Cheers,
Smitty

21:32 EST Mitt: You got paid, and you walked around peddling influence.
21:32 EST Newt: I advocated good policy as a private citizen.
21:30 EST Mitt: Did so.
21:30 EST Newt: Did not.
21:30 EST Mitt: You lobbied.
21:29 EST Newt: Oh come on. You’ve run a business. You know where the loot goes to offices &c.
21:28 EST Mitt: You’ve admitted that your wallet was penetrated, however slightly, by far more money than anyone would pay an historian.
21:27 EST Newt: I’ve got the contract online, and there is no evidence of peddling influence?
21:26 EST Williams: Newt, why is your Freddie lobbying not lobbying?
21:24 EST Rick: I have not attacked Mitt on the Bain damage. I’d like to ask Mitt and Newt why they supported the Wall Street bailouts, if you’re such heap big capitalists. GOOD POINT!!!
21:23 EST Mitt: I expect that on from the front, from the Left, not in the back from the Right.
21:22 EST Williams: I must stoke the fires of class warfare.
21:21 EST Newt: I can bury you on tax details.
21:19 EST Mitt: You think I’d admit to owning this kind of syphilitic camel? But the real issue is, of course, my tax plan. “I’m proud of the fact I pay a lot of taxes.” Patriotically, one presumes.
21:18 EST Williams: Mitt, will you admit that the taxes you’re to reveal tomorrow reflect ownership of the entire GOP?
21:17 EST Paul: Why do you want to take away my favorite knife?
21:16 EST Williams: Ron Paul, will you admit to intending a third party run?
21:14 EST Rick: “Once in a while we can finish in style,” sticking to conservative principles.
21:14 EST Williams: You got crushed when you ran for the Senate last time.
21:13 EST Rick: Why, yes: yes, I am. I’m here to be a consistent conservative, not wreck Republicans, and put the heat back on the opposition, #OccupyResoluteDesk.
21:12 EST Williams: Senator Santorum, are you still in the race?
21:11 EST Newt: How about some facts, Mitt?
21:08 EST Mitt: Yeah, Newt is that Doomsday Machine, all right. And so the GOP had to kick Newt out. That makes him a bad man.
21:07 EST Newt: I am, in fact, a Star Trek alien, not from Star Wars. And we’ll refute Mitt on the web tomorrow.
21:06 EST Mitt: I am Zog’s Sex Wax, and Newt is really Jabba the Hut.
21:05 EST Williams: Mitt, do you think Americans will elect a wax figure like you?
21:04 EST Newt: I know balanced budgets are controversial, but I kicked a lot of butt.
21:04 EST Williams: Have you had a road to Damascus moment, so people can have a shred of confidence in you?
21:03 EST Newt: Yeah, Reagan was down, too. But I’m here to put the hurt on DC. Big hurt.
21:02 EST Williams: Newt, Mitt says you are Jabba the Hut. Feedback?

The NBC Tampa debate starts off in half an hour. The house is swept; the World’s Youngest Blogger Bathed, and I am ready for some WWF-level GOP action. Probably erroneous predictions:

Newt Gingrich Stuns the crowd by not being overly self-congratulatory over South Carolina.
Mitt Romney Stuns the crowd by producing a hard copy of the famous tax returns for Brian Williams, who pronounces them boring.
Rick Santorum Stuns the crowd by confessing he was on the road with the Grateful Dead one summer during college.
Ron Paul Stuns the crowd by speaking slowly, in brief, coherent statements.

Beware of Early Florida Polls

Posted on Comments

HAGERSTOWN, Md.
The dateline is perhaps necessary to signify that, after eight days in South Carolina, I’m now back home and — thank you, tip jar hitters! — planning to make it to Jacksonville, Florida, for Thursday’s debate. Trying to assess the situation going forward, I want to caution against falling prey to the bandwagon mentality that headlines like this might engender:

Gingrich tops 40 percent
in Rasmussen Florida poll
— The Hill

Newt Surges to Lead in Fla.,
Romney Trails by 8 Points
— NewsMax

There are legitimate and specific reasons not to jump to conclusions about what’s going to happen on Jan. 31 based on what the polls say on Jan. 23. Remember that the Rasmussen poll of Jan. 16 showed Romney leading by 14 points in South Carolina, where he lost by 12 points on Jan. 21. If polls can swing by 26 points in five days, then any poll lead Gingrich has eight days ahead of the Florida vote could certainly evaporate just as quickly.

Another reason for caution: Just got off the phone with Sunshine State Sarah, who is wired into the Florida GOP scene and insists that pundits in D.C. and New York are naively underestimating the depth and strength of Romney’s organizaqtion in Florida. Sarah reminded me that Romney endorsed Marco Rubio against Charlie Crist and — echoing an observation that Michael Barone shared when we were in New Hampshire — Romney has the Cuban vote in South Florida wrapped up tight.

Gingrich has very little organizational strength in Florida. Newt’s campaign there didn’t even exist until three weeks ago. And Sarah says the Romney team has been pushing hard for early voters, hitting them with mail pieces and phone calls. The pundits who are looking at the Florida race “from 30,000 feet,” as Sarah says, are missing a lot of the ground-level factors that favor Romney there.

On the other hand, of course, there is the possibility that we are seeing one of those tsunami shifts, with Romney’s support collapsing as suddenly and decisively as did Perry’s frontrunner mojo in September. When that kind of negative momentum hits a campaign, stopping the slide can be difficult, and the whole thing could snowball.

Consider the outside possibility that Romney could finish third in Florida. It’s a winner-take-all state, so there is no reward for placing second. However, if Romney can’t halt his negative momentum — if the debates tonight (8 p.m. NBC) and Thursday on CNN go badly for Mitt — his slide could be enough to permit Santorum to challenge him for third place. And if Romney is third in Florida . .  . ouch.

That’s probably not going to happen, but ihis campaign has been nothing if not unpredictable so far, and it’s difficult to rule anything out. Sunshine State Sarah (she’s “Rumpfshaker” on Twitter) was pointing in the opposite direction: Romney’s organizational strength in Florida may prove an obstacle that no amount of “surging” by Gingrich can overcome it, no matter what the polls say eight days ahead of the primary.

Florida is a large and politically complex state, and trying to extrapolate the current trend as a predictor of the ultimate outcome is a risky proposition.

UPDATE: Evidence of my road weariness: I had previously omitted the word “not” from the sentence about “legitimate and specific reasons not to jump to conclusions.” Meanwhile, I woke up from a long nap today to find my phone ringing. It was Sarah calling, saying that the commenters were being wrathful about this grain-of-salt note of caution.

Key point: Sarah knows Florida GOP politics. She’s lived and breathed it for years. She was an early supporter of Marco Rubio’s campaign. So unless you’re a Floridian who wishes to match your own knowledge of the state against her, perhaps you should take a deep breath and consider the possibility that she knows what she’s talking about.

At the same time, the momentum factor working against Romney cannot be underestimated. He’s got to do better in debates, and he’s got to change the subject. Romney wasted time and money in South Carolina with TV ads attacking Rick Santorum, whom his advisers mistakenly targeted for more than a week, which abetted Gingrich’s rise. This time they won’t make that mistake.

Muslim Calls Republicans ‘Extremists’; Muslim Extremist Attacks U.S. Embassy

Posted on Comments

Those doggone extremists!

October 28th, Tampa Bay Online posts a column by Hassan Shibly, J.D., a Muslim activist and the executive director of CAIR-Tampa, calling Adam Hasner and Allen West extremists. A few hours after this column is posted a Muslim gunman, in Sarajevo, Bosnia opens fire on the American embassy. . . .
According to Reuters, “The gunman was wounded by a police sniper during the attack in Sarajevo’s busy downtown, in which a police officer was seriously wounded and shop workers scrambled for cover. Bosnian television identified the man, bearded and carrying a Kalashnikov assault rifle, as 23-year-old Mevlid Jasarevic, a Serbian citizen from the mainly Muslim town of Novi Pazar.”

CAIR says it is “extremist” to be concerned about Islamic extremism and yet, every day, jihadis around the world are plotting to kill Americans.

Aren’t you glad Saqib Ali and Khuram Zaman warned you about “an extremist right-wing blogger” speaking today in Annapolis, Maryland?
 

 

Cain Debuts Radio Ad, Picks Florida Team

Posted on Comments

Sunshine State Sarah picked up this news from the St. Petersburg Times:

Look for an announcement soon about some top-tier political talent joining Herman Cain’s Florida campaign team.
Statewide chairs: Former St. Petersburg Mayor (and Mitt Romney supporter) Rick Baker; former State Sen. (and expected Rick Perry supporter) Carey Baker; former Jeb Bush chief Kathleen Shanahan; state Rep. Scott Plakon, R-Longwood.
Tampa-based media consultant Adam Goodman is a senior strategist and media adviser and Arlene DiBenigno, a veteran of Jeb Bush, Charlie Crist, and Rick Scott campaigns, is another senior strategist.
Deborah Cox-Roush, former state GOP vice chairwoman and current Hillsborough County Republican chairwoman, is director of county chairs.

Sarah also has this audio of Cain’s new radio ad:

999MeansJobs.com

Nevada Sets Caucus Date for Feb. 4, Averting December Primary in N.H.

Posted on Comments

Florida set off a predictable chain reaction by jumping its primary to Jan. 31, and one consequence was the threat by New Hampshire Secretary of State Bill Gardner to move that state’s primary to as early as Dec. 6. The problem was that Iowa had moved its caucuses (originally scheduled Feb. 6) to Jan. 3, and Nevada initially announced its caucuses would move to Jan. 14. But New Hampshire state law requires their primary to be on a Tuesday at least seven days before any nominating event other than the Iowa caucuses, which made Jan. 10 unworkable.

The thermonuclear option was averted Saturday when Nevada voted to hold its caucuses Feb. 4. While Gardner has not yet officially announced the date for New Hampshire, it is likely that the schedule for the first five events will now be:

Iowa caucuses ………………… Tuesday, Jan. 3
New Hampshire primary …. Tuesday, Jan. 10
South Carolina primary …… Saturday, Jan. 21
Florida primary ……………… Tuesday, Jan. 31
Nevada caucuses ……………. Saturday, Feb. 4

This is not ideal — I’ll still have to leave for Iowa the day after Christmas — but it is better than if New Hampshire had jumped into December.

PREVIOUSLY:

Savage Weirdness at Final Boarding: Did Team Perry Put the Blame on Rubio?

Posted on Comments

The National Affairs Desk, in the smoking lounge at
Dulles International Airport, 1:10 p.m., Monday, Oct. 17, 2011

DULLES INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT
Less than hour until final boarding for my flight to LAX en route to Vegas, and no time to waste on trivia now. While I was checking in the one-way rental car ($164), I was on the phone with Sarah Rumpf, who told me a bizarre reverse-angle on the Rubio/Romney conspiracy theory. Pagan Temple had picked this out of Javier’s post earlier:

Convoluting matters further, one of Perry’s top campaign consultants was also Governor Charlie Crist’s consultant during the 2010 Senate race before Crist jumped ship and ran as an Independent, and that Perry’s Florida team was being led by Rich Heffley, Jim Rimes and Randy Enwright. Heffley was responsible for fabricating the infamous “truthaboutRubio” attack website against now Senator Rubio.

Get it? Sarah has a post about this that provides links to the dots – including Javier’s post from Friday – but leaves it to the reader to imagine how those dots might be connected. What am I getting at? Some of Rubio’s allies suspect that the Crist/LeMieux/Perry forces in Florida, eager to strike a blow against Romney, and also damage the hated Rubio, spread the rumor of a Romney/Rubio conspiracy to move up Florida’s primary to Jan. 31. By blaming it on Rubio’s chief of staff, Cesar Conda, they help LeMieux in next year’s Senate primary, because Rubio is also viewed as an ally of Adam Hasner.

Rubio has tried to stay officially neutral in both the presidential primary and the Florida Senate primary but – if this connect-the-dots theory is true – somebody in Team Perry managed to spread a damaging rumor in such a way that they must have known would reach me. Because I had solid sources telling me as first-hand knowledge that the Romney/Rubio conspiracy (with Conda as the middleman) was true. Were my sources duped? Or were they part of the Perry plot? Or is the original conspiracy theory true, and this new reverse-angle theory a defensive spin to protect Romney’s operation in Florida? The fact that Rich Heffley was one of the first Florida operatives hired by Team Perry suggests the possibility of dirty tricks, and by now the possibilities have multiplied so much I don’t know who or what to believe.

You see that we’re deep into savage weirdness at this point and, of course, when the going gets weird, the weird turn pro. But now I’ve got less than half an hour until they call final boarding, so I’ll have to leave all that for later, and finish with the Five Most Important Words in the English Language: Hit the freaking tip jar!
 





 

Fear and Loathing (and, Yes, Sweet Vengeance) On the Road to Feb. 1, 2012

Posted on Comments

 Today’s the day I fly off to Las Vegas to cover Tuesday’s crucial Republican presidential debate. It’s a long flight from Dulles to LAX, then a four-hour layover before I catch the plane to Vegas. I’ll be crashing in Barbara Espinosa‘s suite at the Sands, while Smitty and Wombat — both of them got their media credentials for the debate — will fly in Tuesday.

But while I’ll be in Vegas the next four days to cover the debate and the Western Republican Leadership Conference, it’s important to remember that this isn’t about Vegas. This is about getting my revenge on those [insert obscene epithets] in the Florida GOP leadership who screwed up the campaign schedule, ruined Christmas and wrecked my life by moving their primary to Jan. 31.

And we know why they did it, don’t we? Continue reading Fear and Loathing (and, Yes, Sweet Vengeance) On the Road to Feb. 1, 2012 →