The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

MICHIGAN GOP PRIMARY TODAY

Posted on | February 28, 2012 | 6 Comments

TROY, Michigan
It’s 7 a.m., which means the polls just opened in today’s Michigan Republican primary. Polls will be open until 8 p.m. The front-page banner headline story in today’s Detroit Free Press:

TODAY, MICHIGAN VOTE COUNTS
It’s a make-or-break day for Romney, Santorum

After two weeks in the headlights of the national hunt for a Republican presidential candidate, Michigan voters go to the polls today, and the outcome could help determine whether the grinding slog continues or Republicans finally start to rally around one candidate.
Polls are inconclusive, except to show the race is a toss-up.
Michigan native Mitt Romney, who won the state’s primary in 2008 against eventual nominee John McCain, has the strongest organization in 2012 and is reminding voters of his Michigan roots and credentials to fix the ailing economy.
But Rick Santorum has been riding a wave of support from his more conservative base — a bloc of voters that may be far more excited about getting out to vote.
A Santorum win would give him fresh momentum headed into Super Tuesday, March 6, when 10 states vote, and wound Romney — long considered the heir to the nomination.

That lead is kind of bland, but the story gets meatier on the jump page:

For months, it appeared Michigan would be, without doubt, Romney country: He was born in Detroit and raised in Oakland County, the son of a three-term governor and former auto executive.
But then — just as Romney’s Jan. 31 victory in Florida seemed to almost seal the nomination for him — Santorum, an also-ran in some of the earlier primaries, pulled off a three-state sweep in Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri on Feb. 7.

An apt summary, although it omits the Feb. 4 Nevada caucuses, a humiliating defeat for Newt Gingrich. Newt’s press-conference tantrum in Vegas that Saturday night signaled the implosion of his campaign and set the stage for Santorum’s surprising Feb. 7 trifecta.

Anyway, my custom on Election Day is to sleep late, as I expect to be up past midnight reporting the results. I’m writing this at 3 a.m. and scheduling it for 7 a.m., having just made a run to the convenience store to grab the local paper.

Category: Election 2012, Michigan

LIVE AT FIVE – 02.28.12

Posted on | February 28, 2012 | 5 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho


TOP NEWS
Romney Fights To Avoid Home-State Embarrassment

Mitt Romney in Michigan

An alliance of Tea Party activists, Democrats and social conservatives – enough to give Santorum the win?

Costa Cruises Liner Towed To Seychelles
No casualties this time as cruise ship suffers disabling engine fire: French fishing boat lends a hand

Russian Tank-Making City At Heart Of Putin Campaign
“Most people are worried about the prospect of more crises and they are sick of revolutions.”



POLITICS
Kerrey Dithers Over Changing His Mind On Senate Run

Former Senator Bob Kerrey

Have Nebraskans had enough of his Hamletesque shenanigans?

California Revenues Still Behind Despite Facebook Boost

Adelson Makes Substantial Donation To Gingrich SuperPAC

Two CHP Officers Injured After Occupods Turn South Africa Project Protest Into Riot

Wisconsin Governor Won’t Challenge Recall Signatures

Chafee Happy To Support Obama, Whitehouse



THE ECONOMY, STUPID
Gold Gains For First Time In Three Days
Oil Drops Slightly As Weak Demand Outweighs Iran Concerns
Euro, Stocks Firm Ahead Of ECB Funding
U.S. Stocks Close Flat As Energy Undercuts Home Sales Data
Warren Buffett On Succession And Why He Doesn’t Like Gold
Treasuries Snap Advance On Speculation Consumer Confidence Is Up
Proview Seeks To Regain Global Rights To iPad Name
Intel Partners With ZTE On Smartphone; Unveils SoC Plans
Yahoo Picks Patent Fight With Facebook
One Year Later, Nokia And Microsoft Deliver
Mozilla, Telefonica Promise Open Web Smartphone
Dell Unveils Enterprise Servers; Getting Out Of The PC Business?
Can Blackberry Fight Back?



SPORTS
Fire & Rain Make For Bizarre Daytona 500

Workers try to extinguish a burning jet dryer after it was hit by Juan Pablo Montoya

Kenseth wins his second Daytona, Earnhardt second
Patrick a Star Before First Race On Fox

Fighting Irish Beat Lady Huskies 72-59 For First Outright Big East Title

Devils’ Road Run Ends At Seven With Loss To Rangers

Canucks Trade For Grit, Shutdown Players

Jason Varitek To Retire Thursday

Anthony Rendon Wows Nats Coaches, Staff



FAMOUS FOR BEING FAMOUS
Uma Thurman Pregnant

Uma Thurman

Third baby coming for 41-year-old actress

Sean Young Arrested For Fight At Governors Ball

Anna Sophia Robb Cast As Young Carrie Bradshaw

Angelina Jolie’s Right Leg Takes Over The Internet

James Spader Won’t Return For More “Office”

Jonah Hill, James Franco Rejoin For Brad Pitt-Directed “True Story”

Lucy Liu To Play Watson In CBS’ “Elementary”


“Tipsy” Katy Perry Spends $50K On Cooking Lessons At Oscars Bash

Rihanna Supporting Chris Brown In Phone Theft Flap

Rapper Jim Jones Arrested Again



FOREIGNERS
Source: Israel Won’t Warn U.S. If Iran Strike Launched
The Russian Expats Who Oppose Vladimir Putin
Norks’ Kim Fires Up Rhetoric As U.S., ROK Begin Exercises
EU Hits Syria With More Sanctions But Little Else
Sixteen Killed In Pakistan Bus Ambush
London Occupods Evicted From St. Paul’s
All-India Strike Hits Banking, Transport Services
Garzon Acquitted By Supreme Court On Abuse Of Authority Charges; Still Suspended From Bench On Other Charges
Natural Gas Explosion In Astrakhan Kills 6, 14 Missing



BLOGS & STUFF
Gateway Pundit: Santorum Robocalls Urge Democrats To Turn Out, Vote Against Romney
Riehl World View: WaPo’s Little Train Wreck That Couldn’t
Hit & Run: More On The Paul/Romney Non-alliance
Powerline: Obama Backpedals On Keystone
Lonely Conservative: Administration Proposes Cuts To Military Healthcare, Leaves Civil Service Benefits Untouched
Washington Free Beacon: Trashing Tricare
Verum Serum: Media Matters Is Having A Very Bad Day
Patterico: It’s Now Or Never?
Pamela Geller: Hundreds Of Threats For Assault Victim Whose Case Was Dismissed By Quran-Minded Judge
NRO Media Blog: BBC Admits Covering Muslims Differently Because Of Violence
Ed Morrissey: Dem Rep Admits To Constituents “Basically, We’re Not Looking To The Constitution”
Sister Toldjah: And The Winner Is…Barack Obama For “The Con Artist”!

Category: Live at Five

Is #OccupyResoluteDesk Starting To, You Know, Sweat It?

Posted on | February 27, 2012 | 15 Comments

by Smitty

“‘Useless by myself.’”
“How about we go the other way with ‘Greater together.’”
–Obama slogan brainstorm

Kevin Jackson “10 Signs Obama Is Panicking”

Obama has feigned shifting right. When a bona fide socialist begins talk of shifting right, you know he’s panicked. Obama no more believes in the private sector solutions to the economy, than he believes Rosie O’Donnell would skip a meal. Yet he is suddenly offering to cut business taxes. Welcome to Panderville. Many of Obama’s panic moves will showcase the complete hypocrisy of what he campaigned on or truly believes, and how far he is willing to go to remain in power. The potential for more lies and flip-flops has already created sleepless nights for Obama.

Read the whole, provocative thing.

Nice Deb reports that “Obama Camp Sending Creepy, Intimidating Email To Former Donors Who Have Failed to Donate to 2012 Campaign”

Commenter, JagMom at Big Government said:
I received this email and, once you answer the 2 questions and click submit, you are asked to donate money – after stating “I’m not writing to ask you for money again” !!
I wonder what kind of responses they’re getting.
A. “I-I-I c-c-can’t afford it b-b-because I lost my job due to your crappy economy.”
B. “Will a $1.00 donation give me a chance to have one of Moochell’s 2000 calorie dinners?“
C. “Oh my Gosh, how did I ever miss your never-ending torrent of fund-raising emails? Thank you so much for the reminder, I’ll correct my oversight, immediately with a $1.00 donation! Will that be enough to make you cease and desist? “
D. ” Please quit spamming my inbox. Remove my name off of your email list, immediately.”

We have nine more exciting months to go before the election.

  • Solyndra
  • Fast & Furious
  • The Debt Ceiling
  • ObamaCare
  • Culture Wars
  • The Middle East
  • Stagflation (despite doctored unemployment & inflation numbers)

It is still well within the power of the GOP to scuttle the ship within sight of land. They’ll do this by cleaving far too close to the middle of the channel, failing to note the entitlement sandbar and the debt ballast that’s wiped out our freeboard.

Or, perhaps, they know darn good and well, and are just to Progressively feckless to bring us about. Our Ruling Class looks so impotent in general that a Marco Rubio or Alan West really stands out. They’d rather all be ‘hanged’ together than show courage separately.

Update: American Power, “Obamacare Hurts Obama in Battleground States“

In a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll of the nation’s dozen top battleground states, a clear majority of registered voters call the bill’s passage “a bad thing” and support its repeal if a Republican wins the White House in November. Two years after he signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act— and as the Supreme Court prepares to hear arguments about its constitutionality next month — the president has failed to convince most Americans that it was the right thing to do.

This suggests that #OccupyResoluteDesk’s defeat narrative will be one of martyrdom, decrying the stupidity of the American people for rejecting his proffered Utopia.

Category: Barack Obama

Rick Santorum in Lansing, Michigan, Calls Romney’s Attack Ad Campaign a ‘Joke’

Posted on | February 27, 2012 | 9 Comments

Rick Santorum speaks in Lansing, Monday, Feb. 27, 2012

LANSING, Michigan
Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum says it is a “joke” to be accused of liberalism by his rival, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.

Speaking the day before Michigan voters go to the polls for Tuesday’s crucial GOP primary, Santorum said he has been “leading, ahead of the curve on conservative issues.”

Michigan has “a chance to be the inflection point in this campaign,” Santorum told a crowd of about 200 supporters in the Royal Ballroom of the Lexington Hotel here.

Dismissing Romney’s attack ad campaign as a joke, Santorum said: “Michigan, you have an opportunity to stop the joke.”

In a 45-minute speech, Santorum talked about the economic plan he outlined today in a Wall Street Journal column, and slammed President Obama for the “astonishing” deficits his administration has amassed in the past three years. Obama has “blown the lid off” the national debt, the former Pennsylvania senator said.

Polls show a tight race between Santorum and Romney here in Michigan, where Romney hopes to avoid an embarrassing defeat in his home state, where his late father George Romney was a popular governor in the 1960s. One top adviser to the Santorum campaign told CNN that Santorum has “already won” a strategic victory in Michigan by forcing the Romney campaign to spend millions defending what was supposed to be a “safe” state for him.

After referring to Romney’s attacks as a joke, Santorum said some pundits have mocked him as too conservative to defeat Obama in November. “He who laughs last, laughs best,” Santorum said.

Update (Smitty): AFP sent this clip around for consumption, a Fox news summary of the AFP event and the state of Michigan going into tommorrow’s bunfight:

Category: Election 2012, Michigan, Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum

Santorum: The Fight and the Fighter

Posted on | February 27, 2012 | 11 Comments

TROY, Michigan
Last night, when I neared the Colonial Valley Suites in Davison, I immediately realized a huge crowd had turned out for Rick Santorum’s event at the Crystal Hall. Cars were parked alongside the road. Pulling over to park the rented Toyota by the roadside, I had to walk a few hundred yards to reach the place, and went in through a side door.

Inside, police on security duty looked at me dubiously, but I spotted a familiar face — one of Santorum’s Michigan campaign workers — and said, “Howdy.” He recognized me and said hello, indicating to the cops that I was OK, thus avoiding the whole show-me-your-credentials hassle involved in covering a presidential campaign once it gets heavy-duty.

Gosh, I miss Iowa. Back in the summer days leading up to the Ames Straw Poll, when the media were ignoring Rick Santorum’s campaign, it was possible to just show up and hang out with the candidate. Now a cordon of uniformed police and plainclothes guys with wires in their ears separates him from the pressing throng of humanity: Hundreds of supporters hoping to get an autograph and a handshake, while scores of media — photographers, TV camera crews, reporters — try to wedge their way through and get a picture or shout questions.

“Pack journalism” has never appealed to me. Lacking the herd instinct, I always want to go somewhere and find some angle to cover that everybody else is ignoring. So when the former underdog zooms up to become a contender, I’m uncomfortable with the feeling that I’m just another piranha in the media feeding frenzy.

It’s kind of demoralizing, in a way, despite knowing that I was way ahead of the pack, pushing the “Santorum Express” in early December, when the polls showed him in sixth place in Iowa, and the only causes for hope were an endorsement by Pastor Cary Gordon, unexpected praise from Sarah Palin and an ominous earthquake in Vanuatu. I remember our phone interview while Santorum was on a layover in the Fort Worth airport, having taken the cheapest avaiable flight from Iowa to D.C.

Recalling the unheralded underdog’s long fight against impossible odds, and knowing that almost none of the other reporters following Santorum around now were giving him any credence back then, I resent having to jostle elbow-to-elbow with these Johnny-come-lately media types, just to get in a question or shoot a photo. As I say, it feels rather demoralizing.

My bruised feelings, of course, fade to insignificance when I imagine what it must feel like to be Santorum, the hardest-working candidate in the 2012 race, still running uphill against Mister Inevitable, Mitt Romney. It’s got to be difficult to keep focused on the message, while the media keep trying to write you off — again! — and most of the coverage you get is a predictable repetition of a familiar meme: “Another Shocking Controversy!”

Maybe that’s why I relate to Santorum: He keeps getting unfairly dissed, but when he dares to mention this fact, the people who dissed him then turn around and accuse him of “whining.”

OK, so what to do about it? To quote Al Davis, “Just win, baby.” Bill Kristol thinks Santorum might be able to do it:

 I’m sure the intensity is with Santorum, and my guess is the momentum is with him as well.

While I hesitate to believe in miracles, we have to keep in mind that Rick’s got the Dominican Sisters of Mary on his side. If, despite all the media abuse he’s taken the past two weeks, Santorum manages to pull off an upset Tuesday here in Michigan, his critics will be enraged and humiliated — and so Santorum just keeps campaigning as hard as he can.

But Lord, it’s gotta be tough to keep going.

Sunday, while I was driving up I-75 on my way to the event in Davison, I switched on the local classic rock station and heard a Romney ad that compared Santorum to “liberal Carl Levin.” Imagine what it feels like to be Rick Santorum, a lifelong conservative, and to know that this is what your more moderate opponent is saying about you.

Santorum’s own ads, as well as his campaign mailings, are playing off Romney’s attacks while continuing to present a positive message:

“Rick Santorum: He’s fighting for us.” Will this work? It”s hard to tell, and polls are always a lagging indicator, but it’s got to be encouraging to Santorum when he gets a reception like the one that greeted him when he was introduced Sunday in Davison:

You’ll notice I panned the camera twice over the crowd, to try to give you a sense of the size of the attendance. Some reports had the crowd size at 300, but I estimated 400. Either way, they were fired up, and the candidate himself was pretty fired up, too. This is from my American Spectator column today:

The attacks are a ridiculous distortion of Santorum’s record. During his years in Congress, Santorum amassed an admirable record as a fiscal conservative and, as recently detailed by Jeffrey Anderson and Andy Wickersham in the Weekly Standard , had one of the highest ratings from the National Taxpayers Union. Addressing the accusations of liberalism from Romney on the stump, Santorum sometimes seems astonished that anyone would believe such charges – especially considering the source.
“In 1994, [Romney] ran to the left of Ted Kennedy, and if you have any doubt, go look at the last debate between the two them – it’s hard to tell them apart,” Santorum told the audience Sunday in Davison, contrasting Romney’s failed Senate bid with his own successful upset victory that year over Pennsylvania Democratic Sen. Harris Wofford.  “Now for someone to run, in a critical election year – 1994, the year of the revolution, the Contract With America – who says, ‘no I won’t be a Reagan Republican, not I don’t support the Contract With America, I’m not a conservative,’ to now go and run ads here in the state of Michigan, and say, ‘Oh, Rick Santorum, because he voted for this bill or that bill’ — out of the 4,000 votes that I cast in the United States Senate — ‘is not a conservative,’ just doesn’t hold water.“ . . .

Please read the whole thing.

Today I’m heading to Lansing to see Rick Santorum’s 3 p.m. rally there, then returning via Royal Oak to catch up with Mitt Romney’s campaign at a 6:45 event. Santorum’s primary night event Tuesday is in Lansing, and then on Wednesday I’ll be heading back to Ohio to begin my coverage of the campaign leading up to Super Tuesday, March 6.

Once again, I’ve fallen so far behind on my thank-you e-mails I know I’ll never catch up, but thanks to all the people who have contributed to the Shoe Leather Fund the past week to keep me on the road: Jeff in Walla Walla, Mike in El Segundo, Dianna in San Jose, Joseph in Cumming, Jill in Las Vegas, Will in Wimberley, Stephen in Plano, William in Dallas, Gregory in Everett, Brian in Maryland, Michael in North Carolina, Karen in Jamesville and Mike in New Hampshire.

It takes a couple of days for money from the tip jar to clear the bank, so your contribution today — $10,  $20, $50 — will provide money for me to travel Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Thanks in advance for your support.

 





 

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Category: Michigan, Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum

Celebrating A CoMittMent To Rolling American Exceptionalism

Posted on | February 27, 2012 | 18 Comments

by Smitty


In a way, I admire Mitt’s politically incorrect willingness to own cars and homes. It’s not really conspicuous consumption, but it’s far more forthright than, say, a stealth trip to Aspen.

On the one hand, I’m not too materialistic, and own a modest sedan. On the other, the notion of private property and the 10th Commandment mean I really don’t care much about what others own.

Props to Political Clown Parade for the ‘shop.

Category: Mitt Romney

Geisterfahrer

Posted on | February 26, 2012 | 8 Comments

by Smitty

Literally, ‘ghost driver‘, this is a German word for ‘motorist driving against the traffic on motorways’.

Preston at The Tatler makes a crucial point about maturity in our society, and how #OccupyResoluteDesk is not only failing, but actively retarding the overall maturation of society’s members:

A president that embraces the tantrums of the Occupy Movement proves that he reasons as a child. A president that uses the power of his office to steal on behalf of others proves that he was never taught the most basic lessons of how a civil society functions. If every member of society behaved this way our country would appear more like the post-apocalyptic world of the Mad Max movies.

President Obama is the Geisterfahrer, trashing the normal, correct flow of traffic, and taking all vehicular movement with him. If it was only he himself, I could be dispassionate. But he is the culmination of the immoral moocher drift of our society. And he’d take us all with him, given the opportunity.

Obama. Must. Go. Give me Zeeba, if no one else!

“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

Category: Barack Obama

Hillary Offers TMI On Internals

Posted on | February 26, 2012 | 7 Comments

by Smitty

Paraphrasing, Hillary was on record the other day saying to a Tunisian audience: “Pay the GOP no mind, they’re off their meds.”

Today, via The Blaze, she doubled down:

“Probably my enthusiasm for the president got a little out of hand,” Clinton said, adding that she only wants what’s best for the country.
Despite her post, Clinton said it’s sometimes hard to stop her political juices from flowing.
“I tried to dampen them down, get them taken out in a blood transfusion, but they occasionally rear their ugly heads,” she said.

We presume in a scene not unlike this one from back in her Oxford days with Billy Jeff:

Category: Hillary Clinton
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