The Other McCain

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

Rick Santorum: Beer Gourmet?

Posted on | December 13, 2011 | 31 Comments

NBC News highlights an aspect of the Republican presidential candidate’s personality that had previously gone unnoticed:

AMANA, Iowa — In case you were wondering what sort of beers the former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum drinks, reporters trailing him Sunday now have a complete list.
“It’s the stouts, the bocks, and then the white ales — and wheats,” Santorum told a small group of media. He added later: “I don’t do wine tastings. I do beer tastings.”
The GOP hopeful was sidled up to the tasting bar at Millstream Brewery, a local microbrewery in a historic landmark town lined with colonial-style houses and storefronts. The bartender served a small glass of the brewery’s prizewinner, a dark and frothy beer called Back Road Stout.

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Will this hurt Santorum with the teetotalers? Or will he lose votes with Joe Six-Pack for drinking “fancy” beers? I dunno.

But it certainly helps lighten up his image — hey, Rick likes beer! — and adds momentum to the Santorum Surge.

RICK SANTORUM
‘NO SURRENDER’
MONEY BOMB

 

Category: Election 2012, Iowa, Rick Santorum

Newt Gingrich Fires Iowa Political Director for Calling Mormonism a ‘Cult’

Posted on | December 13, 2011 | 42 Comments

Warner Todd Huston says Craig Bergman’s “stint with the Gingrich campaign has to be one of the shortest in history” — he was hired five days ago and was fired today for something he said last week:

Craig Bergman during a focus group on Wednesday with The Iowa Republican and McClatchy newspapers said he thinks Romney’s religion will eventually cost him votes.
“A lot of the evangelicals believe God would give us four more years of Obama just for the opportunity to expose the cult of Mormon,” Bergman said during the focus group, according to The Iowa Republican. “There’s a thousand pastors ready to do that.”

Within hours of that report, Bergman was fired — uh, “agreed to step away from his role with Newt 2012.”

Question: Is Bergman right? Are there really “a thousand pastors” in Iowa who consider Mormonism a cult? If so, aren’t they likely to view Newt less favorably for firing a staffer who said so?

Category: Election 2012, Iowa, Newt Gingrich

House Calls Obama’s Bluff, Passes Payroll Tax Cut Extension He Promised to Veto

Posted on | December 13, 2011 | 4 Comments

However it turns out, score this a win for Boehner:

Defying a veto threat from President Obama, the House on Tuesday passed a bill extending a cut in Social Security payroll taxes for 160 million Americans for another year. But the Democratic majority in the Senate vowed to reject the measure because of objections to other provisions, including one to speed construction of an oil pipeline from Canada to the Gulf Coast.

Obama has demagogued the hell out of this issue, so now the House has passed it — with a tasty poison pill the enviros will hate — and pitches it over to the Senate, where Harry Reid’s Democrat majority can’t even manage to pass a budget. Let Harry deal with it, and if Harry can’t get a bill to Obama’s desk, the expiration of the tax cut is Harry’s fault. And if something does manage to get out of a bicameral reconciliation process, double-dog dare Obama to veto it.

Category: Barack Obama, Congress, Taxes

Burning Mosques, Rabbi Hammerman?

Posted on | December 13, 2011 | 27 Comments

by Smitty via Ace

I realize this is hyperbole, sut still:

If Tebow wins the Super Bowl, against all odds, it will buoy his faithful, and emboldened faithful can do insane things, like burning mosques, bashing gays and indiscriminately banishing immigrants. While America has become more inclusive since Jerry Falwell’s first political forays, a Tebow triumph could set those efforts back considerably.

Nice cheap shot, man. Based upon what evidence have you ever seen Christians engage in that sort of mayhem? Westboro Baptist Church does some tasteless picketing. That one goofball in Florida with a bracket ‘stache burned a Qur’an.
And then this:

Unlike some other blue-staters, I do not fear people of faith. I fear people of certainty. The worldwide struggle going on right now is not between good and evil, but between certainty and doubt.

Well, evil sure has you in the hip pocket then, doesn’t it, Rabbi? May the Lord have mercy on you.

Category: Religion

Santorum Surge: New Poll Shows Gains in Iowa, Closing in on Perry, Bachmann

Posted on | December 13, 2011 | 14 Comments

The Public Policy Polling article about their latest Iowa survey doesn’t even mention Rick Santorum — instead focusing on the closing gap between Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul — but when you look closer at the numbers, something else becomes apparent:

CANDIDATE ……… Dec. 3-5 … Dec. 11-13
Newt Gingrich ………………. 27% ……. 22%
Ron Paul ……………………… 18% ……. 21%
Mitt Romney ……………….. 16% ……. 16%
Michele Bachmann ……….. 13% ……. 11%
Rick Perry ……………………  9% …….  9%
Rick Santorum ……………..  6% …….  8%
Jon Huntsman ……………..  4% …….  5%
Gary Johnson ………………  1% …….  1%

Gingrich and Bachmann have lost support in the past week, Romney and Perry are flat, and Paul and Santorum have gained ground. Santorum’s 2-point gain — 6% to 8% — may not seem like much, but consider that Perry has piled on $1 million in TV ads without any apparent effect, while Santorum is neck-and-neck without spending a dime on TV.

If the current trend continues another week, Santorum will be in fourth place, ahead of both Perry and Bachmann. And guess what?

RICK SANTORUM
‘NO SURRENDER’
MONEY BOMB

 

RECENTLY:

Category: Iowa, Polls, Rick Santorum

Trump Quits as Dec. 27 Debate Moderator

Posted on | December 13, 2011 | 18 Comments

Says he won’t rule out an independent presidential campaign in 2012, and probably still hurt that Michele Bachmann turned him down.

OK, so with The Donald, will NewsMax and Ion network still host the Dec. 27 debate? Now that Trump is out, will the other Republicans now accept the Dec. 27 debate? Or was the whole deal Donald-centric?

Category: Debates, Donald Trump, Election 2012, Iowa

#OWS: Obama’s Willing Scum
UPDATE: Occupiers Wreck Stolen Truck En Route to Portland Demonstration

Posted on | December 13, 2011 | 12 Comments

The puzzle pieces begin to form a picture:

Rep. Issa asks Obama official why illegal
camping of Occupy DC was permitted
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) on Tuesday announced he wants answers on whether “political judgments played a role” in allowing Occupy D.C. protesters to remain camped in Northwest Washington.
Issa, chairman of the powerful House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, sent a letter dated Monday to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar requesting any communication between the Department of Interior and the White House regarding the Occupy D.C. protests. . . .
Occupy DC protesters, an outgrowth of the Occupy Wall Street protest movement that began in Manhattan, have been camping in McPherson Square, in Northwest Washington, for more than two months. The National Park Service (NPS), an agency of the DOI, prohibits camping in the square, but allows 24-hour protests. Issa is seeking answers on the apparent discrepancy.
“The protesters camping in McPherson Square appear to be in violation of the law and the NPS could have legally required them to stop and remove their tents,” Issa wrote in the letter. “The NPS has an obligation to the American people to explain the decisions that were made regarding the Occupy D.C. protesters in McPherson Square.”

Yeah, kinda suspicious, isn’t it? Ace of Spades has a roundup of other Occupy news today, including “Parents for Occupy Wall Street” using kids as proxies in their cop-hating crusade. And Ace references — but gives the wrong URL — for this video:

UPDATE: The Portland Occupiers were courageously supported by delegates from the Coalition of Incompetent Car Thieves:

Also Monday morning, some Occupy Portland protesters on the way to the port demonstration were involved in a crash in a stolen truck, police said.
The crash occurred on Marine Drive at the I-5 overpass.
Officers arrested Levi B. Feltkamp, 30, for unauthorized use of a motor vehicle. Police said the truck he was driving had been stolen from Forest Grove.
“Feltkamp and the occupants of the stolen truck all indicated they were on their way to the Occupy demonstration,” King said.

They! Are! The 99 Percent!

UPDATE II: Occupiers can’t get no love from Longshoremen:

To union members who missed a day’s worth of wages, the shut down appears to have caused more harm than good, which apparently prompted the ILWU in Portland to ask the #Occupiers to leave last night.

Guys with jobs vs. punks with protests signs.

Category: #Occupy

Cuts Like a Knife

Posted on | December 13, 2011 | 8 Comments

But it feels so right:

Romney’s role: The Hillary Clinton of 2012?
— Politico

That kind of comparison slices Mitt like cold cuts and, while we’re at it, consider the case of an amateur online oppo-researcher:

The damage wreaked by Kaczynski’s work points to an irony of politics in the Internet age. Technological advances have made political campaigns increasingly sophisticated in their methods, with “microtargeted” online ads and text-messaged announcements of ­running-mate selections. But those same advances have made it possible for such sophisticated plans to be easily upended. That’s because, thanks to the Internet, opposition research—long considered a dark art practiced only by hardened political operatives—can now be done, and done effectively, by amateurs.

There are reasons that this year has been such an up-and-down cycle: As soon as someone emerges as a front-runner, that candidate becomes the focus of a million pairs of eyes and, so far at least, none has been able to withstand such scrutiny.

Category: Election 2012, Mitt Romney
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