Romney victory celebration

This evening, GOP primary election day, in South Carolina.

gee ... I guess religion really is important down here.

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Shocking News about Canada!!!

It is now part of the US. At least according to the man who would be president:

Rick Perry in Iowa: "Every barrel of oil that comes out of those sands in Canada is a barrel of oil that we don't have to buy from a foreign source."

But I believe this is yet another Republican statement that is "not intended as a true statement." So the one Canadian who reads this blog (if he is still out there) can relax.

... but about Mexico.

Update on the Sorcerer's Apprentice

You know who I mean if you are a regular reader of this blog (or The Blob, as Mother used to call it).

TPM has had a poor suffering reporter covering the latest Christine O'Donnell event by Twitter (please somebody, explain to me what that means and why it is important). Here is one of his several Twits, or Twitters, or whatever a Twitter Message is known as:

Karl has really pissed off the tea party. Bruce just put Rove, Obama and Rahm in the same sentence. Wow. #midterms RT

Please excuse me while I go follow that white rabbit down the bunny hole.

Without Comment

(via Sullivan)

Desperation in North Carolina?

Apparently the Republican national committee has come up with a new strategy for Elizabeth Dole: vote for me because we are going to lose the White House!

Ben Smith reports that the NRSC is running an ad on behalf of Senator Elizabeth Dole that argues against electing Dem challenger Kay Hagan because of the specter of total Democratic control of Washington.

"If Hagan wins," the ad says, "they get a blank check." This, of course, seems to presume an Obama victory.

As one Democrat joked to us: ""Republicans launch new campaign theme: All the rest of us are gonna lose, so elect me."

Well, it might work.

UPDATE: Now even aol.com news has picked this story up as a sign of Repubs' confused message.

not that I am gloating or anything.

Deja vu all over again

From a column by EJ Dionne in today's Washington Post about the campaign between Herbert Hoover and FDR:

Hoover stopped short of declaring Roosevelt a celebrity. But Donald A. Ritchie reports in his excellent 2007 book, "Electing FDR," that Hoover saw Roosevelt as "his weakest and most vulnerable" foe and "did not respect him as a political rival."

History is so much fun. .

Democracy in the age of electronics

Diebold is set to play an increasing role in elections of the future.

But, as the following newscast shows, the future is here now.

Literally.

Fred Thompson is NOT running!

After all, he keeps saying so. Yet no one even among Repubs seems entirely happy with their roster of candidates. Some people are even beginning to listen to Ron Paul! There is, however, a great Repub hope waiting patiently out there in the wings: Fred Thompson. I don't know much about him, other than he is a good actor, so I was interested in this analysis by Peggy Noonan in the Wall Street Journal [for technical reasons I don't understand I cannot link- sorry]. She thinks he is running a great uncampaign. All he needs to do is wait for the current candidates to disgrace themselves a bit more, to become a bit staler, a bit more unwelcome, and then pounce.

Or something like that.

Here's a taste of what she sees in him:

Why would he run now? Because he thinks there's noone of greater stature on the field. Because he thinks he's got a better, shrewder read of the base than the rest of them. Because he's at an age where you throw the dice or know you never will. Because he thinks the one essential to modern presidential leadership, the one thing you must have now, in the age of terror, is the ability to communicate, and he reads himself as the best communicator. And because he's at a point in his private life where it's possible for him. He's got a wife who's got his back and two kids who've given him a second chance. Even in great careers it's the private life that's hardest to get right. He feels he has.

People speak of Mr. Thompson's movie-star looks. But he's not beautiful, he's heavy and gray. What he has is bearing. He has the manner of someone who thinks a great deal of himself, and thinks it after long personal pondering of his good points, bad points, high points and low. He may or may not be correct in his conclusions, but I suspect they are part of his draw. I suspect people pick them up.

Another actor in the White House might be interesting.

I thought I was hard on the Bush Admin!

Here's Kevin Drum on the NRO. It's always interesting to see what they will come up with. The gang over there seem to hold Ron Paul in contempt, Kaine in deep suspicion, and only really get excited about Fred Thompson who isn't even in the race, yet. Drum himself doesn't seem to enchanted with any of them, but wonders how they will deal with a Bush admin "that is disintegrating before our eyes?" Good question. Here is a taste of his thought:

Most of us - OK, maybe not the Ron Paul "blame America first" crowd, but most of us - support the foreign policy goals of the Bush administration. But ironically it is the Bush administration itself that is now doing the most damage to its own stated goals: first by its poor execution, not just of Iraq, but of the larger war on terror - and now, second, by abandoning its goals altogether. The president who pledged in 2002 to prevent the world's most dangerous regimes from acquiring the world's deadliest weapons will leave office with North Korea a nuclear weapons state and Iran soon to follow. The president who promised to support democracy throughout the world is yoking US policy more closely than ever to the unstable, unreliable nondemocracies of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.

At home, the situation is even worse.

Like I said, it might be an interesting primary season after all.

Kevin Drum manages to hit the nail on the head ...

... or, even a blind chicken gets some corn. Kevin Drum on National Review Online writes an excellent run down of what ails the Repubs in this spring of their discontent. Even Andrew Sullivan agrees with him!

My favorite paragraph:

But as much as I blame the candidates [for the lackluster debate], I have to blame the party too. Have Republicans absorbed how much trouble their party is in? To the (limited) extent that we do, we tend to to attribute everything to Iraq — as if Katrina, the Schiavo affair, corruption in Congress, and the intensifying irrelevance of our domestic-policy agenda did not exist. And so we demand from our candidates ever more fervent declarations of fealty to an ideology that interests an ever dwindling proportion of the public.

A few more people thinking like this and the Repub primaries might get interesting.

Orson Scott Card, Mormonism, and Mitt Romney

A few days ago Mitt Romney came up with the jaw dropping statement that he remembered that someone had told him the France had seven year marriage contracts.

Well, no actually, though Mitt's favorite writer, Orson Scott Card (of Ender's Game fame) has mentioned such seven year marriage contracts in his fiction. As one of Andrew Sullivan readers remembers:

I studied playwriting under Card while a student at BYU in the early 80's. He explained how his novels were meant to be symbolic of Mormon theology, and that the seven year marriage contracts were inspired by the non-traditional marriage system that was central to Mormonism in the 19th century (aka, polygamy AND easy no-fault divorces.)

Is it too late to say 'oooops!'

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Mitt Romney, Mormons, and the Polls

Some little time ago I asked if Mormons were regarded as Christians and would this have an effect on Christian voters. Now there is at least a partial answer to this question in a new Foxx TV poll that is posted on RealClearPolitics. Here is the question on Romney's religion:

Are you more or less likely to support a candidate who is a Mormon?
Republicans only:
More likely 8% (a lot more likely 4%, somewhat more likely 4%)
Less likely 30% (a lot less likely 19%, somewhat less likely 11%)
Not a major factor 59%

Now it's hard to say what to make of this, but I will try. Those who are less likely, 30%, probably represent Christians of one sort or another, otherwise, what would be their objection? Unless they were secularists who don't want to vote for anyone identified by religion.

The 59% who say it would not be a major factor is probably a bit too high, on the theory that just like people answering polls rarely admit they would not vote for a black candidate because of race, people might not want to appear to vote against a candidate for his religion. The theory is that a significant number are probably lying.

With at least a third of those polled, and we will never know what portion of them may actually vote, saying they would be less likely to vote for a Mormon, Romney might face an uphill battle among the very social conservatives he ought to otherwise appeal to.

But then again, as I was reminded the other night at my Episcopal book club, many people said the same thing about John Kennedy's Catholicism. Since these figures reflect only Repubs, maybe the general electorate would feel differently.

Any ideas would be appreciated.

And please notice I've learned how to spell Mormons in the meantime. It does NOT follow the example of the Normans.