Mitt Marches on to the South. . .

Romney won, but will there be buyer's remorse
-- can the candidate stay the course,
is he the nation's bright new up-and-comer,
or will there be four more years of Obama?

Yes, a handy win for Mitt Romney in the New Hampshire GOP primary yesterday. With 92% of the vote counted, the former Massachusetts governor received 39.3% of the vote. Libertarian Ron Paul coming in second with 22.9% and fellow moderate Jon Huntsman finishing third with 16.9%.  Former Republican Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich was a distant fourth with 9.4%, similar to Rick Santorum with 9.3%, and Texan governor Rick Perry who is concentrating his campaign on finishing strongly in the South, with a measly 0.7%.

The New Hampshire win sets up Romney nicely for the South Carolina primary on January 21 and the Florida primary at the end of the month.  Reportedly Winning Our Future, the pro-Gingrich Super PAC has bought $5 million of  media commercials to attack Romney in the Palmetto State with money donated by casino magnate Sheldon Adelson.  And Gingrich is the man who accuses Romney of sleazy politics and of attacking him with unfair Super PAC commercials.  Ugh.

Most pundits seem to think that in South Carolina, as in Iowa, the conservative candidates, Paul, Gingrich, and Santorum, will divide the vote enabling Romney to win again.  If that happens, he might be on cruise control to the nomination going toward the Republican convention.  The question might be what Ron Paul will do.  He has little chance of winning the GOP nomination given his extremely conservative policies and ideas.  If, in the general election, Paul decides to run as a third party candidate, it could damage Romney's chances of winning the presidency.  Stay tuned.

A casino owner's super PAC keeps Gingrich afloat,
enables Newt to attack the Mittser's throat
with commercials that treat Romney with disdain.
Which of these two candidates will remain? 

Michele Bachmann. . . flaky, nutty, choose your word,
and still the gal from Minnesota persisted, undeterred.
It was a short, comic run -- a quite entertaining one.
If Sarah Palin had stood instead, would she have won?


You might enjoy the following hilarious video parody of the Republican debates if you have not seen it:
http://news.yahoo.com/cyber-debate-parody-funny-or-die/




My friend, the Aardvark, has no opinions on politics.  Let me know what YOU think. . . .








Meeting Dave and Steve at the One World Café

Three poets, survivors from the Sixties, meet for coffee and more.
Earlier, on my sixty-fourth birthday, an Ethiopian Evangelist tries
to save my mortal soul -- he offers to murmur a prayer for it.

The retired mailman, the ex-prison worker, and the still-slaving
editor (me) discuss the economy, how saps these days can't afford
to entirely retire: it's each man or woman for him or -- er -- herself!

I grunt down the path with an overloaded garbage bag.
A young female student offers to help. Doesn't she know
that I regularly struggle up and down the three flights

of our Baltimore walk-up apartment house?
A boy becomes an adult, becomes an elderly man.
Order me a drink -- make it a double. Boats against the current.

Christopher T. George

Mitt Romney's Most Genuine Moments

Sign in a New Hampshire restaurant: Oh, yeh?

Unfortunately, Mitt Romney's most genuine moments are when he is caught off guard and speaks unscripted.  As when he said that "Corporations are people" or offered the $10,000 bet to fellow candidate Texas governor Rick Perry.  Or, most recently, on the eve of today's New Hampshire Republican primary, when he said at a breakfast meeting with business leaders, "I enjoy being able to fire people who provide services to me." He was talking about about firing insurance companies but it sounded too much like he received enjoyment from firing employees.  Just the wrong thing to say when Americans are hurting from high unemployment.  It is very revealing that at a moment when he would be expected to feel most comfortable, around businessmen such as he has been for much of his life, he would say such a thing.

All these unprovoked remarks show that Mr. Romney, a multi-millionaire, is realms away from the average American voter.  Not only do many of his own Republicans feel uncomfortable with him but he is proving himself so with a broad swathe of Americans as well.  So the question remains whether a Romney coronation is inevitable as the Republican nominee let alone the Republican who will deny President Barack Obama a second term in the White House.

Another significant moment occurred on Sunday morning during the "Meet the Press" Facebook Republican debate when fellow candidate Jon Huntsman, answered Romney's criticism during the debate of the night before that he had worked for President Obama as U.S. Ambassador.  The former Utah governor made the salient point that he, Huntsman, would always put the nation first and that the type of Romney's criticism shows what is wrong with the country today.  Huntsman followed up his riposte to Romney and the Massachusetts man's gaff about firing insurance companies (read people) -- when he told reporters in Concord, New Hampshire yesterday, "Governor Romney enjoys firing people; I enjoy creating jobs."

It remains to be seen what traction Huntsman can get. Thus far he has seriously lagged in the polls.  Is he too moderate for the voters in Republican caucuses and primaries?  He didn't campaign in Iowa and has put all his efforts into giving a good showing in New Hampshire.  But can he be a valid alternative to Romney when it seems as if many Republicans are looking for a conservative alternative to the former Massachusetts governor?  One thing that could benefit him is that unlike in other states, Democrats and unaligned voters can vote in the Republican primary.  It will be fascinating to see how the Republican candidates do in today's primary.  Stay tuned, playmates.

The first few shots photographs that appear below are not of New Hampshire.  They were taken on a recent evening looking into the window of the Thunder Grill, Union Station, Washington, D.C., one of my favorite watering holes.  Oh, yes, and it is my sixty-fourth birthday. Why, happy birthday, Chris.  Enjoy that Harvey Wallbanger.....













Have another drink, Chris. 

Will They Learn to Love Mitt.... Or the Tale of the Activist Judges

So former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney squeaked through as victor of the Iowa Republican presidential caucuses held on Tuesday evening by a mere eight votes over conservative former U.S. senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania.  Romney won 25 percent of the vote, with a total of around 30,000, an almost identical percentage and number of votes to what he received four years ago when he finished second to the eventual Republican nominee, Senator John McCain of Arizona.  Clearly, Republicans don't love Mitt, and the idea that he is the obviously ordained GOP nominee for President in 2012 took a severe hit.  A big hit for Mitt.  Hmmmm.  Now if he fails to win in New Hampshire in that primary to be held next Tuesday or else only wins by another squeaker, in the veritable backyard of Massachusetts where he served as the moderate leader of that state, I predict that his candidacy will be in real trouble.

Meanwhile, former 1990's Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich of Georgia, renowned for his showdowns with former President Bill Clinton, took a major hit from attack ads from the special interest PAC groups supporting Romney, and he is as mad as hell about it.  As Howard Beale (the late Australian-born actor Peter Finch) yelled in the 1976 movie Network written by Paddy Chayefsky, "I' m as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!" 

The ironic thing is that when Gingrich was riding high in the polls a few weeks ago, before those attack ads hit him, he was railing against "activist judges" or, as conservatives like to put it, judges who "legislate from the bench."  They mean, of course, liberal judges who rule favorably for progressive causes.  But what could be more activist than the conservative court ruled by Chief Justice of the Supreme Court John Roberts?  In fact, it was Roberts and his colleagues who ruled in favor of Citizens United in 2010 and made it possible for Super Pacs to operate without any oversight and without answering to the public, the very thing that torpedoed Newt's campaign in Iowa.  Newt might have to do another flip flop--on his thinking on the judiciary.  How about it, Newt?

I understand that at upcoming at the end of March, the Roberts Supreme Court has scheduled three whole days for the justices to contemplate President Obama's health care initiative.  Such a block of time to be taken by the justices to contemplate one legal matter. is almost unprecedented.  Of course, the Obama health care law is being challenged by conservatives all across the country so it was going to land up in the nation's highest court sooner or later.  Will Roberts and his conservative allies on the court be able to help the Republicans to dismantle national health care?  Serious questions have arisen, for example, over whether Justice Clarence Thomas should recuse himself from the deliberations. Liberals point out that his wife Ginni Thomas’s ties to a group opposing the health care law.  Questions have also been raised by conservatives in regard to the possible participation in the discussions by former Solicitor General and now Justice Elena Kagan.  Her role as Solicitor General in litigation challenging health care reform legislation has been questioned, and right wingers say that as a result she should recuse herself from the upcoming deliberations. See http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2011/11/groups-suggest-elena-kagan-clarence-thomas-should-be-recused-from-health-law-decision/

Romney for President? 

Mitt Romney man doesn't excite anyone, Republicans or anyone else.  The man looks and sounds like a storefront mannequin.  His assertion that he has business experience and thus knows how to fix the economy is complete hogwash.  The best economic minds don't have a quick fix so Romney as a former corporate executive surely has no fix either.  This is the same man who several months ago declared that "Corporations are people too!" 

Activist judges?  How about instead, activist citizens to take our Democracy back?!!!

Elsewhere, I have written some thoughts about the prospects of Rick Santorum becoming the Republican nominee for President in 2012.  Go to my blog at Eratosphere at http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/blog.php?b=131

Also check out my Jack the Ripper blog for some discussion of "A Bit of Graffiti and a Few Letters." Go to http://blog.casebook.org/chrisgeorge/2012/01/04/a-bit-of-graffiti-and-a-few-letters/