Tag Archives: ron paul

January 11, 2012 · 9:37 pm

After New Hampshire

I have just been defriended by an Australian lady on facebook, for making disparaging remarks about their national cuisine.  I’m sure Australia’s a lovely country.  Great beaches.  Cute little Koala Bears.  Kangaroos.

But Vegemite really does suck.  Sorry.

Anyway, that’s not my blog topic for this evening.  There seem to be two main schools of thought

You all know what Mitt Romney looks like. Here's a picture of New Hampshire.

in analyzing the results of the New Hampshire primary.  First, it’s a big Romney win.  He won in Iowa and New Hampshire, he’s pretty much got a lock on the nomination.  He’s got the momentum, he’s got the money, the ABR* crowd is splintered, that’s it, it’s all over but the shouting.

The other view is that Romney is toast.  He only won Iowa by  8 votes (that’s 0 percentage points) and he didn’t get over 40% in New Hampshire, where they supposedly love the guy.  This is despite spending massive amounts of money.

I tend toward the second view, but I’m not so sure as I was a couple of weeks ago.  39 percent is not 40%, but it’s still 17 points more than Ron Paul got, and Rick Santorum really didn’t do very well at all.  If Romney wins in South Carolina and Florida, he might very well win the nomination.

But here’s the rub:  a Republican candidate needs 1144 delegates to get the nomination.  37 have been chosen. (not exactly, because Iowa is complicated and the delegates elected at the precinct caucuses go to a county convention where they choose the delegates to the state convention where they choose the delegates to the national convention, but still, we have indications)  Of those, Romney has 20, Santorum 12, Paul 3 and Huntsman 2.  Four out of the 6 people still in the running have delegates.  Gingrich and Perry may  well pick up a few as the race moves south.  Southerners vote for Southerners.  Perhaps it’s local pride.  Perhaps it’s just that they feel comfortable with someone who has the same accent.  Perhaps it’s because they are stupid.

In any event, if Romney can’t get over 50% in any state (which is likely, since he couldn’t top 40% in New Hampshire), and nobody drops out and leaves him their delegates, then he goes to the convention without the required 1144 votes, and then we will see some desperate politicking, you betcha.

Romney might try to buy off Gingrich or Santorum with the vice-presidency.  Paul might try to make alliances, too, although he’s not generally very good at it.

We could get one of those really interesting conventions, which last for days and lead to massive verbal abuse and occasionally physical violence.  That would be fun to watch.

 

*anybody but Romney

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September 13, 2011 · 11:05 am

Why Republicans Love Death

They had another one of those Republican “debates” last night.  If they were doing this as an American Idol/Survivor/Big Brother formatted thing, where one person got voted off each week, it might be better.  As it is, it is becoming tiresome.

Who the Republicans Really Want for President

Nobody made any bold new policy statements and everybody picked on Rick Perry because he once did something that was halfway humanitarian, even though he only did so after receiving campaign contributions from the pharmaceutical company, Merck.  What I thought was the funniest line of the night came when he was defending himself over that, to Michele Bachmann.  “If you think I can be bought for only $5,000, I’m offended.”  He was careful not to say he couldn’t be bought.  Just that it would take a bit more than a measly five grand. Ten, maybe.

But the scariest, truly most horrific statement of the evening came from the audience.  When Ron Paul was asked about a hypothetical case where a person is in hospital without health insurance, he said, essentially, they should have had health insurance.  When Wolf Bagger Blitzer asked him if that meant they should be allowed to die, a couple of people in the audience shouted out “Yeah!” and many others applauded.

To his credit, Paul gave a somewhat more nuanced reply, mentioning churches and charities and stuff.  Ron Paul is not a moron.  He may not even be a bad person.   But a lot of his supporters are nasty and vicious and think with the reptilian part of their brain.

This is the second debate in a row where the loudest applause came from the mention of death.  When Brian Williams mentioned, in the last debate, that Rick Perry had executed 234 people, the crowd went wild.  They love that kind of shit.

I think I know why.  I haven’t done a survey or anything, but I would be willing to bet money that most Teabaggers’ favorite films are action adventure films.  They like Chuck Norris, Sylvester Stallone, Nick Cage, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Charles Bronson, Bruce Willis, Clint Eastwood and so on.  No matter how complex the plot (did you ever see Face Off?  Pretty exciting stuff, but don’t watch it if you’re in the mood to think, even for a second), it gets resolved when the hero beats the shit out of the villain.  Along the way, there are plenty of gun battles and explosions and minor characters die by the dozens.

I think the Teabaggers have seen too many of these films and they’ve got them confused with real life.  The more people who die, the better, because that brings us closer to a happy ending.

Why do I think Teabaggers get confused between movies and real life?  Because they are stupid.  That’s why.

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August 15, 2011 · 9:32 pm

Did Michele Bachmann Cheat in Ames Straw Poll?

No, she did not.  It’s a straw poll, an unscientific sampling, sort of like those polls where if you buy a vanilla ice cream it’s a vote for one guy and if you  buy a chocolate, it’s a vote for the other, which don’t take into account that well over

Yup. It's definitely the eyes.

50% of Americans couldn’t give a rat’s ass about politics, probably don’t even know who the candidates are, and really  just came into the shop to get some ice cream.  Cheating is more or less allowed.

Here’s the situation:  the Ames Straw Poll is a fund raiser for the Iowa Republican party, and since Iowa has such a key role in American presidential races, it’s taken on a lot more significance than it deserves.  Candidates set up booths, give out free food, maybe balloons, stuff like that.  Anyway, Michelle Bachmann won it, Ron Paul came in a very close 2nd, Tim Pawlenty ran 3rd and promptly dropped out of the race, which surprised the hell  out of me, because he still beat Cain, Perry, Romney, Gingrich, Santorum and McCotter.

Anyway, some of Ron Paul’s people are upset at the way things turned out, and they  are crying foul.  What Bachmann did was she signed up country music artist Randy Travis to give a concert and gave away 6,000 tickets  but on the condition that recipients vote for her.  In the end, she got 4,800 votes (So, some back-stabbing deadbeats took her free tickets and still voted for somebody else.  These are probably the same people who stay at an  all you can eat buffet for 6 hours, so they can get in two meals), beating Ron Paul by about 150 votes.  Basically, she bought the election, but there’s nothing in the rules of the Ames Straw Poll that says you can’t do  that.

She spent about a million dollars, in total, but it was money well  spent.  She forced T-Paw out of the race and got a ridiculous amount of  good press out of it.  Newspapers called it “Michele’s Big Win” and had pictures of her in confetti covered glory as if she’d just been elected president or something.

For some reason, the press loves Michele Bachmann.  I think  it must be the eyes.

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