Page 42 of 55 FirstFirst ... 32404142434452 ... LastLast
Results 821 to 840 of 1098
  1. #821
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Skinker-DeBaliviere, Saint Louis
    Quote Originally Posted by OldPhiKap View Post
    Even if he gets two terms, he will be very young when he leaves office. I don't see him fading into the woodwork.
    The concern I have for Obama is lung/head/neck cancer. Hasn't he smoked most of his adult life? I think I saw that he quit recently.

    A movie is not about what it's about; it's about how it's about it.
    ---Roger Ebert


    Some questions cannot be answered
    Who’s gonna bury who
    We need a love like Johnny, Johnny and June
    ---Over the Rhine

  2. #822
    Join Date
    Jun 2010
    Location
    Roxboro, NC
    Quote Originally Posted by throatybeard View Post
    The concern I have for Obama is lung/head/neck cancer. Hasn't he smoked most of his adult life? I think I saw that he quit recently.
    I think he quit a couple years ago.

  3. #823
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    St. Louis
    Quote Originally Posted by OldPhiKap View Post
    Great, recent book on Garfield:

    http://www.amazon.com/Destiny-Republ...=AG56TWVU5XWC2

    I picked it up because I didn't know anything about him. Excellent and interesting story. Thesis is that he basically died from medical malpractice, not really the assassin's bullet.

    But an incredibly well-rounded and popular man. The story of his unplanned nomination at a two-day brokered convention (more than 40 votes taken IIRC) and his internecine feud with the other half of his own party (including his VP, who was part of the brokered deal) is fascinating.
    I read this book a couple of months ago, and I join in OPK's recommendation of it.

  4. #824
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Steamboat Springs, CO

    Santorum on JFK - Really?

    Quote Originally Posted by rasputin View Post
    I read this book a couple of months ago, and I join in OPK's recommendation of it.
    I can't imagine where his "throw up" comment came from as JFK's declaration of the separation of church and state during the 1960 campaign, which, of course, was an imperative for the first Catholic to be elected President. According to MSNBC, he told Laura Ingraham he would like to take that back. But really. I remember the 1960 campaign and in the households (like mine) in SC, where one partner was Catholic and the other Protestant, every single Catholic voted for JFK. Why is he attacking an icon who is revered by his Catholic supporters?

    Well, I suppose politics is a form of entertainment......

    sage

  5. #825
    Quote Originally Posted by sagegrouse View Post
    I can't imagine where his "throw up" comment came from as JFK's declaration of the separation of church and state during the 1960 campaign, which, of course, was an imperative for the first Catholic to be elected President. According to MSNBC, he told Laura Ingraham he would like to take that back. But really. I remember the 1960 campaign and in the households (like mine) in SC, where one partner was Catholic and the other Protestant, every single Catholic voted for JFK. Why is he attacking an icon who is revered by his Catholic supporters?

    Well, I suppose politics is a form of entertainment......

    sage
    I tend to agree that this seems like a senseless biting of the hand that might feed him.

    For one possible counterpoint on what he might be thinking, I read an interesting thought from Ed Kilgore at the Washington Monthly a few days ago, where he posed the idea that Santorum is symbolic of a basic schism within American Christianity. Santorum's specifically discussed the fact that he thinks the traditional mainline Protestant churches have been infected by Satan, and are not true representatives of Christianity anymore (I'm not making this up - it was the subject of his Ave Maria University speech of a few years ago that was making the rounds recently). Apparently, this line of thought has (and I'm no theologian or real follower of the various sects) become somewhat de rigeur in the Evangelical world, and there's a real issue at play there. I've read separately that many Southern Evangelicals consider the UCC, the church of the President, to be essentially not true Christian. Perhaps someone from that background on here could provide more insight and/or confirmation or rebuttal as to this emerging theological split.

    Anyway, theorizes Kilgore, the appeal by Rick is to sew up a new alignment between more fundamentalist Protestants with conservative Catholics by setting themselves apart from those churches that have historically tended to skew more blue. I could see the case that trampling on the grave of Kennedy is meant to appeal to a lot of Southern Evangelical Protestants and megachurch blue collar Northerners who grew up Methodist but have found Baptist-leaning nondenominational more to their liking. Keep in mind that people who actually voted for Kennedy are either over 70 or dead now, that the Catholic vote as a whole has become significantly more conservative since 1960, and that Kennedy has been branded a Liberal and that's effectively become a four letter word in American politics. That this comes in the wake of the recent spat over religious liberty in the ACA regs. on contraception, where Santorum was standing behind the Catholic bishops, might make Santorum think his appeal to Catholics is inimpeachable, despite strong statistical evidence that that's not an issue most Catholics care about or take his side on.

    That theory at least makes it seem like it's coming from somewhere calculated instead of deep left field. I still think it's a horrible political move to demonize John F. Kennedy. When the President gave a somewhat populist sounding speech in Kansas or Nebraska or wherever a few months ago, the Republican candidates walked up to the line of dumping on Teddy Roosevelt, but declined. Santorum just jumped right over the line on this one. His real point was to appeal to those who feel there's some kind of war being waged on their right to express their religion, but he sure picked a weird vehicle for a shout out to them.

  6. #826
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Skinker-DeBaliviere, Saint Louis
    Quote Originally Posted by Mal View Post
    I tend to agree that this seems like a senseless biting of the hand that might feed him.

    For one possible counterpoint on what he might be thinking, I read an interesting thought from Ed Kilgore at the Washington Monthly a few days ago, where he posed the idea that Santorum is symbolic of a basic schism within American Christianity. Santorum's specifically discussed the fact that he thinks the traditional mainline Protestant churches have been infected by Satan, and are not true representatives of Christianity anymore (I'm not making this up - it was the subject of his Ave Maria University speech of a few years ago that was making the rounds recently). Apparently, this line of thought has (and I'm no theologian or real follower of the various sects) become somewhat de rigeur in the Evangelical world, and there's a real issue at play there. I've read separately that many Southern Evangelicals consider the UCC, the church of the President, to be essentially not true Christian. Perhaps someone from that background on here could provide more insight and/or confirmation or rebuttal as to this emerging theological split.

    Anyway, theorizes Kilgore, the appeal by Rick is to sew up a new alignment between more fundamentalist Protestants with conservative Catholics by setting themselves apart from those churches that have historically tended to skew more blue. I could see the case that trampling on the grave of Kennedy is meant to appeal to a lot of Southern Evangelical Protestants and megachurch blue collar Northerners who grew up Methodist but have found Baptist-leaning nondenominational more to their liking. Keep in mind that people who actually voted for Kennedy are either over 70 or dead now, that the Catholic vote as a whole has become significantly more conservative since 1960, and that Kennedy has been branded a Liberal and that's effectively become a four letter word in American politics. That this comes in the wake of the recent spat over religious liberty in the ACA regs. on contraception, where Santorum was standing behind the Catholic bishops, might make Santorum think his appeal to Catholics is inimpeachable, despite strong statistical evidence that that's not an issue most Catholics care about or take his side on.

    That theory at least makes it seem like it's coming from somewhere calculated instead of deep left field. I still think it's a horrible political move to demonize John F. Kennedy. When the President gave a somewhat populist sounding speech in Kansas or Nebraska or wherever a few months ago, the Republican candidates walked up to the line of dumping on Teddy Roosevelt, but declined. Santorum just jumped right over the line on this one. Weird.
    I was wondering what the heck this guy has been doing, and you just rather aptly explained it in three short paragraphs.

    A movie is not about what it's about; it's about how it's about it.
    ---Roger Ebert


    Some questions cannot be answered
    Who’s gonna bury who
    We need a love like Johnny, Johnny and June
    ---Over the Rhine

  7. #827
    Join Date
    Feb 2008
    Location
    Charlotte, North Carolina
    Quote Originally Posted by throatybeard View Post
    I was wondering what the heck this guy has been doing, and you just rather aptly explained it in three short paragraphs.
    While I think Mal is dead on, as a faithful Conservative closely watching the Republican nomination process, I'm going to put in my own two cents worth as to the thought process of the Republican candidates:

    I don't think any of the bozos running conservative in this campaign has the slightest idea what they are doing. And that's about all there is to it.

    It's pretty clear what Romney's doing: trying to present himself as professional and electable and hoping everyone forgets about RomneyCare while patiently waiting for a group of amateurs, retreads, has-beens, and never-will-bes to self-destruct. Given the brutal incompetence displayed by Conservative front-runners Perry, Bachmann, Cain, Gingrich, and Santorum, in that chronological order (and please forgive me if I've forgotten any others...but I know you'll understand why), and the self-imposed fringe status of Ron Paul (basically the English Premier League of candidates - he's got a small but enthusiastic group of supporters who know he's the best and can't figure out why the heck everyone else doesn't get it), he's probably got the right idea.

    In short, the longer this nomination process goes on, the more my thoughts turn to bourbon.

    (to avoid another infraction, please note that this post is written tongue-in-cheek...sort of)

  8. #828
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Hot'Lanta... home of the Falcons!
    With 67% of the votes counted, Romney leads in Michigan 42-37. A 5 point lead may seem small, but with this many votes counted, that's a pretty solid lead and likely means that Romney will win the state. The networks are all projecting him as the winner. As a result, the headlines tomorrow and the news media will all talk about Romney going 2-for-2 and that he has re-established himself as the firm front-runner in the GOP race. He has out-performed the polls in Michigan too, which had forecast a closer race than this.

    This is a big night for him, make no mistake about it...

    ...assuming he holds on to his nice lead in Michigan **

    --Jason "**- note, I am not looking at where the votes have been reported, so it may be that some strong Santorum counties are yet to come in and this will be closer than it looks" Evans
    Why are you wasting time here when you could be wasting it by listening to the latest episode of the DBR Podcast?

  9. #829
    Join Date
    Sep 2007
    Location
    Undisclosed
    Looks to be a good night for Romney. Super Tuesday in a week = whole new drama.

    Should almost be a "Campaign, Phase II" thread. (not really, but you get what I mean. All the fighting over the last two weeks, to get a tepid advantage for Mitt with the same Super Tuesday wall in front of him. It all comes down to who can keep the money coming in, and who cannot.)

  10. #830
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Skinker-DeBaliviere, Saint Louis
    Quote Originally Posted by JasonEvans View Post
    With 67% of the votes counted, Romney leads in Michigan 42-37. A 5 point lead may seem small, but with this many votes counted, that's a pretty solid lead and likely means that Romney will win the state. The networks are all projecting him as the winner. As a result, the headlines tomorrow and the news media will all talk about Romney going 2-for-2 and that he has re-established himself as the firm front-runner in the GOP race. He has out-performed the polls in Michigan too, which had forecast a closer race than this.

    This is a big night for him, make no mistake about it...

    ...assuming he holds on to his nice lead in Michigan **

    --Jason "**- note, I am not looking at where the votes have been reported, so it may be that some strong Santorum counties are yet to come in and this will be closer than it looks" Evans
    Which, if it holds, means he gets a landslide of 9 delegates to 7, given that Michigan went too early again and were penalized half their delegates.

    I've been watching the counties on the CNN map. Seems a lot of the Santorum counties don't have that many bodies in them.

    I wish I were intelligent enough to understand the Wyoming caucus.

    I keep reading the Conservative pessimism (cf DaveKay's post) in the press and I just don't understand how, when Romney emerges from this mess, he isn't going to be just as viable as Obama, especially as Fox News screams about the price of gasoline. Both Parker and Brooks lamented the situation in the R primaries from a Conservative viewpoint, too, last couple days--but everyone will forget all this by September. Romney's not doing a great job now, but all he has to do is survive.

    A movie is not about what it's about; it's about how it's about it.
    ---Roger Ebert


    Some questions cannot be answered
    Who’s gonna bury who
    We need a love like Johnny, Johnny and June
    ---Over the Rhine

  11. #831
    Join Date
    Sep 2007
    Location
    Undisclosed
    Quote Originally Posted by throatybeard View Post
    Which, if it holds, means he gets a landslide of 9 delegates to 7, given that Michigan went too early again and were penalized half their delegates.

    I've been watching the counties on the CNN map. Seems a lot of the Santorum counties don't have that many bodies in them.

    I wish I were intelligent enough to understand the Wyoming caucus.

    I keep reading the Conservative pessimism (cf DaveKay's post) in the press and I just don't understand how, when Romney emerges from this mess, he isn't going to be just as viable as Obama, especially as Fox News screams about the price of gasoline. Both Parker and Brooks lamented the situation in the R primaries from a Conservative viewpoint, too, last couple days--but everyone will forget all this by September. Romney's not doing a great job now, but all he has to do is survive.
    I guess that's the big question. Are folks so upset with Obama that lots of folks will show up to vote him out of office even though Mitt does not have a lot of passionate support? Or is Mitt so compromised at this point that Obama paints him as "The One Percent" and rolls him?

    I have no idea. I do know that the Republican candidate would have a much easier path if a majority of the party actually liked him or her, though.

    Romney may be our next President -- but it may be like the Republican primary. Dragged to the altar by Romney, not our first choice but the best of worse options.

  12. #832
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Ashburn, VA
    Quote Originally Posted by Mal View Post
    I've read separately that many Southern Evangelicals consider the UCC, the church of the President, to be essentially not true Christian. Perhaps someone from that background on here could provide more insight and/or confirmation or rebuttal as to this emerging theological split.
    It's not really "emerging" (or a technical 'split'), but a criticism that has been at play for quite awhile. Historically, the UCC is one of the seven "mainline" Protestant denominations. And in the broad spectrum of Protestantism, the UCC would be pretty far to the left on both theological and social positions (which sometimes intersect as well). I don't think this is the right forum to enumerate them. Also, I personally would disagree with most of those positions, but I'll keep it at that for now.

    "True Christian" is also an ambiguous phrase which could run a gamut of meanings and vary depending on context.

  13. #833
    A postscript on Michigan from this morning's NBC First Read:


    *** The delegate battle: Here’s one final point about Michigan: NBC News can declare that Romney and Santorum have each won six of Michigan’s congressional districts, giving them 12 delegates. (And when you add the one at-large delegate each won, they stand at 13 each.) But there are two undecided districts (the 5th and 13th) -- one where Romney is leading by some 60 votes (with more to be counted), and one where Santorum is up some 40 votes. So, yes, it's still possible for Santorum to win more delegates in Michigan than Romney.

  14. #834
    Quote Originally Posted by throatybeard View Post
    I keep reading the Conservative pessimism (cf DaveKay's post) in the press and I just don't understand how, when Romney emerges from this mess, he isn't going to be just as viable as Obama, especially as Fox News screams about the price of gasoline. Both Parker and Brooks lamented the situation in the R primaries from a Conservative viewpoint, too, last couple days--but everyone will forget all this by September. Romney's not doing a great job now, but all he has to do is survive.
    This is sort of the same mistake that people make with conference affiliation in college sports. The SEC isn't the best basketball conference when you average all the teams together but you only one powerhouse to win the championship, and they have that this year. I agree the Republican field is awful on average this year (again, awful in a strategic sense) but you only need one guy to win the presidency, and I don't really buy into the meme that Romney as an individual is not a strong candidate.

  15. #835
    Join Date
    Sep 2007
    Location
    Undisclosed
    Quote Originally Posted by Wander View Post
    This is sort of the same mistake that people make with conference affiliation in college sports. The SEC isn't the best basketball conference when you average all the teams together but you only one powerhouse to win the championship, and they have that this year. I agree the Republican field is awful on average this year (again, awful in a strategic sense) but you only need one guy to win the presidency, and I don't really buy into the meme that Romney as an individual is not a strong candidate.
    But under that analogy, wouldn't at least one team dominate?

    If one candidate is very good, and the rest of the field poor, this should be over by now.

    It may well be that a generic Republican can beat Obama (although the poils currently show the contrary as I understand it). I think the disturbing trend that may linger to the general is that Romney only wins when he massively outspends his opponents. That's not gonig to be possible in the Fall. Obama can raise as much money as Mitt, I suspect, and is spending very little of it now. The longer the primary process goes on, the more Mitt has to tap his wells before the real battle ahead. And, the more he needs to keep placating the base of the party, the harder it will be to pivot towards the independents in the middle and conservative ("Reagan") Democrats that he will need to win the general.

  16. #836
    Join Date
    Sep 2007
    Location
    Undisclosed
    Quote Originally Posted by Tom B. View Post
    A postscript on Michigan from this morning's NBC First Read:
    Following up on the NCAA analogy above, this is kind of like the situation where one team needs to play a series of back-to-back-to-back brutal games, while the other team gets a bye until the final. Absent something dramatic on Super Tuesday, or someone turns off the money spigot to Newt and Santorum, this internecine warfare will make it tough to pull together after August.

  17. #837
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Quote Originally Posted by Wander View Post
    This is sort of the same mistake that people make with conference affiliation in college sports. The SEC isn't the best basketball conference when you average all the teams together but you only one powerhouse to win the championship, and they have that this year. I agree the Republican field is awful on average this year (again, awful in a strategic sense) but you only need one guy to win the presidency, and I don't really buy into the meme that Romney as an individual is not a strong candidate.
    Yes, but Romney isn't going undefeated "in conference" like Kentucky basketball - he's struggling to beat Rick Santorum. What has Romney done this year - or ever - to suggest that he's a strong candidate for any office?

  18. #838

    delegate math

    While most sources are reporting that Romnety and Santorum will split Michigan's delegates equally, the Santorum camp is claiming that they will end up with more delegates out of the state:

    http://www.nationaljournal.com/2012-...sible-20120229

    I know the theme of the night is that Romney got two big wins, but would that change the perception? And does anybody factor in the huge spending disparity that bought Romney his "win" -- just like his huge spending disparity in Florida?

  19. #839
    Quote Originally Posted by OldPhiKap View Post
    But under that analogy, wouldn't at least one team dominate?

    If one candidate is very good, and the rest of the field poor, this should be over by now.

    It may well be that a generic Republican can beat Obama (although the poils currently show the contrary as I understand it). I think the disturbing trend that may linger to the general is that Romney only wins when he massively outspends his opponents. That's not gonig to be possible in the Fall. Obama can raise as much money as Mitt, I suspect, and is spending very little of it now. The longer the primary process goes on, the more Mitt has to tap his wells before the real battle ahead. And, the more he needs to keep placating the base of the party, the harder it will be to pivot towards the independents in the middle and conservative ("Reagan") Democrats that he will need to win the general.
    I think this is astute. Maybe baseball would be a better analogy than basketball or football, where a team that's winning a lot of tough games, even if they shouldn't be close, will be deemed "battle-tested" and it will be said they "just know what it takes to win games." I don't think that describes Romney as well as the analogy of, say, the College World Series. Romney's in the 1-loss bracket, having to play a series of elimination games just to make the final and face a team that's been resting. His starting pitching has been disappointing, his bullpen's getting seriously stressed, he won't have his ace until Game 3 of the final series if he gets there, and his left fielder pulled his hammy. He's been barely beating some .500 or even below .500 teams in the playoffs, mostly through those opponents leaving tons of guys on base. Anything can and often does happen when the World Series rolls around, but on paper there's not much reason to think he's anything other than a significant underdog who needs to outplay recent performance, or have his opponent's game fall off.

    There was some "compare and contrast" punditry going on last night of the speech Romney gave at Ford Field last week, to 1,200 people in a 60,000 person stadium, and the speech Obama gave at a UAW convention yesterday. It was a fairly stark contrast. It's all a fresh start after the primaries, and most of the nation isn't plugged in or even close to it yet so won't have the firsthand memory of what went on in the Republican primaries in September, but Romney will quite likely be perceived in the media as the guy who won despite himself, made a ton of unforced errors on the trail, burned up most of his cash, and was seriously pushed by two separate fringe candidates. That metastory doesn't help him, and his lack of outbursting personality is going to be a significant contrast to the President, who's probably more at home on the stump than anywhere (as evidenced in the aforesaid speech from yesterday). Romney's going to be about as close to "generic Republican" as one can get. Not much different than Kerry was in '04. He won't get steamrolled the way it's quite possible Santorum would, and he won't inspire a lot of downticket Tea Party drag on the Republican Party's prospects in Congress the way Santorum might. But he's got some work to do to coalesce the party around him and become an appealing brand for independents if he's to win the White House through any means other than Greece collapsing and $5/gallon gas. And that's going to be a rather fine line to walk, as right now those appear to be mutually exclusive concepts, at least on the policy front.

  20. #840
    Quote Originally Posted by Olympic Fan View Post

    While most sources are reporting that Romnety and Santorum will split Michigan's delegates equally, the Santorum camp is claiming that they will end up with more delegates out of the state:

    http://www.nationaljournal.com/2012-...sible-20120229

    I know the theme of the night is that Romney got two big wins, but would that change the perception? And does anybody factor in the huge spending disparity that bought Romney his "win" -- just like his huge spending disparity in Florida?
    I don't know that it would change the overall perception all that much. After all, unlike Iowa (where Mitt was declared the winner, only to be un-declared a week later after a correction in the vote counting), it looks like Mitt really did win the popular vote (at least, a narrow plurality of it) in Michigan. While it was close, it doesn't appear to be so close that any tabulation errors or discrepancies would change the outcome.

    Not that it wouldn't help Santorum, though. It would give Santorum something to talk about other than social/religious/culture war issues (even Santorum himself appears to be realizing the need to expand his rhetoric beyond just that sphere), and he'd probably get at least a little free media coverage out of it, which -- if he spins it right -- could help elevate his profile and help him with fundraising, thereby extending his life in the campaign.

    Apparently Romney got his winning margin last night from affluent voters in metro Detroit. Oakland County alone went for Romney by over 31,000 votes, which was over 96% of Romney's statewide margin of victory. Take away the three metro Detroit counties (Wayne, Macomb and Oakland), and Santorum won the state. So there really does appear to be an urban/rural divide -- as well as a divide along wealth lines -- emerging among GOP voters. And it's potentially problematic for Romney, as it feeds the meme regarding his struggles to connect with the heartland voters who are crucial to the GOP.

Similar Threads

  1. Politics of Preschool
    By JasonEvans in forum Off Topic
    Replies: 1
    Last Post: 05-05-2008, 02:16 PM

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •