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	<title>Obama&#039;s Enemies List: A Growing List of Obama&#039;s Enemies &#187; John Kerry</title>
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		<title>The Audacity of Obama&#8217;s Secularism</title>
		<link>http://www.obamashitlist.com/2012/02/07/the-audacity-of-obamas-secularism/</link>
		<comments>http://www.obamashitlist.com/2012/02/07/the-audacity-of-obamas-secularism/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 07 Feb 2012 16:10:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>FlodinCeglinski711</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Barack Obama]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[ The secularists of the French Revolution regarded the Roman Catholic Church as the last obstacle to atheism's final triumph. Blurting this out, the French dilettante Denis Diderot proposed to his fellow revolutionaries that they strangle the last priest with the "guts of the last king." Under this spirit, the forces of secularism picked up speed in the 18th and 19th century, went into overdrive in the 20th, and now floor it in the 21st. Barack Obama is the one these revolutionaries have been "waiting for." He is the stealth radical, soft in temperament but hard in thought, who seeks to use religiosity without religion to purge all traces of God from public life. Not wanting to repeat John Kerry's electoral debacle -- which even Nancy Pelosi attributed to the leaden senator's undisguised secularism -- Obama worked hard to con the religious into voting for him in 2008. He "valued" religion, particularly the votes of the religious. On his campaign web page, "people of faith" enjoyed their own special slot, a mere two tabs down from the "Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender community." Obama cast himself as a "post-partisan" politician on matters of the spirit. He found fawning dupes in the religious community to provide him with pulpits and platforms for faux-pensive addresses on his newly conceived "connection between politics and religion." This pretentious throat clearing amounted to nothing more than Alinskyite advice to his fellow Democrats that they exploit religion for secularist and socialist purposes.]]></description>
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		<title>Thoughts on Tim Thomas</title>
		<link>http://www.obamashitlist.com/2012/01/24/thoughts-on-tim-thomas/</link>
		<comments>http://www.obamashitlist.com/2012/01/24/thoughts-on-tim-thomas/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 24 Jan 2012 23:31:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>TrevorLandon</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Barack Obama]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.obamashitlist.com/2012/01/24/thoughts-on-tim-thomas/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[ Boston Bruins goalie Tim Thomas made waves when he skipped the White House ceremony yesterday honoring the 2010-2011 Stanley Cup champions. Thomas made the following statement to explain his absence: I believe the Federal government has grown out of control, threatening the Rights, Liberties, and Property of the People. This is being done at the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial level. This is in direct opposition to the Constitution and the Founding Fathers vision for the Federal government. Because I believe this, today I exercised my right as a Free Citizen, and did not visit the White House. This was not about politics or party, as in my opinion both parties are responsible for the situation we are in as a country. This was about a choice I had to make as an INDIVIDUAL. This is the only public statement I will be making on this topic. TT Bruins President (and former Bruins legend) Cam Neely released a statement on behalf of the Bruins which said in part, "We are disappointed that Tim chose not to join us, and his views certainly do not reflect those of the Jacobs family or the Bruins organization." The absence of Thomas was significant for two reasons. First, Thomas is no bit player. He won the Conn Smythe Trophy which is essentially the equivalent of being Stanley Cup MVP. Second, the NHL is largely populated by Canadians, Russians and Eastern Europeans and Scandinavians. In fact, of the 690 players currently on NHL rosters, only 162 were born in the United States. Despite the fact that 23 of the 30 NHL teams are based in the United States, only 23% of the players are American. The New York Islanders and Buffalo Sabres have the most Americans on their roster with nine apiece while the Phoenix Coyotes , the Florida Panthers , and yes, the Bruins have only two Americans on each of their rosters. Tonight, the Bruins face the Washington Capitals (which is as much as any reason why the Bruins visited the White House yesterday) and they only have three Americans on their roster. Not surprisingly, Thomas is being criticized in some quarters and even been absurdly accused of hating our troops . Yet Red Sox principal owner John Henry along with former Red Sox GM Theo Epstein,]]></description>
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		<title>Morning Briefing for January 24, 2012</title>
		<link>http://www.obamashitlist.com/2012/01/24/morning-briefing-for-january-24-2012/</link>
		<comments>http://www.obamashitlist.com/2012/01/24/morning-briefing-for-january-24-2012/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 24 Jan 2012 14:45:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>richwas</dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.obamashitlist.com/2012/01/24/morning-briefing-for-january-24-2012/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[ RedState Morning Briefing January 24, 2012 Go to www.RedStateMB.com to get the Morning Briefing every morning at no charge. 1. Former Kerry staffer arrested for blowing agents’ cover. 2. Congressional Republicans Can and Must Force Obama’s Hand on Keystone Pipeline 3. The Republican Base Simply Does Not Like Mitt Romney &#038; Why The Press Rarely Reports It &#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;- 1. Former Kerry staffer arrested for blowing agents’ cover. Mind you, you wouldn’t know that from the Washington Post’s article on the arrest of John Kiriakou. While the Washington Post – from appearances, somewhat reluctantly – reported that Kiriakou (a former CIA officer and Senate Foreign Affairs staffer) had been arrested for revealing names, operations and investigations to the media back in 2008-2009, the paper completely neglected to mention who Kiriakou ended up working for – which is to say, Senator John Kerry (D, MA). Oddly enough, the Washington Post managed to simultaneous note that “[t]he committee had not been aware of the criminal probe of Kiriakou, according to a former U.S. official familiar with the matter” in its article, while unaccountably mentioning that Kiriakou has been leaking classified information publicly for years – including to the, well, Washington Post. One can only guess why a premiere Left-Establishment paper would be so eager to whitewash the record when it comes to protecting prominent Left-Establishment politicians… like, say, John Kerry, who is the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee (at least until next January)… Please click here for the rest of the post. 2. Congressional Republicans Can and Must Force Obama’s Hand on Keystone Pipeline Immediately prior to the congressional recess in December, Congress passed an inefficacious two-month extension of the Social Security tax cut. Additionally, they reauthorized another two months of unprecedented long-term unemployment benefits, along with more spending for Medicare ‘doc fix.’ None of it, including the entitlement spending, was paid for in any meaningful way. Nevertheless, you might ask, didn’t we get the Keystone pipeline as part of the deal? Well, in reality we got nothing. Please click here for the rest of the post. 3. The Republican Base Simply Does Not Like Mitt Romney &#038; Why The Press Rarely Reports It Mitt Romney is supposedly a brilliant private businessman. It is the theme of his campaign. If a business were to spend as much as he has spent to lose Iowa in 2012 garnering less votes in 2012 than he got in 2008 and then lose all but two counties in South Carolina, you’d think a private businessman would shake up his campaign. Right now in running his campaign, Mitt Romney conveys all the business acumen of a co-CEO of Research in Motion, both of whom are themselves losing their jobs. There is, however, some important insight into this we should all now see. Please click here for the rest of the post. ]]></description>
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		<title>Former John Kerry staffer John Kiriakou arrested for blowing CIA agents’ cover.</title>
		<link>http://www.obamashitlist.com/2012/01/24/former-john-kerry-staffer-john-kiriakou-arrested-for-blowing-cia-agents-cover/</link>
		<comments>http://www.obamashitlist.com/2012/01/24/former-john-kerry-staffer-john-kiriakou-arrested-for-blowing-cia-agents-cover/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 24 Jan 2012 07:30:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>WhittleseyObyrne184</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Barack Obama]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.obamashitlist.com/2012/01/24/former-john-kerry-staffer-john-kiriakou-arrested-for-blowing-cia-agents-cover/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[ Mind you, you wouldn&#8217;t know that from the Washington Post&#8217;s article on the arrest of John Kiriakou. While the Washington Post &#8211; from appearances, somewhat reluctantly &#8211; reported that Kiriakou (a former CIA officer and Senate Foreign Affairs staffer) had been arrested for revealing names, operations and investigations to the media back in 2008-2009, the paper completely neglected to mention who Kiriakou ended up working for &#8211; which is to say, Senator John Kerry (D, MA ). Oddly enough, the Washington Post managed to simultaneous note that &#8220;[t]he committee had not been aware of the criminal probe of Kiriakou, according to a former U.S. official familiar with the matter&#8221; in its article, while unaccountably mentioning that Kiriakou has been leaking classified information publicly for years &#8211; including to the, well, Washington Post . One can only guess why a premiere Left-Establishment paper would be so eager to whitewash the record when it comes to protecting prominent Left-Establishment politicians&#8230; like, say, John Kerry, who is the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee (at least until next January)&#8230; One last note: I don&#8217;t say this often, but I have to admit that the Obama administration has been a lot better on hammering down violators of the Espionage Act than I expected them to be. Politico reports that the current number of investigations &#8220;exceeds the number of such cases in all previous administrations combined;&#8221; and while I may have a low opinion of the White House&#8217;s motivations (essentially, I think that the Obama administration hates it when people talk out of turn on anything ) I&#8217;m not going to overly quibble about results. I recognize the need for whistle-blowing and oversight, but the rules are there for a reason. Some things out there really should be only available on a need-to-know basis, and I don&#8217;t need to know them . And neither do you. So. A chill wind a-blowing, and that suits me just fine. And John Kerry needs to do better vetting of his staff. Particularly when it comes to this guy: I mean, correct me if I&#8217;m wrong, but doesn&#8217;t it seem to be a little odd that Kerry would pick as a senior adviser somebody who would think that it&#8217;s a good idea to release classified photos and names of CIA operatives to the media? Particularly since both the photos and names ended up on the wrong side of the bars in Gitmo? Moe Lane ( crosspost ) ]]></description>
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		<title>I Think He Can</title>
		<link>http://www.obamashitlist.com/2012/01/16/i-think-he-can/</link>
		<comments>http://www.obamashitlist.com/2012/01/16/i-think-he-can/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 16 Jan 2012 16:10:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>georgiana wren</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Barack Obama]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.obamashitlist.com/2012/01/16/i-think-he-can/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[ For the past week, it's been all the rage among pundits across the political spectrum. No, not wondering whether First Lady Michelle Obama is indeed an "angry black woman" but rather pontificating on whether former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney is "the least electable" Republican candidate or even simply "unelectable." Some say that Romneycare, the Massachusetts state-run intervention into health insurance which was largely the model for Obamacare, makes Mitt Romney an ineffective opponent to take on President Obama's signature "achievement" -- an achievement that the majority of Americans has consistently wanted repealed since its inception. Others argue -- perhaps from wishful thinking -- that Romney's Mormon religion will be held against him (interesting how it's usually liberals saying this will be a problem among conservatives) or that his work at Bain Capital (and the now famous picture of Romney and partners posing with money) will do him in. Some worry that Mitt Romney will not inspire enthusiasm, that he will struggle to get Republicans to contribute cash, man phone banks, and otherwise participate in the grassroots ground game critical to winning a major election. And everybody knows that Romney has changed his position on a range of issues from abortion to health care to gays in the military. Other candidates, including Newt Gingrich, Jon Huntsman , and Rick Santorum are calling Romney unelectable -- going after the "most electable" theme that has been a key early selling point for the Romney candidacy even if not made overtly by Romney himself. According to Associated Press exit polling during the recent New Hampshire primary, of primary voters who said that their "most important consideration was finding a candidate who could defeat President Barack Obama in November… Romney won 62 percent of their votes." In short, the web is ablaze with articles discussing why Mitt Romney's electability is a myth. Color me skeptical of the current "unelectable" fad. I understand all the arguments against Mitt Romney. I would add another: his aggressive anti-free trade rhetoric regarding China is ill-advised economic nonsense. But there is something about the "he's unelectable" craze that resembles wishful thinking and attempts at political hypnotism. Romney's Republican primary opponents and Democrats who still expect him to be the nominee are waving the pocket watch in front of our eyes and saying "he can't win, he can't win…," hoping beyond hope that if we hear it enough we'll come to believe it. Romney has more than a few things in his favor, not least the public perception that he is a man who understands the economy. Recent attacks on Bain may dent that shiny electoral vehicle, but they won't total it. And his achievements in "saving" the Salt Lake City winter Olympics are a non-partisan feather in his cap. Romney seems distinctly presidential. And although Willard Mitt Romney has a patrician air about him, coming from a prominent and successful family, he comes across as likeable in a way that John Kerry never could. (And Kerry married his wealth, twice, while Romney earned his.) Important in the theoretical world of electability, and in the real world of ever-increasing numbers of independent/unaffiliated voters, is that many of the areas that trouble conservatives -- and cause Newt Gingrich to call Romney a "Massachusetts moderate" -- allow Romney to appeal to the vast middle of America in a way that more intensely conservative candidates would struggle to match. It will be difficult for the left to credibly portray Romney as "extreme," one of their favorite tactics against Republicans. And still all of this misses -- surprisingly for what the question of electability really means -- the fact that the Republican nominee will be running against a president with a record. It's a record of failure and incompetence and corruption and near-tyranny so all-encompassing that it allows Jimmy Carter a sigh of relief as he considers his own presidential legacy. It is the reason that Charles Krauthammer, when asked who should be the Republican nominee, said "someone dull and competent" because this election "must be about Obama and Obama-ism" for Republicans to win. Of Republicans who are or were likely contenders for the presidential nomination, only Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels embodies "dull and competent" better than Mitt Romney does. Channeling Krauthammer, the focus on President Obama's disastrous record -- rather than the lamentations of perfection-seekers -- is what comes through in the data as being in the minds of most Americans: Pollster Scott Rasmussen finds that "former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney is the only GOP contender that most voters view as having a chance against President Obama. Fifty-three percent (53%) of Likely U.S. Voters think Romney is at least somewhat likely to beat the president in November. " That view of electability is turning, albeit with obvious if waning reluctance, into electoral support. A Quinnipiac University poll released last week had Mitt Romney three points ahead of Barack Obama in the key early primary state of Florida. And Romney's favorable/unfavorable rating is better than any of the other candidates asked about in the poll -- including Barack Obama. A CBS News poll released the same day as the Rasmussen data shows Romney two points ahead of Obama nationally, making Romney "the only GOP candidate to hold a lead over the president in a hypothetical head-to-head matchup." And a Saturday poll of South Carolina Republican voters shows Romney with massive 21-point lead over his closest rivals in the Palmetto State in the face of the most aggressive attacks yet faced by the Romney campaign. To be sure, many polls show Obama ahead of Romney nationwide, but Romney leads every other Republican versus Obama with the RealClearPolitics average of recent polls having Obama ahead of Romney by less than two percent, as compared to leading Newt Gingrich by 9 points, Rick Santorum by 7 points, and Ron Paul by 5 points. In political betting , after a week of intense assault by his Republican opponents and Democrats alike, Mitt Romney's odds of winning the South Carolina primary, the Florida primary, and the Republican nomination have each climbed slowly upwards (to roughly 85 percent, 95 percent, and 87 percent, respectively.) Furthermore, the anti-Bain onslaught has not dented Romney's betting odds of winning the presidency itself, now standing just over 42 percent -- a remarkably high number so early in the nominating process and against an incumbent president who won an overwhelming victory just three years ago. Pundits and politicians of all political stripes keep telling us that Mitt Romney is not electable -- or at least not as electable as we think. But the data simply doesn't back them up. Furthermore, and I say this with the utmost respect to those talented political writers who are also on the "least electable" train, there's a fair bit of projection going on: Principled conservatives (and libertarians like me) wish that firm commitment to principle were the key factor in electability, especially having been through the last decade. In fact, it is barely a factor at all, at least during these days of extremely high unemployment and economic insecurity. People want results more than they want the candidate who is most right -- in any sense of the word. This may not portend well for our republic's long-term prospects. But in the short term, for those who believe that our nation, and perhaps the world, can't afford another four years of Barack Obama, it is hard to be as troubled by Mitt Romney as some others are. Do Republicans really need the "most principled" candidate to be motivated to help him beat the most imperfect president in modern American history? One clue to the answer is the Romney campaign's $24 million fourth-quarter haul -- nearly doubling his closest Republican rival. Few things are more important measures of electability and enthusiasm for the candidate than hard, cold campaign cash. Perhaps fortunately, the public is not listening to the chattering classes who are saying that Mitt Romney can't pull the Republican train to victory. Instead, they're taking a closer look at Romney -- policies, religion, Bain Capital and all -- and saying "I think he can. I think he can." ]]></description>
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		<title>Why Romney is Weak vs. Obama</title>
		<link>http://www.obamashitlist.com/2012/01/13/why-romney-is-weak-vs-obama/</link>
		<comments>http://www.obamashitlist.com/2012/01/13/why-romney-is-weak-vs-obama/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 14 Jan 2012 00:29:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Bob R</dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[ Since I wrote this little blog post the other day, picked up at Real Clear Politics, all of a sudden (by coincidence; I'm not claiming I had anything to do with it, but just am remarking on how rapidly the 'meme' has taken off) all sorts of people are suddenly realizing that Mitt Romney is hardly the candidate with the best chance to beat Barack Obama. It certainly isn't all at the Center for Individual Freedom, but we did have a written colloquy on the subject the other day, with Troy Senik and Ashton Ellis insightfully joining me in weighing in . Actually, Jonathan Last made the case earlier, here . Tina Korbe, a rising star, argues the same thing at Hot Air. Phil Klein at the Washington Examiner makes the case that Romney's flip-flopping is a big liability in a general election (as it was for Al Gore and to a certain extent John Kerry). Back in late December, John Hawkins at Right Wing News also argued the situation quite well. Of course, Peter Ferrara made the case right here at the Spectator , although he also segued into (strong) arguments against Romney's ability to do a good job if he were elected anyway. William Jacobson at Legal Insurrection also has questions . The scholarly take on it , again doubting Romney's electability, was by Larry Lindsey at the Weekly Standard . From the center-left , the very smart former U.S. Rep. Artur Davis (D-AL) thinks his (former) party doesn't have much to worry about from Romney: "The fact, however, is that Democrats have not had to strain to plan the race they would run against Romney. For four days in the week, they will paint him as a flip-flopper who has occupied both sides of a lot of ground; for three days, as an entitled tool of corporate interests who made millions doling out pink slips on behalf of a shadowy management firm." Also at NRO, Andy McCarthy doubts whether we can know who is more electable. At the New York Post , John Podhoretz writes a piece about Romney headlined "Never Has a Winner Looked so Beaten." The column is brutal. It calls Romney "one of the weakest major candidates either party has ever seen." Also: "[N]obody loves him. No one is inspired by him.… Claiming he should be president because he knows how to run a business may be the least stirring message any candidate has seized upon since Michael Dukakis foundered in 1988 by claiming he could bring 'competence' to the White House. And his liabilities are undeniable. Even though Gingrich's assault on Romney's record of laying off workers when he was running Bain Capital is breathtaking in its disingenuousness, that record does happen to be one of a dozen glaring weaknesses in Romney's biography, political history and approach that President Obama and his team will be able to use to their advantage." And Jonah Goldberg writes that Romney's "authentic inauthenticity problem isn't going away." Plenty other similar pieces are out there, all in a rush. And they are all correct. I try to look at these things from three perspectives based in my own experience. [MUCH MORE] I've been a political activist/political professional/presidential campaign state executive director/presidential caucus organizer/leadership Hill staffer, so I have a participant's perspective. I've been a PR executive, so I then try to look at it from a marketing perspective. And I've been a journalist/columnist for 15 years, so there's the close observer/outsider perspective. (This is not to boast about my background, but only to explain HOW I arrive at looking at things, from different angles, as a way to check my assumptions -- althought I do have a long record of getting it right.) Anyway, here's what I see. I see, first, a candidate who " fails to inspire ." This is hugely important. It's the old Dole/McCain/Bush 41 thing again: Without energizing one's base, it doesn't matter if you can get a few extra percentage points from "swing" voters (even assuming it's true that those extra few points are achievable -- which is probably not true anyway, because if you aren't inspirational, you aren't inspirational, period, meaning you don't inspire the middle either). It's also true that millions of voters really can decide to stay home; remember that Karl Rove estimated that up to 4 million expected Evangelical Bush backers stayed home in 2000 after being disgusted by last-weekend news that Bush had had a drunk driving arrest way back when. The result, of course, was a race that took six extra weeks to decide. Next is a candidate's history, which was the basis of my original post on this front. Aside from winning the governorship against extremely weak opposition in a three-way race where he failed to get an actual majority of the vote, in a state that despite its liberalism had become accustomed to electing Republican governors ( for 12 straight years ), Romney still has never won an electorally significant victory that wasn't in his native state (Michigan) or in a state that is his backyard and site of his vacation home (New Hampshire). Even in Iowa, his mere eight-vote win after five years of work there amounted to six (yes, count them, exactly six) fewer votes than he earned four years earlier in the same caucus system. Then there's the attacks on his tenure at Bain Capital. The attacks are over-the-top and unfair. But coming from the left in a general election campaign, they will work. That's how a weakened Ted Kennedy in a Republican year blew open a tight race against Romney and won by a landslide -- by attacking Bain (and by some subtle but effective exploitation of anti-Mormon bigotry, which unfortunately and unfairly and sickeningly will probably cost Romney a point and a half from otherwise GOP voters this year as well). What's particularly devastating here is when a candidate's big vulnerability is in the very area he tried to, and expected to, make his biggest political strength. Romney's main selling point has been that he is a good businessman who proved himself in the private sector; if that gets taken away, he's toast, because his record as governor was nothing to write home about, with his only significant "achievement" being the execrable one of Romneycare. This is very much akin to what happened to John Kerry, who tried to make his major selling point his supposed military "heroism," when the highly on-target Swift Boat attacks made that same military service into a slight net liability. You can't win when your biggest selling point is actually a vulnerability. Romney, indeed, is the perfect foil for the Obama campaign, first because he is the very epitome of a Republican born rich who got richer by moving money around -- a millionaire plutocrat who just can't relate to "ordinary" Americans, and second because he is yet another Republican political/dynastic legatee. Think about it: We've gone from one Bush trying to outdo his Senate father by becoming president, to another Bush trying to outdo his president father by winning two terms as president, to a McCain trying to outdo his admiral father and admiral grandfather by becoming president... and now to a Romney trying to outdo his Michigan governor father and failed presidential front-runner by this time succeeding as a presidential front-runner. In the hands of the $800 million Obama campaign, this can easily by portrayed as a rather creepy and anti-American reliance on dynasticism. Combine that with what appears to be a plastic insincerity (again, the "flip-flopping" charge was devastating against Al Gore and can be so again), with a "how dare you question me" attitude that increasingly has shown itself in debates, and with an utter failure to "connect" emotionally with what once were known as "Reagan Democrats" (old-ethnic. i.e. Italian-American/Polish-American, etc., blue collar workers, culturally conservative and on economics distrustful of Wall Street), and you have a recipe for an extraordinarily weak general election candidate. Against all of that, all Romney can offer is a supposed greater acceptability to the educated, less culturally conservative, right-leaning economically, urban and suburbanites who are being targeted by Obama in places like Virginia and North Carolina. But the key thing here is that while these folks may be more socially liberal, they tend to vote more on the basis of their slightly upper-middle-income economic expectations rather than on social issues, and they'll vote either for or against Obama based on those analyses regardless of who the Republican nominee is. But it is the blue-collar worker, or small-business retailer, who (polls show) votes more often on cultural cues (not necessarily social issues per se, although that is sometimes the case, but more on stylistic cultural cues and concerns) than on other factors. Again, this is obviously a gross over-generalization (as is most 30,000-foot-level political socio-analysis), but these are indeed, as Rick Santorum keeps saying, the people who swing elections in states like Ohio, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Missouri. The are far more likely to swing behind Santorum (or Gingrich, or Perry) than behind the stiff rich guy with a "weird" religion and no middle-cultural social affinities ("shooting... small varmints" and flipping on homosexual "marriage"). While general-election polls ten months out are not at all predictive of final results, they can indicate basic information about viability. Candidates with higher name ID (especially with low current "hard negatives" like Romney) can be expected to do far better than ones with low ID, low familiarity, etc. Thus, it is highly instructive that in recent polls in both Florida and North Carolina , Rick Santorum did almost exactly as well (margin of error) against Obama as Romney did, despite Romney's far greater familiarity to voters. Finally, but perhaps most importantly, Romney just can't campaign against Obama's single biggest vulnerability, Obamacare . There are just too many similarities between Obamacare and Romneycare, too many bad results from Romneycare (busting the budget, etc.), and too many video clips of Romney from six years ago saying that he hoped that even the individual insurance mandate would become a "national model." This will absolutely hobble Romney's campaign. In fact, it might be an insurmountable problem. All of which is to say that Willard Mitt Romney has very low growth potential in a general-election campaign against Obama. His downside might be not as low as John McCain's was, four years ago, but his upside is negligible. As Larry Lindsey's analysis (mentioned above) explains, this can be an easy recipe for what I call a "respectable loss." But a loss is a loss is a loss. Romney is a weak general-election candidate who isn't likely to get any better. ]]></description>
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		<title>Multiple Choice Mitt’s Changing Colors on Romneycare</title>
		<link>http://www.obamashitlist.com/2012/01/11/multiple-choice-mitt%e2%80%99s-changing-colors-on-romneycare/</link>
		<comments>http://www.obamashitlist.com/2012/01/11/multiple-choice-mitt%e2%80%99s-changing-colors-on-romneycare/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 12 Jan 2012 00:40:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Cougar01</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Barack Obama]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.obamashitlist.com/2012/01/11/multiple-choice-mitt%e2%80%99s-changing-colors-on-romneycare/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[ April 12, 2006 is a day that will live on in infamy.  That was the day that then-Gov. Mitt Romney signed his signature socialized healthcare bill into law with Ted Kennedy standing over his shoulder.  It was the first time in American history that government of any sort compelled its citizenry to purchase health insurance.  It served as the catalyst for an individual mandate on a federal level, paving the road for Obamacare. At the time, John Kerry heaped accolades on Romney, ominously suggesting that “we really need to be doing that on the national level.” Ted Kennedy praised it as “just what the doctor ordered,” and observed that we “may well have fired a shot heard round the world.&#8221;  It took less than four years for the shot to metastasize into a bombardment – one that will permanently attenuate our free-enterprise economy. So how did Romney feel about his signature accomplishment of an otherwise uninspiring one-term tenure as governor? At the time of its passage, Romney dubbed it as a “once in a generation” achievement.  He referred to his magnum opus , which created subsidies for government run exchanges (larger than those created under Obamacare), as a “landmark” achievement “to get all of our citizens insurance without some new government-mandated takeover.” From Romney’s perspective, did he consider final passage of MassCare a meritorious ideal or a mediocre compromise watered down by the Democrat legislature? Well, immediately after he signed the bill into law, he told Newsweek reporter Jennifer Barrett that “the final legislation incorporates about 95 percent of my original proposal.” At the time, did Romney feel that the framework for his healthcare plan was a virtuous policy endeavor for the rest of the nation? On the day he signed the bill, he put out a press release quoting then-Secretary of HHS Tommy Thompson (who, by the way, must be defeated in Wisconsin) saying, “Massachusetts is showing us a better way, one I hope policy makers in Statehouses and Congress will follow to build a healthier and stronger America.” Being that Romneycare was Mitt’s “landmark” and “once in a generation” accomplishment, you would have expected him to tout it incessantly during his presidential campaign later that year and in 2007.  Instead, Romneycare became the best kept secret of his presidential campaign. As the crushing costs of Romneycare –both to the public and private sector – became evident, and as Romney began to court conservative voters opposing McCain, he placed his signature accomplishment in the Mittness Protection Program.  Not only did he decline to offer it as a national solution, Romney never spoke about MassCare unless prodded by conservative figures.  When pressed about the vices of his healthcare bill, Romney would summarily dismiss them as problems stemming from Democrat provisions in the bill – unspecified aspects that he supposedly opposed.  In January 2007, at the beginning of the presidential campaign, he told a group of National Romney Review Online supporters that “we believed we’d get everybody insured in an economic way, but I don’t know what is going to happen down the road as the Democrats get their hands on it.” Romney often cast doubts as to the future success of his plan as a result of the “Democrat legislature.”  In Feb. 2007, he told a crowd in Baltimore “if Massachusetts succeeds in implementing it, then that will be a model for the nation. If not, other states that are copying aspects of Massachusetts&#8217; [plan] will find a better way, and then we can copy them.&#8221; Well, the facts are in.  Romneycare has failed to control costs , and has dramatically raised the price of health insurance on everyone.  Nevertheless, Mitt Romney denies the facts and continues to view his signature legislation as a success.  He has repeatedly asserted that 92% of Massachussets residents are unaffected by Romneycare.  Yet, he has consistently and vehemently declined to endorse a similar plan on a national level.  What happened to his conviction that ” if Massachusetts succeeds in implementing it, then that will be a model for the nation?” In 2006, while he was Governor, Romneycare was a “once in a generation” accomplishment that should be mimicked on a national level.  In 2007, while running to the right of McCain, it was a dirty skeleton in the closet that was exacerbated by Democrat sabotage.  Now it is a resounding success….but only on a state level.  God forbid it to be even entertained on a national level. So which one is it, Mitt? This is what we have to look forward to from Democrats in the general election: ]]></description>
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		<title>On Romney, Bain and Keeping Your Integrity</title>
		<link>http://www.obamashitlist.com/2012/01/10/on-romney-bain-and-keeping-your-integrity/</link>
		<comments>http://www.obamashitlist.com/2012/01/10/on-romney-bain-and-keeping-your-integrity/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 10 Jan 2012 21:36:40 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>HigleyLocklear930</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Barack Obama]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.obamashitlist.com/2012/01/10/on-romney-bain-and-keeping-your-integrity/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[ We&#8217;re far down the rabbit hole of primary season right now, and that inevitably means that charges and counter-charges are flying so fast that the news cycle can change dramatically from morning to afternoon. Naturally, when things are moving this quickly and emotions are running high, people get carried away. This happens to everyone. A lot of people who sit on the sidelines are too quick to say, &#8220;oh, so-and-so totally lost credibility with me by making that argument.&#8221; But candidates and pundits in particular are making arguments all day long, day after day; they&#8217;re going to grab hold now and then of a story they should know better than to believe or an argument they should know better than to make. Like anything in life, the test of character is not the occasional stumble but the long sweep of your record over time &#8211; whether you back off when you&#8217;ve dug into an untenable position, whether you learn from mistakes. This comes to mind with yesterday&#8217;s confluence of attacks on Mitt Romney&#8217;s business record at Bain Capital and his ill-timed quip that &#8220;I like to be able to fire people.&#8221; To varying extents, the Gingrich and Perry campaigns and their supporters jumped all over him on both counts. A pro-Newt SuperPAC is rolling out a 27-minute documentary attacking Romney&#8217;s Bain record; as Erick notes, Perry&#8217;s campaign has been pushing a more modest line of attack against the Bain record , but still one that has something of a whiff of desperation about it. Perry&#8217;s camp also pushed a downloadable ringtone of Romney&#8217;s &#8220;fire&#8221; line. With time and some context, both campaigns backed off hitting Mitt on the &#8220;fire&#8221; comment: Perry&#8217;s people pulled the ringtone, and Newt told Fox News that the line had been taken out of context . The &#8220;fire&#8221; comment is the easier call. Romney was making a completely valid point: that people should be able to fire service providers like insurance companies if they&#8217;re not getting good service. That&#8217;s one of the pro-consumer aspects of the conservative message, and where we part company from liberals who think first of protecting entrenched interests at the expense of consumer choice. That being said, the comment fed directly into the most damaging narratives about Romney, and was emblematic of how he&#8217;s much like Rick Santorum in terms of his tendency to use cringe-inducingly tin-eared language when he&#8217;s making even valid points. The Bain storyline is a little more complicated, in part because there are a lot of angles to Bain&#8217;s business; while Romney&#8217;s record, as Jim Pethokoukis notes, includes a lot to be proud of , as Jonathan Last notes, you don&#8217;t have to necessarily take that business record as a whole if there are aspects worth defending and aspects worth criticizing . A fair amount of what businesses like Bain do is to step in and take over businesses that are in bad shape. We have an ongoing debate in this country about what to do with failing businesses, but denying they&#8217;re failing is not an option &#8211; either you shutter or restructure them or you prop them up, and that raises the question of who gets stuck with the bill for propping them up. One of the great scandals of the past 5 years, which has given rise to the Tea Party and to some extent the Occupy Wall Street movement as well, has been the extent to which the answer to that question has been the taxpayers. So, I don&#8217;t like seeing pro-free-market Republicans attacking the concept of what Bain does, any more than I liked seeing Romney attack Rick Perry from the left on entitlements. But just because the role of red-in-tooth-and-claw capitalists is a crucial and necessary one does not mean that they are likely to be popular candidates in today&#8217;s general election environment. Criminal defense lawyers, for example may be crucially necessary to our system of justice, but if they have represented a lot of unpopular clients, they are not likely to be politically viable. I continue to think that Romney&#8217;s business record is an under-explored political vulnerability (one Ted Kennedy used against Romney in 1994, but didn&#8217;t even use all the ads he cut) that the Democrats will exploit ruthlessly. And Romney&#8217;s existing defenses of that record are fairly weak . We should not be caught unawares by this in the summer and fall when it&#8217;s too late to pick another candidate. In many ways, it&#8217;s like the swift boat story. You&#8217;ll recall that the centerpiece of John Kerry&#8217;s electability argument in 2004 was his military record &#8211; not any policy proposal on national security, mind you, but the simple fact of his biography as a war hero. Given that Kerry had decades-old enemies from his activties as an anti-war protestor, it was unwise for Democrats to assume that this biographical narrative alone would go unchallenged in the general election. But that&#8217;s exactly what they did, and the Swift Boat Veterans&#8217; ads (especially the ads using Kerry&#8217;s own Senate testimony from 1970) did terrible damage to Kerry. Romney&#8217;s story is much the same. There&#8217;s no serious argument that Romney&#8217;s record of supporting free enterprise and job growth in his single term as Massachusetts governor is better than the records of Perry, Gingrich, Santorum and Huntsman; his claim to be a job creation specialist is grounded in his record at Bain, and just like Kerry&#8217;s war hero biography, this claim is bound to attract scrutiny. It would be foolishness in the extreme for Republicans to demand that nobody talk about this during the time when we&#8217;re choosing a candidate. The harder question, for free-market Republicans, is how to have a serious debate on this point without compromising our integrity and our principles. The fear that Bain, and Romney&#8217;s wealth (by birth as well as his business wealth) will be a political liability is hardly fanciful. Look back over the years at the list of wealthy Republican candidates who put their wealth ahead of their limited records in public office. The California GOP has had the worst record: Bill Simon, Carly Fiorina, Meg Whitman, Michael Huffington, and Bruce Herschensohn all flopped. The positive example is Arnold Schwarzenegger, who proved a disaster for California conservatives in office. Simon, a good and decent man and fairly conservative, faced an opponent with approval ratings so terrible on Election Day that he was recalled just months later &#8211; yet the Democrats tore Simon limb from limb with attacks on his private business record. Republicans in other states or at the national level have often found such candidates to be electoral failures or totally unreliable in pursuing our party&#8217;s principles in office: Herman Cain, Mike Bloomberg, Carl Paladino, Linda McMahon, Jack Ryan, Pete Coors, Pete Dawkins. (Ron Johnson and Rick Scott being rare exceptions, and Scott only won after a searing campaign against his business record). An understanding of private business is a valuable thing for public officials, but it&#8217;s no substitute for experience pursuing good public policies; Jon Corzine was a success in business before he ran New Jersey into the ground, and the most successful businessman ever to be president was Herbert Hoover. It&#8217;s entirely valid for Republicans to ask whether we are buying ourselves a similar set of headaches with Romney. The other point I would make about integrity is that it goes close to the core of why a Romney nomination worries me so much: because we would all have to make so many compromises to defend him that at the end of the day we may not even recognize ourselves. Romney has, in a career in public office of just four years (plus about 8 years&#8217; worth of campaigning), changed his position on just about every major issue you can think of, and his signature accomplishment in office was to be wrong on the largest policy issue of this campaign. Yes, Obama is bad, and Romney can be defended on the grounds that he can&#8217;t possibly be worse. Yes, Romney is personally a good man, a success in business, faith and family. But aside from his business biography, his primary campaign has been built entirely on arguments and strategies &#8211; about touting his own electability and dividing, coopting or delegitimizing other Republicans &#8211; none of which will be of any use in the general election. What, then, will we as politically active Republicans say about him? I was not a huge fan of John McCain&#8217;s record, but I was comfortable making honest points about the things McCain had been consistent on over the years &#8211; national security, free trade, nuclear power, public integrity, pork-barrel spending. There were spots of solid ground on which to plant ourselves with McCain, and he had a history of digging himself in on those and fighting for things he believed in. But Mitt Romney&#8217;s record is just one endless sheet of thin ice as far as the eye can see &#8211; there&#8217;s no way to have any kind of confidence that we can tell people he stands for something today without being made fools of tomorrow. We who have laughed along with Jim Geraghty&#8217;s prescient point that every Obama promise comes with an expiration date will be the ones laughed at, and worse yet we will know the critics are right. Every time I try to talk myself into thinking we can live with him, I run into this problem. It&#8217;s one that particularly bedeviled Republicans during the Nixon years &#8211; many partisan Republicans loved Nixon because he made the right enemies and fought them without cease or mercy, but the man&#8217;s actual policies compromised so many of our principles that the party was crippled in the process even before Watergate. We can stand for Romney, but we&#8217;ll find soon enough that that&#8217;s all we stand for. The problem is not entirely without its solutions; one of those is that the only real mechanism conservatives would have for keeping Romney honest is to pour efforts into getting more conservatives elected in the House and Senate, and in particular targeting primary challenges at people who have supported Romney. But that&#8217;s a desperate measure, and it still doesn&#8217;t answer the question of how we make the affirmative case for Romney without losing our integrity. Which is precisely why we need a hard look now at what we&#8217;re getting in return. ]]></description>
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		<title>Mitt&#8217;s Masquerade</title>
		<link>http://www.obamashitlist.com/2012/01/10/mitts-masquerade/</link>
		<comments>http://www.obamashitlist.com/2012/01/10/mitts-masquerade/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 10 Jan 2012 16:07:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>HigleyLocklear930</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Barack Obama]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.obamashitlist.com/2012/01/10/mitts-masquerade/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[ During the election season of 2010, there was a schism in the Republican Party between populist Tea Partiers and more politically-sensitive establishmentarians. Today those two factions have been reshuffled into the Romney voters and the Anyone-But-Romney voters. The media is still gawking at the volatile Iowa caucuses where the two camps did battle for the first time, resulting in a hair-breadth victory for Romney over the insurgent Rick Santorum. But in New Hampshire, it's a much steadier affair. Polls have consistently crowned Romney the frontrunner, up to and including a recent 7 News/Suffolk University survey that found 41 percent support for the former Massachusetts governor. Ron Paul, in second place, is barely visible in the rear view mirror with 18 percent. New Hampshire is the Mitt Romney Show. This doesn't mean that Romney will win the nomination. The quirky, occasionally eccentric alloy of libertarian and moderate politics that is the Granite State Republican primary has produced presidential candidates and has-runs. But it will give him significant velocity going into other states. But what happens if Romney gets the nomination? That question has been stubbornly elusive in media coverage, which has instead focused on the lothario innuendoes surrounding Herman Cain and Newt Gingrich's grandiosity. Meanwhile Romney slips by relatively unscathed, the beneficiary of the perfunctory conventional wisdom of political strategists. Well, he looks good on television and doesn't say outlandish things, so he must be the best candidate. He's the flag-carrier for hardheaded realists who will compromise generously for a win over President Obama. But he's also a patrician flip-flopper from Massachusetts. Sound familiar? This is the problem with Romney: a strong comparison can be made between him and 2004 historical footnote John Kerry, and the similarities aren't just superficial. Romney seems to be haunted by Kerry's ghost, perhaps as it sips a fine Sauvignon Blanc. When Kerry won the Democratic nomination in 2004, the historical moment was rooted in the tumult of the Middle East and in smoldering memories of 9/11. But Kerry's political genealogy traced back to the 1960s counterculture, found in war medals chucked over the White House fence and accusations of monstrous crimes against his fellow soldiers in faux committee rooms. The American people wanted a rock-ribbed leader who would prosecute the war and keep them safe while they slept. Kerry didn't fit the part. Kerry's political life wasn't any more helpful. He'd somehow made the transition from counterculturalist to Beacon Hill bon vivant , sipping French wines and parking his yacht at the Rhode Island marina, an almost-cartoonish portrait of a New England senator. But deep in his past, Democratic strategists spied a glimmer of hope. Kerry had spent three months serving in Vietnam and was decorated afterwards. It wasn't much, but in the greasy hands of the right political strategist, it could work. Thus Kerry was transformed into a barrel-chested war hero; a steadied military hand in a time of uncertain war. This charade was at its manufactured best when he stepped out at the Democratic convention and declared, "I'm John Kerry, and I'm reporting for duty." It hit an absurd nadir when the old war horse took up arms again and decided to go goose hunting, mugging for the camera in a camo hat. Inconvenient details, like the accusations of war crimes he leveled at his fellow soldiers or his fastidious record of military pruning in Congress, were papered over. Today's historical moment is one shaped by recession and belt-tightening. It's also shot through with outrage. The American people are animatedly angry at their political and corporate elites. Romney is both a political and corporate elite, and it's difficult to imagine him animated about anything, much less angry. All the open shirt collars and appearances on Letterman can't erase those facts. They also can't blot that damning picture from Bain Capital, where Romney grins as dollar bills flutter downwards. But erase he must try. If Romney wants to win the general election, he'll have to don the coat of a populist fighter ready to raise hell for the coupon clippers struggling to pay the mortgage. It is, to say the least, difficult to imagine -- perhaps even more difficult than picturing Kerry as a GI Joe. No demographic of Americans is reserved greater rage these days than the political class, a fact borne out by Congress's 11 percent approval rating, according to Gallup. This may present the most daunting challenge of all for Romney: he's a firmly entrenched politico. Romney's been dipping his toe in the pool of presidential politics since at least 2005. He spent much of the Romney Administration -- governor of Massachusetts, in this case -- running for president. The Boston Globe calculated that Romney spent 212 days absent from Massachusetts in 2006, visiting 35 states to dig the foundation for a presidential bid. As one Bay State Republican operative told me in 2008, " It seemed he had Potomac fever from the time he got in, and everything was done to position himself to run for president." Republicans rose to national power last year on the wings of the Tea Party, which put its trust in citizen-politicians and rallied voters with cries of "Throw them all out!" It's difficult to imagine an electorate of this composition rallying behind a man who's spent the last six years running for president. This is just one of the many contradictions and unfortunate facts that Romney's political handlers will have to blur. Right now the polls pick Romney as being the most electable Republican candidate. This alone may ultimately score him the nomination, as Republicans fall into ranks and decide he's their worst candidate except for all the rest. But will he still be able to win if the Obama campaign opens the historical vault and starts screaming about his Bain capitalist and Massachusetts runaway roots? If they do, his campaign handlers may find themselves in the awkward position of having to craft an alternative personality for their man, à la John Kerry in 2004. And as Kerry's flameout that year would prove, such masquerades can be tough to stage. ]]></description>
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		<title>Morning Briefing for January 9, 2011</title>
		<link>http://www.obamashitlist.com/2012/01/09/morning-briefing-for-january-9-2011/</link>
		<comments>http://www.obamashitlist.com/2012/01/09/morning-briefing-for-january-9-2011/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 09 Jan 2012 14:45:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>markboabaca</dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.obamashitlist.com/2012/01/09/morning-briefing-for-january-9-2011/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[ RedState Morning Briefing January 6, 2012 Go to www.RedStateMB.com to get the Morning Briefing every morning at no charge. 1. What a Big Government Conservative Looks Like 2. Politics As Entertainment, Endless GOP Debates Edition 3. The Late Term Abortion of a Conservative Resurgence 4. Mitt Romney Got Arrested 5. The Biggest Mistake of the Worst Debat e 6. Vast Majority of ObamaCare Waivers Go To Union Workers In Latest Round &#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;- 1. What a Big Government Conservative Looks Like I’m rather tired of all the people who don’t like Romney trying to claim Rick Santorum is not a big government conservative, or not a pro-life statist. I would support him before I would support Romney too, but I have no intention of giving up ideological and intellectual consistency in the name of beating Mitt Romney. Rick Santorum is a pro-life statist. He is. You will have to deal with it. He is a big government conservative. Santorum is right on social issues, but has never let his love of social issues stand in the way of the creeping expansion of the welfare state. In fact, he has been complicit in the expansion of the welfare state. Suddenly we’re all forgetting what a big government conservatism is. The term was coined by Fred Barnes in defense of George W. Bush’s “compassionate conservative” agenda. Bush intended to use domestic social welfare policy for conservative ends. In the process, he expanded the welfare state to do so through No Child Left Behind, the prescription drug benefit, etc. Rick Santorum was a willing participant in this. Santorum is a conservative. He is. But his conservative is largely defined by his social positions and the ends to which government would be deployed. But he has chosen as the means to those conservative ends bigger government. We see big government conservatives most clearly when they deviate from the tireless efforts of people like Mike Pence and Jim DeMint and the others who were willing to oppose George W. Bush’s expansion of the welfare state. Rick Santorum was not among them. I and some friends, none of us Romney fans, have set about exploring Santorum’s record since Wednesday morning. Here now is a non-exhaustive list of what we have found. It does not even include his support for No Child Left Behind, Medicare Part D, debt ceiling increases, funding the bridge to nowhere, refusing to redirect earmark allocations to disaster relief along the Gulf Coast post Katrina, etc. This is not the record of a man committed to scaling back the welfare state or the nanny state. Had he been up for re-election in 2010 instead of 2006, this is the record of a man who the tea party movement would have primaried. The only real justification for supporting him now is he is not Mitt Romney, but I still believe we can do better. Consider, if you will, this contrast. Ronald Reagan said, “The basis of conservatism is a desire for less government interference or less centralized authority or more individual freedom.” Rick Santorum, in 2008, said, “This whole idea of personal autonomy, well I don’t think most conservatives hold that point of view. Some do. They have this idea that people should be left alone, be able to do whatever they want to do, government should keep our taxes down and keep our regulations low, that we shouldn’t get involved in the bedroom, we shouldn’t get involved in cultural issues. You know, people should do whatever they want. Well, that is not how traditional conservatives view the world and I think most conservatives understand that individuals can’t go it alone.” Rick Santorum’s voting record reflects his rejection of small government. See for yourself. Please click here for the rest of the post. 2. Politics As Entertainment, Endless GOP Debates Edition We live in an entertainment culture. The lives of many in this country revolve around the consumption of media and entertainment. Sports is almost an object of worship to some, and events such as the BCS Championship and the Super Bowl are virtually national holidays, surrounded by endless attention in the news/sports media and other popular culture outlets. Given that media consumption is now so ubiquitous, with flat-screen digital TVs, smartphones, satellite TV, streaming video, iPads and other multimedia sources, is it any wonder that politics has now taken on a similar flavor? 2012 is an election year and along with it, politics as entertainment has come to the fore. Even Entertainment Weekly has a “Politics As Entertainment” page! But the biggest proof point for this is the seemingly endless series of debates between GOP candidates. This may make for good entertainment, but does it make for good politics? Please click here for the rest of the post. 3. The Late Term Abortion of a Conservative Resurgence In 2009 we began a conservative resurgence. We had just witnessed a stunning economic intervention from the Bush administration, and were now facing an expansion of government. President Obama, with a complicit Congress, had charted a course that included giveaways to every left wing pipe dream couched as stimulus. Conservatives and libertarians formed a loose coalition and took to the streets to seek redress. As the movement gained strength and popularity, the Obama administration decided to flex its muscles and force even greater socialist schemes on the people of this nation. The passage of Obamacare, while an absolute defeat for smaller government, served as a rallying cry that strengthened our resolve. In 2010 we put down the protest signs and picked up campaign signs. We made errors, but more importantly, we took back the House. Unfortunately, we didn’t change our leadership. Betrayals and half measures served to squash the optimism that had been prevalent. As we began pondering the 2012 GOP candidates, there was a palpable pessimism. The field was unworthy of the conservative resurgence that had returned the House to our control. We were all awaiting a champion. Pence declined, Palin declined, Daniels, Christie, Jindal, Ryan, none would step forward. Then, something happened. Governor Perry heard the call and threw his hat into the ring. For a moment, we were optimistic about our primary. Please click here for the rest of the post. 4. Mitt Romney Got Arrested It is such a silly thing, but it plays right into the left-wing attack on Mitt as an out of touch elitist. All the way back to 1981, Mitt Romney got arrested. It was no big deal. Still, the Obama campaign is rapidly building a John Kerry narrative against Mitt Romney. You and I may think the whole 99% vs the 1% crap is in fact crap, but the average joe doesn’t like elitists. And this isn’t the only time Romney has had encounters with law enforcement that got nasty when things didn’t go his way. Please click here for the rest of the post. 5. The Biggest Mistake of the Worst Debat e Let’s face it: the ABC News New Hampshire debate was the worst debate of the entire election cycle. And that is saying something, considering the sheer volume of debates. How many years and election cycles will it take before Republicans learn to turn to conservatives as moderators for presidential debates, instead of washed up Democrat hacks disguised as journalists? Now, to the extent that such a pathetic debate is worthy of any analysis, the clear winner was Mitt Romney. Watching the debate, you’d think Ron Paul was the frontrunner. All of the verbal altercations played out between Ron Paul and one of the other candidates. Romney was able to sit pretty throughout the entire debate, except for one monologue from Santorum at the end of the debate. Undoubtedly, the platform for the debate, along with the inane questions, wasn’t exactly conducive to attacking Romney’s liberal record as governor. However, they all had an opportunity during the opening salvo of the debate. They failed miserably. Please click here for the rest of the post. 6. Vast Majority of ObamaCare Waivers Go To Union Workers In Latest Round For a special interest group that pushed so hard to enact legislation that weighs on the rest of America, unions seem to be the largest group that want to avoid the very law they helped enact. In fact, according to Friday afternoon’s document dump, the vast majority of individuals receiving special treatment in this latest waiver boondoggle are union workers. This brings the total of unionized ObamaCare waiver recipients to over 50% of the total recipients. Please click here for the rest of the post. ]]></description>
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