Tag: Campaign 2008

Romney’s Mexico-Born Father Made Quixotic Run against Nixon and Reagan in ’68

Jon Ponder

Like George W. Bush, Mitt Romney is an Eastern elite whose father was a famous political figure. George W. Romney had a high-profile private sector job, as C.E.O of American Motors, manufacturer of the Rambler, before serving as governor of Michigan for three terms.

In 1968, Gov. Romney ran for the Republican nomination against Richard Nixon, who won that year, and Ronald Reagan, who went on to win in 1980. But what George Romney is best remembered for is being tripped up on a statement about his support for the Vietnam War:

Romney told a news reporter that he had been “brainwashed” by the military and the diplomatic corps into supporting the Vietnam War. As the year 1968 opened, Romney was opposed to further American intervention in Vietnam and had decided to run as the Republican version of [antiwar Democrat] Gene McCarthy. Romney’s support faded slowly, and he withdrew from the race on February 28, 1968..

But even if he had won the presidency, George Romney would have faced a constitutional question before he could be sworn in. Article 2, Section 1, Clause 5 of the Constitution, which says “No person except a natural born citizen … shall be eligible to the office of president”* prohibits people born in foreign countries from serving as president, and he was born in Chihuahua, Mexico, into a renegade sect of polygamous Mormons.

George Romney’s grandfather, Miles Park Romney, had five wives, and had moved the family to Mexico when polygamy became a federal crime in the United States. (It was a crime in Mexico, too, but was largely ignored in remote areas.) However, when the Mexican Revolution broke out in 1910, when George was about three years old, the famly returned to the United States, eventually ending up in Salt Lake City, Utah.

In 1969, Pres. Nixon appointed Romney as secretary of Housing and Urban Development, a post he held until 1973.

*Update: Corrected citation from the Constitution that prohibits foreign-born presidents. H/t: Bob Sakowski in comments.

Florida: More Experiments in Voting

Buck Banks

Still glad I’m an Independent: Florida thinks it has been getting the short end of the presidential primary stick, so it has struck out into the no man’s land of January to set its vote date. This, despite the fact that the Democratic National Committee has threatened penalties, like stripping the state party of delegates, making the vote nonbinding and penalizing candidates who campaign in the state.

Whoa, them’s fighting words, but, like the big Republican-controlled brute it is, the Florida legislature moved the state’s primary from March to January, despite the threats.

Who needs Katherine Harris?

The result could lead to a scenario like this:

On Jan. 29, Florida Republicans and Democrats head to the polls to pick presidential nominees. Republican votes count, just as you would expect, but the results for Democrats would be nonbinding. No delegates would be awarded based upon the results and instead party activists and insiders would decide on some later date how to divvy up the state’s more than 200 delegates to the Democratic national convention.

See, while the Dems face stiff penalties for the primary shift, the Repugs don’t face any. So, we could potentially see Dem candidates giving the state a pass while Repugs campaign all over the place, with a predictable effect on the general election.

Who needs Katherine Harris when you’ve got a Republican-controlled state legislature to influence the presidential election outcome and guarantee we stay a red state.

McCain On Gonzales — ‘Nobody Asked Me’

Buck Banks

In a post earlier today, I quoted John McCain as telling The Politico that nobody had asked him whether Attorney General Alberto Gonzales should resign. That no one would ask one of the putative GOP front-runners in the prez election what he thought about what is rapidly becoming a non-partisan issue struck an alert Editor Trish as odd. So she sent me back to the Internets to see what I could find.

‘That’s why I think the attorney general would be serving the man he admires and has been friends with for many, many years by stepping down.’
— John McCain

Indeed, either McCain’s memory is as bad as Gonzales’ or he is lying about being asked the question before yesterday when he said Gonzales should resign.

This quote ran in an April 20 story about gun control in the aftermath of the Virginia Tech shootings:

Yesterday, McCain reiterated his strong support for the war in Iraq and was noncommittal on the future of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. McCain said he believes how Gonzales handled yesterday’s hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee will be a key factor in whether he should remain in office or resign.

This ran yesterday:

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., told reporters in New Hampshire as he officially declared his presidential candidacy that he would have more to say on Gonzales on Thursday. Then, he told CNN’s Larry King that he was “very disappointed” in Gonzales’ performance and, asked whether Gonzales should step down, said: “I think that out of loyalty to the president that that would probably be the best thing that he could do.”

But that’s all I could find. Maybe they didn’t ask, or maybe McCain just didn’t tell.

This is the rest of what McCain told The Politico yesterday, before he blabbed to Larry King:

“But the Justice Department is the last institution of government where there should be any politicization of any kind. We’re talking about the administration of Justice.

“That’s why I think that the situation has been very frustrating to a lot of people. But I also think it’s probably harmed the president. That’s why I think the attorney general would be serving the man he admires and has been friends with for many, many years by stepping down.”

Asked why the situation had been allowed to drag on so long, McCain said: “I really don’t know. You see these things happen and it’s pretty easy for you to figure out.” But he added that it can be less clear “inside the bubble.”

McCain also said ruefully that he had no insight into communication among the president’s inner circle. “As you know,” he said with a mischievous smile, “I’m not the most frequent visitor to the White House.”

And the way McCain’s campaign is going, it doesn’t look like his White House visit frequency is going to increase any time soon.

Crackpot McCain Piles on Gonzales

Buck Banks

From the Who Cares file: There are no sympathetic characters in this drama. Prez candidate and song stylist John McCain yesterday took an opportunity to try and position himself as a political outsider by calling for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’ resignation. Why did it take him so long to say that he thinks Gonzo should go? Nobody asked him, he told The Politico yesterday.

“Out of loyalty to the president, he [Gonzales] should obviously step down,” McCain said. “He’s not serving the president well. I reached that conclusion a long time ago. I just haven’t been asked.”

Gee, the biggest political story in the news and nobody has asked one of the putative GOP presidential candidates what he thinks on the topic? Maybe nobody cares. Or maybe they are afraid he’ll start singing again.

In related news, the Senate Judiciary committee is mathematically challenged:

On Wednesday, the Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Sen. Arlen Specter (Pa.), the panel’s topic Republican, wrote to Gonzales seeking more information.

“By some counts you failed to answer more than 100 questions, by other counts more than 70, but the most conservative count had you failing to provide answers well over 60 times,” the blistering letter says.

Giving Gonzales more opportunitites to lie and obfuscate won’t accomplish anything, but it does give the illusion that the Senate is doing something. And maybe McCain should come up with a new tune for the Gonzales case, say, to the tune of Warren Zevon’s “Send Lawyers, Guns and Money.”

Edwards to Bush: Fire Karl Rove

Trish

John Edwards will use the first national presidential debate tonight to call for Karl Rove’s job.

According to a campaign email, Edwards feels Rover has crossed a line.

New evidence shows that Rove has been methodically working to twist even the most impartial branches of the federal government—including the Justice Department—to serve the Republican Party at the expense of the American people.

Enough is enough. Impartial justice must be protected. Integrity in government must be defended. Karl Rove must be fired.

Tomorrow, John Edwards is going on national television to take part in the first presidential debate. And that night, he’s going to call on George Bush to fire Karl Rove.

The Edwards camp is asking that we sign a petition calling for Rover’s ousting, so he can say, “X number of Americans want this.”

Will Bush listen? Not to John alone. Not to you or me alone. But if thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of us speak out together to demand accountability for Karl Rove and end their era of cynical, destructive, partisan government—we cannot be ignored.

Wanna bet?

But hey, I certainly agree with what he’s saying so I signed the petition. It’s easy and you don’t even have to give your address, so go for it. It’s better than just wishing.

Update: According to the counter on the site, there are 42,000 signatures so far. I know there are more of you out there who want to see Rove go. Imagine if Bush had to think things up all by himself. The laughs alone are worth signing the petition!

Giuliani’s Vision for the Future — Gulag America

Buck Banks

Shades of 9/11: Lest we forget that “America’s Mayor” was all over the media following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Rudy Giuliani has identified Americans’ abiding fear of terrorists in our midst as an issue on which to base his campaign for prez. He was talking tough yesterday in New Hampshire:

‘The freedoms we have are in conflict with the perverted, maniacal interpretation of their religion.’
— Rudy Giuliani on terrorists

“If any Republican is elected president — and I think obviously I would be the best at this — we will remain on offense and will anticipate what [the terrorists] will do and try to stop them before they do it,” Giuliani said.

The former New York City mayor, currently leading in all national polls for the Republican nomination for president, said Tuesday night that America would ultimately defeat terrorism no matter which party gains the White House.

“But the question is how long will it take and how many casualties will we have?” Giuliani said. “If we are on defense [with a Democratic president], we will have more losses and it will go on longer.”

“I listen a little to the Democrats and if one of them gets elected, we are going on defense,” Giuliani continued. “We will wave the white flag on Iraq. We will cut back on the Patriot Act, electronic surveillance, interrogation and we will be back to our pre-Sept. 11 attitude of defense.”

That seems to indicate that Rudy would approve a broader Patriot Act (don’t go to the library, kids), more electronic surveillance (speak clearly into the receiver) and more interrogation (getcher waterboard ready, boys). Giuliani builds up to a cresendo, we assume from the flaming rhetoric, with flying spit and everything:

“This war ends when they stop coming here to kill us!” Giuliani said in his speech. “Never, ever again will this country ever be on defense waiting for [terrorists] to attack us if I have anything to say about it. And make no mistake, the Democrats want to put us back on defense!”

Giuliani said terrorists “hate us and not because of anything bad we have done; it has nothing to do with Israel and Palestine. They hate us for the freedoms we have and the freedoms we want to share with the world.”

Giuliani continued: “The freedoms we have are in conflict with the perverted, maniacal interpretation of their religion.” He said Americans would fight for “freedom for women, the freedom of elections, freedom of religion and the freedom of our economy.”

Addressing the terrorists directly, Giuliani said: “We are not giving that up, and you are not going to take it from us!”

Good show, Rudy. Maybe that hardline act will make your fellow Repugs forget that you have favored a woman’s right to choose an abortion, supported gay rights and, when it comes to the sanctity of marriage, you’ve got the morals of a ferret.

Contributions to Democrats Blow Republicans Out of the Water

Trish

Democratic presidential candidates raised $27 million more than Republicans, according to their first-quarter ’07 financial filings.

And John McCain looks worse on paper than anyone guessed.

SNL-related donations: Chevy Chase gave $4,600 to Clinton. Eddie Murphy kicked in $2,300 to Obama. Adam Sandler gave $2,100 to Giuliani. Lorne Michaels dished out $1,000 to McCain.

Obama…nearly tied Clinton in total donations, having raised $25.8 million compared to Clinton’s $26 million — an astounding achievement for a political novice going up against such a veteran…

…Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who hopes to be the first Mormon elected president, received more donations from Utah, $2.8 million, than from the state he used to govern, whose residents gave him $2.3 million.

…Rudy Giuiani, the former mayor of New York, raised $14 million, but it came from fewer donors than any other major candidate, indicating access to big-money donors but not widespread support.

Writing for ABC, Jake Tapper and David Chalian analyzed the financial reports as they went along, but saved the most loaded labels for Democrats, referring to Sen. Barack Obama as an “insurgent” candidate (OMIGOD) and Sen. Hillary Clinton as the “frontrunner.” Huh?

They also spared John McCain no illusions.

One of the key indicators of whether or not a campaign is being managed efficiently is the “burn rate” — the percentage of the money raised that the campaign spent during the same time period.

McCain is the big loser in this category. His campaign hemorrhaged money by spending 64 percent of what it raised in the first quarter…and assumed a stunning amount (to the tune of $1.8 million) of debt…

McCain’s one bright spot on the GOP side is that he can boast of significantly more donors — roughly 50,000 people contributed to his campaign — than his Republican rivals, perhaps indicating a broader base of support.

Clinton also had roughly 60,000 donors and Edwards had north of 40,000.

A fascinating footnote to the first quarter filings was how people associated with NBC’s Saturday Night Live gave.

Old-school star Chevy Chase gave $4,600 to Clinton. Eddie Murphy kicked in $2,300 to Obama. Adam Sandler gave $2,100 to Giuliani. And their former boss, SNL executive producer Lorne Michaels, dished out $1,000 to McCain.

At least Michaels is as cheap as he is wrong.

33 Percent of Pensito Review Editors Back Tancredo for Prez

Buck Banks

Monday Colorado Rep. Tom Tancredo announced he was joining the legions seeking the Republican presidential nomination. Now, if he can only win it. I for one fervently hope he can.

‘We have something they don’t have — a group of people out there who are there because of an issue.’

That might sound odd coming from one who has been somewhat critical of Tom Tancredo in the past, who was dismissive of his presumed run for the presidency and offended by his characterization of Miami as a “Third World country.” But I’m serious, I really do want him to win the Republican presidential nomination. Honest, I do.

I know it will be difficult for Tom to compete with the likes of Mitt the Money Magnet in fundraising, but he’s got that covered:

[Tancredo] said he wasn’t intimidated by other campaigns with more money and resources. Tancredo said he had raised a little more than a million dollars for his presidential bid. In comparison, aides to former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney announced on Monday that he had raised more than $20 million.

“We have something they don’t have — a group of people out there who are there because of an issue,” Tancredo said. “And they’re never going to have that. They can use their 100 million to try and buy constituency. I have it. It’s natural. It’s there.”

And we all know what Tom’s issue is — immigration. It’s the number-one issue for Tom and his constituents, just not for a majority of Americans. But that’s okay, too, because you don’t need a majority of Americans to win the presidency anymore. Tom’s counting on that, which is why he said to heck with tradition and announced his candidacy, not in his home state of Colorado, but in Iowa. On the radio.

Tancredo said he chose radio because talk radio had for years given him a platform for his stand against illegal immigration. And he made the announcement in Des Moines rather than his home state of Colorado because of the importance of Iowa in the nominating process.

“That’s how you get there,” he said. “You do well in Iowa, you do well in New Hampshire.”

Now that sounds like a solid plan for winning the nomination — do well in Iowa and New Hampshire. I tell you, this guy has the juice!

That’s why I am breaking with my co-editors and endorsing Tom Tancredo for the Republican nomination for president of these United States. Because if the GOP nominates a single-issue loose-cannon headcase like Tancredo, the Dems are sure to win.

We Third Worlders are behind you Tom, and I speak on behalf of my fellow Miamians when I say that were most of them in the country legally and registered, I’m sure they’d vote for you. Honest.