Tag: Campaign 2012

Romney Pulls a Palin – Reads NH Victory Speech from Teleprompters

Jon Ponder
Mitt Romney, with one of two teleprompters he used to deliver his victory speech after the New Hampshire primary
Mitt Romney, with one of two teleprompters he used to deliver his victory speech after the New Hampshire primary

One of Sarah Palin’s favorite digs at Pres. Obama is that he often reads speeches from teleprompters.

photos-palin-teleprompter-montage-verticalIf you are a liberal or not a political junkie, you probably found Palin’s harping on Obama’s use of teleprompters confusing. “So what?” you may have said to yourself. “So did Reagan, the Bushes and Clinton. They all do it.”

Or, if you were paying close attention to Obama on the campaign trail, you might have noticed that he hosted dozens of town hall events during which he spoke extemporaneously for 90 minutes or more. (For teavangelical types who may be reading this, “extemporaneously” means “without the aid of a teleprompter.”)

What liberals and other regular Americans were missing in Palin’s sneering about Obama and teleprompters was a dog whistle message to the Republican Party’s half-witted racist base. What she was really saying was, “Pssst. See, he’s black, so not smart enough to think up all those big words on his own. He only got where he is because of affirmative action.”

Reality has a left-wing bias, as Stephen Colbert has said, so it did not matter that Palin — who, pssst, really is a dumbass — used teleprompters just about every time she spoke in public during her failed vice presidential run in 2008. (For your convenience — and, we can only hope, to make tea baggers heads explode — we have compiled a photo set of about two dozen different events in which Palin read her speeches from teleprompters and posted it here.)

In the current campaign, after making some seriously stupid gaffes while campaigning in New Hampshire, Mitt Romney took no chances when it came time to read his victory speech last night, according to his hometown paper, the Boston Globe:

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Bush to Blame for GOP’s Crummy Candidates

Buck Banks

A successful Presidency can produce a new crop of future Presidential candidates for the party that controls the White House. The vice president and cabinet officials, as well as governors and senators elected over the course of the administration, are historically major sources for a party’s next round of candidates. The Bush years had the opposite effect. It was unthinkable that his vice president would run for higher office and much of his cabinet left Washington tainted by the President’s unpopularity. Moreover, Bush helped sink his party in the 2006 and 2008 elections, thus depleting the ranks of potential Republican candidates for 2012.

— Ryan Lizza, writing in the New Yorker, blaming former President George W. Bush is at fault for the exceptionally weak field of Republican presidential candidates.

Struggling to Understand How Rich Mitt Romney Is

Trish
MittMoney
Romney and his fellow Bain Capitalists

It’s hard for most of us to imagine being worth a few million dollars. That’s serious greenbacks, putting us beyond worry and squarely in the land of comfort. But if we were Mitt Romney, who is worth a quarter-BILLION dollars, that would be chump change.

And while all the presidential candidates are in that comfortable, worry-free zone, Romney’s wealth, according to a fascinating piece of research in the Tampa Bay Times, blocks out the sun.

Romney refuses to say how much, if anything, he pays in income taxes

For every $100 personally owned by Romney, President Obama has $4.20, Newt Gingrich has $2.70 and Ron Paul has $2. And Rick Santorum, closely trailing a victorious Romney in last week’s Iowa caucus, has but a single buck.

But wait, there’s more.

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