Month: June 2010
The ‘Ick Factor,’ And Why Huckabee Will Never Be President
The New Yorker has profile of Mike Huckabee up that explores the possibility that he may be the Republicans’ “best hope” to take on Pres. Obama in 2012. If he is, there’s at least one quote from the interview on social issues that will likely turn off reasonable independent voters (and any of the few remaining Republicans who are rational) down the road:
I asked him to explain his rationale for opposing gay rights. “I do believe that God created male and female and intended for marriage to be the relationship of the two opposite sexes,” he said. “Male and female are biologically compatible to have a relationship. We can get into the ick factor, but the fact is two men in a relationship, two women in a relationship, biologically, that doesn’t work the same.” [Emphasis added.]
“Ick” is in the mind of the beholder. For example — and with apologies in advance if you are eating as you read this, dear reader — but imagine just for a second, Huckabee and his wife Janet belly to belly making the beast with two backs, doing the nasty and hiding the salami — fill in your own euphemism, just so long as your imaginary Huckabees are doing it missionary style.
See? Ick. Who wants to think of these two bruisers having sex? No one. And yet, Mike Huckabee — a supposedly serious Republican candidate for president in 2012 — rests the foundation of his justification for the use of constitutional amendments in 45 states and federal laws like the Defense of Marriage Act to restrict millions of Americans’ civil right to marry a picture in his puerile mind of what these people do in bed.
Verbatim
The only thing worse than a massive oil leak from the bottom of the ocean would be massive radioactive oil leak from the bottom of the ocean.
— Rep. Ed Markey (D – Mass.), Chair of the House Subcommittee on Energy and the Environment and the president’s point man on the Gulf oil catastrophe, responding to calls from Donald Trump and others to nuke the oil spill. Markey was responsible for forcing BP to install its “spill cam” so the gushing oil could be viewed by the public.
Verbatim
Being ignorant of all that doesn’t inspire confidence. It’s no better to be a schnook than a crook.
— Nell Minnow of the watchdog Corporate Library, describing Republican candidate for Florida governor and former CEO of HCA/Columbia Healthcare Rick Scott. Scott claims to have been unaware of the hospital group’s massive fraud, including bogus Medicare and Medicaid billing, that was the subject of a ten-year Justice Department investigation resulting in guilty pleas to 14 felonies and the largest fines — $1.7 billion — ever charged a company. Scott went on to found Solantic urgent care clinics, which largely serve the uninsured on a cash basis, and Conservatives for Patients’ Rights, which financed much of the lobbying against and “grassroots” opposition to healthcare reform.
There’s the Rub
We could speculate, but what’s the use,
About what Al Gore did with that masseuse.
When she gave him a rub, he
Tried to get lovey-dovey.
Do you think that boring façade is just a ruse?
Florida Tea Party Sandbags Florida Tea Baggers
It’s kind of like watching midget wrestling — there seems to be a real fight going on, but it’s funny!
Yesterday, a group of Tea Party activists tried to hold a news conference to denounce the Florida Tea Party political party for fielding phony candidates in the midterm elections, but members of the Florida Tea Party out-activisted the Tea Party activists when they showed up and turned the press conference into a town hall meeting. Apparently, there was a whole lot of hollering going on. Just like last summer, during the health care “debate!”
The Orlando Sentinel sums up the situation this way:
The Central Florida Tea Party Council, a loose alliance of leaders in the local movement, have accused Florida Tea Party founders Fred O’Neal and Doug Guetzloe of being in league with Democrat U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson to help his re-election. The Florida Tea Party has put forward a candidate against Grayson, Peg Dunmire, but the activists think she is simply a spoiler candidate meant to siphon votes away from Grayson’s Republican challenger.
That theory widened last week, when a slate of previously unknown candidates came forward under the Florida Tea Party banner. State Republican Party leaders say it’s a Democratic Party conspiracy.
The Florida Tea Party says it is a legitimate party that is now being targeted by the Republican establishment. O’Neal, the party chairman, said some of its candidates have been threatened by representatives of the Republican Party. Guetzloe, a longtime Orlando political consultant, was kicked off his own radio talk show this week by the owners of 810-AM (WEUS), which he attributes to GOP intimidation. The station’s owner said the reason was low ratings.
Poll: Americans Blame Bush for Bush Recession, Approval of Worst President Ever Surges to 29%
[The] public continues to blame George W. Bush more for the state of the economy than it does Obama.
According to the poll, a combined 40 percent say that Bush and his administration’s policies are “solely” or “mainly” responsible for the current economic conditions, while just 27 percent say the same of Obama and his policies.
Overall, 29 percent see Bush in a positive light, versus 50 percent who view him negatively — similar to his numbers when he left office in Jan. 2009.
Bush’s 29 percent in the current poll from the current NBC/WSJ poll represents a 7 point jump from the final CBS poll taken during his presidency. His approval was 22 percent in January 2009.
NV Sen: Support for Tea Bagger Sharron Angle Collapsing, But Harry Reid Still Trails
Jon Ralston in the Las Vegas Sun:
The Rasmussen poll released Thursday found [GOP nominee Sharron] Angle leading [Senate Majority Leader Harry] Reid by 48-41, down from 50-39 in a survey by the same firm right after the primary. The poll of 500 likely voters taken this week (margin of error of 4.5 percent) would seem to indicate Angle is holding her own despite a pummeling on television and in the media. And a majority of Nevadans (53 percent) favor repealing health care reform, one of Reid’s signature achievements. That’s the good news for Angle.
But, as the Rasmussen write-up reports, it appears Angle’s bounce is over. And even more ominous for her, her unfavorable rating (47 percent) is nearly identical to Reid’s (49 percent). The ineluctable fact that more Nevadans feel “very unfavorably” about Reid (43 percent) than about Angle (33 percent) is the difference in the race.
And:
In the NBC/WSJ poll, the only other issue close to as negative a candidate attribute for voters (23/62) was someone who “supported the economic policies of George W. Bush,” so the 43rd president still can be used as an effective club.
Those numbers certainly show a path to victory for Reid. But the poll also showed it could be paved with destructive potholes. The negativity of the public toward the president and especially Congress is apparent.
