Month: July 2011
Campaigns Rely on Small Donors, Mostly
49%
Of Obama’s $46.3 million second-quarter take came in donations under $200, and 26% were maximum $2,500 donations, noted First Read. By comparison, however, just 6% of Romney’s were under $200, while a whopping 70% were the maximum. In other words, Romney appears to have already maxed out his base of donors. (Where is the rest going to come from?) The other small-dollar percentages of campaign contributions under $200: Bachmann 67%, Cain 58%, Paul 54%, Gingrich 46%, Santorum 25%, Pawlenty 11%.
Will Palin Documentary Be Defeated by Meager Box Office?
Movies produced by right wingers always suck, and they never make money. (See the recent release of “Atlas Shrugged,” an “objectivist” fantasy based on Ayn Rand’s 1957 novel, which circled the drain after its first weekend, for example.) So it would have been a surprise if “The Undefeated,” the deceptively titled documentary about the Quitter from Wasilla had done boffo box office when it opened in limited release this weekend. Why anyone would waste their hard-earned money on a puff piece about a unpleasant, vindictive ignoramus is another question.
Here, from IndieWIRE, are the preliminary numbers:
Borrow and Spend Policies of Bush, GOP Caused Employment’s Downward Slide
As we noted here last week, a new Quinnipiac poll found that voters blame George Bush over Pres. Obama for the economic crisis by 54 to 27 percent. Another 8 percent said they blamed neither president, 7 percent said they blamed both and 3 percent said they did not know or had no answer.
On a political level, what the chart above shows is the result of the Republicans’ strategy of “starving the beast” — or, as their cult leader du jour Grover Norquist put it, shrinking the government until it is small enough to drown in a bathtub.
It should not be surprising that only about half of Americans can remember who was responsible for the economic downturn, which happened way back in history, you know, three or four years ago. We are living in what Gore Vidal has called the “United States of Amnesia,” after all.
Sadly, what is surprising is that the percentage of Americans who remember Bush’s mishandling of the economy remains so high.
Since Bush left office in January 2009, two factors have been scrubbing away in tandem at the record of failure that was the Bush presidency, glossing it over and spiffing it up.
Video Surfaces of Bachmann’s Out Gay Step Sister at Obama Inauguration
Helen LaFave and Nia Wronski at the Inauguration Jan. 20, 2009 from julie phillips on Vimeo.
Michele Bachmann is rapidly becoming a latter days Anita Bryant. In 2004, during a lecture at a conference, she referred to her gay step-sister, Helen LaFave, who is shown in the video above, saying “Any of you who have members of your family that are in the lifestyle — we have a member of our family that is. This is not funny. It’s a very sad life. It’s part of Satan.”
From Towleroad:
MICHELE BACHMANN: I am not here bashing people who are homosexuals, who are lesbians, who are bisexual, who are transgendered. We need to have profound compassion for the people who are dealing with the very real issue of sexual dysfunction in their life, and sexual identity disorders. This is a very real issue. It’s not funny, it’s sad. Any of you who have members of your family that are in the lifestyle—we have a member of our family that is. This is not funny. It’s a very sad life. It’s part of Satan, I think, to say this is gay. It’s anything but gay.
