Day: August 16, 2011

Chart Showing Where Presidential Candidates Stand On GLBT Issues

Buck Banks

Ned Flaherty of Marriage Equality USA created this chart detailing where presidential candidates — including Republicans who have officially announced and Barack Obama — stand on issues relating to the gay community.

Starting in August 2011, a survey was delivered to the office of each active, formally announced candidate via e-mail, web mail, and/or facsimile, and also via certified U.S. mail for which a staff member signed a receipt confirming the delivery. Each candidate’s survey showed his or her latest stand on each LGBT issue, based on speeches made, documents signed, and interviews given. All candidates were invited to notify MEUSA of updates to their positions as they occur, up through election day on 6 November 2012.

Candidates on LGBT Issues

Romney Doesn’t Believe a Word He Says

Buck Banks

No one doubts Romney’s intelligence or competence, but he has managed to run for president for almost five years without taking a single courageous or even remotely interesting position. The thinking person’s case for Romney, murmured by many of his backers, amounts to this: Vote for Mitt, you know he doesn’t believe a word he says.

— Ross Douthat, writing in the New York Times op-ed pages.

Perry Kind of Calls Bernanke a Traitor

Buck Banks

If this guy prints more money between now and the election, I don’t know what you would do with him. We would treat him pretty ugly down in Texas. Printing more money to play politics at this particular time in American history is almost treacherous — or treasonous in my opinion.

— Texas Gov. Rick Perry, campaigning in Iowa, commenting on the possibility that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke will increase stimulus spending before the 2012 election, Bloomberg reports.

Florida Gov. Rick Scott Unveils New, Faux Human Looking Image

Trish
Old-NewRick
The guy on the left looks familiar but Florida voters can't quite place him

Florida residents could hardly be blamed for gazing at the photo shown on the left and exclaiming, “Hey, I like that guy! He looks a little familiar. Wonder who he is?”

Gone is the gleam of crazy in his eyes. Added is black eyebrow pencil to give the humanoid a less reptilian look.

At least that’s the reaction that Florida Gov. Rick Scott’s (Tea/GOP) handlers must have been aiming for when they unveiled the new official portrait of Florida’s chief executive. Scott continues to have the lowest approval numbers of any governor but continues to claim — as do all elected officials with low poll numbers — that he ignores polls and just does what he thinks is right. At the same time, he has launched a massive public campaign that includes enlisting members of the Republican Party of Florida to sign their names to canned letters to the editor about what a great job Scott is doing. He also blitzed voters with robocalls on the same theme and even released a video on YouTube of his mother telling people how proud of him she is.

But apparently Scott was just getting started.

[…]

Deep Throat: Photo of Perry and a Corndog Won’t Help with the Gay Rumors

Jon Ponder

Photo Rick Perry going down on a footlong corndog

Given that the top auto-suggestion for Google searches on Rick Perry is “is rick perry gay,” the governor of Texas — who was the subject of unsubstantiated gay rumors in 2004 and recently held a “methinks he doth protest way too much” religious conclave paid for by the American Family Association, an official anti-gay hate group, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center — might want to be more careful about what he’s photographed stuffing into his mouth.

Back in the day, presidential candidates had minders who warned them against doing things that could prove embarrassing later on — like asserting that the Revolutionary War battles of Concord and Lexington took place in New Hampshire or that America’s slave owning Founding Fathers “worked tirelessly” to end slavery — or stuffing a footlong corndog in your mouth in front of cameras.

But I guess we can say that, now, as America sits on the brink of becoming a true idiocracy, the days when campaign operatives protected their candidate’s image are gone forever.

Rick Perry, Who Put Texas Secession on the Table in April, Now Suggests President Does Not Love America

Jon Ponder

art-perry-confederte-flagDo neo-Confederates who advocate secession of the South from the United States (again) “love” America? Logic suggests that they do not. Back in April, Rick Perry famously suggested that the secession of Texas was at least a possibility:

REPORTER: Some have associated you with the idea of secession or sovereignty for your state…

PERRY: Oh, I think there’s a lot of different scenarios. Texas is a unique place. When we came in the union in 1845, one of the issues was that we would be able to leave if we decided to do that. You know, my hope is that America and Washington in particular pays attention. We’ve got a great union. There is absolutely no reason to dissolve it. But if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, you know, who knows what may come out of that? So. But Texas is a very unique place and we’re a pretty independent lot to boot.

(Perry is, of course, lying. Texas was not given an option to opt out when it was annexed into the union in 1845.)

But now we have Perry, four months after he was caught palling around with neo-Confederates, suggesting that it is the president of the United States who does not “love” America:

[…]

Why Rick Perry’s Nickname Was ‘Crotch’

Jon Ponder

I first met Rick Perry in 1985. He was a Democratic freshman state rep, straight off the ranch in Haskell, Texas. He wore his jeans so tight, and, umm, adjusted himself so often that my fellow young legislative aides and I used to call him Crotch. Even among state representatives, even among Texas Aggies (graduates of this cute remedial school we have in Texas), Perry stood out for his modest intellectual gifts. Hell, he got a C in animal breeding. I have goats who got an A in that subject. But lack of brains has never been a hindrance in politics.

– Democratic strategist Paul Begala