Day: November 11, 2011
NBC’s David Gregory’s “Grand Wizard” Freudian Slip
David Gregory is walking back an analogous term he used during a Today Show interview, in which he said there is no “grand wizard” at the GOP calling the shots on the Herman Cain scandal. Gregory later tweeted, “”Wizard” remark this morning was a very poor choice of words. Did not mean to make that connection at all. Was not thinking. I apologize”.
In fact, Gregory’s comment was perfect. While he might have been visualizing the wizard in Oz, the term “grand wizard” is normally associated with the Ku Klux Klan.
Considering the Republican and tea party embrace of the Koch Brothers-funded ALEC legislative goals of drug testing welfare recipients; making it harder for the poor and young people to vote, in violation the 1965 Voting Rights Act; and imprisoning people who came here illegally and denying an education to their children who are native-born Americans, it’s not a real reach to wonder if there aren’t Klan sympathizers in the Grand Old Party.
Pick the Right Name if You Want to Win in Politics
40% – 42%
The results of a Quinnipiac poll on the Florida Senate race. Rep. Connie Mack (R-Ft Myers) garnered 40% support while incumbent Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) got 42%. Name recognition was cited as the main factor in Mack’s popularity, since he is the fourth person to be named Connie Mack, starting with his Baseball Hall of Famer greatgrandfather. Mack IV is also the husband of Rep. Mary Bono (who gained her seat upon the death of husband Sonny Bono) but has done little of note in Congress, where he is Chair of the Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere within the Foreign Affairs Committee.
In Wake of Sex Harassment Charges against Cain, Poll Finds a Slight Shift Among GOP Voters to Disgraced Serial Adulterer Gingrich
In the mid-1990s, no political demographic was more outraged over Pres. Bill Clinton’s sexual affairs than Republican women. Their wrath, along with the moral condemnations of the GOP’s evangelical base, fueled the drive by their party’s elected leaders in Washington — led then by House Speaker Newt Gingrich — to do politically to the president what Lorena Bobbitt did to John.
Now, just 15 years or so later, and faced with charges that their party’s frontrunner, Herman Cain, has sexually harassed who knows how many of his female employees, Republican women take a different view. A CBS News poll finds that just 38 percent of them see the charges against Cain as a reason not to vote for him:
[Sixty-one] percent of Republican primary voters say the sexual harassment accusations against Cain won’t make any difference in their vote, but 30 percent say the charges make them less likely to back him, and that rises to 38 percent among women. Cain has lost support among women since last month – from 28 percent in October to 15 percent now. He has lost ground with conservatives and Tea Party supporters as well.
It gets worse for Cain:
