Month: February 2012
Support for Marriage Equality Rises to 59% in California, an 11 Point Increase from Prop 8 Vote Four Years Ago
A new survey from the Field Poll — the gold standard for polling in California — finds that approval of gay marriage has risen to 59 percent. This is a 6.7 point increase from 2009, when support in the same poll was 52.3 percent.
Disapproval has dropped to 34 percent, from 47.7 percent three years ago.
The new numbers also suggest an even more dramatic, double-digit increase in support from just four years ago, when voters passed Proposition 8, the ballot initiative that amended the state constitution to rescind marriage rights for gays.
Romney, the Financial Genius, Gets Less Bang for His Buck than Santorum
$10.40
What the Mitt Romney campaign and his PAC, Restore Our Future, paid for each vote cast for their guy in Michigan, according to Electablog. Romney’s funding sources poured a total of $4.27 million into the state, while Rick Santorum’s supporters spent $2.27 million, or about $6 per vote. Nine out of ten Romney ads were negative, but they netted him 32,393 more votes than Santorum, or 3%.
Declaration of Independence: More Maine Voters are Undeclared Than Members of Any One Party
335,154
Number of voters in Maine, where Sen. Olympia Snowe (R) announced she will not seek another term, who are registered to vote but are “undeclared” for any party. An additional 294,586 are registered as Democrats, 256,520 as Republicans, and 31,064 are members of the Green party. Snowe was facing a tea party challenger in the Republican primary.
How to Talk to Republicans: Dem Gov. O’Malley Excoriates Gov. ‘Vaginal Probe’ McDonnell – in His Face
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
In this segment from Friday’s “Rachel Maddow Show” on MSNBC, Maddow marvels at the abrupt change in fortunes of Virginia Republican Gov. Bob McDonnell, a tea-party rock star who until recently was on the Beltway punditocracy’s short list for the GOP vice presidential nomination. That prospect has become unlikely in light of the central role McDonnell has played in passing legislation that would require state-enforced vaginal probes of women seeking abortions in Virginia.
You should watch the whole segment, but if you only have a few seconds, fast-forward to about minute 4:00. There you will witness a rare moment in which a Democrat — Gov. Martin O’Malley of Maryland — pummels an elected tea party Republican, mano a mano, about the bait and switch his faction pulled on independent voters in 2010, when they campaigned on jobs, jobs, jobs and the economy but, once elected, governed on anti-women, anti-gay, anti-middle class, pro one-percenter agendas.
The full transcript of the RMS segment follows, but here is the excerpt of O’Malley’s statement:
Frum: Romney is the Candidate of the Rich and the Old
Romney has now wholly identified himself as the candidate of the rich and the old. Nothing is to be asked from those over 55. Much is to be given to upper-income earners. All the burden of fiscal adjustment is to be piled on the poor and the young…Compassionate conservatism has been dead for a long time. Romney’s Detroit speech cremated the remains…he has now finally eliminated the policy differences separating him from the radical congressional wing. If Romney should win the Republican nomination, moderate and independent voters nationwide will be forced to decide: If they vote for Romney, who is it they’re truly voting for?
David Frum, neocon and former Bush II speechwriter
Romney Adds to Growing List of Bigger and Better Gaffes at Daytona
For those of you who are doing shots every time Mitt Romney speaks a gaffe, we have a seat reserved for you at the next A.A. meeting. The man can’t make a public appearance without saying something to vividly illustrate how rich and out of touch he is.
Consider his photo op at the Daytona 500 for example. After taking a valuable day off from campaigning in Michigan to jet down to the scheduled race* to prove he’s a motorhead like the rest of us average Joes, Romney blew it as he toured the stands.
Asked by an Associated Press reporter as he was greeting NASCAR fans whether he follows the sport, Romney said: “Not as closely as some of the most ardent fans. But I have some great friends that are NASCAR team owners.”
That’s like saying you enjoy football because you hang out with Roger Goodell. At the Super Bowl. In the sky box.
But Romney wasn’t done. Oh no, not while he still has a mouth to speak with and a foot to fill it.
Santorum Opposes Higher Education, Says He Was Victimized for Right-Wing Views in College
A study released earlier this month found that conservatives are generally less intelligent than most people — a factor that may help explain why Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum went on the attack against higher education last week.
I went through a process where I was docked for my conservative views.
– Rick Santorum on being victimized by liberal students at Penn
– Rick Santorum on being victimized by liberal students at Penn
Santorum — who received an undergraduate degree from the University of Pennsylvania Penn State, an MBA from the University of Pittsburgh and a law degree from Dickinson School of Law — suggested both in interviews and on the stump that American colleges and universities are indoctrination mills that convert young people into liberals.
He said he knows this to be true because he was victimized at Penn State by students who ridiculed his retrograde political views.
On two occasions recently, Santorum has said that 62 percent of students who go to college lose their faith, a statistic that has proved to be false.
Santorum elaborated on his opposition to higher learning yesterday in an interview with George Stephanopolous on ABC’s “This Week:
After Making a Disastrous Choice in 2000, God Can’t Seem to Make Up His Mind about Which Republican to Anoint in 2012
The Republican presidential primary has produced an unprecedented number of frontrunners — candidates who surged in the polls for a while and then faded after they were vetted by voters. Pundits say that this phenomenon — a first in the history of American presidential campaigns — is due to the fact that Republican voters do not like Mitt Romney, the robotic, putative frontrunner, but that they can’t make up their mind about which alt-Mitt they would prefer.
That may be true, but, from the point of view of the religious right, it appears just as likely that it is God Himself who can’t make up His mind.
Last week, Karen Santorum, who, like her husband Rick, is an extreme right-wing Catholic, asserted that God had ordained her husband’s campaign for the Republican nomination:
Study: Right Wingers Are Less Intelligent
A new study released earlier this month confirms an obvious fact:
Right-wingers tend to be less intelligent than left-wingers, and people with low childhood intelligence tend to grow up to have racist and anti-gay views, says a controversial new study.
Conservative politics work almost as a “gateway” into prejudice against others, say the Canadian academics.
