Month: March 2012

Two-Thirds of Americans Have Unfavorable View of Romney

Buck Banks

19 points

Gap by which a new ABC News-Washington Post poll finds Mitt Romney trails President Obama in popularity. Just 34% hold a favorable opinion of Romney as compared to 53% for Obama. Meanwhile, Romney’s 50% unfavorable score is higher than Obama ever has received; it’s been exceeded by just one other Republican candidate this year, Newt Gingrich, and by only one top candidate in 28 years, Hillary Clinton in 2008.

Police in San Diego County Investigating Murder of Shaima Alwadi, 32, Mother of Five, As a Possible Hate Crime

Jon Ponder

Shaima Alawadi
Shaima Alwadi
While the controversy around alleged racial motivations in the murder of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin plays out in Florida, police in El Cajon, Calif., have not ruled out anti-Islamic motivations in the brutal killing of Shaima Alwadi, a 32-year-old Iraqi immigrant and mother of five, who was found beaten and dying in her home near San Diego last week.

Alwadi was discovered early Wednesday morning by her 17-year-old daughter, Fatima, who called 911. At the hospital, Shaima Alwadi was diagnosed as brain dead, and her family chose to remove her from life support.

A handwritten note found at the crime scene described Alwadi as a “terrorist” and warned her to “go back to your own country.” Family members said they had received a similar note a few days earlier but had dismissed it as a kids’ prank.

Now the question is whether the attack and the threats were acts of domestic anti-Islamic terrorism.

[…]

Little Ricky Is Having a Meltdown

Trish

It was bad enough that Rick Santorum borrowed a page from Keith Olbermann’s play book when he stood before a crowd in Racine, Wis. and said Mitt Romney is “the worst Republican in the country to put up against Barack Obama.”

No, Santorum dug himself in a little deeper when a New York Times reporter asked him if that’s really what he meant to say.

Santorum accused the Times’ Jeff Zeleny of distorting his words following a question from the reporter Sunday night.

Zeleny asked Santorum if he thinks Mitt Romney is the “worst Republican in the country to run against Obama,” something he said while campaigning in Wisconsin.

In response, Santorum said “I didn’t say that. You guys are distorting what I’m saying … Quit distorting my words. It’s bullshit.

Obviously the bullshit was all on Santorum’s side as that was quite clearly what he said, with no distortion involved in understanding it.

[…]

Obama Staff Debating Gay Marriage

Buck Banks

This does not mean that it will happen, and there are plenty of reasons to assume it won’t. Indeed, it would be political malpractice if Obama’s top advisers didn’t discuss every permutation and possibility, no matter how far fetched. However, the fact that it has been discussed seriously at high levels means it’s not out of the question. Those advisers are convinced that Obama will make this call based on his gut, and ultimately without regard to the fine-grained political analysis of the situation, the source says.

— Greg Sargent, in an op-ed in the Washington Post, noting President Obama’s top political advisers “have held serious discussions with leading Democrats about the upsides and downsides of coming out for gay marriage before the fall election.”

Gingrich’s ‘Descent Into Irrelevance’

Buck Banks

Despite Newt Gingrich’s best efforts, it looks like the world is going to have to save itself. A humiliating third-place finish in Saturday’s Louisiana primary should have extinguished the last embers of Gingrich’s wildfire dream of a second-ballot victory at the GOP Convention. Any Newtonian fantasy about stopping Mitt Romney in Tampa requires the former House speaker to continue to accumulate convention delegates. But Gingrich — after winning a combined 9 percent of the vote in Louisiana and the prior Illinois primary — is now in the goose-egg phase of his descent into irrelevance.

— Walter Shapiro, writing in the New Republic.