Tag: Campaign 2012

GOP Newspaper: George W. Bush Backs Chris Christie for President

Jon Ponder

photos-christie-bushFrom the Murdoch/News Corp (R-Hacking) owned New York Post:

After months of hedging, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is giving serious thought to jumping into the ring for a GOP presidential run — and could make his decision next week, The Post has learned.

The announcement may come as soon as Monday, said sources familiar with Christie’s thinking.

The renewed consideration about a White House run came after prodding this week from some Republicans he idolizes, including former First Lady Nancy Reagan, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, and former President George W. Bush, sources said.

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Five Reasons GOP Primary Voters Would Hate Chris Christie

Jon Ponder

In the Fox News debate last week, Texas Gov. Rick Perry apparently drove his junker presidential candidate off a cliff after he described tea baggers who don’t want to educate undocumented children who have grown up in the United States as “heartless.”

But if the tea partyists found Perry’s “compassionate conservative” position on undocumented children to be a deal killer, wait’ll they get a load of these five left-leaning positions held by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, the latest GOP presidential heartthrob:

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Maddow: Beltway Media Deliberately Misreported Obama’s Speech to the Congressional Black Caucus

Jon Ponder

At about 02:00 in the video above from the Rachel Maddow show on MSNBC last night, Maddow runs the last few minutes of Pres. Obama’s speech to the Congressional Black Caucus last weekend — the section in which, as the Associated Press, the Beltway media and right-wing propagandists reported it, he exhorted the African-American congressional leaders to take off their bedroom slippers, put on their boots, stop grumbling and start marching.

A transcript follows of the excerpt from the speech (and a complete transcript of the president’s remarks at the bottom of this page), but first, here is what Maddow said about the way the media reported on the speech:

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Perry Loses, Bachmann Rebuked in Republican Party of Florida Straw Poll

Jon Ponder

If the final tally in the Republican Party of Florida’s straw poll yesterday is an indicator, it appears the GOP base won’t be forgiving Rick Perry any time soon for describing their opposition to educating undocumented children as “heartless.”

Wouldn’t it be ironic if Rick Perry is forced out of the race because the GOP-tea party base couldn’t handle it when, for once, he told them the truth.

The day after Perry made the “heartless” comment at the Fox News debate in Orlando, he gave a rousing speech at a CPAC-Florida event that his campaign hoped would quell the unrest on the extreme right.

For good measure, Perry — like his principal rival, Mitt Romney — chose not to apologize for the ingratitude they and all the other Republican presidential candidates displayed to an active duty soldier who asked a question during the debate Thursday night about Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. But even their compounded rudeness to a gay soldier could not cut it with the Republicans’ gay-hating base.

Instead a huge majority of voters in the poll essentially opted out by choosing “none of the above,” a.k.a. the ultimately unelectable Herman Cain:

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Perry, Romney Opt Not to Apologize for Disrespect They Showed Soldier at Fox News Debate

Jon Ponder

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Here’s an update to this story from yesterday about the disrespect shown to an active duty soldier in Iraq by the entire Republican presidential field at the Fox News debate this week in Orlando, via Steve Benen at Washington Monthly:

Yesterday, Jon Huntsman and Gary Johnson, to their credit, also denounced those who booed Hill, albeit a day late. Mitt Romney and Rick Perry, however, refused requests for comment.

I don’t expect much from guys like Romney and Perry, and neither are likely to ever get a Profile in Courage award nomination any time soon, but if leading presidential candidates aren’t willing to stand up for an Army soldier serving honorably in Iraq, who will they stand up for?

From the ABC News report:

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GOP Florida U.S. Senate Candidate Urges Republicans in Congress Not to Fear Shutting Down Government

Jon Ponder

This is looking like another line in the sand moment. I want the Republican version to pass. Republicans shouldn’t be afraid of a shutdown.

– Adam Hasner, Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate, speaking to David Weigel minutes after winning the CPACFL straw poll in Orlando yesterday.

Disrespect Shown Gay Soldier by GOP Candidates at Debate Even Offends a Few Conservatives

Jon Ponder

Stephen Hill
Stephen Hill
Here’s a pleasant surprise. Jim Geraghty at the National Review Online has called out Republicans for their boorish treatment of a gay soldier who asked a question about Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. And he’s not talking about the jerks in the audience who booed:

Rereading the transcript of last night’s debate, I am struck that Rick Santorum did not thank Stephen Hill, a gay soldier in the U.S. Army currently in Iraq, for his service. Nor did anyone else on that stage.

Whatever you think of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ or homosexuality, Hill is risking his life on behalf of his country. It is troubling, and revealing, that Santorum’s answer entirely defined Hill as a gay man first and as a soldier second, if at all.

Former Bush Press Secretary Ari Fleischer tweeted:

Booing a soldier serving our nation is uncalled for. If I were on stage, I would make that point.

Andrew Sullivan, a moderate, lapsed supporter of the GOP, is pissed:

I have become used to hearing gay people and our lives either ignored or stigmatized or demonized in Republican debates. It is a function of a political party becoming a religion. And so my skin is pretty thick at this point, and my outrage button eroded by two decades of learning to ignore this stuff and focus on the positive arguments we have to make…

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Is God Smiting Texas?

Jon Ponder
map-texas-drought

When disasters strike in the United States, Republican evangelicals are quick to blame liberals and their wanton ways for bringing God’s wrath onto the land.

In 2001, Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell blamed the ACLU, feminists and gays, among others, for the 9/11 attacks. In 2005, Pastor John Hagee of Texas, John McCain’s Catholic-hating buddy from the 2008 campaign, asserted that God smote New Orleans with Hurricane Katrina because it was the site of Southern Decadence, an annual gay event in the French Quarter.

And yet — as we have noted here (and here, here and here) — evangelicals are always silent when disasters hit them in their own backyards.

Rachel Maddow picked up on this theme on her MSBNC show last night, reporting that Cindy Jacobs — a self-proclaimed prophet and theocrat who pals around with Republican presidential frontrunner Rick Perry — has proclaimed that because Perry hosted a prayer meeting, which he called “the Response,” in Houston on Aug. 6, God has healed the state of Texas:

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The Line: GOP Debate in Orlando

Jon Ponder

  • The room full of tea baggers at last night’s debate in Florida did not cheer at references to executing people or letting the uninsured die, but they could not pass up an opportunity to hate on the gays. The crowd booed during a video question from an active-duty U.S. serviceman who said he was gay. “I guess we only respect the troops Republicans approve of,” wrote Digby. “Good to know.”
  • The soldier’s question was put first to Rick Santorum, the infamous homophobe. His response was typically bizarre: “I would say, any type of sexual activity has absolutely no place in the military.” (Tell it to the Marines, Rick.) David Weigel wrote, “The truly odious moment on Don’t Ask Don’t Tell — possibly the first ever booing of an active duty soldier at a Republican debate — will be remembered beyond [Santorum’s] predictable attacks on the patriotism of anyone who doesn’t favor constant aggressive warfare.”
  • “As with all the Republican debates,” wrote Jonathan Chait, at his new digs at New York magazine, “this one devolved into a contest to see whether Rick Perry or Mitt Romney could most persuasively paint the other one as reasonable.”

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