Republican nominations - Page 569

he Milwaukee Journal Sentinel endorsed Mitt Romney Saturday evening ahead of the state's April 3 primary. But the editors also expressed their concerns about the GOP frontrunner, basing their endorsement on the hope that Romney really will return to his more moderate past positions as the once he's clinched the nomination. In other words, what the Journal Sentinel likes about Romney is exactly what makes the GOP base wary.

From the endorsement:

We recommend Romney, too, in Tuesday's primary election. He is the clear choice in an uninspired - and now dwindling - field.

But we do wonder which Romney we'll see in the fall.

Is it the Romney who favors a reasonable solution to the nation's broken health insurance system? Or - shake that Etch A Sketch - is it the Romney who blasts "Obamacare"?

Is it the Romney who has a long history of working across the aisle with Democrats on a range of issues - the consummate, even-keeled manager who is good at running things? Or is it the Romney who can't help looking over his shoulder before making any decision to see if the tea party is brewing up a fight?

Most pundits considered Romney's Etch A Sketch moment last week a gaffe. Describing how Romney would appeal to centrist voters in the general election, Romney aide Eric Fehrnstrom said: "Everything changes. It's almost like an Etch A Sketch. You can kind of shake it up and restart all over again."

But here's the thing: Fehrnstrom was right. Romney does need to shake up his positions - and move gracefully to the center on a range of issues.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel endorsed Mitt Romney Saturday evening ahead of the state's April 3 primary. But the editors also expressed their concerns about the GOP frontrunner, basing their endorsement on the hope that Romney really will return to his more moderate past positions as the once he's clinched the nomination. In other words, what the Journal Sentinel likes about Romney is exactly what makes the GOP base wary.

On April 01 2012 12:29 paralleluniverse wrote:
https://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/01/opinion/sunday/a-quantum-theory-of-mitt-romney.html

One of the funniest and truest articles I've read in months.

Some general knowledge of Quantum Mechanics is a plus, but not entirely necessary.

Ron Paul is not only still running for the GOP presidential nomination; he's "trying to save the Republican Party."

"The truth is, I'm trying to save the Republican Party from themselves because they want perpetual wars, they don't care about presidents who assassinate American citizens, they don't care about searching our houses without search warrants, and these are the kind of things people care about," Paul said on CBS' "Face the Nation."

Responding to a question about whether he'd continue running for office, he said, "The votes haven't been counted. ... There's no way I'm going to quit speaking out on this, and there's no way I'm going to give up on the effort to get the Republicans back to their roots."

The Texas representative also criticized the way that Republicans, as well as the Obama administration, have been handling the Afghanistan War.

On April 01 2012 12:29 paralleluniverse wrote:
https://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/01/opinion/sunday/a-quantum-theory-of-mitt-romney.html

One of the funniest and truest articles I've read in months.

Some general knowledge of Quantum Mechanics is a plus, but not entirely necessary.

For on Thursday Republicans in the House of Representatives passed what was surely the most fraudulent budget in American history.

And when I say fraudulent, I mean just that. The trouble with the budget devised by Paul Ryan, the chairman of the House Budget Committee, isn’t just its almost inconceivably cruel priorities, the way it slashes taxes for corporations and the rich while drastically cutting food and medical aid to the needy. Even aside from all that, the Ryan budget purports to reduce the deficit — but the alleged deficit reduction depends on the completely unsupported assertion that trillions of dollars in revenue can be found by closing tax loopholes.

And we’re talking about a lot of loophole-closing. As Howard Gleckman of the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center points out, to make his numbers work Mr. Ryan would, by 2022, have to close enough loopholes to yield an extra $700 billion in revenue every year. That’s a lot of money, even in an economy as big as ours. So which specific loopholes has Mr. Ryan, who issued a 98-page manifesto on behalf of his budget, said he would close?

None. Not one. He has, however, categorically ruled out any move to close the major loophole that benefits the rich, namely the ultra-low tax rates on income from capital.

On April 03 2012 01:02 kwizach wrote:
A good column by Paul Krugman on Paul Ryan's budget which was endorsed by Mitt Romney: click here.

Mitt Romney
"I'm very supportive of the Ryan budget plan. It's a bold and exciting effort.... I applaud it. It's an excellent piece of work and very much needed."

On April 03 2012 08:34 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:
So a Planned Parenthood clinic was bombed Sunday night and it seems, so far, that each of the GOP nominee has laid of of Planned Parenthood being evil etc.

On April 03 2012 11:44 Pillage wrote:


Source for the incident.

Not sure if this was just someone fucking around, or something more serious. The "bomb" appeared to be a pretty shitty one, so I don't know what they were trying to pull off.

On April 03 2012 15:49 forgottendreams wrote:
so many times I wish we had our own political forum for an article like this http://www.cnn.com/2012/04/02/opinion/levy-cato-koch/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

Apparently Charles Koch, devourer of all things within the earth and rare and arguably an architect of much of the hyper partinship that's so fashionable right now wants to retake the CATO institute (presumably to dull it into an efficient and partisan weapon for elections).

Althought I gritted my teeth on many occasions I was a reader of CATO, now that it may become an empty partisan hack machine I think I'll pass. Libertarianism is no doubt empirically on the rise, perhaps Koch wants to stem the bleeding of independant voter flight towards libertarianism that traditionally could be switched to vote republican. Anyways I thought it was an interesting article.

As the 2012 Race for the Republican Nomination turns toward this week’s primaries in D.C., Maryland, Mississippi and Wisconsin all eyes are on so-called “front-runners” like Romney who the media says is running away with the Delegates and is the “most likely” nominee.

If you turn on the television today you have a very good chance of seeing the media’s general estimated delegate count for the four remaining “Republicans” that are vying for the 2012 nod.

Although the numbers vary slightly depending on which mainstream source used, currently, the establishment’s media is displaying the approx. totals as Romney leading with around 550 delegates, Santorum with around 240, Gingrich around 130, and Ron Paul trailing the pack with usually less than 50.

Are these numbers accurate? Let’s find out.

The first problem we see when studying delegate counts comes from the very first caucus held in Iowa back in January.

Although the media says they “estimate” the delegate count as proportionate to the percentages of votes won in each caucus, of Iowa’s 25 available delegate seats, even as Santorum, Romney and Paul basically split the votes there relatively evenly, somehow the media's estimated delegate count shows Santorum as winning 13 delegates and Romney winning the other 12….as if Paul received no votes whatsoever.
[snip for a quicker tldr/overview.]

It will also be very interesting to see how the media handles the real numbers as they start to emerge from the National Convention. Ron Paul may actually currently be, by some estimates, in 3rd or even 2nd place overall behind Romney and truly seems to be gaining steam as the process continues to unfold.

Some in the GOP have shuttered at the fact that young Ron Paul supporters have done their homework and decided to go out in mass to attempt forcing their candidate into the Republican nomination and have tried to do everything they can to stop them from doing so.

The problem with that is Ron Paul’s delegate hopefuls have truly done their homework, know the GOP’s election laws and are following them by the book, something the other candidate’s supporters aren’t doing. This forces anyone trying to stop them to break the rules to do so.

Continue reading on Examiner.com Ron Paul winning delegates - Denver Libertarian | Examiner.com http://www.examiner.com/libertarian-in-denver/ron-paul-winning-delegates#ixzz1r0AxbdV4