Iowa Hiho!

[Mattus]

Romney criticizes Obama for having same position on contraception as Governor Romney in 2005
President Obama this week of ordering “religious organizations to violate their conscience,’’ referring to a White House decision that requires all health plans - even those covering employees at Catholic hospitals, charities, and colleges - to provide free birth control. But a review of Romney’s tenure as Massachusetts governor shows that he once took a similar step.

http://www.americablog.com/2012/02/romn ... -same.html

What utter rubbish. Who writes this nonsense? Romney vetoed that bill but the veto was over-ridden by both the house and the senate. You can fairly criticise Romney for changing his stance on abortion, but the 2005 bill in question was not one of those occasions.

[Jovial Monk]

Some American wrote that, I assume

[boxy]

Some american blog that you were praising as being better than the "real media" a day or two ago, just cutting and pasting from a "real media" website

[Mattus]

And here comes Rick Santorum for the game changer. Holy shit!

Venn diagram to demonstrate why Santorum's going to surprise the fuck out of everyone in the South.

[AiA in Atlanta]

Rick Santorum? Huh?

[Mattus]

Tricky Dicky has come out of nowhere and swept all three of the Tuesday primaries, even the ones Romney was almost definitely probably maybe going to win. This takes the score to Rick 4, Romney 3, Newt 1, Ron 0.

Rick Santorum? Huh?

Sure. You remember Rick. The guy who won the Iowa caucus two and a half weeks after the polls closed?

Wait.. let me remind you.

Rick Santorum: Google it. Ultra-conservative , fiscally and socially. He’s got a lot going for him as a GOP candidate. A devout catholic, a series of very catholic tragedies in the family and one hell of a consistent conservative voting record will turn his tenure as a Penn senator (usually a negative for a GOP candidate, where governors generally do better) into a plus. Penn is above the Mason Dixon, but only just. He’s really a wet dream for GOP. Unless he has fathered an illegitimate Dominican child or cruises for gay sex in airport restrooms he's going to be hard to beat.

Then

unless the evangelicals can pick a guy to back, it,s going to be an old money venture capitalist from massachusetts.

But then.

The Evangelicals and "socially Conservative" elite have formally backed Santorum.

To which that idiot Mattus guy said

I think that it's not a game changer.

But then..

And here comes Rick Santorum for the game changer. Holy shit!

That guy!

[AiA in Atlanta]

Look at the numbers in these states where Romney won big in 2008 but lost this year - dropped by half. What is going on?

[Mattus]

Look at the numbers in these states where Romney won big in 2008 but lost this year - dropped by half. What is going on?

In 2008 at the same time there was a very real possibility that Hillary Rodham Clinton would be the next president. Shit like that motivates a lot of people to get out and vote. Also, those that voted for Mitt in 2008 probably feel a bit ripped off. They delivered him a victory in their state, then the following weekend Mitt did a back room deal with McCain at CPAC to drop out of the 2008 race if McCain promised to stump for him on his next run (McCain was early to endorse Romney in 2012 and has been touring the primary states throwing all he can to support his old opponent). So these voters are once bitten by Mitt, and are less responsive now his "get out and vote for me" tour has come by again.

In Maine today, Romney just managed to scrape a win over Ron Paul. Ricky and Newt didn't bother campaigning. Romney is now back to level pegging with Rick in terms of races won, but this isn't a good result for him. He can't claim to have the momentum moving into the Super Tuesday knockout round, and he was expected to win Maine, a northern, New England state. He would have expected to win it more easily than he did.

In better news for Mitt CPAC, the conservative political action committee has backed Romney with 7% over Santorum at the straw poll, with newt and Ron relegated to the teenage back bleachers. This is a stronger endorsement, and one Mitt might very easily have lost, given his socially progressive history which is so obnoxious to the conservative power brokers.

Romney now faces a really difficult campaign. He wants to turn his warships loose on Santorum. To let him have it with both barrels. Make the pundits talk about Santorum's wife, who spent 6 years shacked up with a abortionist. To hack at his weak points and finger him for duplicity, hypocracy and corruption. To bring the words "K street project" into the households of middle America. To flash pictures his him schmoozing with John Kerry up on the telly. To point out that the pious act is not credible. To raise the unliving spectre of Terry Schiavo. To tear away the veil and expose the smooth talking southern lawyer come politician come lobbyist. But in order to do that he must take his eyes off Newt, who's currently ducked down in the trenches loading his guns for another push.


“…this right to privacy doesn’t exist in my opinion in the United States Constitution.” - Richard John Santorum.

[Mattus]

Another glimpse of campaign-Obama.

[AiA in Atlanta]

Terry Schiavo ... an issue Santorum certainly doesn't want to revisit. Always wondered about who was paying that poor woman's medical bills ... do you know Mattus? Seemed to me that the politicians who supported Schiavo and her parents were the ones most opposed to health care reform ... What does that say?