the Presidential Election forthcoming

President Obama has been presented with a great luxury. While the Republican candidates for President are finding new ways to draw (political) blood, the President can remain free from the muck. The muck will of course come to him, but the longer the GOP folks fight amongst themselves, the more time Obama has to remind America why he inspired them in the first place: he is an awfully engaging, powerful campaigner. When full campaign mode comes, it won’t be easy for President Obama, obviously. There will be a terrible, ugly fight. Just as Liberals shouldn’t get too over-confident as Santorum and Romney say stupid thing after stupid thing, the GOP shouldn’t forget who they are running against.

Just thinking strictly politically, if I were a Republican, I would worry that one these two:

will eventually have to engage with this guy:

Grover Norquist wants a President who can hold a pen and obey Grover Norquist

For some reason I cannot understand, Grover Norquist holds immense power in the modern Republican Party. If Grover tells Republicans to sign their name on a sheet of paper promising to do what Grover Norquist says is best for the country, for the most part candidates and officials sign their name to that paper. They may say otherwise, but they don’t act otherwise.

Norquist holds a lot of sway in the party. He’s not the ultimate arbiter of power and all things conservative, but still, he’s a force. And his opinions on the Republican presidential candidates matters.

So what is Norquist looking for a in a president? Here is at CPAC.

Pick a Republican with enough working digits to handle a pen to become president of the United States. This is a change for Republicans: the House and Senate doing the work with the president signing bills. His job is to be captain of the team, to sign the legislation that has already been prepared.

And,

All we have to do is replace Obama. …  We are not auditioning for fearless leader. We don’t need a president to tell us in what direction to go. We know what direction to go. We want the Ryan budget. … We just need a president to sign this stuff. We don’t need someone to think it up or design it. 

Yep. When choosing the quote leader of the free world unquote, we need someone who will do what he is told and will not attempt to be a leader or an autonomous human being with ideas to improve the nation. No. Pick someone with hands. Because the only thing that matters to Grover Norquist is that Obama loses to any Republican who will take Grover Norquist’s orders.

I assume Norquist has Romney in mind, since Romney is not a fully autonomous human anyway, but is a well oiled deliverer of adviser determined talking points. Or so it seems.

This may be a relatively politically astute position, designed to craft future policy to decrease Americans tax burdens, but it is still toxic to the health of the nation. Putting your faith solely in congress, let alone THIS congress, will not be good for anyone.

Anyway. Conservatives, Grover Norquist is poison to your party and our country, and following him too closely will not help your cause. Don’t let him drive you in to the ground.

MN’s Papers Highlight Men Holding Things in the Air

It has been MN’s week in the GOP limelight, as the candidates have made their way to our humble state to ply their wares, proverbially speaking. We’ve had Ron Paul spending his money and Rick Santorum hitting Bemidji and Luverne in recent days, but yesterday was the big haul: The Mitt was in Eagan. The MN Caucus has generally not played a big role in the nominating process, but some of the talkers are saying that it just might this year. Yeah.

But this post is about photos. In the morning Round-Up today, I couldn’t help but notice the similarity of the two images featured on the homepages of our two major papers.

First: Mitt Romney in the necessary, and yet still adorable, baby photo, at the Star Tribune:

Holy mackers. That baby is cute.

Then there is the Pioneer Press. A different, yet strikingly similar, picture:

Punxatawny Phil is not as cute. Though to be fair, still somewhat cute.

In the end, these two photos will likely have exactly the same impact on who get’s elected President, and how much longer winter will last…because such things are rarely decided by photos or shadows. Sorry Phil.

Florida craziness: Newt on Mitt’s anti-Holocaust survivor policies?

Things have officially gotten crazy in Florida. From a robocall making the rounds in Florida, on behalf of Newt Gingrich:

Holocaust survivors, who for the first time, were forced to eat non-kosher, because Romney thought $5 was too much to pay for our grandparents to eat kosher. Where is Mitt Romney’s compassion for our seniors? 

I’m not sure what this is symptomatic of: The stupidity of robocalling as a campaign tool or the willingness of Gingrich supporters to do anything (ANYTHING!) to defeat Mitt Romney. Either way.

Yikes.

Breaking down the GOP campaigns

In the wake of the SC Primary, where Newt Gingrich defeated Mitt Romney by about 12 percentage points, TRC has been considering just how strange the campaigns of these two men really are. I mean really, if you think about the campaign of Newt Gingrich for President, or the campaign of Mitt Romney for President, they are very odd.

To wit: if TRC ran these campaigns, I would boil them down to a slogan and an image. Choose wisely, Republicans.

Newt Gingrich 2012.

Mitt Romney 2012.

Another candidate rundown, for New Hampshire

Today is the New Hampshire Primary. The day New Hampshire will vote for Mitt Romney, and the suspense for TRC will be: How well will Jon Huntsman do? That’s the only interesting part of today, besides the infighting and the crybabying and the general fun of political muckety-muck.

And muckety-muck there has been in N.H.

Gingrich is going crazy with his anti-Mitt railings. It is clear Mr. Gingrich’s pledge to run a clean campaign does not extend beyond the realization that voters don’t much like him, and to be successful, he’s going to have be a douche. Want proof? Check out Newt’s latest campaign website: Stop Romney’s Pious Baloney. Yeah. It’s essentially Newt barf in interweb form.

Meanwhile, back in the real world, Santorum is getting his day in the sun: where rampant homophobia and anti-gay behavior should be rejected. Which, at least in part, it has been by the New Hampshire voters. And in return, Rick Santorum has turned sarcastic and bitter regarding the young people who find him distasteful. Well, at least he’s consistent (somebody will say, as they vote for him). Note to Santorum: you can’t claim to respect the dignity of the GLBT community, while wanting to outlaw gay sex and comparing their relationships to polygamy, or worse. Sorry.

Apparently Mitt Romney takes pleasure in firing people. That’s not a surprise, he’s a many times over millionaire who got his fortune by letting businesses go bankrupt. He’s the picture of the wealthy man becoming so by deciding the fates of others. Sure, some of those people got jobs at companies that succeeded, others had their places closed down and lost jobs. Don’t pretend otherwise. This is how Mitt Romney got rich. For this, he is the target of everyone’s ire. Which is just fine, if a bit, you know, disingenuous.

Huntsman seems highly reasonable, prepared for important issues, and relatively likable. Naturally, he’s failing. But there has been signs of hope for today.  Hopefully New Hampshire can give him some momentum to make a run at it. He’s a reasonable man in a clown school.

Ron Paul is still doing what he does: rousing the rabble. Rick Perry is still somewhere, I think, waiting for New Hampshire to end so he can do in South Carolina what Paul does so well everywhere else.

I think that’s everyone. Have fun Granite Staters.

All you need to know about the Iowa Caucuses

Today is the Iowa Caucuses, most well known as the kick-off to the Presidential Election 2012. TRC is pretty excited to see what kind of madness ensues this year, and to get things rolling, we offer readers the “Everything you need to know about the candidates for today’s Iowa Caucus” primer that will get you through the rest of January 3.

So what do you need to know?

Our Prediction: It appears that Ron Paul or Rick Santorum might win the Iowa Caucuses. Or maybe Mitt Romney. But probably someone more conservative like Santorum or Paul. Or Romney.

However, Rick Santorum is terrible, (really, just awful, have you heard him?), so it won’t matter if he wins. Ron Paul is bat-shit, so, essentially that won’t matter either.

Also, Michele Bachmann is going to be keep “fighting” to “surprise” despite having a snowballs chance, and Newt Gingrich is going to be mean because he has always said he would run a clean campaign until he peaked then started trending downward thus allowing him to finally display is true dickish nature. Which if you recall is really, really dickish.

Finally. Jon Huntsman is somewhere. Presumably in America. And Rick Perry can’t remember something that was supposed to be happening today. He knows it was important, but just can’t quite remember…

Thus Mitt Romney is your winner. Even if he doesn’t win, he wins. I mean, look at these guys:

There you have it. Your 2012 Republican field.

Romney: Romney = Jobs; Obama = No Jobs

It has been said that Candidate Barack Obama made promises that as president he could not deliver. That he portrayed himself as messianic, the savior of a nation in despair. Maybe. But when it comes to campaign promises, President Obama is actually doing pretty well, believe it or not. Many of the Obama promises were vague idealized notions around bringing change to Washington, or bringing people together, etc. And some were just failed promises. Because, hey, sometimes things go your way, and sometimes they don’t. And sometimes,  the promises are that just laughable.

For example, Mitt Romney said: “What I can promise you is this – when you get out of college, if I’m president you’ll have a job. If President Obama is reelected, you will not be able to get a job.”

Really, Mitt Romney? If you are elected next fall you are going to find jobs for every college graduate in America? How many favors do you think you can call in? Do you know how many people graduate from college? A lot. This is right up there with that very achievable pledge Michelle Bachmann made to bring the price of gasoline down to$2. You got to love the presidential political campaign.

On the other hand, if Mitt Romney actually could find a job for every college graduate, well, he just might deserve to be elected. If not, well, he should heed the words that were delivered to Maverick after a daring landing: “Son, your ego is writing checks your body can’t cash.”

What is American about America?

There’s a story this morning floating the webs about how MSNBC compared a Romney campaign slogan to an old Ku Klux Klan slogan, and then had to apologize and berate their own “appalling” lack of journalistic standards. It really isn’t all that interesting of a flap, but it is the stuff blogs are made of.

For the Romney campaign, this story has to be an absolute winner. The bad guy in this story is MSNBC, the liberal agenda driving left-wing “news” source attempting to bring balance to the world of political coverage by being well to the left of center. Because those other mothers are well, well to the right of center.

Anyway. Romney comes out looking okay, done wrong by MSNBC, who apologizes. Sure.

Which is unfortunate, because the real story here should be the Romney slogan. Which is: Keep America American. If that doesn’t make your skin crawl…then, well, I guess you want to keep America American.

TRC has a problem with this. But its not easy to delineate, because TRC, too, wants to keep America American. But I don’t think Romney wants to keep America American by continuing a rich diversity of culture and language, for example. Continuing American traditions like welcoming immigrants who are seeking a better life that the US has to offer, opening our hearts and doors to religious tolerance. Continuing to fund and explore and move forward towards new and wonderful and different while doing our damnedest to be responsible, even if we fail. Continuing to encourage civic engagement, and passionate yet stable upheaval of political norms, social movements towards justice, re-interpretation of law and the constitution to continue bettering the lives of everyone, being a voice of good in our own country and the world, recognizing equal value despite race or religion or sexual orientation or gender or any such difference. Continuing to imbue just the right level of romanticism into our past and future, while acknowledging that that romanticism has had terrible consequences for people all over the world, and none more so than the people who were here before us. Continuing, in short, to keep what is great about America, our willingness to do good and our acknowledgement that we have done terrible, as a vital part of the US of A. Or maybe he does want all this.

Which is one reason this is difficult to express.  Among the greatest American qualities of America is that Mitt Romney can run for president with a terrible, terrible campaign slogan like “Keep America American.” Such a terrible thing is among the best things about America. But it really is awful. Because when a conservative GOP flip-flopping shallow Presidential Candidate says that he wants to Keep America American, it just feels…gross. So, I suppose I strongly agree with Mitt Romney, even though I couldn’t disagree more.

**UPDATE: If you are interested in more than TRC’s ranting on the Keep America American slogan, The Atlantic has a very nice piece that you should read.

Is Newt Gingrich the real not-Romney?

Are Conservative Americans really trying to create a groundswell of movement to help Newt Gingrich win the 2012 Republican Presidential Nomination? Newt, former un-loved and resigned Speaker of the House, Moral Crusader against Old Bill, Contractor with America who left his cancer-recovering wife for his mistress Gingrich?

Does that seem like a good idea?

I’m thinking that my liberal reaction to Gingrich, one that casts him off as having no chance (absolutely zero) of winning the Presidency might be just straight bias. Because there appears to be real desire in large parts of the party to see Gingrich win. To be fair, there has been a real push behind all of the not-Romney candidate spikes (Bachmann, Perry, Cain). But Gingrich’s is a surprise. Sure he may be smart, he may know a lot about American History, his persona may seem eminently reasonable at the debates, but this is Newt Gingrich. The arch-conservative line could be behind Newt Gingrich (the Washington Times, for example, lists why he deserves a second chance), but what about the rest of Conservative America? Can the electors of the GOP really support the idea of Newt Gingrich running against Barack Obama?

I can’t imagine it, but that’s why I’m a liberal. There must be something behind Gingrich’s surge, and something in his potential campaign that has life. If its just a flirtation, like with Bachmann and Perry, it has more life and drive than either of them. The Cain folks seem even more determined than the Bachmann and Perry folks, trying to weather Cain through his harrassmnet scandal instead of just dropping him like the previous hopefuls. But Cain, too, seems destined to fade. There doesn’t appear to be evidence that it will be different for Gingrich. But the not-Romney movement is slowly running out of candidates, and they would do well to take heed of that fact.

TRC thinks that, in all likelihood, Mitt Romney will be the 2012 GOP Nominee. It is not inevitable, but it seems likely. However, the heart of the Republican Party is not with Romney, and if there is going to be an upset, could it go to Newt Gingrich? The wacky nature of this silly season has shown that any candidate can get temporary support (except Pawlenty) if they just wait their turn.

But there is danger in the fluid nature of the short-term candidate love. If Romney is actually not going to win, it seems possible that whomever is the last not-Romney surging in the polls will be the not-Romney that wins. That’s an unflattering way to describe the GOP race, but it is accurate. If the last not-Mitt happens to be Newt Gingrich, Republicans, I have to warn you about your fortunes.

A campaign against Newt Gingrich pretty much runs itself.