Monthly Archives: February 2012
Latest 2012 Presidential Polls – 03 Feb 12 (pre-Nevada Caucus) Edition
The Republican Tea Party (GOTP) nominating circus continues, moving west young man, moving west! Willard Mittens Romney appears to be firmly ensconced behind the rubber wheel of the GOTP clown car.
The current regular season records for the remaining four GOTP candidates are Gingrich 1, Santorum 1, Romney 2 and Paul 0; clearly there are still issues as to whether the party wants Mitt, and if it will fall in line behind him should he eventually be the winner. Problem is, who would it run instead and how would it displace him?
Nevada Proportional Caucus with 28 Delegates – 4 Feb 12; a new PPP (D) poll of likely voters conducted 1 – 2 Feb 12: Romney 50; Gingrich 25; Paul 15 and Santorum 8 with 2% undecided.
Colorado Non-binding Caucus with 36 Delegates – 7 Feb 12; last PPP (D) poll of registered voters conducted 1 – 4 Dec 11: Gingrich 37; Romney 18; Paul 6 and Santorum 4 with 38% undecided.
Minnesota Non-binding Caucus with 40 Delegates – 7 Feb 12; last PPP (D) poll of likely voters conducted 21 – 22 Jan 12: Gingrich 36; Romney 18; Santorum 17 and Paul 13 with 16% undecided.
The Maine Non-binding Caucus with 24 Delegates – 11 Feb 12; last PPP (D) poll of registered voters conducted 28 – 31 Oct 11: Romney 24, Gingrich 18, Paul 5 and Santorum 2 with 51% undecided.
Michigan Hybrid Primary with 30 Delegates – 28 Feb 12; last Rasmussen Reports poll of likely voters conducted 01 Feb 12: Romney 38; Gingrich 23; Santorum 17 and Paul 14 with 8% undecided.
Arizona Winner Take All Primary with 29 delegates – 28 Feb 12; last Rasmussen Reports poll of likely voters conducted 01 Feb 12: Romney 48; Gingrich 24; Santorum 13 and Paul 6 with 9% undecided.
Super Tuesday (6 Mar 12)
Georgia Proportional Primary with 76 delegates; SurveyUSA poll of likely voters conducted 01 – 02 Feb 12: Gingrich 45; Romney 32; Santorum 9 and Paul 8 with 6% undecided.
Ohio Proportional Primary with 66 delegates; PPP (D) poll of registered voters conducted 28 – 29 Jan 12: Gingrich 26; Romney 25; Santorum 22 and Paul 11 with 16% undecided.
Virginia Hybrid Primary (Where the FIX is in and only Romney’s on the ballot) with 49 delegates; Quinnipiac poll of registered voters conducted 13 – 19 Dec 11: Gingrich 30; Romney 25; Paul 9 and Santorum 3 with 33% undecided.
Oklahoma Proportional Primary with 43 delegates; Sooner Poll of registered voters conducted 17 Nov – 16 Dec 11: Gingrich 33; Romney 14; Paul 4 and Santorum 2 with 47% undecided.
Massachusetts Proportional Primary with 41 delegates; PPP (D) poll of registered voters conducted 16 – 18 Sep 11: Romney 50; Gingrich and Paul 5 and Santorum 1 with 44% undecided
Vermont Hybrid Primary with 17 delegates; PPP (D) poll of registered voters conducted 28 – 31 Jul 11: Romney 26; Paul 7 and Gingrich 6 with 61% undecided
The Current GOTP Delegate Count is: Romney 65; Gingrich 23; Santorum 6 and Paul 3.
The current GOTP Popular Vote Count is:
Romney 1,071,274
Gingrich 817,420
Santorum 378,567
Paul 278,567
Nationally the GOTP Nomination according to the latest Gallup Tracking poll of registered voters conducted 29 Jan – 02 Feb 12: Romney 33; Gingrich 25; Santorum 16 and Paul 11 with 15% undecided.
So, how does each of the Four Horseman of the GOPocalypse stack up against the President? The latest Rasmussen Reports poll of likely voters conducted 27 – 29 Jan 12, if the general election were held today:
President Obama 47/Romney 41
President Obama 52/Gingrich 35
A new USA Today/Gallup poll conducted 27 – 28 Jan 12:
President Obama 51/Santorum 43
President Obama 49/Paul 46
As crazy as it still looks, clearly, on the electability scale Paul is the candidate who comes closest to actually being able to beat the President; that being said, if the GOTP clown car had finally stopped spinning, and the general election was held today, Willard Mittens Romney would be the GOTP nominee, and he’d lose to President Obama in the general election.
Speaking of the general election; the latest Electoral College figures are below, based on current available state polling, and once again, if the general election was held today these would be the results:
Reasons Why I Can’t Vote for Romney (and yes this list will no doubt grow and need to be amended)
12 Jul 12 – Lied about when he left Bain Capital
23 Feb 12 – Lied about requiring Massachusetts’ non-profit hospitals to provide emergency contraception
01 Feb 12 – He claims he “Doesn’t Worry About the Poor”
27 Jan 12 – Failed to Report Interest Earned in His Off Shore Accounts
27 Jan 12 – Lied about his Fannie and Freddie investments being in a blind trust
18 Jan 12 – Mittens Stashed Millions in Offshore Accounts
17 Jan 12 – Romney says $362,000 in Speaking Fees is ‘Not Very Much’?
11 Jan 12 – Romney doesn’t get it; believes class warfare is about envy
09 Jan 12 – Mittens vetoed contraception bill for rape victims as governor
09 Jan 12 – Mittens likes to fire people
05 Jan 12 – Mittens’ tax plan, steal from the poor and give to the rich
04 Jan 12 – Big Bird to get the boot under Romney
13 Dec 11 – Mittens bet Perry $10k during a debate
28 Nov 11 – Mitt flip-flops repeatedly
23 Nov 11 – Romney said false ad’s ok
14 Nov 11 – Mittens said he’d prepare for war with Iran
08 Oct 11 – Romney lied to cadets at the Citadel
22 Sep 11 – Mittens claimed to be middle class
06 Sep 11 – Mittens economic plan favors the rich over everyone else
11 Aug 11 – Mittens said corporations are people
05 Aug 11 – Mittens pledged himself to evangelical group
01 Aug 11 – Romney opposed deal on debt ceiling
06 Jul 11 – Mittens lied about the economy
Dick Santorum says market more important than child’s life
Republican Tea Party (GOTP) presidential groupie Dick Santorum told the mother of a child with a rare genetic disorder that she shouldn’t have a problem paying $1 million a year for drugs because Apple’s iPad can cost around $900.
Speaking to a “huge” crowd of a couple hundred people in Colorado, Dick said demand should set prices for drugs.
“People have no problem paying $900 for an iPad,” the candidate explained. “But paying $900 for a drug they have a problem with — it keeps you alive. Why? Because you’ve been conditioned to think health care is something you can get without having to pay for it.”
First, you unfeeling dolt, an iPad costs about $500, and it’s a onetime expense; and second, that’s all you’ve got to offer as someone running for president? “Demand should prices for drugs”? What was the next line you were going to say? “If you can’t afford the drugs then perhaps your son should die and decrease the surplus population”? Perhaps Dick “in the sight of Heaven, you are more worthless and less fit to live than millions like this poor woman’s child!”
The mother replied she couldn’t afford her son’s medication, Abilify, which can cost as much as $1 million a year without health insurance.
“Look, I want your son and everybody to have the opportunity to stay alive on much-needed drugs,” Santorum insisted. “But the bottom line is we have to give companies the incentive to make those drugs. And if they don’t have the incentive to make those drugs, your son won’t be alive and lots of other people in this country won’t be alive.”
What’s that supposed to mean? I want your son to live, but we can’t have both? For the good of society it’s better to sacrifice your son’s life than ask a pharmaceutical company to make less profit? This is the classic uber-conservative religious zealot in action, oppose abortion, oppose contraception but once the child is born forget about it and place the entire burden of raising a child upon the head of the parent. No help from government, “that’s not government’s concern”.
“He’s alive today because drug companies provide care,” the candidate continued. “And if they didn’t think they could make money providing that drug, that drug wouldn’t be here. I sympathize with these compassionate cases. … I want your son to stay alive on much-needed drugs. Fact is, we need companies to have incentives to make drugs. If they don’t have incentives, they won’t make those drugs. We either believe in markets or we don’t.”
So, markets and corporations trump people in Santorum world? What if it was his family that didn’t have health insurance or couldn’t afford the meds his daughter needed? “Oh God! To hear the insect on the leaf pronouncing on the too much life among his hungry brothers in the dust!”
Santorum needs to crawl back into whatever dark, dank hole he slithered out of; he’s an embarrassment.
Reagan raised taxes on corporations
The conservatives of today live in a fantasy world, claiming to be Christian while genuflecting before icons of their chosen Messiah, Ronald Wilson Reagan; all have this vision of the Gipper with his tax cutting sword Excalibur flying through the halls of Congress slashing taxes and blessing the land with myriad tax cuts – reality check, while Reagan cut taxes his first year in office, it soon became clear his doctrine of supply side, trickledown economics was voodoo and that it wasn’t working, hence, for almost every year thereafter he raised one tax or another. It wasn’t the tax cuts that fed the government coffers, and fueled the start of economic recovery, it was the tax increases.
One such tax increase was in 1986, when on the south lawn of the White House under a beautiful sunny fall morning, Cabinet members, leading lawmakers and a large crowd applauded as they witnessed President Reagan sign into law the Tax Reform Act.
In order to get to this momentous bill signing, the President had to go to Capitol Hill to knock more than a few fellow Republicans heads together; all members of the House who had earlier blocked the measure – sound familiar?
“I think all of us here today know what a herculean effort it took to get this landmark bill to my desk,” Reagan said to the assembled crowd.
The Tax Reform Act of 1986 took the largest share of the country’s tax burden off the shoulders of the “really poor” whom Willard Mittens Romney “doesn’t worry about” and the middle class and placed it squarely on the corporations; it exempted millions of households of the “really poor” from any federal income taxes. Reagan called it “a sweeping victory for fairness” where “vanishing loopholes and a minimum tax will mean that everybody and every corporation pay their fair share.” The act was designed to be tax revenue neutral, because individual taxes were decreased while $30 billion annually in loopholes were eliminated and corporate taxes were increased
According to National Public Radio (NPR) it took more than two years to produce that tax code overhaul, and during that time, President Reagan went on the road to plead his case for the plan. At a high school in Atlanta, Ga., in 1985, Reagan said they were going to “close the unproductive loopholes that allow some of the truly wealthy to avoid paying their fair share.”
In Congress, Democrats and Republicans worked together to merge competing proposals for tax reform, and some like Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont says it was a different era.
“We had a lot of grownups in both parties, people who actually wanted the government to work,” Leahy says.
Yes you did Senator; you had what the current crop of Republican Tea Party (GOTP) members’ lack, maturity. The GOTP thinks it’s slick in portraying the uber-rich as the victims of the tax code; a code which allows a multi-millionaire to hide his money in the Caymans and in Swiss bank accounts and pay a mere 13% in taxes. The GOTP needs to read its own history, and see what its hero saw, that the rich don’t suffer under some stifling tax burden, that the economy isn’t struggling because the rich pay too much, but because they pay too little while everyone else carries the load. Reagan’s signature leveled the playing field while George W. Bush made it catawampus, tilting wildly in favor of those who didn’t need help. Reality check, Willard Mittens Romney, and his class – the deified 1% aren’t paying its fair share, they’re paying nowhere close to it and Mitten’s current tax proposal will decrease the current tax levels on his group to zero while raising taxes 60% on the middle class and poor. I had the very great privilege to work for and to know Ronald Reagan, and Mittens is no Ronald Reagan.
Mittens doesn’t worry about the poor?
Republican Tea Party (GOTP) presidential heir apparent Willard Mittens Romney has put his silver foot in his mouth again, saying that he’s “not concerned about the very poor,” citing the social safety net in place for that segment of the populace and adding that he’s focused on the middle class.
“I’m in this race because I care about Americans. I’m not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there,” Mittens said on CNN, following his victory in the Florida primary.
“We have a very ample safety net,” said Romney. “And we can talk about whether it needs to be strengthened or whether there are holes in it. But we have food stamps, we have Medicaid, we have housing vouchers, we have programs to help the poor.”
This sounds very familiar, where have I heard another rich man say something similar? Oh yeah, I remember.
“Are there no prisons?”
“And the union workhouses – are they still in operation?”
The problem is that programs in Mitten’s “safety net” are also suffering during the economic recession. Medicaid, for example faces cuts as states attempt to balance budgets at a time when more people are using the program and the GOTP lawmakers in Congress are eyeing cuts in food stamps as food prices rise, even as more Americans are using the program.
According to the Huffington Post, Mitten’s policies call for cutting federal spending and reconfiguring the “social safety net”, as well as an immediate five-percent cut to non-discretionary spending, hitting those in the “safety net” especially hard. Willard’s also proposing turning Medicaid into a block grant program and undertaking a “fundamental restructuring of government programs and services.” He also calls for capping spending at 20 percent of GDP – a significant cut – and adds that he “will pursue further cuts” as spending comes “under control.” Claiming not to “worry” for the very poor actually appears to mean he “doesn’t care” about them.
This though isn’t the first obtuse thing Mittens has said during the campaign, it’s really just one more misstatement in a whole season of previously poorly phrased remarks, “Don’t try and stop the foreclosure process. Let it run its course and hit the bottom,” he said last October in Las Vegas, the hardest-hit metro area by the foreclosure crisis.
In January, Romney said, “I like being able to fire people who provide services to me” to explain why he favored competition among health insurers. “If someone doesn’t give me the good service I need, I want to say I am going to get somebody else to provide that service to me.”
Mittens isn’t someone who should ever speak without prepared statements; in fact, if I were a handler, I’d rather have George W. Bush speaking off the cuff than having Romney do so. He just doesn’t get it; he doesn’t understand every mic is hot, and every time he speaks there’s going to be a camera recording. On top of that, his statements reveal what kind of man he really is – maybe one day he’ll have a Jacob Marley visit him too.
Is Newton going rogue in 2012 election?
Is it possible the time is fast approaching when the Tea Party is going to actually jump ship and splinter the Republican Party?
It appears Newton Leroy Gingrich gave a veiled threat of such a possibility in his “concession” speech after being absolutely pummeled by Willard Mittens Romney in Florida (Newt lost by 14 points). During the speech there appeared to be, what the Huffington Post is reporting as “strains of what could be an independent, third-party run for the White House if he doesn’t get the Republican nomination”.
Newton’s beginning to sound more and more like a B-movie villain monologuing on how he’s henceforth not running a “Republican campaign but a people’s campaign” – and raising, according to Huffington, “the specter, at least rhetorically, that his vision of his role in American history is too large and personal to be contained by a mere political party”. If really wants to pull this off though he needs to buy a really ugly hairless Sphinx cat and call it Mr. Bigglesworth. Wearing the silver jump suit is of course optional.
But can Dr Strangepuff really pull off a third party victory? Well, let me think … (try to stop laughing hysterically … wipe tears from eyes …) no. If Teddy Roosevelt couldn’t do it this overinflated egotistical caricature of a human being certainly won’t be able to; what he will do is siphon off the uber-conservative cracker vote from Mittens, and propel President Obama to the largest landslide victory since Reagan.
To his crowd of ardent followers Newt pledged in an allusion to the Founding Fathers and the Declaration of Independence, “If I become your president, I pledge to you my life, my fortune and my sacred honor.”
Any candidate should know better than to pledge things they either have no intention of giving or lack; Newton has no intention of ever putting his life on the line, this is all about claiming a foot note in history next to Teddy and Ross Perot; he’s also certainly not going to part with his fortune; lastly, it’s a pie crust promise to pledge honor when you possess none.
There’s a very strong chance Gingrich will run as an independent because he has to leave the 2012 stage as something more than the right-wing nut job buffoon who got his clock cleaned by the likes of Romney, and it’s much better to go down as the independent candidate in the general election than the second banana in the GOTP primary, especially if you drag Mittens down with you. Yes, he’s that mean, and that egotistical.
Oh, you should probably be prepared for more allusions of Newt being today’s William Wallace, George Washington and Robert E. Lee.
The Liberty Tree 