Midnight Jazz Club

 Something different for the blog. This one is for you, B!

Finally Revealed! Mitt Romney Shipwrecked the Minnow!!

After listening to the "highlights" of the two Republican debates over the weekend, it finally came to me: Mitt Romney is Thurston Howell III.

No, seriously! Look at the similarities: Romney is a rich white guy who's out of touch with the lives of his fellow Americans; Mr. Howell treated the other castaways like servants, and spent his time counting the money he brought along for that fabled "three-hour cruise." Mr. Howell made his money from the misery of others; Mitt was a corporate raider, a real-life Gordon Gekko who, in his own words, "likes to fire people." Mr. Howell contributed nothing to the survival or rescue of the castaways; Mitt does the same for the benefit of his fellow Americans.

There's more! Mitt claims that "corporations are people;" a sentiment of which I'm certain Mr. Howell would approve. Mitt wants to "get government out of the way of the job creators;" in other words, deregulate everything in sight, no matter that deregulation got us into this mess in the first place. Mr. Howell believed in laissez-faire capitalism, just like Mitt. Mr. Howell spent money like it was just dirty paper; Mitt casually makes $10,000 bets.

What a joke...the Republican front-runner is a damn caricature from a Sixties sitcom.

That's One Small Step For A Man, One Giant Leap For That Frothy Mix....

Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum finish in a tie for first place in the Iowa caucuses:

NY Times:

DES MOINES — Mitt Romney’s quest to swiftly lock down the Republican presidential nomination with a commanding finish in the Iowa caucuses was spoiled on Tuesday night by the surging candidacy of Rick Santorum, who fought him to a draw on a shoestring budget by winning over conservatives who remain skeptical of Mr. Romney. 

In the first Republican contest of the season, the two candidates were separated by only a sliver of votes. The outcome offered Mr. Santorum a chance to emerge as the alternative to Mr. Romney as the race moves to New Hampshire and South Carolina without Gov. Rick Perry, who announced that he was returning to Texas to assess his candidacy.

[...]

The Iowa caucuses did not deliver a clean answer to what type of candidate Republicans intend to rally behind to try to defeat President Obama and win back the White House. With 99 percent of the vote counted, Mr. Santorum and Mr. Romney, whose views represent the polar sides of the party, each had 24.6 percent.

And Newt? Fourth place.

So now, they're off and running! Where's my popcorn?

I'm Not Surprised...

....that Newt Gingrich is talking trash about Mitt Romney in New Hampshire:

Newt Gingrich's claims he was running a "relentlessly positive" campaign have been ... questionable. That meant he was restricting himself to meta attacks on his competitors for the Republican presidential nomination: they were nasty lying cowards who should be ashamed of themselves for attacking a relentlessly positive gentleman such as himself, but he wasn't really going after their records.

But that was last week's Newt Gingrich. Now, as he sinks in the polls:

"I think New Hampshire is the perfect state to have a debate over Romneycare and to have a debate about tax-paid abortions, which he signed, and to have a debate about putting Planned Parenthood  on a government board, which he signed, and to have a debate about appointing liberal judges, which he did," said Gingrich, starting in Marshalltown, Iowa, the case he'll take to the Granite State and beyond next week.

New York magazine spells out what Gingrich is saying there:

So there you have it: Gingrich, who trails Romney badly in the Granite State, plans to use the week between the caucuses here and the primary there to rip Romney a new one; and in doing so, weaken him in South Carolina, where Gingrich (for the moment) is polling strongly and is at the head of the pack.

 C'mon, who really expected Newt to stay positive? This is, after all, the guy who went after Bill Clinton over his affair with Monica Lewinsky while Newt himself was having an affair with the woman who became his third wife (after cheating on his first wife with the second - at least he's consistent!), the guy who shut down the government because he was forced to ride in the back of Air Force One; the man who Joe Scarsborough described as a "bad person." The guy who "discussed divorce terms with...(his first wife)...while she was in the hospital recovering from cancer surgery." The first Speaker of the House to be reprimanded and heavily fined (for the amount of $300,000) for unethical behavior in the history of the Republic.

Yeah, that guy.

Gingrich is, and has been throughout his political career, a blatant hypocrite, an opportunist, and a bad liar; possessed of an almost megalomaniac sense of self-importance, a largely undeserved reputation for "thinking big/outside the box," and the humility - or, lack thereof -  of a professional athlete.

Gingrich's drop in the New Hampshire polls on the eve of the Iowa caucuses merely serves to demonstrate that even conservative Granite State voters aren't quite as gullible as one might think. Like I said, Newt's a bad liar, too.

Tomorrow, Iowa conservatives will give Newt the back of their hands. Believe it.

Where's The Beef?

Newt Gingrich accuses Mitt Romney of wanting to "buy the election," Ron Paul supporters still embrace the fantasy that a 76-year-old sexist, homophobic, anti-Semitic racist could be elected president,  the undecided vote in Iowa remains undecided at the 11th hour, and the dirtiest headline of 2011 (and leading challenger for 2012) remains "Santorum surges from behind in Iowa." Sorta makes you laugh while at the same time making you feel unclean, doesn't it?

The clown car containing the 2012 GOP presidential hopefuls rolls on, and the view from this keyboard is that not one of them has a snowball's chance in hell of beating President Obama in the fall. Even though the mantra of the day is "electability," who among this crew honestly has a chance? Newt is hated in his own party, and seems to really be on an extended book tour, not a presidential campaign. Bachmann?--please! Too crazy. Perry? Too stupid. Huntsman? Too sane. No, at the end of the day, it's going to be the guy who's been running for President for the last five years: Mitt Romney. Romney, who will lose votes to a third-party challenge from Ron Paul, and be soundly defeated by Barack Obama.

There! I said it, on record. Believe it.