Don't Tarry Toward the Exit Gov. Perry

Whenever a candidate drops out of a political race and endorses another candidate immediately, it makes you wonder about the staging and timing of the announcement.
Set just two days before voting in SC, one can only wonder how long behind-the-scene negotiations have been going on.  Who is sharing what polling info. These things don't occur by happenstance of course because there are no coincidences in politics.

So Perry's voters are now Newt's as it were, if he were free to give them. Or they are free to go with the arch conservative Santorum, who somehow manages to cling by manicured fingernails to the leaders' board behind the moderate Morman and wherever Ron PAul is on the dance card.

What this will mean is a temporarily stronger Tea Party and ultraconservative wing of the GOP's tenuous non-coalition.  Sure, you have to lean right in the primaries, if you're a fringe candidate especially, but Romney has stayed the course for more than four years now running against Obama more than against his GOP rivals from the get go. So say you have the GOP basically divided into thirds, 1/3 moderate, 1/3 libertarian (in Ron Paul's dreams) and 1/3 conservative/Christian right. Romney gets more than his third mostly from Paul, probably approaching 45% and the Gingrichians and Santorumites split what remains that Paul's hardcore drones don't lock down.

I am dubious that strategy of conservative-backed candidates consolidating their supporters behind one ubercandidate to oppose the moderate wing will prevail.  Eventually Santorum will have to fold his support in with Newt and/or Paul if he is as arrogant as I think it is, it may mean he holds out until the PA primary in three months. The Non-Mittophiles will likely need to muster every vote turning out to make a statement, but not a winning statement.  Eventually Romney will get more than a plurality and get majority percentage wins, but not until another candidate drops out probably.

In order to contest with Obama in the fall, it might be wiser to be running against him all along.

Ja66erwock

And then there were 5. How many were there?

So even after posting a 3rd place in New Hampshire, Huntsman is said to be bowing out of the presidential race today. Really, you mean UTAH will not yet have its first president?

Meanwhile Santorum is telling South Carolina that Romney can't beat Obama. And Tricky Rick can?? He couldn't even beat Casey Junior.

But this is a different year and now Ricky Tricky Havey one percenter has a national platform to tout his ultraconservatism. He doesn't look so plastic Stretch Armstrongy at times, but when you stop to listen to what he's actually saying most people in their right mind should start to cringe, perhaps even puke.

What will Huntsman say, bipartisanship is dead, you want even work with the other party to make the word a better place, talk to Tricky Rick and you'll find this to be true. This from Reuters.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/16/us-usa-campaign-huntsman-idUSTRE80F03G20120116?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews&rpc=71

Remove one of the faces from the sand pantheon of available candidates:

Janet Blackmon Morgan/MCT

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/la-pn-huntsman-wipes-history-of-romney-attacks-20120116,0,4931075.story

We'ss see which of the final 5 is still talking after next week.

Post-NH: Newt and Tricky Rick: That's What It's All About

So why was the headline of the Huffington Post after Ronney's very expected win in NH NOT about Romney, but about Ron Paul's silver medal?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/10/ron-paul-new-hampshire-primary-results-2012_n_1195647.html

Well perhaps that was because it wasn't former PA Sen. Rick Santorum or former House Speaker Newt (who tied for 4th out of the money) or the other guy from Utah (will Gov. Huntsman ever realize the 100-1 long shot of America electing a president from Utah, despite his show in this horse race?).

Jan 10, 2012 (100% of precincts reporting)

Mitt Romney	97,532	39.3%
Ron Paul	56,848	22.9%
Jon Huntsman	41,945	16.9%
Newt Gingrich	23,411	9.4%
Rick Santorum	23,362	9.4%
Rick Perry	1,766	0.7%
Michele Bachmann	349	0.1%
Other	3,272	1.3%

I wonder, when you have these vanity campaigns like Santorum's, what is really being angled for - is it to have their voice heard in th epolitical discourse, is it their love affair with the crowd and addictiong to camera or is it their quest to have a biting new commentary show on Fox News show to air after Huckabee?

 

It can't be a larger post-political career consulting contract or more nugatory but lucrative corporate board appointments, theses are always there it seems for ex-politicos?  So are they just so enamored with blathering on and spouting off about their wonderful ideas, so they feel compelled to keep running for offices just to have more fame and more glory and more self-gratification in the form of supporters giving them money to throw away on a lost cause? 

I mean c'mon, anyone who lives in PA has got to remember that former Sen. Santorum became 'former' when he disgracefully could not beat then-Auditor General Robert. P. "Mr. Invisible" Casey Jr. even though he ran one of the stealthiest campaigns ever for a U.S. Senate seat.

Bloggers and capitol reporters alike marveled 5.5 years ago at the more than 20,000 undervotes in the 2006 primary when Lynn Swann ran for governor.  (Who knows what #88 was angling for? The powers that be could have set him up with a nice seat in Congress, but he declined.)

I was one of those Swann-Santorum undervoters. Call me a Liberal-Republican or RINO or smart, but I just couldn't vote for Mr. Conservative so anti-abortion he and his wife decided to go through the trauma of delivering a stillborn child rather than cut the pregnancy short.

I don't usually reveal how I vote, but my vote in this case was a protest against ultraconservatism to a fault. I wanted to vote for none of the above, but in the primary there was only one above.  Gubernatorial candidate Lynn Swann polled 21,706 more votes than then-incumbent Sen. Rick Santorum earned despite neither candidate having an contested primary. People didn't apathetically stay home, they went and just didn't push that button or pull that lever next to Tricky Rick's name.

I guess 5 years flying in a stealth teflon under-the-radar logoed bus makes Santorum think the smell of that undervote is a little less fishy. Add to that the stench of the huge upset in the General Election when he, the incumbent, lost by 708,206 votes, 41.3% to 58.7% to Mr. Invisible Casey. OK, that was a landslide year for Democrats in Congress, but all but us Pennsylvanians seem to forget how unpoplar Santorum was in his home state - of Virginia - just a few years ago.

<>

United States Senator

Candidate	Votes	Percent
CASEY, BOB JR (DEM)	2,392,984	58.7%
SANTORUM, RICK (REP)	1,684,778	41.3%

You must remember, Casey ran a campaign that had him literally doing as few public appearances, press conferences or debates as possible so Santorum would have nothing to react to and so that Casey would not screw up a 10-point advantage he enjoyed throughout most of the campaign.

Now, after setting up camp in Iowa and South Carolina, Tricky Rick thinks he can pull the shroud of Turin over the eyes of the GOPers in the country - or at least those in Iowa and South Carolina and not quite 10% of NH. Do these voters know anything about him except that he has pretty plastic hair, painted-on smile and says a bunch of wacky stuff?

Think of it, he couldn't win in his own (former) fairly conservative though lately blue leaning home turf, now he wants the nation to warm to his right wing philosophies?

Don't be duped by the perma-smile. If you want your daughters living in an America where all females will be required to give birth 5 or 6 times, be denied contraception and the right to a safe abortion in cases of rape and incest, and where all your sons will be required to kill large and small furry animals alike with their government-issued firearms, then go for it. That is not the kind of liberty I expect Americans want.

If Santorum makes it onto the PA primary ballot on April 24 (which I am guessing he will just because he used to live here), which is one of the last in the nation and in 2008 only include the top tier candidate (McCain, but not Romney) and a couple rogues (Grassroots Paul and Host Huckabee). Most people also forget that Hillary beat Barrack in 2008, 54.6 to 45.4 and won only 8 counties, including my home county, Dauphin the seat of the state capitol.
 

If Sanrtom is the nominee, Obama wins for sure. If for some reason he wins, I will sell everything, move to Mexico, Chile or one of the closest neo-fascist regimes and become an ex-par because as a non-god-fearing Americans, my ilk would no longer be welcome here.

Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Review

Went to see Girl with the Dragon Tattoo for $7.50 at the Regal 14 matinee last Friday with two acquaintances. The movie is based on the Swedish version of the first Stieg Larrson book of the trilogy. Larrson died of a heart attack at the age of 50 in 2004. The manuscripts were published posthumously.

It was a guilty pleasure to see afternoon matinee on a weekday. I was blown away. The action sequences, the raciness of some of the sex scenes, the eerieness of the music and characters. All were unexpected, especially seeing the new James Bond, Daniel Craig, playing a mild-mannered (at first) and non-gun-wielding journalist caught up in an investigation of a child's disappearance years earlier that then uncovered a series of serial killings linked to Swedish a fascist sympathizer.

I had not read the books - yet - or seen the Swedish language subtitled movie. My daughter had borrowed the trilogy a year ago and I haven't seen them since. My brother sent them to me a couple years ago, but I have a long book list. My daughter is 17 and has seen the movie, rated R, but the book must also have been R-rated and as racy. Makes me wonder what she thought of what she read. She is old enough to get into the movie without an adult accompanying, not that this is a movie I would feel comfortable watching with my 17-year old girl. It's not Harry Potter.

Rooney Mara oozes angst-laden and possibly bipolar or borderline personality sensuality, yet works her diagnosis and computer genius to defeat her own demon social worker with deviousness and unrepentant vengeance, yet easily converts into a sexy blonde in later scenes where she sets up the downfall of the movie's corporate villian who burned Daniel Craig's character in a libel suit.

This is the American version of the poster without the pierced exposed nipple. The influence of the Christian right and religion forced American movie execs to cover up the image with the superimposed opening date. Why do the minority of prudish Americans have such influence on the mainstream media when they are not consumers of these products. Not don't ask don't tell. Don't look, don't complain. You don't hear about the Amish burning books. Why do we Americans have such problems with the female (or male) form and why is Europe more open to being open? Americans came to America for religious freedom and apparently the right to force feed us their gods. Worse yet, they believe they, the minority, have the right to tell other people what they can and can't do the sake of the collective morality. Get used to it. It's not going away, but fortunately Rick Santorum will. But I digress.

I was especially impressed with the soundtrack, so indicative of Trent Reznor's recent post-NIN work. The opening sequence starts with a remake of Immigrant Song, which contains Norse mythological references, sung by Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, with instrumentation by Trent Reznor and collaborator Atticus Ross, who co-wrote the rest of the nonlyrical soundtrack. Trent could easily be nominated for his second Academy Award, not for the song, but the score. The song plays over the opening credits through a series of hypercloseups and bizarre images, setting the tone for this dark and very watchable move.