Monday’s political round-up

April 2, 2007

Today’s installment of campaign-related news items that wouldn’t generate a post of their own, but may be of interest to political observers:

* I was going to report here on Q1 fundraising totals for the presidential candidates, but I think there’s enough interest to warrant a full post. It’ll be up soon.

* Former Wisconsin Gov. and HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson (R) formally entered the presidential race yesterday during an appearance on ABC’s This Week. Touting his record as a “reliable conservative,” Thompson said, “All that people have to do is look at my record, and I am the one individual that they can count on.” He added, “People feel Republicans lost their way in Washington.”

* Speaking of Thompsons, if former Sen. Fred Thomson (R-Tenn.) decides to run for president, as appears increasingly likely, television stations will reportedly have no choice but to pull reruns of his “Law & Order” episodes. As the WaPo noted, “Federal campaign law requires broadcasters to give all candidates equal time on the airwaves. That rule applies to entertainment programs like ‘Law & Order,’ meaning stations that run the show would be required to give other GOP candidates a like amount of prime-time exposure.”

* In a bit of a surprise, the Rev. Al Sharpton, who ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004, says he won’t get into the race this time. “I am not going to run,” he told CNN.

* Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is apparently anxious to write off the Latino vote in 2008, telling the National Federation of Republican Women on Saturday that bilingual education is comparable with “the language of living in a ghetto.” Peter Zamora, co-chair of the Washington-based Hispanic Education Coalition, which supports bilingual education, said, “The tone of his comments were very hateful. Spanish is spoken by many individuals who do not live in the ghetto.”

* And Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.), as expected, announced this morning that he is running for president. He kicked off his candidacy on Jan Mickelson’s “Mickelson in the Morning” show on WHO Radio. “They’re the ones who brought me to the party,” Tancredo said, referring to conservative talk radio.

April 2, 2007 at 12:03 pm

Actually, the Law & Order rerun thing brings up, to me, an interesting concept…

If a station owner (or someone who ran a company that owned TV stations) were sympathetic to the Democratic party and it’s candidate, could that person, in theory, run an episode of L&O with Fred Thompson, and then air a long-form pro-Democratic infomercial under the equal-time policy?

That Newt, he’s a charmer. I wonder what he calls the Attorney General when he’s among friends.

Didn’t California have to do something with old Arnold movies back when he was running? Personally, I think it’s a little silly as long as the TV shows or features in question aren’t specifically espousing a political point of view that might help a Fred Thompson or whomever. I could see if they were documentaries designed either to promote or destroy a candidate, but fiction is fiction and if anyone is going to be so inclined to vote for someone because they saw him or her in a TV show or movie, they probably already feel that way without any fresh reminder of their acting work. Does this mean that old SNL’s will have to be edited out in Minnesota for fear that Stuart Smalley skits might help Al Franken and hurt Norm Coleman?

Someone needs to ask the amphibian to expound on what he meant by the language spoken in the ghetto. After that has been beaten out of him he can explain why he has a problem with people who speak two languages but has said nothing about that English-mangling moron in the White House.

In addition, this whack off has essentially said to all of our non-English speaking allies: Get stuffed, freaks. Has this dipshit ever travelled to Europe? You have to look long and hard to find mono-lingual person who isn’t the typical Ugly American tourist.

In 1995, for example, he said bilingualism poses “long-term dangers to the fabric of our nation” and that “allowing bilingualism to continue to grow is very dangerous.”

Yes, because people who speak two languages fluently…tend to get hired over people who only speak one. Oh no! Plus, where would we be if people from around the world could actually have meaningful dialogue. Kind of hard to paint ferriners as hostile savages if we can speak to one another. And besides, Newter hates it when the help talks ferrin talk. He’s afraid the maids are laughing at his tiny tool.

Federal campaign law requires broadcasters to give all candidates equal time on the airwaves.

There could be some quirks with federal law that I’m not aware of, but I’m pretty sure this doesn’t apply if the candidate is not speaking on campaign issues. It doesn’t count pure face-time. If Big Fred is playing a character, that doesn’t count as campaign speech.

In fact, I think it applies only to paid advertising; a broadcaster can’t accept ads from one candidate and shut out all the others. Obviously it doesn’t apply to face time in news coverage.

And Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.), as expected, announced this morning that he is running for president. He kicked off his candidacy on Jan Mickelson’s “Mickelson in the Morning” show on WHO Radio. “They’re the ones who brought me to the party,” Tancredo said, referring to conservative talk radio.

Yes indeed, conservative talk radio: “attacking intelligence one nitwitted moron at a time.”

Old Newtie’s kind of anxious to turn off the women-who-have-cancer vote too

“The tone of his comments were very hateful. Spanish is spoken by many individuals who do not live in the ghetto.”>/i>

Not to be too critical — I’d probably be spluttering in Mr. Zamora’s place myself — but that’s conceding that living in a ghetto is proof of some kind of character flaw in the first place.

Since you can measure Fred Thompson’s screen time in seconds on L&O, it’s probrably not a big issue. Show faces of the other candidates for the same length of time at the end of each show. Heck – just cut his minor character out all together…who’ll notice?

#4 – great comment!

Now, for the grown-ups out there:

One problem is that no one is completely fluent in more than one language, and some hiring managers may require people to know colloquialisms that only native speakers of a language know. That means that natives of foreign countries will be given preferential treatment.

And, can this site name the case of a school board member who was kicked off the board because of his support for bilingual education? (Hint: there was such a case in OrangeCounty, but that’s a trick question).

So they have to stop airing shows if someone in them runs for President?

Let’s please get Dog the Bounty Hunter, Gene Simmons, and America Ferrero (sp?) to run for President permanently.

Seriously, though, that’s a bit of a silly rule.

Would radio stations have to stop playing music by a performer who was running for office? What if it was a classical musician?

Things can be taken to their silly, illogical extreme, and this is one of them.

One problem is that no one is completely fluent in more than one language,

A question: How deep into your arse did you have to dig to find this nugget of bullshit?

Better spoofs please!

“The tone of his comments were very hateful. Spanish is spoken by many individuals who do not live in the ghetto.”>/i>

Not to be too critical — I’d probably be spluttering in Mr. Zamora’s place myself — but that’s conceding that living in a ghetto is proof of some kind of character flaw in the first place. –Thomas Nephew (@8)

What I noticed first about the Zamora quote was the bad grammar — “tone” is singular, so it does not “go” with “were”. It’s either: “his comments were hateful” or: “the tone was hateful”

Regarding bi-lingual education. I would love to see the study of languages pushed harder in American schools. It would be great if everyone who graduated from highschool could communicate (if not, necessarily, to the degree of perfection that TLB @10 is talking about) in at least one language other than their native English. But I’m less sure about mandatory bilingual education. How do you choose which language to teach as the second one? Why Spanish and not, say, French or German or Russian or Chinese?

When I was growing up in Poland, we had to study two foreign languages.We began with Russian (for obvious political reasons ) and, after 3 yrs added a second — a western language of choice (English, French, German or Spanish. Latin and ancient Greek were after-school activities) Now that Poland is no longer a part of the USSR’s (or Russia’s) orbit , both languages taught are western. But both are a choice, and neither is taught as an equal to Polish, except in specialised schools.

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