Tuesday’s political round-up

April 24, 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:

* Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) delivered a speech yesterday in which he characterized global warming as a key national issue that he takes seriously. Shortly thereafter, the McCain announced that former Defense Secretary James Schlesinger, a prominent global-warming denier, would be advising McCain on energy issues.

* Former First Lady Barbara Bush defended Mitt Romney yesterday against charges that people might hesitate to vote for a Mormon president. “I mean it was in 1897 that bigamy was outlawed in that church,” she said. “You know we have a lot of Christian wild people too, and a lot of Jewish wild people and a lot of Muslim wild people. The Mormon religion takes care of its own, they don’t have people on welfare.” She didn’t elaborate on which religious groups do have people on welfare.

* Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning (R) commissioned a poll last week of in-state Republicans on their preference for GOP Senate nominee next year. Bruning said his poll showed him leading incumbent Chuck Hagel (R) by nine points, 47% to 38%. Bruning reversed course a few days ago, indicating that he’ll run for the Senate whether Hagel runs for president or not.

* Speaking of incumbent Republican senators in trouble, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee conducted a poll in Texas recently and found that Sen. John Cornyn’s (R) re-elect numbers are fairly weak. The DSCC reported that Cornyn “has lower than expected name recognition for an incumbent US Senator, with 39% of the electorate unable to rate Cornyn either favorably or unfavorably.” In a hypothetical match-up against an unnamed Dem, Cornyn is below the 50% threshold, leading a generic Dem, 47% to 38%.

* Democracy for America is currently hosting an online vote to determine which congressional candidate will receive the first DFA endorsement of the ’08 cycle. The three finalists for this round are Charlie Brown in California’s 4th, Darcy Burner in Washington’s 8th, and Eric Massa in New York’s 29th.

* Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Looneyville) isn’t ready to launch a presidential campaign quite yet, but he has hired a pollster and a fundraiser, and is building a staff for his political action committee, “American Solutions for Winning the Future.”

Can we please, please, please get Barbara “these refugees from New Orleans are having the time of their lives!” Bush on the record a LOT more often? The country needs a bit more exposure to this kind of thinking.

  • “The Mormon Republican religion takes care of its own…”

    There.
    Fixed it.

    Same law-of-the-jungle morality however.
    That can’t be fixed…..

  • Poor old Bar….Those arteries just keep getting harder and harder. I really can’t get worked up by what the ol’ girl says.

  • “American Solutions for Winning the Future.”

    So he’s running as the joke candidate?

  • “McCain announced that former Defense Secretary James Schlesinger, a prominent global-warming denier, would be advising McCain on energy issues.”

    Good thing energy doesn’t have much to do with global warming, eh McCain?

    CoughCRAZYcough

  • “You know we have a lot of Christian wild people too. . .”

    . . .thus making the nice conservative Christian observation that Mormons aren’t part of their club. I’m surprised she didn’t single out Catholics as well.

  • I’d be worried about Hagel’s future if his voting record matched his occasional photo-op disagreements with White House policy.

    Even a hardline Republican replacement would at least be more honest in his venality than Hagel.

  • According to the HHS, there were 21,800 welfare recipients in Utah in the year ending March 2003. I guess they were all non-Mormons…

  • I agree that we should all be hearing from Barbara Bush much more often. Her remarks shed a great deal of light on the mindset of the Bush crime family. Too bad we all can’t be from American patrician heritage so we all can be taken care of by the federal government without Barbara blaming us for our laziness. Nobody gets taken care of like the Carlisle group without the possible exception of the Halliburton Corporation and its subsidiaries. It is an amazing thing about those people; they do seem to take care of their own. (If their own are shareholders of course; former Halliburton employees seem to tell a slightly different story about their willingness to take care of anyone who is no longer employable.)

  • Charlie Brown? Now THAT guy’s got some name recognition… All Cornyn needs to do is create an eponymous comic strip. I’m thinking with a turtle as the main character…

  • Re #7, very interesting article. I’ve passed it on to all my Wiccan buddies, we should hear back shortly. 😉

  • Thanks Babs. We all needed to know which side of the family W got his brains from.

    BS on Mormons not being on welfare. This is especially true in the polygaist towns like Colorado City and Hilldale. A quick bit of info from Rich Cross’ website on this —

    “Colorado City and Hildale were on a list of the top ten towns with a population over 2,000 in the Intermountain West for reliance upon Medicaid (health care for the poor) in 1998. And in that same year the same towns draw from the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program (food for low-income mothers) could only be equaled by Western Indian reservations and impoverished inner cities. 33% of Hildale and Colorado City residents were using food stamps in 1998.”

    I guess mendacity IS genetic.

  • Newt Gingrich … has hired a pollster and a fundraiser, and is building a staff for his political action committee, “American Solutions for Winning the Future.”

    He should call it “American Sure Solutions for Winning In Presidential Elections.” I mean, the acronym alone will get him the base vote.

  • Never forget that Babs Bush was the individual of whom Nixon supposedly said, “Now there’s a woman who really knows how to hate.”

  • Actually, don’t polygamist families consume the vast majority of welfare resources in Utah?

  • Funny how racism is always there, subtly revealing itself behind what it believes to be a sufficient veneer of self-righteous bullshit.

    The word welfare (which, if I understand it correctly) means “well being” and certainly applies just as much to beer-guzzling, NASCAR-watching, Bush-voting white trash as it does to blacks.

    But I speak from experience having grown up in the South, that the word has been sufficiently demonized so as to elicit an automatic, knee-jerk reaction that has nothing to do with law and order or personal responsibility. To these people, it simply means money out of your paycheck given directly to black women. They’d rather feed that money into a war machine, any time/any day.

    Meanwhile, society collapses and loses its soul:

    1. Enslave them for centuries.
    2. Begrudgingly free them.
    3. Begrudgingly and gradually bestow them their inalienable rights.
    4. Whine when it costs us to heal the wounds we created with sin #1.
    5. Leverage the growing anger and natural hatred and xenophobia inherent in all men and install politicians sympathetic to the “plight of the majority”.
    6. Remove the protections of step #4.
    7. Recind #3 as punishment for the increase in crime that inevitably results from the removal of the protections of step #4.
    8. Watch as crime and unrest increase even more.
    9. Enslave them in prisons.
    10. Extinguish them.

    It can happen. It has happened. It will happen again. The kind of evil that consumed Germany 60+ years ago doesn’t just go away. It is alive and well and people like Barb here give it a voice every time they open their putrid mouths.

  • Petarado are you an idiot or what? At least Barbara Bush knows that Mormons ended polygamy over a hundred years ago. The so called Mormons that you claim live in Colorado City, etc.., and receive welfare are not Mormons and 99% have never been Mormons. As the AP style guide states “A Mormon is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.” I could call myself a Catholic if I so wanted, but it wouldn’t make me one if I hadn’t ever been baptized into their faith. Some polygamists might call themselves Mormons (though most don’t), but not being members of the LDS Church, precludes them from actually being Mormon.

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