GOP Race to the White House — the 14 selling corn
There is a frightening item about the Republican Iowa Primary debate. Â Newt Gingrich seems to have been the only debate participant to bring up Ronald Reagan. Â If in the past, that is to say 2008, one gets queasy with the bringing up of Reagan, now we’re stuck at a “If not Reagan — what?” question. Â (I don’t know. Â There is some standard operating procedure with this — UN then not… why, in what essentially a vanity campaign, would he do that?)
Absent everything, Thaddeus McCotter, Buddy Roemer, and Gary Johnson* all have youtube answers to all of the questions.  Maybe they will gratuitously mention Reagan.
Perhaps the most visible candidate on the debate sidelines is Fred Karger, a Republican political consultant who has never been allowed to debate and has not garnered a large following for the presidential campaign he’s mounting.
Karger will be in Iowa on Thursday night, he told POLITICO, and is looking for tickets to attend the debate himself.
“I’ll hopefully watch it, and do the spin room and blog for the Huffington Post,†said Karger, who blogged for the liberal news website during the past two debates.
Karger is also looking to boost his write-in performance by passing out postcards that include a photo of him standing with President Ronald Reagan and Nancy Reagan. He worked in the Reagan White House in the early 1980s, which he’s now trying to draw attention to in the hope that it will jump-start his fledgling campaign.
“Of all the candidates running, I have the closest tie to him,†Karger said. “That is something that in Iowa, and of course the Republican caucuses, is a great asset. I have the kind of optimism that hasn’t come out in other candidates.â€
Right after I took the photo, a woman voted for Thad McCotter, making Buddy Roemer the only candidate with no corn kernel votes. She refused to say why she’d made that choice.
“As you know, many people like to pretend there is a divide between economic conservatism and social conservatism,†McCotter said while standing beside theValues Voter Bus in Sioux City.
“We understand that we can only have a prosperous economy if we have a virtuous citizenry.
The Values Bus Tour is being organized by the National Organization for Marriage, the Susan B. Anthony List and Family Research Council Action’s Faith Family Freedom Fund. […]
Specifically the groups have rallied against legalized abortion and civil marriage for gays and lesbians, subjects that remained on the fringes of McCotter’s speech.
Just as well. Â Somewhere off in a special type of Hell, or Texas, Rick Perry ushered the hordes of Crazy Rapturists in a “Response” — a response to the current budget and economic problems of the day. Â If this is the response to the problems of the day from a Rick Perry administration, we may be more screwed than I had previously thought.
Stephen Colbert, having established a legally legitimate Super Pac, ran two ads picking at Rick Perry’s write-in campaign at the Ames Straw Poll — write in “Rick Parry”. Â Brilliant, in the sense that Rick Perry’s (bussed in?) vote and Stephen Colbert’s audience does not much overlap, but that Rick Perry’s name will be mis-spelled here and there.
A good sign of the perpetual silly season that follows our perpetual Election cycle, it is reported by various anonymous sources that the Obama Administration is studying Bush’s 2004 campaign, and is preparing a campaign against Mitt Romney where they will be tagging Romney as a flip-flopper, inauthentic, and running against his record as a business-man.  All of this falls under the headline “Obama Plan:  Destroy Romney”.  I don’t suppose Romney is going to make plans to destroy Obama, politically speaking?  The one item picked up on in the silly season article — is Romney being called “weird” code for “Mormon”?  I have no idea.  It is, I guess, the one sensationalist item that Romney might tag in his press release — outraged as he is that Obama plans to run against him in manners candidates run against other candidates.
… like airing the quote about corporations being people over and over again. Â (Unless that hurts Obama’s corporate benefactors???)
Breaking news: Â Jeb Bush, Jr. endorsed Jon Huntsman, Jr..
Bush, 28, who backed former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani for president in 2008, said the former U.S. ambassador to China is the “only candidate with a proven record of creating jobs, in business and as governor.”
Some in the Huntsman campaign hyped an endorsement expected this week, leading some to speculate the announcement would come from the elder Jeb Bush.
Huntsman jumped into the race in June and has since registered in the low single digits in most polls of Republican presidential candidates. But Bush said the figures will change when more Americans become familiar with his record.
“Two years ago, I jumped on board Marco Rubio’s campaign when he was polling at 3 percent, and we made history,” Bush said referencing the freshman Florida senator. “With Jon, I can’t wait to make history again.”
No. Â Jeb Bush, Jr! Â Really!
I… got nothing.
Tim Pawlenty — what Tim Pawlenty has to do to “win” the Ames contest — according to George Will — er???  Get enough corn bread to convince 4,000 people to vote for  him?  I… got nothing.
Oooo… Michelle Bachmann versus Tim Pawlenty! Â Oooo…
“Governor, when you were governor in Minnesota, you implemented cap and trade in our state, and you praised the unconstitutional individual mandate, and you called for requiring all people in our state to purchase health insurance,” she said. She also dinged him for saying in 2006 that “the era of small government is over.”
“That sounds a lot more like Barack Obama if you ask me,” she said as Pawlenty shook his head.
The two went back and forth for a few more minutes, with Bachmann lauding her own record of fighting Democratic proposals, such as President Obama’s health care overhaul as well as cap and trade legislation. But Pawlenty, growing more animated, said that she had failed to stop the health care bill, as well as increases in spending and the 2008 bailout of Wall Street banks, which was actually implemented under Republican President George W. Bush.
“She said she’s got a titanium spine. It’s not your spine we’re worried about, it’s your record of results,” Pawlenty said. “If that’s your view of effective results and leadership, then please stop because you’re killing us.”
The two sparred again minutes later over a cigarette tax passed in 2005 that Bachmann voted in favor of and Pawlenty signed. Bachmann said she voted for it only because it was attached to an anti-abortion measure. She accused Pawlenty of cutting deals with special interests, while Pawlenty said her statements were “illogical.”
The consensus afterward among the pundits and campaign operatives was that Bachmann came out on top, in part because her response was so strong and in part because Pawlenty came across as too negative. Kent Sorensen, a Republican state legislator who is supporting Bachmann, certainly felt that way.
“She exposed [Pawlenty] for the phony that he is,” Sorensen said. “He came out with the first punch and she came back with a roundhouse.”
Worth looking at with Pawlenty…
The question to ask about Herman Cain: did he steal a line from Pokemon?
Ron Paul and Rick Santorum in a reprise of Ron Paul and Rudy Giuliani.
*Gary Johnson — sensible solutions to some problems, where the mainline governors (re: Perry) are having to haw back from their previous “can’t really shoot the Mexicans down or build giant fences” stances.
I don’t know to make of this letter about Roy Moore. Â But his two stories he gets mentions for — the cause he is most associated with, having giant columns of Biblical rulings in backwater courthouses, continues alongside his son’s DUI charge.