One Week Left and all will be decided.  THE MOST IMPORTANT ELECTION OF THE 2012 CYCLE!!!!

“We stand at Armageddon, and we battle for the Lord.” — Theodore Roosevelt, 1912.
“I am issuing this statement to tell you something you need to know if you wish to survive. What I am going to say here requires that all notions of practical politics be set aside and that you reach down inside and fight with everything which is truly human inside you to remove Obama from office now. This may be your last chance. We are now standing toe to toe with the threat of thermonuclear war and the potential annihilation of the human species.” — Kesha Rogers, 2012.

No.  I’m mostly just bemused by the Kesha Rogers campaign now.  She’s not going to win the nomination, and now we just see this spectacle of things.  I hope the party hacks in Harris County are enjoying themselves right now — I have half a hunch the Larouchie challenger may be beneficial: the party knows they’re in the minority and trying to guide to a hopeful future election victory — you need something to sharpen your elbows and keep yourself going, I suppose.
In addition to some insane rhetorical fire from Kesha Rogers, we have that standard stand-by of paraochial campaigning — those sign wars.:

 Running against Kesha Rogers.  Local Democrats have a little contest running to see which one of us gets the most insulting description written by Kesha on her website.  She called Bubba a “Yokel,” which is funny for man with more degrees than your average meat thermometer.  She called our local party chairman Steve Brown a lackey and stated, “[he] has repeatedly tried to incite violence against me.”  She offers no proof of this and has made no police report.  In short, her brainwashing included lying as a sacrament to LaRouche.
Steve did help put out these signs next to her signs all over town:
Hehehe. But it really ain’t funny. One day I was at an event and talked to a Larouche supporter. I asked if she really likes Larouche and she said yes and I said “I’m so sorry.”
Why is that conspiracy nuts always mash together groups that can’t stand each other? And does she know that Hitler, HG Wells and Voltaire have been dead for quite a long while (as are John and George, alas)?
(Yeah.  Well.  I think the theory of this “push poll” is what Kesha Rogers is referencing as a “dirty trick”.):
A push poll might be fun. “Kesha Rogers believes crazy crazy loony Tea Party stuff, would that make you more likely or less likely to vote for her? K P George performs life-saving procedures on rescue puppies, would that make you more or less likely to vote for him?”

Ballot Access News has the story.    And I see there has been some sort of accommodation with “Third Party Politics”  for sourcing.
In other news, the story has made its way to splog aggregators, where it’s hitched with gossip about the “Kesha” character for the tv show “Basketball Wives”.  So we get the hilarious comment “Feel sorry for Kesha.  Gonna get her ass whupped“, but it’s … to a completelyunrelated subject.  I love this race!

So the sign wars commence.
And on that race, I was very disappointed today to see that something I spotted yesterday afternoon has been undone today when I had my camera ready to capture the moment. Apparently some Republican joker decided to support Kesha Rogers’ campaign by planting one of her lawn signs in his front yard, right next to a Mike Elliott for Judge sign.
It seems the Republicans have glommed onto the movement in the Fort Bend County Democratic Party to get the word out on bat-guano crazy Kesha Rogers so we don’t have an embarrassing repeat of 2010 when she won the Democratic nomination to oppose Pete Olson for the CD-22 race. Someone in the GOP decided it would be funny to promote her race.
Kesha Rogers has had Republican supporters, only now it seems they have reconsidered their position and took the Rogers sign down.

Burnt Orange readers polled, and come up with
In another lopsided victory, KP George trounced LaRouchie Ke$ha Rogers in our reader poll, again by a margin of 90% to 10%. While the district is likely to remain a Republican seat come November, George is doing the yeoman’s work to oust the LaRouchie from the Democratic ticket.
Wait.  The Larouchies didn’t flood this internet poll?  Why not? It’s a proud tradition used by Free Republic and Democratic Underground! Anyway, this leads leads in to the official Endorsement at Burnt Orange.  The sales pitch at Burnt Orange
Don’t make the same mistake twice! George is a good Democrat, a credible candidate, and won’t foul the waters for the other Democrats in Fort Bend county — a county that is rapidly trending blue and should be focused on mobilizing voters, not handling an unruly LaRouchie that soils the party brand.

Bay Area Houston:
I’m sure everyone remembers “dog piling” on someone in grade school. It usually ended with someone crying to the teacher or followed by an atomic wedgie of mega proportions. Luckily most of us have grown out of that phase of life and have resorted to virtual dog piling with LaRoucherette Kesha Rogers being the target. So, I am compelled to dog pile.
Kesha Rogers is a bonafide political nut (much like Elaine Palmer). If she was from Brazil, she would put Brazian nuts to shame. Rogers is running for Congress as a Democrat when she should be steaming as a Teabag or Nutbag. Kesha is running on colonizing Mars and establishing intergalactic trade routes between the Moon, Earth, and Uranus. [insert Beavis and Butthead laugh here] The trade routes is not a joke. She truly believes that. She also believes everyone is a Nazi, especially the people she can draw a Nazi mustache on.
Rogers and her band of mobile, merry, misguided, mofo, misfits (seen here flagging cars down)  will be providing entertainment at the State Convention this year including banding together to sing (and be escorted outside). Delegates have been warned not to listen to them for fear they will be lured into their web of brainwashing like mermaids signing to drunken sailors, then ripping off their heads.
Lucky for us in Clear Lake we do not have to put up with this fruit cake, but folks in Sugar Land do and are dog piling on Rogers! See Juanita for more.

Yep.  See Juanita for more.
Little Bubba went up to vote last Friday and saw that Kesha and her Band of Bozos had placed her poll signs in an odd position.  She moved her signs to place them directly in front our our signs […].
Bubba asked me to document him moving her signs and placing them all 1/4 inch apart in a neat little line because obviously she likes signs that way.  He was just being helpful.
He truly enjoys that he’s getting under her skin, thin as it may be.  A man has to take his pleasures where he can find them and Bubba truly enjoyed hacking off Kesha.

I didn’t know that Lyndon LaRouche was still alive. Are you sure? Has this been verified by the absence of a long-form death certificate?
Took my wife and 88 year old mother in law to vote against Keesha today. No excuse for not voting.

From Dem Underground:  I didn’t know about that blog so thank you – now I’ve got it bookmarked. Kesha needs a new hobby.

Kesha Rogers upset by the “NotaDem” signs.  Rolls to twitter.

Make sure you vote in the DEMOCRATIC PARTY PRIMARY to revive the FDR-JFK tradition
–Note to Kesha Rogers:   Lyndon Larouche despises Franklin Roosevelt and John Kennedy.  Or is Lyndon Larouche just playing a version of this standard political game — and in a few decades the Larouche Movement will be praising the Genius of Barack Obama?

THE OTHER STUFF

Conspiracy claims to disclaim embarrassing Ron Paul-ite ally.
A page or two back I noticed a comment about Lindon LaRouche…LaRouche is a communist. Operatives from his PAC have been infiltrating TEA Party events, websites and groups doing what they can to disrupt the memberships. It is his people that show up at TEA Party events with their so-called signs and dressed up in an effort to bring as much dis-credit as possible to our side.
They also do everything they can to disrupt the remaining sensible blue dog Democrats as well….Back to Kokesh; Adam Kokesh is paid by Russia TV for his commentary, he was reported to the FEC and FCC for using his RTv program to raise campaign money for Ron Paul as well. If anyone thinks communism went away with the Berlin Wall, you’d be really far from it. Old hardline communists are still alive and kicking, they’ve “learned” to accept capitalism and have much invested in seeing the United States of America go down. It is a cold hard fact everybody needs to face and take head on. They are still here, they are for real and they want us to fail and Kokesh is simply another “useful tool” for them to use.
I tend to think of it as pay back for the USSR getting their butts handed to them by Bin Laden and muhjadeem in Afghanistan back in 1989. Another factor in all this is Putin, too. Former KGB or not, the boy isn’t anywhere close to being the saint he likes to portray himself to be in media…
f LaRouche is in fact a commy – why has the party of treason worked so hard to discredit and or blacklist him and his proposals—– their disinformation has been repeated so many times that people actually want to believe that misinformation. Do not confuse what I am stating vs whom I support – Ron Paul, & LaRouche both have viable proposals to restore our beloved Republic. Please do yourself a huge favor go to LaRouches’ website and study his proposals, IF you still believe that his proposals are commy then; ok; you might be right. I have been studying many of his proposals for years – I have never been able to “detect” commy leanings in his proposals, the one thing I see that I actually oppose is the “big” government approach to the operation of most proposals.

Memo to North Carolina and Republicans:  Walter Jones appears on this show.

Lunatic Outpost laments:    UHM – SPEAK ON THE CITY OF LONDON AND YOU’LL BE LABELED A LAROUCHE FOLLOWER
Probably uninteresting as Heck…. has been given direct access to the Constitutional Court regarding the devious activities of the ba-ks. Hallalooya! Lyndon LaRouche lives! Where do I sign?

Dateline from the Past:
Those LaRouche followers are even more cultist than Paul supporters. I somehow got on a mailing list of theirs back during the lead up to the Iraq War (I attended a lot of anti-war rallies) and they would not stop calling me no matter what I said or did. I continued to receive phone calls for years. It finally stopped when, in 2007 or so, I changed my number. Every week, for essentially almost five years, I received a call from his supporters.
I’ve seen them everywhere. They set up in front of the Post Office in Wakefield often. People basically just ignore them now.
My boyfriend gives them hell everytime he sees them there. The police were close by once and told not to cause a disturbance, but even they get a kick out of what he was saying!
I work in Foxboro, MA. I stepped out to get a drink and drove past the local CVS. On the sidewalk outside was a table with paperwork of some kind surrounded by posters saying things like “get rid of Obama” and the old tired Obama with a hitler mustache one. It was really teabagger, birther type crap.
Coming up — the 1976 Presidential Election retro-vote, and …
I can’t wait to see which 2 or 3 people vote for LaRouche next week. I have some predictions that I’ll keep to myself.
IRC LaRouche fell just below the cutoff and will not be on the ballot, although ’76 will still have the most candidates of any retrospective election.
Ah yes, you are correct. Wikipedia rounds him up to .05%, but doing the math puts him at just .0491%.
He’ll be on the ballot in 1984 though.
Two more weeks, so start your Campaigning NOW!
Dateline Seattle:
I thought the LaRouche movement was long gone, like Hitler.
Nope, like I posted, they were out in the last years of Bush. And, at least over in Seattle during the weekends Seattle maritime festival.

Dateline West Roxbury
A concerned West Roxbury resident called West Roxbury Patch in regards to “a couple of morons who have set up a table in front of Bank of America with a big poster of Obama with a Hitler mustache.” […]
“They’re going after people who are going into the Bank of America parking lot and trying to get people going into the bank… They’re waving and smiling trying to get people to talk to them and handing out pamphlets.” […]
A third anonymous resident sent in the attached photos of the individuals outside of Bank of America, adding, “Most people simply shaking their heads and walking by. The two men are spending most of their time just talking to each other.”

Dateline Manchester  Police responded to two complaints about political demonstrators taking over the parking lot on Beach Street on Tuesday.  Police received the complaints at 11:30 a.m. and 1:20 p.m.  When police arrived, they found the demonstrators, followers of Lyndon LaRouche, walking on the sidewalk. Police determined, however, they were not creating a disturbance.

Remembering the 1980 Presidential Election
I had some encounters with LaRouche followers back around 1980. I lived in New Hampshire, which had the first-in-the-nation presidential primary. During primary season I got lots of phone calls from people asking me to support their candidate. Almost all of these callers were very polite and friendly, even when I said I supported someone else.  There was one exception–the LaRouche supporters. They seemed to think that LaRouche was entitled to my vote, and I had no right to withhold it. They were very abusive.

Newt Gingrich Number One; Lyndon Larouche Number Two.
The second-largest campaign debt belongs to conspiracy theorist and perennial candidate Lyndon LaRouche, whose five political action committees have amassed debts of more than $3.2 million, including nearly 5,000 loans from individual donors to his 1984 campaign totaling over $1.7 million. Those loans are remnants of a practice for which LaRouche was convicted of fraud in 1988 when a jury found he had no intention of repaying them.
Gerald Pechenuk chimes in on the ranking:
A couple of slight corrections are in order. First, you should report which political leader  in the US are “MOST INDEBTED TO,” NOT THE MOST IN DEBT.  The Hands Down Winner is who you list as number 2, Lyndon LaRouche.  He is the only political leader who warned people, starting in the late 1960’s , of the impending global financial collapse, which you all have to admit, despite your fancy sophistical tricks, has struck with a vengence.  So, ALL OF US ARE MOST IN DEBT TO Lyndon LaRouche for telling the truth which others refuse to face. to this very day!
As for larouche, the parable of the blind hog and the acorn comes to mind.
Note that giggling is probably considered a personal attack.
I predict that within the next 50 years, there will be another financial crisis. See I can do that too Lyndon and Gerald!
Warning about financial collapse since the 60’s is kind of like predicting a major earthquake in California every year.  Most years you look like and idiot and no one cares.  Then the big one DOES come and you look like a genius.  Lyndon LaRouche is the moonbat of all moonbats.
blind “hog”???  I’ve always used “squirrel” in that truism.
Look….  Substitute squirrel, or truffle for that matter.  But the parable is the same.
Look posted “Lyndon LaRouche is the moonbat of all moonbats.”  Wow, that’s saying a lot. There have been a LOT of moonbats, and as already noted – some still walk amongst us.

Occupy Moderators for metafilter metatalk:  “The truth is the mods are all secret LaRouchies, the bias in their moderation style becomes clear when you keep that in mind“.  (That explains all the problems?)

What’s a Protest in Maryland without…  The movement started slowly Friday morning, with just two representatives of the Larouche Political Action Committee standing in the town square, advocating that President Barack Obama be removed from office.  By noon, the ranks were growing, as members of Occupy movements had gathered in the Weis Markets parking lot to make signs and plan the rest of their day.  And who gets the photograph, you suppose?.

WHAT’s UP IN that Appalachian Belt That’s embarrassing Obama in the Primaries right now…
Gore had been the presumptive Democratic nominee for months. He had no real competition. Then came the Arkansas primary, and — right the hell out of nowhere — Lyndon LaRouche got 22 percent of the vote. This, according to partly bylaws, gave him the right to Democratic delegates. But the party found a way to claw them back.
On the West Virginia election result
Judd is not the first felon to appear on West Virginia’s ballot. Lyndon LaRouche ran in the Democratic presidential primary four times in West Virginia, including 1992 when he was in prison for mail fraud and tax violations.
But nobody paid much attention to LaRouche in ’92 because he was one of nine Democratic candidates and received just 3,141 votes. His quixotic White House bid got lumped in with the rest of the fringe candidates.
… getting traction to each of the nine politicos on the list.
Oh, just let the felon get his protest vote and have West Virginia get its fun, okay?  Yeah, this case is thrown with Larouche election footnotes to add impetus to ballot access law changes.
Reason commenter comments on West Virginia result:  T|5.9.12 @ 11:18AM|#. I’ve been voting for lulz for years. That’s why I like it when LaRouchies are on the ballot.
More Reason Comments:  Lyndon Larouche is one of the few guys to be in the L. Ron Hubbard level of cult … He’s been gone for a while, but a Larouche PAC was outside a post office … (Damned if we can’t get the “Dead or Alive” game right here.)
Chris W., I don’t consider this an “inner-leftist” dispute, since Platypus for me are not leftists, anymore than LaRouchies are. Maybe you want to take them at face value, fine, but these are some unsavory characters. SD,. “Similar brick bats are … The Limits of Spinozist Marxism

Updates from the Diane Sare Campaign:

The Reform Party candidate is jumping out.  Mark Quick endorses Diane Sare.  Entertaining to listen to, I suppose.  Ross Perot must be gnashing his teeth furiously right now at the news.

A message from the Reform Party of New Jersey:  The Reform Party of New Jersey would like to emphasize that we are in no way supportive of Larouche PAC or any organization that seeks to propagate racial, religious or classist tension into the American political system. We believe that candidates for public office must be held to the highest ethical standard and that civility must be returned to Washington DC; the recent endorsement of a far-right Democratic contender made by a former RPNJ candidate is NOT in any way reflective of the party’s official policy.
Yeah, that sucks when this is how your little political party edges into the news.

Diane Sare:  Themonuclear War or Second American Revolution.  Was not asked about this at the debate, apparently.  Damned.

Actually the question I’d ask Diane Sare in a debate, in similar step with a standard question asked to Democrats of “Biggest difference” between you and Obama — “What do you consider your biggest points of difference in opinion with Lyndon Larouche?”  Might be interesting.

A Warning Shot fired from Texas to New Jersey.
Heed it.  I’m not as concerned with Washington (but enjoy reading He’s already been thrown out of the 11th LD Democrats meeting for the impeachment crap.). I can say categorically that Kesha Rogers will not win her nomination.  I cannot say categorically that Diane Sare won’t.  There’s a better than even chance that she won’t, but…

Comments tell a story here:
Sare might be right about Glass Steagall, but she is right less often than a broken watch. As a Larouche Democrat, how can anyone take her seriously? Larouche is going to be on Allan Fineberg’s favorite boggie man’s show (Alex Jones) later on today. Its quite sad that our former congressman would have made a better candidate.

Also note the “above the fray” element here:  Diane Sare, the third candidate in the race that will decide who faces longtime Rep. Scott Garrett, provided he wins the Republican primary, called herself a “LaRouche Democrat” and kept out of their fray for the most part.

I sometimes think the Larouchies throw this one out for no other reason then that there has been sane and sensible advocating for Glass Steagall out there, but they need something insane from the past just to get rid of any potential ally and prove themsleve pure:  Sare said she would create jobs and drive the economy by breathing life into the North American Water and Power Alliance, which was debated in the 1950 and ’60s, but never built. It would have been a massive public works project to divert water throughout North America and generate electricity and drinking water reservoirs throughout the West.
And then there’s this.
All three candidates said they were pro-choice and supported marriage equality.

Yeah.  But some Exciting News from Larouche allies.  First the blast from the past, 1987 wise:

Schools were an obvious place for Lyndon LaRouche`s forces to spread panic. As early as the fall of 1985 they had vainly tried to stir things up in the Brighton neighborhood of Boston. More recently, in Granby, Conn., a small town just outside Hartford, Paul Cameron, a psychologist and ally of LaRouche`s, crusaded-also unsuccessfully-against allowing a child with AIDS in school…..

Now we get this from the political force behind previous Larouche efforts.  Fundamentalist Says Obama is Gay; Imprison Gays Before they Kill.  Hm.  But where does he stand on Glass Steagall?

In other Larouche candidate campaigns:  Summer Shields gets $35.
Dave Christie takes on Cass Sunstein.  Yes, tell me Mr. Cass Sunstein.  Where is your Hitler mustache?  This should beat Adam Smith in Washington’s Ninth!
Apparently selling it from and to a kooky “Prominent” Russian Historian.

Well, I see Larouche has made his Alex Jones appearance.  And gets onto Rapture sites.  (Which gives a chance to drop in some Appropriate, I suppose, Jim Bakker news.) Getting brushback from Ron Paul fans.  Maybe I’ll do the commentpalooza round-up… in the comments… sooner or later.  Sigh.  Offer me a good suggestion on what to listen to while I go through that task.
God I hate Prison Planet / Alex Jones.  Birther crap.  Sigh.

As Romney stumps by evoking Clinton and Obama … well, remember he stumped in 2008 evoking Reagan.

“Presidential candidates occasionally seem to recant their onetime political opposition to a recent president of the opposite party,” said the presidential historian Michael Beschloss. “One reason is that with some historical distance, they may sometimes come to genuinely appreciate leadership qualities they didn’t notice before.” But, he added, “more often it’s politics.”

Mr. Beschloss recalled that Gerald R. Ford and the elder George Bush opposed Harry S. Truman in 1948 but after entering the White House themselves cited him, genuinely, as a role model. Richard M. Nixon derided George McGovern for not living up to the legacy of Mr. Truman and Franklin D. Roosevelt. Even Mr. Reagan cited John F. Kennedy in arguing for tax cuts, overlooking his own past criticism of the Democrat’s economic policies as “old Karl Marx.”

Things get drearier in the ideological fights away from the politico battles.  An editorial was written by a conservative and bandied about by Libertarian blogs and news outlets recently stating that Roosevelt would hate today’s Social Security.

A couple weeks later, Mr. Obama was at it again. “Ronald Reagan could not get through a Republican primary in this election cycle,” he said. “Could not get through it. Here’s a guy who raised taxes. That in and of itself would have rendered him unelectable in a Republican primary.” Standing with him that evening was none other than Mr. Clinton, no longer a poor shadow of Mr. Reagan in Mr. Obama’s rendering but now a president who accumulated a “remarkable record” as he turned around a party that “was a little bit lost.”

Mr. Clinton has become a frequent touchstone for Mr. Romney lately as well. Instead of the president impeached for lying under oath to cover up an affair with an intern, Mr. Clinton in this telling is the apostle of fiscal responsibility as opposed to that “old-school liberal” now in the White House.

I shudder when we get to Bush as President evoked by Democrats, but it will come.
It’s sort of improbably to remember why Liberals and Democrats found Eisenhower infuriating but they did… and probably justly I may as well ad… though, to a degree it tended to land on the culture at large.  (Interestingly enough, if you read old Progressive magazines from when Eisenhower departed, the editorial on Eisenhower is vaguely positive in the way that Romney’s trying to be positive on Clinton … as they eye nervously the specter of Goldwater.  “Mr Republican” Taft gets oddly “Even the Tory” notices from IF Stone, but probably justly as he came to be noted as having progressive fringes on his Tory core, shading off from old-line Bricker.)

Not that every president from another party becomes suddenly acceptable. Mr. Romney has implicitly compared Mr. Obama to Jimmy Carter, while Mr. Obama routinely links Mr. Romney to the policies of George W. Bush. When Mr. Bush endorsed Mr. Romney before ducking into an elevator this week, Mr. Romney made little note of it, but the Obama camp eagerly spread the news.

To guardians of the former presidents’ legacies, the latest campaign-trail tributes ring hollow. John D. Podesta, a former Clinton chief of staff who now leads the liberal Center for American Progress Action Fund, said it was “ironic that Romney is so exuberant in embracing Clintonomics” since Mr. Clinton raised taxes on the wealthy, invested in education and technology, and balanced the budget. “Maybe Romney was too busy firing people in the ’90s to have noticed,” Mr. Podesta said.

There’s an interesting little book.  Politically Incorrect Guide to the President.  Like all the other politically incorrect guides things.  Touts Roosevelt as running to the right of Hoover.  He did.  Kind of.  At the same time as he also ran to the left of Hoover.  Also one of the first items of business Roosevelt did was wrap up some Hoover policy with a bill approved by Republicans and Conservative Democrats over mainline Liberal Democrat objections.
Obama and Romney are doing the same thing.  Kind of.  Though we all know where Romney is attached and where Obama is attached.

Sigh.

“Almost a generation ago, Bill Clinton announced that the era of big government was over, even a former George McGovern campaign worker, like President Clinton, was signaling to his own party that Democrats should no longer try to govern by proposing a new program for every problem,” Romney said. “President Obama tucked away the Clinton doctrine in his large drawer of discarded ideas, along with transparency and bipartisanship.”

Romney has invoked Clinton in previous speeches, but this time he went a bit further, suggesting that there is something more under the surface between Clinton and Obama.
 “It’s enough to make you wonder if maybe it was a personal beef with the Clintons,” Romney said.  “Probably, it runs much deeper than that.”

All indications are that Hillary Clinton could care less about the Election of Kerry, and after the nomination of Obama threw at 50 – 50 that he could win… Believe what you must.

The red streak continues to haunt Obama’s Primary challenge, and Obama is poised for some Embarrassment in Arkansas.

You see, a Tennessee lawyer, John Wolfe Jr., is challenging the President in the May 22 primary and he’s currently only seven points behind POTUS in the most recent polls. And that’s without any advertising on John’s part whatsoever. Of course, the polling showing John’s lead was taken the day after Obama’s ABC interview in which he came out in support of gay marriage.

Does this mean anything?  Well, note that this map came out of the 2008 election — the election he won.  It was a harbinger of doom for where his problems in 2010 would emerge.

I am glad that someone FINALLY did a poll before the election in one of these states (and I am expecting someone to follow up the district wide survey with a statewide one now).  The West Virginia result did not surprise me, and it’s about time we’re not surprised by the probablye Arkansas result.  Not surprisingly, a whole slew of conservative news outlets and quasi-news outlets are jumping all over this result …

… for one of Arkansas’s election congressional districts.

The rural one.

Interestingly enough, in this range of issues, John Wolfe might deserve a vote.  If you could confine him as a protest — a stamp to the economic left, and foreign policy the same.  But unfortunately I wouldn’t be able to vote for him — it would just be seen as a statement against Gay Marriage and (frankly too) … skin color.

The district does not include the big cities, so it looks like the question “Can Obama actually lose Arkansas” (see WND and Weekly Standard) is… no.   Wolfe is heading toward a double digit result.  Will get his 15 minutes of fame he should have received after his last double digit “Got myself a delegate” result within that red streak.  But it is notable that within this region in 2010, Bill Clinton was the one stumping about.  He pulled the Democratic incumbent for his home-state to victory over the Nationally liberal backed challenger who won all the Conservative rural areas (yes, it’s a confusing thing to wrap your mind around.)   It could be time he throws his lot in Arkansas to GOTV for Obama to ebb an embarrassing result.

Some interesting primary results.  I guess the big item nationwide is the next Senator from Nebraska is probably the Sarah Palin endorsed and Cubs Owner financed candidate, Deb Fischer, who defeated the quasi-Establishment candidate Jon Bruning, and will now go on to swamp the Democratic retread who’s lived in New York for the past decade — Bob Kerrey.
The semi-official word is that if you shift through the stances of the two Nebraska Republican candidates, you won’t find a lot of daylight.  Things have a way of proving otherwise.  A Sarah Palin endorsed candidate is a Sarah Palin endorsed candidate.  It’s not a good thing; it’s not a result that proffers well for the sanity of the future of American politics.

It may or may not be worth a look at who the hell the other candidates here are.  Digging past some typical truck driver candidates and the like not really knowing what to make of Steven Lustgarten’s campaign website, I will say Sherman Yates may be the most interesting personality of the bunch — and his statements here are worth a read.

Oregon results…
This feels like an upset somehow.  Ron Green has defeated Delia Lopez for the Republican nomination in Oregon’s 3rd Congressional district, and by a 2 to 1 margin, to take on Earl Blumenauer.   The Oregonian endorsed Ron Green; the Willamette Week endorsed Delia Lopez — so I guess we see that the Oregonian holds more sway amongst the electorate than the Willamette Week after all.
Earl Blumenauer has yet to congratulate Ron Green and welcome him to a spirited race on his Twitter account.  Which is a clear demonstration of what a jerk he is.
I have to wonder, though: Where does this leave Delia Lopez’s future in politics?  Will we still have Delia Lopez to kick around some, when we bother noticing her presence at all?

I need to parse the Portland mayor race results.  Let’s go down this list:

Hard to know why some of these candidates did so well and others so poorly.

From Scott Rose’s campaign website:  As of Wednesday morning, we sat 4th out of 23 Portland Mayoral Candidates and had roughly 1200 votes.  With no real media support, that is 1200 people just saying that they believe in my message and what I stand for, and for that, again, I say thank you.

Well, Cameron Whitten got some press.  Sent the Green Party into chaos, or something.  Came in fifth.  Apparently.
Blue Oregon’s collective wisdome proven wrong:  As for fourth place, 26% each call it for Cameron Whitten and Tre Arrow, while 13% call it for Scott Fernandez.

Anything else I should note?  Probably not.

Well, here’s a Presidential Debate you may have missed…

KALW’s Rose Aguilar moderated a presidential debate held Saturday at the Victoria Theatre between Green Party presidential candidates Dr. Jill Stein and actress/comedienne Roseanne Barr. The world described by Stein and Barr bears little resemblance to that described by incumbent President Barack Obama and Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney.

Yeah, okay, and…

The Greens’ top two candidates have very different speaking styles. Barr claims to have bigger balls than anybody, presumably including Stein, but, as moderator Aguilar said, she searched the Web for disagreements between the two and found none. Greens have a reputation for non-productive internal conflict, but Saturday’s sanity and sisterhood fest and its wildly enthusiastic audience suggest 2012 may signal a newly unified party.

Wait.  Roseanne Barr is considered one of the “Top two candidates” for the Green Party?  Wait.  What?  Huh?  Wh–?

That would leave any sane left / liberal protest vote over to Rocky Anderson… I guess?

It is in this vein that I approached this presidential campaign cycle. Given my experiences with the Green Party, I saw that vehicle as, well quite broken, unworkable and ineffective. However, as time went by and it appeared that no-one else appeared willing to step up, I was almost desperate enough to join up with the Green Party and whomever they choose. Or perhaps one of the Socialist candidates. But I seen no-one who could effectively organize to break past the primary barrier of the two party system.

Then Rocky Anderson announced and I was overjoyed. I looked closer at him, as a candidate and the more I looked, the more I became convinced that this could work. Sure,  Rocky is not perfect but he seemed solid and trustworthy.

Who.  You know…. Might be the Americans Elect candidate too… if he can somehow amass the 5 times the vote tally of Roemer’s total required of him to overtake Roemer, and the whole thing doesn’t come crashing down from lack of interest.

The comment I despise here:
Barack Obama is not my president. Rocky Anderson is.
Yeah.  Jed Bartlet is my President, and all that.  I am still waiting for someone to shout out “Roseanne Bar is My President”.
… Though, truth be told.  All evidence suggests that Jill Stein is the Green Party nominee, and you can kind of just consider Ms. Barr along the lines of, or, the floating Presidential Republican front-runner debris that everyone knew would eventually lose to Romney.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt Press Conference, May 18, 1937

THE PRESIDENT: There isn’t very much news; but before we talk about news, I am going to ask you for a very few minutes to resolve ourselves into a Committee of the Whole. Off the record, wholly off the record, I wanted to tell you a story that I think you ought to know because it does affect the Press of the country. I think you will all agree on that, when you hear what I am going to read. As you know, I have always encouraged, and am entirely in favor of, absolute freedom for all news writers. That should be and will continue to be the general rule in Washington. That applies to all news services, for that matter.
There have come out, though, in the past couple of weeks two things from one news service which, in a sense, do affect the Press of the country as a whole.
The McClure Syndicate, as you probably know—I don’t know if you have all seen it—sends out to about 270 papers every week these [indicating] white sheets for publication which constitute the column in these papers. Of course it is absolutely legitimate that they should collect this news at the White House, or from Congress or from anybody else. With these white sheets for publication, there goes out at the same time, a pink sheet as information for the editor, marked not for publication but sent to the editor in confidence. Of course you and I know that that is not a news service in the strict sense of the word, but it goes out with the news service and you pay for the whole service at the same time.

Now, there are two things in here that I think you people ought to know about. As I say, this is off the record, and just in the family. This pink slip [indicating] dated May 14-15, has the following:
“Unchecked. A New York specialist high in the medical field is authority for the following, which is given in the strictest confidence to editors:
“‘Towards the end of last month Mr. Roosevelt was found in a coma at his desk. Medical examination disclosed the neck rash which is typical of certain disturbing symptoms. Immediate treatment of the most skilled kind was indicated, with complete privacy and detachment from official duties. Hence the trip to southern waters, with no newspaper men on board and a naval convoy which cannot be penetrated.
“‘The unusual activities of Vice President Garner are believed to be in connection with the current situation and its possible developments.’
“Checking has been impossible.”
That is number one.

Number 2. This is from the McClure Newspaper Syndicate of May 12-13:
“At a recent private dinner in New York an official of the American Cyanamid expressed in extreme form the bitterness towards the administration which is typical of the personal reactions of many right-wing leaders in business and finance.
“The gentleman in question asserted in so many, words that ‘the paranoiac in the White House’ is destroying the nation, that a couple of well-placed bullets would be the best thing for the country, and that he for one would buy a bottle of champagne as quick as he could get it to celebrate such news.” That is all I wanted to tell you because, after all, all I think I have to do is to repeat that I have been in favor, as you all know, of any legitimate news reporting or news service, no matter what its origin may be and no matter whether for friendly papers or hostile papers—it makes no difference.

Q. Is that off the record?

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, absolutely.

Q. Is that signed?

THE PRESIDENT: It is sent out by the McClure Newspaper Syndicate.

Q. Unsigned?

THE PRESIDENT: Richard Waldo is editor.

Q. How about that clipping?

THE PRESIDENT: That was clipped out of another paper. It was used by a radical paper in order to point out the terrible things that are being said by the conservatives, but it has been used in the press.

Q. But the original pink sheet—you read from the original sheet?

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, there it is [indicating]. That is the one. I do not have a copy of the other one; but I suppose we have it somewhere. That is the pink slip that goes out.

Q. I did not mean to interrupt you. Have you more to say?

THE PRESIDENT: No; I think we understand each other very well. We have been friends for a good many years and I am very keen that the newspapers of the country—not only our particular family group—should retain the admirable relationships and high regard we have always had.

Q. There is no doubt about the second one—it is the pink slip.

THE PRESIDENT: And it is alleged to be in this paper.

MR. EARLY: It was only received this afternoon and we have not had time to check against it.

Q. That is not newspaper reporting.

THE PRESIDENT: That is just it, it is not newspaper reporting.

Q. Have you taken the matter up with the syndicate?

THE PRESIDENT: No, certainly not.

Q. Isn’t that second one actionable under law?

THE PRESIDENT: You know, that does not make any difference at all. The President of the United States does not sue for libel and the Department of Justice does not proceed for libel.

Q. Is it due to the syndicate itself? It might be a fraud.

MR. EARLY: It was checked with Mr. Waldo; and Mr. Waldo promised to retract the pink slip with reference to the coma and the President’s compulsion to make the trip south, if the White House would issue an official denial. Of course the White House would not do it.

Q. How much of this is off the record?

THE PRESIDENT: It is all off the record; all strictly in the family and nothing else, because I thought you people were entitled to know some of the things that go on that none of us approve of. Neither you, nor I, nor the public, nor I believe the great majority of editors would approve of it.
So, that is all right; the Committee will now recess.

NEWS ALERT!!!  On May 10, the Oregon Secretary of State determined that the Americans Elect petition for party status has enough valid signatures. Thanks to Dan Meek for this news.

And so proves successful that clipboard waving pitch shouting “Sign here for a Better way to Elect a President!”

Where are we now in the process?

Nearly two years ago, former junk-bond financier Peter Ackerman founded Americans Elect in hopes of fielding an independent presidential candidate in 2012. […]
Yet by last week, not a single candidate had qualified for Americans Elect’s first online caucus, forcing the group to push it back to May 15. This week, after a midnight deadline passed on Tuesday morning and there were still no qualified candidates, the caucus was moved again, to May 22. […]

The race as it exists right now.

As it stands, former Louisiana Gov. Buddy Roemer is the front-runner among the declared candidates on the Americans Elect’s website. About 4,900 people have cast preliminary “support clicks” for him, far short of the 1,000 clicks from 10 different states he needs to qualify for the caucus. Former Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson comes in second with about 3,000 supporters, but because Americans Elect’s rules deem him less qualified, he needs 50,000 clicks to qualify. (As spelled out here [PDF], former members of Congress, cabinet members, mayors of large cities, CEOs, union officials, and high-ranking military officers require less support to run in AE’s primary.)

Online voters also have the option of nominating their own candidates. Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) leads that category with more than 9,000 supporters, but he has expressed no interest in a third-party bid. The next runners-up are former Republican candidate Jon Huntsman, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), President Barack Obama, and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Wait.  What the — ?  A vote for Rocky Anderson is worth less than a vote for Buddy Roemer?  What kind of Democratic process is this?

It gets weirder.

Former Louisiana Gov. Buddy Roemer came the closest of any declared candidate, but was as of today just shy of halfway to the 10,000 clicks of support from on-line delegates necessary, according to Americans Elect’s rules, to be included on its caucus ballot. Those 10,000 or more clicks, according to the rules, would also have to include 1,000 from each of 10 states. Roemer is only halfway to that mark in one state — California.

Though, I guess I’m glad they have a convoluted thresh-hold.  The Arbitrary process is the only means of keeping an arbitrary candidate off the ballot.  But it gets weirder still…

AE’s identity verification process is truly scary. I jumped through flaming hoops of fire to prove that I’m really me. Along the way, AE asked me if I REALLY had a birthmark THERE, if that score I got on my 9th grade Biology exam really was a 98 and if I could verify that my freshman year girlfriend was named Betty Jo Bialowski. Whew. How’d they know all that stuff? And…why?
 ara rubyan is correct; I, too, jumped this ship when the verification process appeared more like a pfishing expedition than anything else.  moreso as the frequency of reminders to verify increased.

Gotta verify you somehow, I guess.

I guess Americas Elect 2012 will prove a no go in the end.  Pull it away like Unity 08.  No Labels 2010.  And set sail for whatever they concoct in 2014, and into … I don’t know… Middlemuddle 2016.