Published on Tuesday, February 21, 2012 by Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Believe It or Not, Santorum's Surge Is Scary
by Tony Norman

I've been told that it is way too early to begin showing signs of Rick Santorum derangement syndrome.

A well-meaning reader suggested that even if the Republicans were suicidal enough to hand the former Pennsylvania senator the nomination, his defeat in the general election would dwarf the blowout Barry Goldwater suffered at the hands of Lyndon Baines Johnson.

The argument goes like this: Rick Santorum is such an implacable foe of modernity that casting a vote for him is only possible if one shares his nostalgia for the chauvinism, authoritarianism and unbearable whiteness of the 1950s.

According to this argument, Mr. Santorum is a protest vote writ large across the Republican firmament by grass-roots conservatives repulsed by former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney's malleability and phoniness. It isn't a vote for Mr. Santorum's political theology as much as it is a rejection of the likely apostasy of the Republican frontrunner.

This also happens to be the prevailing view of the pundits toiling daily in newspapers and the cable news commissariat. The assumption that Rick Santorum can't be elected president is axiomatic in the circles I frequent, too. He was a punch line long before he lost his Senate race by 18 points in 2006.

Yet, a mere half dozen years after what should have ended his dreams of ever holding elected office again, Mr. Santorum is poised to steal the Michigan primary from Mr. Romney, although the polls have tightened in recent days.

Many Democrats are salivating over the prospect of an Obama/Santorum showdown in November. The only contest that could possibly make a Democrat happier would be one in which Newt Gingrich or Donald Trump were the Republican nominee.

Ironically, Mitt Romney, the gelatinous Gibraltar of Republican politics, stands the best chance of making the race for the White House competitive among independent voters he has alienated in recent months. After a hard tack to the right, Mr. Romney wouldn't lose an ounce of sleep embracing the middle to beat Mr. Obama in November. It's that kind of mercenary pragmatism that enrages conservatives who value principle over short-term electoral victory.

Because Mr. Romney has residual appeal with independents, Democrats would rather Mr. Obama faced someone with more extremist views -- someone like Rick Santorum. I understand the logic. I just don't buy it.

I think it is irresponsible to underestimate the appeal of a demagogue when so many Americans are suffering and the public mood is so mercurial. All it would take would be a few weeks of $5 a gallon gas and a Democratic electorate demoralized because of some administration misstep to put even the strangest protest candidacy into play.

Mr. Santorum is a principled culture warrior who doesn't believe in evolution, man-made global warming, sex for purposes other than having children, separation of church and state, tax-financed public education (except by Penn Hills of his home-schooled kids), a Constitutional right to privacy, contraception, some forms of prenatal testing, or freedom of conscience if it contradicts his church's edicts or his party platform.

Mr. Santorum would like to see doctors who perform abortions criminally prosecuted. He has said that war with Iran to thwart its nuclear ambitions is in America's best interests, despite the painful lessons of the past decade and the skepticism of our own generals.

If he is elected president, women should expect an administration openly hostile to their interests on a number of fronts. As for "blah people" -- union members and academics -- well, they can just forget it.

The former senator's comments about Mr. Obama's "theology" over the weekend make it clear that his version of environmental stewardship is more about exploiting the earth than respecting it. It is a mentality closer to that of a 19th-century robber baron than someone informed by modern science or concerns about environmental integrity.

So, how did Mr. Santorum make it this far? How is his candidacy even possible in the modern world? Some pundits refer to his "likability" compared to his rivals. What are they talking about? What has he said or done during his surge that paints him in any way as likable?

There's some Rick Santorum derangement syndrome going around all right, but it's not affecting me.

Rick Santorum has pissed off the Dutch...............yep he has the Dutch people and government mad at him.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908...show/#46520567

A bunch of socialist bicycle-riding tulip growers are upset - like that's going to disturb a conservative.

The President of Ireland vs a Tea Bagger...
Michael D Higgins v Michael Graham

Time on the Cross With Rick Santorum
by ALEXANDER COCKBURN

Surely Rick Santorum is the most fanatical Christian to run for the Republican nomination in the modern era, maybe any era. Next to him Pat Robertson, billionaire founder of the Christian Broadcasting Network, who ran for the nomination in 1988, has the tolerant, glassy-eyed bonhomie of the late Dean Martin. Robertson has always been in show business. Four years ago we had Mike Huckabee, the evangelist and former governor of Arkansas, one of the boys, shacked up with Mrs Huckabee in his doublewide on the grounds of the Arkansas gubernatorial mansion. He has always been in show business too.

But with Santorum – a conservative Roman Catholic and member of Opus Dei – there’s a truly manic edge to his religious pronouncements and activities. It was Santorum and Mrs S, don’t forget, who took their still-born baby home from the hospital and laid it among their living tots, telling them, “he’s with the angels now,” an episode Mrs Santorum later recorded in a memoir.

Santorum doesn’t believe in the right to privacy. Not that Obama has any qualms about taps on your phone and powers of arbitrary arrest, but he probably doesn’t care too much about whatever human combos are being tried out in the bedroom. Santorum frets 24/7 about beastliness and unnatural acts, and yearns to restore full rights to snoops to kick down the motel door, twitch aside the blankets and haul couples off for all manner of moral abominations.

Contraception in Santorum’s opinion is “a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be”. Pre-natal testing is also a no-no for Santorum, father of eight.
 
In 2003 Santorum said he favored having laws against polygamy, adultery, sodomy, and other actions “antithetical to a healthy, stable, traditional family”. The possibility of bestiality in today’s licentious times bothers him a lot — “man on dog,” as he famously put it on a talk show. Not for him the possibility of abortion in cases of rape: “I believe and I think that the right approach is to accept this horribly created, in the sense of rape, but nevertheless, in a very broken way, a gift of human life, and accept what God is giving to you.”

Santorum was two when the Sixties began. But like so many cultural conservatives he believes to the bottom of his soul that everything went to hell when the love generation came of age: “Woodstock is the great American orgy. This is who the Democratic Party has become. They have become the party of Woodstock. They prey upon our most basic primal lusts, and that’s sex. And the whole abortion culture, it’s not about life. It’s about sexual freedom. That’s what it’s about. Homosexuality. It’s about sexual freedom.”

In 2008 he gave a speech in which he ventured that “Satan has his sights on the United States of America. Satan is attacking the great institutions of America, using those great vices of pride, vanity and sensuality as the root to attack all of the strong plants that have so deeply rooted in the American tradition.”

Santorum traces Satan’s hoofprints back to the Enlightenment and the French Revolution. Just the other day he told an audience: “They are taking faith and crushing it. Why? Why? When you marginalize faith in America, when you remove the pillar of God-given rights, then what’s left is the French Revolution. What’s left are no unalienable rights, what’s left is a government that will tell you who you are, what you’ll do and when you’ll do it. What’s left in France became the guillotine. Ladies and gentlemen, we’re a long way from that, but if we do follow the path of President Obama and his overt hostility to faith in America, then we are headed down that road.”

The whole diatribe is thrilling, but utterly ludicrous, not least because it was the revolution that promulgated the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, which defined individual and collective rights for all men.

Why is a guy like this currently running neck-and-neck with Mitt Romney for the Republican nomination? The usual maps drawn by political experts stipulate that at some point in the prolonged nomination battle the candidate has to shed the gothick nuttiness and over-the-topness that got him traction in the early primaries and reach out to the independents without whose support no presidential bid can succeed.

There’s zero sign that Santorum is of any disposition to do this. So why does he turn out to be the last man standing in the path of the Mormon billionaire Mitt Romney in the battle for the nomination?

First and foremost, he’s not Mitt Romney.

Candidates, now long forgotten, like Herman Cain, or still vaguely remembered like the fading Newt Gingrich, fared well with this simple asset. Blue-collar Americans in the old industrial states don’t care for Romney, who began life as a rich kid and then became a lot richer by buying up businesses, putting them on a “sound footing” (fire half the work force), selling them and moving on.

So Santorum can work the blue-collar vote with a few populist rhetorical gestures.. He can also work the racist, anti-Obama vote by hinting that the president is driven by a non-Christian, environmentalist, New Age, putatively Satanist agenda. A few days ago Santorum declared that Obama’s actions are motivated by “some phony theology, not a theology based on the Bible….The president has reached a new low in this country’s history of oppressing religious freedom that we have never seen before. If he doesn’t want to call his imposition of his values a theology that’s fine.”Then he added a day later by way of clarification that he understands Obama is a Christian, but that the president was misinterpreting God’s truth.

After the Florida primary everyone thought Santorum was toast and Romney coasting to the crown. Then Santorum won three fairly insignificant contests in Colorado, Missouri and Minnesota. A billionaire, Foster Friess, gave his campaign a huge wad of money and he was on his way again.

Suddenly Romney was fighting for his life in Michigan (next Tuesday’s primary), where he was born and where his father was governor. Polls show Santorum ahead, both in Michigan and nationally, and also with a slightly better chance than Romney of beating Obama in November, though the president leads both of them by around four to six points.

The very latest poll, taken as Romney has desperately poured money into a fresh negative ad campaign against Santorum, shows the Mormon two points ahead in Michigan – no small achievement since Romney has denounced the bailout initiated by George Bush and ratified by Obama that saved GM and Chrysler, both companies now doing well and hiring thousands in a stricken state. In a lower key, Santorum also denounces the bailout, which shows just how insane these Republicans are.

On Wednesday night, in a debate in Arizona, where he has a decent lead, Romney was pronounced the clear winner, not least because he had Ron Paul on Santorum’s other side, thumping him for being a Washington insider and phony. It would be folly to predict what will happen next Tuesday night. If Santorum prospers, a huge disaster for the Republicans looms in November, far beyond even the Goldwater debacle of 1964. Don’t believe the talk about a brokered convention and someone like Jeb Bush or Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey parachuted in by the Republican establishment.

These are cheering days for the Obama campaign.

So Rick said JFK's comments about separation of church and state made him want to throw up..............

Here's Kennedy in September 1960:

"I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute, where no Catholic prelate would tell the president (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote," Kennedy said in a speech at the Greater Houston Ministerial Association

here is Rick:

“To say that people of faith have no role in the public square? You bet that makes you throw up. What kind of country do we live that says only people of non-faith can come into the public square and make their case?” Santorum said.
“That makes me throw up and it should make every American who is seen from the president, someone who is now trying to tell people of faith that you will do what the government says, we are going to impose our values on you, not that you can’t come to the public square and argue against it, but now we’re going to turn around and say we’re going to impose our values from the government on people of faith, which of course is the next logical step when people of faith, at least according to John Kennedy, have no role in the public square,” he said.

and Rick makes it more fun today about that and then goes after college education....this video is a big long the first 3 minutes is the good stuff:
http://video.msnbc.msn.com/martin-ba...5618/#46545618

and apparently Magic Underwear Mitt said something about Big Bird and corn flakes sponsorship because PBS is to expensive.....

i do hope Santorum wins the nomination though. Everyone says it's not possible, but the Dems are getting out the vote for him in Michigan. And that would be a tough loss for Romney.

i just would love to see the humiliating ads etc that he would be subject to as a national candidate. The entire country making fun of a religious fanatic would be a pleasant diversion.

The nutjobs who are getting so much attention right now would be reminded of just how marginal they really are.

I hope he gets it too. The Daily Show and Colbert Report are already hilarious but it's going to be even more hilarious. Plus it's a shoe in for Obama, the lesser of the two evils. Santorum will embarrass himself so bad that no one will want to vote for him.

The GOP will most likely control at least one house if not all of Congress
 

and the GOP is in turn controlled by a lunatic fringe. Elected Republicans must pander to this lunatic fringe. We need look no further than the recent attacks on women's rights to realize it's not as funny as it appears. The U.S. is a two party country, to me that makes this actually quite frightening.

It wasn't always this way.

Here's an excerpt from an article about Barry Goldwater and a quote from him regarding the religious right

Barry Goldwater rose to prominence as a man of deep conservative convictions. Liberals called him an extremist (which he was in his time) and his often colorful and controversial rhetoric cost him the Presidency in 1964. But Goldwater, as controversial as he was back then, also had the guts to call out his own party. For example, ‘Mr. Conservative’ rejected the Christian Right Wing element of the party. As a firm believer in personal liberty, he saw their views as a violation of personal privacy and individual liberties. In fact, he believed in this creed so much that he voted to uphold legalized abortion and supported gay rights. He also rejected the use of God in political discourse and refused to vote in Congress the way the religious right wanted him to. Here is a portion of what Goldwater had to say about the religious right.

“On religious issues there can be little or no compromise. There is no position on which people are so immovable as their religious beliefs. There is no more powerful ally one can claim in a debate than Jesus Christ, or God, or Allah, or whatever one calls this supreme being. But like any powerful weapon, the use of God’s name on one’s behalf should be used sparingly. The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom. They are trying to force government leaders into following their position 100 percent. If you disagree with these religious groups on a particular moral issue, they complain, they threaten you with a loss of money or votes or both.

I’m frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in “A,” “B,” “C” and “D.” Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me?

And I am even more angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who thinks it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll call in the Senate. I am warning them today: I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of “conservatism.”
~Barry Goldwater



The Sad Race for Bottom on the Loony Right
As Santorum and Romney battle for the extremist vote, progressives should be worried, not gloating.
February 27, 2012 |
By Robert Reich
My father was a Republican for the first 78 years of his life. For the last twenty, he’s been a Democrat (he just celebrated his 98th.) What happened? “They lost me,” he says.

They’re losing even more Americans now, as the four remaining GOP candidates seek to out-do one another in their race for the votes of the loony right that’s taken over the Grand Old Party.

But the rest of us have reason to worry.

A party of birthers, creationists, theocrats, climate-change deniers, nativists, gay-bashers, anti-abortionists, media paranoids, anti-intellectuals, and out-of-touch country clubbers cannot govern America.

Yet even if they lose the presidency on Election Day they’re still likely to be in charge of at least one house of Congress as well as several state legislators and governorships. That’s a problem for the nation.

The GOP’s drift toward loopyness started in 1993 when Bill Clinton became the first Democrat in the White House in a dozen years – and promptly allowed gays in the military, pushed through the Brady handgun act, had the audacity to staff his administration with strong women and African-Americans, and gave Hillary the task of crafting a national health bill. Bill and Hillary were secular boomers with Ivy League credentials who thought government had a positive role to play in peoples’ lives.

This was enough to stir right-wing evangelicals in the South, social conservatives in the Midwest and on the Great Plains, and stop-at-nothing extremists in Washington and the media who hounded Bill Clinton for eight years, then stole the 2000 election from Al Gore, and Swift-boated John Kerry in 2004.

They were not pleased to have a Democrat back in the White House in 2008, let alone a black one. They rose up in the 2010 election cycle as “tea partiers” and have by now pushed the GOP further right than it has been in more than eighty years. Even formerly sensible senators like Olympia Snowe, Orrin Hatch, and Dick Lugar are moving to the extreme right in order to keep their seats.

At this rate the GOP will end up on the dust heap of history. Young Americans are more tolerant, cosmopolitan, better educated, and more socially liberal than their parents. And relative to the typical middle-aged America, they are also more Hispanic and more shades of brown. Today’s Republican Party is as relevant to what America is becoming as an ice pick in New Orleans.

In the meantime, though, we are in trouble. America is a winner-take-all election system in which a party needs only 51 percent (or, in a three-way race, a plurality) in order to gain control.

In parliamentary systems of government, small groups representing loony fringes can be absorbed relatively harmlessly into adult governing coalitions.

But here, as we’re seeing, a loony fringe can take over an entire party — and that party will inevitably take over some part of our federal, state, and local governments.

As such, the loony right is a clear and present danger.

Olympia Snowe delivers stunning rebuke in decision to leave Senate
 

In a move that stunned Washington, Sen. Olympia Snowe (R) of Maine announced today that she won't run for a fourth term in the Senate for a simple reason: gridlock.

"I am well prepared for the electoral battle, so that is not the issue," said Senator Snowe, who won her last race with 74 percent of the vote. “However, what I have had to consider is how productive an additional term would be.”

“Unfortunately, I do not realistically expect the partisanship of recent years in the Senate to change over the short term,” she added.

An iconic Senate moderate, Snowe often cast crucial votes in a closely divided Senate, forcing Republicans to take steps to curb the federal deficit, even when the core GOP issue of tax cuts were involved. More than once, her party's leaders had to rein in the scope of proposed tax cuts or to find offsetting sources of income win her vote.

She also helped organize the bipartisan Gang of 14 to preserve the minority's right to filibuster judicial nominations – even though Democrats were in the minority at the time.

Dubbed the “girls from Maine” by antitax activist Grover Norquist, Snowe and Sen. Susan Collins ranked as the two most liberal Republicans, according to a Feb. 25 survey by the National Journal. But despite the grumbling that Snowe is a RINO, or "Republican in name only," conservative activist groups weren’t out to topple her – a move that would risk handing the seat to a Democrat.

“She was not at all facing a tough race, and that’s what makes her decision so perplexing,” says Jessica Taylor, senior analyst at the Rothenberg Political Report in Washington.

“This was rated a safe Republican seat – a seat neither party expected to spend much money on."

“It’s a huge break for Democrats. This is now one of the races that Republicans will have to spend money in. It’s a pick up that Democrats would need. It plays a crucial role in determining who controls the Senate next year."

The Senate Democratic Campaign Committee trumpeted Snowe's announcement as an immediate opportunity to pick up a seat in a year when Republicans needed to win four Senate races to take control of chamber.

“Maine is now a top pickup opportunity for Senate Democrats," said DSCC spokesman Guy Cecil in a statement. "Democrats not only hold a strong registration advantage in the state, but this is a state that the president won by 17 points in 2008 and will likely win by a significant margin this year as well.”

With the filing deadline is only two weeks away, it’s not going to be easy to come up with a strong candidate.

Snowe "did not face a difficult race, and it’s too soon to say whether this is now beyond the GOP’s reach,” says Jennifer Duffy, who analyzes Senate races for the Cook Political Report. “Democrats didn’t have a strong candidate in the race so they are searching, too.”

Two-term Rep. Chellie Pingree (D) of Maine – the most likely prospect for Democrats – called the next election “critical to the future of our working families around the country.”

“In the coming days I will carefully consider how I can best serve the people of Maine,” Congresswoman Pingree said in a statement on Tuesday. She will be holding a press conference when she returns to Portland on Friday, according to the release, to further discuss her plans.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/olympia-sno...004200844.html

only in America......Romney, Gingrich and Santorum Action Figures Hit the Market
 

If the exceeding long campaign season just isn’t giving you enough of the GOP candidates, now you can have them in your own home. And you can even set them up in amusing poses.

Connecticut-based company Hero Builders has released dolls depicting the Republican frontrunners: Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum. Other available action figures include Rick Perry (regular man and executive versions!) and Herman Cain (solo and “with playmate” versions!)

Likely to rake in the most revenue is Rick Santorum who, of course, sports his signature sweater vest. And Gingrich looks uncharacteristically broad-shouldered in a gray suit and shiny red tie. Romney comes buttoned-up, neatly groomed and, best of all, for an extra $100 you can get a miniature car roof with detachable dog! (Just kidding, but that would probably be quite lucrative.)

For just $49.95 apiece, these GOP action figures can be yours. For an additional $10, you can even get the speaking version of Santorum and listen to him talk about theology. (And we’re not kidding about that one.)

Emil Vicale, owner of Hero Builders, told the Detroit Free Press that the company usually sells a few hundred of each political doll. Sarah Palin has been the top seller, while Barack Obama has lagged behind. The most affordable doll is Hillary Clinton, who goes for $29.95, while the priciest is Herman Cain (with playmate) for $65.95.

According to Slate’s Mitt Romney income calculator, it would take Romney three minutes and 38 seconds to earn the money to buy all three GOP frontrunner dolls, but for the rest of us, they might just be too much of a splurge.


Read more and see pics: http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/02/29/...#ixzz1np3ICT5N

this is such a catchy little tune

http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment...on-goes-viral/

Anti-abortion-rights groups rally behind Romney's campaign
 

Two of the nation's leading anti-abortion-rights groups rallied behind Mitt Romney on Thursday following the exit of Rick Santorum from the presidential race.

The Susan B. Anthony (SBA) List and the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC) both endorsed Romney's candidacy, burnishing the former governor's credentials with conservatives. SBA had previously endorsed Santorum, while the NRLC had taken a wait-and-see approach out of fear of weakening the eventual nominee.

Romney supported abortion rights during his 2002 campaign for governor, but has worked to convince Republicans he had a genuine change of heart in 2004.

"Now is the time to unite behind Gov. Romney in order to defeat the most ideologically pro-abortion president in our nation's history," SBA List President Marjorie Dannenfelser said in a statement announcing her board's unanimous decision to get behind Romney. "The SBA List is proud to endorse Gov. Romney and plans to spend $10 [million] to $12 million in Senate and presidential battleground states mobilizing pro-life voters to ensure victory."

Dannenfelser went on to cite several of Romney's pledges: to defund Planned Parenthood, restore the ban on federal funding for nonprofit groups that perform or promote abortion, support legislation to ban abortions after 20 weeks, appoint conservative judges to the federal bench and select an anti-abortion-rights vice president.

The National Right to Life Committee also endorsed Romney at a press conference Thursday morning, citing the healthcare reform law — which Romney has vowed to repeal — as opening the door to taxpayer funding for abortion and "rationing of life-saving medical care." Democrats dispute both those charges.

"On pro-life issues, Mitt Romney and Barack Obama provide a stark contrast," National Right to Life President Carol Tobias said Thursday. "As the country's most pro-abortion president, Barack Obama has pursued a radical pro-abortion agenda. It is now time for pro-life Americans to unite behind Mitt Romney. For the sake of unborn children, the disabled and the elderly, we must win."

Pro-abortion rights groups argued the endorsements would only help build support for Obama among women in battleground states.

"So much for the idea that Romney will try to move to the middle in the general election," NARAL Pro-Choice America President Nancy Keenan said in a statement. "If he thought he had problems with women voters before, today's news only makes it worse."

http://thehill.com/blogs/healthwatch...omponent&page=

Romney files extension for 2011 taxes
 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...ys-tax-return-


Mitt Romney’s tax return problem

Posted by Chris Cillizza at 03:09 PM ET, 04/16/2012

Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney announced late Friday that he had sought an extension to file his 2011 tax returns, the newest piece of evidence of the political problem those documents have and will continue to cause him in his presidential bid.

Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney waves after speaking at the National Rifle Association convention in St. Louis, Friday, April 13, 2012. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)“Sometime in the next six months, and prior to the election, Gov. Romney will file and release the 2011 return when there is sufficient information to provide an accurate return,” said spokeswoman Andrea Saul in a statement that arrived in the Fix email inbox at 5:16 pm on Friday night. (Hello, Friday news dump!)
The truth of the matter is that Romney is in a damned if he does/damned if he doesn’t situation when it comes to his tax returns.

For their part, the Romney campaign insists that the postponement of his filing has nothing to do with political timing and everything to do with the fact that some of the companies in which he invested have yet to report their earnings — making it impossible for him to calculate his income.

Looking back at how the tax return issue played out in the Republican presidential primary, it’s clear the political danger that the tax return issue poses for Romney. Romney clearly had zero interest in releasing his tax returns during the heat of the nomination fight but after a loss in South Carolina and considerable pressure from his opponents to disclose his income, Romney bowed to the political inevitable.

While releasing the returns lanced the immediate political boil for Romney, the fact that he had made $42 million without earning any income in 2009 or 2010, had a Swiss bank account and paid a tax rate of just 13.9 percent reinforced the “Romney as other” narrative that his opponents — Republican and Democrat — were pushing.

It also marked perhaps Romney’s low ebb in the race — he righted the ship with a win in Florida on Jan. 31 — and likely reinforced to his campaign that there is no political benefit to releasing his returns any time soon.
Of course, Democrats see the Romney tax return issue as a major opportunity to cast him as insufficiently transparent, begging the question of what exactly Romney is hiding.
Seeking to ramp up the pressure, President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden both released their 2011 tax returns on Friday. New York Sen. Chuck Schumer held a conference call today pushing the idea of Romney as anti-transparency. A new ad from Priorities USA Action, the main super PAC supporting President Obama, makes mention of the fact that Romney made $21 million in 2010. And so on and so forth.

Campaign politics being what it is, Democrats will keep up that tax return drumbeat against Romney for the foreseeable future. It’s an issue that fits perfectly into the narrative that President Obama’s reelection campaign wants to tell about the former Massachusetts governor: That he is a member of the wealthiest sliver of American society, and, therefore, hopelessly out of touch with what average people need or want.

The Romney campaign is not dumb. They know that Romney will take incoming from Democrats every single day between now and when he released the returns. (They are trying to push back too — noting that Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz is refusing to release her own tax returns.)

But, they also know that the week after he became — for all intents and purposes — the Republican presidential nominee is not the time to release his tax returns and give up the momentum they are trying to build. (Perhaps an early sign of that momentum: the first Gallup general election tracking poll released today has Romney at 47 percent to Obama’s 45 percent.)
The campaign’s vagueness about when they might release the returns is intentional. It gives them considerable wiggle room to pick the right time — aka when no one is around or paying attention to politics — to put the returns out. (Early August, anyone?)

Put simply: The Romney team knows that the candidate’s tax returns are a political loser for them. The best way to deal with losing issues is minimize them to the greatest extent possible. Filing for an extension — whether that was by necessity or born of political calculation — to release his returns allows Romney to handpick that moment.

You HAVE to view this!
 

Mitt Romney Chats With Real Americans Who Agree That Raising Taxes May Be 'Necessary' |

ThinkProgress

http://inagist.com/all/192621102697168896/

Watch his face as these middle class Rebublicans, mainly teachers talk to him about the "fat has been cut"- listen to his "yeah."

It seems like many so-called pro-life folks really are only pro-birth. They don't really seem very pro-life after said babies are born (they often support cutting programs for kids, they're pro-death penalty, etc.)

Also, I often wonder if some of the pro-life folks are only pro-life for certain babies...meaning those babies who look like them.

True. I get so tired of these idiots

GOProud Endorses former Governor Mitt Romney for President
 

Organization of Gay Conservatives and their Straight Allies Will Commit Significant Resources to Electing Mitt Romney

GOProud is the first and only organization representing gay Americans to endorse Governor Romney’s Presidential bid. “The truth is that this election is too important to wait or to sit on the sidelines,” continued LaSalvia. “We plan on spending every day between now and November working to make Obama a one term President.”

“For far too long, the gay left in this country has been allowed to dictate what they believe qualify as ‘gay issues.’ We think that jobs, the economy, healthcare, retirement security and taxes are all ‘gay issues,’ and on every single one of those issues, Mitt Romney is light years better than President Obama,” said LaSalvia.

The GOProud endorsement was not, however, a unanimous one. Two members of the GOProud Board voted against the Romney endorsement.

“We don’t agree with Governor Romney on every single issue – indeed we disagree strongly with him on his support for a federal marriage amendment and we have urged Romney publicly to take bolder and more conservative stances on tax reform, entitlement reform and spending,” said LaSalvia. “Given the vote on our board, obviously not everyone in our organization will agree with this endorsement, and we respect that.”

http://goproud.org/page.aspx?pid=431

-------


I never heard of these people before but their core beliefs and tenets interestingly show how people can support stuff that may not be in their own best interests:


What we believe
The so-called “gay agenda” has been defined narrowly by the gay left. In contrast to the approach of the left, GOProud’s agenda emphasizes conservative and libertarian principles that will improve the daily lives of all Americans, but especially gay and lesbian Americans.

Our Core Beliefs & Tenets
1 TAX REFORM
We support replacing the current tax code with the Fair Tax. The Fair Tax would treat everyone – gay or straight – equally. Until then, we support death tax repeal; domestic partner tax equity; cuts in the capital gains and corporate tax rates to jump start our economy and create jobs; a fairer, flatter and substantially simpler tax code.

2 HEALTHCARE REFORM
Repeal of Obamacare; encourage free market healthcare reform. Allow for the purchase of insurance across state lines – expanding access to domestic partner benefits; emphasizing individual ownership of healthcare insurance – such a shift would prevent discriminatory practices by an employer or the government.

3 SOCIAL SECURITY REFORM
The only way to permanent solvency in the Social Security system is through the creation of inheritable personal savings accounts. Personal savings accounts would give gay and lesbian couples the same opportunity to leave their accounts to their spouses as their straight counterparts.

4 RESPECTING THE PROPER ROLE OF THE JUDICIARY
We believe our Constitution should be respected and that judges appointed to the federal bench should recognize the proper and appropriate role of the judiciary as laid out by our Founding Fathers.

5 HOLDING THE LINE ON SPENDING
Standing up for all tax payers against wasteful and unnecessary spending to protect future generations from the mounting federal debt.

6 FIGHTING GLOBAL EXTREMISTS
Standing strong against radical regimes that refuse to recognize the basic human rights of gays and lesbians, women and religious minorities.

7 DEFENDING OUR CONSTITUTION
Opposing any anti-gay federal marriage amendment. Marriage should be a question for the states. A federal constitutional amendment on marriage would be an unprecedented federal power grab from the states.

8 EMPOWERING INDIVIDUALS TO DEFEND THEMSELVES
Protecting 2nd amendment rights. The answer to stopping bias motivated crime is not the Hate Crimes laws, instead we support empowering individuals to lawfully protect themselves.

9 RESPECTING STATES RIGHTS
Supporting a strong 10th Amendment that limits the scope of the federal government and empowers states; repealing the federal Defense of Marriage Act and return power to regulate marriage and family law to the states.

10 EDUCATION REFORM
The answer to the serious problem of bullying is not more federal intervention in education. Instead, we support empowering parents and families by supporting school choice initiatives and protecting the right of parents to homeschool their children.